Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome to the reliable sources noticeboard. This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context.
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India: A Country Study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress

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

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Source: Heitzman, James; Worden, Robert, eds. (1995), India: A Country Study (PDF), Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, p. 571

Statement in source: "There was some opposition to this move within the cabinet by those who did not agree with referring the Kashmir dispute to the UN. The UN mediation process brought the war to a close on January 1, 1949. In all, 1,500 soldiers died on each side during the war."

Discussion: Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948#6000 casualties figure

Statement to be supported: Result in infobox per this edit

Summary: This is a highly partisan topic and is subject to DS. The talk page discussion started by questioning Pakistani casualties quoted as 6,000 killed, citing Globalsecurity.org and a figure of 1,500 killed. There is no consensus as to the reliability of that source but it actually cites India: A Country Study (the subject of this post). The Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948 was initially fought by proxy until the ultimate engagement of both national militaries. It is unclear from the other sources cited precisely what they are reporting as casualties (ie national military casualties v total combatant casualties). The other sources are not great, in that they are largely Indian in origin. The subject edit would add the 1,500 figure to both sides. However, the reliability of the source (India: A Country Study) has since been questioned, citing WP:CONTEXTMATTERS.

Question: Is the subject source (India: A Country Study) sufficiently reliable to support the edit made to the infobox in respect to casualties.

Cinderella157 (talk) 11:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC) I have no ties to either country.

Comments (India: A Country Study)

• Not a reliable source for the purpose.
  • That being said, what is the end-game? A majority of men employed by Pakistan were irregulars supplied with arms-stashes and money; who had recorded those casualties? There is a reason why even semi-official histories (see Shuja Nawaz et al) skips mentioning casualty-counts. TrangaBellam (talk) 11:47, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• The time of the event is around late 1940's. This makes it very difficult to gather enough information on the casualty figures. Wikipedia was earlier quoting an indian figure which seems to have no official source and was not reliable enough. The 1,500 casualty figure estimate is the most neutral source on the internet neutral source at page 571 and is quoted by global security.org . It is also cited in some university work. No concensus can even be reached on global security.org not being suitable for being quoted. It has been cited in over 25,000 articles and also by Reuters and new york times as well as Washington Post which are considered reliable sources and its citation in some 25,000 articles on Google Scholar. It is only logical to quote both the 1,500 and 6000 figures as an estimate. Going by what TrangaBellam, that would mean removal of all the casualty section as this argument will even apply for the 6000 figure, which also it not a sure shot reliable source. Truthwins018 (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• Not reliable for the purpose, as I already said on the article talk page. It looks to me that somebody sitting in Washington DC just made a wild guess. The Indian History of the War says the following:

During the long campaign, the Indian Army lost 76 officers, 31 JCOs and 996 Other Ranks killed, making a total of 1103. The wounded totalled 3152, including 81 officers and 107 JCOs. Apart from these casualties, it appears that the J & K State Forces lost no less than 1990 officers and men killed, died of wounds, or missing presumed killed . The small RIAF lost a total of 32 officers and men who laid down their lives for the nation during these operations. In this roll of honour, there were no less than 9 officers. The enemy casualties were definitely many times the total of Indian Army and RIAF casualties, and one estimate concluded that the enemy suffered 20,000 casualties, including 6,000 killed.

So, the Indian casualties were in excess of 3,000 and the Washington estimate misses it by a wide margin. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:16, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

The India country Study states 1500 Indian soldiers died, so it's off by 397 from the Indian History of the War. However, it's unclear whether it includes the J&K/AJK/GB/Chitral forces for either side and if it does, it would indeed be off by a wide margin. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)

There may be some confusion of terminology. Casualty is killed+wounded. It's apples and oranges to compare 1,500 killed with over 3,000 casualty. -- GreenC 03:47, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• This source doesn't rule out that the 1,500 figure is wrong. The 6000 Pakistani casualty figure and 3000 indian casualty figure still turns out to be an indian claim. The 1,500 comes out to be a seperate estimate of casualties, not related with }}. No official pakistani casualty figures were released and thus the source cannot be ruled out. Your source only suggests thats the indian killed figure be changed to 1,500-3000 and Pakistani be kept at 1,500-6000. Truthwins018 (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
  • The question that is being discussed is whether it is reliable for the purpose. I gave evidence that proves that it is not. The best you can do is to quote it verbatim in the body. It is nor reasonable to split it up into pieces and format it in whatever way. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• For the sake of including a neutral perspective I agree with using it. Currently, the article cites Indian figures. Cipher21 (talk) 20:40, 13 December 2021 (UTC)
• I agree with including it, as a range. The source is widely cited by other reliable sources as noted by Truthwins018. Furthermore reliable sources are not required to cite their sources to be reliable. A research division within the Library of Congress is not faultless, I doubt any numbers are definitive, but it would require more than Wiki editors disagreeing with the numbers to exclude it from the article, particularly when given as a range. -- GreenC 03:37, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• Unreliable for the purpose. The source which is India: A Country Study is clearly not widely cited. The assertion that it is, is based on a different website called globalsecurity.org quoting it. The website globalsecurity.org which looks like a group blog, is the one being used as a source for an opinion in one NYT article and produces 25k+ results on google scholar (every result after the 8th is from the website itself). This is very marginal use in RS, not to mention its use is irrelevant to the actual query here. Searching for India: A Country Study itself produces similarly barebone results. The subject of the source is an overall profile of India and is not specific to the military history of the Kashmir Conflict. The topic area needs specialist academic sources, especially for things like casualty estimates. On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 08:06, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Wide citation of global security.org has already been mentioned by SpicyBiryani on the talk page of 1947-1948 indo-pak war.The founder of the website is John Pike. John Pike is one of the worlds leading expert on defence in the world and more can be read about him in the sources cited.Global security also has a reputed range of staff with wide experience in the field of defence.Global security has been cited in Reuters by an article worked upon by Reuters Staff. It has been cited in CNN . It has been cited in Washington Post here, here ,here. It has been cited by NYT [1], [2]. Some of the book citations are:

  • Fair, C. Christine. Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army's Way of War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 ,ISBN 978 0 1998 9270 9.
  • Cordesman, Anthony H. Al-Rodhan, Khalid R. Gulf military forces in an era of asymmetric wars. Westport, Conn. : Praeger Security International ,2007.
  • Anthony H. Cordesman, Martin Kleiber, Iran's Military Forces and Warfighting Capabilities: The Threat in the Northern Gulf

All the book citations may be viewed here. It has been cited in numerous books on National Security. [3]

As for the subject issue, The book does concentrate on one of the participants of the war. The killed figures are given in a seperate National Security section. We till date are not equipped with accurate figures of the casualties from the war. An indian version of figures are available. A neutral version is established from this source. It is only wise to continue with an estimated range of casualty figures which gives all the figures Truthwins018 (talk) 10:09, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

• I see merit in the arguments of those who esteem the source unreliable for the purpose for which it is being used on the main page. There is hardly any correlation between the reliability of a source and the magnitude of hits it gets on a search engine. The tangible criteria are enumerated and enunciated at WP:RS and there is no indication that this source, which uses a broad-brush to coalesce the two countries' casualties under a single sentence with unwarranted brevity, measures up when the yardstick of WP:RSCONTEXT is applied. Kerberous (talk) 12:27, 14 December 2021 (UTC)

References

• It definetely fulfils on the criteria of WP:RS. Your opinion WP:OR is irrelevant in the present criteria. The source directly cites the material and its under a seperate section of Natural security. Vaious citations of globalsecurity.org does increase its reliability especially by already considered reliable sources and none of the discussion was aimed at " magnitude of hits"Truthwins018 (talk) 14:03, 14 December 2021 (UTC)
• Comment I had come here to seek opinion that was hopefully independent of the topic. By and large, this has not been the case so it is substantially just a rehash of the opinions being offered at the original discussion. Perhaps though, the most telling comment is that of Tayi Arajakate: On a sidenote, looking at the infobox of the article, every single source without exception, that is cited for the casualties is similarly problematic in some respect or the other. It would strongly suggest that the solution is: "remove one, remove all". Cinderella157 (talk) 05:02, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, that would be one way to go about it. Although a better solution would be to find independent specialist scholarly sources and replace these sources with them. To give an overview of the sources, I can see 3 books published by Lancer Publishers which is the in-house publisher of the Indian armed forces, a Pakistani newspaper article, one book authored by Ved Prakash Malik, one commissioned by the Ministry of Defence and an article from an Indian military think tank. This reminds me of a previous discussion arising from a similar dispute, and the article in question appears to have more or less analogous issues. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 14:23, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:CR request made. Cinderella157 (talk) 05:09, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

• Unreliable for this purpose. Similarly I don't see how globalsecurity.org make the estimate more credible. It is not reliable as well. The number of hits on google does not correspond with reliability, as pointed out by others already. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 12:45, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Why does this need a closure? Has anyone said it is reliable? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:46, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

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

As a curious passer-by who looked at this after User:Levivich closed the above, how did nobody find the 174 Google Scholar citations to this source? See: [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. It was unnecessary to look at "globalsecurity.org" when there are so many better books and papers that cite India: A Country Study. So much wasted time! MGetudiant (talk) 08:47, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Similarly, I see that there is a review in Pacific Affairs, vol. 71, no. 1, pp. 117 - 18 (Spring 1998), which stated that "this useful series now appeals to a broader audience and the volume on India will serve as a helpful reference work to all with an interest in that country. I myself used it for many years as a text for an introductory course on India. . . . The current contributors continue the tradition of providing clear expositions of their topics, and though their treatment is necessarily quite general they all succeed in providing basic information for those who want an introduction to the subject and a grounding for further study." While I don't have a view on the use of this source to support the specific edit, it seems clear to me that it is, in general, a reliable source. John M Baker (talk) 14:08, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing up the review. Seems like I made a mistake and didn't look up the source properly. Wish this had been brought up before, I wouldn't have framed the comment the way I did above. I'd still encourage using scholarly sources about the war over one that provides a generalised overview of the country, but it does appears to be a decent tertiary source and more reliable than any of the other sources cited for the casualties in the article to begin with. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 00:35, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Any body still following this may be interested in contributing to a discussion at Talk:Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948#Reasult of RfC. It would appear the the evidence to conclude that the source is reliable reasonably exists even if it wasn't presented earlier. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:58, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Skeptical Inquirer at Arbcom

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Closure has been requested both below and at WP:CR. The last !vote was a mere three days ago and the last-but-one five days ago but the thread has been open for 40 days and the RfC for only one day less. The discussion has trended more and more lately towards back-and-forth discussion about ancillary topics and pre-emptive lobbying for one or another outcome. Taking all these factors into consideration, I believe this discussion is ripe for closure.

I have not previously been involved in this discussion, in the ArbCom case that lead to it, or to the discussions that lead to the ArbCom case, making me WP:UNINVOLVED as a closer. I have been somewhat active in WP:FRINGE topics generally so I am aware of the issues at stake but I am not a member of any on- or off-wiki groups that are implicated. I have been active on the project for over fifteen years and have closed many difficult and complex discussions including many RSN RfC's. I was the closer on the RfC that approved the current four option RfC template. Taking all these factors into consideration, I believe I am well-qualified to close this as a non-administrator. In closing any discussion, the closer is there to determine the consensus of the views expressed by the discussion participants. Consensus is not unanimity and even though the format used is structured as a four-option ballot, RfC's and other discussions are not elections. The four options can roughly be divided into two "use" (Options 1 & 2) versus two "don't use" (Options 3 & 4) outcomes. It is overwhelmingly clear by both the number and strength of arguments that the discussion participants rejected the latter two options, making this discussion more about under what condidtions use of the Skeptical Inquirer is acceptable. The dichotomy between Options 1 and 2, however, is more of an apparent divergence than an actual one. All RfC discussions are subject to previously established Wikipedia-wide policies and guidelines: Many closures are also based upon Wikipedia policy. As noted above, arguments that contradict policy are discounted. Usage of sources, even reliable sources, are still subject to the Core Content Policies. A "Generally reliable" source is not always reliable and a "Marginally reliable" source is not never reliable.

If we were to assess this discussion by simply counting noses, it would lead to the implication that the !voters for Option 1 did not think that usage of the Skeptical Inquirer needed to be qualified or that !voters of Option 2 felt there need to always be some form of qualification. Neither is correct. The discussion below as a whole makes it clear that usage of this source is subject to qualification in the same way that all sources are qualified. Context of usage matters in all sources, whether "generally" or "marginally" reliable. It is impossible to determine a priori whether a particular usage will be contextually acceptable or unaceptable but the discussion below endorses our existing general guidelines on source usage. Various commenters made clear statements about use cases they saw as not acceptable - areas outside the source's area of expertise or opinion usages or specific articles later thrown into question - but those use cases apply generally to all sources. Taking all these factors into consideration, I believe that the discussion establishes a reasonably clear consensus to use the Skeptical Inquirer with consideration given to proper usage in consonance with existing sourcing and content policy. (non-admin closure) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:32, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

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At Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism and coordinated editing/Proposed decision#Skeptical Inquirer as a reliable source Arbcom has proposed the following finding of fact (FoF):

"Historically the use of the Skeptical Inquirer has received little attention and has been generally viewed favorably by the editors who have commented on its reliability. By contrast the most recent [RSNB] discussion in January 2022 attracted a larger number of editors and was quite extensive. In that discussion, there was a general consensus in that discussion that the Skeptical Inquirer is not a self-published source and that columns should be used in a manner similar to other opinion sources. There seemed to be no community consensus on its general reliability. Large parts of the discussion focused on its suitability as a source for biographies of living people and with the lack of coverage by other sources of many fringe topics."

Does the above accurately reflect the consensus at RSNB concerning this source?

Arbcom appears to be especially interested in use of Skeptical Inquirer in BLPs. Our Thomas John (medium) BLP and the use of Operation Pizza Roll – Thomas John from Skeptical Enquirer as a source in that BLP would be an example of this. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 06:20, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

That FoF is about the "historic" case and I think it's correct. Skeptical Inquirer hasn't come up much and when it has it's received support from experienced editors. The recent GSoW dramafest has caused renewed attention but this is mostly centred on what seem to me to be fruitless considerations of it as a "COI source" in respect of certain targeted editors. In my experience there's not often cause to use this source other than for very niche fringe topics (e.g. Thought Field Therapy) and then it may be useful for WP:PARITY. Alexbrn (talk) 06:47, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Tyler Henry is another example, as csicop.org. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:23, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The conduct related to me and other editors has made it difficult for the community to arrive at consensus on this matter, so I would suggest putting a hold on this until the Arbcom case is closed. I will note that a concern that wasn't properly resolved in the past discussion here on SI was that they take no responsibility for the accuracy of facts they published. Me and others agreed that while not an SPS, this does make them a questionable source due to their lack of editorial oversight, although this perspective did not gain consensus. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:50, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

"they take no responsibility" ← this is not accurate. Publishers are responsible for what they publish. There are esteemed scientific journals (e.g. PLOS One) which make no attempt to verify the accuracy of the research they publish, merely verifying that it's conducted correctly on the surface. Hardly any scientific journal inspects the underlying data for research, trusting that the authors have been diligent in generating it (and of course this has become a huge problem). Attacking SI because it does similar seems like yet another example of the special new harsh regime for "skepticism" that some editors seem very attached to lately. Alexbrn (talk) 16:02, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective is a quote from their submission guidelines. Please do not make vague accusations about other editors, Alexbrn, as that will be disruptive towards reaching a consensus on SI. I'll leave the discussion until Arbcom case is closed. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:31, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

I did not make "vague accusation", I specifically said a claim you made was inaccurate. So it was, as you showed when you quoted SI's actual position. I suggest what might actually impede consensus is making such inaccurate statements and then kicking sand up about "vague accusations" when those statements are specifically addressed. Alexbrn (talk) 17:52, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Just for clarity, what I meant by vague accusation was your last sentence. Describing criticisms as "attacks", describing behaviour or attitudes by editors as a "special new harsh regime for 'skepticism'" and the phrase "some editors seem very attached to lately" reads to me as a vague accusation, Alexbrn. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 19:41, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

SI is not a scientific journal, though. They are a general interest magazine with no fact-checking process. Because SI does not require authors to be academics (unlike The Conversation, which does), there is simply no way of knowing if something published on SI is a reliable source unless it is written by a scientist in their field. How could anything outside that narrow definition be reliable by our standards? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. I would suggest that it useful for WP:PARITY purposes when there is an existing, unrebutted fringe claim in an article. Apart from that, it shouldn't be used. BilledMammal (talk) 20:41, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

It's an established generalist journal, and well-reputed: that reputation counts. "Scientific" journals are not automatically trustworthy - huge numbers of them are trash. For a few very niche topics, like Roswell, SI has some seminal content, like this[10] from K Korff, who is an authority on UFO stuff. For pseudoscience, quack medicine, UFOs, etc WP:PARITY often comes into play and in that context SI is a cut above even "alternative venues from those that are typically considered reliable sources for scientific topics on Wikipedia" such a blogs. I don't think anybody is proposing to use SI for WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims, or as WP:MEDRS or anything. It's only use is for providing sanity in niche WP:FRINGE topics, and as such its use should be limited and rare. You know: time cube, bigfoot, alien autopsies, morphic resonance. All that kind of stuff. Alexbrn (talk) 21:02, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

It should be, but the majority of its uses are outside of WP:FRINGE topics, and within fringe topics it is usually used to both introduce and rebut the fringe claim, when it would be better to not mention the fringe claim at all. BilledMammal (talk) 21:21, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Alexbrn explained the context of the The authors, however, are responsible quote, for example with Hardly any scientific journal inspects the underlying data for research, trusting that the authors have been diligent in generating it. Those journals could write exactly that same sentence, and it would be true for them too. You people's reasoning that the sentence shows that the journal is not reliable is just your personal, rather colorful and one-sided interpretation of that sentence, carefully circumnavigating and ignoring a better explanation of its meaning that had already been given. I don't think you can actually point out a subject SI got wrong and doubled down on, as unreliable publications would. --Hob Gadling (talk) 21:16, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Like SI, Nature, Science, and I suspect most if not all other scientific journals have no fact-checking process or, at best, their checks of "facts" presented in submitted manuscripts range from limited (e.g., software to detect plagiarism) to non-existent. Also like SI, those journals do not require authors to be academics. So I am uncertain, Pyrrho the Skipper, about your criteria/standards for assigning unreliability to SI. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:02, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

@JoJo Anthrax: Where are you getting that Nature does not require authors be academics? Nature publishes scientific research from academics which is reviewed by exclusively PhD-level editors and only a small minority is selected. That's vastly different from SI which has no requirement that an author is doing actual research, original or otherwise, or is an academic. But please correct me if I'm wrong. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 19:52, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Where are you getting that Nature does not require authors be academics? Nowhere in the author guidelines for Nature (or Science) will you find a requirement that authors be academics. You can confirm that yourself at the journals' websites. FWIW, I will also add that not all of their reviewers are exclusively PhD-level, although by nature of the business that is the common outcome. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 20:32, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

They only accept "scientific research" as submissions. I think we can agree that means that authors must be actual scientists, right? Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 01:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

They only accept "scientific research" as submissions. That statement is false, as evidenced here and here. Your use of the phrase actual scientists is also incorrect, as any number of non-scientists (e.g., journalists, politicians, and even the general public) regularly have material published in those journals. At the risk of repeating myself, having no requirement (your term) that authors be academics/scientists is a feature common to SI, Nature, Science, and an uncountable number of other science journals. Because this is becoming tangential to the main thread, I suggest we move any further discussion to one of our Talk pages. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: "I think we can agree that means that authors must be actual scientists, right?", Not even close. Amateur scientists have made many important scientific discoveries that have been published in scientific journals. Forrest Mims is an amateur scientist who's work has has been published in Nature.[11] Guy Stewart Callendar developed the theory that linked rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to rising global temperature and created the first climate change model. He was a steam engineer. Though he had almost no formal training in mathematics, Srinivasa Ramanujan made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. It was a Jesuit priest who discovered that Quinine is an effective treatment for malaria. It was a retired carpenter who discovered two species of wildflowers growing previously unnoticed just across the bay from San Francisco and published his results in a botanical journal. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:30, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

That's all well and good, but SI isn't a peer reviewed scientific journal. It's the journal of a non profit. The farmer's co-op I belong to publishes a quarterly journal written by subject matter experts. I wouldn't compare it to an actual peer reviewed journal though. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:36, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Nobody said it was. The reasoning was, a bit shortened, "SI has no fact-checking process" - "Neither has Nature". The point is that a lack of fact-checking process is not a reason to call it unreliable. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, I would say the problem is that the way WP:RS is written, lack of fact-checking would, in fact, be pretty fatal to reliable status. That said, I also agree that those who say the submission guidelines language indicates no fact-checking at all are overreading that bit, especially when taken in context. Still damned murky to me, but hopefully wiser heads see things more clearly. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:45, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I guess I shortened it too much. Your response does not fit the longer version because "SI has no fact-checking process" is not in the source, it is a Wikipedia editor's interpretation. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I think that if we're going to do this it should be a widely advertised, actual RFC. We don't need the same group of people having the same discussion again. I think it would also be a good idea to have it broken down into use cases, i.e. for WP:PARITY, in a WP:BLP, making contentious claims about a WP:BLP. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 20:57, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like an RFC is needed, but my snap take is that they do not have editorial oversight. Certainly useable for the authors opinion but it would need to be attributed to them and then take appropriate weight concerns. I would be hesitant to use them to make claims about BLPs. PackMecEng (talk) 21:23, 24 February 2022 (UTC)

Jeez, Skeptical Inquirer now being targeted. There was a similar attack on Quackwatch [12], [13] in 2019. Science-Based Medicine will probably be next. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:20, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Its a good thing when less reliable sources are removed or clarified. Why would you be against that? PackMecEng (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

I am against quackery and pseudoscience. These websites are very reliable at debunking nonsense and have many academics and scholars writing for them. IMO there is no valid reason to remove them from Wikipedia. They have been on Wikipedia for decades and improve many articles. Psychologist Guy (talk) 00:51, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

As stated above the issue is their lack of editorial oversight. While I will take your word for it that whatever they publish is right, that falls short of the bar set by Wikipedia. PackMecEng (talk) 02:04, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

There seems to be this persistent misconception that just because a source debunks nonsense/unreliable sources that it is itself a reliable source... Skeptics aren't inherently any more reliable than any other loose grouping of people. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:44, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Nobody said that the reliability is "inherent". --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

It is my considered opinion that Skeptical Enquirer has a reputation for accuracy and for printing retractions when they get it wrong. They also clearly label opinion pieces.

As for editorial oversight, see [ https://skepticalinquirer.org/article-submission-guidelines/ ]:

"The Skeptical Inquirer must be a source of authoritative, responsible scientific information and perspective. The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers. The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective. We advise having knowledgeable colleagues review drafts before submission. Our Editorial Board, CSI Fellows, and Scientific Consultants lists also include many experts who may be able to preview your manuscript. Reports of original research, especially highly technical experimental or statistical studies, are best submitted to a formal scientific journal, although a nontechnical summary may be submitted to the Skeptical Inquirer."

IMO Skeptical Enquirer is generally reliable for factual claims, and that some (but not all) of their authors are recognized subject matter experts.

I would also caution some of the participants in this discussion to avoid WP:BLUDGEONING. If your new comment basically repeats something you said already, you may wish to skip it. Everyone here is capable of reading the entire thread and we all heard you the first time. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 04:01, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

This has been raised in previous discussions, so my apologies that I'm probably repeating some things. But in regard to SI:

• I have noticed significant problems with some claims in articles in the past. I think is generally reliable, but as a highly partisan source it should be used cautiously, especially in regard to contentious or serious claims.
• Their editorial process is selective at best. It doesn't give me a lot of faith, but as the authors tend to be experts, I'm happy enough sticking with the generally reliable for factual claims bit.
• The columnists are a different matter, especially as regards living people. Without a clear editorial process evaluating claims about living people, I think columns should be regarded as equivalents to SPS. Viable under WP:Parity in regard to their expertise, but not to be used in BLPs.

There aren't any glaring red flags, but I look at it as a source that requires caution, if only due to being highly partisan, and probably a bit too risky in regards to BLPs. - Bilby (talk) 04:15, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Good point about columns and BLPs.

Let's look at a particular column (I chose the first column in the current issue to avoid cherry picking):

• The Philosopher’s Corner: Science Denialism Is a Form of Pseudoscience

The author, Massimo Pigliucci, is clearly a subject-matter expert in the areas of evolutionary biology, philosophy of science, and pseudoscience. Let's look at a claim in this column that might be used as a source in a BLP:

"My colleague Sven Ove Hansson of the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm has written an insightful paper about this... Hansson begins by distinguishing two kinds of bad epistemic practices that fall under the broader umbrella of pseudoscience: science denialism and pseudotheory promotion."

I see no problem with using this as a source in the Sven Ove Hansson BLP describing (with attribution) Hansson's paper. To my mind a blanket prohibition of SI columns in BLPs would be too broad. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 17:17, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Your argument is "I found a random statement in one column and it is good - therefore it is all good?" Surely you can see the problem with that. - Bilby (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, this strikes me as a mischaracterization, given the last sentence of Guy Macon's comments above. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 19:03, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Not really. The prohibition on using self published sources in BLPs is not based on whether or not they occasionally make accurate statements we could potentially use. It is based on the idea that without adequate independent fact checking, we need to assume that they are unreliable. The occasional accurate statement in an SPS does not mean that we can use them. That said, we have been able to use them as statements about the opinion of the author - so if Guy's claim was "we could write according to X ..." I'd be much more open to the argument. - Bilby (talk) 19:14, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

So would you say a blanket prohibition would be too broad, and certain statements could be used with attribution? Dumuzid (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

No, just that is how we would use an SPS without violating BLPSPS. What I'd like to know if there is evidence that columnists are put through a proper editorial process before publication. What they say is that authors are responsible for the accuracy of their own content, and that "technical or controversial matters" may be sent to reviewers. But does that extend to statements about living people made by columnists? In a lot of these publications, online columns are treated effectively as blogs, so I'd like to know if they are treated differently here. - Bilby (talk) 19:30, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Please provide evidence supporting your claim that SI columns are self-published sources ("online columns are treated effectively as blogs"). WP:SPS says this:

"Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources."

That is quite different from a column by a subject matter expert that goes through the usual editorial review that pretty much every printed periodical goes through before being sent to the printing press. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Many of these are online-only columns, so what happens with a printed periodical may not apply and there is nothing to suggest that they are reviewed. - Bilby (talk) 21:58, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

• Support the characterization of Skeptical Enquirer as generally reliable for factual claims. Evidence for SI being de facto unreliable is lacking and, as evinced immediately above by Guy, a broad-stroke prohibition on using SI for BLPs would be harmful to the encyclopedia. That said, the use of SI for any content within BLPs, whether "positive," "negative," or "neutral" in nature, should always be done with care (as a matter of course) and explicit attribution. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:21, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Skeptical Inquirer

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Skeptical Inquirer as a source for facts?

1. Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact;
2. Marginally reliable for supporting statements of fact, or additional considerations apply;
3. Generally unreliable for supporting statements of fact; or
4. Should be deprecated.

— Mhawk10 (talk) 20:34, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Survey: Skeptical Inquirer

• 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. SI is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to pseudoscientific claims, fake products, and fringe theories. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 22:00, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
• 2: Other considerations apply - Articles in the source can be suitable for WP:PARITY statements, but due to their strong POV, and lack of editorial control (The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective - from SI's Submission Guidelines), editors should be cautious of their use outside of those areas, particularly regarding BLP's.

The columns should generally be avoided, with the only exception being when the author is a subject-matter expert and the article is not a BLP, given the lack of evidence of any editorial control, and the fact that some columns have been written with the intent of them being used as sources for Wikipedia BLP's.

I would note that while the articles are suitable for parity statements, editors should be cautious when using the source to both introduce and rebut fringe claims; in such circumstances, mentioning the fringe claim is likely to be WP:UNDUE. BilledMammal (talk) 04:32, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

• Generally unreliable and blacklist via the WP:Spam blacklist. The fact that it specifically makes no claim to fact-checking or accuracy makes it useless as a source, even for WP:PARITY purposes - anyone trying to cite parity to argue for this source needs to actually read what parity says; it is obviously inapplicable. Parity allows us to use non-academic / non-peer-reviewed sources and sources of somewhat lower quality in contexts where we would normally require a peer-reviewed source, but it doesn't allow us to totally ignore WP:RS, which would be necessary to use this source at all in any context; since Skeptical Inquirer performs no fact-checking, it is comparable to eg. Forbes contributors and provides no reliability beyond a WP:SPS. On its own that would just get a red / generally unreliable rating, but it has also been systematically spammed, and there's no reason to think that that is going to stop. The spamming of an unreliable source means this is a case for the spam blacklist, which exists precisely to prevent that sort of behavior. --Aquillion (talk) 10:31, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Aquillion could you kindy expand a bit more on how SI has been systematically spammed? Cedar777 (talk) 17:59, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to put words in another editor's mouth, but I believe he is referring to how some Wikipedia editors have (allegedly) written articles critical of particular individuals in Skeptical Inquirer with the intention that other editors they know would use those articles as sources on Wikipedia; this was one of the central issues in a recent ArbCom case. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 22:51, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. SI's article submission guidelines don't say that they don't fact-check anything. The full quote is The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers. The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective. The Editor checks it, and if they need help they'll get another reviewer. The author is responsible for not wasting the editor's time with poorly researched junk. That's how more or less every non-peer reviewed publication works. If we were to disqualify SI on this basis I think we'll end up disqualifying a lot of other publications we currently consider to be reliable as well. - MrOllie (talk) 17:28, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
  • It states "will often"; we can't determine from that when the editor decides to send it off to reviewers, or how often they decide to do that - all we know is that they place all responsibility for accuracy of fact and perspective on the author. BilledMammal (talk) 04:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• This is one of several comments that led me to add a comment to the discussion saying that I think we need a resource educating Wikipedians about the realities of how oversight at publishers work. You are generally a well-informed editor, but I find this comment naive: publishing venues with any substantial momentum are regularly going to put their editors in difficult situations. We should not bring a narrow box-ticking mentality to assessing publishing venues but decide what level of trust we should put in the venue based on its fruits. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I think we'll end up disqualifying a lot of other publications we currently consider to be reliable as well. Any examples? Honest question. JBchrch talk 16:37, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

For example, Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing is a peer reviewed, MEDLINE indexed journal. Their manuscript guidelines include: Authors are responsible for accuracy of their manuscripts, so ask colleagues to help review your draft before submitting it. National Defense Magazine is currently cited hundreds of times on Wikipedia. Their contribute an article page includes the text Authors are responsible for accuracy of all material reported. As User:Alexbrn notes in the discussion section, much is being made of a boilerplate phrase that can be found in the policies of many publications. MrOllie (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing is a double-blind peer-reviewed journal, and SI isn't. If National Defense Magazine publishes unreviewed texts by non-subject matter experts, then they should be booted off Wikipedia. JBchrch talk 22:27, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• This is a non-sequitur. Are we going to discount the New York Times because its editorial processes rarely involve peer review? — Charles Stewart (talk) 01:01, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

• 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. See my support comment in the previous section. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:03, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• 3: Treat as self-published. Per their Article Submission Guidelines, which indicate that they publish articles from outside authors with no review or fact-checking in many cases as a matter of principle (see "Categories, Topics, and General Information") correction JBchrch talk 05:19, 28 February 2022 (UTC). As a result, it's essentially equivalent to a group blog or, rather, one of those "academic blogs", which feature shorter works by subject matter experts—but, crucially, not only subject matter experts. Examples in my field of interest include the Columbia Blue Sky Blog or the Oxford Business Law Blog. In all of these cases, many works published on these websites are citable because they are written by authors who fit the WP:SPS criteria. But that determination has to be done on a case-by-case basis, taking into account who the author is, whether they are a subject-matter expert, and with respect to what field they are a subject-matter expert. JBchrch talk 04:01, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I checked the link and looks like what you say ("no review or fact-checking as a matter of principle") is simply untrue: in particular, "The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers". Alexbrn (talk) 16:48, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

    Read the sentence you're quoting: The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers. So, in principle, no review. Maybe "as a matter of principle" was not the correct language, but this sentence says all we need to know: most of this stuff has not been reviewed. JBchrch talk 22:18, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• Alexbrn Since you have accused me of saying "wrong things" below, I've made the correction that you pointed out. JBchrch talk 05:19, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• 1: Generally reliable for statements of fact. I generally concur with MrOllie here. The idea that it has no editorial control whatsoever is not borne out by their statements, and I've yet to see a pattern established of them being, well, factually wrong. Nor does a source having been used inappropriately on Wikipedia translate to unreliability. XOR'easter (talk) 06:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • There were a few examples in the previous discussion, but this article demonstrates the lack of editorial control. The underlying premise and conclusion is fine, but the issue is the method used - the author decided to invent a new field called "forensic caricaturing", which involves proving that two images are of different people by caricaturizing the photos, allowing differences to be more readily perceived. The issues with modifying evidence through subjective methods to prove a point are obvious, but were not identified by the editors. BilledMammal (talk) 08:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
    • The real procedure here was to look at the photograph and the sketch produced by the psychic and observe that they don't look much alike (anyone can replicate this part). The 'method' you are concerned about was just a means to make a graphic to go with the article: I considered whether to point them out in text or to compare them in a diagram. I finally decided to create a new field, “forensic caricaturing. MrOllie (talk) 14:43, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
      • The method was the means the author proved it, and that is the issue. The fact that they could have proven it through dozens of ways that don't involve modifying evidence through subjective methods is not relevant. Moved from here to try and make the conversations possible to understand. MrOllie, please move back if you believe that location is more appropriate. BilledMammal (talk) 14:51, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
        • It is not "clearly wrong", and you did not "explain it above". Dorothy Allison is not a psychic, and the two pictures do not depict the same person. Nickell just used a way of emphasizing differences to make them clearer. As he wrote, I considered whether to point them out in text or to compare them in a diagram. He could have done that, and the result would have been the same. SI is not "wrong", let alone "clearly wrong", it just used a didactic tool you did not like. You are grasping at straws, just as you are grasping at straws with your "imaginative over-reading of some boilerplate legalese from SI". --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
          • Let me just point out that the author of the article being criticized is Joe Nickell, a formidable investigator and forensic expert. And this is not an example of lack of editorial control, or of a bad method. As a forensic expert myself, I have to say that his use of caricatures is just a clever, as well as amusing, tool to make the differences between the two faces more easibly distinguishable. There is nothing wrong here. The comparison with "using dowsing rods to figure out the shape of the Earth" is completely bogus.VdSV9•♫ 17:09, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
            • Modifying evidence through subjective methods is wrong. It might be entertaining, but publications that seek to be entertaining rather than correct typically have reliability issues - see the opinion content of Fox News, which has the same intent. BilledMammal (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

              Have you ever read the data-driven reporting from The Economist [14] [15] [16], FiveThirtyEight [17] [18], The Atlantic [19] [20] [21], etc. etc. Such pieces often "modify evidence through subjective methods". One must choose the reporting bounds, the resolution, even the color scheme.

              Data categorization, visualization, and interpretation are inherently subjective endeavors. Journalism is an inherently subjective endeavor [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] that strives to be as factual and objective as possible, but acknowledges its failure. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:17, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

              SI changed the data to make their point, while the examples you provided did not. If 538 had changed the educational rate of voters in counties to better indicate the trend, then it would be equivalent - but they didn't, and if they had we would be questioning their reliability. Alternatively, if SI had cut out parts of the images - such as only showing the jaw lines, to emphasise the differences between the two - then it would also have been equivalent, and we would not be discussing this example as there would not be an issue. BilledMammal (talk) 02:23, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Comment Additional considerations apply. I don't feel we can give this publication a blanket pass. It does seem to mix opinion and fact and lack a clear cut editorial policy. However, it does not appear to publish false information any more frequently than, say, The Times. Individual articles should be judged on their merits, which can be discussed at the relevant talk page. Boynamedsue (talk) 07:49, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Ok for some facts per WP:PARITY, although better sources are preferable. Not ok for BLPs. Fundamentally, this is a highly partisan site aimed at beliefs, actions and individuals they disagree with. As such, I do not believe that it is reliable when it comes to living people, much as is the case with other highly partisan sites. - Bilby (talk) 13:51, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

2: Other considerations apply (I figured I would make this a bit clearer). Under WP:PARITY there are times when this publication is useful, but only under parity: where parity doesn't apply (specifically statements that are not directly related to fringe topics), other sources should be used. For statements about BLPs it should be regarded as self-published. As an example of the former, it was raised elsewhere that this was used for a reference about "bomb dowsers" used in Iraq. Under parity, it is an acceptable source for "bomb dowsers do not work" as that is fringe; it is not a good source for "bomb dowsers are used in Iraq". In regard to the latter, I remain concerned about the editorial policy when it comes to BLPs, the lack of clarity about the editorial policy regarding living people; errors that I have found when checking articles from the publication; and the use of the publication to run campaigns targeting living people. - Bilby (talk) 22:59, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• 1: Generally reliable for statements of fact. Too much emphasis is being placed on peer review. Here are over 20 peer reviewed journals on homeopathy Here is a peer reviewed journal on cryptozoology. Here is a peer reviewed journal of 911 Studies. The question is does SI publish recognized experts saying true things? Yes, yes they do. Have they published misinformation, or lies? I haven't seen any compelling evidence. Is their track record as good as other reliable sources? Geogene complains above that SI is used when other RS could be used for the same information. In other words, SI is as good as those other sources on matters of fact. DolyaIskrina (talk) 14:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  other RS could be used for the same information. In other words, SI is as good as those other sources on matters of fact This is not how sourcing policy works. Citing a random personal blog for "the sky is blue" in Rayleigh scattering is worse than not sourcing the statement at all. There is no reason to use low quality sources when better sources are available, see for example WP:BESTSOURCES. Problematically, SI often strays into high profile areas, into geopolitics, where better sourcing is available. Havana syndrome is another example of this. What if, hypothetically, one of SI's dubious experts decides tomorrow that Novichok isn't a real chemical weapon and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal was a mass hysteria? Recent experience has shown that editors will go to that page to try to use it as a source, to "counterbalance" mainstream sources. Geogene (talk) 15:54, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  Any source may hypothetically publish something daft. I'm interested in actual examples. Again, what is this "review of a cancer researcher's book" in SI you mentioned above? Alexbrn (talk) 16:03, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  What are you saying here, Alexbrn? That since any source can publish nonsense, they're all of equal quality? Surely not. Geogene (talk) 16:10, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  No, but a source isn't unreliable because of what it might do in your imagination. Similarly, because a source isn't reliable in one field doesn't invalidate it for others. Again, what is this cancer review you invoked above as an example of SI problems? Alexbrn (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  Similarly, because a source isn't reliable in one field doesn't invalidate it for others I agree with this point, but SI's contributors' field(s) of expertise needs to be defined. I view it as a usually reliable, but low prominence Parity source. Geogene (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  Which is why your cancer example is of interest. Link please! Alexbrn (talk) 16:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

  (...Sound Of Crickets...) --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 16:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know how I missed this before, but it is baffling how Geogene refers to "SI's dubious experts", while referring to Robert Bartholomew an expert and authority on psychogenic illnesses, who wrote a book on the Havana Syndrome alongside Robert W. Baloh, a neurologist who wrote a textbook on the vestibular system[27] and remains unconvinced of the evidence presented. All while defending the outlier conclusions presented on a paper with poor methodology from an advisory panel led by microbiologist and immunologist David Relman, with no background in either neurology, the auditory system, microwave or sound weapons, or psychology. And they do this even after a lot of the mainstream position on HS has shifted away from attacks and more evidence has been shown confirming what the "dubious experts" have been claiming all along. A lot of examples given here by others for the claimed lack of reliability of SI are of similar quality. VdSV9•♫ 19:04, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  @VdSV9: What was his day job again? Geogene (talk) 19:18, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Whose? VdSV9•♫ 19:44, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Bartholomew's, of course. While you're at, could you clarify what the word "Honorary" means, in the title, "Honorary Senior Lecturer"? Geogene (talk) 19:50, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Here's a link to the relevant policy, Geogene.[28] Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:24, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  Thank you for the link. It says, Honorary appointees are not remunerated, other than reimbursement of expenses. So if VdSV9 calls this person an expert, what is his day job again? It's obvious this Bartholomew wouldn't pass WP:NPROF on this. Geogene (talk) 20:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  To be fair, the policy also says that to be an honorary appointee, a person must have a national and international standing outside the University in their area of expertise. Now, it's certainly not binding on Wikipedia, but it does let me know that the University of Auckland considers him notable. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:40, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  But not enough standing to justify paying him a salary? I suspect that University of Auckland considers all of their people notable in some way, and I also suspect they pay most of them. Few of them are notable enough to receive any coverage at all in an encyclopedia. Geogene (talk) 20:46, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  And you are, of course, entitled to your opinion. A google news search suggests to me that he is likely notable, but reasonable minds may certainly differ. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 20:59, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't know what his day job is, don't care, and am not willing to go along with your red herrings. His specialization is in medical sociology, and there are plenty reliable sources to support the claim that he is an expert in MPI (mass hysteria), having written or co-written books and articles on notable publications about it. Do you want more information on Robert Baloh, with whom he co-wrote the HS book? VdSV9•♫ 21:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  You SHOULD care what he does for a living, because the burden of proof is on you to demonstrate he's a world class expert. If a university WERE paying him for his expertise, that would be independent, objective evidence in favor of that expertise. That it doesn't is a red flag that you don't seem to be able to recover from. Geogene (talk) 21:41, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  This focus on drawing a paycheck strikes me as odd. Notability, expertise, and the like, should be, to my mind, a holistic inquiry. While you're free to take employment into account, it is not for me a sine qua non for expertise, source usage, or anything else. If consensus is against me on this count, I will find a way to survive. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 21:55, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

  I mean, I fail to see what the relevance of this whole Bartholomew expertise discussion to the wider SI debate. We're kind of just walking in circles here. I will say though, that for all intents and purposes Bartholomew is an expert in some areas of medicine, being published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, and Dumuzid's description of honorary positions is in line with my (brief) professional experience in the field. But again, this has no effect on the editorial practices, biases, and ethics of SI nor its use within Wikipedia. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:07, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

• Generally reliable wrt to facts. Opinion pieces still need to be cited as opinions. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:38, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact As others have been saying above, their main articles are fine to use as is, but any opinion pieces need to be attributed to the authors. The good thing, also as many have noted, is that their opinion pieces are almost always done by a notable expert who also often already has a Wikipedia article anyways. Honestly, a lot of the opposition to SI that I've been seeing taking advantage of the source's admission of negatively covering pseudoscience are those who would want said pseudoscience to be positively covered and are using this as an opportunity to try and remove one of the primary sources of debunking WP:FRINGE topics out there. Silverseren^C 16:54, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • @Silver seren, LuckyLouie, and Shibbolethink: I believe most editors who question its reliability support its use for WP:PARITY statements, but have concerns about its use beyond debunking fringe topics. As your response appears focused on its use in fringe areas, is this a position you could agree with; can be used for parity, but should generally be avoided outside of fringe areas. Pinging LuckyLouie and Shibbolethink as well, as their comments were similar. BilledMammal (talk) 04:41, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused. SI actually describes itself as focused on "critical scientific evaluations of paranormal and fringe-science claims" — which is the bulk of its content. And most Wikipedians agree (me included) that opinion pieces should be attributed ("According to John Smith..."). Here's the latest issue [29], can you indicate which content is unreliable, should be avoided, etc.? - LuckyLouie (talk) 12:32, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

It is what it is primarily focused on, but use of the source often goes beyond that, and given the issues with the source it seems likely that this shouldn't be happening. In response to your question, I would recommend avoiding content that is not being used to rebut fringe statements. BilledMammal (talk) 13:00, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• 1. Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. Their "critical scientific evaluations of paranormal and fringe-science claims" sync with mainstream scientific thought. Obvious caveats are that unambiguous SI opinion pieces should be attributed, especially in the context of BLPs. - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:10, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. As with many GREL publications, there are also opinion pieces published here, and those require additional considerations such as attribution, closer scrutiny for evaluating DUE, etc. As others here have said, the reporting standards of SI are not very different from most other publications in this area, or in popular journalism in general. It checks facts which are contentious with external review, it has standards for who it allows to publish, and it has an editorial process. I want to emphasize, the factual reporting of SI makes it an essential source for matters which have serious parity issues, such as pseudoscience, charlatans, the paranormal, hoaxes, and the occult. Many wiki articles about these subjects are overly laudatory, and lack a skeptical perspective to achieve NPOV balance in due proportion to reliable sources. They are overly reliant on in-universe content, because of a very common problem: The more FRINGE a topic, the more polarized the sources, and the more interested editors may be biased in favor of the subject. This is similar to Brandolini's law, or its sub-corollary that proponents of a fringe topic will almost always know more about it, and in more detail, in-universe, than critics of that fringe topic will know negative content. In order to maintain DUE and BALANCE, we need more reliable independent sources like SI to counter that common bias. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:35, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• 1. Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. All the reasoning above about no fact-checking is crap, and it has already been refuted in the section above the survey. To repeat: Even scientific journals do not check all facts. Peer-review, for example, does not mean that the peers go to the lab of the authors and check all the records. So, there are unchecked facts in scientific journals! Deprecate them all! There has not even been one single example given about anything SI ever got wrong. I am not saying there isn't - there must be, it is unavoidable that it will happen at some time in 40 years, even if you extremely careful. But the fact that not one of SI's detractors has named such a blooper tells you that its supposed unreliability is just hypothetical, not real. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:50, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I gave an example to XOR'easter earlier in the discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 04:43, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
    • First, you could have referred to this better, for example, by saying "08:22, 27 February 2022 (UTC)". (I guess that is whyt you meant.) Then I could have searched the page for that instead of for your name or XOR'easter's. Thank you for unnecessarily wasting my time.
    • Second, you found an example of something you disagreed with, not an example of something where SI clearly got it wrong. If someone wanted to quote that one in an article, they would fail because it would be WP:UNDUE. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:04, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
      • Except it is clearly wrong, as I explained above - I would even go so far as to call the chosen method pseudoscience. BilledMammal (talk) 07:20, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

        BilledMammal, I would implore you to re-read the article you link again. The 'forensic caricature' which gives you so much pause (and understandably so) seems obviously to me to be (1) tongue-in-cheek; and (2) a description of the method for illustrating differences--not in fact a heuristic for coming to the conclusion. You can certainly take issue with the conclusion or actual method by which it was reached (which seems to have been "I see differences"), but I think your description here is a bit off. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:59, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

        • I am responding to this above, where the same discussion is duplicated. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Generally reliable. I haven't seen anything published in SI that has been so egregiously incorrect as to call into question its reliability. Of course, such honorifics can be taken to extremes. I've seen people argue that obvious typos need to be accepted at face value because a reliable source printed it. The word generally is the key term here. jps (talk) 00:17, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Generally reliable and worth noting that scepticism (sometimes spelled skepticism) is merely a public reflection of mainstream science, something ARBCOM would do well to acknowledge. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 05:55, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. Of course it's generally reliable for supporting statements of fact within its topic—the authors and the publication are generally good and suitably credentialed. Is there evidence of any substantive and incorrect information in Skeptical Inquirer? Johnuniq (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
  • I gave an example to XOR'easter earlier in the discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 06:08, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Are you referring to Shame on Shamus Sham? That mentions The Mystery Chronicles: More Real-Life X-Files,^details with publisher: "The University Press of Kentucky (UPK) is the scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth of Kentucky". You might argue that someone with no qualifications in examination of faces is not a reliable source to point out that two faces have marked differences and are obviously not the same person. But to claim that conclusion is incorrect would be absurd—have a look at the photos. The question of whether SI is reliable of course depends on what fact it is being used to verify but if WP:PARITY were being used to counter a claim that a psychic's imagination from eight years ago gave a correct match for an alleged murderer, the source would be perfect. Johnuniq (talk) 06:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
      • The conclusion is correct, but that isn't enough for a source to be usable; the method the conclusion is arrived at also needs to be correct. An equivalent example would be someone proving the earth is round using dowsing rods; even though the conclusion is correct, the method means that we cannot use the source. BilledMammal (talk) 06:46, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
        • Perhaps you did not read my question which asked for an example of incorrect information. Johnuniq (talk) 06:55, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
          • Can you explain what the difference is? It doesn't matter why the source is unusable - incorrect method or incorrect conclusion - just that it is unusable. BilledMammal (talk) 06:59, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
            • A lot of time has been wasted (see Arbcom proposed remedies) mainly because participants have been unable to respond in a logical fashion. I asked if there is an example of SI publishing incorrect information. Your response implied that such an example can be found above. I hunted for it and found the article to be 100% correct. Now you are shifting the goalposts to say that this example is correct but is unusable as a source. Did you see where I pointed out that the article would be reliable to counter a claim that a psychic's imagination from eight years ago gave a correct match for an alleged murderer? Whether or not that's true, the fact remains that the article is correct. In the future, if you're going to respond, please make it logical. Johnuniq (talk) 08:52, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
              • Sorry, it appears I was not clear. The example provided is an example of SI publishing incorrect information, as the method the conclusion is arrived at is not correct. This means we cannot use the article, even as a parity source - just as we could not use an article proving the earth is round using dowsing, even as a parity source, as it would be incorrect. BilledMammal (talk) 09:53, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
                • Regarding simple logic, are you aware that "the method the conclusion is arrived at" is totally irrelevant for whether this is "an example of SI publishing incorrect information"? I might conclude that the Sun will rise tomorrow by consulting a psychic. My method is bogus but the conclusion is correct. After all these replies you still have not identified any substantive and incorrect information published in SI. And you fail to respond to the point that the SI source would be suitable to counter a claim from a psychic. Please either answer my question with an example of incorrect information, or agree that no such example is known. After that, we can debate how SI authors arrive at their conclusions and whether a particular article would be suitable as a reference for a particular assertion. Johnuniq (talk) 10:27, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
                  • Your conclusions is correct, but because your method is bogus you are incorrect overall - would you really consider an article claiming that the sun would rise tomorrow because a psychic told the author to not be incorrect? And I have responded to that point; per my !vote above, SI would generally be suitable as a WP:PARITY source. BilledMammal (talk) 10:42, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

                    Your conclusions is correct, but because your method is bogus you are incorrect overall This is your opinion of how "correctness" should be determined. It is not wikipedia's. See, for example: WP:NOTTRUTH. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 13:55, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

                    This definition of correctness is widely held; for example: do you consider a person proving the sun will rise tomorrow with the help of a psychic to be correct? I also don't believe WP:NOTTRUTH is relevant to a discussion about whether a source is reliably "correct". BilledMammal (talk) 14:32, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

                    I think you have completely misapprehended Joe Nickell here. The claim he is debunking is no more solid than the method he is using, and that's rather his point. He is meeting the argument on its own terms and thereby argues that the entire premise is quite ridiculous. This is rather like when cynical commentators use the methods of creationists to "prove" evolution. The point of such exercises is not to say that such methods are the way things should be done. The point is to show that they don't even do what they claim to do. jps (talk) 20:10, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

                    Which is the issue. Neither the claim, nor the rebuttal, are reliable, and publishing either raises questions about the publisher, and suggests that at best they seek to entertain, rather than inform. BilledMammal (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• Marginally reliable due to it being a self-admitted biased publication that has a problem with issuing corrections. I don't have the entire collection of SI handy to provide issue dates, so I am relying on my memory, but there was an Editor's note some recent years ago where the magazine proudly proclaimed its content was non-neutral. It also once falsely claimed as a puzzle answer that the source of the quotation "Everyone who believes in telekinesis raise my hand" was writer Kurt Vonnegut (It's a one-liner by comedian Emo Philips). They never published a correction, so it makes me wonder how many other errors they wouldn't correct over its publishing history. I also note famous skeptical writers Robert Shaeffer, Gary Poser, and much earlier Marcello Truzzi quit their association with its publisher for similar reasons over bias. Its use as a source should be considered on a case by case basis. 5Q5|^✉ 13:04, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
  • They admit to bias, and so do we. What is the issue here? Why admiting to one's own biases would not be a good thing? I thought we were discussing reliability. Do you have any evidence to the claim that they have a problem with issuing corrections? I have yet to see a publication that never makes a mistake, and I don't expect them to catch and publish corrections to all of them. The one you caught may have slipped by, I have seen other mistakes they've made, but that's a long shot for claiming a publication has such a bad record as to be "marginally reliable". VdSV9•♫ 19:44, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: "They admit to bias, and so do we...": Who exactly is we? WP:GOODBIAS links to a user page. GretLomborg (talk) 07:13, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Just us, the reasonable people that try not to have our heads in the clouds. The only bias they have is a pro-science and pro-reality one. Everyone has biases, as does every publication, and admiting to one's own biases is not a bad thing and doesn't make it unreliable. VdSV9•♫ 00:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

Anchoring (cognitive_bias)#Overconfidence is a useful read in this instance. Y'all are so perfectly biased, in your eyes, and so is one of the sources you most favor that there is a very high chance if it publishes wrong information or is contradictory to more reliable sources that rather than editing Wikipedia to reflect reliable sources' views on the issue, you will stick by whatever SI says. This is the main concern for those of us that do not trust SI's editorial policy to err on the side of caution when publishing potentially damaging BLP information or even when its contributors write pieces outside their area of expertise. This is why I highlight below in my vote some of the comments cited to regular SI contributors, even outside of SI context, such as Benjamin Radford (written over 100 articles for SI on all matter of subjects) being cited for the completely wild statement that 40% of deaths by suicide in developing countries are by self-immolation. The actual context is much more nuanced, with caveats such as most developing countries having incomplete or nonexistent reporting of suicides, and other causes (such as ingestion of pesticides to induce self-poisoning) being significantly more common. I would be very surprised if Radford was enough of an expert to be cited for that in an unverifiable way, as only 4% of all suicides in Pakistan are from self-immolation. Those that agree with me in this discussion are concerned about SI not fact-checking these types of numbers, and there is no public criteria for when they would (if a publication is explicitly biased, their judgement of what is "controversial" may not and probably does not fit wider journalism standards for controversy). In fact, it is in my opinion SI's reporting standards violate the US journalistic ethics code by not taking responsibility for the accuracy of their work as editors. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 06:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

the completely wild statement that 40% of deaths by suicide in developing countries are by self-immolation. There are indeed distortions here, but it is not done by SI.

1. the source given is not the SI, it is Vice. So, the whole example is irrelevant here.
2. The source says, In developing countries, Radford says, self-immolation can account for up to 40 percent of all suicide. That means that there is at least one developing country where it is 40%.
3. Our article says, Radford claims in developing countries the figure can be as high as 40%
4. User:A._C._Santacruz says, the completely wild statement that 40% of deaths by suicide in developing countries are by self-immolation.

So, our article says exactly what the source says, attributing it to Radford with the words "Radford claims".

But what ACS claims is something completely different. She claims that Radford claims the overall rate for all developing countries is 40%.

ACS, would you please strike your false statements and your irrelevant statements using <strike> and </strike>? We don't want the people who decide this to accidentally take them into account. See also User:Hob Gadling/Admit mistakes. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:41, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Given the way this RfC has been going, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a retraction. (Yes, A. C. Santacruz really did just use a citation to Vice as an example of Skeptical Enquirer being unreliable!) The good news is that I have asked for an experienced closer at Wikipedia:Closure requests#Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Skeptical Inquirer and an experienced closer will know what claims to ignore. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 07:54, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Hob Gadling: I clarified above that the citation was not necessary to be from SI for my argument (even outside of SI context). Radford is a very frequent contributor to SI (251 articles up until now). He is not qualified enough nor expert enough in mental illness in the developing world for us to use him in Wiki in these contexts, especially for an unverifiable claim, through attribution. In this discussion some editors, including myself, have raised the issue that attribution should be used for subject-matter expert content published by SI. However, if editors that add citations to SI and their frequent contributors are unable to identify when the writers of articles they read are actually experts (which is important in a popular science publication like SI) that present issues in the implementation of such a community expectation of the source as "Marginal reliability - use with attribution". The Radford full quote is "In developing countries, Radford says, self-immolation can account for up to 40 percent of all suicide.'This woman was an immigrant from another country, and elsewhere in the world, such as India and Africa, self immolation, suicide by fire is far more common than in America or Western Europe. It's actually a fairly likely explanation.'". When combined with statements like "elsewhere in the world suicide by fire is far more common than in America or Western Europe" (emphasis my own), it is pretty clear to me Radford wasn't meaning an outlier case when mentioning the 40% — he was giving the reader a strong, general impression about a topic he has no expertise on.

On a separate point, Hob, please stop linking me to that essay. This RfC is a very nuanced discussion on journalistic practices, verifiability, sourcing policies on Wikipedia, and popular science source use within articles. Reasonable minds may differ, and calling my points as false and irrelevant is neither constructive nor civil. I particularly take offense at you raising the concern that closers might accidentally take my arguments into account. I'm discussing here in good faith, being diligent in my analysis of how skeptics are cited on Wikipedia, and presenting rationales for my opinion. Dismissing them wholeheartedly and in such a disrespectful manner is obviously hurtful, and I ask you to at least remove that sentence. There's no reason why this discussion ever had to veer into such personal territory and I'm stunned that even after your AE warning you're still testing where the limit of civility lies.

Guy Macon Alternate Account, making passive-aggressive remarks about me (Yes, A. C. Santacruz really did just use a citation to Vice as an example of Skeptical Enquirer being unreliable!) is not constructive to the discussion and borderline uncivil, please stop. Also, I would recommend you place the closure request notice in the Discussion section rather than the Survey due to visibility purposes. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:28, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

Radford's quote is mathematically very clear, and your misquotation of it is also mathematically very clear. Both statements are clearly different. Your interpretations of other stuff beside the quote itself do not matter to this fact. Your statement was false and stays false; it is not a matter of opinion. It would have been very easy for you to amend your false statement to make it true, and it would not have hurt your argument (unless your argument is based on that very falsehood and crumbles if the falsehood is removed). Still, I did not expect you to correct it, and neither did Guy, based on past experience. Our expectation was correct. I have nothing more to say about this. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

You know we can just like, disagree, right? It is perfectly normal and common in discussions about reliability or other nuanced guidelines for reasonable editors to disagree, even strongly. There is no absolute truth, just consensus. Not every discussion is an absolute right or wrong side against another, and it would greatly benefit the quality of the discussion if you stopped acting like this is a black-or-white question we're trying to answer, Hob Gadling. In any case, Radford is "mathematically" not an expert on developed world suicide method prevalence, and his being cited through attribution for statistics regarding that field leads me to believe those that are members of the American skepticism movement are too anchored to see why its wrong to cite him in such contexts and thus would not be able to understand (and therefore respect) the standards for attribution of subject-matter experts as option 2 would recommend. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 09:47, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

• Generally reliable - It seems strange to again have a thread about this source. It's often useful for WP:PARITY. If the recent ARBCOM case was an excuse to repost this, it doesn't have to do with if this source is reliable or not... —PaleoNeonate – 17:12, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• 1 - Gen. Reliable - No meaningful evidence has been presented by the other side. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:44, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• 1 - Gen. Reliable - Surprised this is even up for discussion, SI is an absolutely irreplaceable tool in the coverage of fringe. Obviously, it has to be used with a certain amount of care, because they're advocates not journalists, but absolutely meets RS. Feoffer (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Marginally reliable—on top of the issues discussed above, the biggest queries I often have is—can this be replaced with a better source? And if it can't, is the topic actually something we should be covering? Wikipedia is a general-purpose encyclopedia with topics that should be receiving substantial coverage in secondary sources. We're not Quackwatch or a place to relentlessly catalog frauds and hucksters and pseudoscience just because it's pseudoscience. It's a different remit. If you can't find good coverage of a topic besides SI, I'd question whether the topic is actually notable in the first place. And if SI is the only place "rebutting" another POV, that implies fringe POVs. It should be used sparingly, and generally treated as a SPS and looking to the author given its lack of editorial controls.Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 23:23, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. Shibbolethink's point about the importance of this publication for maintaining DUE and BALANCE is well made. — Charles Stewart (talk) 01:18, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
• 1/2: - Reliable but considerations apply for opinion pieces. I also don't think we should lean on skepticism magazines for statements of fact in scientific subjects. We have WP:SCHOLARSHIP for that. CutePeach (talk) 12:02, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure how to count a "1/2" !vote. Some considerations apply for all opinion pieces, even those that we determine are generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. And nothing in WP:SCHOLARSHIP in any way implies that other sources (WP:NEWSORG, WP:BIASED) are unreliable or marginally reliable -- just that we should "try to cite current scholarly consensus when available, recognizing that this is often absent". Could you please make your !vote clear so we can get a clean count that nobody can dispute? Suggestions:

• "1 with the usual cautions about opinion pieces and bias",
• "2 [list of considerations as to why certain claims in this source aren't to be trusted in specific situations]",
• "1 second choice 2",
• "2 second choice 1".

Any of those or something similar will be easy to count and hard to dispute --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 02:15, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

@Guy Macon Alternate Account: I wanted to position myself between 1 and 2, but reading some of the !votes below, I now lean more towards 2. There is a real WP:ADVOCACY concern with the skeptic cabal on Wikipedia. I don't think they're a net negative, but they need to be kept in check to assure WP:BALANCE is maintained, and SI looks like it can disrupt that. It's not clear how SI's editorial team reviews submissions and distinguishes between fact and opinion, and I can see that as giving rise to sourcing disputes. CutePeach (talk) 01:10, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of fact - I have spent a long time thinking about this and looking for secondary sources and other mentions, but there's a funny issue insofar as it seems the magazine occupies a very specific niche. It is largely hegemonic in the kookier pseudoscientific field--you don't get scholarly journals which spend time debunking interdimensional bigfoot, to put it crudely. That largely means its existence is sort of unexamined; when it comes up in major news sources, it tends to be noted and quickly ignored (from what I can tell). That said, I would obviously be open if anyone has found better sources than I have (which is certainly possible). Still, I think there is a general reputation for accuracy, without implying perfection, and to me, the fact-checking concerns are overwrought (though it would be nice to know more). So, this is where I stand, though I reserve the right to change my mind as new information is adduced. Reasonable minds may differ, of course. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 16:12, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 It looks like they have sufficient editorial controls; while they take submitted articles they do send them for review and generally have a policy against publishing obvious falsehoods. The boilerplate "authors are responsible for their own content" is not particularly problematic for me. --Jayron32 16:26, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of factOption 2, marginally reliable, considerations apply, with the usual opinion caveat. With that said, I have two specific concerns about it's use. First is it's use in BLPs, as it is clearly biased, and columns written with the aim to get negative information added to Wikipedia and search results is a real concern for me. Generally, I would treat any stings and the like as primary sources, and would not include them unless they are covered by additional secondary sources. Second is to make sure information sourced to SI is WP:DUE. If there are no other secondary sources covering something, especially in a BLP, it likely should not be in the article at all. If the only reliable source that says Subject A believes interdimensional Bigfoot faked the moon landed is also the source debunking dimension shifting yetis pulling hoaxes, it's probably not due for inclusion. While I'm less bothered than some others by its use when better sources exist, it should generally not be used far outside the topic of skepticism, i.e. in Anorexia nervosa. Also, I believe Dumuzid puts it best, Reasonable minds may differ, of course. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:33, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
  • I've been giving this a fair amount of additional thought, and have decided to adjust my !vote. Firstly, there are many comparing SI to a journal. If this is true, it does not have a peer review process, and per WP:RS, Research that has not been peer-reviewed is akin to a blog, as anybody can post it online. All mentions of using journals as sources hinges on them being peer reviewed or a well regarded academic press, which SI is not. WP:RS also says, Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics. SI is not "high-quality" when compared to other high-quality non-scholarly sources. They do not have a strong, established editorial policy, or a team of fact checkers reading and vetting articles. High-quality non-scholarly sources, like the New York Times, have teams of fact checkers that verify facts in articles. They have strong editorial processes, and a published standard of ethical journalism.[30] They have a reputation for fact checking and correcting errors.
    There's also the bias and advocacy issues. Again, using the New York Times as a benchmark, review the tone of [31] and [32], While consultations can feel very therapeutic, he said, these online marketplaces are full of fraudsters, looking to trick vulnerable clients out of their money... This exchange is a gift to critics looking for examples of how Gwyneth Paltrow’s wellness media empire peddles expensive quackery in the name of self-care. They clearly state the issues with psychics and quackery, and call such things out, but they don't refer to people as grief vampires, or write in an overly sensationaist tone, Maybe I missed the press release and the Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded to Henry for breaking the natural laws of the known universe. Possibly the smoke from the burning of all the textbooks that now need to be rewritten has polluted the atmosphere to the point that I forgot when this discovery was announced. That kind of writing is fine and good, but it's not a high quality source for an encyclopedia. This Guardian article on the ethics of stings in journalism puts a large emphasis on editorial oversight, and again, that's not something we see with this source.
    WP:PARITY usage is fine, but usage in BLPs and making contentious statements should be limited. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2. Marginally reliable / additional considerations apply: it's a self-declared and heavily WP:PARTISAN source that covers scientific topics from a non-academic, popular journalism perspective. Just on this score it would be easily recognized by everyone as generally unreliable, if not for two facts: (1) for some aspects of some fringe topics, there is no other and better source, which makes it usable under WP:PARITY, and (2) there are quite a few editors who are specifically here on WP to fight fringe, and they have no qualms with applying different standards to sources which they regard as useful in 'fighting the good fight'. In particular, the !votes for "option 1. generally reliable" that cite WP:PARITY as a rationale should be discounted because, apart from the fact that WP:PARITY does not automagically render a source generally reliable, a source that is truly generally reliable in and of itself would never need WP:PARITY in the first place. Instead, the fact that WP:PARITY applies shows that additional considerations apply which in some cases may legitimize the use of an otherwise marginally reliable source. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 19:32, 1 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Saying that SI is WP:PARTISAN is like accusing someone of being biased towards reality, and that we ought to find sources that are neutral and balanced in the debate between Swiss watchmakers and time cube proponents. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:41, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Yes. We are biased. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 16:11, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
    • And we've had some discussions before about "we can never know anything" philosophical statements (that may well belong in a philosophy article but that is by no means appropriate in practice for Wikipedia)... —PaleoNeonate – 17:56, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

      Indeed, if "Universal Skeptic Inquirer" exists, I am sure it is NOT reliable. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 18:05, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

      Thanks for illustrating my point, y'all? Anyway, as you know, I take the view that we're WP:NOTBIASED, and that as an encyclopedia we have a responsibility to always look for the best sources. This of course doesn't mean something 'between' an anti-fringe magazine and fringe magazines, but academic, peer-reviewed sources. The magazine can be cited when nothing better is available. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 20:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

    Headbomb that is a false equivalence, and a particularly hyperbolic one at that. SI is not the utmost representative of reality and fact. It is not unreasonable for atheist, skeptical, or "free thinker" publications to be criticized as biased (similar to the way new atheists have been criticized as evangelical and militant). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 17:59, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

Collapsing needless, combative squabbling over what constitutes a fallacy and the protocols for collapsing comments. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 02:10, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
As usual, in order to claim someone else has commited a fallacy, ACS has to create a strawman of what they said. And then follow it up with a non-sequitur. Just tiresome. VdSV9•♫ 00:42, 7 March 2022 (UTC) What strawman? SI is not the utmost representative of reality and fact is a direct response to Saying that SI is WP:PARTISAN is like accusing someone of being biased towards reality. Additionally, I still believe that new atheists provide a very useful comparison to modern American-style skeptics in both how they organize and operate since to me they seem like two movements with significant overlap. It's not as much of a reach as you'd think when the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (a New Atheism-styled foundation) is a division of the Center for Inquiry, the parent company of SI. I'd appreciate some explanation on why that is a non-sequitur, VdSV9. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:35, 7 March 2022 (UTC) At this point I advise not responding to A. C. Santacruz. There is no point in debating someone who reads the words "Saying that SI is WP:PARTISAN is like accusing someone of being biased towards reality" and somehow transmogrifying that argument into a strawman claim that SI is the utmost representative of reality and fact. Yes, it is a classic Straw man but nothing anyone writes will result in A. C. Santacruz seeing that. They will, no doubt, respond at length to this comment, but IMO we should all at that point stop beating a dead horse and let them have the last word, for the simple reason that we have a consensus and nobody involved is going to change their position. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 22:19, 7 March 2022 (UTC) Replying only to 'advise not to reply' and to take another ad hominem stab? Please do better. I'm collapsing this. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:28, 8 March 2022 (UTC) Note: Uncollapsed by ‎Guy Macon Alternate Account with the summary Either collapse the discussion or you can add a "last word" comment with your opinion. Please don't do both. BilledMammal (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2022 (UTC) Recollapse by BilledMammal reverted. As I said, collapsing a section is (usually) OK -- but in general should be done by someone uninvolved, not someone who has taken a position in the discussion -- and adding another comment that accuses an editor of engaging in the ad hominem fallacy is also (usually) OK, but doing both in the same edit has the effect of unfairly giving the editor who made the ad hominem accusation an unanswerable last word. Furthermore, BilledMammal's the collapse is a clear violation of our WP:COLLAPSENO behavioral guideline: "Involved parties should not use these templates to end a discussion over the objections of other editors" Do it again and we will end up discussing the talk page guidelines at WP:ANI. (Any uninvolved editor should feel free to collapse the discussion without tacking on a last word accusing one participant in the discussion.) In such cases, reverting just the improper collapse while leaving in the added comment is controversial. If you just remove the collapse you may be accused of reverting part of an edit, which is to be avoided. If you revert the entire edit you may be accused of deleting other editors comments. even though reverting a a clear violation of our WP:COLLAPSENO behavioral guideline is allowed -- see WP:TPOC. I also note the irony in collapsing a correct accusation of engaging in the Strawman fallacy with an incorrect accusation of engaging in the Ad hominem fallacy. In the discussion above, the real subject of the argument ("Saying that SI is WP:PARTISAN is like accusing someone of being biased towards reality") was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one ("SI is the utmost representative of reality and fact") followed by "refuting" the false claim that the opponent never made. That is a clear example of the Strawman fallacy. On the other hand, the definition of Ad hominem is "a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself". I clearly attacked the fact that a strawman argument was being made and not any other attribute of the person making the argument. I strongly advise everyone involved to carefully read Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines paying careful attention to what someone involved in a discussion is and is not allowed to do. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 15:11, 10 March 2022 (UTC) I also note the irony in uncollapsing a portion of a thread that had no active discussion and where you told people not to respond to an editor, then baited that editor because Involved parties should not use these templates to end a discussion over the objections of other editors. This is certainly the best way to reduce drama and have a nice civil conversation. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 16:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC) Recollapse by BilledMammal reverted - what recollapse? I restored the comment you deleted, not the collapse. BilledMammal (talk) 17:01, 13 March 2022 (UTC) @Guy Macon Alternate Account: The diff for the edit I made is this. As you can see, I did not recollapse the discussion - please strike your incorrect accusations. BilledMammal (talk) 23:56, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2:Marginally reliable,See below - Apaugasma put it best. Parity doesn't grant a source reliability, nor should we take a popular science magazine as equal to journalism with a proven track record or peer reviewed academic journals. It would be mind-boggling to me for the community to accept History (American TV network)'s magazine as reliable for statements of fact. Additionally, their strong partisan point of view in their coverage of living people as well as their publishing of opinions by non-medical professionals in medical topics is highly problematic when using it on Wikipedia. I have little confidence in their editorial oversight. That's not to say their contributors aren't usually experts, but I think that's better covered by attribution than trusting a marginally reliable source. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:49, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
  • You want to deny them equality with journalism, but their track record, on the subjects they cover, show they are actually more reliable than regular mainstream media "journalism". If we use regular newspapers' and magazines' coverage of, i.e., alternative medicine, UFOs and mediums, over SI, we would be doing a disservice to our readers and likely promoting FRINGE theories. In the case of UFOs and mediums in particular, there isn't as much actual science being done, so sources such as these are a necessity. The rules regarding BLP already cover your concerns about that matter and, if applied as a principle, would make every single source "marginally reliable", since there are instances of other reliable sources covering living people in ways that should not be used in WP BLPs. VdSV9•♫ 01:08, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

    • their track record, on the subjects they cover, show they are actually more reliable than regular mainstream media "journalism" according to what evidence? You have provided nothing to support this claim.
    • If we use regular newspapers' and magazines' coverage of, i.e., alternative medicine, UFOs and mediums, over SI, we would be doing a disservice to our readers and likely promoting FRINGE theories. are you implying sources like NYT or (the alternative you failed to comment on) peer reviewed medical journals are promoting fringe theories? Wouldn't this make them unreliable?
    • In the case of UFOs and mediums in particular, there isn't as much actual science being done, so sources such as these are a necessity. This is a case of PARITY use that would be entirely covered my "marginal reliability".
    • The rules regarding BLP already cover your concerns about that matter and, if applied as a principle, would make every single source "marginally reliable", since there are instances of other reliable sources covering living people in ways that should not be used in WP BLPs. According to what evidence? You have provided nothing to support this claim.
      VdSV9 I'd appreciate some clarification on the evidence (not opinions) that back your claims, especially since you seem to disagree option 2 would cover both parity and attribution uses. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:29, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  One of the issues is how widely the source (or parent company) is being used for areas where the contributors don't have any experience. For example, Benjamin Radford (an educational psychologist by training and an urban legend/fringe popular-writer by trade) is cited for his experience in avalanches, suicide-by-self-immolation rates in the developing world (40%!), antisemitism by the Nation of Islam, short-term memory, and organ transplantation procedures. Massimo Polidoro is cited on Roman persecution of Christians and medical side-effects of chastity belts. They are frequently cited in areas that demand tertiary sources or as gratuitous fancruft, such as in articles about law, the immune system, and opioid addiction treatment. These uses are opposed to the type of expertise attribution is meant to respect. I haven't even looked at the claims they make in BLPs, but the issues I show above are already enough for me to not support the source as generally reliable (especially the MEDRS violations). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

What a phenomemal misrepresentation of Radford. Radford isn't a "an urban legend/fringe popular-writer by trade", he is an urban legend/fringe debunker by trade. His background in psychology makes him particularly qualified as to the reasons why people belief in this sort of nonsense, and his work for Snopes speaks for itself. Likewise for Polidoro et al. They all specialize in debunking the utterly nonsensical claims of pseudoscience proponents. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:13, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• I think in light of the comments others have raised elsewhere in the discussion, I support Option 3, with option 2 as a second preference. It is clear to me that those most likely to add the source will fail to understand the important caveats and considerations "marginal reliability" would imply, such as the actual meaning of WP:PARITY use and the relation of SI to sources considered to be more reliable (such as reputable newspapers and peer reviewed academic journals). A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. SI is high-quality popular press and particularly useful in its niche: coverage of WP:FRINGE topics. Not WP:MEDRS, and any use for biographical content should be cautious. Alexbrn (talk) 13:06, 3 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of fact is i think inline with most of WP:RSNP, tho also think that the green color and "generally reliable" gives too much license and editors should be more critical of sources across the board. Problematic usage of the source:

• Does not meet the WP:BLP requirement to adhere strictly to WP:V's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, best sources have a professional structure for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source. Be especially careful when sourcing content related to living people or medicine. There are most likely very reasonable usages of the source within a BLP context, but it's hard to look at for example: ...applies to all references to living persons throughout Wikipedia and find good guidance for that. I think if a source is reasonable in criticizing a persons ideas rather than attacking the character of that person, and has some reputation as a publisher we can rely on, then that should meet the BLP burden. But there is no support for that view in the policies and guidelines.
• "America's Longest and Costliest Criminal Trial" an expert author and used for non-controversial statements in McMartin preschool trial and Paul and Shirley Eberle, but the content of the article at SI is beyond the competence of the publisher. Even though it is just a book review, this source should be used nowhere near this topic.
• Elizabeth Loftus and Taus v. Loftus, another instance of SI going beyond its competence and here the publisher is not an independent source.
• Stephen Novella's "It’s Time for Science-Based Medicine" in Science-Based Medicine, marginally promotional YMMV.
• Strategic lawsuit against public participation#Germany WP:UNDUE and promotional
• CVS_Pharmacy#Sale of homeopathic remedies publisher not independent for topic
• Criticism of Walmart publisher not independent for topic

Count my vote as Option 2. Marginally reliable / additional considerations apply if the limited fact-checking, BLP concerns, and restriction to areas of competence for the publisher aren't strongly reflected in the closing summary. fiveby(zero) 19:55, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

After looking at the history of the articles where CSI is involved in lawsuits and the editors making those changes there is evidence of blatant misuse of the source. Combined with the inability of some taking part in the discussion below to take on board criticism and acknowledge the limitations of the source i think a much stronger warning and much higher burden for usage is appropriate. I realize this is an editor problem and not a real problem with a source, but if WP can't count on good judgment from those wishing to use articles from this publisher then more forceful warning in the RSPN entry is probably appropriate. At least Option 2. Marginally reliable / additional considerations apply. fiveby(zero) 17:58, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 - leaning option 3, They admit to not having editorial oversight of the articles they publish. Full stop! Maybe they check some, who knows which those are? What we do know is they specifically say they do not on all their articles. That said, if it is by an expert in a field then considerations apply there. I would not use them for BLP information. PackMecEng (talk) 02:47, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1, generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. My view of the magazine matches Guy Macon. SI has a good reputation and reports on topics that are important to Wikipedia. I haven't seen anyone offer strong evidence that they routinely publish inaccurate information.Talrolande (talk) 10:27, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. Of course, being generally reliable for supporting statements of fact does not mean that SI is always the best source to use. Conversely, not always being the best source to use does not mean that SI is not generally reliable for supporting statement of fact. Cardamon (talk) 08:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 or 3: It does not exactly inspire confidence when they inform: The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective. We advise having knowledgeable colleagues review drafts before submission. They claim to sometimes have manuscripts reviewed when their claims are completely novel or especially controversial, but the overall impression I am getting is that the Editorial Board has little confidence in its peer-riview process. I think the primary thing distinguishing them from other sources we have denounced as having "meaningless" peer-review processes is the fact that they are somewhat up-front about it. I would say they should be treated as a self-published source, or maybe marginally better, but no more. I also firmly believe that without editorial review of every article, Skeptical Inquirer is not an acceptable source for claims about living persons, ever. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 13:56, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Actually, the more I think about it, the more firmly I am convinced that because we cannot be certain which articles have been reviewed, they should all be treated as self-published. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)
• Skeptical Inquirer is reliable. It is has solid editorial oversight and is generally regarded as an authority in its area of expertise (broadly speaking, the rebuttal of bullshit). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.20.240.157 (talk) 18:15, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

  It is has solid editorial oversight... But they don't, they even say that they don't. Its not even a question. PackMecEng (talk) 04:06, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2, marginally reliable, considerations apply. ScottishFinnishRadish lays it out pretty well. 'Considerations apply' just isnt a high bar to get over when it matters. If you cant, then there is a different issue than how reliable this one source is. Bonewah (talk) 16:08, 8 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2, marginally reliable yes I think there are ways to use this source but they need to be worked out on a case by case. What we need in terms of editorial standards and reputation just aren't met here. I understand the knee jerk reaction that anything from a skeptical perspective must be reliable, but that has no basis or reflection in policy/guideline. A questionably reliable source does not become reliable because of its specific POV no matter how sympathetic we as editors may be to that POV. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:46, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2, marginally reliable, considerations apply. SI is often used on medical topics to justify definitive statements in the lead written in editorial tone in SI, and then pasted into Wikipedia as if its encyclopedic tone. This would clearly not be allowed elsewhere, so these standards should apply. There is no Wiki policy or guidelines that allows us to change our tone to editorial tone simply because it's psuedoscience. If we refrain from this type of editorialized source, we will have more encyclopdic tones in articles and less rhetoric. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 21:16, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 - If SI places responsibility on the authors for accuracy, that's not fact-checking and is as reliable as the author themselves as primary. That's a no-no for BLPs but may be acceptable about non-BLP matters if written by an established expert in the field. Morbidthoughts (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. I don't have much to add to the discussion above except stating that reading it makes it very clear which users rely in erroneous information, misinterpretation of facts or statements, or fabulist fear-mongering statements about "what could happen if there was a publication which..." without actually providing concrete examples for their arguments and which users counter such arguments and state verifiable facts. Which is quite interesting in a discussion regarding reliability of a source like this.--Ebergerz (talk) 00:41, 17 March 2022 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Ebergerz (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BilledMammal (talk • contribs) 03:04, 18 mar 2022 (UTC)

Discussion on the canvassing concerns

@Ebergerz: I am curious how you discovered this RFC; I notice you have very few edits on this Wikipedia (most are on the Spanish Wikipedia) and you have never participated in formal discussions here, nor have you participated in Wikipedia-space here. BilledMammal (talk) 21:27, 17 March 2022 (UTC) It was not hard to find out who this most likely is (a GSoW person) but I want to avoid outing. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 23:02, 17 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammalI feel disinclined to answer to you as your question is irrelevant to the RFC and I don't like the implications of your attitude (that somehow it is incorrect for me to vote here and that you are somehow entitled to be a gatekeeper). Ebergerz (talk) 01:17, 18 March 2022 (UTC) @Ebergerz: My concern is that you were Stealth canvassed to this discussion by GSoW, as I cannot see another plausible explanation for how you discovered this discussion, and you have not provided one - and if you were canvassed to this discussion, then it is incorrect for you to !vote here. BilledMammal (talk) 03:04, 18 March 2022 (UTC) My concern is that you are assuming [A] that you know who is and who isn't a GSoW member just because they found an RfC that (like all RfCs) has been widely publicised, and [B] that you are implying that GSoW members are not allowed to comment on things like this RfC despite a recent Arbcom decision that chose not to impose any such resriction. More time making your arguments and less time trying to suppress the arguments others make, please. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:18, 18 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammalThat is exactly what your previous post implied. And not only is it wrong, it is pathetically ridiculous. Again, I don't have to provide an explanation to you, and your lack of imagination is not my, or anyone else's, concern. The fact that I followed the ArbCom case and that I've used SI as a source dozens of times and I keep an eye on this discussions because SP WP does not have a list of reliable sources as such, so we use the english one, and decided to finally put in my two cents never crossed your mind. So please make a formal report for canvassing or strike your previous comment. Your gatekeeping is out of place, and is simply an attempt at bullying people with opinions that differ from yours. You should start answering the arguments instead of trying to discredit the people making them. as Guy just adviced you. Ebergerz (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammalI had not noticed that you had considered appropriate to add a note to my vote, without signing it and using something similar to the royal 3rd person it seems, calling yourself "An editor". I fixed it for you so it is correctly attributed now and avoids giving the impression of it being added by someone else. I will repeat what I said before: Retract your accusation, strike your comment (and delete that note), or make a formal report. There is not really a middle ground when making serious accusations like this. Not as long as you adhere to a minimal ethical standard, of course. ¿Do you? Ebergerz (talk) 22:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC) Given your lack of previous participation at RSN, your explanation does not adequately address my concerns, and I will not strike them; I will leave them for the closer to consider - I note this is the correct place to discuss concerns an editor may have been canvassed. I have also removed your edit to the note on your post, as the previous form was from a standard template. Guy Macon, you misrepresent my comment. My assessment of Ebergerz as a member of GSoW is based on general behaviour evidence, and my concern with their contribution is based on the concern, caused by their lack of participation at RSN, in RFC's, or in WP-space, that they were canvassed by members of the organization, and not on their membership of that organization. BilledMammal (talk) 23:54, 18 March 2022 (UTC) As stated before, "your" concerns are mostly irrelevant, you are not the master gatekeeper here, and I doubt any evidence or response would be enough to convince you of anything you don't like, which is why I was disinclined to answer to you in the first place. By your logic any editor that opines for the first time here (specially if they disagree with you) would be suspicious of being canvassed. Truly you show an amazing lack of self awareness. You seem to have misunderstood my answer as an attempt to satisfy your demands. It was not, I was just exposing the lack of consistency in your argument of being unable to see "another plausible explanation". Regarding the template for the note, it is fairly obvious that if you are going to use it to note a concern that you yourself have expressed (and not someone else), you should at least sign after it, but there, I've fixed it for you in the standard way: the unsigned template. Ebergerz (talk) 04:16, 19 March 2022 (UTC) By your logic any editor that opines for the first time here would be suspicious of being canvassed. Not any editor who contributes to RSN and formal discussions for the first time. Only editors that do so and are part of a group that lacks transparency, usually communicates off-wiki, and has an interest in the outcome of the discussion. But if you do have a response or evidence, I would suggest you provide it - for the benefit of the closer, who needs to decide how to weight your !vote, and not for my benefit. BilledMammal (talk) 08:04, 19 March 2022 (UTC) Please stop your disruptive editing. Wikipedia aims to provide a safe environment for its collaborators, and harassing other users potentially compromises that safe environment. If you continue to harass other editors, you may be blocked from editing. Take them to WP:ANI or WP:COIN with evidence, or leave them alone. If you don't stop badgering them and casting WP:ASPERSIONS I will report your behavior to ANI myself. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 12:27, 19 March 2022 (UTC) It is not harassment to raise concerns about possible canvassing in a discussion; indeed, it is required to discuss it here, as it is important information for the closer. BilledMammal (talk) 12:46, 19 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammal For the 3rd time: Make your complain formal and present your evidence there (your were just pointed where to do it), or strike your accusation and delete the note. It is you making the claim, it is your responsibility to present evidence to back it up, It is not my task to present evidence of a negative and I have already clearly stated my position. You not presenting the case formally and with evidence to back it up, after being asked several times to do so, transparently shows how baseless your accusation is and that your intention is simply to intimidate whoever you think you can, who has a difference of opinion with you. So: harassment indeed. Ebergerz (talk) 15:12, 19 March 2022 (UTC) I've presented my concern, and my reasoning for it. I'm not going to discuss this further, here or elsewhere - it's presented for the closer to consider, and that is as far as it needs to be taken at this time. BilledMammal (talk) 15:44, 19 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammal Well, isn't that nice for you? But that is not how it works. You can't go around making accusations willy nilli and not back them up. If your claim had not been contested, maybe leaving it at that would be ok. But this is not the case. So, go all the way, take responsibility, present a case and evidence or retract yourself. Ebergerz (talk) 16:03, 19 March 2022 (UTC) There is no requirement anywhere that BilledMammal "prove" that stealth canvassing has taken place, and nobody is going to try to. This is not solely because doing so is inherently extremely difficult (perhaps impossible, depending on the burden of proof you wish to use); it is also out of respect for your privacy, because any attempt to prove that you have been stealth canvassed would inevitably involve outing you, and nobody wants that. Consequently, the standard response to suspected canvassed votes is merely to flag the vote in question and leave the closer to weigh it as they deem appropriate, which has already been done. I know it feels like you have been personally attacked and are not being given a reasonable chance to defend yourself, which sucks, but it's one of the inherent downsides of this awkward compromise editors have reached between individual privacy and the project's integrity. —Compassionate727 (T·C) 22:04, 19 March 2022 (UTC) Guy Macon Alternate Account I think this template is meant to be placed on editors' talk pages. I would in fact encourage you to discuss this issue at BilledMammal's talk page rather than here. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 22:12, 19 March 2022 (UTC) @BilledMammal My assessment of Ebergerz as a member of GSoW is based on general behaviour evidence Would you be so kind as to share what evidence you are using for this accusation? I would be very careful to avoid witch hunt territory, and to be above board as you are requesting others to be above board. — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 22:21, 19 March 2022 (UTC) It would also be useful for the accuser to provide even a shred of evidence that being a a member of GSoW equals being canvassed. All of the evidence in the recent Arbcom case points to GSoW carefully avoiding such behavior, and Arbcom declined putting any special restrictions on GSoW members. It is likely that GSoW members are also interested in Wikipedia pages related to skepticism and would watch such pages. Skeptical Inquirer is listed in the following templates: --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 23:11, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

• SI is niche but it's generally reliable and as a niche source, covers a range of topics not otherwise treated in depth. GMG^talk 12:49, 19 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. From a perusual of both the site and the contributors and the overal comments SI seems to have all the necesary trappings of a site reliable for statment of fact, which to be clear doesn't make it a paper of record just reliable under wiki terms. The opposes seem to follow three paths, one misplaced, one that reads to much into a discalimer, and one that is just seems patently false. The first oppose path seems to be that certain users are over using the source due to various off site connections or beliefs. In all honesty, there is some evidence this is true, but this would be a matter for user intervention and does not speak in anyway to the reliability of the source. The second path is a concern about the disclaimer that authors are responsible for the facts in the articles that they submit. While not all papers may publish this disclaimer, this is absolutely true for any contract worker who publishes on any site. Any lawsuits or reputation damage will absolutely be shared by both the publisher and the contract writer. Users have read into this disclaimer that therefore SI does not take responsibility for facts, which seems to be an invention and not based in any wording on the site. The default in America is that publishers are just as responsible, if not more so, for any currated content. The last path is that SI is a partisan source, which just seems completely false and not backed up by any evidence whatsoever. SI seems perfectly happy to explain how silly pseusdoscience is no matter what political persuasian the paractionser is, so without evidence that argument should probably be discounted.AlmostFrancis (talk) 15:45, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  Although "partisan" is often used in reference to a focus on a political party, it can also be used in relation to a cause. It is being used here in the sense of a fervent supporter of a particular cause (skepticism). - Bilby (talk) 18:31, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  I suppose that is a slightly less poorly though out argument, though it is still unevidenced so should probably still be ignored. It is also stretching the idea of a "cause" well past where a lot of mainstream newspapers and journals would run afoul unless you think "truth dies in the darkness" is any less value laden. For the avoidence of doubt I don't believe either the promotion of journalism or skepticism are partisan causes.AlmostFrancis (talk) 23:23, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  This is just a personal opinion, but I tend to find that publications that are as strongly focused on pushing a particular POV as this one - whether or not I agree with the POV - end up showing a lot of bias and don’t necessarily take the care a more neutral publication would when it comes to fact checking claims that support their POV. That’s been my experience here, but I respect that others might see things differently. - Bilby (talk) 23:45, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

  (edit conflict) That is likely to be true in the general case, but there are publications that are biased and reliable sources for statements of fact. As WP:BIASED says, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Also note that WP:BIASED is not in the questionable sources section of WP:RS. And of couse in this long discussion nobody has come up with a single example of SI making a factual claim and getting the facts wrong. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 00:06, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  I am not saying you are wrong, because the beauty of opinions is that they don't have to be based on fact or knowledge, but without at least some evidence that your opinions about SI are correct I don't see the value that they bring to this discussion. Even two or three examples of where SI's fact checking was lacking would be a lot more convincing that what arguments I have read above. Even better would be examples of mistakes they made where they did not offer a correction AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:00, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  to be absolutely honest, every time SI turns up and I put forward examples, the aggression in these debates means that we end up on a long tangent that is ugly and disruptive, so I kind of gave up. But in the cases where I’ve had cause to really sit down and go through and article I’ve tended to find problems - the one which probably caused the most issues revolved around an article on Donald Young, where the SI article on several occasions misrepresented their sources, creating flow on problems here. It took a lot if work by multiple editors to make our way through them, and we had to turn to the sources used by SI instead of the article. - Bilby (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  The last time we disagreed you opened a laughably poor sock puppet investigation on me, so I am not sure you have a lot of room to fault others for agression and ugly tangents. If you have evidence then show it because vague claims only necessitate others to track down what you think are issues, which is quite disruptive.AlmostFrancis (talk) 01:02, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  I had trouble remembering what you were referring to, but yes, that was three years ago. But this is the sort of tangent I’m referring to, so there’s that. - Bilby (talk) 01:21, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  So is that a no on showing evidence for your claims? AlmostFrancis (talk) 01:31, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  I’m try to expand a bit on the example I raised when I get proper internet access. - Bilby (talk) 01:52, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

AlmostFrancis, you can check the history for yourself and see whether Bilby's claims are accurate.

The article in question is D. Gary Young.

Here is Bilby's most recent edit to the article:[33] Nothing about SI.

Here is the source in question[34] (It was The Spokesman-Review)

Bilby's previous edit to the article was in 2020.[35] Still nothing related to SI.

And that's it. No other edits to the D. Gary Young article by Bilby. I also searched the talk page archives for the article, and found no discussion of SI by Bilby or anyone else -- just a single mention is passing by another editor calling it a reliable source.

Finally, let's look at the only time SI mentioned Young:

D. Gary Young (1949–2018), Diploma Mill Naturopath and Promoter of Essential Oils by none other than William M. London.

See anything in that article that gets the facts wrong?

So my conclusion is that Bilby's claim ("But in the cases where I’ve had cause to really sit down and go through and article I’ve tended to find problems - the one which probably caused the most issues revolved around an article on Donald Young, where the SI article on several occasions misrepresented their sources, creating flow on problems here. It took a lot if work by multiple editors to make our way through them, and we had to turn to the sources used by SI instead of the article.") appears to be factually incorrect. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:36, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

You couldn’t even wait until I posted the context and the actual issue before accusing me of lying? Well, at least Thingscare progressing as per normal. Thanks for that. - Bilby (talk) 04:27, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I did not accuse you of lying. I said that your claim appears to be factually incorrect. The most common reason why someone writes something that appears to be factually incorrect is that they misremember what happened years ago, followed by them working from bad information, then by me making a mistake when I looked at the history. Lying is usually pretty far down on the list of probable reasons.

I look forward to your evidence showing that it took a lot if work by multiple editors on the Donald Young article to deal with factual errors in Skeptical Inquirer. I looked and could find no evidence of that, but I would welcome being proven to be wrong and will apologize if the error was mine. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 10:35, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I think the context also involves Young Living, where you can see there was a lot of interaction and work in the archives c. 2020 to try and fix the article, Guy Macon Alternate Account. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:46, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Given that I raised my concern that every time we try to discuss evidence I get these attacks, and immediately I had you declaring me a liar before I had time to post a single diff, while AlmostFrancis raises an issue from three years ago that has nothing to do with this, I am disappointed by how absolutely accurate I was again. No, I don't think you'll apologise, and I'm way past caring. - Bilby (talk) 12:16, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

You appear to consider politely asking for evidence supporting your claims to be an "attack". Expect to be "attacked" everywhere you go on Wikipedia by a wide variety of editors. Fortunately, A. C. Santacruz (see above) chose to provide the evidence that you refuse to give us. I need to analyse the history of the Young Living page. If I find that Skeptical Enquirer got the facts wrong I will report my results here. More later, and a big thank you to A. C. Santacruz. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Just a small note that Bilby did not refuse to provide the evidence as far as I can see, they just said today that they don't have the proper internet access to do so. This could very well be the case if they don't have access to a computer where searching archives or (how I found the article) editor interaction analysis tools. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 14:57, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Fair enough. I have stricken my comment.

I have looked at the Young Living talk page, and the discussion Bilby descibes appears to be here:

Talk:Young Living/Archives/2020#Raindrop Technique

In that thread, Bilby had a legitimate objection. The claim made was

"The company offers the Raindrop Technique, a controversial procedure that involves, among other things, the application of undiluted essential oils to a person's skin in order to cure conditions such as spinal curvature."

This claim is unsupported by the sources cited.

The citation to youngliving.com[36] just talks about spinal massage with essential oils. No mention of curvature or of curing anything. (See WP:ABOUTSELF for reliability of youngliving.com).

The citation to Skeptical Inquirer[37] only noted that the Aromatherapy Registration Council (ARC) and the Alliance of International Aromatherapists (AIA) say that RDT is marketed as cure for curvature of the spine.

None of this in any way demostrates that the sources are unreliable. If I claim that the NYT says unicorns exist with a citation that dosn't support the claim, does that make the NYT unreliable?

So is it true that as Bibly claims "the SI article on several occasions misrepresented their sources"? No. The sources[38][39] say exactly what SI said they said.

Finally, is the claim itself true? I could find no reliable source that contains both "Young Living" and "spinal curvature" but a Google search shows a boatload of unreliable alt-med souces containing the claim. A google search on "Raindrop Technique" "spinal curvature" gave me similar results. So probably accurate, but unsourced and thus cannot be added to Wikipedia. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 17:30, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

This is why I won't be taking part in this now. There are times where a reasoned discussion is constructive. But there are also times when the people you are trying to have a discussion with have already made up their minds and any attempt to engage just creates far more heat that light. I need to recognise the latter case more often and know when anything I say won't help because it won't be listened too. You immediately made it clear that this is one of those cases. - Bilby (talk) 22:07, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I can understand the weariness and won't criticize you for not wanting to participate in discussions where you keep getting bludgeoned. But one thing that editors should keep in mind is that in highly participated discussions like this one, persuading your "opponent" isn't always the objective; it's often a performance for the other people who are reading the discussion, particularly the closer. This is especially the case when introducing new evidence like you implied you were intending to; those who already hold an opinion will usually dismiss disagreeing evidence, but it will affect the decisions of others who are still making up their minds. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 22:35, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Although I generally agree with you, the problem is that when things get particularly bad whatever valid points you were making get lost in the noise. Then you just end up with an ugly discussion that no-one can parse and that just kills whatever value the thread may have contained. I tend to recognise I'm in one of those after it is over, but I need to get better at recognising them when they start so that I don't help waste everyone's time. - Bilby (talk) 02:08, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

The huge amount of effort you are putting in telling us why you won't provide evidence to back up your claims, combined with the several hours I wasted going through everything you have posted in the last few years and the history of the two articles about Young and finding not a shred of evidence supporting your claims, leads me to the conclusion that you have no evidence. I am not saying you are lying. I think you misremembered what happened and are (as we all tend to be) reluctant to publicly admit to your error. This is the last thing I will say to you on this subject. You can provide the evidence, once again say that you won't provide any evidence, or stay silent. Whichever you choose you may now have the last word. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

Checking the notes for D. Gary Young (1949–2018), Diploma Mill Naturopath and Promoter of Essential Oils shows one issue off the bat, it looks like a citation error was copied from a possibly retracted 2003 QuackWatch article. Bill Callahan's “Court Blocks Ads, Sales by Chula Vista Clinic.” ran in San Diego Evening Tribune, not the The San Diego Union[40]. The author did provide a quote from one of the three referenced articles, showing that at least one refernce was checked. Not a huge deal using the earlier article as a basis for research, but i would expect that the citation error would have been caught if the author or anyone at SI actually checked all the references. If indeed references were copied without checking that is pretty sloppy, but that is a guess on my part as to what happened. fiveby(zero) 17:24, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Couple of minor issues in the first part of the article, a quote taken from an investigation narrative rather than the final report, "sentenced to" vs. "suspendend sentence". Should probably also question why this in an obituary. Understandable but not confidence inspiring. fiveby(zero) 18:53, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank for the specifics at least now we are all talking about the same content, and it shows about what I was expecting. Taking a quote from the investigative narrative section of a published incident report isn't an error or even poor reporting. Newspaper run quotse from far less formal reporting mediums such as press conferences, individual interviews, press releases, a puslished OSHA report if anything is on the hight end. A "suspended sentence" is a "sentence" you could argure that suspened should have been kept, but it would only be an error if "jail", "prison" or "home detention" had been added. The San Diego Union and the Evening tribune share a archive since they merged into the Union-Tribune so anyone checking sources would be going to the same place with the same search to check, so while that was an error it is an understandlable one and would not have changed anything in the prose of the text. All newspapers make those kind of errors on a near daily bases, the New York times made a dozen or so on the 17th alone. As far as I can tell there is no claim to this report being an obituary, it is filed under consummer health and explicitly state " a close look at Young’s activities can be illuminating for consumers who might be attracted to charismatic health gurus". AlmostFrancis (talk) 20:32, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2: Marginally reliable for supporting statements of fact, or additional considerations apply. To the extent that the source has a self-reported bias, and has been careless in vetting sources and inferences drawn from sources as long as those sources meet its bias, I see no reason to rely on the source as the sole source for contested issues of fact. If a claim is reported in this source, and not found in any more reliable source, I would question whether that is a claim that needs to appear in a Wikipedia article. If such a claim is reported in a more reliable source, I have no problem using both, so long as the SI article is not merely parroting the other available source. BD2412 T 23:47, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

  "careless in vetting sources and inferences drawn from sources as long as those sources meet its bias" Now we are getting somewhere, what is the evidence for this claim?AlmostFrancis (talk) 04:04, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 Not just specialist; but explictly agenda-driven (even if admirable) source, to the point of trying to manipulate Wikipedia. Use for opinions of its writers or attribute in text. -Indy beetle (talk) 00:46, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 or 3: Option 2 as it functions as a SPS due to Skeptical Inquirer's statement that "authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective". If there has been significant public and/or private evidence submitted that indicates this magazine has been systematically spammed, that is a much larger problem. Cedar777 (talk) 18:29, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• 2: Marginally reliable Generally agree with JBchrch but I think it's a step up from self-published. Cuñado ☼ - Talk 00:28, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact. I have read the whole of this discussion and I do not see anything in the "2" or "3" comments that prevents me from ending up here. Indeed, a number of those comments appear to be stating a claim of unreliability that does not appear to be proven. I genuinely can't see a single comment that says "SI is unreliable/marginally reliable because..." and then goes on to actually provide solid evidence of that. As others said above, I wouldn't use it for WP:MEDRS, but then it isn't really vital there anyway. Black Kite (talk) 19:09, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

  SI is unreliable/marginally reliable because according to their own website they do not always have editorial oversight. The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective. We advise having knowledgeable colleagues review drafts before submission.[41] Period, full stop. PackMecEng (talk) 23:48, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• 2: Additional considerations apply. After reading the above arguments and looking into the source, the best way that I think the source could be handled is if we were to treat it as WP:RSOPINION, for the following reasons:
  • The source is not a well-established mainstream news organization. It doesn't claim to be, nor should we treat it as such. According to its website its website An important and often misunderstood point is that CSICOP itself does no research and, with only several small exceptions, carries out no investigations of its own. It encourages research and the testing of claims and provides a central clearinghouse for scientists and investigators at universities and elsewhere who do that. Its official journal, the Skeptical Inquirer, provides a place for publication, upon editorial acceptance, of some of these investigations and for debate and discussion over their significance. In this way, CSICOP plays the same role as does any scientific society. The stance of the Committee on Skeptical Inquiry is that [t]he Skeptical Inquirer is its official journal, and much of its coverage is novel analysis and it frames itself through the language of being a scientific journal.
  • There are limits on how this journal can reasonably be used. More or less nobody in this discussion has substantially argued that it passes WP:MEDRS. Why? The answer is simple: editors are skeptical that the publication applies meaningful peer review and that the source is actually the quality of a scientific journal. I don't think I see anyone arguing that it has the same rigor as scientific journals, so we're now left with a source that itsn't a WP:NEWSORG and isn't high quality WP:SCHOLARSHIP.
  • It's Time for Science-Based Medicine is in some ways like having Mike Lindell from MyPillow write a column about his giza dream sheets. It's plainly promotional and the author may well have a financial conflict-of-interest in the blog given his role at the non-profit organization which owns and operates it. This is actually not super uncommon for opinion pages in mainstream newspapers (see: Gannett) and it's a perfectly fine practice when the interest is disclosed. But it's a sign that the publication is opinion-based rather than simply trying to report facts. It makes sense to check if there are only certain sections for which this is the case, but ScottishFinnishRadish makes a point in the discussion section of this RfC that entities labeled "Feature Article" and "Special Report" contain articles that are clearly opinion. It makes no sense for its "News & Comment" section to be uniquely dedicated to news at the expense of commentary and it makes equally no sense to label its columnists as anything other than writing opinion.
  • The statement that [t]he authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective... closely reflects what The New York Times actually does, since [w]riters at The Times are their own principal fact checkers and often their only ones. I'm somewhat concerned about this (inasmuch as journalism is more dependent on individuals than I previously thought), but it's not a particularly black mark on SI in relative terms. As such, I don't see evidence that all of its content is truly self-published based off of the staement on their website. I find the claim that it's SPS a bit odd at face value; it's rather difficult to have a self-published print magazine/print journal when editors have to pick-and-choose what goes in it and thereby exercise editorial oversight. I'm not certain on the extent to which the regular columns are self-published—I'd use extra caution when making contentious BLP claims—but I don't see anything here that's strong enough to suggest that the source should be treated like WP:COUNTERPUNCH.

  Arguments that Skeptical Inquirer is reliable because it's writing from a skeptical perspective seem to misread WP:BIASED; sources are not more reliable simply because they reflect our house bias or our political priors. What makes a publication generally reliable is its reputation for accuracy/fact checking, strong editorial control, and editorial independence. The source doesn't appear to be a strictly factual publication, nor does it appear to have editorial independence from the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. As I've noted before, authors are also allowed to write substantially on articles where they have a conflict-of-interest. As such, additional considerations apply; the source is not WP:GREL.

• In short, the closest guideline appears to be a WP:RSOPINION publication, where the reliability for particular facts should always take into effect the credentials of the writer as well as the area of competency for the editorial board. We need to be sure to use caution in BLPs and to not give the SI undue weight given its status as an opinion publication, but I see little evidence that it's entirely self-published. It's a marginally reliable source, but not a generally unreliable one. — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:31, 27 March 2022 (UTC)
• 2: Other considerations apply per Apaugasma, A. C. Santacruz, and Mhawk10. Statements from SI should have in-text attribution. I also think it should be banned from use on BLP's, due to the finding in the Arbcom decison about SI articles being written to be used as sources for Wiki articles. - GretLomborg (talk) 18:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• 1: Generally reliable for supporting statements of fact per XOR'easter, Johnuniq, Jayron32, and many others. The fact they have editorial reviews on crucial matters is enough to convince me they are generally reliable enough for supporting statements of fact. Huggums537 (talk) 00:46, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  The fact they have editorial reviews on crucial matters... That is an inaccurate statement. PackMecEng (talk) 03:15, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  So say you, but they show as much in their guidelines: ...The Editor will often send manuscripts dealing with technical or controversial matters to reviewers. The authors, however, are responsible for the accuracy of fact and perspective. We advise having knowledgeable colleagues review drafts before submission. Our Editorial Board, CSI Fellows, and Scientific Consultants lists also include many experts who may be able to preview your manuscript... (Emphasis added.) Huggums537 (talk) 03:55, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly which is the problem. Sometimes they check what they are publishing if they feel like it. Which does not inspire confidence. PackMecEng (talk) 02:10, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

  ...which is no different than what most reliable sources do. If anyone imagines that The New York Times or The BBC sends everything any author writes out for review they are dreaming. Oh, sure, everything gets a look-over from an editor before publishing, but only technical or controversial matters are sent to qualified reviewers, same as with SI. As the same document says, "The Skeptical Inquirer must be a source of authoritative, responsible scientific information and perspective." BTW that bit about "The authors, however, are responsible" is straight from such guidelines as [42], [43], [44], [45], [46], [47], [48], [49], and [50] (just do a page search for "authors are responsible".) --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 05:57, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

  Not really the same thing though is it? You are comparing how peer reviewed academic journals do something while guessing how new orgs do it. This is closer to news orgs or a blog site, nothing near an academic journal. So unless you have facts to back up your statements I would rather just go with our policy and how the source describes itself. PackMecEng (talk) 02:08, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Skeptical Inquirer

• Are there any actual examples to be considered? Or is this another case of WP:RSP-itis? Alexbrn (talk) 20:45, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Given that there's a discussion above on an ArbCom finding of fact, the point of this is to try to more explicit gauge community consensus on the reliability of the publication. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:24, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
    • The FoF is just that, and not up for debate. But even arbcom seem to think the idea of a forced RfC for an RfC's sake is daft. What evidence are you bringing to the table here that would give "the community" something to chew on? Alexbrn (talk) 21:40, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment is it understood here that a GREL consensus means within its area of expertise? SI's area of expertise is in proving that Sasquatch isn't real, and that kind of thing. But I've seen editors try to use it outside that area, including for a review of a cancer researcher's book (no connection to FRINGE) and a kind of fake explosives detector (that should have been sourced to conventional arms control journals). Geogene (talk) 20:59, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Actually fake explosive detectors are in the same realm as proving Sasquatch isn't real in my opinion. Both are based on magical thinking. I assume you are referring to dowsing rods and such similar things. Debunking these has been the venue of SI authors since its inception. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:37, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

In this case, SI was citing ABC News for their info about the dowsing rod devices being fake, so the Wiki article, Explosive detection should have directly used ABC, or any better source than that, and not SI. Geogene (talk) 19:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Geogene could you gives links for those two specific cases? Alexbrn (talk) 21:05, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

My intent in linking WP:GREL is to indicate that, though discussion on its area of expertise might be helpful if you think that there are some areas where it is more reliable and some where it is less. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:26, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Above, Geogene mentions SI's coverage of "a kind of fake explosives detector (that should have been sourced to conventional arms control journals)."

This appears to be in reference to The Legacy Of Fake Bomb Detectors In Iraq.

Here is the BBC's coverage of this: The story of the fake bomb detectors

And here is Jame Randi on same: A Direct, Specific, Challenge From James Randi and the JREF

And here is our article: ADE 651

This is exactly the sort of thing SI writes about and is expert in. Skeptical publications regularly cover things like laundry balls, fake bomb detectors, magic cancer pills, etc. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 21:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Exactly -- this was well covered by world-class journalists, including the BBC. So was a magazine that primarily debunks lake monsters the best possible source for that? Is the author an expert on bomb detection devices? It's weird that SI was the source for that, and not Foreign Affairs [51], The Atlantic [52], or The Guardian [53] or CNN [54]. This was not a WP:Parity situation. Geogene (talk) 22:22, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Look, I get that you don't like SI, but "a magazine that primarily debunks lake monsters"??? Evidence, please. A quick look at https://skepticalinquirer.org/ clearly shows that SI covers a much wider range of issues than you imply.

Re "Is the author an expert on bomb detection devices?", the author is Benjamin Radford, and it doesn't take an expert on bomb detection devices to determine that dowsing rods don't detect explosives. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

I think they are asking why we want to use SI for such an article, given there are many better sources available - more reputable, more neutral, and with stronger editorial controls? BilledMammal (talk) 04:35, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Re, Look, I get that you don't like SI no, I've found that SI has its uses [55]. Radford's BLP you linked to says he's into psychics, ghosts, exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, crop circles, and other topics, so I don't think what I said about SI's content is unfair. I agree with your point that it doesn't take an expert to prove that dowsing rods don't detect explosives, but I would take that argument a step further, and say that scientific skeptics are generally not "experts" at much of anything for that reason -- you don't need experts to refute obvious nonsense. Your typical scientific skeptic is just a self-taught hobbyist with a blog/podcast/YouTube channel. And that lack of expertise is why SI shouldn't be used anywhere Parity doesn't apply. Again, I don't have a problem with using it to say that Sasquatch isn't real in Wikivoice. Geogene (talk) 04:49, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think this RFC is jumping the gun a little bit. The issues that have been brought up with the source deal with columns by non-experts, saying operations, contentious statements about BLPs, and parity. The discussion should be focused on those, rather than a general RSP style RFC. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 22:48, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

  Are you saying there are additional considerations might well apply to the source regarding BLP? — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:53, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

  They normally do. A source can be good enough for some statements, but still not meet BLP standards. That's more-or-less the argument regarding WP:PARITY - you can use poorer sources on fringe topics as there aren't always high quality ones, but BLP still applies and takes precedence. - Bilby (talk) 01:20, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  I pointed this out above, but since it seems to be at the crux of the discussion - WP:PARITY does not generically allow "poorer" sources. The only thing it does is allow us to use non-peer-reviewed (but otherwise WP:RS) sources in contexts where we would normally require a peer-reviewed source. (More specifically, as it explains, it exists to allow non-peer-reviewed RSes to be used to balance out low-quality peer-reviewed sources, which are common in certain fringe areas like creationism and homeopathy. It's not intended to let us cite a complete non-RS.) If a source has no reputation for fact-checking or accuracy or exerts no meaningful editorial controls, PARITY does nothing to allow it to be used. The issue with Skeptical Inquirer is not that it lacks peer review, it is that it lacks any sort of fact-checking and accuracy at all, which is way, way beyond anything PARITY can heal. --Aquillion (talk) 10:37, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  Because columns have been written in SI for the purpose of adding negative information to BLPs. Also the tone and writing in many columns and articles shows disdain and outright hostility towards people. We shouldn't be importing that into an encyclopedia. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:21, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  Evidence, please. That's a serious charge, and goes way beyond any evidence presented at Arbcom. Also, it would be very entertaining watching you try to create a policy of rejecting sources because you don't like their tone. You might also want to address my own "disdain and outright hostility" towards people who get rich selling ancient medicines that put little girls in the hospital with kidney failure.[56] --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Skepticism_and_coordinated_editing/Proposed_decision#Susan_Gerbic's_writing_for_Skeptical_Inquirer this finding of fact also links to evidence. As for the disdain and outright hostility, I assume we're not citing your publications anywhere? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:56, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  As for the disdain and outright hostility, I assume we're not citing your publications anywhere? Not helpful, SFR, and possibly an aspersion. I suggest that we all remember the basketball strategy of playing the ball, not the man. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

  I suggest you take a peek at what I was responding to, You might also want to address my own "disdain and outright hostility" towards people... I have that same hostility and disdain as well, but I wouldn't use me as a source when I told a friend of mine from years ago that she wasn't "starspawn" or an "indigo child." ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:23, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

There is a world of difference between...

• "Susan Gerbic has written articles in Skeptical Inquirer, and has stated an intent of having those articles be used as sources on Wikipedia, especially for biographies of living people. GSoW members have edited BLPs to include negative material sourced to Susan Gerbic's articles. This has created the appearance of collaborative editing to create negative BLPs."

...and...

• "columns have been written in SI for the purpose of adding negative information to BLPs."

The first, which seems accurate to me, implies a COI problem -- the person who wrote the column should not add it to the article, either personally or by proxy. It does not imply that the column was in any way inaccurate or that it should or should not be used as a source (but it has to be used by someone with no COI). The second, which I don't believe happened, implies deliberately creating negative material for the purpose of the negative material ending up in a BLP. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:31, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

...and in fact, one of the voting arbs made this specific point (that the source being unreliable isn't the problem but the COI is):

"This isn't a self-published blog, it's (to the best of my knowledge) a reliable source which is clear about which way it leans - indeed, it is something we should be considering as a source when writing an article. However, subverting the content building process by co-ordinated pushing of these sources, especially in a way that can cause real world harm to living individuals, well, a line has been crossed." (emphasis added)

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 19:35, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Watch some of the videos linked to in the evidence. She explicitly says she writes articles so negative information does up in Google searches and Wikipedia articles. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:34, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

That's not how evidence works. You are the one making the claim. Either post a URL of a particular video and a time stamp where she explicitly says that she writes articles so negative information goes up in Google searches and Wikipedia articles, or apologize and retract your claim. I have already identified a case (see above) where your paraphrase completely twisted the meaning of the original statement, so lacking a specific time stamp to a specific video I have to assume that you are doing it again. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 23:29, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

One of the videos is here: 10:36 In effect, a subject was targeted who was largely unknown at the time, with 7+ columns then published in Skeptical Inquirer as part of the campaign. This helped to give the target, Tyler Henry, just enough notability for an article, which was then developed into a hit piece [57] with a heavy reliance on articles produced for the campaign. - Bilby (talk) 00:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Not true Bilby - listen to what I said again. Tyler Henry was already notable - he had a TV show that was very popular. The articles written about Henry did not give him "just enough notability" but they did add to the article. I did not tell anyone what to say, I just asked if they would "write about Tyler Henry", if the articles they wrote were critical then that is what they discovered. I was talking about Google Rankings, I very clearly state that in this talk. "Someone" created the Wikipedia article, that was NOT me nor GSoW. This is all moot anyway. ArbCom has made it's decision and we are all starting fresh with a clean slate. GSoW and I have learned our limits and will be moving forward. Drop the stick please and be done with this. Continue bringing this up over and over again is not helping anyone. I hope this is the last time I will have to respond. Sgerbic (talk) 04:16, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I'd rather not revisit this, but this is about the reliability of SI, and it wasn't an issue I raised. But no, he wasn't already notable - your specific words in the linked talk were "I have done a lot of writing about Tyler Henry, and I did that because Tyler Henry was brand spanking new - he had no criticism, nothing was known about him". Other than that, sure, you didn't create the article - but it was then taken from 300 words to criticism to over 2000 words of criticism, heavily sourced to you and SI. - Bilby (talk) 06:29, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

This IS about the reliability of SI but somehow Tyler Henry keeps being mentioned. He was notable enough for a Wikipedia article. What you quoted I said had nothing to do with Wikipedia but everything to do with Google rankings. I started writing about him after his TV show came out, he was brand new but there was enough coverage in RS to create a Wikipedia article about him. The person who did create the Wikipedia page, started with two articles that were already in the public, my article was third. Of course the Wikipedia page grew from 300 words to over 2000 words, he had a TV show and was brand new, the media was writing about him and it escalated. If the majority of the content of the Wikipedia page was critical of him, then that is what the media and RS wrote. If the RS found when they wrote about him to be genuinely communicating with dead people, then they would have written that, and that praise would be on the Wikipedia page. The content is the content. Along with his rise in fame, was the rise in RS writing about him. I wrote seven articles about Tyler Henry, why would they not be used on a Wikipedia article? If you are challenging my expertise then say so. Look Bilby - I am giving a talk - I am not reading a script written out and fussed over by lawyers I am speaking at a skeptic conference, this is not a talk at a Wiki Conference, I am having to speak in broad terms. I'm not psychic, so I didn't expect that in 2022 I would have someone picking apart every talk I've given, and analyzing every phrase. Don't read more into a talk than is really there. Please drop the stick. Again this is all moot anyway.Sgerbic (talk) 07:00, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I didn't raise Tyler Henry, I just provided the requested link. The problem is that you are playing the wrong issue - I don't really care if you wrote about him before or after the first show. I do care, when evaluating the use of Skeptical Inquirer, whether or not it has been used to run campaigns against individual people, which have then been used as the basis for hit pieces in WP. The answer is yes, on at least one occasion. Which suggests to me that there are problems with the publication. - Bilby (talk) 07:46, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Re: "I didn't raise Tyler Henry, I just provided the requested link", yes, you did, fixing the problem that ScottishFinnishRadish did not respond when asked for a link and a timestamp. Good work.

Watching the video, it becomes obvious why ScottishFinnishRadish did not respond. I specifically asked for "a particular video and a time stamp where she explicitly says that Susan Gerbic writes articles so negative information goes up in Google searches and Wikipedia articles"

That's not what the video shows. It shows Susan Gerbic writing an article and hoping that that will rank well on Google -- a perfectly normal and allowable activity -- encouraging other authors to write about the same topic -- another perfectly normal and allowable activity -- and noting that Wikipedia's notability guidelines are based upon what gets written on a subject by various sources. This is bog standard behavior. What author doesn't want to be on the first page of the Google results on a topic? I don't know how many times I have told someone "Write an article about X and get it published. Encourage others to write about X. When there is enough published material, the topic may pass WP:GNG and the article may survive WP:AfD."

What the video does not show is any wrongdoing by Susan Gerbic. None. And even if it did that would be a matter for Arbcom or ANI, not RSNB, and would be totally irrelevant to the question of whether SI is a reliable source. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't think we watched the same video. - Bilby (talk) 14:24, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

• There's a certain amount of mystification about what the best publishers actually achieve in terms of ensuring publications are accurate that is misleading some participants in this discussion as it has done in the past in other discussions of source reliability. Confidence in the reliability of publishing venues arises from three kinds of second-looks made in publishing: desk decisions made by the editor who has the final say on publication, peer review by experts, and fact-checking done by copy-editors. All of these are scarce, skilled labour and there is a big difference between the ideal and common practice at even the best publishers. I think we could do with some raising of our documentation of what is really going on in the publishing process. I'm concerned that there is a common tendency to think that having "high standards" in what we consider to be reliable sources improves the quality of our sourcing without enough awareness risks coming from narrowing our range of sources. — Charles Stewart (talk) 12:30, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• There is a lot of confidently-stated rubbish about publishing in this thread based on an imaginative over-reading of some boilerplate legalese from SI. It is quite usual for a publisher, be they ever-so-eminent, to say that "responsibility for the factual accuracy of a paper rests entirely with the author".[58] (This doesn't necessarily make it true). Alexbrn (talk) 13:20, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • Such disclaimers are typically written by lawyers in an attempt to avoid lawsuits. It's a lot like the "Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental" notice you see on TV show that are obviously ripped from the headlines. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:12, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • imaginative over-reading of some boilerplate legalese from SI is exactly what this is. Very well put, and worth repeating. --Hob Gadling (talk) 20:58, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
• Interesting how all the talk about peer review and editorial standards goes out the window once it's people "my side" who are concerned. We truly live in a postmodern world. Perhaps all these critical theory publications about the concept of reliability [59][60] are not as wrong as I thought. JBchrch talk 22:48, 27 February 2022 (UTC)
  • This is called projection. It's more that you've been caught saying wrong things, and most editors prefer to deal in fact. Alexbrn (talk) 03:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

    "Saying wrong things" is a very personal interpretation of our discussion above. JBchrch talk 04:45, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

    When your false statements are refuted by evidence, that's not "very personal interpretation". Again, you are projecting a postmodern take onto the situation. I suggest, if you want to contribute usefully here, it would be better to stick to the matter at hand rather than engaging in pathetic sneers about how it's "funny how" the other "side" supposedly thinks things you imagine they think. Alexbrn (talk) 05:11, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

    I corrected the wording of my !vote based on your suggestion, nothing more. JBchrch talk 05:50, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

    That's a start, now if you could accommodate how material that undergoes a third-party editorial and production process isn't "self-published", and correct/delete your !vote accordingly, you would be in danger of stumbling towards the sort of competence which is actually useful at this noticeboard. Alexbrn (talk) 07:06, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

    I didn't say it was self-published, I said we should treat it as self-published. JBchrch talk 14:14, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

• For the record, I reject any argument based upon "SI's area of expertise is X" or "There are better sources in area Y" that lack any evidence that the person making the argument is correct about SI's area of expertise or reliability. A claim in SI about, say, fake bomb detectors in Iraq, is as reliable as a similar statement in The New York Times and is a better source than the NYT if said fake bomb detectors turn out to be dowsing rods. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 16:30, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

That would depend on what they were writing. If all they did was summarise an article from a more established source, then no, they are not adding anything more. If they are commenting on the unlikelihood of dowsing rods actually detecting bombs, then I don't see that you need any expertise to make that claim. If they were making the claim that dowsing rods were being employed by Iraqi military, then certainly no - I'd like a source that has some expertise and journalists on the ground in Iraq that could confirm that this was the case. Perhaps an in-depth discussion of dowsing rod physics? In the article raised previously, all they did was summarise an article from established mainstream media. In such cases, the original source is always preferable than a summary that may or may not be accurate. - Bilby (talk) 12:26, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

It is really not a good idea to have the expertise of SI article authors judged by Wikipedia editors who think that the mechanism of dowsing rods belongs in the area of physics. The Carpenter effect is psychology. --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:03, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

There you go then. I hope they write that article, instead of claiming to be reporting on what is happening in Iraq. I promise to read it should such occur. - Bilby (talk) 12:08, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

On the topic of reliable for fact, opinions must be attributed, is there any clear delineation between fact and opinion in this source? Is this special report or this one by an investigator, host of the podcast The Devil in the Details, and a member of the Church of Satan opinion, factual reporting, or both? How about this one, which states One example demonstrating this point is our scoring for the prediction: “Australian cricket team does very well on tour this year” (Heather Alexander, 2009). We scored that as correct—but clearly there was a 50/50 chance: the team would either do well or they would not. If every prediction was like that, the average for correct psychic predictions would have been 50 percent. The more of those types of predictions that psychics make, the closer to 50 percent correct their average will get. And they make a lot of those. That's an incorrect statement for a number of reasons, a team could do neither well or poorly, some teams are just better or worse than others, and regularly perform well or poorly. Does that make the statement false, or an opinion? Reading further, you can see that the entire true, false or too vague is entirely subjective categorization. Does that make the entire article opinion? Basically, if there is no clear line between fact based reporting and opinion/editorializing, it makes it very difficult to use the source for any statements of fact. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:21, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Another example, used in Bigfoot is this, to support American black bears, the animal most often mistakenly identified as Bigfoot, does not appear to be an article of fact, but rather an opinion supported with arguments. Per the article, I am merely pointing out, what should now be obvious, that many of the best non-hoax encounters can be explained as misperceptions of bears. The statements of fact in the article are all pointing to other sources, that would likely make better sources. It seems if there's support for using the source for statements of fact, we'll probably need consensus on exactly how far that reaches. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:50, 4 March 2022 (UTC)

Right. And I can just see some zealous (pseudo-)sceptic editor inserting into the WP Bigfoot article, in wikivoice, something like "Most Bigfoot citings are in actuality American black bears" with a citation to that article ("an RS"!) that "verifies" that claim. (Note: my reason for calling those that might engage in that kind of behaviour "pseudosceptics" is for the reason that, anyone that would blindly accept any claim printrd in SI, no matter how shoddy, cannot, by definition, be a true sceptic, unless "sceptic" has a secondary definition as the name of a dogmatic religion in which its adherents unquestioningly accept anything their authorities tell them to. I am aware of the term's unfortunate use by wingnutter climate change denialists etc and categorically state I have no sympathy for nor anything to do with those people.) 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:A18A:3CD:299A:9B40 (talk) 00:57, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

American black bears, the animal most often mistakenly identified as Bigfoot cannot be derived from anything the source. So, Wikipedia editors attributing a statement to a source that does not justify using it is now a reason to call the source unreliable? I just corrected the faked sentence, which any of you two could have done. Geez, people, are you really here to improve the encyclopedia? --Hob Gadling (talk) 12:06, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

This editor seems to think I make some improvements. Please try to make fewer personal attacks, and instead address the lack of any clear line between factual reporting and opinion with the source. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 12:32, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

ScottishFinnishRadish, I had to laugh at asking Hob to do "fewer" rather than no personal attacks. Modicum ad hominem, if you will. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:13, 5 March 2022 (UTC)

In what way is it a "personal attack" to note that someone saw an error in an article, did not fix the error, yet still used it to score a point in a RSN debate? In what way is it a a "personal attack" to note that not fixing errors when you run across them calls in to question your commitment to improving the encyclopedia? I am with Hob on this one. If a Wikipedia editors attributes a claim to a source that the source does not support is in no way a reason to call the source unreliable. Not even close. In fact it looks a lot like grasping at straws. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Guy Macon Alternate Account, accusing someone of not being here to build the encyclopedia is a personal attack. Hob has had extensive interactions with SFR before, mostly in the fringe noticeboard iirc, and a cursory look at SFR's contributions shows a strong commitment to the wiki. The fact they failed to correct a mistake on an article when using it as an example in a discussion is impossible for me to see as a valid reason to imply their motivations for editing, as a whole, are not aligned with Wikipedia. It's just petty piss-fighting at that point and more of an indication of the battleground atmosphere in this discussion than an appropriate reflection of an editor's contributions. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 02:45, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

It was not an accusation, it was a question. Its goal was to give the user a small shove to make them question their current focus and behaviour. Believe it or not, the same people can do right things and wrong things at different times, and telling them what they do wrong is not a personal attack and cannot be invalidated by the same person telling them what they did right in another case. Do I really have to start an RfC asking, "When someone misrepresents a source in an article, what should I do?" with the following options?

1. Correct the article,
2. Use the incidence to try to have source declared ureliable,
3. Start an Arbcom case to punish the user and his family and friends and all who supposedly think like them?

And then another one: "When you made a bad argument, such as using the misrepresentation of a source as an argument about the reliability of the source, and someone calls me on it, what should I do?" with the following options:

1. Admit the mistake,
2. Complain about perceived personal attacks?

Maybe we do need rules against that sort of shit. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:50, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Hob Gadling, I didn't say telling someone what they do is wrong is a personal attack. I said that accusing someone of not being here to build the encyclopedia, which you did (making it a rhetorical question is not much of a defense in my opinion), is a personal attack. I would appreciate if instead of implying the Arbcom case was started (btw, not by SFR or myself but by GeneralNotability) in order to punish editors and their family/friends, you would try and de-escalate the situation. Our discussion here is doing nothing more than disrupting the actual discussion above on the reliability of SI. I understand if you are infuriated at other editors' perspective on the source, but your incivility is entirely unwarranted. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 08:35, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

If you do not want this discussion to go on a tangent, then do not make the tangent longer. If you want to complain, go complain in the right place. I am not infuriated at other editors' perspective on the source but at other editors' behaviour patterns. I just wrote an essay User:Hob Gadling/Admit mistakes about it. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:38, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Sometimes I lose sight of what is important and make individual decisions that fail to build the encyclopedia. So does Hob. So does A._C._Santacruz. And ScottishFinnishRadish. And Jimbo Wales. The only perfect Wikipedia editor is User:example and I have my doubts about him. In such cases asking "are you here to build the encyclopedia?" should be considered a gentle reminder, not a personal attack. It clearly isn't a claim about someone's entire edit history. If you disagree, go to ANI, report the alleged personal attack, and see what happens. I will make popcorn. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 10:12, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

BTW, @2600:1702:4960:1DE0:A18A:3CD:299A:9B40: you contributed nothing to the discussion except empty polemics, and you are in the wrong place. And words do often not have One True Meaning. Read the top lines of Skepticism: For the philosophical view, see Philosophical skepticism. For denial of uncomfortable truths, see Denialism. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:02, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

On the topic of reliable for fact, opinions must be attributed, is there any clear delineation between fact and opinion in this source? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes. For example, recent article A Life Preserver for Staying Afloat in a Sea of Misinformation is clearly opinion with phrases such as "In my experience", while recent article The Kremlin and the Kabbalah: Is the Letter ‘Z’ on Russian Tanks a Reference to the Jewish Zohar? is clearly factual, correctly presenting attributed factual claims by Israeli spoon-bender Uri Geller, Air Force Lt. Col. Tyson Wetzel, and former Marine Capt. Rob Lee. It also correctly describes the content of the Zohar (AKA Sefer Ha-Zohar), which Geller references. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 12:29, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

So there's no clear delineation, is what you're saying. This feature article is opinion, but this feature article is, ostensibly, factual reporting? This special report is opinion while this special report is factual reporting? Any determination of what is a statement of fact and what is opinion is left up to whoever is reading? ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 11:47, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I am seeing far too much gatekeeping (telling people that they are not allowed to partipate or that they are not allowed to make certain arguments), and most of it from a small number of editors.

If you don't like what someone writes, either respond with a counterargument or just ignore it. Ignoring comments that you don't think should have been posted is usually better than criticizing the person who posted them -- a bad habit which invariably leads to a long back and forth containing many more comments you don't like. It is almost always better to just ignore the comment and move on.

Unless you are tied to a chair with your head in a clamp, your eyes taped open, a self-refreshing Wikipedia feed on a monitor, and the Wikipedia Song blaring into your ears, nobody is forcing you to respond to or even read comments on Wikipedia talk pages, so if you feel that you are being subjected to something that you find to be unpleasant, you only have yourself to blame.

If you are tied to a chair, etc., let me address your captors: First, keep up the good work. Second, please take away their keyboard.

--Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 03:11, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Closure request

• Wikipedia:Closure requests#Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RfC: Skeptical Inquirer

"Formal closure by an uninvolved editor or administrator should be requested where consensus appears unclear, where the issue is a contentious one, or where there are wiki-wide implications... On average, it takes two or three weeks after a discussion has ended to get a formal closure from an uninvolved editor... Because requests for closure made [at WP:RFCLOSE] are often those that are the most contentious, closing these discussions can be a significant responsibility. Closers should be familiar with all policies and guidelines that could apply to the given discussion. All closers should be prepared to fully discuss the closure rationale with any editors who have questions about the closure or the underlying policies, and to provide advice about where to discuss any remaining concerns that those editors may have. Closers who want to discuss their evaluation of consensus while preparing for a close may use WP:Discussions for discussion." --WP:RFCLOSE. --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 14:19, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• I find it astonishing that an attempt was made to delete the above comment, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given the circumstances. Having stayed away from this poisonous discussion, except to mark my opinion, this just seems to be the last straw. I too would like to see a closer, or three, come forward. Balls of steel may be required. -Roxy the grumpy dog. wooF 17:10, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

It was an interesting test. Everything I write is immediately criticized by A. C. Santacruz as being biased, so I simply quoted RFCLOSE word for word with no added comments. In a clear violation of WP:TPOC, A. C. Santacruz deleted the post.

"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You closed an RfC and I didn't get my way. Prepare to be talked to death." --Guy Macon Alternate Account (talk) 17:47, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I removed it because I saw it as unnecessarily patronizing to the highly experienced panel of editors you have requested and see this, as part of your constant and incessant requests to close this thread (here, in AN, and multiple times at ANRFC) as taking enough editor hours to be disruptive. Just the notice at ANRFC is enough. I probably should have collapsed your quoting above and see how outright reverting was a step too far. The fact you did it as a test on my behaviour, however, makes it WP:POINTY. If editors believe there is no harm with leaving the message up there I don't have a problem with that, but there's no need to be pedantic about it. Additionally, you haven't closed this RfC as much as just overly quoted RFCLOSE for no discernable reason at all so I don't see the point in the youtube link either. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 18:57, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

• Guy… A.C. … Just STOP… BOTH of you. Please. Blueboar (talk) 20:50, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

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

RfC on sources justifying a merge of "autism" and "autism spectrum"

Are WP:MEDRS sources required to justify merging autism and autism spectrum? And if so, do these sources meet the MEDRS criteria or not? Averixus (talk) 12:13, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

There is a proposal to merge the pages autism and autism spectrum. The following sources were provided in the proposal as evidence that the terms are used synonymously:

List of sources

• The NHS's 'What is autism?' page
• The NAS
• Autism Speaks (sorry)
• Autism Society
• Autism Science Foundation
• Healthline
• WebMD
• NIH
• Autistica
• Psychiatry.org
• Scottish Autism
• Various papers: [61]
• [62]
• [63]
• [64]

There's been a suggestion that these sources do not meet WP:MEDRS criteria. There's also been suggestion that the MEDRS criteria don't apply here because it's a question of common-use names rather than biomedical information. Are (any of) these reliable sources to use for merging autism and autism spectrum? Are MEDRS-approved sources required for this case or are standard reliable sources sufficient?

The full discussion is on the autism spectrum talk page.

Averixus (talk) 13:21, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Do medical sources use them synonymously? If so then it would better to just use those sources. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:56, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

What do you mean by medical sources? Do the NHS, NIH etc not count as medical? Averixus (talk) 15:00, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

You said There's been a suggestion that these sources do not meet WP:MEDRS criteria.. Are there any sources that people are saying does meet that criteria? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:32, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

Oh I see, thanks. The person opposing the use of these sources has said None of the sources you have provided are MEDRS, so they believe none of the sources are suitable. Averixus (talk) 15:36, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm copying over my reply from that talk page, as it seems relevant to here.

While I don't want to speak on behalf of Wretchskull, I would point out that while the NHS is obviously a medical institution, its website (NHS.uk) is aimed at non-medical members of the public. A more appropriate source for current UK guidance, that is explicitly WP:MEDRS per WP:MEDSCI would be the guidance, standards, and pathways published by NICE. It will take me some time to read through it all in detail, as it has been updated since I last read it (most recent update was circa June 2021), however at first glance the following quotation stands out to me as relevant to this discussion In this guideline 'autism' refers to 'autism spectrum disorders' encompassing autism, Asperger's syndrome and atypical autism (or pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified). Sideswipe9th (talk) 16:44, 6 March 2022 (UTC)

The issue with that particular quote though is the context. Its specificially talking about 'autism' in general and so needs to explicitly clarify the guide applies to all 'autism spectrum disorders'. That does *not* mean the terms are used synonymously, otherwise there wouldn't need to be a clarification for medical professionals. That said, for the purposes of a general encyclopedia, the terms should be/are currently synonymous. For the purposes of a medical encyclopedia, no. The only real question is where do we sit? Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:57, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I would agree, except that the ICD 11 only lists five subtypes (6A02.0-5), with the variations being whether or not the individual also has an intellectual and/or language impairment. There are no other meaningful distinctions. Since the adoption of the ICD 11, within the UK diagnoses of Aspergers, PDD-NOS, or others are not issued. For comparison, the previously used ICD 10 listed Aspergers (F84.5), atypical autism (F84.1), and Kanner/childhood autism (F84.0) as separate disorders under pervasive developmental disorders, alongside other syndromes like Rett syndrome (10:F94.2, 11:LD90.4). While the existing diagnoses will obviously continue to exist for people who were diagnosed prior to the adoption of the ICD 11, both on paper and socially as part of their identity, from a new diagnosis perspective there is only autism spectrum disorder.

As for your question at the end, where do we sit? I'd say somewhere around the general encyclopedia area. While we should continue to have pages on Aspergers, or PDD-NOS, I would suggest that those should be made clear that they are largely historical and not applicable in 2022+. Sideswipe9th (talk) 01:35, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm confused why this is now an RfC? Is it really necessary to answer this question? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:16, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

These questions are the central consideration in deciding whether or not to go ahead with merging two large articles, and it's so far been difficult to reach consensus because of disagreement about whether or how to apply WP:MEDRS to this specific situation. Is there a reason it shouldn't be an RfC? Averixus (talk) 20:24, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

It seems premature at best to have an RfC on this, when discussion is still unfolding. The original post here was just over a day ago, and per WP:RFCBEFORE this discussion has not been thoroughly exhausted yet.

I'd also like to quote from the page notice for this noticeboard Before starting an RfC please consider: is your question a one-off, or is it project-wide? Is it about reliability or prominence? A question of the form "is X source reliable for Y content on Z article" should normally be addressed at the article's talk page, but you can post a note here. This seems to be, at least currently, a one off question. It's not about the reliability of these sources in general, but whether or not the set of meets MEDRS criteria in the context of the autism merge discussion. I may be mistaken, but I suspect that even if this needs to be an RfC, that this is the wrong place for this discussion. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:33, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I would say that the question of the reliability of these sources in general is likely to go on being relevant. We have MEDRS stating that good sources include 'guidelines or position statements published by major health organizations'. The original citations included what seem to be NHS guidelines, as well as similar from Healthline, WebMD and NIH. If people are liable to dismiss such things as not meeting MEDRS requirements, I think we'll need a ruling on whether that's appropriate. Oolong (talk) 08:19, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

But this is asking about it in the very specific context of a WP:RM discussion. Starting it with that framing means it will be of limited applicability in other contexts. Basically it feels like this RFC is asking us to decide the RM indirectly without actually starting the RM itself - that makes no sense. If there's going to be an RM, that should be held on that page first, with an announcement here if necessary. --Aquillion (talk) 05:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

Maybe I'm missing something, but there's been quite a bit of discussion on the relevant page. One (former) participant in that discussion was insisting that none of the citations disproving his point counted, which is why the question came here. By the by, it's a merge request, not a move request.

I still think it would be helpful to have more clarity about the citation requirements for different aspects of something like autism: what are the bounds of what counts as 'biomedical', and is it acceptable to cite something like a public-facing National Health Service page in support of points which may or may not be considered biomedical?

We're talking about autism in particular here, but this kind of question is very relevant to other kinds of neurodivergence, disabilities including deafness, and contested psychiatric categories like gender identity disorder/gender dysphoria and various paraphilias. Oolong (talk) 15:18, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think it makes sense to leap straight to an RFC here. What outcome, exactly, are you asking for? A page merge ought to be decided by a discussion on that page; leaping straight to an RFC at RSN to decide a specific thing that seems likely to require a RM on that page feels like WP:FORUMSHOPping. Examining the sources that might justify a move is normally part of an RM; a global discussion at RSN usually requires some indication that the problem is more widespread. Basically, why couldn't this question be settled via a normal RM? You can of course link or discuss the RM here if you believe it raises major RS issues, but it strikes me as off to try and preempt what might be a key question for it like this. --Aquillion (talk) 05:46, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
  • If there's disagreement as to the reliability of the sources being used to justify a proposed merge, isn't the answer to that relevant? 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:1449:4A9E:866:5F64 (talk) 04:42, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• That depends a lot on what the sources are being used to cite and what the basic arguments for the merge are. Some arguments might be MEDRS sensitive (eg. if they focus on treatments for autism, or its diagnosis or prognosis) and others might not be (if they're based on usage, naming, available sources for non-MEDRS aspects of the topic, or discussions of how best to structure and arrange the available information.) As it is this question is too broad and vague for us to give you a useful answer. --Aquillion (talk) 06:17, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

RfC: AllSides media bias ratings

Which of the following best describes AllSides's (allsides.com) media bias ratings? This question has been discussed several times at RSN (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but participants have mostly talked passed one another and editors recently disagreed on how to interpret the consensus. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 15:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

Survey: Allsides

• Option 2: I believe that broadly categorizing AllSides as either reliable or unreliable would oversimplify it. Their website consists of several different sections with different but related aims; they have drawn by far the most attention from editors for their media bias ratings, which attempt to describe the bias of websites' news reporting on a five-point scale. In making these assessments, they depend on a variety of factors; along with each rating, they include a section explaining how they reached the conclusion they did. Some of their explanations, like those for The New York Times and Fox News, are extremely thorough; others, like those for The Telegraph and The Atlantic, seem to rely heavily on surveys, which is problematic. (AllSides acknowledges this by noting that they have "low confidence" in the latter two ratings.) Their research seems reasonably well-done, they have solid editorial control, and they are frank in acknowledging their limitations. Personally, I think that we should approach AllSides on a case-by-case basis; the more exhaustive the methodology section is, the more likely the rating is to be reliable and constitute due weight. Ratings in which they have "low confidence" should probably never be used, while high confidence ratings are generally usable with attribution, though in some articles, editors may not consider them valuable enough to include. In some cases, content from the methodology section may be usable even when the bias rating itself is not, although when they are reporting what other sources have said, editors should prefer those sources. There are several other caveats that I believe editors should keep in mind when using AllSides: it does not consider opinion columns nor any television programming, it deliberately chooses not to assess the reliability of sources, and AllSides uses the concepts of left- and right-wing politics in their American sense, which does not apply very well to European politics. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. As I note in the discussion below, several media organizations that explicitly cover the source give it high marks for its bias ratings. Common Sense Media gives AllSides high marks, writing that the news analysis site attempts to offer a thorough assessment of recent media coverage -- and essentially succeeds at that goal and that Generally, AllSides does a stellar job of breaking issues down. CSM also notes some limitations of the methodology (the site's analysis solely involves online reporting, not broadcast or other print coverage). Deseret News's executive editor also appears to like the site's methodology. Several experts interviewed by Poynter gives the media bias rating methodology high marks. Allsides also has a partnership with Christian Science Monitor, which itself has a stellar reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The source's methodology is explicitly given, and the explicit statement in the confidence the source has in a particular rating should enable Wikipedia users to avoid using low-confidence ratings—this is a significantly better source than the number of media bias sites that don't state their methodology and/or don't give anything akin to a confidence interval. Overall, this has the reputation a WP:GREL source for labeling media bias; even USA Today explicitly uses the website as a source for the political orientation of media organizations in its own fact checks (1 2). — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:53, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Like the rest of the "media bias" aggregators, this site does not have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. There are reliable sources for media bias - published, peer reviewed papers. Further, reviewing the Poynter article, the methodology that AllSides uses to rate is beyond problematic - it's bad. "In the blind bias survey, which Mastrine called “one of (AllSides’) most robust bias rating methodologies,” readers from the public rate articles for political bias. Two AllSides staffers with different political biases pull articles from the news sites that are being reviewed. AllSides locates these unpaid readers through its newsletter, website, social media account and other marketing tools." Just no. Hipocrite (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • In fact, the peer reviewed papers use AllSides as their data source for media bias. To say that there is a great deal of separation between peer-reviewed media bias literature and the AllSides ratings is simply not true. — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:01, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
    • You can use anything as a data source... This is a bit of a specific point but my dog once published a paper which almost entirely relied on Inspire (magazine) as a data source, that in no way means that the house publication of AQAP is a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
      • If you don't mind sharing on your dog(?)'s writings, can I ask what the data from Inspire (magazine) was used for in that study? — Mhawk10 (talk) 06:24, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 per my reasoning in the discussion section. They're a tool which may be valuable for use outside of wikipedia but as a source its a no-go and we have no use for such tools here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 - I agree with the assessment of Compassionate272, above. Judge it on a case by case basis… because a LOT depends on how confident they are in their own methodology and rating. Blueboar (talk) 19:02, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Generally unreliable. Placing ideologies on the political spectrum is inherently subjective, i.e., it depends on the position of the person placing them. Allsides groups CNN, The Nation and Jacobin as left-wing. In reality there is a large difference between CNN, which is corporate media supporting liberal capitalism, and Jacobin, which describes itself as "a leading voice of the American left, offering socialist perspectives on politics, economics, and culture." (It shows a picture of Karl Marx.) The reason anyone would believe these publications occupy the same place in the political spectrum would be if they were conspiracy theorists. TFD (talk) 21:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 I agree with most of the comments raised by Compassionate727, who previously I had a discussion with on the reliability of the source. It is indubitably subjective and should IMO certainly be evaluated case by case basis. The quality of AllSides likewise tremendously depends on its asserted quality, e.g., the high confidence ratings are definitely more reliable, but even though they clearly do not manifest Option 1 as generally reliable. For example, it lists the CSM as centrist with high confidence, vindicating that “As of May 2016, The Christian Science Monitor’s AllSides media bias rating remained the same, despite a small majority of nearly 2,500 community members disagreeing with our Center rating.” Nevertheless, currently most of the community disagrees with the rating, which the site states may lead to a re-evaluation, but this is not the case and the entry has not been updated. Besides, its low confidence entries are poor, including the Daily Telegraph one linking back to Wikipedia as a ref, which seems to be circular source IMO. As per Compassionate 727’s comments, some of its ratings are almost entirely based on Blind Bias Surveys that are attributed from people all over the spectrum with no noted expertise, which might be unreliable. As a result, to me AllSides could at best be used for rudimentary info preferably with attribution, and if other RS cover it they should be preferred over this.

Mhawk10’s comments are also insightful, but I do disagree with some aspects. Common Sense Media, an RS primarily for film and media reviews, give AllSides a favourable rating. This does not seem to make it reliable- it also awarded WP a four star rating, despite it being user-generated. Further, the source does not seem to have a reputation for accuracy, as almost all source can be found in peer-reviewed journals, including MBFC, but this does not likely warrant significant coverage. Therefore, to me this is not generally reliable even for the high confidence ratings and should be determined situationally. Many thanks. VickKiang (talk) 21:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• • The star-rating system you're referencing isn't a reliability scale. According to their methodology, Common Sense Media rates media based on both age appropriateness and, for digital media, learning potential. We rely on developmental criteria from some of the nation's leading authorities to determine what content is appropriate for which ages. And research on how kids learn from media and technology informs our learning ratings. Wikipedia is actually quite good for learning about new things—that is the entire purpose of having a free encyclopedia. And, CSM flags Wikipedia as Collaborative reference: Research with caution. If you read the extended description, it says that Kids must be encouraged to think critically about what they read and double check facts and sources if they are using anything for a homework assignment when viewing Wikipedia; it's not saying that WP is actually super reliable for asserting specific facts in a high school-level academic setting (or, presumably, in more serious settings). — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:26, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, and I concur with your statements on WP, but you stated that CSM gave high marks, while also suggesting that it only determines learning potential, so how does that make this source reliable? The view expressed for the Poynter article is cherry picked, it states “But use them with caution” and likewise notes the similarities of AllSides and Ad Fontes, the later being generally unreliable. I am also tentative of the quality of the Deseret article, it labels as an opinion piece only and also said that “Meanwhile, the Ad Fonte Media Bias Chart—yet another respected gauge of bias”. Do you consider Ad Fontes also reliable?

Thanks for your helpful ideas and please comment below for any disagreements. Cheers and thanks. VickKiang (talk) 04:41, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

When I say "high marks", I was not referring to the star-based rating system, but to the quote that immediately followed that statement and to the section of the page titled "Is It Any Good?" more generally. I apologize for the lack of clarity there. The caution Poynter is expressing is to not use bias to determine reliability; we capture this in our guideline WP:BIASED, but that hardly seems like a mark against the bias ratings provided by this source. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:43, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the useful clarification, and apologies for my misunderstanding. However, I would also point out that IMO the CSM's evaluation of 'Is it any good?' on its own is not a sufficient indication of reliability and is skewed towards learning potential. There are dozens of examples, but one of them is that it cites Britannica as the "most trusted resource" and praises it extensively, notwithstanding it being only marginally reliable upon a search on WP: Perennial Sources. In comparison, would you view that source to be as top-notch as CSM suggests? Further, the claim that the experts gave AllSides high marks might be erroneous, as that interviewed expert is Mastrine, who is the owner of the unreliable Ad Fontes and likely does not reflect the general view of professionals in media research (hence her praise is likely biased). The comment of USA Today's use of this source for the fact check is invalid as it also cites MBFC. Would you consider MBFC as well as Ad Fontes (please see my previous argument on your comments made for Deseret News article, which noteworthily is merely an opinion source) reliable? As a result, from my point of view, the statement of "USA Today explicitly uses the website as a source for the political orientation of media organizations in its own fact checks" is cherry-picked as unreliable sources are frequently utilised. It is present in some peer-reviewed journals but is tangentially mentioned (i.e., your discussion noted below, and like already said media bias sites are used for sure occasionally, including MBFC for the Iffy Quotient, but is too restrained for significant use). Nevertheless, AllSides is marginally better than Ad Fontes and MBFC because of its unambiguously stated methodology, still, it lacks IMO the status of a reliable source. Thanks again for your comments and time. Cheers. VickKiang (talk) 05:26, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3. They are primarily opinion (and are mostly covered as such) but make no particular distinction between fact an option; the poynter coverage of them above specifically does not praise or even evaluate them in its article voice that I can see, and most of the usage or coverage consists of passing mentions; most of what it says is quoted from AllSides. "Raw data" types of websites are generally very hard to use because it's tricky for them to be anything other than primary for their own raw data; but we definitely couldn't use them to support statements in the article voice, and whether to cover things as their opinion is going to come down to due weight - which is often going to be lacking. Additionally, the very nature of AllSides means that their coverage of news sources is going to be indiscriminate, ie. a source having a rating there means little, as opposed to academic papers discussing their bias. There are just much better (and more specific) source available on the political outlook of sources when it is relevant, which AllSides shouldn't be weighted with and therefore isn't generally usable along; and if AllSides is the only source, it's hard to support using it because of its indiscriminate nature and blurring of reporting and opinion. This makes it difficult to see any situation where it would be an RS. --Aquillion (talk) 03:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 I agree with Compassionate. This should be on a case-by-case basis. Sometimes Allsides is great, using thorough fact checking methods, while other times it's a bit more of an online survey. For the Allsides ratings that are supported by other RS or appear to have undergone a good analysis they are generally reliable, but for the one's that appear to have received little attention and care, they should not be used. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 06:42, 15 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Compassionate727. LondonIP (talk) 12:20, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 - agree with Aquillion’s perspective. I will add that without years of training and hands-on experience learning how to approach a topic from a NPOV, most human-based methods are likely to be biased, inadvertent or otherwise. Atsme 💬 📧 20:21, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Allsides

• Coverage of Wikipedia aside Allsides does not have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, their opinion may be notable when mentioned by a WP:RS but they are not themselves a reliable source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:46, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • @Horse Eye's Back: Common Sense Media gives AllSides high marks, writing that the news analysis site attempts to offer a thorough assessment of recent media coverage -- and essentially succeeds at that goal and that Generally, AllSides does a stellar job of breaking issues down. CSM also notes some limitations of the methodology (the site's analysis solely involves online reporting, not broadcast or other print coverage). Deseret News's executive editor also appears to like the site's methodology. Several experts interviewed by Poynter gives the media bias rating methodology high marks. — Mhawk10 (talk) 16:41, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
    • Thank you for the links. I'm not sure how much any of them demonstrate the necessary reputation for fact checking and accuracy. I'm not sure if we should even consider any of them other than the Poynter piece. --Hipal (talk) 17:28, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

      Well, Global News describes it as a fact-checking website that is recommended by the experts they interviewed. As I note in my !vote in the discussion section above, AllSides has a partnership with Christian Science Monitor, which has a stellar reputation for its reporting. USA Today also uses the website as a source in its own fact checks (1 2) for the explicit purpose of labeling the political lean of media outlets. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:51, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Isn't Common Sense Media a paternalistic content rating agency? I don't think they're a WP:RS. Likewise CSM *used* to have a stellar reputation, they're so-so these days like with Deseret their links to a fringe religious sect have gotten more problematic. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:RSP, Common Sense Media is generally reliable in the area of its reviews for entertainment sources. Its applicability to other areas has not been the subject of significant discussion, but it looks like a situational source. Christian Science Monitor is WP:GREL on WP:RSP for news and, as far as I am aware, has not seen its reputation change in recent years. Is there reporting from reliable sources that suggest this? Also, Deseret News is WP:GREL on WP:RSP for news, so I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at here. — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:03, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

This is not a review of an entertainment source. Something can be less than stellar and still generally reliable. CSM's commentary has been getting increasingly extreme, for instance these pieces[65][66][67][68]. As Hipal pointed out the only thing we can actually use from what you presented is Poynter and they explicitly endorse All Sides as a *tool* not as a source so that has nothing to do with our discussion here. You also seem to have misstated the consensus on Deseret "The Deseret News is considered generally reliable for local news." not "news" as you said. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

With respect to Poynter, the only caution that they give is not to use the bias charts that they are discussing as a measure of reliability (centrist news sources are not always higher quality), and state that Media bias charts with transparent, rigorous methodologies can offer insight into sources’ biases and that such charts offer well-researched appraisals on the bias of certain sources. I don't really know what to conclude from that except taht they are well-researched and useful when their methodologies are transparent and rigorous; again, that's what a WP:RS is. With respect to Deseret, I don't think that anybody in the previous discussions made a distinction between local news and its news more broadly; it's a regional newspaper that tends to focus on LDS issues and regional topics, but I think that the word "local" in RSP is simply a mis-reading of the three discussions linked that unduly restricts the scope of its reliability. With respect to CS Monitor's opinions being published, I really don't think that we should consider its WP:RSOPINION pieces to be similar to its news coverage. In fact, all of those pieces you've linked are labeled as A Christian Science perspective, which plainly indicates that the perspective pieces are written from the viewpoint of a particular religious affiliation. The use of the source I linked is to establish that AllSides has a partnership with Christian Science Monitor the magazine—I think it would be silly to paint it as if the partnership were involved in one particular type of clearly labeled religious opinion column. You've also not addressed the coverage in Global News and the WP:USEBYOTHERS by USA Today's fact-checkers. If USA Today's fact-checkers are using the source in a particular way, is that not evidence of reliability for facts? — Mhawk10 (talk) 18:43, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

When you're at the point down the rabbit hole were you're accusing someone of having made a mistaken RSP entry you should probably take a step back. USEBYOTHERS is not a trump card and alone isn't even enough, its just one piece of the puzzle and most of the pieces seem to be missing here. I would also note that for many sources AllSides separates out opinion and news in their rating, they do not do so for CSM. Also AllSides methodology is *not rigorous* its actually rather shit, if you tried to submit a paper to a polisci or media studies journal using their methodology you would be laughed out of academia. We aren't comparing them to other media bias groups (which are mostly unreliable) we're comparing them to actual reliable sources like journal articles. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

You may think this, but a Routledge-published scholarly book notes that Allsides' use of multiple modes of analysis strengthens our overall confidence in their ratings. Hardly seems like this gets you laughed out of academia. — Mhawk10 (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

How is that related? They aren't using their methodology and they don't even say its reliable they just say they have some level of confidence in it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:35, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

They are saying that they have enough confidence that the bias ratings are correct to use it as a variable in their analysis. In other words, they're saying that it's reliable enough for bias ratings that they have confidence using it in their analysis, with the confidence being bolstered by the multi-mode analysis that involves editorial oversight, surveying, etc. — Mhawk10 (talk) 22:05, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

What does that mean for us though? We do not do analysis. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:14, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

You keep claiming that AllSides's methodology is awful, but you have neither explained why in any particular detail nor cited anyone who makes this claim. Do you have anything you can point to in support of your position? —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 19:46, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

"In the blind bias survey, which Mastrine called “one of (AllSides’) most robust bias rating methodologies,” readers from the public rate articles for political bias. Two AllSides staffers with different political biases pull articles from the news sites that are being reviewed. AllSides locates these unpaid readers through its newsletter, website, social media account and other marketing tools. The readers, who self-report their political bias after they use a bias rating test provided by the company, only see the article’s text and are not told which outlet published the piece. The data is then normalized to more closely reflect the composure of America across political groupings. AllSides also uses “editorial reviews,” where staff members look directly at a source to contribute to ratings." So just to sum up they take bad data, run it through some opaque normalization algorithm, and then might or might not disregard it based on editorial preferences. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I am not sure why you consider the data "bad"; it is entirely normal for survey organizers to solicit participants through their own networks of contacts in addition to the standard "other marketing tools"; in general, participants who are solicited through direct contacts are better than ones solicited via random survey distributors because many of those people are professional survey-takers clicking random responses as quickly as possible because they are being awarded per survey. There is no reason to expect AllSides's contacts to be unusually biased; even if there was, they normalize the results so that the personal bias of, e.g., some right-wing nut who thinks that all media that disagrees with him is far-left propaganda because Ben Shapiro says so doesn't skew the results. As for their "editorial reviews," it has already been noted that AllSides considers a number of other factors, including research by scholars and organizations like Pew as well as their own editors impressions of the source after reading its articles (see the Fox News bias rating for an example of this process), which of course will (and should) affect the final rating. On the whole, "I don't understand what they are doing" by itself doesn't seem like a good reason to reject a source. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 16:56, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

"On the whole, "I don't understand what they are doing" by itself doesn't seem like a good reason to reject a source." if someone ever makes that argument I'l be sure to let them know. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:29, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

• How would this information be used by Wikipedia? Sources like this I think are useful for RSN discussions but the discussion here suggests we would want to use the ratings of this company in article space. If a RS says "Allsides said X" well fine but if we are editing an article about the WSJ we shouldn't include a sentence like, "Allsides rates the WSJ as X [cite Allsides]". Springee (talk) 16:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • Given the past RSN and other discussions, I added it to my list of problematic references in Dec'19, and started actively been removing them around Sep'20. I've found a lot of discussion, but very little attempted use. Generally better sources have been favored. My impression is that where it has been attempted to be used, it is to counter reputable, historic viewpoints. --Hipal (talk) 17:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)
  • In articles like The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Irish Times, Newsmax, Jacobin (magazine), AlterNet, The Grayzone, etc. we already state the political affiliation of the source in the lead or infobox. This would serve as one reliable source among others that could be used in describing the political leans of publications. — Mhawk10 (talk) 17:40, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

AllSides uses an American political spectrum, it would not be possible to use them as a source for the general leaning of outlets in other countries. You will note that for the foreign sources they do rate they only review their US coverage. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:38, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Mhawk10, do you agree that CNN and Jacobin occupy the same position in the political spectrum or that CNN is more left-wing than The Guardian? TFD (talk) 23:26, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

CNN and Jacobin don't occupy the same political ideology; Jacobin is generally to the left of CNN's online news coverage. There is tremendous diversity of thought in the left-wing to far-left; Maoists are not politically the same as Trotskyists, Marxist-Leninists are not the same as hardcore left-liberals, and are Stalinists are not the same as La France Insoumise, which are each rather different that Juche practitioners and the anarcho-syndicalists of the Regional Defense Council of Aragon. Generally, however, the left-right framework would put all of those groups on the left, even though they tend to vociferously disagree. CNN's online U.S. political coverage follows a left-liberal line, while Jacobin follows a (democratic) socialist approach. The two are not the same, but in the context of AMPOL they get thrown in on the left side of the political divide. As for the news coverage, I haven't conducted a systemic review of CNN and The Guardian, but my inclination is that the two share a common left-liberal approach in the types of stories they choose to cover; they're both fairly comparable to Vox. — Mhawk10 (talk) 03:13, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

I just removed this addition as a new editor's only edit. Is is safe to assume WP:ARBAP2 applies to such edits? --Hipal (talk) 17:34, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Another one [69], ARBAP2 definitely applies. --Hipal (talk) 19:12, 19 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it applies, and I agree that both of those are inappropriate uses of the source. Biases should always be attributed, and there's rarely (dare I say never?) any reason to mention them except in a dedicated context. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 00:02, 21 March 2022 (UTC)

References

RfC: Alexa Internet

In light of its upcoming shutdown in May, should citations of Alexa Internet be removed from all articles? -- GreenC 05:44, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Alexa Internet will be shutting down in May. We have 811 citations. They are used almost exclusively for site rankings (maybe some exceptions?). With Alexa offline the rankings are useless even misleading (maybe some exceptions?). Rather than archiving, the entire citation should be deleted along with the sentence that mentions the ranking.

A previous RfC removed Alexa rankings from infoboxes. Editors expressed concern about the accuracy and viability of site ranking generally, the reliability of Alexa, appropriateness for Wikipedia.

Proposal: Delete all citations and cited facts when related to Alexa site rankings. Use common sense to maintain an Alexa ranking score indefinitely if required by the text. -- GreenC 15:30, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

• OP Opine: Alexa is/was a marketing product, used by advertisers. It has largely been replaced by an entire industry that includes Nielsen, Comscore, etc.. if you want good site metric data you pay for it. The freebie stuff is questionable and keeping it updated on Wikipedia is challenging. There was nearly unanimous calls for removal in the last RfC because Alexa is "unencylopedic", a black box algorithm, many consider it an unreliable source. The last RfC was removal from Infoboxes only, this extends to all text, in light of pending shutdown. -- GreenC 15:30, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• I'm not sure leaping straight to an RFC makes sense per WP:RFCBEFORE (this seems like the sort of situation where we'd want to have a proper discussion to figure out options.) But honestly I don't think we should have been directly citing Alexa numbers directly in the first place for the reasons mentioned above - they are vague about their methodology and there's plenty of reason to be skeptical of the free data they provide. The one value that they (debatably) provided was up-to-date data; now even that will be gone. The only alternative to removing them seems to be using archive links, which I definitely don't think we should do. "This site had an Alexa rating of X in June 2019" seems to me to be using specific data to the point of basically being WP:OR - ie. why that date? As time passes it will come to carry a specific meaning not in the source - though really any Alexa ratings do, because they're almost always used to imply something about the source that Alexa itself doesn't actually attest to given their vagueness about what those numbers mean. In my experience Alexa was almost always used to make an implicit argument of "this site is popular, and therefore important and noteworthy", which it shouldn't be used for given its limitations and the WP:OR risk. --Aquillion (talk) 17:57, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

We did discuss it 1.5 years ago at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_173#RfC:_Alexa_Rankings_in_Infoboxes where there was near-unanimous RfC consensus against these links existing on Wikipedia Infoboxes, but also against the links generally. This RfC is required because the first RfC was limited to infoboxes which is an arbitrary criteria in most cases. -- GreenC 05:44, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• @GreenC: Thanks for raising this issue. Could you please rephrase the RfC statement as a neutral and brief question per WP:RFCBRIEF, e.g. "In light of its upcoming shutdown in May, should citations of Alexa Internet be removed from all articles?" Your rationale can be moved anywhere below the first timestamp, preferably to the survey or discussion section. — Newslinger talk 17:59, 12 March 2022 (UTC)
• These should not be deleted, but piped through Internet Archive to preserve them, if possible.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:50, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

  Of course dead links are saved automatically anyway. The question is why are we keeping these links? To know that on June 12, 2010, XYZ.com was ranked #34 by alexa.com and this statistic will never be updated again but frozen forever on Wikipedia? If there was some reason this stat was important, great, but in most cases there is no reason. It's unencyclopedic trivia, arguably inaccurate and unreliable, outdated and outmoded. If someone wants historical Alexa data for a future project, they can get it from the Wayback Machine in more complete form. -- GreenC 06:07, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

  As ScottishFinnishRadish and GretLomborg put it below, sometimes a site's popularity at a particular point in time is encyclopedically relevant. E.g., EFF.org was once the fourth-most-linked-to website in the world, and was for several years (behind Microsoft, Netscape, and one of the pre-Google search engines). I agree with CaribDigita below that when the intent is to show current popularity, then we should use newer tools like Netcraft.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

• Delete it. I was wondering this. Things can get replaced by Netcraft.com website indexing services (from the same era as before Amazon bought Alexa). Most old internet site rankings after a few years may not matter all that much, and Amazon could disable it if they put no-index in the header record as that purges it from Internet Archive. CaribDigita (talk) 09:56, 14 March 2022 (UTC)
• Fine to remove them when found, although I wouldn't go out of my way searching them out. I would keep them, however, if they are used to show the ranking at a specific notable time frame, e.g. Website A was had an Alexa rank of Graham's number, but after it's breaking of the story that Cold fusion and the EM Drive both work, it's Alexa rank rose to 7. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 17:09, 15 March 2022 (UTC) (Summoned by bot)
• I agree with SMcCandlish: the links should be archived. I think it makes sense to remove links to Alexa if the purpose is to show current popularity, but I think I read somewhere that a source doesn't necessarily have to be accessible *now* to be usable, so if the context was popularity at some particular time the cite should stay. - GretLomborg (talk) 18:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• I agree with Aquillion, and SMcCandlish. It is too soon, and we should WP:Preserve when possible. Huggums537 (talk) 01:16, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

MSNBC

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

---

An editor directed me here. I think MSNBC's reliability should change due to it being controversial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSNBC_controversies Master106 (talk) 01:38, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Any large news organization is going to be subject to controversies. That, in and of itself, does not make it unreliable. What is your evidence that MSNBC news operation is unreliable? --Jayron32 12:38, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

SUPPORT: That is not the point of the request, MSNBC format is editorializing with very few exceptions. The NY Times has a history of good reporting, MSNBC has a history of American Left Flackery. MSNBC should be in the same catagory as breitbart from a neutral point of view.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopbackdude (talk • contribs)

With all due respect, ipse dixit is not terribly helpful here; can you point to some evidence for your views? Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:02, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

MSNBC should be in the same catagory as breitbart can you please point me to where MSNBC has made such wild claims like "Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy" "Gay rights have made us dumber" or one of the many birther conspiracy theories about Obama? I'm just trying to judge how they are remotely similar. CUPIDICAE💕 15:08, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

The schedule.

https://www.msnbc.com/schedule

The topics on any given timeslot are news coverage of the news coverage of the news coverage by a specific parties thought leaders and/or cast outs.

Shall we go through the shows personalities problems with unslanted journalism and NPV? The Hackery of the schedule we can go through the problems with each of the personalities but that would be counter prodcutive. At some point the slant of the list must be addressed. Curated for point of view that makes the editors joyous is not the point, the quality of the sourcing is.

MSNBC in news coverage is in the same group of at least the NYPOST if not Breitbart. Loopbackdude (talk) 15:15, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Loopbackdude circular rhetoric with no sources is useless. Please provide sources that establish it is 1.) not reliable 2.) a history of publishing incorrect or fabricated material and 3.) publishing similarly disproven, insane conspiracy theories like that of Breitbart. Thanks. CUPIDICAE💕 15:18, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

Again, you're asking us essentially to accept your media criticism and make broad determinations based on it, and I am not prepared to do so -- you shouldn't accept mine, either. If you can't point us to something a little ore authoritative, then I believe we're done here. That said, have a nice day. Dumuzid (talk) 15:29, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

I do think you should provide proof of articles being unreliable and incorrect to fabricated information used by MSNBC. It would really help the case. Also do not fear if articles are too liberally biased, you are proving a point. I believe that MSNBC can be reliable, I'm mainly focused on the political side of it. Master106 (talk) 23:27, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

References

We just need to be aware when MSNBC is editorialize rather than reporting, and treat editorializing as opinion. Bias does not detract from reliability unless it can be shown that that bias causes them to create fabrications as was the case of Daily Mail and Brietbart. --Masem (t) 01:12, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Or FOX (cough cough) "NEWS" . But seriously, at least have something specific instead of citing another Wikipedia article...Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia...DN (talk) 01:20, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

Oppose What a silly proposal. Yes, it is pretty much a fact that MSNBC and CNN and Fox cable shows have descended into partisan hackery; these talk shows are covered under WP:RSOPINION as being opinion pieces. However, the print media of these outlets is considered generally reliable. WP:RSP lists in detail previous discussions held regarding these outlets. Curbon7 (talk) 01:28, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

This is completely dead on arrival. Close. Zaathras (talk) 01:40, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose I will admit that I watch MSNBC for commentary and opinion, and many of the guests that they interview are genuine experts, and I find what they have to say interesting much of the time. Yes, they are highly partisan and opinionated. But being "controversial" is not the same as being "unacceptable" or "unreliable". Personally, I have rarely if ever cited MSNBC as a source here on Wikipedia. I think that, in most cases, a higher quality and less contentious source that says the same thing is readily available. But every so often, MSNBC runs an actual Ness scoop, and in such cases, its use as a reference should be allowed. Cullen328 (talk) 03:35, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

• Support - talking heads, opinion pieces, and commentary should be treated as such, and applied consistently across the board, be it television, internet, or publication. Opinion & commentary are subjective - it doesn't matter which direction the arrow points. Our job as editors is to be neutral, not omit or give less weight to one political opinion over another - we use in-text attribution, and include all substantial views per DUE. To maintain compliance with NPOV, we need to be aware of our own WP:POV creep; i.e., disagreeing with an opinion doesn't make that opinion wrong, and vice versa. On the other hand, actual news segments are generally reliable as that type of reporting is typically pragmatic, although we do need to be cautious about RECENTISM & BREAKING. Atsme 💬 📧 04:44, 25 March 2022 (UTC)
• Nonsense poll MSNBC is reliable. Opinion shows, like every other opinion shows, are opinion pieces and are as reliable as any other opinion piece. This is typical false balance "If I can't cite Fox and Friends, why can the libs cite Rachel Maddow/CNN/<insert any other purported "leftist" source/>!!!" RFC poll of the month, from people who don't understand how Wikipedia works. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:21, 25 March 2022 (UTC)

  Just to be clear. I did not create this thread to "stick it to the libs". Fox News and CNN have both been deemed reliable sources by Wikipedia,(just excluding Fox's talk shows) and I agree with those decisions. However, I think MSNBC is a totally different case; it has shown to be less trustworthy as time goes on, especially with politics. I know liberal left-leaning editors might be more passionate towards the company, while conservative right-leaning editors might despise it. I just want us to arrive to a better decision on this. Master106 (talk) 00:15, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Procedural comment: This should be closed as malformed: RS/N requests are supposed to arise in the context of the application of the venue as a source in Wikipedia. No relevant context for this proposal is given, without which the discussion is unlikely to be well-grounded. For this reason, this kind of discussion is bad for RS/N. — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:46, 26 March 2022 (UTC)
• General comment not mentioning MSNBC: The existence of bias in a source is not a reason not to use it. The usual reason why a source is bad to use is that the venue has the kind of track record of factual errors and not correcting errors that mean it is unreliable for our purposes. Our policy also depends on the ability of editors to separate assertions of fact from assertion of opinion: hypothetically a source could be so pernicious that, while were we competent enough to make the separation of fact from opinion the factual claims would be reliable, in fact the reportage renders us unable to make this distinction. Philosophically I accept the latter could in principle be the case, but in fact I think there is a craft to editing that allows us, as a group, to see through these attempts. Deprived of the context of a specific example, there's not much to say about general claims made against a venue other than: maybe you're right about the perniciousness of the venue's reporting but have you considered whether it is your biases instead? — Charles Stewart (talk) 10:46, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

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

I understand your comment on this. Maybe it is up to the editors to decide when something is reliable no matter how bad of a source they are. I do admit, I do not like how MSNBC words things in their articles, it isn't my choice news company. Though I can't say that I acted upon bias here, I looked at many other news companies I did follow and I understood the decisions for each; MSNBC just seemed like an outlier to me. I am fine with the current decision right now, unless something comes up in the future. Master106 (talk) 06:28, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

I encourage reopening this discussion. MSNBC is an opinion outlet and is only marginally a news outlet. It was even split off from NBC News, which is primarily real news, so that MSNBC could focus on opinion talk shows. So even the ownership and management admits this. Do I sound like I might be an aggrieved conservative? Not so. Politically I lean Democratic, but when it comes to news I prefer fact over opinion.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 15:08, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

It's best for you to start a separate, well-formed RfC in that case, Chesapeake77. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 15:09, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion! Do you know how I can start one?

Chesapeake77 (talk) 15:15, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

You can see how to do so at WP:RFCST, after starting a new section on this talk page. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 16:22, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

This would be an utter waste of time for everyone here. A 2020 RfC snow-closed as a resounding "yes, reliable", see Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_307#RFC_on_MSNBC. ValarianB (talk) 16:31, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

OK, I see that the decision excluded MSNBC coverage of politics as "reliable". Therefore I have no further concerns.

Chesapeake77 (talk) 18:30, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Should we cite a book by a good publisher even if the source the book cites may be unreliable?

As you can see at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russia&type=revision&diff=1079423664&oldid=1079422503

"some sources estimating that the nation contains over 30% of the world's natural resources"

is cited to a book by a good publisher which in turn cites an interview with Richard Branson.

As the book is by a good publisher Moxy contends that the reliability of Richard Branson for that statement (I don't doubt he is reliable for many other facts but he is not an expert on natural resources) need not be considered by Wikipedia editors.

But according to the NYT and other newspapers many good publishers do not fact check

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/business/publishing-books-errors.html

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a33577796/nonfiction-book-fact-checking-should-be-an-industry-standard/

What do you think?

Chidgk1 (talk) 18:47, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

There's a lot of naivety about "fact checking" on Wikipedia. If a book says "Bauxite mines in Siberia routinely produce over 70 tonnes per day of raw material" do people really think the publisher is going to send a team to "check the fact"? Publishers value expertise, and publish it, nearly always without question. In this case a book by Harvard UP has content which is easily due. Attribute it to the author and have done with it. Alexbrn (talk) 18:52, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I mean, there are limits to fact-checking, but we don't have access to the magical unvarnished truth. Wikipedia's purpose as an encyclopedia is to reflect what the best sources say, which includes reflecting their limitations and flaws. I get leery when people start talking about second-guessing sources, because that amounts to saying that we should do our own WP:OR to correct problems in the sources... or, in other words, sure, the book might have limited fact-checking, but we can't replace it with an editor's opinions! If we have better sources, we can use those. If we don't, then it's the best source available and I'd be opposed to omitting anything just because an editor dislikes their sources or methodology - "I dispute this particular claim in an otherwise-reliable source because I don't think their evidence is strong enough" is an argument fundamentally grounded in WP:OR. --Aquillion (talk) 19:34, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Without delving into it, if you have a good editor/author and a good publisher, I would go with that unless you have equally good evidence to the contrary.Selfstudier (talk) 18:53, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I would say no, as a publisher is motivated by something other than a desire for accuracy. We should judge by the author. Slatersteven (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

The fact that some publishers may have problems with fact-checking does not mean that this publisher, in this case, has published something that is incorrect. I would say that on the balance of things it isn't a great source, but absent a better source that disagrees with, it's usable. Mackensen (talk) 18:56, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I do think the author is good to have cited their source. Presumably they did so so that Wikipedia nit-pickers can click through to it. Chidgk1 (talk) 19:08, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

In order to make my point clear, I am not saying we can't use this source, I am just answering the general point, no, a publisher does not confer RS status on what they publish. Slatersteven (talk) 19:13, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• Since the statement is not presented as a fact and other sources supporting it can easily be found, then the choice of source in this case is not particularly relevant. M.Bitton (talk) 19:20, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

If there is a sources that says otherwise then we can have a debate. On going problem.Moxy- 19:29, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

• For the most part, we don't care about the sources that our sources cite - it has no impact on reliability at all. After all, second-guessing a source's own sources and the conclusions it draws from them amounts to trying to perform WP:OR. There are some caveats; a source that constantly cites unreliable sources might itself be unreliable, and we have to pay close attention to how it is characterized in the proximate source (ie. if they attribute it, we should too, and should pay attention to the language they use and how they treat it in general.) Also, some sources, like Yahoo, republish entire articles verbatim without any editorial control - obviously in that case we can only look at the original source. But it's inappropriate to say eg. "I don't think that the citations on this scholarly paper demonstrate what the author says they demonstrate, therefore we can't cite it." To a certain point, performing interpretation and analysis on often-unreliable primary sources in order to produce something that can be used is the entire point of a secondary source. --Aquillion (talk) 19:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed

Is Indeed a reliable source? I used it once on the Hamburger University page, but the edits were removed per WP:COPYVIO because that page was copyrighted. AKK700 08:01, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Reliable for what purpose? What is the text that is being cited to Indeed... It's a job-search website, so there's probably not a lot of use for it, but it always depends on what text you are citing in Wikipedia. --Jayron32 11:41, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

• I would say mostly no. At best it might be a WP:PRIMARY source for what the organization says about itself, but since it exerts no editorial control it is basically WP:ABOUTSELF at best - it's not published for RS purposes. And even within that narrow window I would be cautious about most stuff there, since it's likely to be too self-serving for ABOUTSELF usage. Even basic numbers and figures from there are likely to be selected to try and be appealing to job-seekers. --Aquillion (talk) 19:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)
• Generally unreliable. Indeed is a platform that hosts self-published/user-generated content. If an Indeed page is confirmed in some way to have been published by a company, it can be treated similarly to a page on the company's own website. — Newslinger talk 06:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Book about Stede Bonnet

Is The Life and Tryals of the Gentleman Pirate, Major Stede Bonnet, a reliable source for the article Stede Bonnet? (See Talk:Stede Bonnet#Speculative / Unsourced Sentences for a discussion of its use.) The book is published by Koehler Books (no WP article), which advertises both "Traditional Publishing" and a "Co-Publishing/Hybrid Model" on its website. I can find only one peripheral mention of Koehler in the archives, and that may not be this company. The author's blog lists only a couple of 'forwards' to other books in addition to this one book as author. Donald Albury 16:46, 29 March 2022 (UTC)

Written by a "lawyer and lobbyist" first, "emerging author" second and "freelance historian" only third, who as far as I can tell makes no claim of any historical training, not even to BA level. Published by a press without a particularly strong reputation, which appears to categorise historical fiction and non-fiction as a single genre(!?), and which reserves traditional publishing for "seasoned writers (with or without an agent) with superb work and a verifiable track record of sales and marketing success" while "emerging authors" (i.e. Jeremy Moss, presumably) get a hybrid/co-publishing type arrangement. I can find no reviews of the book by reputable reviewers, academic or otherwise.

On the other hand, he does get a slot on the BBC's History Extra to write about Bonnet, and the podcast Footnoting History (which is apparently hosted by people with history PhDs) list his work as further reading about Bonnet. So his claims probably aren't obvious nonsense.

All in all, I would advise very cautious use of Jeremy Moss. If he is usable, it's pretty certainly only for supporting uncontentious statements of fact. I certainly wouldn't cite him for speculation about Bonnet's emotional state or to explain why his marriage broke down, which I see is what triggered the examination of this source – leave that to actual historians. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 07:29, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

My first response was to say that any book published under the "Co-Publishing" model was not a reliable source. While I am pretty sure that is how this book was published, I can't point to anything that proves that. I think your formulation is reasonable, and will cite it in the discussion on the talk page. Donald Albury 14:36, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

This is essentially where I come down as well; while in my personal life I think I'd find it fairly authoritative, the dearth of the normal indicia of reliability means proceed with caution. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:39, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I doubt it, which is a shame. Slatersteven (talk) 15:01, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Reliability of Vice news?

https://www.youtube.com/c/VICENews/videos

https://vicetv.com

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_News

These all seem to be referring to the same thing. Vice's other ventures are sometimes comedic and not actual news, which have been discussed before. But I could not find a discussion specifically about vice news's reliability. --Cripplemac (talk) 01:06, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Vice is normally reliable (I use it often on their legal coverage of major SCOTUS cases), but as with any RS, one must be alert to when piece are written as opinion or in a humorous manner, which on a case-by-case basis makes those of questionable use (possibly under RSOPINION). --Masem (t) 01:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

RS? Cripplemac (talk) 03:16, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

WP:RS. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

As has been noted hundreds of times, media organizations often have multiple departments (editorial, humor, fiction, etc.) and we only really need to deal with the actual investigative news reporting activities of such organizations when assessing their reliability as a news organization. That the same media company also publishes humor or opinion doesn't have any effect on the use of their news reporting. --Jayron32 14:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with the above notion, if only because the corollary would be that a humour and opinion website isn't suddenly a reliable media company because they add a news bureau to their website (e.g, Buzzfeed).

As Vice is not an academic source, nor peer-reviewed, is corporate profit-driven media, nor does it make any claim to unbiased, informative journalism, I cannot condone the idea that it is a reliable source PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 09:50, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Reliable sources don’t need to be peer-reviewed, nor do all reliable sources be academic. Mvbaron (talk) 10:49, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Nonetheless, there is nothing to actually distinguish Vice as particularily reliable (I'm not sure how one would readily quantify this, but I imagine it would have to do with inferred citations a la academia). As such, it's just another corporate news outlet like The Washington Post or Fox News. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 10:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Vice would generally be thought to be reliable because of the "brand". For me it would depend on the subject being published about, some of these reliable sources nowadays are not that reliable. Jamiebuba (talk) 11:17, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Since The Washington Post (RSP entry) is generally reliable, and Fox News (RSP entry) is also generally reliable for most topics, that's an argument in favor of the reliability of Vice News. The WP:NEWSORG guideline regards mainstream ("corporate") news outlets as generally reliable, absent significant concerns. — Newslinger talk 13:37, 3 April 2022 (UTC) Edited: 13:45, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

This isn't a discussion about whether Vice News is "particularily [sic] reliable" its a discussion about whether Vice News is reliable, we do generally consider the major corporate news outlets to be reliable. Is your objection specifically about Vice News or is it a general objection to news sources? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:42, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I reiterate my initial statement that there is nothing to verify the objectivity or veracity of Vice News, especially considering that even institutions that often ally with Vice on narrative like the Columbia School of Journalism have previously stated that it "walks a thin line between entertainment and journalism". PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 04:24, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Generally reliable. In past discussions, I've focused on the reliability of Vice News reporting in the field of technology (in which its sub-publication Motherboard does an outstanding job with investigative reports, including the ones on Avast Antivirus and Amazon Ring) and a couple of other topics. Now that I am more familiar with other topic areas covered by Vice News, my position is that Vice News is generally reliable for news, including non-technology news.
  Vice News has won a number of awards for its journalism. In 2021, TheWrap (RSP entry) reported, "For the fourth year in a row, Vice News has secured the most nominations across the news and documentary Emmy Awards, which will be awarded Tuesday and Wednesday. In total, the organization netted 23 nominations." Vice News won 4 News & Documentary Emmy Awards in 2021, all of which were in the news category: Outstanding Short Feature Story in a Newscast for "Meet the Children Being Armed to Defend a Mexican Village From Drug Cartels", Outstanding Feature Story in a Newsmagazine for "Disgrace", Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story in a Newscast for "American Uprising", and Outstanding Newscast for Vice News Tonight.
  There's more. Earlier in 2022, Vice News won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award [70] for "The Shockwave". In 2021, Vice News also won the Rory Peck Award [71] for "Uyghurs Who Fled China Now Face Repression in Pakistan", the Lorenzo Natali Media Prize [72] for "Rohingya Brides Thought They Were Fleeing Violence. Then They Met Their Grooms.", the Online Journalism Award [73] for "The Story of...", and two Edward R. Murrow Awards [74] for "Say Her Name: Investigating the Death of Breonna Taylor" and "Life Under Bombs: On the Frontlines of Fighting in Azerbaijan".
  These are just a small sample of the awards that Vice News has won in the last 16 months, and Vice News was launched in 2013. See the full award list here – there are hundreds of entries. The assertion that "there is nothing to verify the objectivity or veracity of Vice News" does not stand up to the research. (Also, your quote from the Columbia Journalism Review article is taken out of context. The CJR was describing Vice Media's transition from lifestyle/arts coverage in the print magazine Vice, launched in 1994, to the "hard" news of Vice News, launched almost two decades later. I have no idea what you mean by "often ally with Vice on narrative", other than that CJR and Vice News are both high-quality sources with strong reputations for accuracy and fact-checking.) — Newslinger talk 05:50, 4 April 2022 (UTC) Added link to TheWrap article — Newslinger talk 11:10, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

I disagree with and contest the notion that winning emmys is somehow equivalent to a valid source of independent journalism, (and honestly, this litany of awards comes off as strong Western bias since not a single one of them seems to originate from outside Europe or the US); I also disagree with your notion that the quote was taken out of context, as clearly it is subject to interpretation, but those are the words they said, verbatim. PeaceThruPramana26 (talk) 07:43, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

If we are quantifying a news company winning an Emmy ward as a means to prove that they're actually reliable, Would you consider some sources in some other parts of the country in Europe and Africa as being reliable based on Awards won??? If that is the case then we would have a lot of websites who do major crap PR having wikipedia pages and being considered notable. If Vice News is notable, we shouldn't talk about Awards but rather what makes a particular publication or article trusted (it may be an opinion piece or paid featured article. Jamiebuba (talk) 08:31, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

First of all, the reliable sources guideline does not require a source to win any awards to be considered reliable. WP:NEWSORG presumes reporting from well-established news outlets to be reliable in the absence of evidence to the contrary, and no evidence has been presented showing Vice News to be systematically unreliable. Per WP:REPUTABLE, reliable sources have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy", and Vice News's numerous awards for journalism (much more than just a single Emmy, if you read my entire comment) far exceed what is needed to establish Vice News as generally reliable.

Some of Vice News's prominent awards that I missed earlier include the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Audio Reporting (joint) [75] for "The Out Crowd", and four Peabody Awards for "Losing Ground" (in 2020) [76], "Charlottesville: Race and Terror" (in 2017) [77], "The Islamic State" (in 2015) [78], and "Last Chance High" (also in 2015) [79]. Vice News has received more accolades than many of the generally reliable sources on the perennial sources list.

Second, a source is absolutely not required to win any awards in any particular geographic regions to be considered reliable. Nevertheless, Vice News has also won awards in Hong Kong, including a SOPA Award in 2021 [80] for "Worse than a Death Sentence: Inside India’s Sham Tribunals That Could Strip Millions of Citizenship" and a Human Rights Press Award in 2021 [81] for "Land Defenders Are Killed in the Philippines for Protesting Canadian Mining". As a US-based organization that covers more US news than non-US news, there is nothing unusual about Vice News winning more awards in the country it is headquartered in; that is not evidence of "bias".

Lastly, reliability is completely different from notability. Reliability helps determine whether a source can be cited in a Wikipedia article, while notability determines whether a Wikipedia article can be written about a subject. Vice News is also notable, because it meets the general notability guideline. According to the notability guideline for organizations and companies, awards do not directly contribute to the notability of any news organization. Reliable news organizations are not necessary notable, and notable news organizations are not necessary reliable. — Newslinger talk 01:46, 5 April 2022 (UTC) Fixed links and year 11:40, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• Generally reliable. See for in-depth scholarly analysis; both more or less say that it has a different tone than traditional journalism and appeals to a somewhat different demographic, but that its reporting broadly fits what we would consider a WP:RS. Other, more tangential coverage that generally treats it as a serious news source includes --Aquillion (talk) 19:52, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

References

• Vice News is generally reliable: Newslinger's coverage of its awards is most compelling, and there is no shortage of citations to it by other established sources. In my own content creation, I have found it one of the highest-quality sources, generally very in-depth and as accurate as other sources on the same topic. — Bilorv (talk) 23:21, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Rate Your Music

I feel like some parts of RYM can be used for sources, such as genre pages because the way genres have to be submitted on RYM has to be a queue, where people add a genre with sources, and people vote on it to see if the sources are reliable enough for it to gets in own page. I get about WP:USERG but the thing is that genre pages on RYM are sourced and approved before they appear, so would it be a good source for obscure internet genres that have their own page? Pyraminxsolver (talk) 05:27, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

No, user voting is not sufficient editorial control. We should rely solely on solidly reliable music writers, musicologists, and other experienced professionals whose expertise has been established by reputation as such; anything less just opens the gates to more of the genre-based silliness we've had for too long. --Jayron32 14:20, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

No, its just not usable for us. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:51, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Genres on Rate Your Music are still user-generated (and self-published). An adequate editorial process would need to have an actual designated editor who thoroughly reviews and fact-checks content prior to publication. RYM does not have this. — Newslinger talk 13:55, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

PR Week

Recently added in support of this (possibly promotional) edit: Special:Diff/1080133388, but I hesitated before clicking the revert button. The name suggests it very much is not an independent, reliable source, but it also seems qualitatively different from e.g. WP:PRNEWSWIRE. The "in-depth" work seems mostly promotional, but the stuff at least seems to have individual authors and some sort of not-straight PR depth. My feeling is that it may be acceptable for certain statements of fact about a company, including Teneo in this case, but probably not for notability — additional considerations apply. Appears to be used in over 600 citations at the moment (link). WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 15:55, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

It's very different from PRNewswire, and should generally be reliable. PRNewswire is a press release wire service that distributes press releases for outlets to use as desired or not at all. PRWeek is news that covers the public relations industry. Two opposite sides of the coin. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 20:20, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Generally reliable, per Pyrrho the Skipper. The linked edit in Teneo seems fine, and it already cites other PRWeek articles about the company which are most definitely not puff pieces [82] [83].

As an aside, I have had that article on my watchlist for many years and (as the nominator will undoubtedly be aware) it has much more serious WP:NOTPROMO issues than mentions of such acquisitions. Reliably sourced information like this tends to get removed over time for spurious reasons by IPs or editors who appear to have few other interests besides this article. It could use more eyes. Regards, HaeB (talk) 14:44, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Huh, yeah that's an interesting one for sure. At first glance I thought the Controversy section too long, but the company clearly has a long history of being notable for "shady" things. PR firms do (obviously) have a history of manipulating Wikipedia, which makes WP:AGF difficult (but still important, imo). Watching. Pyrrho the Skipper (talk) 15:07, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Generally reliable. PRWeek is an established trade publication for the public relations industry, and not a collection of press releases. However, PRWeek does publish sponsored content that is labeled as "Partner Content" (example); this content is not reliable per WP:SPONSORED because it is paid for by the sponsor and does not undergo PRWeek's standard editorial process. The specific PRWeek article that was added in the edit is not a sponsored article, and is reliable for the Teneo article. — Newslinger talk 14:11, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

RfC: Ars Technica's Eric Berger

Which of the following best describes the reliability of Ars Technica's Eric Berger on SpaceX and other space-related articles? CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 07:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Added {{rfc|prop}} tag. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 13:50, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Reliable, but may require further investigation
• Option 3: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 4: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 5: Publishes false or fabricated information and should be deprecated

Ars Technica's Eric Berger

• Option 1: Generally reliable, like Ars Technica overall per existing consensus. Also the author of a book about the topic with positive reviews in Space.com [84] (calling Berger a "veteran" space reporter), the Financial Times [85], and the NYT [86]. Regards, HaeB (talk) 13:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1:' On both counts: Ars Technica is a scrupulously reliable source on technology-related matters, and per the analysis above, Berger appears to be a reliable space-related journalist. Seems fine to me. As an aside, who is questioning the use of Berger's work on Ars Technica? What is their rationale for questioning it? --Jayron32 15:00, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Concerns from the GAR as too interested and too much of an insider? WP:BIASED is obvious, yet not a reliability issue. I'd think WP:Recentism would be the primary concern considering the nature of the reporting and what Berger's audience expects. fiveby(zero) 15:06, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: with a nod to WP:RECENT and always WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. @Urve: notifying. fiveby(zero) 15:30, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: As noted above, Ars Technica is about as good a source as we are likely to have for the "technology news" sector. As such, Mr. Berger falls under that umbrella unless and until there's some reason he doesn't--and perhaps I am missing something, but I have seen nothing to that effect. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 15:09, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Obviously Option 1 Ars Technica is generally reliable for technology news. Hipocrite (talk) 15:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Bad RFC, since it seems like this is being asked in order to influence the result of the the GAR, where much more specific questions are raised about Berger which you didn't disclose here (despite, I can only assume, intending to turn around and use the result of an RFC here to try and influence the answer there.) More generally, I tend to get leery when people ask extremely obvious questions here with no context. At a glance, Berger has written extensively about Musk and has spent a great deal of time with him, to the point where he might be considered WP:BIASED. Ars Technica is obviously a WP:RS and there's no reason to doubt Berger's overall reliability but I would be cautious about not giving him excessive weight on this topic as a result. But those aren't reliability problems and I'm concerned that this RFC may be asking an "easy" question which will then get turned around and used as the answer to a "hard" one that wasn't asked, so to speak. --Aquillion (talk) 17:55, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  I don't want to influence on the GAR, and I have stated multiple times elsewhere that I fully support the decision of delisting the article. ([1], [2], [3]) I do think however that I am biased and others should make the decision on whether the source is reliable or not. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 18:08, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  The issue that Aquillion is raising is not one of reliability of the source, but that the additional considerations from context in which you are likely to want to use the source are not being raised as part of the RfC. In the GAR various editors raised concern that Berger is biased towards SpaceX, not necessarily that he was unreliable. Additionally, I don't see any criticism of Ars Technica which would warrant raising a thread. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 18:11, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

  Well, a lot of other SpaceX and other private space corp articles use Eric Berger as a main source. In my opinion, I do feel that the Eric Berger is reliable on the area of expertise, but given my bias on the topic as well highlighted by other editors I think that having uninvolved editors making judgement would be the best idea. I have no ill-faith intents here – if Eric's unreliable, I just have tossed a good chunk of my hard work away. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 18:18, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1: (or bad RfC): Thanks for pinging me, Fiveby and Aquillion. Yes, my concerns about Berger's writing were more specific than reliability, but there's no doubt that he reports factual information accurately. But for content, this RfC has no bearing on what I was troubled by: Whether we can report as fact what Berger writes as aspirational. The article said: "When linked together, these facilities act as a production line, making Starship construction quicker". Berger says this is Musk's desire: "Musk wants a linear flow through the tents ...". I think Berger has an interest in reporting on the speculative parts of SpaceX's development operations. If an insider look is just reporting on aspirations for recently-devised manufacturing processes, then even if it's reliable, I fail to see why we should include it. After all, if this information is not reported in other reliable sources (ignoring the source-text incongruity), then is it due to include every new development wish? This is not a matter of reliability but editorial judgment. Urve (talk) 19:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)
• Bad RfC No context is given so there is no basis on which to decide. If someone thinks a particular claim is a problem then it should be discussed as RSN was used until editors got it in their heads that every dispute should become a RfC that decided a general reliability question. Springee (talk) 11:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

  I agree that an RfC here seems very heavy-handed. Even if someone wishes to get a formal closure for a reliability discussion, an RfC is not requireed for that purpose. One can just post it at WP:ANRFC under "Other types of closing requests". A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:27, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3: With regards to this specific topic the neutrality of Berger is highly questionable, if even debatable. I regularly read his content on Ars Technica, and as others have noted his technical descriptions come off as highly aspirational. It's common to see him reporting SpaceX/Musk talking points as certainties , which in reality frequently never come to pass. In summary, his reporting is faithful on an events and facts level, but highly colored by his connection to Elon Musk and SpaceX. On this particular subject I consider Berger WP:BIASED. Ebolaisariver (talk) 17:37, 1 April 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1: Per Jayron32, and Aquillion. Both seem to be fine, and I don't understand any of the context of the question as Aquillion pointed out. Huggums537 (talk) 01:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
• Bad RfC Journalists are not experts and therefore the reliability of their writings depends on the publication and the nature of the claim. An article written by an anonymous journalist for the New York Times for example is reliable for news, no matter who wrote it. OTOH, a signed opinion piece by a Times editor is not, per News organizations. TFD (talk) 09:38, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
• Ars Technica is a generally reliable source for news, with a technology and science focus. It is operated by Condé Nast, which owns a number of other generally reliable publications, including GQ, The New Yorker (RSP entry), Pitchfork, Vogue (RSP entry), and Wired (RSP entry). Ars Technica tends to be more in-depth than most technology websites, and falls under option 1. Eric Berger's articles that are published in Ars Technica are also generally reliable (option 1), including his articles on space or SpaceX. The reliability of Berger's articles that are published in other publications would depend on the reliability of those publications, and Berger's self-published articles would be judged by the WP:SPS policy. — Newslinger talk 13:26, 3 April 2022 (UTC)
• This RFC should include {{rfc|policy}} and/or {{rfc|sci}} tags. And to add to the procedural pedantry: I'm not sure why this ever needed to be an RfC; it could have been an normal discussion/question. JBchrch talk 22:20, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

  Added {{rfc|sci}}. The Wikipedia policies and guidelines RfC category is usually intended for changes to policy/guideline pages. — Newslinger talk 06:04, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

US Navy text file as a reliable source for BLP

This US Navy text file is titled "SUBJ/ACTIVE DUTY PROMOTIONS TO THE PERMANENT GRADES OF CAPTAIN, COMMANDER, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER, LIEUTENANT AND CHIEF WARRANT OFFICER IN THE LINE AND STAFF CORPS". One of its entrants is for "Kim Jonathan Yong", under "LIEUTENANT COMMANDER LINE AND STAFF SENATE CONFIRMATION DATE". Now, I know that Jonny Kim has been promoted to lieutenant commander as cited in this version of his article. However, no other sources verify that Kim's full name is "Kim Jonathan Yong", and I question the propriety of making that leap in this BLP. Secondly, can this contextless text file be used as a reliable source, even if we assume it's the same Kim? Any assistance would be appreciated. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 01:01, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

My opinion (for whatever that is worth) is that IF we could be absolutely certain that is the same person, then sure, why not. However, I do not think it is even remotely certain that that is the same person. Jonathan and Kim are both VERY commom names, and Yong is probably a common Korean given name as well..if there were more info could be matched up, birthdate, hometown, then that would probably be enough. But just the name alone, no. 2600:1702:4960:1DE0:4D69:F0F8:A0CA:5BC (talk) 17:08, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

In my reply below, I found another source that confirms that the Jonathan Yong Kim who was promoted in 2021 was in the Navy Medical Corps and another source that says the article subject was a lieutenant in June 2021. Does this help to assuage your concerns regarding it being the correct individual? — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

No, documents like these are primary sources, which we can't use to support claims about living persons. The uncertainty that this is the same person is part of the reason why. We need reliable, secondary sources to make that determination. Woodroar (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

The file, like other navy files, clearly have the structure of LAST FIRST MIDDLE, so the primary source is taking about a "Jonathan Yong Kim" (that second file indicates that the Jonathan Yong Kim that got the promotion is in the Medical Corps of the navy, which the article subject is). While WP:BLPPRIMARY does not outright proscribe the use of primary sources in biographies of living people, it indicates that we should exercise extreme caution in using primary sources. In order to ascertain that the source is talking about this individual, we also need to know that he was a Lieutenant in January 2020 (Military dot com indicates he was a Lieutenant at age 35), that he was still a Lieutenant in June 2021 and that he's a lieutenant commander in March 2022 per NASA. None of this is contentious and it is all wholly consistent with the promotion occurring in the summer or autumn of 2021. I really don't see the big deal here if it's being used for the specific month; the month is almost certainly not a contentious claim and I think that the burden of using the primary source extremely cautiously would be met in this context. Since there's a public navy communique that contains his name on a list and we have evidence that he was a lieutenant very shortly before it and a lieutenant commander very shortly after that date, this seems like an OK source for what should amount to a non-contentious claim about which month (in a nine month window) or which year was the one in which went from being a lieutenant to a lieutenant commander. — Mhawk10 (talk) 21:19, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

Or, and hear me out on this: I could be less of a dunce and use the probably-accurate new source's claims to search for a better secondary source to cite. I've now replaced the primary source text file with a reliable secondary source that cites the subject's whole name. Thank you for the assistance; it really did help me facepalm myself and realize my other options. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 02:12, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Marketminute

It has been raised at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/H808Beats that marketminute.com is an affiliated source of ABC News and therefore should be considered as reliable. Please see this example. Would this be considered as the same as content directly hosted on ABC News' website? Also, this appears to be a copy of an Issuewire article. Do we have an official stance on Issuewire? It doesn't have a section on WP:RSPS but I come across their articles a lot at AfD so would be useful to have an official community opinion. Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 11:53, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Are they owned by, or just cooperate? Slatersteven (talk) 12:07, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I can't find any info about their ownership on their website unfortunately Spiderone^{(Talk to Spider)} 13:03, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Then whatever we say about ABC doers not apply to them, they are a separate entity. Slatersteven (talk) 14:58, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I see no indication that marketminute.com is affiliated with ABC News. It looks like it is owned by or affiliated with a company called FinancialContent Services, Inc. It appears to be a combination of reprinted news stories, often from legitimate sources such as The Wall Street Journal, and generally unreliable promotional announcements. As for IssueWire, it is a press release distribution network with no editorial oversight, similar to PR Newswire. John M Baker (talk) 14:56, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Its definitely not reliable. I saw some couple of articles that have been lifted or "reprinted" from WSJ as Baker as stated. Its safe to say it serves as a PRwire site. Jamiebuba (talk) 16:47, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, I think my comparison to PR NewsWire overstates the reliability of IssueWire. In my opinion, PR NewsWire should be appropriate in some cases under WP:ABOUTSELF. But I see no indication that IssueWire even verifies the identity of clients, so it should never be reliable. If it is being regularly used, we may want to consider deprecation. Similarly, I cannot think of a situation where marketminute.com would ever be reliable. John M Baker (talk) 19:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

US Congressman as an authority on Nazis

Here is the text: “Azov Regiment (Ukrainian: Полк Азов, romanized: Polk Azov) or Azov Battalion (until September 2014), is a neo-Nazi[2][3][4][5] unit”

here is reference #2: Kheel, Rebecca (27 March 2018). "Congress bans arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis". The Hill. Archived from the original on 27 February 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2021. Ro Khanna: the recently passed omnibus prevents the U.S. from providing arms and training assistance to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.

To be clear, I have no doubt The Hill is a reliable source imho that Ro Khanna said this. But he is a lawyer who sits on an environmental committee. Is he a reliable source for the above statement?

I am less sure whether the statement is true, but if it is, I think the references need to be reliable whether we agree with the statement or not. Thanks for any brainpower applied to this Elinruby (talk) 09:04, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

I mean. He’s talking about the *budget*; context matters Elinruby (talk) 09:09, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Not reliable: political statement by a non-expert. A. C. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:05, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

As a general matter, a politician's subjective characterization of someone they don't like should not be considered reliable.Adoring nanny (talk) 10:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

For context, this is the article Azov Battalion, which had an RfC a year ago which was closed as saying the lead should say the unit is neo-Nazi, so that can't be changed without a new RfC. However, most of the current footnotes supporting it are very weak, this one being the weakest. I agree not RS for the factual claim it supports, only for the politician's opinion. RS-focused editors might be interested in the extensive current talk page arguments about RS use and interpretation in the article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:55, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

He is an RS for his views, not for them being true. Slatersteven (talk) 10:59, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The source is reliable for quoting or paraphrasing the person in question, with in-text attribution, but not for speaking in Wikipedia's voice. --Jayron32 11:49, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Khanna’s characterization is obviously unreliable. The article is reliable for its weaker statement that the Azov Battalion has openly accepted some neo-Nazis into its ranks. John M Baker (talk) 12:03, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The Hill is generally reliable for politics, and can be trusted to accurately convey Ro Khanna's quoted opinion. However, Khanna is not a subject-matter expert and his statement is not reliable for a factual claim about the political orientation of the Azov Battalion. The source should not be used in the Azov Battalion article to support the neo-Nazi descriptor without attribution or with only a generic attribution (i.e. "has been described as", without naming the entity that described it). On the other hand, this source can be used to cover Khanna's description of the Azov Battalion in the Ro Khanna article, if it is due in that article. — Newslinger talk 09:45, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Sources about discography

Hi! I want to write about some musicians. However, I need to use also their discography when I'll start writing their article. I've found some sources that count as reliable but they aren't informed with the latest releases. So, I wonder whether Spotify, Genius or YouTube Music count as reliable sources. The links are:

- Alissic: [87] [88] [89]

- LØREN [90] [91] [92]

And, one last question. Spotify bio counts as a reliable source or not? (I'm talking about Alissic. I'll put the source again [93] )

Fisforfenia (talk) 16:44, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Genius's artist descriptions are unreliable, since they are user-generated and fail the WP:BLPSPS policy, which states, "Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, and tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject of the article." As the "2 contributors" link in the Genius profile page of Alissic shows, the biography was written by Genius users with no editorial oversight.
  Spotify's artist descriptions are self-published by the artists themselves. When you click on the "About" section of Spotify's page for Alissic, it says "Posted By Alissic" at the bottom. Therefore, Spotify's artist descriptions is also generally unreliable for artist biographies, but can be used in limited situations under the restrictions of WP:ABOUTSELF. Treat Spotify's artist descriptions similarly to an artist's personal website or social media posts.
  Spotify and YouTube Music are reliable primary sources for track listings of albums and other releases. Genius is not reliable for track listings, since it is user-generated. None of these sources (Genius, Spotify, or YouTube Music) count toward any artist's or release's notability, since they are all-inclusive databases. — Newslinger talk 09:35, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Works themselves are sufficient primary sources for their own existence and their own contents, but CANNOT be used for notability purposes, either for the creator or the work. Which is to say, things like discographies and track listings are basically always presumed to be reliably sourced to the work itself without the need for an inline cite to a secondary source. But these cannot be used as a secondary source for analysis of the work, NOR do they establish reliability. --Jayron32 12:42, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

How should we treat the Atlantic's Ideas section? Is it news or opinion?

This is something that has come up a few times in the past; I was reading something there when I thought I ought to ask here. The Atlantic's Ideas section (link) is intended for incisive and intelligent analysis, essays, and commentary. That reads to me as something we should generally cite under WP:RSOPINION, ie. with in-line attribution and the like. I've seen it used in many places as a cite for in-line statements of fact, though, which is... not surprising, given that it isn't clearly labeled as opinion (I had to dig a bit to get to that quote for how they defined it, and I only thought to do so after repeatedly coming across things there that seemed plainly written as opinion pieces.) More specifically, should we update the Atlantic's WP:RSP entry to specify that the Ideas section should be treated as WP:RSOPINION, since it is something that is easily missed? --Aquillion (talk) 20:30, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Makes sense to me. Blueboar (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

The Idea section is clearly opinion based and i don't think it should be considered as news. Take a look at the Ideas sections in general and how its written. Jamiebuba (talk) 21:52, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Support update A look through the most recent one's published includes headlines like "The SAT isn't what's unfair" [94], "Trump is a flat circle" [95], and "The white house is getting defense wrong" [96]. These are pretty clearly opinion pieces. Curbon7 (talk) 22:55, 4 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support update per above -- the description ("incisive and intelligent analysis, essays, and commentary") and a quick scroll through the articles shows these are obviously opinion pieces, so the RSP entry should be updated to indicate that the Ideas section falls under WP:RSOPINION. Endwise (talk) 09:58, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Why? Does every single green RSP entry contain an itemized list of sections which contain opinion? We trust our editors to be able to read WP:RSOPINION and be able to identify opinion-based writing within other sources. Why is this one section of this one work being singled out? I mean, no, we should not be using such writing as though it was the same as investigative journalism; but that is true of ANY source. It seems odd to single out the opinion section of one source like this... --Jayron32 12:38, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

  For some newspapers/magazines it is very obvious what falls under opinion and what falls under normal news reporting, for instance Washington Post indicates their articles are opinion in the URL, the headline, and the tab at the top. This may be less readily apparent to some editors in the case of an "Ideas" article at The Atlantic, so it is helpful to indicate this in RSP both to improve editor understanding (we don't all know everything) and to have something to point to in discussions about article content. I'll note though that plenty newspapers/magazines have a note about WP:RSOPINION in their RSP entry even when it is more obvious which of their articles are opinion. Endwise (talk) 12:58, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

• Isn't calling the section "Ideas" clearly labelling it as opinion? I don't really see the difference between this and other WP:RS which call their opinion pieces "commentary," "discussion," "thoughts," "musings," "notes," "views," "viewpoints," "perspectives," etc. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Support update  The Atlantic (RSP entry) Ideas section functions roughly as the equivalent of the New York Times or Time opinion pages and should generally be handled per WP:RSOPINION. I take Jayron32's point that generally we'd trust editors to identify opinion pieces like this, but I've often observed other editors confused about The Atlantic in particular and I don't think brief guidance hurts—we already do this for comparable cases like Time and The New Republic on RSP. I favor mentioning the Ideas section in particular since it is easily their most prolific opinion output and tends to confuse the most people, but the disclaimer should probably note more generally that they're not limited to that section: this piece on Jameela Jamil, for example, is also an opinion piece despite being under the Entertainment section. —0xf₈e₈ 💿 (talk) 15:03, 5 April 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - I have a small concern about this: I don't think RS/P should attempt to describe the form that publications take, since this is liable to be quickly outdated and become a crutch that substitutes for editors actually making the effort to familiarise themselves with sources. While Aquillion's suggestion can be accomodated with ease, I'm bothered by the idea that this marks a negative change in what RS/P is expected to say. — Charles Stewart (talk) 16:08, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Vot-Tak.tv

I have not heard of this source before, which describes itself as an independent Russian media project formed in 2020. Can't seem to find any other sources which mention this website or its reliability. Should it be used on Wikipedia in relation to Russia-related topics? (I was alerted to its use over at Bucha massacre#Testimonies from residents) --QueenofBithynia (talk) 00:38, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

@QueenofBithynia vot-tak.tv is the Russian-language service of Belsat TV. Renat 08:51, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! QueenofBithynia (talk) 11:39, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

The Lancet on All the Light We Cannot See

I am currently working on the article for the novel All the Light We Cannot See and am planning on creating a themes section and/or a style section. While looking for academic articles, I came across an article from the Lancet, "The judgement dilemna", which analyzes the rejection of stereotyping in the novel. I know the Lancet is already considered reliable because it is well-established, prestigious, and peer-reviewed, but it's a medical journal. Literature is not its expertise. However, both of the authors do seem to have credentials in literature and English, and it does validate Doerr's intention. Would this article from the Lancet be usable in the article for All the Light We Cannot See? Lazman321 (talk) 13:24, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Legacy.com used for info on a subject's family

Hi. Is Legacy.com, in particular this obituary of Roger Sale, reliable to use to support the claim in his article and that of Tim Sale, that they were father and son (which someone recently added to the article article here)? Nightscream (talk) 14:21, 5 April 2022 (UTC)