Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

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

RfC: Is FossForce.com a reliable source for Free and open-source software (FOSS) articles?

Is FossForce.com a reliable source for Free and open-source software (FOSS) articles?

1. Generally reliable
2. Additional considerations apply
3. Generally unreliable

With these edits at Libreboot, PhotographyEdits removed cited info, claiming FossForce.com (and others) is not a WP:RS: one, two, and 2021 article purge and proposal to merge

Prevous RSN discussions: None found.

Talk discussions : one found in 2019; thin consensus, including me, was not reliable. Newslinger called it a "group blogs with no reputations".

An author "Christine Hall" is cited on a few editor talk pages, but I don't think it is the same Christine Hall.

About a dozen articles cite FossForce.com.

Three cites that have been removed from Libreboot over time include:

• September 2016
• January 2017
• April 2017

• Option 2: Additional considerations apply: While the articles are mostly by one author/editor, I contrast FossForce.com with somewhat similar (at a glance) liliputing.com, which was deemed generally unreliable blog, self-published source in this RSN discussion and RfC. FossForce, to me, covers FOSS topics with more insight than just re-publicizing a single press release or vendor post, and discusses the info in some detail. FossForce also covers FOSS topics - not just new products up for sale - over time, as shown by the three cites above. While the FossForce website does show advertisements, it again contrasts with Liliputing by NOT being affiliate-spam directly connected to PR announcements about products being written about. Therefore, I feel this otherwise marginal source should be allowed, particularly for FOSS articles with few generally reliable sources.

The present intention is to use the 2017 cites to support statements about the History of Libreboot without the personal WP:BLP info. They have been used differently at Libreboot previously. -- Yae4 (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option #1 (invited by the bot) My actual answer is that I generally reject all such over-generalizations.....it should be about the objectivity and objectivity of the particular piece/authot/source with respect to the text which cited it. But if forced to make a generalization, that source looks to be good. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:37, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
• Summoned by the notification at WT:COMPUTING. Yae4, I again respectfully disagree with going straight from a one-on-one content dispute to an RSN RfC, without discussion on the article's talk page (WP:RFCBEFORE). At Libreboot, PhotographyEdits removed text cited to two sources, and you reverted it, agreeing they're not WP:GENREL, but arguing they should stay because they weren't discussed at RSN and are widely used at Wikipedia (FossForce is cited in 13 articles), and asking PhotographyEdits to point to a consensus discussion before removing.

But Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. No one needs a consensus discussion, or an RSN RfC, to remove citations that they deem unreliable from an article. If you disagree with a removal, that should first be discussed on the article's talk page; if that doesn't solve it, you can start a non-RfC discussion here to ask for input on whether the source is good enough for the claim. RSN RfCs are for repeated disputes across several talk pages, or sources in widespread use, not to resolve mundant content disputes. BTW, I searched, and FossForce is only used in five articles (ItsFoss, the second source, is used in 2 articles).

When a specific statement is challenged, the WP:ONUS is on you to gain consensus on the article's talk page to keep it. Skipping directly to an RfC here implies inclusion is all-or-nothing, where an outcome other than "generally unreliable" would mean the claim stays in the article. This is undesirable from a process standpoint. Best, DFlhb (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2023 (UTC) updated 02:32, 14 June 2023

@DFlhb:

> (FossForce is cited in 13 articles)

> I searched, and FossForce is only used in five articles

I agree with 13, based on my Wiki-search linked above. I disagree with 5, but what's a factor of 2 to 3 difference?

I considered discussing this and doing an RfC at Talk:Libreboot. IMO, having it here makes it more likely to get uninvolved opinions, from editors with broader perspective, makes it easier to find later, and may carry more weight later. I think the small proportion of FOSS-related articles to all Wikipedia articles needs to be considered, relative to "widely used". There are also related issues at Libreboot, particularly how to handle the "fork", what sources are primary or secondary, etc., and I'm hoping some editors with broader perspective may notice and have suggestions. Thanks for your comments. -- Yae4 (talk) 02:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

13 indeed; I fixed the first mention (see my edit summary), forgot to fix the second mention. DFlhb (talk) 02:32, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

At VeraCrypt, A cite to Fossforce is used to support the claim "VeraCrypt is considered to be free and open source by [...] DuckDuckGo's Open Source Technology Improvement Fund".[1]

OSTIF does consider Veracrypt to be open source[2] and DuckDuckGo did make a $25,000 contribution to the OSTIF with the funds earmarked for the VeraCrypt project,[3] but it appears that the "DuckDuckGo's" claim is an error that is not in the FossForce source. Could someone please change the claim to "VeraCrypt is considered to be free and open source by [...] The Open Source Technology Improvement Fund" and change the cite from Fossforce to OSTIF? OSTIF Cite:[4] I don't edit articles for reasons I won't get into here. Guy Macon (talk) 23:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

Guy_Macon, I'd consider making the change for you if someone hasn't already, if you give a more direct opinion on the question at hand. Thanks. PS. Now and then I look at your User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer, and find it useful. Sadly, User:Guy_Macon/Yes._We_are_biased. looks good on the surface, but is it really accurate? (rhetorical). Cheers. -- Yae4 (talk) 22:21, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Option 1. In my opinion, Fossforce is a reliable source on the topis of free and open source software, an area where there are few good sources. I am also concerned about the possibility that this RfC was not posted because of a genuine question about Fossforce's reliability, but rather to win a content dispute that should have been worked out on the article talk page. I would encourage those who are involved in the dispute to ignore the result of this RfC and work it out through consensus and if necessary through a focused RfC on the talk page comparing the preferred content of both sides.

Regarding WP:YWAB, the purpose is not "accuracy". Any "we are biased against" / "we are biased towards" list is by nature subjecticve opinion. The purpose of the page is explained at User talk:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased.#The purpose of this essay, and it is quite effective for that purpose. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:05, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

More Perfect

Hi, I'm commenting to see what others think about the reliability of More Perfect Union (particularly within labor). I'm looking for input from others who are well versed in labor issues. LoomCreek (talk) 00:10, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

It looks no more nor less reliable than any other newsmedia source. I don't think Wikipedia should use newsmedia sources at all but so long as Wikipedia uses NYT I see no reason why this one should be excluded. At least it's honest about its biases. That's more than most of these news outlets do. Simonm223 (talk) 12:29, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

(Summoned by bot) @LoomCreek: You'll probably have more luck asking "is More Perfect Union reliable for [some kind of claim] in [one or a category of articles]". It's hard to offer a judgment on the whole without specific examples. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:58, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

More Perfect Union appears to be a joint venture between a 501(c)(4) political organization, and a 501(c)(3) that it controls. It is led by a political operative and a former NowThis/HuffPo person, which isn't exactly the sort of sterling editorial credentials that one would expect for a reliable news group. I'm unsure of whether it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but it seems more like an advocacy org than a newsorg based off what I can find. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 15:37, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

@LoomCreek based on what @Red-tailed hawk, @Rhododendrites, and @Simonm223 have said I would exercise caution when it comes to using it as an actual citation. Cheers! ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍ ‍ 22:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Concur. Simonm223 (talk) 02:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

O'Keefe Media Group and Project Veritas

Now that James O'Keefe has split from Project Veritas and is continuing his stings under O'Keefe Media Group, should the entry on the RS list be updated to include O'Keefe Media Group [5] underneath Veritas's entry? I reverted an IP edit that attempted to cite his website as a source for a BlackRock sting [6] but was wondering if this needs to be mentioned as it would seem unlikely that O'Keefe has changed his journalistic practices since leaving Veritas. Mfko (talk) 03:58, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Clearly unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:33, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. Unreliable. A new entry at RS is probably appropriate. Woodroar (talk) 12:56, 23 June 2023 (UTC)

Agree. No corrections policy that I can see. Tone is not that of an RS. No reputation for fact-checking or accuracy. Couldn't find any WP:USEBYOTHERS either. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:38, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• I'm surprised he's not deprecated as a matter of course; setting up an RfC below to correct that. Sceptre (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

RfC (James O'Keefe)

What best describes James O'Keefe (including, inter alia, Project Veritas and O'Keefe Media Group) as a reliable source?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information and should be deprecated.

Sceptre (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (James O'Keefe)

• Option 4, and blacklisted where possible: this should be pro forma, but I think we need an RfC to formally deprecate a source, no matter if such a course of action is blindingly obvious. Since the death of Andrew Breitbart, O'Keefe is the undisputed King of Fake News. Anything he touches is fruit of the poisoned tree. However, the entry at RSPS where we've said it's GUNREL is, I feel, too high; if I met O'Keefe in the middle of the Sahara and he told me it was scorchingly sunny, I'd make sure I had an umbrella and a parka on my person just in case; he's that much of a bullshit merchant. Sceptre (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 Back to basics. No reputation for fact checking or accuracy. Stories do not have the measured tone that is typical reliable source, and as mentioned elsewhere on this page, his latest outlet lacks a corrections policy. I'm unaware of any spam campaign from O'Keefe, which would be the usual reason for blacklisting. I don't see colorful prose such as "undisputed King of Fake News" as sufficient reason for deprecation. Ditto selective editing, as every source edits, and every source is selective. So just plain not reliable. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:46, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 with a caveat Obviously generally unreliable but I'm wary of adding an individual to the RSP list as this seems to stretch its purpose beyond what's appropriate. And until his new publishing venture is actually getting used or asked about here a lot, it is premature to call it "perennial". BobFromBrockley (talk) 02:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4, and nuke any references from orbit, as it is the only way to be sure While it is true that Mr. O'Keefe and his former workplace Project Veritas are not legally identical, they are in many ways synonymous and there can be little doubt that he was the animating spirit for at least much of the time he was there. I don't believe his reputation should be laundered by starting a new venture. Not only does Mr. O'Keefe not have a track record for fact-checking and accuracy, he has one of using underhanded and sometimes tortious or even criminal tactics to get information. He then explicitly uses such information in the style of a provacateur, going well beyond reporting bias into naked propaganda. Perhaps Mr. O'Keefe's new venture will be different--anything is possible. If it is, we can reassess in due time. But for now, I can see no good and quite a bit of bad from citing him anywhere on Wikipedia. Cheers, all. Dumuzid (talk) 03:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 - The truth value of anything he writes is basically unrelated to reality. Veritas is known to be entirely fake, and the reason for that is primarily due to O'Keefe. Use of his works as a reference is pretty much equivalent to not having a reference at all. The only time I could see it appropriate to cite him is as a primary source for what he himself has published, and even then I wouldn't even trust him as a source for what he himself has previously said, as he could decide to change his mind about the facts regarding himself at any time. Fieari (talk) 05:20, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 As not only does he (or PV) not have a reputation for fact-checking, they actually have a reputation for faslefication. Slatersteven (talk) 09:29, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 and blacklist/purge everything from it. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:22, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4. I wouldn't even trust any ABOUTSELF claims, as they'd probably be edited out of context. Woodroar (talk) 23:48, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 - Nothing coming directly or indirectly from James O'Keefe, or from anyone who chooses to be associated with him, should be given any credence whatsoever. Nevertheless, I would characterize the deprecation as being of Project Veritas and O'Keefe Media Group, rather than James O'Keefe personally. John M Baker (talk) 00:14, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4, but honestly on a scale to 1-4 this person is at 9000. An agent provocateur and purveyor of disinformation should never be cited for anything in the Wikipedia. Zaathras (talk) 00:27, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 Andre🚐 00:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 Not even a close question. Deliberate serial fabrication and falsehoods. Blacklist. Banks Irk (talk) 02:42, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 Pure garbage. Volunteer Marek 21:56, 2 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 per nom (Sceptre). I wouldn't even trust ABOUTSELF claims. -sche (talk) 03:33, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 - I haven't seen anyone try to use this source -- I'm presuming others have, or we wouldn't even bother with this? -- but it appears to be the same garbage as before. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 if we're actually doing an RFC, since he has a long and well-established history of using deceptive editing to produce disinformation. I'm not sure it was necessary to spell it out (was anyone trying to use it as a source?) but since we did end up having to actually add Project Veritas itself after numerous people tried to use it in various contexts I suppose it can't hurt. --Aquillion (talk) 16:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 Stay far away from using this as a source, blacklisting seems appropriate. Oaktree b (talk) 04:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 - history of editing videos to spread disinformation. starship.paint (exalt) 03:37, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 - I would be weary to put an individual as a whole as a deprecated source. Is there any precedent for this? Grahaml35 (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 4 O'Keefe's work is devoid of journalistic credibility. CJ-Moki (talk) 19:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

The reliability of the book Enigma Valtorta

I would like to start a discussion on the reliability of the book "L'énigme Valtorta : Une vie de Jésus romancée?" by J. F. Lavere, published in 2012 [7]. This is due to the use of several quotes from this book on Poem of the Man God article. I have tagged these quotes as "unreliable". The book'a level of support for the extraordinary features of Valtorta's writings is extreme and exaggerated.

Here, I would like to state that this book is not WP:RS on scientific or theological matters, given the author's lack of track record on the subject.

There are a few issues:

1. The back cover of the book states that J. F. Lavere is a retired engineer in France. I have read elsewhere that he was a chemical engineer, but let us just assume that he was just some type of engineer. Did he publish any books on engineering? Not that Amazon knows about. [8] In fact this was his frst book ever for all we know. He wrote other things later, but here he was fresh from the engineering field and his lack of experience is obvious.

2. Would J. F. Lavere be even a WP:RS source on some type of engineering? Obviously not, gven that he has no track record we know of. So he is certainly not an authority on theology. But he is being used as such. That must stop.

3. His book is quite open about the fact that many items he quotes come from web sites and blogs. For instance, he mentions quotes from Roman Danylak and bases them directly on Danylak's personal website. That issue is currently being debated on this noticeboard. And there seems to be no support for the reliability of that.

4. The book includes unsourced and clearly contradictory statements are being quoted in Wikipedia, e.g.

"In January 1962, Fr. Berti was given an authorization to publish by the Vice Commissioner of the Holy See, Father Marco Giraudo: “You have our[who?] total approbation to continue the publication of this second edition of The Gospel as revealed to me by Maria Valtorta," concluding with, "We shall see how it is received."

It is absolutely impossible for Giraudo to have written that, given that in the book Lettera a Claudia, the publisher Emilio Pisani states that the title "The Gospel as revealed to me" was invented in the 1970's with the publication of the French translation. TThe title did not exist in 1962, and Lavere gives no indication of where ho obtained that quote. But the quote is floating on all kinds of blogs. There are other obvious errors exaggerations in that book, too many to discuss, but it is largely a claim of exceptional origin for the writings of Valtorta, sprinkled with exaggerated theological claims.

5. In that book Lavere has walked out of the enginerring world and has commented on topics such as botany where he has no expertise. The book can not be considered reliable, unless it includes the chemical formula for a new shampoo. Lavere would probably know about that, but not the topics in this book.

The real problem is that unless this book is declared as unreliable, 30 more incorrect and exaggerated claims from it may be added to Wikipedia. This must stop. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 19:41, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Some information to provide additional context that has been missing thus far. From the book by Laurentin and Debroise, "Insagine su Maria" which is RS (reliable authors and publisher), we have the following excerpts:

pp. 66-67:

"If a good part of the seven hundred and fifty characters (for the great majority are unknown from history) is perplexing, two hundred and fifty have been identified historically, thanks to some unpublished works by Jean-François Lavère."(24)

Footnote 24: Cfr. François-Michel Debroise and Jean-Francois Lavere, Les Protagonistes de l'Évangile d'après l'æuvre de Maria Valtorta, in corse di pubblicazione

—

p. 67:

"For years, Jean-François Lavère has been dedicating the free time he has thanks to his retirement to recording and evaluating the set of material data contained in Maria Valtorta's story (places, historicity of the characters, archeology, arts and techniques, uses and customs, flora and fauna, and of course, chronological coherence). After verifying more than eight thousand data on the approximately ten thousand registered, it obtained a credibility rate of 99.6 percent."(25)

Footnote 25: Jean-François Lavere, L'enigma Maria Valtorta, "Bollettino Valtortiano", I semestre 2009.

—

The book also references this list of experts (p. 71) regarding the works of Maria Valtorta (last updated 2019), on the website www.maria-valtorta.org which was created and maintained by François-Michel Debroise, author of multiple books co-authored with Laurentin:

Footnote 29: www.maria-valtorta.org/Travaux/Experts.htm

One of those living experts is Jean-François Lavère.

—

Now, I'm not suggesting this automatically makes the book by Lavére, L'Enigma Valtorta RS given the issues with the publisher already mentioned (lack of editorial oversight), but it does show that Lavère is considerably more credible than some would have us believe, and quite respected in the community of experts, especially considering he has co-authored with heavyweight Laurentin and Debroise on similar material. In short, his research and opinions matter. To call him or his work "fanatical" or "fantastical", is patently absurd.

Regarding the concern that we must disallow the book entirely, because 30 or more opinions may be pulled out of that book, is not a valid argument. As always, there is WP:DUE, and it would make no sense to have an article with a total of about 50-60 citations, having 30 or more come from one book, RS or not. But a few selected references presenting an expert author's opinions should be acceptable. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:46, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Collapse trolling. IP blocked (for edits here and elsewhere). Abecedare (talk) 22:24, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem is you are using your original research to determine whether the book is reliable or not. You should provide a secondary source such as a review essay to determine the reliability. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 20:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC) That's not really the case, IP user. We can make judgments on reliability of sources based on other factors than reviews from experts. Of course, those help, but it's not the be all and end all.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:47, 24 June 2023 (UTC) @Boynamedsue No, you can't. That's an explicit violation of WP:OR. If you don't understand this, you should read WP:COMPETENCE. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 21:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC) IP 95.12.119.26, there is no WP:OR in saying this was the author's first book, and that he has no track record. If you have a list of his previous publications, please present them. If he was a professor anywhere, please say where. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:28, 24 June 2023 (UTC) @Yesterday, all my dreams... Do you have a secondary source documenting this is his first book? If you do have, make sure it is not from Rodong Sinmun; only reliable sources are allowed. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 21:44, 24 June 2023 (UTC) WP:OR is a restriction specifically and solely on article content. It is not a restriction on editing discussions such as this. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:49, 24 June 2023 (UTC) IP 95.12.119.26, the easiest way is to look at Amazon (I provided a link already) or worldcat, etc. See what he has published. You will see 2012 was the first date. That is easy. I will stop for a while based on the suggestion of Abecedare. But per WP:BURDEN more burden is placed on those who claim reliability. So please say why that is not his first book, and show which books he published before 2011. You will not succeed. I am sure. I have checked. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC) IP 95.12.119.26, as stated below 90% of my argument was based on the lack of track record of the author. As for the statement by Giraudo I used the reference to the book Lettera a Claudia which contradicts the statement by Lavere. As for his use of blogs and personal websites, they are all over his book. It is not WP:OR by me, he states that he used those websites as his sources. Lavere does not directly say that "God personally told him" that Valtorta's book is divine, but if you read the book you will get that feeling. So I do invite you to read Lavere's book. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:12, 24 June 2023 (UTC) IP, per WP:OR: This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards. Yesterday, you don't need to reply to each comment, especially to reiterate arguments you have already made. Abecedare (talk) 21:40, 24 June 2023 (UTC) @Abecedare @NatGertler That statement did not exist there before. It was stealth added in May 2023 by an old sleeping account, who is now blocked indefinitely. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 21:53, 24 June 2023 (UTC) Your interpretation that WP:OR applies to talk pages and arguments over reliability is not a majority position anywhere on wikipedia. I'm not even sure if it is a minority position of more than one. What I do know is that suggesting a user lacks competence to edit is not just an insane escalation at this point, but it a violation WP:NPA. I will take this to WP:ANI if I see you do it again.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:04, 24 June 2023 (UTC) @Boynamedsue Baseless accusation of PA is a personal attack. Please stop casting WP:ASPERSIONS. Thank you. 95.12.119.26 (talk) 22:08, 24 June 2023 (UTC) Ok, so would you like to confirm that when you advised me to read WP:COMPETENCE, you were not suggesting that I lacked competence? Because it read like that, and I find it hard to think of another interpretation of your comment. Boynamedsue (talk) 22:16, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Right, shall we try with the basics on this, we can look at the publisher and the type of stuff they normally publish, as well as the other published work of Levere. Do you know of any other publications by Levere? What is the publisher of this book? Boynamedsue (talk) 20:52, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, the publisher is a French publisher Rassemblement À Son Image [9] mostly a religious publisher. But 90% of my argument was based on the "author's lack of track record". This was his first book as seen here [10]. He may have learned a few things 5-7 years later, but in 2012 he was fresh from the engineering workshop. He has only ever published on one topic: Maria Valtorta. He wrote a few things later as shown in the link, but he had published nothing before this book. And no PhD, no professor, etc. And wondering off to discuss topics from botany to theology does not make that reliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:08, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Ok, this is a lot easier than I thought. The publishing house generally publishes books on Catholic spirituality which reflect the opinions of the authors. It also publishes a lot of reprints of out of copyright religious books. I see no evidence of editorial oversight at a sufficient level that controversial facts can be supported, although it is obviously good for the author's opinion. Boynamedsue (talk) 22:25, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Agreed, not an acceptable source for statements of fact but could be used for the author's opinion if due. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:40, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

So sourcing material from books of this kind is acceptable provided it is presented not as fact, but as the authors opinion. Understood.

For greater clarity, this particular author, Lavere, has published with other authors, including Laurentin, and Debrois, in the same year (2012) which are also considered reliable sources. For example: Dictionnaire des personnages de l'évangile selon Maria Valtorta.[11]

It would seem somewhat strange to say that the author Lavere, is unreliable in once instance and reliable in another, especially when dealing with material that is closely related (generally to do with Valtorta's work) and published in the same year.

Further, the book in question includes a preface by the Bishop Johanan-Mariam Cazenave’s, the Secretary of the Syrian-French Synod, so it's not without some level of high-ranking ecclesiastical support. Arkenstrone (talk) 19:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

What does ecclesiastical support have to do with reliability? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:24, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Peer review as in WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Since we're not dealing with a work of physics here, but rather a work concerning religious matters, and specifically, religious matters pertaining to the Catholic Church, experts constitute high-ranking or respected members of the Catholic Church. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:53, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

No, experts constitute those with relevant academic expertise and publishing histories, many of whom are high-ranking or respected members of the Catholic Church. I'd also note that we're dealing with a matter of *history* here first and foremost. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:58, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Experts are domain-specific. Academics in physics, chemistry, or biology are concerned with empirical data, and while they are highly relevant in their specific fields of inquiry, they are generally irrelevant in matters of religious doctrine and faith (unless, for example, they are doing a carbon dating of a religious artifact, or doing mathematical or statistical analyses of some kind).

Church history is part of it, but not exclusively. It is also a matter of Church doctrine, and what is and is not contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals, which requires experts in that domain, i.e., high-ranking or respected members of the Church who can weigh in on such matters. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:37, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Think of it this way: what would it do to a published work in physics, if the preface to that work was written by Richard Feynman, Neils Bohr, or even Einstein, praising the work? Same principle. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:43, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Is Johanan-Mariam Cazenave a renowned figure on the level of Feynman, Bohr, Einstein, etc? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

The fact he's a Bishop means he's sufficiently high-ranking and knowledgeable to be able to weigh in on such matters. In any case, I said "same principle." I wasn't making an equivalence. Arkenstrone (talk) 23:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Lets start here... Who is Bishop Johanan-Mariam Cazenave? What is the Syrian-French Synod? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:07, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Arkenstone, I did have a good laugh at your reference to Richard Feynman, Neils Bohr and Einstein. But Johanan-Mariam Cazenave is no Einstein. And given that Lavere makes a large number of fantastic scientific claims across multiple fields in his book, Cazenave (as a theolog) was in no pisition to evaluate them. It woud be like a physicist trying to evaluate a book on dentistry - he would not even know what types of drills the dentists use. So the argument about Cazenave is vacuous. And recall that the fact that the publisher has no serious editorial oversight on these issues, renders the whole argument pointless. Please accept that this is a book by a publisher with no serious oversight on scientific or historical issues, and an author (Lavere) who directly references blogs and personal websites as his sources. This is not a WP:RS item. And recall the inherent asymetry in WP:BURDEN. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:42, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Is Cazenave a theologian? I'm having a hard time tracking down a Catholic Bishop of that name. Perhaps its a pseudonym or pen name? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:49, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

<Sigh> I said, "same principle." And I repeat, it wasn't an equivalence.

Care to elaborate on "fantastic scientific claims" since you brought it up (on the Poem talk page please, not here)? This work isn't being used in the article to support scientific claims, so why are you focusing attention on that?

You are far too harsh on Lavere, especially considering the fact that he co-authored other works with Laurentin and Debroise, whom you seem to hold in high-regard. Though not relevant to this discussion, many of the scientific claims that are made in Lavere's book, are made elsewhere in other books or publications, by experts in those fields, which we will get to in due course (and you know it). So, "fantastic" would seem quite the exaggeration.

Perhaps Bishop Cazenave's praise and commendation is "vacuous" as it relates to scientific claims, but that's not what we're concerned with here. So please, let's stop conflating things.

Bishop Cazenave can weigh in on issues concerned with Church doctrine, and what is and is not contrary to Church doctrine, faith and morals. For those issues, his praise and commendation is pertinent and certainly not vacuous.

In any case, this discussion is getting longer than need be, drifting into tangential issues. Lavere's book can be used for his statements and opinions, but not for controversial facts. So long as statements and opinions are not presented as facts, we should be alright. Arkenstrone (talk) 06:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Arkenstone, a few points:

1. Regarding Einstein, you do have a technical way out, because you did not say "Albert Einstein" so can suggest that it was Eduard Einstein... smiile.

2. This discussion started for only one reason: because you kept adding this book to Wikipedia, although I told you that it is not reliable. You did do despite the asymetry of WP:BURDEN. And this discussion was dormant for several days and would have quietly ended with the final comment by Horse Eye on June 25th. But it restarted when you began huffing and puffing about the importance of Cazenave and how his statement contributed to the reliability of the book. I think the opposite is true, but I will let you explain yourself first. But we must clarify that this book is not reliable for facts and all statements you have added from it so far need to be deleted.

3. Given that you brought up Cazenave, in all fairness you must answer the question you were asked about him, namely Who on earth is Cazenave? Do you have any idea who he is? Why is there no trace of him on the internet? Does he even exist? How do you know? How do we know they have not tried to pull a Follieri here? As you may recall Follieri was Anne Hathaway's boyfriend and would get actors to "wear bishop outfits" and negotiate to sell chuch property that was not for sale. Do a Google on "Raffaello Follieri" to refresh your memory if necessary. So how do you know who he is? Perhaps you could call Hathaway and ask her if she remembers Cazenave as part of Follieri's old gang. Who knows, you may even get a date with Hatahaway...

This whole thing has turned into a joke because the book in question is a joke, and the recent attemptat defending it based on Cazenave is a joke. Let us accept that the book is unreliable, deleted the references to it, and then I will tell you about Cazenave. We may still have a laugh after that. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:34, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

• @Arkenstone: you keep ignoring the point so I want to make something clear: if Cazenave turns out not to exist I will be taking you to ANI and asking for an indeff/cban on competence grounds. Now perhaps you will take this seriously. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:54, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't think we have any reason to think Cazenave doesn't exist. However, we have no reason to think he is an expert on what long-dead popes might or might not have said. A figure who claims to be a bishop in an extremely obscure Indian church (well, actually, a third party claims that online, but he certainly claims to be some sort of bishop) is not a reliable source just by virtue of making such a claim. A bishop might be a useful primary or even secondary source on the doctrines of their own denomination, but beyond that they are governed by the same rules of establishing reliability as everyone else. Boynamedsue (talk) 20:03, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Boynamedsue: we actually do, Roman Catholic Bishops are important figures and always have significant coverage (at least from Catholic sources). They almost always have their own Vatican hosted web profile. I can't find a single mention of this Cazenave outside of the context of this book. Arkenstrone isn't claiming he's a member of an extremely obscure Indian church, he's claiming that he is a Bishop in the Roman Catholic Church. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Even the supposed "Syrian-French Synod" is only mentioned in the book and conversations about the book (reader's groups and so on). That such a synod exists without a mention anywhere else is simply unbelievable. Woodroar (talk) 20:45, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back: "Very Rev. Jean Bernard de Cazenave" is Vicar General for France of the "Nordic Catholic Church"[12]. Apparently, he was at some point an archimandrite in a French Syriac Orthodox group, whether canonical or vagante, I don't know. This source seems to be entirely dubious. Jahaza (talk) 21:07, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Right last name, wrong first name and rank. We need a Bishop with the first name of Johanan-Mariam. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't take any form of threat seriously. If you wish people to respond to you, then try some civility WP:CIVIL. I see you have been warned regarding personal attacks previously. Your statement is hostile, and an accusation of malicious conduct and/or competency as per WP:NPA. I would remind you what @Boynamedsue recently said to an IP user above engaging in similar behaviour: "What I do know is that suggesting a user lacks competence to edit is not just an insane escalation at this point, but it [is] a violation WP:NPA. I will take this to WP:ANI if I see you do it again." You have been warned. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:51, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

This is the part where you present reliable sources which indicate that Bishop Cazenave exists. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Arkenstrone: have you uncovered any evidence that Bishop Cazenave exists and if not are you still assessing that they exist? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:58, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

This discussion started for only one reason: because you kept adding this book to Wikipedia, although I told you that it is not reliable.

No, that's not what you said. Your statements were filled with false assumptions and accusations, and extremely disparaging attacks rooted in some incorrect perception of what you thought was taking place (something about an Australian website?), a clear violation of WP:NPA, which I brushed off, asking you to focus on the content instead of the editor. You can review that part of the talk page if you wish.

"Huffing and puffing." Really?

The final sentence I added about Bishop Cazenave, wasn't the thrust of my argument. That was a statement to indicate that Lavere's work is not without some level of ecclesiastical support. So to call his work "a joke" is quite a stretch and not rooted in reality. It's also interesting that you ignored the main part of the argument about Lavere co-authoring other works with Laurentin and Debroise, in the same year (2012), having to do with similar material (Valtorta), whom you do consider RS.

Regarding Bishop Cazenave, digging a little deeper, he is a Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch, the sister Church of Rome, and under the authority of the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, the Supreme head of the Universal Syrian Orthodox Church. You can read the details of the common declaration of Pope John Paul II and the Patriarch of Antioch of 1984, which should help clear things up.[13]

(Regarding your attempts at dry humour, you lost me. Suffice it to say, don't give up your day job.) Arkenstrone (talk) 00:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Some additional information on the Syriac Orthodox Church and its history here:[14] Arkenstrone (talk) 00:24, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Arkenstone, Yada, yada, yada. I think all keyboards here are getting worn out and none of this will change the outcome of this discussion. Jahaza's additional coment that the book is entirely dubious seals the fate of this discussion. This discussion should end by declaring the book as not reliable for any factual information, and references to it should be deleted. That will happen, regardless of additional pages of discussion. I will suggest that below. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 00:42, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

You are ignoring my response and instead deflecting. And for the record, as per Wiki policy and the discussion resolved in the very first remarks, the book can be used for Lavere's statements and opinions, but not for controversial facts. Arkenstrone (talk) 07:33, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

@Arkenstrone: it can be used for that, but on Lavere's page not The Poem of the Man God. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:43, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Cazenave isn't mentioned in the linked source, I can't find a Syriac Orthodox Bishop by the name of Cazenave either. Where did you find this information when you dug a little deeper? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:57, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Arkenstone did kind of make the claim Cazenave was a Catholic bishop, but I think he was more guilty of imprecision than anything else. Based on an unreliable website, I think some people definitely believe him to be a bishop of the Syrian-Orthodox church of the Indies of Malabar. As it goes, though coauthoring with people who have published reliable works does increase an author's credibility, it does not, in this case, mitigate for the problems with the publisher. There are many writers who have some reliable works and some which are valid for only their opinion. Boynamedsue (talk) 06:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, I did presume him to be a Bishop of the Roman Curia, instead of the Syrian-Orthodox Church. I had no compelling reason to doubt he was a Bishop, however. It seems absurd to me that an author would resort to such a ruse, risking their reputation and career on a preface commendation of a non-existant Bishop.

As it goes, though coauthoring with people who have published reliable works does increase an author's credibility, it does not, in this case, mitigate for the problems with the publisher

Fair enough. And for that reason, I understand that the book cannot be used to support controversial statements as facts, but only as the author's opinion. Arkenstrone (talk) 07:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Do you have a single reliable source which says he's a Bishop in the Syrian-Orthodox Church? Note that it can only be used to support the author's opinion on the author's page, there is no way to use it at The Poem of the Man God because the author's opinion is not due for inclusion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:40, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

What "reputation and career" was he risking? Haven't we established that this was his first book, and it was outside the realm of any existing career we've found sign of? (And if you think that aspiring authors would never think of pulling shenanigans, sit down with me and some fellow publishers at a bar at a convention sometime, and we'll have some stories to tell you.) -- Nat Gertler (talk) 14:51, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

NatGertler, I assume those stories would include Nicolas Bourbaki and some of their pranks. At some point Andre Weil carried business cards with the name Bourbaki and was accused of being a spy when they found them along with his own cards in his wallet at a border crossing. Cartan and Weil had that game going for quite a while. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 16:04, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to close this discussion: This discussion seems destined to end in the book in question being declared not reliable for factual information, because there is only one user arguing for reliability and a few others supporting unreliability. In the sense of WP:SNOW this discussion has no chance of proving the book to be reliable in the context of WP:BURDEN regardless of any additional drama on this page. I therefore propose that this discussion should close with the conclusion that the book was found not to be reliable for factual information, so we can move on. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 00:42, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Read above. Lavere is credible given he has coauthored with others who have published reliable works. However, due to lack of editorial oversight of the publisher, the book cannot be used to support controversial statements as facts, but only as the author's opinion. Arkenstrone (talk) 08:33, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't go so far as to say he is "credible", I think the coauthoring lowers the odds against him, but on its own is not enough. The inclusion of its claims would be governed by WP:DUE and, to an extent, WP:FRINGE. I think the problem here is, at its root, the inclusion of claims of Valtorta's orthodoxy due to second-hand accounts of approval by senior church figures, and whether it's possible to include apologia from Lavere. That is a massive can of worms. Boynamedsue (talk) 08:49, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

The problem is that all these "fanatical" statements from this Enigma book seem to suggest that the majority of the Catholic Church (if not the entire planet) support Valtorta. That is far, far from reality. This is a controversial topic. Only totally drunk people would suggest that the book is not controversial. I have not had any drinks today, so I would not suggest that. So a can of woems would be an understatement. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 09:56, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Which "fanatical" statements? Some of the things Lavere is stating is also stated by co-authors Laurentin, and Debroise, AND Lavere in another book of the same year, regarding similar material, and probably others. So that's hardly "fanatical". While many controversial statements may not be used due to the issue with the publisher's lack of editorial oversight, that doesn't make them "fanatical". Controversial does not equal fanatical. Your penchant for hyperbole and exaggeration is not helpful. Arkenstrone (talk) 18:30, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

René Laurentin and François-Michel Debroise would appear to be controversial figures in their own right due to their promotion of fringy Marian concepts like apparitions (ghosts to the layman). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:52, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, The problem with saying only "controversial" statements from the book should be excluded is that it makes the can of worms exponentially larger over time. Consider the statement that is already in the article:

"According to Lavère, in January 1962, Fr. Berti was given an authorization to publish by the Vice Commissioner of the Holy See, Father Marco Giraudo, and this statement attributed to Fr. Giraudo was added by Emilio Pisani, Valtorta's publisher, to volume 10 of the 1985 French edition: “You have our total approbation to continue the publication of this second edition of The Gospel as revealed to me [the Poem] by Maria Valtorta," concluding with, "We shall see how it is received.”"

Is this controversial? I think it is not only controversial, but clearly absurd, given that the Index was still active in 1962. And in the book Lavere gives no indication of the statement came about. This statement is tantamount to the Vice President of some country giving permission to ignore some of the laws in that country that are already on the books. These debates about what is controversial will turn that page into an utter mess. I agree with the position taken by Jahaza that the book is "entirely dubious" as a source. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 10:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

I don't know if we need a formal close, but I agree that we have to consider the source unreliable or objectionable for any number of reasons. Whether it's dubious or a hoax or the author is careless about names and facts or it's factual but niche enough to be overlooked by every other reliable source, it really doesn't matter. The source lacks the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that we require. Woodroar (talk) 12:47, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Woodroar, Thank you. It was about time someone said that loud and clear as you did. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 16:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Yesterday, all my dreams..., yes absolutely, that is a highly controversial statement. Anything that can only be sourced to a book without sufficient editorial oversight could be challenged on that basis. Boynamedsue (talk) 13:45, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Boynamedsue, So your definition of "controversial" is any statement that can only be sourced to that book and no other? If so, almost every statement from that book used in the article is controversial, because it has a single source, namely the book. And they are often sourced in the book itself to blogs and personal websites that would not be considered WP reliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 16:11, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Right, and this is one of the problems at present. That statement was made by Fr. Berti, who was present at the meeting with Fr. Giraudo. He produced a signed letter and testimony attesting to that event. The problem is that while this signed letter and testimony exists on websites that host information and historical documents concerning these events, they haven't been formally published, and so there is some difficulty using them as reliable primary sources. There is plenty of evidence to indicate these events did happen, it's just that we are unable to cite reliable sources confirming this at present. In due course, this may change, but until then, we are forced to treat them as "controversial" statements whose primary source evidence can't be cited directly. But certainly not "fanatical".

So the question is, is it possible to reference such controversial statements, reworked or reworded, not as fact, but as something controversial, and as the authors opinion or view? For example, there is a line of text in the sister article Maria Valtorta that sites Bouflet's statement (a critic of Valtorta) that all we know about Valtorta is from her autobiography. But this is incorrect. At least 2 biographies have been written about her. However, the statement remains, not because it's factual, but because he's generally considered a reliable source, with reliable publisher, etc. even though the statement itself is clearly incorrect. So we say that "According to Bouflet…" or "Bouflet states that…" in order not mislead readers into thinking that his statement is incontrovertible fact.

Also, @Yesterday is misleading you. As I mentioned before, some of the statements made by Lavere are also made by others, including Laurentin and Debroise and Lavere himself as co-author with other RS authors in other books. For example some of the statements concerning Msgr. Tettamanzi, Fr. Allegra, and Cardinal Gagnon, appear in both books. I will acquire copies of the other books to see which other statements also appear in these books so we can stop attributing to "fanaticism" that which is simply controversial or even reliably sourced fact. Arkenstrone (talk) 19:33, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

In search of Cazenave

Recently @Horse Eye's Back: asked about Cazenave again. Given that a few days ago I had said that after @Arkenstone: had had a chance to say his piece, I would tell you guys what I know about this man, I should do so. Hopefully this will end this discussion and we can move on. Two things we can be certain about: first that this is a very, very strange man, and secondly that he has not taken a vow of poverty, by any means. In fact Jahaza figured most of it out, as well except the part about his fancy bedroom. That place is in fact so fancy that it was featured in The Economist as one of the fanciest bedrooms around. There is even a picture of Cazenave in his Louis XVI bed, but given that The Economist is a family publication, he was alone in that picture at least.

What surprised me at first is that they never said he was "Bishop of A" with A as a city name. He was not the bishop of Paris for sure, and not even of an out of the way place like Annecy. So what did he do when the synod was over? The 2nd strange thing was that if had been a "usual bishop" he would have performed some weddings, funerals, etc. And there would have been pictures of him doing so on the internet. But there are none. So it must have been a "rent a bishop for a day" type of episcopus vagans situation just for the duration of the synod, and the front of the book focused just on that.

The third item was that if he had been to the Sorbonne, and was French, his name may not have been "Johanan-Mariam" but Jean-Marie. After a few seraches he turned out to be Jean Bernard Cazenave. The way we know that is the same man is that image searches show the same man. And the explanation for his not being at weddings etc. may be that he was monsignor amd an archimandrite tucked away in an monastery somewhere. But none of that is totally certain, and he may be a semi-Bourbaki character anyway. It is difficult to know who this man is, although we know that he exists and likes to drink in bars. There are pictures of him doing that.

So you can do a few Google " image searches" for Jean Bernard Cazenave and see him with his friends [15] etc. You will eventually also see him in bed, etc. as well. For someone who had been in a monastery, his taste in Louis XVI furniture is realy strange. Or maybe it was this monastery anyway.

Horse Eye, if you are thinking of going over to ANI about Arkenstrone about this, I think it will not succeed, given that The Economist is a reliable source and calls him a monsignor in that order. So you may save effort on that. Hopefully Arkenstrone will be more careful, and avoid that fate. Now, can we please end this discussion? Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:21, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Monsignor Johanan-Mariam (Jean Bernard) Cazenave giving benediction at Sunday mass at Saint Jacques de Compostelle Cathedral.[16]

Close up of Msgr. Cazenave.[17]

Saint Jacques de Compostelle Cathedral, September 2011, Msgr. Johanan-Mariam sings Hail Mary in the Aramaic language.[18]

Other sermons.[19]

Given that Msgr. Cazenave still appears to be alive, you might want to be a bit more careful about WP:BLP. Arkenstrone (talk) 02:15, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Would you agree that given that this person isn't a bishop but is described in the book as a bishop that Enigma Valtorta is an unreliable source for all things including attributed statements? PS, take a look at the subscriptions for that YouTube account... [20][21]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:10, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Horse Eye's Back:, I had not looked at those funny subscriptions, but now the only remaining question is if "Jungle Tarzan" turns into a bishop after he puts his clothes on, or not. But jokes aside at this point in the discussion it does not matter what Arkenstrone agrees to or not. To include that book as a source for anything at all, per WP:BURDEN he would need proof/agreement/support that the book is reliable. He is nowhere near getting that because four editors namely you, myself, Woodroar and Jahaza consider the book utterly dubious, and useless as a source. A fifth editor namely Boynamedsue is somewhat lukewarm on the issue but does not fully support the book. So Arkenstone can type on here for a year and a half and repeat the same things again and again, but that will not affect the outcome of this discussion. There is no agreement at all here that the book is reliable for anything at all. So the book fails WP:BURDEN and can not be used as a source at all. End of story.

@Arkenstrone:, you may have heard the saying: "if you are in a hole, it might be a good idea to stop digging". So it would be a good idea to take a look at WP:HEAR before any more digging takes place. And just today you claimed on the article talk page that the "take away" from this discussion is that the Enigma book can be used for all non controversial facts. In my view that is a "take away" delivered to an incorrect address. So explain why that is the take away from this discussion given 4 users who oppose you on that. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 03:38, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Bishop Cazenave

Jungle Tarzan

I presume you are referring to Bishop Cazenave's headdress. The headdress is part of the standard vestments of the Orthodox Syriac Church, different from the headdress worn by Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church.[22]

"The liturgical vestments worn by a Bishop during the Order of Aaron in the preparatory prayers is similar to that of a Priest along with some additional vestments. They wear a phiro, a small black cap which the bishop must wear during all public prayers, under the Eskimo, a hood worn by monks at all times. It consists of seven sections which indicate the full priesthood of the celebrant."

The 2nd strange thing was that if had been a "usual bishop" he would have performed some weddings, funerals, etc. And there would have been pictures of him doing so on the internet. But there are none

• I posted a link to a video of Msgr. Cazenave giving the benediction for Sunday mass at a highly prestigious Cathedral in Spain, as well as a video of him leading portions of the service in song/prayer. The subscriber count for those videos are irrelevant. I provided evidence for which you said there was none. Furthermore, any visiting Bishop would need to be vetted by the clergy and Bishop assigned to that diocese before participating in any public service. They would certainly know whether Cazenave was an authentic Bishop or a fraud. Their verdict? Authentic, of good standing, and good character.

• Given this evidence, as well as the evidence provided by the sleuth-work of other editors in this discussion, Msgr. Cazenave appears to be an authentic Bishop in the Syriac Orthodox Church (as Johanan-Mariam Cazenave, Secretary of Syrian-French Synod), and also in the Nordic Catholic Church (as Jean-Bernard de Cazenave, Vicar General, France). It appears he is a graduate of the "Institut Catholique" of Paris and of the Paris-Sorbonne University.

• I think the "dubiousness" of Msgr. Cazenave has been largely shown to be unwarranted. The original confusion came from the fact that he is a member of the Syriac Orthodox Church, a sister Church of the Church of Rome. And if Msgr. Cazenave's "dubiousness" is the only reason for saying Lavere's book is inadmissible, then those opinions are based on wrong information.

Credibility of Lavere

• Now, let's remember why Msgr. Cazenave was originally brought up. He is not the focus of this discussion. His name was brought up because he provided a forward to Lavere's book. That forward adds some credibility to the book given his domain expertise. That's all. In the same way any other high-ranking prelate writing a forward would tend to lend greater credibility to a work. And in order to attack the credibility of the book and author, some editors chose to attack the credibility of the Bishop giving his endorsement of the book.

• Also, since Laurentin and Debrois single out Lavere and his work in their book "Insagine su Maria" (from a reliable publisher) pointing out the quality of Lavere's work and contribution over the years, that further adds credibility to Lavere and his work.

• Lastly, since Lavere has co-authored a book with Laurentin and Debrois (from a reliable publisher) that once again adds additional credibility to Lavere and his work.

• Therefore, Lavere appears to be a reasonably credible author. All that being said, the fundamental issue has narrowed to using Lavere's book as a source in very specific circumstances. Given the issues with the publisher (lack of editorial oversight), it has been reasonably pointed out that the book cannot be used for controversial statements of fact. This was established early on in this discussion, and was squarely based in Wikipedia policy. For this reason, I removed the material and citations that offended this policy. I will look for other, more reliable sources for this material. It was also established that Lavere's book can be used for Lavere's own words, views or opinions provided there isn't an over-reliance on them as per WP:DUE.

Uncontroversial Words of Bishop Danylak

• The remaining two citations from Lavere's book do not reference controversial statements of fact. Quite the opposite. They quote a high-ranking Bishop of the Catholic Church, Msgr. Roman Danylak, a subject-matter expert with a doctorate in Canon and Civil law from Pontifical Lateran University, as well as a Licentiate of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical Urbaniania, which grants the holder the right to teach in Catholic seminaries and schools of theology.

• Why is Lavere's reference to Msgr. Danylak's words not controversial? Because Msgr. Danylak established a personal website, where he self-published articles on various topics, including one or two related to Valtorta. These are his own words, the words of a subject-matter expert. It is a fact that Msgr. Danylak did indeed say these things. Lavere is simply referring to those words which are verifiable by anyone with an internet connection. Nothing more than that. No controversial statements of fact are involved. (Msgr. Danylak passed away in 2012 and his website has been archived but remains accessible).

• This is why Lavere's book should be admissible (but, I concede, limited in what we can take from it) and why those remaining two citations should be allowed to stand.

If you disagree, please address the arguments you disagree with above directly and in substance, without being dismissive or distracting into tangential or peripheral issues. I've sectioned and bulleted them so they can be more easily addressed. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:24, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Jungle Tarzan refers to this account[23] which the YouTube account you've presented as Cazenave's follows. Does this effect your analysis? I also seem to have missed the source that supports the idea that Cazenave is a bishop at all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

But all that is beside the point, given that Arkenstrone is singing such a lonely tune here and is about to run over WP:HERE. He can sing that lonely tune for another year, but that will not change the outcome here. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Not relevant. I've presented video evidence of Msgr. Cazenave giving benediction and leading mass at a prestigious Cathedral in Spain, plus giving a few sermons, with bolded supporting arguments. Other editors have presented some evidence as well. Substantial, pertinent, and well-reasoned arguments only please. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:57, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Summary of the discussion so far

Given that the discussion seems to circular, here is the summary of the discussion so far as I see it:

Four users believe that the book Enigma is unreliable and dubious as source and can not be used for statements of fact. These are:

• Horse Eye: "not an acceptable source for statements of fact but could be used for the author's opinion if due"

• Jahaza: "This source seems to be entirely dubious"

• Woodroar: "we have to consider the source unreliable or objectionable for any number of reasons. ... The source lacks the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that we require"

• Myself, Yesterday, all my dreams...: "The book is totally unreliable."

A fifth user, Boynamedsue is lukewarm on the subject:

• Boynamedsue: "I see no evidence of editorial oversight at a sufficient level that controversial facts can be supported, although it is obviously good for the author's opinion."

The sixth user Arkenstone seems to fully support the book.

Hence the clear conclusion so far (4 users vs 2 users) is that the book is unreliable and cannot be used for statememts of fact. And in any case, there is no consensus for the book is reliable, and hence the book fails WP:BURDEN. Hence the book is not be used for statements of fact at all. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 00:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

The more "evidence" I see, the more I smell a hoax—or at least grasping at patently unreliable straws. This whole thing is ridiculous. Woodroar (talk) 01:05, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

[Notified by an article talk page alert] As someone who has reviewed hoaxes regarding alleged Syriac Orthodox in an academic setting, I feel somewhat qualified to weigh in: I'm convinced something is too fishy to allow this book as a source. Bishop scams are as common as Nigerian prince ones and predate them by many centuries (though perhaps Prester John myths offer a shared origin). In any case, I think we have enough doubt to permit any real use of this text on Wikipedia. ~ Pbritti (talk) 05:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

RfC: Reliability of La Patilla

What is the reliability of La Patilla?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

WMrapids (talk) 22:17, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

---

 Comment: A previous discussion was raised regarding the reliability of La Patilla. In the discussion, concerns about the reliability of La Patilla included its reposting of deprecated and blacklisted sources (including Stop the Steal, anti-immigrant articles and frequent opinion articles from WP:BREITBART, WP:EPOCHTIMES, WP:ZEROHEDGE, WP:IBTIMES and others), its heavy bias and its leadership working directly on behalf of Juan Guaidó (one user describing the outlet as "propaganda"). Those defending La Patilla said that it is one of the most popular websites in Venezuela and that though it reposts questionable sources, it does not do it often.

@NoonIcarus, Visviva, and Burrobert: Pinging users previously involved. --WMrapids (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1: La Patilla is currently one of the main outlets in Venezuela, with 13 years of experience mostly as a news aggregator, and as such, a valuable resource for references in Venezuela related topics. While concerns with editorial independence have been brought up, examples of how it has been affected have not been given. Per WP:SOURCECOUNTING, examples of unreliability were uncommon, and links provided before were not representative of La Patilla's overall performance.

I really don't want to go over the details again and the previous discussion can be consulted, and I would like new editors to participate and give their feedback, but I can invite them to look after its use in articles about Venezuela, and see that in those cases there have not been concerns regarding reliability. Pinging @Kingsif, JML1148, Red-tailed hawk, and SandyGeorgia:, who also participated in the last discussion. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

While I have the chance, I'll put out to WP:BLUDGEON concerns pointed out in the previous RfC, as well as related ones. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Please don't attempt to canvass as it seems that you have attempted to notify a user noted above in a dubious manner.--WMrapids (talk) 00:39, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 Concerns have been raised over the quality of reporting decreasing since 2019 or 2020; before some cut-off date in that period, La Patilla can be considered generally reliable. After this, it is typically accurate but may present bias - sticking to the facts rather than using it as a gauge of sentiment would be wise, and editors could include in-line attributions. Obviously any of the reposts from other sources should be judged based on the reliability of the original source. There was a mention that alleged recent unreliability for coverage of politics; I don't find much credence to this, and think the allegation mistakes partisanship in a fact-checking source for "propaganda" (I won't speculate as to why). Kingsif (talk) 00:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  The issue with placing a date on this is that La Patilla has reposted WP:RT[.]COM since at least 2013, WP:EPOCHTIMES since 2014, WP:BREITBART since 2015, WP:ZEROHEDGE since 2016 and PanAm Post since early 2018. WMrapids (talk) 05:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 I know I previously said I didn't want to be involved in this dispute anymore, but I feel quite strongly about this one. La Patilla has reposted articles from unreliable right-wing sources Breitbart and Epoch Times, among others. There has also been links made between La Patilla and right-wing politicians. Considering the Western sources that have been deprecated, I don't see why this shouldn't be considered unreliable. JML1148 ^{(talk | contribs)} 02:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4: Per the previous discussion, La Patilla republishes WP:BREITBART, WP:EPOCHTIMES, WP:ZEROHEDGE, WP:IBTIMES articles, so obviously that is the audience they are catering for. NoonIcarus previously stated "Breitbart's unreliability is not as known is the Spanish speaking sphere also has to be considered", but if La Patilla were a quality source and had decent editorial staff, they would obviously not be republishing such articles like they have been doing for years. The argument that they are "one of the main outlets in Venezuela" is also a red herring since it has nothing to do with La Patilla's reliability. We can look at WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS as an example; Fox News may be "the most-watched cable network in the U.S.", but that does not make it reliable. Visviva also stated in the previous discussion "I don't really have an objection to option 3 either. I went with the more cautious choice mostly just out of concern that there might be some valuable use of this source that hasn't come to light". Looking at what this user said, there are really no examples of La Patilla being cited by reliable sources except for discussing court proceedings against the outlet. BBC News did however describe La Patilla as a "satirical website" while BBC Monitoring wrote in an article discussing Venezuelan outlets that La Patilla "churns out a barrage of pro-opposition and anti-government news items", that the outlet "has a penchant for dramatic headlines, such as 'Venezuela in its third day of paralysis and anguish due to the red blackout, with no solution in sight'" and described La Patilla as "rabidly anti-government" . Overall, much of La Patilla's content has a pretty heavy bias and it republishes articles from unreliable sources.--WMrapids (talk) 03:47, 26 June 2023 (UTC) (Edit: Adding "or 4" after content farm concerns were raised)1 -- WMrapids (talk) 04:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

An edit breaking down how La Patilla is a questionable source, how it is not used by other sources and how the outlet has used fake news to promote its POV, providing the conclusion that La Patilla is an unreliable source.--WMrapids (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 There is quite strong evidence here of publishing content which is unusable for us, if it were a UK website, I have no doubt it would already be deprecated. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:16, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

As commented in the previous discussion, the examples provided for this is either content originally posted by reliable sources or statements by foreign politicians or entities. WP:ABOUTSELF applies specially in the case of RT; hence why WP:SOURCECOUNTING was cited: a large list of links was offered, only having in common word matches, without examining reliability in depth, and the few exceptions did not prove this was systematic for the WP:GUNREL qualification. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 some important examples of unreliable behaviour have been brought here but a few examples are not sufficient to make it a perennial or deprecated source per WP:SOURCECOUNTING. As far as I can see from the previous conversation (uninvolved) the notability of the source has been demonstrated but few articles, if any, really investigate the topic of La Patilla unreliability and it is more about government pressure on the news site. I think the best compromise would be to add general considerations as to not be used "to substantiate exceptional claims or unsourced investigations" due to sensationalistic titles and rapid coverage. I think its mistakes are not really topic related. Accusations of partisanship have been brought forward but it is clear that La Patilla is independent and has published many articles about government and opposition scandals. Also let us remind that opinion articles are never to be used without attribution independently of the source.--ReyHahn (talk) 23:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

How does listing examples of La Patilla reposting deprecated and blacklisted sources equate to WP:SOURCECOUNTING? Someone made the backhanded request of "Continue the discussion until it is pages long just like Fox News (23, last time I checked WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS), providing repeated instances of factual errors, and perhaps I'll concede." So, I was obliged to answer with many instances of La Patilla reposting articles from poor sources. Are we not here to review La Patilla's editorial behavior? It doesn't matter that La Patilla removes some words or phrases from the poor sources when they repost articles, La Patilla is still citing poor sources. Why would La Patilla's editorial team repost articles from poor sources for over ten years?

Here is just one example. In late-2022, La Patilla reposted the article "Maduro's regime empties prisons and sends violent criminals to the US border" from WP:BREITBART through their own editorial voice. In the article, La Patilla is asserting that the Maduro government is sending criminals to the US and that a "source, who is not authorized to talk to the media, told Breitbart Texas that the measure recalls a similar action taken by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during the Mariel boatlift in the 1980s." However, looking at the facts surrounding the Mariel boatlift, only about 2% of the 125,000 migrants sent were estimated to be criminals, while other individuals were involved in small crimes or were formerly imprisoned political opponents. Just from this one example, we can see La Patilla pushing a false narrative, with the help of WP:BREITBART, to demonize the Maduro and Castro governments. WMrapids (talk) 05:35, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Quick note that La Patilla withdrew a related article and that Castro did release criminals during the Mariel boatlift, offering the option between emigration and jail time. Also, when I mentioned that discussions should be as long as Fox News', I did not mean they had to be artificially prolonged with a list of links, only that there such be enough community participation for that amount of time to reach the same conclusions. --NoonIcarus (talk) 07:31, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Please stop the continuation of the false narrative. If you read the source, the Cuban government wanted to release “undesirables”, such as political opponents and homosexuals, not specifically criminals. As the other sources state, the majority were not “criminals” as they are normally defined. WMrapids (talk) 13:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a reliability problem, since convicts were released regardless. The same can be said for many of the other point brought up, including calling Fidel Castro a dictator: describing the leader of a one-party state that ruled for almost 50 years is only normal. That it might be a debatable term and other sources won't use it is another matter, but it is unrelated to reliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

You should stop using an inaccurate persuasive definition; you are "more concerned about swaying people to one side or another than expressing the unbiased facts" in an effort to avoid the truth. The truth is that the information provided by Breitbart and in turn La Patilla an extremely biased narrative that was created to push disinformation. Please stop. WMrapids (talk) 22:15, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2: For La Patilla to be considered "generally unreliable" as a source, there has to be sufficient amount of evidence proving that it has been routinely publishing misinformations and asserting them as facts. Like the newspapers of records that have been deemed generally reliable by the community, a news source that has been active for over a decade like La Patilla is bound to have published some mistakes from time to time. So cherrypicking a few examples of false or misleading statements is not going to be enough and the other participants of this discussion supporting Option 3 have not provided any example whatsoever.

Also, republishing translated articles from unreliable and deprecated sources does not automatically or necessarily mean that any of the informations in those republished articles is false. Claiming that an info that happens to be in a source has to be false because that source routinely publishes misinformation is association fallacy. You are going to have to check the republished articles one by one to see if most of them actually contain misinformation to actually support this assertion. If the primary concern is over these republished articles, then we could include in the summary on WP:RSPSOURCES that "republished articles from unreliable or deprecated sources should not be used to support exceptional claims or statements of fact" especially since La Patilla always clearly indicates the respective original news source and author either near the start or at the end of those republished articles. That is why I support Option 2 for "additional considerations apply".

Furthermore, as NoonIcarus said in the previous discussion on Talk:La Patilla, this source has retracted articles and removed questionable statements before indicating at least a degree of editorial oversight.

Lastly, being biased or opinionated for politics is not really significant or relevant for assessing reliability. Most of the generally reliable newspapers of records and other sources whose editorial stances and biases have always been clear to everyone do not even have their summaries on WP:RSPSOURCES indicate that they are biased. Jacobin is much less subtle about its political bias compared to La Patilla and yet it is still considered "generally reliable" (so far anyway).

--StellarHalo (talk) 11:46, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. The OP says complaints are about reposting "anti-immigrant" or "opinion articles" or "bias". That means it's not about "Reliability of La Patilla", it's about politics of La Patilla. That's an improper basis for starting a WP:RSN RfC with banning options. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  La Patilla’s use of blacklisted and deprecated sources, in addition to its spread of false narratives (example above), is directly related to its reliability in addition to its extreme bias. WMrapids (talk) 19:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  This brings up another important issue from the last discussion: many of the links cited as examples of unreliability were actually opinion articles. These are clearly distinguished from news articles, and as such should not be considered to weight unreliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Your opinion seems dubious as you are someone who wanted to remove Breitbart from being blacklisted. WMrapids (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4. I read a dozen or so articles and a few dozen headlines, and I'm not seeing much that I'd consider trustworthy. Most of the articles were reposts, which suggests that they're a "content farm" more than a "news outlet". That they readily repost Breitbart, Epoch Times, RT, etc. should be an instant fail as far as reliability goes. If they do repost news from an otherwise reliable source, then we should use the original article, not La Patilla. Few reliable sites repost LP articles and (as mentioned above) several consider them biased or satirical, which points to their lack of a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And, to be clear, it's not that their bias makes them unreliable, but that their bias leads to them repost fake news, rush content (and then retract it), write misleading headlines, etc.—which is what makes them unreliable. Woodroar (talk) 23:42, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with this assessment. La Patilla appears to be content farm since there is little original content provided across its articles. And yes, search through the list of WP:GREL sources and their use of La Patilla; you will find little to nothing. After reviewing "Healthline: deprecate or blacklist?", La Patilla seems to be similar to Red Ventures websites in the way that it may participate in churnalism. WMrapids (talk) 04:32, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Where did check for these headlines again? A quick browse through its website (lapatilla.com) will easily show plenty of articles that are original content. Here are some examples, just from today's headlines:

• Domestic:
• International:
• Opposition primaries (precandidates for next year's elections):

La Patilla is far from being a content farm at all. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Domestic:

1. Repost of EFE
2. Repost of press release
3. Original to LP
4. Original to LP

International:

1. Original to LP
2. Repost of a journalist's post
3. Repost of Daily Star (United Kingdom) tabloid
4. Repost of Agence France-Presse

As for opposition primaries, of course La Patilla will cover the process themselves as they are the opposition outlet. So yeah, the majority of what you shared that is not directly related to the opposition is just reposts from other sources. WMrapids (talk) 20:39, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Translations are not reposts, specially when original content is added. It's also interesting to see how the goalposts are moved in face of the examples. --NoonIcarus (talk) 21:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3. La Patilla acts as a propaganda outfit for the opposition against the Venezuelan government. Its extreme bias means we can't rely on it to provide accurate reporting. WMrapids has provided extensive documentation of its many editorial failings. As pointed out by Woodroar, its bias affects the type of content it publishes. It regularly refers to Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro as a dictator. It published articles that supported, and sometimes encouraged, the attempted regime-change operation to install Juan Guaidó as President. One of its articles exhorted its readers to "Follow the example that Caracas gave: They confirm nightly protests against Maduro in 30 capital communities". Another is titled "Support for Maduro's departure continues to grow: 85.4% of Venezuelans want the Chavista nightmare to end now". It is currently running a campaign called #NoEsNormal against the Venezuela government, in which it tells its readers to "avoid getting used to the vices of Chavismo".

Regarding the connection between bias and reliability, there is a point at which bias does affect reliability. Even when biased sources are not found to be generally unreliable, editors have decided that the use of such sites should be attributed (see entries for the Cato Institute, CEPR, Common Sense Media etc.) There are a number of examples on the Perennial list of sources found to be unreliable, with a note that the sources' bias contributed to the rating. Some examples:

- California Globe: Editors also note the highly opinionated nature of the site as evidence against its reliability.

- The Canary: “There is consensus that The Canary is generally unreliable. Its reporting is sensationalist at times; selective reporting, a left-wing bias, and a poor distinction between editorial and news content were also noted”.

- CESNUR: “CESNUR is an apologia site for new religious movements, and thus is inherently unreliable in its core area due to conflicts of interest ".

- Epoch Times: “Most editors classify The Epoch Times as an advocacy group for the Falun Gong, and consider the publication a biased or opinionated source that frequently publishes conspiracy theories as fact”.

- The Federalist: “The Federalist is generally unreliable for facts due to its partisan nature and its promotion of conspiracy theories”.

- Heat Street: “many editors note that Heat Street does not clearly differentiate between its news articles and opinion. There is consensus that Heat Street is a partisan source ".

Burrobert (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yet again it is claimed that the editorial line affects the reliability, but no examples of this are given. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Burrobert's response was provided after examples were provided below which shows that La Patilla manipulates news coverage in favor of their bias (i.e. La Patilla a questionable source that has limited use by others and has promoted manipulated content). WMrapids (talk) 17:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Questionable and WP:FRINGE information examples

Here is a list of examples showing some questionable information presented by La Patilla:

• "Maduro's regime empties prisons and sends violent criminals to the US border" – A repost of a WP:BREITBART article that compares the alleged actions of the Maduro government to the false narrative that Castro packed criminals into the Mariel boatlift to send to the US
• "Report: Venezuela’s worst and darkest head North for destinations like Martha’s Vineyard" – Another WP:BREITBART repost that uses the Mariel boatlift comparison; "Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro is freeing some of Venezuela’s most violent criminals from prison and sending them to the U.S. southern border ... The source, not authorized to speak to the media, told Breitbart Texas the move by Venezuela of freeing criminals who then head for the U.S. is reminiscent of a similar action taken by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during the Mariel boat lift in the 1980s"
• "This US airline will fire 593 workers who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19" – A repost of a WP:EPOCHTIMES article that states "the company would start the process of dismissal of employees who refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party), according to a memorandum addressed to employees, obtained by The Epoch Times", with no editorial removal of this WP:FRINGE content from La Patilla.
• "When could the world be free of coronavirus? What some experts say" – Citing the WP:EPOCHTIMES for information about COVID-19; "According to an extensive article in The Epoch Times, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the world cannot be controlled until at least 2027." Um, yeah.
• "Faith and freedom: How a Shen Yun dancer escaped from China" – A WP:EPOCHTIMES propaganda piece promoting the Falun Gong and Shen Yun; "like tens of millions of people in China, were in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) due to his religious faith. From night to morning, approximately 70 to 100 million Falun Gong practitioners, also known as Falun Dafa, went from being known to the general public as kind people who practiced meditation and followed "Truth, Benevolence and Tolerance," to being branded as enemies of the state in 1999."
• "Republican Mitch McConnell warns of the return to confinement in the United States if people do not get vaccinated against Covid-19" – More WP:FRINGE from an WP:EPOCHTIMES repost; "Many governors in 2020 imposed tough measures, such as the closure of schools and businesses. The result was widespread unemployment and an increase in health problems such as drug abuse. Some experts said that the closures helped stop the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19." Again, La Patilla left this dubious material in the article.
• "Iran's revenge on the United States after Soleimani's death could pass through Venezuela" – Pushing WP:FRINGE info from PanAm Post suggesting that Iran and Hezbollah would try to attack the US with the help of Venezuela.

This is what I've had time to place. May add more later if necessary, but this should provide a picture of La Patilla's editorial quality which promotes quantity over quality.--WMrapids (talk) 04:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Let's go through your claims of questionable info and WP:FRINGE one by one:

• Mariel boatlift comparison: Neither of those articles actually say that Castro sent criminals to the United States. They were just pointing out the similarity in which both Maduro and Castro regimes took advantage of mass exoduses to get rid of people they saw as undesirable.
• "This US airline will fire 593 workers who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19": "CCP Virus" is simply a term the Epoch Times uses as a substitute for SARS-Cov-2 virus and a term that will never be used on here due to WP:UNDUE. Besides that, the content of this short article has no false info, as seen here
• "When could the world be free of coronavirus? What some experts say": That claim was clearly attributed to a subject matter expert and reported on by a newspaper of record and other sources. Not sure how that would be considered questionable or WP:FRINGE.
• "Faith and freedom: How a Shen Yun dancer escaped from China": You are going to have to point out which specific part of that quote you highlighted from this article is false.
• "Republican Mitch McConnell warns of the return to confinement in the United States if people do not get vaccinated against Covid-19": Again, besides keeping "CCP Virus" from the original, which part of the highlighted quote is WP:FRINGE?
• "Iran's revenge on the United States after Soleimani's death could pass through Venezuela": Analysis made by a subject matter expert on topics of national security, Latin America, and Iran affiliated with at least one prominent think tank and appearing in several reliable sources for relevant comments (Ex: 1, 2) is not WP:FRINGE especially when the expert knows about the content of the PanAm Post article.

Also, all this focus on reposted articles from unreliable or deprecated sources is nothing more than red herring. How many of the articles from this source currently being used as citations on 313 pages   are actually reposted from any of the aforementioned unreliable or deprecated sources? How many of those are actually reposted from somewhere else for that matter? There are several pages of subjects related to Latin American topics currently using original articles written by La Patilla itself as citations. If anyone here wants to erase all those citations, then you will have to prove that they contain misinformations.

StellarHalo (talk) 08:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

It is astounding what you are attempting to ignore.

• The Breitbart/La Patilla articles comparing Venezuela and Cuba are directly implying that both countries were attempting to send criminals to the United States (similar to the "weaponizing migration" charges below). For the former, the "source" was "not authorized to speak to the media" while only speaking with Breitbart (fishy) and for the latter, research has already determined that a very small percentage of Mariel boatlift migrants were criminals.
• The fact that La Patilla published "the disease caused by the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party)" obviously pushes the fringe theory that the CCP were involved with the creation of the virus. If we were reading a good source, we wouldn't have to worry about WP:UNDUE terms, let alone WP:FRINGE terms, but this is not the case with La Patilla as their editors republish questionable material through a poor review process.
• Regarding the COVID-19 end date article, La Patilla is citing the Epoch Times on COVID-19 information. What reputable source would do that?
• Humire is a dubious source of such information and often participates in fear mongering. He is an Epoch Times contributor. He was a panel host at CPAC where he pushed conspiracy theories, calling COVID-19 the "china virus" (2:55), implied that the US-Mexico border is "heading into" the condition of the Colombia-Venezuela where he says China, Iran and Russia are present (10:15) and said that "Venezuela is weaponizing migration" (18:15). The Washington Office on Latin America has said that the SFS has made claims from "unspecified" sources in the past. Much of the information appears to be hearsay or conspiracies. Whether he is an Atlantic Council commentator or not, we have to pick apart each source and he is obviously not a good one.
• Your "red herring" charges are in fact a red herring itself, with your distraction tactic sounding like "You're showing that La Patilla is reposting questionable content from unreliable sources, but this is not related to reliability. La Patilla has previously been spread throughout Wikipedia, so we can't remove it do to its widespread use". Even if La Patilla were on every article in the project, it does not take away from the fact that it is unreliable and reposts material from other unreliable sources.

As perfectly explained above by Woodroar, La Patilla seems to be a content farm that does not fear (or have the capability to prevent) reposting unreliable content. WMrapids (talk) 16:15, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

This is blatantly false and can be easily proven by taken a quick look through its main page, as I explained above. There is plenty of original content, and most of its reposted content are translations from reliable sources such as AFP and Reuters (something that I also mentioned at the original discussion), while including some original text, which is common practice among newspapers. Jumping to this conclusion demonstrates carelessness in assessing the outlet's reliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

First, please read Wikipedia:No original research. Your personal analysis of what conclusion or narrative those articles imply has no relevance to the source's reliability as far as Wikipedia is concerned. Only what the sources clearly and explicitly state themselves is relevant. The same goes for your interpretation of "CCP Virus". Second, as I mentioned in the main discussion above, you are using guilt by association to push and jump to unwarranted conclusions that info in a reposted article must be wrong, questionable, or WP:FRINGE solely based on the reputation of the original news site the article was taken from and more importantly that La Patilla routinely publishes misinformation just because some of the reposted articles originated from unreliable sources. Third, quoted speculative analyses on near future events or courses of actions by subject matter experts are used all the time by RS in articles and news broadcasts especially when those experts also happen to be specialists in the specific relevant topics of the breaking news in question. You calling those analyses "conspiracies" and "fear mongering" does not make them WP:FRINGE. Again, you are using guilt by association to dismiss the views of an academic who has a long history of being used as subject matter expert by RS rather than engaging with the substance of the speculative argument itself.

Most importantly, as I already said above, you have to prove that La Patilla routinely publishes misinformation if you want your claim of it being generally unreliable to hold any water and you have not done so. Also, and just as important, I have not gone through all the 313 pages using this source as citations but from what I have seen, vast majority of those are original articles of La Patilla rather than reposted and none of the few reposted articles being used are actually from any of the aforementioned unreliable sources. For reposted articles, it is easy to just assess the original sources they were taken from individually to determine if they should be used or simply just not use reposted articles at all like I suggested. It is quite clear that you are trying to use questionable origins of a minority of contents to dismiss the rest of the content of La Patilla wholesale. You keep focusing on the notion that reposting articles from unreliable sources affect the reliability of La Patilla's original contents without any evidence. StellarHalo (talk) 04:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The RfC process is based on users interpreting which sources should or shouldn't be used based on reliability concerns and determining a consensus on the source in question. It's not difficult to see that "the disease caused by the CCP virus" is disinformation phrasing that was either promoted or ignored by La Patilla editors, which would show unreliability in both instances. The whole purpose of WP:RS is that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources". Why would Wikipedia users find a source that uses unreliable sources reliable? This is not guilt by association if La Patilla is directly reposting articles from unreliable sources, La Patilla then becomes the unreliable source as it is not just association. Further, per WP:QUESTIONABLE, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. ... The proper uses of a questionable source are very limited."

• Is La Patilla a questionable source? Y Yes

Now we can visit WP:USEBYOTHERS, which states "How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. ... For example, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts, whereas widespread doubts about reliability weigh against it." Already recognizing that La Patilla is a questionable source, we can visit the concerns by other users (such as @Visviva and Woodroar:) who note that La Patilla is not used by WP:GREL sources.

• Is La Patilla a questionable source and has limited use by others? Y Yes

Lastly, let's focus on fake news promoted by La Patilla. Not only does La Patilla post questionable content from deprecated and blacklisted sources, it does so itself. For instance, during the 2014 Venezuelan protests, La Patilla published the article "Unacceptable: Repressive forces beat and arrest a special young man (Photos)" (it still hasn't been fixed after nearly 10 years), though the photographer later explained the photos saying "I'm going to be very clear about this image, I took it, and it's a GN official helping a protester to breathe" and the Associated Press stated "A Bolivarian National Guard officer holds a demonstrator’s head up to help him breathe". The conservative Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia would also write "The violinist was the latest victim of the disproportionate violence of 'the paramilitary forces of the Chavista dictatorship,' as repeated in digital opposition media such as La Patilla ... However, as at other times in this crisis, the narrative of a heroic youth massacred by the Bolivarian dictatorship does not stick to the facts", with the article further explaining that La Patilla said a tear gas canister was the cause of death while further investigation showed that a ball bearing, possibly fired by protesters, was the deadly projectile and that Reuters had photos of protesters with makeshift firearms. In another instance, El Mundo analyzed a photograph from Hurricane Irene in 2011 that was used by La Patilla show shortages in Venezuela, writing "Whether for laziness and lack of diligence when it comes to verifying the origin of the image or because of a desire for manipulation, ... the Venezuelan opposition decided to systematically use this image."

• Is La Patilla a questionable source that has limited use by others and has promoted manipulated content? Y Yes

With these concerns identified, one can see that La Patilla is unreliable. WMrapids (talk) 08:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Is AfterEllen a reliable source for BLP reporting?

AfterEllen was last discussed in July 2020. The reliability of this site has come into question due to three related discussions at Talk:Dana Rivers, Talk:Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and Talk:Camp Trans, with a focus on a November 2022 article on Rivers.

Is AfterEllen a reliable source for BLP reporting? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

I would argue no, they are not reliable, particularly for trans and non-binary BLP reporting due to their strong bias. As noted in the last discussion, the site underwent a severe editorial change in 2016, after firing all of their staff, pivoting towards a focus on anti-trans content. As a result the publication was condemned by a coalition of editors from other mainstream lesbian publications ([24]) and was a focal point of a piece by NBC News in January 2019. In one academic paper the site's editorial shift towards trans exclusionary content has been described as an oppressive and dangerous theoretical stance that disparages and denigrates some of the most marginalized members of the LGBT community: trans women.

Currently, according to their about us page, they have only a single editor and contributing writer. It's unclear whether the remainder of the contributors to the site are freelancers, or bloggers who have been given a platform. There is no editorial, fact checking, or corrections policy published anywhere on their site. Their terms of service states that the site does not warrant that the content is accurate, reliable or correct oder that any defects or errors will be corrected.

While the site does have an opinion section, the opinion articles are also unidentifiably mixed in with their news section. While some opinion articles are clearly marked as such in the article header ([25]), there are many opinion articles that are not and are otherwise indistinguishable from their news or celeb reporting without manually checking the opinion section ([26], [27], [28]).

The publication is also known for pushing and amplifying harmful myths through its reporting and opinion articles like the cotton ceiling ([29], [30]), that being trans is an ideology ([31], [32], [33], [34]), and that LGBT teachers are grooming children ([35])

When taken in combination; the heavy anti-trans bias, lack of fact checking, editorial, and corrections policies, and the difficulty in separating opinion articles from factual reporting makes AfterEllen an unreliable source. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:52, 1 July 2023 (UTC)

Is the cotton ceiling a myth per se? There seem to be sources on the topic. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:02, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Biased sources aren't inherently unusable; in this case the apparent lack of fact-checking (indeed, as you point out, the notice that they don't warrant that the content is accurate or that it will be corrected if it turns out to be inaccurate) seems like the bigger issue which makes clear it's not a RS. It's depressing how many sources have fired all their staff and dispensed with fact-checking and around the same time as taking on a strong bias. The uses above also run into a ton of other issues, like whether a very marginal and very biased source would actually provide any wp:weight if the fact-checking issues magically disappeared, but the latter seems like the straw that makes it unusable. Do we have any articles that cite pre-2016 pieces? If so, we should also look into what the editorial status of the site was before the firings and change. -sche (talk) 05:40, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

It is unfortunate that they haven't made their fact checking or corrections policy available on their site, it doesn't prove that they don't exist. Relying on legalese from the ToS misses the mark completely - the NYT also say that it "DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE. THERE MAY BE DELAYS, OMISSIONS, INTERRUPTIONS, AND INACCURACIES IN THE CONTENT OR OTHER MATERIAL MADE AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICES" in their ToS.

So are there any examples of them getting facts wrong and not correcting them? Alaexis_¿question? 07:32, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

If AfterEllen have corrected or updated any articles after the 2016 editorial change, they have done so silently as I've not been able to find evidence of any articles that contain any sort of correction notice from a few searches.

As for just getting facts wrong with or without correction, this is difficult to quantify because the site's opinion articles are otherwise unidentifiably mixed in with their factual reporting. For example this article pushes the harmful myth that trans men are erasing butch lesbians, and is categorised as factual reporting despite from the text clearly being the opinion of the article's author. Do we want to count factual inconsistencies in marked and unmarked opinion articles against the publication? Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:43, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that this counts as getting facts wrong, rather than having different opinions about a phenomenon. Anyway, the article is clearly an opinion by a non-expert and I can't imagine it ever being used on Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 07:18, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Do we have any articles that cite pre-2016 pieces? If so, we should also look into what the editorial status of the site was before the firings and change. Out published an article in February 2019 with some details on how AfterEllen moved from being a mainstream lesbian focused publication in the early 2000s to the relative fringe publication that it is today. While it names key articles that corresponded to the publication's shift towards transphobia, it doesn't cite or name any specific pre-2016 articles.

In fact it is difficult to cite all manner of articles, especially for those published pre-2016, because as the Out article states, the archives and the work of some contributors [disappeared] overnight and some contributors witnessed their bylines simply changed to "staff" with no reasoning offered. A former contributor to AE speculated that it was a punitive thing when you tangle with AfterEllen's Twitter or publicly take issue with their current editorial direction.

The research paper (I can provide by email if needed, it's not in WP:LIB and I received a copy through WP:REREQ) that I cited above also documents some of the site's history. While it mentions a couple of articles that were published prior to 2016, the one article (no archive available) that it links to in the bibliography, by Julia Serano, is no longer available. Likewise the one penned by Jack Halberstam in 2015 was also removed.

Byline erasure was mentioned in the 2020 discussion on this source, see Hemiauchenia's comment at 23:33, 2 July 2020, but not discussed in any real depth. Sideswipe9th (talk) 21:30, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

• The consensus in the July 2020 RfC about AfterEllen was: "There is general agreement that AfterEllen is reliable, but that it should be used with context." The key word here is context.
  This RfC was opened because there was an edit (by a non-experienced editor) to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival article that added Dana Rivers as an activist at Camp Trans. It was poorly worded and the three sources provided were an article by Dana Rivers published in 2000, the tabloid Toronto Sun, and the New York Post. However, since Camp Trans is included in the lead and in the "Exclusion controversy" section (where other trans activists are included), I saw no reason why Dana Rivers' involvement in Camp Trans could not be added to the article.
  In my response at Talk:Michigan Womyn's Music Festival#Dana Rivers, I provided several sources that mention Dana Rivers' association with the Camp Trans protests at Michfest. Among them is an article by AfterEllen that says: "Rivers had also been active in “Camp Trans,” a campaign against Michfest, a female-only festival in Michigan that Reed and Wright attended frequently." – AJ (November 28, 2022). "Trans Activist, Dana Rivers, Found Guilty of Murdering Lesbian Couple and Their Son". AfterEllen.
  User:Sideswipe9th dismissed all the sources as not being acceptable and said about AfterEllen that it "is not a reliable source for BLPs, and its anti-trans bias also needs to be accounted for." To which I responded: "As for your comment that AfterEllen has an "anti-trans bias" ... so what? PinkNews is pro-trans and I haven't seen you reject PN as a "reliable source" because of its pro-trans bias. Besides which, per WP:BIASED: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective....Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context."" This is the reason behind why this RfC has been opened.
  As a lesbian-centric website, AfterEllen is a knowledgeable source about the lesbian community, lesbian culture, and lesbian history. In the past it published articles about MichFest. In 2018, it published an interview with Lisa Vogel, the co-founder of MichFest. Therefore, if it involves MichFest, AfterEllen can be used as a source.
  Dana Rivers' involvement with Camp Trans has been documented by several sources, including Rivers. There is no reason why the AfterEllen article cannot be used as a source in this matter. (I also provided this source: mantilla, karla; Vogel, Lisa (October 2000). "festival: Michigan: transgender controversy… …and right-wing attacks "americans for truth" claims MWMF endangers children" (PDF). Off Our Backs. 30 (9): 8–9. ISSN 0030-0071. –(via JSTOR), which published the following: "More than 60 gender activists from these groups [Camp Trans Planning Committee, Boston and Chicago chapters of Lesbian Avengers] plus members of Transsexual Menace, supportive attendees and renowned activist Dana Rivers gathered across the road from the Festival this year to do outreach and education on what they viewed as a discriminatory policy being unfairly applied....").
  The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival article is not the Dana Rivers biography article — and the AfterEllen source was not going to be used in the Rivers BLP.
  Let's not kid ourselves here, this RfC is just an attempt to censor AfterEllen and stop it from being used as a source in Wikipedia, even in lesbian-related subjects. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 12:38, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

• PinkNews is pro-trans and I haven't seen you reject PN as a "reliable source" because of its pro-trans bias. Since I noticed you brought this source up several times, I thought I'd respond to this (though I can't speak for Sideswipe9th - as I mentioned, my view is that the problem isn't simply that AfterEllen has a particular bias but that, post-2016, it is only known for that bias; it doesn't seem to have any meaningful coverage or usage in any other context.) Of course, if you want an in-depth discussion of PinkNews you can start another discussion for it, but even just at a glance there seem to be 300+ citations to it on Google Scholar, demonstrating strong WP:USEBYOTHERS; high-quality academic sources treat it as reliable source of information about LGBT issues. In comparison, AfterEllen has almost no coverage or citations post-2016 (when the site's new owners replaced literally all its employees, effectively turning it into a new publication with no relation to its previous self); virtually all coverage after that point is either discussing its pre-2016 incarnation or just discusses the way it was suddenly changed. Trying to equate AfterEllen to PinkNews is WP:FALSEBALANCE. --Aquillion (talk) 11:59, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"Trying to equate AfterEllen to PinkNews is WP:FALSEBALANCE." No, it is not. Because PinkNews is slanted in favor of pro-trans and it is used by some editors as a source in LGBT-related articles. It is blatantly hypocritical to take a stand against sources that are anti-TRA, yet favor sources that are pro-TRA. You are indulging selective reasoning.
If you want proof of PinkNews' partisanship all you have to do is search "Dana Rivers" in its website, and except for a 2016 article ("San Jose woman Dana Rivers, 61, has been charged with murdering a lesbian couple and their adopted son") you will not find anything about River's 2022 trial and conviction. The self-proclaimed "world's largest and most influential LGBTQ+ media brand" which declares it "exist[s] to inform", suppressed coverage of the trial and conviction of a prominent trans activist who murdered two lesbians and their son. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 10:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

At the minute I see opinions which are disagreed with, not really any evidence of factual errors. The argument that all RS clearly label and separate opinion and fact, therefore as this publication doesn't it is not RS is entirely without merit. Loads of sources mix the two, and we just say "this bit is factual, this bit is opinion, it needs attributing if the opinion's inclusion is due".Boynamedsue (talk) 21:29, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

• I should note that the July 2020 discussion was never a formal RfC (see [36]), and the close was a non-admin one, so there isn't the same weight behind it as if it had been an actual RfC close. One of the people supporting its reliability, Gleeanon409, was later determined to be a sock of the LTA Benjiboi, so their opinion should be discounted. My opinion that AfterEllen post 2016 is a such a minor outlet that there is little reason to cite remains the same as the 2020 discussion. It's barely more than a glorified group blog at this point looking at the authorship credits for recent posts. We wouldn't cite other minor gender critical outlets like Reduxx for the same reason. (though AfterEllen is a lot less bad than Reduxx). Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:53, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

  I was going to make a follow-up to my somewhat-vague comment above, to more clearly say things you've now said better than I could've, so I'll comment here instead of next to my earlier comment: what Hemiauchenia says above (and what Silver seren says below) is my read too: after the 2016 firing of staff, deletion or reattribution of old articles, and mixing of opinion in with other 'reporting', the site has declined so much in quality and stature and increased so much in bias that (from a V / RS perspective) I wouldn't trust it as a source for a statement in a Wikipedia article unless other RS were backing up the same statement ... and in that case it'd make more sense to just cite the other RS (because even from a WEIGHT perspective I don't know what things "marginal biased source" would attribute much weight to).
  If any of our articles cite pre-2016 pieces and we have archived versions of those which survived the site's deletions of them I would evaluate the reliability of them separately, since it was different back when it used to be, as Pyxis says, a decent source for lesbian news. I would even be careful about using the post-2016 site for the ABOUTSELF purposes Silver seren mentions, since we can see that after the change the site not only fired old staff but e.g. reattributed their work, so I wouldn't necessarily rely on its post-2016 statements about the pre-2016 site. (Post-2016 ABOUTSELF statements about post-2016 site should be fine.) -sche (talk) 03:14, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

• No, it is well-established that failing to separate opinion and fact is enough to render a source unreliable. From WP:QUESTIONABLE: Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. When a source labels its opinions clearly, we can wall them off and use the non-opinion parts; but if opinions are a heavy aspect of everything it publishes, without a clear separation, then the entire source has to be walled off - at a bare minimum that puts it below the level that we could ever consider citing for WP:BLP-sensitive statements. Also, of course - WP:RS is something that ultimately must be positively shown; that is to say, if you think a source is reliable you have to show that it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which I don't think is evident in coverage here. We focus on inaccuracies in situations where a source might otherwise meet that bar but had glaring problems; but there's no need for it here, because nobody has really presented an argument for how the source could be a WP:RS aside from "well it's biased and that doesn't disqualify it, right?", a misapprehension which often happen in situations like these where a source's only coverage comes from the fact that they've published a bunch of inflammatory stuff and where the only reason it's here at all is because it has a strident opinion that some editors really like and other editors really dislike. Looking past that, if you want to - at the very least, use the source for WP:BLP-sensitive statements, but really, to a lesser degree, if you want to use it for anything but opinion at all - then you need to show strong WP:USEBYOTHERS or other evidence of a good reputation, evidence of a decent editorial policy, reasons to believe they perform fact-checking, and so on. And also convincingly argue that the majority of its coverage does not rely on opinion, I suppose. (Preferably, for all of this, from after the 2016 turnover because coverage makes it clear that management was completely replaced at that point.) These are not obscure points of policy. --Aquillion (talk) 23:48, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• A lack of editorial and fact checking policies is usually a red flag for sources. Add in the mixing in of opinion articles and general "contributor" articles makes it seem highly likely that the site has lost it reliability post-buyout. While we can discuss the extent of reliability on the site prior to the buyout, it seems quite clear that it's become more or less a tabloid since. And I agree with Hemiauchenia above that even outside of that, it is such a minor web-based site that it shouldn't be used in any of our articles outside of the one on itself. Silverseren^C 01:44, 3 July 2023 (UTC)
• The July 2020 closure carries some weight, and I don't see that the outlet has changed significantly since then. I don't see a need to treat it as blanket unreliable, but rather it depends on context and what it's being used for. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:59, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

It is obviously not reliable for BLP reporting - this is clear-cut enough to be remove-on-sight. If anyone has restored it in contravention of WP:BLPRESTORE, I'd suggest taking them to WP:AE immediately. It's a blog with no reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and no editorial policy. While being a WP:BIASED source does not necessarily render a source unusable, being biased doesn't make a source usable, too; the only coverage of the blog elsewhere is to discuss its bias. Sourcing heavily focuses on its 2016 acquisition as wrecking what credibility it had (something previous discussions seem to have overlooked) - see eg. the paper Sideswipe linked above, or [37]. Likewise, the arguments made in defense of it in this and previous discussions seem to be focused more on its bias than on actually trying to find decent WP:USEBYOTHERS, or discussing its editorial policy, or explaining how it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, all of which would be obvious first steps before we could use a source to eg. imply that a living person is guilty of a crime. Either way, any experienced editor would know at a glance that this is not a source that can be used for BLP-sensitive statements - the threshold we'd need to use a blog for statements like this is well above anything presented here. I would more generally say it's not an WP:RS for anything - there's just nothing to suggest that it would be; it seems to be a blog primarily notable for changing hands several times and, post-2016 acquisition, suddenly experiencing a drastic change of direction and publishing a bunch of inflammatory stuff, none of which really suggests that it has the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy WP:RS requires - but the idea that anyone could seriously argue that it's reliable for BLP reporting (which was not the focus of previous discussions, most of which had the same tiny handful of editors contributing to them anyway) is unfathomable and I suspect not one that WP:AE would look kindly on. --Aquillion (talk) 23:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

"but the idea that anyone could seriously argue that it's reliable for BLP reporting (which was not the focus of previous discussions, most of which had the same tiny handful of editors contributing to them anyway) is unfathomable and I suspect not one that WP:AE would look kindly on." Um ... who has said that AfterEllen was to be used in a BLP? The AE article was suggested as a source in the MICHIGAN WOMYN'S MUSIC FESTIVAL article. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 09:55, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Look at Talk:Dana Rivers; it was suggested there as well. But its use in Michigan Womyn's Music Festival was also focused on connecting Dana Rivers the topic. And Rivers, of course, does fall under BLP. BLP applies to mentions of living people in other articles, not just in their own articles, so you need a high-quality source to make that connection, which all else aside this clearly is not. One only has to look at the article in question to recognize that the connection being made here is ultimately about BLP-sensitive details regarding Rivers; obviously we cannot rely on a lurid blogpost from a blog with no discernible reputation beyond becoming an axe-grinding culture-war venue post-2016 for something like "MASS-MURDERER PARTICIPATES IN PROTESTS" or the like. I don't think it should be used in as a source at all, for anything - the problem isn't just that it's an axe-grinding culture-war venue, the problem is that that is all it is known for, not for fact-checking or accuracy - but at the very least it obviously cannot be used to say anything about living people. --Aquillion (talk) 11:40, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, it's like this: I'm only interested in Michfest, and didn't know until you pointed it out that the AE article had also been suggested in the Dana Rivers BLP talk page. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 09:03, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, the mixing of fact and opinion with no boundaries means that a site is inherently unreliable. But even when something is clearly news, is it reliable? Well, no, as you can see from this story which tries to claim that Nicola Sturgeon's resignation as Scottish First Minister was something to do with a controversy about a transgender rapist. In reality, it was absolutely irrelevant to it. I note that someone's inserted the note about the controversy into Sturgeon's article, together with a nice bit of editorialising about pronouns ... what a surprise. Black Kite (talk) 11:13, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

"this] story which tries to claim that Nicola Sturgeon's resignation as Scottish First Minister was something to do with a controversy about a transgender rapist." Responding to this is simply irresistible:

– Nicola Sturgeon Resigns As Scottish Leader After Trans Rapist Scandal, The European Conservative (February 15, 2023).

– Estranged wife of trans rapist Isla Bryson 'delighted' Nicola Sturgeon has quit after gender reform plans, LBC (15 February 2023).

– Nicola Sturgeon facing calls to quit as poll shows voter fury over trans rapist scandal, Express (February 13, 2023).

– Nicola Sturgeon urged to resign after refusing to say if double rapist is a man or a woman, Express (February 2, 2023).

– Nicola Sturgeon brought down by trans row as SNP prepares to rip up her gender Bill, The Telegraph (15 February 2023).

– Adam Zivo: Scotland's woke government self-immolates over trans rights: Nicola Sturgeon badly miscalculated over controversy surrounding rapist born as a male being placed in a women's prison, National Post (February 15, 2023).

– Nicola Sturgeon facing demands to resign as 40 PER CENT of Scots want her gone over trans row, GB News (12 February 2023).

– The trans rights row sparking a crisis for Nicola Sturgeon’s leadership, The Sydney Morning Herald (February 12, 2023).

– Nicola Sturgeon faces fortnight of criticism over trans prisons policy: Critics claim her career is ‘over,’ while trans Scots worry about sensationalised coverage after trans rapist put in women’s prison, The Guardian (11 February 2023).

– Confusion from Nicola Sturgeon over trans prison row, ITVX (31 January 2023).

"she ended up promoting a policy of allowing trans people to change their legal sex by self-declaration alone – a policy that, when rolled out in the prison’s service, led to a double rapist being placed in a women’s prison....Most of the Scottish media have, like the BBC, been observing informal self-censorship on the trans issue."
– Nicola Sturgeon: a cautionary tale, Spiked (22 February 2023).

"After that, a new row erupted over a trans woman who was to be put in a women's prison -- even though she had raped two women before she transitioned."
– Scotland: Why did Nicola Sturgeon resign and who will replace her?, Euronews (17 February 2023).

"It was Nicola’s failure to be able to say a rapist was a man that turned it in the end. If you can’t say that, why should anyone trust anything that comes out of your mouth? She made the mistake of ignoring women, and listening to lobbying groups that held to one view."
– Women’s rights activists celebrate Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation, The Times (February 16, 2023).

"Back in 2021, the fissures over Sturgeon’s embrace of transgender issues as the next great civil-rights cause were already apparent. She has always dismissed feminist concerns that predatory men who are not really trans will cynically exploit relaxed gender-recognition rules to gain access to women’s spaces....Bryson had also just been convicted of rape, the quintessential male crime against women’s bodily autonomy. How could the Scottish government believe that such a person belonged in a female jail?."
– What Happens When Politicians Brush Off Hard Questions About Gender, The Atlantic (February 15, 2023).

There are more sources that also connect the same dots — AfterEllen was not the only one, nor the exception. Its article about Sturgeon's resignation was similar to what was reported in numerous British media sources. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 05:29, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

• Well, you've wasted your time there, since it became very clear later on that the trans rights row was completely irrelevant to her resignation. Of course all the right-wing sources leapt on it at the time ... and were wrong. Incidentally, for your future reference, many of your links are from unreliable sources (Express, GB News, Spiked etc.) Black Kite (talk) 11:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, I wasn't adding sources to an article, was I? And everyone knows that shooting the messenger is a sport in Wikipedia. However, as the proverb says: where there's smoke, there's fire. Pyxis Solitary (yak yak). Ol' homo. 11:16, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

That's some high-quality gibberish, that is. --JBL (talk) 00:06, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• I fail to see what distinguishes the post-'16 site from any other random "news" blog with inadequate editorial standards. Like any such blog, it might be usable on a case-by-case basis for very non-controversial claims, but should generally be avoided and is absolutely unacceptable for any contentious claim about a living person. Note that there's a pretty healthy ecosystem of LGBTQ-oriented journalism, from prestige sources like The Advocate to lots of blogs like what AfterEllen once was: broad-scope and, while not top-tier, passing our minimum expectations for editorial standards. I doubt there are many claims that can be sourced only to post-'16 AfterEllen, and if there are, that in itself is a reason to be suspicious of the claim. -- 'zin^{[is short for Tamzin]} (she|they|xe) 21:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

reliability of citing Maddow for archival clips used thereby

The Rachel Maddow Show is "an American liberal news and opinion television program". In a 2016 episode of this show, undated excerpted clips of the NBC Nightly News were included, and are transcribed in the Maddow show notes, but the details about the original broadcast aren't provided. Now, I don't want to cite the Maddow host, their opinions, nor analysis, but can we assume that Maddow is sufficiently reliable to cite, when we're only making use of the unquestionably-reliable clips used within? Is Maddow reliable enough to cite under the assumption that these clips they used weren't fabricated and transcribed out of thin air? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 14:22, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Can you provide any specifics so this isn't so hypothetical, like the show notes and clips in question? But in any case, I don't think clips should be sourced to some 3rd party work that happened to use them, especially if that 3rd party work is a partisan opinion show. I also think that citing TV news programs in general should be discouraged. Any notable event would be covered elsewhere in a more easily-verified text format. GretLomborg (talk) 05:42, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm eschewing specifics to avoid accusations of canvassing. What I have, though, is the official MSNBC transcript of a Maddow episode, which itself includes the transcript of an NBC Nightly episode. I don't really care about the Maddow framing (because it isn't relevant or used for our article) except to assume the NBC Nightly clips aren't whole-cloth fabrications on MSNBC's part; I think we can safely make that assumption given WP:RSP, but I wanted confirmation here. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 19:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with GretLomborg that if you want input as it pertains to a particular situation, you should give the full details of the situation (in particular, a link to the relevant discussion etc.). The way to avoid canvassing is by keeping your request factual and to-the-point. --JBL (talk) 20:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Nina Oyama's B'day

Request to assess reliability of my sources on a fair case-by-case basis. On Nina Oyama article, it claims that she is either 29 or 30, or born in 1993 or 1994. Whoever wrote that, is apparently guessing and why I decided to help out and research what is her actual birthday. I know Nina Oyama is an established comedian, frequently shown on TV screens for years and with a fair share of fans. And that she has a public Facebook page where she acknowledge that 18th August is her birthday. [38] Her one long time twitter account also thanks her fans every 18th August for wishing her a happy birthday. [39] [40] And why I am inclined to believe 18th of August checks out as her Birthday. So is Nina Oyama herself unreliable for stating even her own birthday? Like what reason could she have to go lie about the date of her birthday? The Rotten Tomatoes also writes her birthdate to be Aug 18, 1993. [[41]] And doubt Rotten tomatoes, a somewhat Professional authority in TV actresses that co-ordinates with professional talent agencies[[42]], make mistakes like these. So when reviewing the sources like how her social media page confirms her birthdate written in Rotten Tomatoes, is Rotten Tomatoes and Nina's Twitter and Facebook account for fans, truly unreliable sources for something so basic like her birthday? Or are certain editors, just being overly bureaucratic, when they know from what I wrote above, that she is of course born on Aug 18, 1993 and there's no agenda or conspiracy here to lie about things like these. GUPTAkanthan (talk) 12:15, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:BLPPRIVACY is the relevant policy here. Neither of those social media accounts are verified, and neither explicitly state "today is my birthday". That second tweet was sent on August 17th, not the 18th. It's also possible to thank friends several days after a birthday, maybe even a week or two if you're forgetful—or had a particularly "fun" time. Our entry for Rotten Tomatoes at WP:RSP doesn't mention actor/biography pages. Their own FAQ says that their actor information might be wrong; it also mentions "data import errors", suggesting that their information is imported and not fact-checked. Woodroar (talk) 13:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

That's just false. Both tweets were sent on 18th August. And how co-incidental is it that every 18th August, her fans wish her a happy birthday on her social media page on that particular date. And last year, she explicitly tweets a post on 18th August saying, But today (my bday) they got me coffee too! From my fav American restaurant![43]. And yes, Rotten Tomatoes does say that sometimes they can get it wrong but they also write, We work hard to make sure all of our movie and actor information is correct and it's not like they don't have editorial oversight. And these famous actresses are managed by real professional management agencies, who would surely contact Rotten Tomatoes and IMBD if they accidentally get the details wrong.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 13:27, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I just clicked that second twitter link, and it showed up at coming at 9:06 PM on the 17th. I believe Twitter shows the local time for the viewer rather than the sender, and I'm on Los Angeles time, so 9:06 in the evening in Los Angeles is 2 in the afternoon the next day in Sydney. That's likely where the confusion is happening here. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 13:50, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the times/dates I see are 7:21 AM · Aug 18, 2020, 11:06 PM · Aug 17, 2021, and 8:04 PM · Aug 17, 2022. If Twitter doesn't show the local time a tweet was sent, there's not much we can do with it. Of course, none of this matters because the account isn't verified. Woodroar (talk) 13:52, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

"Verification" under the new Twitter regime doesn't mean much. The real question is whether it was verified under the old regime, which going to the Tweet now won't show you. However, the archive link for it indicates it was not verified. (And in general, the more we have to do detective work to determine a birthdate, the more we're getting into WP:BLPPRIVACY matters.) Nat Gertler (talk) 14:02, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

@NatGertler and Woodroar: I will abide to group "consensus" of course but a Gray area rule shouldn't prevent me from doing what's obviously correct, and so could use your consensus. And I have good reason enough to believe those are her accounts which explicitly confirms 18th August as her b'day.[44]. Nina is a celeb whose livelihood is heavily based on advertising herself to the public. [45] She constantly posts her upcoming comedy acts [46] and professionally relies on the internet and social media for her fans to know her. I highly doubt a catfish can successfully maintain a social media account of a public celebrity for so many years as that would be very difficult to pull off without Nina and her fans to not notice. And I did some detective work and found Zero duplicate social media accounts and you surely can't expect public figures like her to not have Facebook or Twitter. Furthermore there's a famous established Channel 10 TV show called "Have You Been Paying Attention?" Company has its own Facebook page and it's been verified. One of its latest posts [47] mentions Nina Oyama and it links to same Facebook account, which history shows its been active for many years since 2011 and posts regularly. I doubt a professional TV show who is actually working with Nina, to not be aware of her proper Facebook link. Given all this, I know it's obviously her but ask here for consensus.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 20:38, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

At the most recent discussions on Rotten Tomatoes, from April/May of this year and the current thread, the consensus is that RT should not be used for BLP claims. Woodroar (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Woodroar: It's not so much that I care personally a lot for Nina. As I really don't. But if you are going to reply after many days and undo my work which wasn't that easy for me to do. You could at least address my reply that I wrote in full. I already explained to you that I have proved it is more likely than not to be her birthday WITHOUT relying on rotten tomatoes. I showed that there are verified Facebook accounts of major TV show who links to Nina's Facebook account directly. I believe that if major TV channels link directly to their employee's Facebook account. [48] [49] And that Facebook account has been around for a decade, is constantly showing promotions of Nina's latest comedy shows and there are no conflicting/second Facebook account. It's obviously her. And reading the wikipedia rules. There's one that says if a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. WP:IGNORE I have more than proven it's extremely likely to be her within good faith reason, and unless you have very good reason to prove any reasonable doubt, I would appreciate if you minimally read and discuss my reply above in full before reverting my edits again. Cheers! GUPTAkanthan (talk) 00:35, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

As Nat Gertler mentioned above, we shouldn't don't do detective work to tease out claims from sources or to weigh the likelihood that an unverified account belongs to someone. That's why No Original Research and Verifiability are policies. And this is especially true of content about living persons, where our policy is strict and clear that no information is better than poorly-sourced information. I don't buy the IGNORE argument, either. A date of birth isn't some critical detail that unequivocally improves the encyclopedia—especially when our privacy policy gives plenty of reasons why we shouldn't include it.

As an aside, if we were to allow detective work, the Facebook post that explicitly confirms 18th August as her b'day shows as "August 17, 2021 at 11:15 PM" to me. Is that another time zone issue? Maybe? It doesn't say which time zone she's in, though. Yet more reasons NOR is a thing. Woodroar (talk) 01:13, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, thanks for taking the time to bring that thread to my attention. I just read it just now and even though I strongly disagree and think I am right about the DOB. I see I have not much choice but to respect that consensus. Thanks again. GUPTAkanthan (talk) 01:52, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for accepting page consensus. You might continue to look for more reliable sources over time. Hers is not the only article where the birthdate is not yet published in RS. Since birthdate is often a question used in identity verification, it's sometimes unwise to post a birthdate unless it's clearly available from reliable sources. In my social media, I choose to utilize a fictitious birthday to minimize availability to bad actors. Friends who don't know any better wish me a happy bday, and I thank them. BusterD (talk) 14:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Three sources from Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Aryen Suresh Kute

The following three websites were called out in the above AFD as needing a discussion here regarding whether they should, in general, be considered RS or not. Provided are the specific links used in the article, but the three sites overall are in question.

• ZeeNews India
• Daily Pioneer
• ABP Live

If this list should be split into 3 separate discussions, that's fine. @Actualcpscm, Noneate, and Oaktree b: - Courtesy ping based on the AFD. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

All three sources are clearly and unambiguously paid-for promotional flimflam. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Anytime you see brand-wire (and similar phrases on other Indian sites), it's a paid marketing article. The writing alone on all three is so over-the-top it's obvious this came from a PR team. The lack of a name on the by-line, but just "Agencies" or "Bureau" is another red-flag. All are junk sources that should be removed from the article. Ravensfire (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• The problem with most Indian newspapers and news-webites, and not just the three mentioned here, is that they publish sponsored content without labeling it clearly. For example, all the "supplements" published by The Times of India; the "Special" section of the Daily Pioneer; the "Brand Wire" section of ABP Live etc. And this is apart from articles that are potentially not paid for but are quick rewrites of press-releases nevertheless. Ravensfire has noted some other features to look for.

Unfortunately this practice is so ubiquitous among the organizations that also cover regular news legitimately that we cannot simply tag all these sources as "unreliable" and be done with it. So eternal vigilance, and not relying on WP:NEWSORG blindly, is perhaps the best we can do. Abecedare (talk) 15:24, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Should add that most of such article creations are done by editors with a WP:COI or as WP:UPE. Abecedare (talk) 15:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Can we list them at WP:RS/P noting that while the sites themselves aren't banned, there are some indications of sections of the sites which should not be used? Something we can point to so that article/draft writers can be alerted. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No objections from me if someone has a concrete proposal. The only problem may be that this applies to dozens, and possibly hundreds, of Indian newspaper and TV channel websites. Maybe we can make a single entry pointed to by (say) WP:NEWSORGINDIA that mentions this intermingling of regular news and sponsored content. Abecedare (talk) 16:08, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

That would be most excellent. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I've drafted a proposal below based on the discussion here (and heavily cribbing some of your verbiage). - UtherSRG (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Ungh, those articles are obviously PR, with the flowery language. I'm not sure we can label the entire website as non-RS however. We could perhaps slap a label on the citation tool that when they pop up, it gives the user a gentle nudge to double check (I know we have certain sites that are black listed, but I'm not sure we can put a "warning" on sources). Best would be to perhaps list them as case-by-case here [50] with yellow background. Oaktree b (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Exactly what I'd like to see happen. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Yellow/warning triangle for "Various India-based websites"

Many India-based news-style websites offer a mix of actual news and sponsored content. Caution should be taking in using such sites without a close examination and determination if the content is news or sponsored. Examples of sponsored content include "supplements" published by The Times of India; the "Special" section of the Daily Pioneer; the "Brand Wire" section of ABP Live etc.

• Support in principle; open to any tweaking of format, language, examples etc. This issue is well known to regulars at RSN but it would be good to have it memorialized somewhere especially for the benefit of WP:NPP and WP:AFC responders. See some previous RSN discussions (1, 2, 3 among many). this discussion, and this related writeup by Ms Sarah Welch for more background. Abecedare (talk) 18:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support as a great start. I would include some of the other clues - is there a disclaimer on the article that the story is provided by someone else and they are not responsible? Overly promotional in tone? There's certainly more, will add over time. And second that excellent page by Ms Sarah Welch, which should be linked as a helpful page. Ravensfire (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Having such quick guidance would be very helpful in evaluating sources, with the added benefit that use of such sources can be an indicator of UPE. JoelleJay (talk) 22:42, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. It seems that some guidance would be helpful. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC).
• Support this proposal as a good starting point; I'd like to have each source evaluated individually for the list of RS, but that seems like a monumental task. Oaktree b (talk) 04:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

  A perfect example popped up today [51], sourced to a press release, but the source bot tags it as a "green" source simply by where it was published. Oaktree b (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Taking a stab at expanded guidance:

Even legitimate Indian news organizations (print, television, and web) intermingle regular news with sponsored content and press-release-based write-ups, often with inadequate or no disclosure. This is especially the case in articles about celebrities, reviews, and profiles of persons, companies and entities of borderline-notability. This issue is distinct from that of journalism quality and bias, and that of sham news-style wesbites.

Exercise caution in using such sources for factual claims or to establish notability. Look at the tone and language of the article; its placement in the publication; use of generic bylines not identifying an individual reporter or reviewer; overlap in language with articles found in other publications and on other websites, etc. Example of sponsored content include supplements published by The Times of India; the Special section of the Daily Pioneer; the Brand Wire section of ABP Live; the Press Release News or the Digpu News Network sections of Firstpost; the Business Spotlight section of Outlook India; the Brand Connect section of Forbes India; the Brand Solutions produced content on the Indian Express etc although the problematic content is not restricted to these sections alone. If in doubt, consult the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.

Feedback welcome so that we can refine the content, language and placement of such guidance. Abecedare (talk) 23:39, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd print that directly, excellent wording. Oaktree b (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Bravo! - UtherSRG (talk) 13:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Where would this go.. as a bullet point under WP:NEWSORG or somewhere in an India specific page? Pardon me, it's the Friday afternoon cranking me to make Feierabend — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 13:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@DaxServer: The WP:RSP page has a Categories section. This type of guidance can perhaps go there, with a shorter entry in the RSP table (something akin to the "Peerage websites" entry but in yellow). How does that sound? Abecedare (talk) 14:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe a subsection "Sponsored content" or something like that with a text maybe a bit generic so it would cover the topic in general. Having a section/text on Indian news websites at RSP might be too specific. Under the See also, Topic-specific pages lists some lists. I think it would also be a good idea now to start a dedicated page for IN, maybe at a subpage of WP:IN, and compile these observations going forward, similar to WP:ICTFFAQ / WP:ICTFSOURCES. Your text would go there, further expanded if you're willing to — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 19:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think for the RSP page, its good to be specific and since improperly disclosed sponsored content in Indian media has been a regular topic at this board I think a specific mention would be justified and helpful. That said, I would also support (in addition, not in place):

1. A short mention in WP:RS or related policy/guideline page that sponsored content is not independent and therefore not considered reliable (with possibly narrow WP:SPS exceptions) if this is not mentioned already.
2. Writing up a lengthier source guideline/FAQ in the WP:IN space that incorporates or links to concerns about sponsored content; other concerns raised by the MSW essay; sham "newspapers"; sham book and journal publishers; WP:RAJ; WP:ICTF guidelines, etc.

Any volunteers for (2)? :) Abecedare (talk) 16:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Yupp, makes sense. MSW's essay is quite a great start, never aware of it — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

My only concern as someone who edits frequently in the ITN and ITN/RD space is many of the news articles reporting on recent deaths would technically violate above 'criteria'. Just taking the most recent example with Sudakshina Sarma (currently nominated at ITN/RD, not ready for posting on the main page yet):

- This article from TOI reporting on her death does not have a specific reporter in the byline - a watchout mentioned above

- This article in Indian Express is written by PTI "agency"- highlighted earlier as a red flag

- Most of the news orgs reporting on her death have very similar, generic language, clearly copied from a centralized news feed or press release

I support the guidance outlined above, but examples/exceptions like this would be a daily occurence at ITN/RD. Would suggest including a caveat in the extended guidance, wherever it is ultimately published. Schwinnspeed (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any hindrances this guideline would cause to your said situations. The guideline is infact a watchout, to excerise caution; not a criteria to disbar and slap red flags when there's no by-line or by an agency. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:21, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

+1 to what Dax said.

But fwiw, the TOI obit for Sudakshina Sarma appears to be plagiarized from this longer obit in the Frontline, which was published a day earlier and does have a named author. Would be a good idea to cite the latter piece instead. Abecedare (talk) 11:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up on the Frontline vs TOI reference; have updated the Sudakshina Sarma accordingly. The 'plagiarism' is highly prevalent when it comes to death announcements in Indian media - need to carefully track down if its actually plagiarism or just regurgitating a press release, which becomes challenging during the time-sensitive RD process. Good reminder regardless. Schwinnspeed (talk) 11:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

How do we handle it when someone openly offers to sell articles on these sites, claiming they will be published without a sponsored tag (FIVERR dot com/premiumsite/publish-your-article-on-techbullion-with-do-follow-backlinks)? I think it is troubling because this is only one of many I have found offering to publish with "no disclaimer, no paid/sponsored post tag?" This takes away from the overall reliability of sites when they allow this. --CNMall41 (talk) 02:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

This is indeed concerning but not surprising. I think this is more of a generic problem and happens everywhere where malicious intents are overlooked for an ROI. One approach we can take is to note them in the dedicated guideline (see Abecedare #2) and writeup on how to identify them; they mostly have same patterns of language and grammar. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:26, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems this has stalled out. What's the next thing to do here? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Should I go ahead and update WP:RSP or should a formal RfC be started? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Reliability of Military Watch Magazine

Resource is used in numerous articles about military equipment, but it has no features of reliability: as I can see, there is no information about a site owner and authors, it is cited mostly by Russian news organizations, and at least in some articles there are false claims. For example: "It was previously only confirmed that the radar station, which provides command and control for each Patriot unit, was destroyed" — there was no such confirmation, yet text implies that it's a well known fact. Siradan (talk) 11:58, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Doesn't have any clear editorial practices, isn't used or quoted by other reliable sources, and is seems to be run by an amateur. Given all that, and it's adherence to Russian governmental talking points, I wouldn't suggest using it for anything contentious. As that covers just about everything that it publishes it probably shouldn't be used at all. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 13:01, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Rotten Tomatoes being cited for WP:BLP

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.

---

I hope I'm doing this right as I don't have any experience doing WP:RfC, but I often come across RT being used a source for an actor's DOB and I revert them since they seem like a rather poor source when it comes to WP:DOB as they have the incorrect one for other actors and there are some actors that have age disputes on Wikipedia, the DOBs that RT have are most certain incorrect because other info for those actors such as what year they graduated high school or college are on their pages(with legit cited sources) and those years don't match up to the DOB RT has listed. I asked this a few months ago and pretty much all of the editors that replied agreed that since RT is not a journalism site and that it's main purpose is film criticism, it shouldn't be used as a source for WP:DOB.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_403#Rotten_Tomatoes_reliabilty Kcj5062 (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Kcj5062: I have removed the RFC tag from this discussion since the question you asked is not really contentious enough IMO to require that level of debate. The answer you received during the previous discussion that RT is not a good source for biographical information such as date of birth appears correct. Why do you think it needs to be re-addressed? Abecedare (talk) 22:18, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Abecedare Well somebody in the last discussion suggested a RfC since they're still people using RT as a ref for bio info and some will actual argue that it's a valid source. Kcj5062 (talk) 22:28, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Pinging @Gråbergs Gråa Sång: who had suggested an RFC at that previous discussion. If they, or any other board regular, believes that an RFC is needed, I would request them to start one afresh (instead of simply reverting my RFC tag removal) since they would know how to frame it neutrally etc. Cheers. Abecedare (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

If it is unreliable for DOB and other biographical information – and I share that impression – then maybe that should be added to the Rotten Tomatoes entry in the list of perennial sources. Since the site is listed as generally reliable people may assume that that applies to all content. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 23:20, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

@Random person no 362478479 That's what I was thinking. On the perennial sources it says it's a good source film and tv info. But nothing about bio info. Kcj5062 (talk) 23:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I would appreciate having that added to the Rotten Tomatoes entry in the list of perennial sources, also (with a shortcut, if possile). I would like to be able to include a link to the perennial sources content, as I do when I remove citations to IMDb. Eddie Blick (talk) 01:28, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

• In order not to leave this discussion hanging, I'll start an RFC at this board in 12-24hr with the question, "Can Rotten Tomatoes be used a source for biographical information, such as date of birth, for film and television personnel?" Please let me know if their are any objections or suggested modifications. Pinging @Kcj5062, Random person no 362478479, and Teblick:. Abecedare (talk) 02:05, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thank you, @Abecedare. That sounds good. Eddie Blick (talk) 02:11, 12 July 2023 (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.

New York Post business/realestate coverage

[52]https://nypost.com/business/ [53]https://nypost.com/real-estate/

The New York Post is labeled "generally unreliable" by the wiki community. I want to make an exception for their business, tech and real estate sections - both are pretty good in terms of fact reporting and fact-checking.

Some of columnists and writers have wiki pages: Steve Cuozzo, Douglas Harriman Kennedy, Piers Morgan etc.

all of them accurately represent the facts and, unlike politics and entertainment, quote company representatives or cite reputable sources.

Is there anything else I need to demonstrate to show it's reliable for business/tech/realestate? DrDavidLivesey (talk) 02:26, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

You'd have to show convincingly that it wasn't an unreliable gossip rag given to fabrication and known for making up quotes. It's not credible to claim there are no RSes for business, tech or real estate in New York, or that anything that was in the NY Post and in zero RSs was worth putting in the encyclopedia - David Gerard (talk) 10:49, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's fair. Were there cases when they published falsehoods in the business and real estate sections and did not correct them? Do other RS reference their business/real estate pieces, and if yes, how? We certainly could exempt these topics from the "Generally unreliable" status. Alaexis_¿question? 11:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

We could, but if you want a carveout you'd probably need more of an argument than to say "I don't think it's fair" to the result of an RFC - David Gerard (talk) 17:54, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Definitely. I don't think I've ever read their business pieces so I have no opinion on this yet. Alaexis_¿question? 06:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Remember that “Generally unreliable” is NOT the same as always unreliable. Any source can be deemed reliable for specifics, even if unreliable for most things (just as a “generally reliable” source can be deemed unreliable for something specific). Yes, it will be an uphill slog to convince editors that a generally unreliable source is actually reliable in this specific instance, but I have seen it done. There are no absolutes. Exceptions can be made. Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  While I agree that should be the intent here it rarely is and often anything red is removed without consideration for quality. I do think it would be worth looking at the original examples used to conclude unreliable and then see if any related to the area in question. If not I would suggest moving the source to yellow overall with red in the specific areas. Springee (talk) 12:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

  I mean, if something is removed, then it is, almost by definition, controversial. Editors might reasonably disagree on what should be considered controversial, and if you think that someone is stretching things in that regard you can always poke them and pursue dispute-resolution if necessary, but I think that it's reasonable that the default when there's a dispute involving a red source is "all right, you need to find a better source than this now." Certainly whenever I find myself in a situation like that the first thing I do is see if I can find better sources. Ultimately our goal is WP:BESTSOURCES, which means that in situations where red sources can be replaced without losing anything, they ought to be; and in places where they can be removed without losing anything, they ought to be. --Aquillion (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• See also the May 2023 thread Possible exception to Wikipedia:NYPOST for the transit and real estate newsdesks. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 12:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)
• Not seeing the need, we can already use opinion pieces/columns under the current restriction. Basically everything Steve Cuozzo, Douglas Harriman Kennedy, and Piers Morgan have written for the NYP can be used per WP:NEWSORG its just going to be for opinion not fact. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:11, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Not really. WP:RSOPINION still requires the op-ed to be in an RS. If a notable person writes something in a GUNREL source, that's going to be equivalent to a SPS or similar, and they'd need to be a noted expert or something for it to be relevant - David Gerard (talk) 09:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
    • RSOPINION says no such thing, perhaps the abbreviation has misled you? Opinion pieces are always the equivalent of SPS, no matter where they're published. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Yes, but I think this request is about more than opinion. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:30, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Absolutely not. You haven't actually made any argument for why its coverage of real estate would be better than the rest of its coverage; and in general I'm strenuously opposed to carve-outs, which complicate RSP in a way that makes it less useful and which could easily lead us down a path where people propose arbitrary subsets of every unreliable source and say "well, you can't show that this specific topic area is unreliable." A WP:GUNREL source has fundamental issues with its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that will virtually always make it a poor choice to use as a source; if you want to propose a general exception to its GUNREL status, you need to present strong, convincing evidence from independent coverage and the like showing that its coverage of that topic area is different. Their columnists having wiki pages obviously means nothing; we could in theory cite their opinions, but I would truthfully prefer to wait until those opinions are covered somewhere other than the Beitrag. WP:RSOPINION still requires publication in an WP:RS. Neither do I accept your argument that those sections are pretty good in terms of fact reporting and fact-checking or that their columnists accurately represent the facts - what makes you think the Post is any more reliable here than it is anywhere else? These are talking heads with no relevant expertise in the area you want to cite them in; their job is largely to produce entertainment, not news. I wouldn't cite directly them for anything except the most trivial WP:ABOUTSELF stuff, and wouldn't even include their opinions unless covered by a reputable independent secondary source. WP:RSOPINION still requires coverage in an RS; it's for things like labeled opinion pieces in otherwise reliable sources or for the opinions of experts and other people whose opinion is manifestly significant, not as a blank check to include the opinion of every talking head or hired gun on every topic ever. High-quality sources for the New York real estate market are available in abundance; the idea that we would need to rely on opinion columnists writing in a tabloid is absurd. --Aquillion (talk) 09:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Just making sure

Journal of Parapsychology and Rhine Research Center seem like total quackery to me. Is it a fringe journal/organization? Ca ^{talk to me!} 12:46, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The subject matter combined with the fact that it is a private institution which is not affiliated with a university raise a red flag. I looked at the editorial board of the journal. What stands out immediately is that the publisher and editor have no PhD (only MS). The three associate editors (not counting the statistical associate editor) do, but like the publisher and the editor two work at the Rhine Research Center. The editorial board on the other hand looks fine at first glance. However, I googled a handful of the names and found two things that raised my eyebrows. First, the probably most high-profile name on the list is Robert Rosenthal (psychologist). He is listed as "Robert Rosenthal, Harvard University, USA". But he retired from Harvard in 1999 and has been a professor at the University of California since 2008. So why is the journal listing him with a position he hasn't held in 24 years? Does this mean we can't trust the list? The second name that irritates me is Jeffrey J. Kripal at Rice. Here the issue is that he is a professor for "Philosophy and Religious Thought". Don't get me wrong I would want philosophers on the board of a journal like this. But philosophers with expertise in philosophy of science, not religious thought. A few others that I googled (Mark Leary, Duke University; de:Stefan_Schmidt_(Psychologe), Universitätsklinikum Freiburg; Jacob Jolij, University of Groningen) seem to be prima facie qualified people. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 15:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I just looked a little closer at Jeffrey J. Kripal because he was mentioned elsewhere and found out that despite being professor for "Philosophy and Religious Thought" he is not a philosopher. He is a historian of religion and works not in the philosophy department, but the department of religious studies. Here are some quotes from the introduction to his book Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal: "Another way of saying this is that I study how human beings come to realize that they are gods in disguise. Or superhumans." "[...] the paranormal here understood as a dramatic physical manifestation of the meaning and force of consciousness itself." "real-life paranormal experiences". He seems to be exactly the kind of person I would not want on the board of a journal like this. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:23, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is some coverage about the Rhine Research Center [54], [55], [56]. Not sure about how good this one is, but it does mention New York Times coverage of the Rhine center besides this article providing coverage: [57], and here is the search in Google News [58]. Well, at least this gives people more background on this organization. And yes, its mission and research are probably obvious quackery. But if it has coverage in secondary reliable sources then that would suffice for a standalone article. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:40, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is an NYT obituary on J.B. Rhine, the founder of the Rhine Research Center [59]. Hopefully it can be accessed because it is in the NYT archives, the death having occurred in 1980. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I am guessing that this center and J.B. Rhine became so well known that between the 1930s and 1970s there is some pushback from scholars, scientists and skeptics that is available in print. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:56, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is a short Encyclopedia Britannica entry on J.B. Rhine [60]. Searching for Rhine Research Center in Britannica - the result seems to land on this page. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 02:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Here is a ProQuest link for the NYT obituary cited above [61]. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 11:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the Rhine Research Center is most likely notable while the journal could probably be merged into the RRC article. But I assume the original question was not about notability, but about reliability. And both the Rhine Research Center and the journal seem completely unreliable for anything other than opinions (I found a number of "news" articles where someone from the RRC is quoted as an "expert", in the better ones alongside a skeptic/scientist). -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Some book sources were recently added to the journal article. See the "Further reading" section. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 04:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Chicago YIMBY

I have recently created the article for 900 West Randolph. I am trying to determine if I can use YIMBY as a source. I have found many articles such as this and this that are informative. Are they reliable sources?-TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 16:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

YIMBI is a social/political movement. Additionally I found no editorial information just this completely inadequate about page. It may be fine for simple factual information, but nothing else. I found almost nothing on the author of those two articles. There is an empty homepage and a list of articles on muckrack. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a blog (attached to some forums, perhaps some paid services) -- I would certainly not use it for anything contentious. --JBL (talk) 21:17, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It looks like a blog. Might be a niche real estate business intelligence website, but I'm not really able to find any sort of WP:USEBYOTHERS. It's run by New York Yimby, LLC, which also runs New York YIMBY, which seems a bit better established, but has a clause in its Nutzungsbedingungen saying we make no representations or warranties as to the YIMBY content’s accuracy, correctness or reliability, which worries me a bit if we're using it for sourcing facts. The Chicago website's ToU contains the same language, which makes me tend towards not treating this as a WP:RS. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:02, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree, YIMBY is NOT an RS. Andre🚐 00:17, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

The ToU thing is a red herring, it's just standard legalese: see this comment from Alaexis above, for example. --JBL (talk) 01:00, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Embargo?

I have been checking the sources of the article Extraterrestrial life, to check if they are valid, if they actually say what the article says they say, and if we didn't left good material from them out of the article. In the "Extrasolar planets" I found this one, and there is a disclaimer that says "EMBARGO NOTICE. All information provided on this page and its links is embargoed until Wed 25-Jan, 18:00 GMT".

What the heck is that supposed to mean? Is it related to reliability? Cambalachero (talk) 18:14, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

It means that the information is made available for journalists with the caveat that they have to promise not to publish any of it before the date given. The idea is to give journalists time to prepare something while keeping the information confidential for some time. There can be a number of reasons for doing this. See News embargo. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:22, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Internet magazines: 'The War Zone' and 'The Drive'

I am trying to determine if these sources can be used as independent coverage on Wikipedia. "The War Zone" appears to be a section of "The Drive." Here are self-published descriptions for both publications. You will have scroll down to read about "The War Zone". This user published source notes that "The War Zone" also covers "...UFO encounters reported by military and commercial airline pilots" (see the subsection entitled "Coverage"). Here is one such story [62].

I am thinking these are not useful for independent coverage on Wikipedia. And, I am here because I would like input from the community about using these publications as sources. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 00:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I will also note, there does not appear to be acceptable secondary sources that covers either of these publications. It seems more of a fan site. Indeed, the user generated source above is on fandom.com [63]. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:01, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Is Rationalwiki Psuedoscience

Is Rationalwiki Psuedoscience 2407:7000:9F88:9300:C065:D050:550C:F91D (talk) 04:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

No. But it's also a wiki, so not a reliable source regardless. Silverseren^C 04:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

All wikis are user generated content and so aren't considered reliable sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:37, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Just check out the contributions by the /64, this is not a person engaged in constructive contributions. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 00:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Use of Rotten Tomatoes for biographical information

Can Rotten Tomatoes be used a source for biographical information, such as the date of birth, for film and television personnel? 14:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (Rotten Tomatoes)

• Background: The question has been discussed several times on this board (Jul 2023, Apr 2023, Sep 2022, Nov 2022) but the discussions have been sparse and the opinions mixed. The aim of this RFC is to reach a firmer conclusion and update the Rotten Tomatoes entry at WP:RSP accordingly. Abecedare (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Yes because Rotten tomatoes wouldn't be held in such high esteem if they get the bare basics wrong or take "unnecessary risks" that can deem them forever seen as untrustworthy. It is not some small set-up in someone's basement but a major serious company that won't accept phone calls from random people or just anybody on basics about a movie release date or actor bio. If they do such things, they wouldn't be held in high esteem in the entertainment industry and so it rely on protocol and verification and trusted sources like publicists and movie studios, who are willing to talk to them, and their reputation so far has been stellar. Major media corporations wouldn't invest so heavily in them, if they had a rep of being unprofessional and untrustworthy and no minimal editorial oversight. GUPTAkanthan (talk) 16:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. If we are talking about using RT for citing birthdates (or other personal info) for BLPs, I'm not seeing a process for checking and repairing any errors. Since much of the site is crowdsourced and opinion, I'm reluctant to stamp RT for reliability for fact checking (such as is necessary). I'd be happy to be corrected. BusterD (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you may be mistaken on how they work. The reviews may be user-generated but not the bio. Otherwise anyone can claim to be an actor and have a page on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead the bio are being added in by the Rotten Tomatoes staff who are professionally required to verify whatever it collects and add that info in, and can't accept just anything. I imagine they must have rules where since their reputation is based on their accuracy, they would rather leave a bio incomplete or empty, rather than allow it to be filled with poorly sourced or unverified info. And if they make mistakes, it's likely to be a typo and not because of bad sourcing, like when a movie studio rep accidentally sends them the wrong data. Though that's always a possibility, it's a very slim one that would likely be corrected over time as they obviously have professional editorial oversight.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 17:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@GUPTAkanthan, do you have any sources to support that? I cannot find any information on their website about how they obtain or verify biographical details.Über unsFAQ Schazjmd (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It's self evident. You don't need a source to show you that explicitly. If it was possible for someone like me to add changes to an actor's information then it's user generated. Except I can't change it. And as Slatersteven pointed out, outside parties can suggest or alert to changes BUT it's obvious that the staff editors will have the final say on whether it will be accepted. I mean this is the same company who seems willing to go the extra step to verify if even the reviews are genuine. [64] in order to preserve their trustworthiness. So I imagine that their business model is about the same as IMBD. [65] IMBD welcome alerts from public for correction or submissions of new info to help make their job easier but they always have a process of verification to ensure accuracy. Similarly Rotten Tomatoes is not some small time personal blog. It's a serious corporate level company, with a legal department, and who obviously hires editors to fact check their site. And they emphasize on their website that they work hard to ensure the Facts are correct, and I see no reason why they would cheap out on a fact verification department when their hundreds of million dollars reputation relies on this.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

We don't make decisions on the reliability of sources based on our feelings that they must be reliable because "it's obvious" or that it's "a serious corporate level company". Schazjmd (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• No, as far as I know it uses user-generated content. "Submit Movie Information Tell us about missing or incorrect movie or TV information." tells me that. Slatersteven (talk) 17:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

They don't rely on user generated content for making the bio. They allow the public to email them in case they innocently make a mistake. But they will read that email and the staff editors will have the final say on whether it will push them to make the changes. It's no different to IMBD who is open to corrections but they will only accept to make such changes at their discretion. [66]GUPTAkanthan (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

IMDb is considered an unreliable source. See WP:RS/IMDb. —El Millo (talk) 19:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there proof that they are proven to be unreliable when it comes to specifically the (bio) details. I can understand if people say the user-generated reviews are not to be trusted. But I imagine the bio is a different matter altogether. What's relevant is has IMBD ever made many mistakes in the bio or specifically the birthdates of the celebs? If they often make mistakes in those department, then I would agree it's unreliable. But I never heard of IMBD being untrusted for the details that aren't inherently promotional are are just plain hard facts like DOB.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 19:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@GUPTAkanthan, imdb is not acceptable for date of birth. Please read WP:DOB. Schazjmd (talk) 19:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

See also WP:IMDB. There's been over 30 discussion regarding IMDb's reliability and there is community consensus that it is unreliable. —El Millo (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@El Millo I had read your link. The summary says info in IMBD is "user-generated" but I think that's incorrect . As according to IMBD, they say they source their info from on-screen credits, press kits, official bios, autobiographies and interviews. They actively gather information from and verify items with studios and filmmakers.[67] So it seems unfair to summarise that IMBD is plainly user generated when it's more than that.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 20:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Any streetwalking hack can submit a bio, date of birth, "trivia," filming location, or anything else to IMDB, and 99 times out of 100, IMDB rubber-stamps it with zero fact-checking or oversight. This is the definition of useless user-generated content. Rift (talk) 05:52, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@Rift give me facts and not loaded statements hyping the unreliability of IMBD. You written that; Any streetwalking hack can submit (any changes) that will be accepted 99 times out of 100 because of zero fact-checking or oversight? And what proof do you have to support that unsourced odd statement? And if it was ever that extreme, then it should be easy for you to go to Brad Pitt's profile, suggest to change his birthday to 1997 but obviously you cannot as staff will reject that submission outright. It dispels your claim to me that IMBD have "zero fact-checking or oversight" and is an extreme obvious WP:LIE.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 19:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Might I propose that this thread is out of scope of the discussion? We're talking about Rotten Tomatoes, not IMDb. If you want IMDb's reliability to be reevaluated, you're welcome to start an independent thread for it. DonIago (talk) 20:02, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry. I first mentioned IMBD to explain an example but others focused on that part of my comment and I replied. Going off a tangent wasn't intentional. I am aware that the consensus here is virtually against Rotten Tomatoes however I only disagree with the numerous users unfairly stating that RT info is lazily user generated. And consensus should be based on balanced facts and not wrongful assumptions. So I explained the only way you can submit changes, is to email Rotten Tomatoes and then staff will read that email. Idell's comment down below, explained it better than me, and noted how RT is in fact becoming less and less permissive of user submitted content. And I see no indication that the website info is primarily user generated, and or doesn't rely on paid staff. Yes, they sometimes make mistakes but I think overall, they are "generally" reliable as the company has an editorial oversight department, if they allow the public to email them for corrections.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• No it has been shown to be unreliable in this regard and there is no information about where they get their information for bios other than user submissions and no indication of fact-checking. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• BLPs should be using high quality sources. If doubts exist about the reliability of RT and there is no obvious details showing how they obtain and maintain there information, then better sources should be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Rotten Tomatoes biographies do not indicate where they obtain information from, and it is the kind of condensed information that one would expect to find from the amalgamation of multiple sources. The pages also do not list their contributors. It would be better to find sources external to Rotten Tomatoes that provide the same information. Someone mentioned above about them using user-generated content; I don't believe that specifically applies here, not that that changes my opinion. Esteem as a company is not a reasonable metric to determine if a source is reliable or not. Rman41 (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No to give some examples of the incorrect DOBs RT has listed here's John Leguizamo[68]. Here's Tanya Roberts[69]. Here's Ric Ocasek[70]. Here's Judith Hoag[71]. Within the past five or six years, all of them have had their true DOBs revealed. And as I've mentioned before, they're actors that have age disputes on Wikipedia(especially voice actors), however they have other bio info such as what high school or college they attended and what year they graduated(with actual legit sources) and the DOB that's listed on RT doesn't match up with their graduation year. So we don't know exactly where RT is getting those DOBs from. For all we know they could be just putting those down because that's what a lot of other sites have listed. Many sites these days web scrape without doing any fact checking and this is why actors have falsified DOBs online.Kcj5062 (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: Surely, it is not user generated in the way WP:IMDb is. Claiming that it is is just speculation. Let me attempt to expand on GUPTAkanthan's argument. On its FAQ page, Rotten Tomatoes' editorial staff claims that it works hard to make sure the actor information is correct. Users are allowed to request edits and addition of content only by email, backed by some "link". RT staff exercises caution, carrying out its own checks before putting the content up. Although, any lack of resources may mean a delay in page creation and correction. (How frequently do we found their biographical data to be incorrect? Does it get rectified?) For information reported as inaccurate, they claim to check their sources (do we expect that to be an aggregate of random webpages? I don't think we require every source to disclose its sources before relying on it, rather we just establish a historical pattern and trust the process.) and may even contact the person's publicist. RT is becoming less and less permissive of user submitted content. In February 2019, they disabled public comments in addition to reviews on unreleased items. Whether it is reviews, comments or edit requests, they claim to have strong editorial oversight working to protect their "data and public forums from bad actors". Idell (talk) 20:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Even if I knew nothing about Rotten Tomatoes, I'd say "No" due to their lack of transparency about the editorial process, who is writing/editing/fact-checking the bios, what their education and backgrounds are, where their data comes from, and so on. They reference "data import" in the "movie/actor information" FAQ, which suggests that at least some information is added automatically, possibly without any fact-checking. That plus their history of factual errors (as mentioned above) gives me no reason to trust any biographical information found on RT. Woodroar (talk) 21:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Lean No - if I find a dob on RT, then I use that as a starting point for research, because I figure if RT has the dob, then reliable sources have it too. I have never found a wrong dob on RT. Having said that, I always use the higher quality source for the dob, right, makes sense.——— Isaidnoway (talk) 02:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. We shouldn't use a film aggregator for info on BLPs. See Ric Ocasek's bio. Infobox says born 1949, prose bio says born 1944. This kind of sloppiness is fine for writing a sarcastic one-liner summary of a film's reception, but it's not acceptable for a biography. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• No I'll add to this snowball. Not a reliable source for this kind of information. No clear editorial oversight. Birthdates should at the least be sourced to entertainment industry magazines and such. —DIYeditor (talk) 11:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

If the information submitted to it has to be " backed by some "link"", why woud we not use that instead? If this information is published in an RS, use that RS. Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• No - One thing to look at is the editorial process. Rotten Tomatoes has a team of "curators" and a place to submit "missing or incorrect information" on their "About" page. That, combined with the examples above of incorrect birthdays on the site, make it seem untrustworthy for birthdates. Denaar (talk) 11:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
• Not really- I wouldn't consider a review aggregator site a high-quality source with expertise in the area. Birthdates would better be sourced from well-regarded on-topic magazines or books from reliable publishers (like what DIYeditor said). Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 18:50, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
• No, Rotten Tomatoes should not be used for facts and figures except its own. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:02, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Is Mindat.org reliable?

When I'm searching up small municipalities or villages, I often come across Mindat.org. I am wary as to using it as a source as I'm not sure how reliable it is, but often for little-known places there's not many other options, so I'm curious to see what the community thinks about it. Here's some examples: [72][73][74]. Cheers! ‍ ‍ Relativity ‍ ‍ 22:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

"Mindat.org is a dynamic database, with new information, localities and photographs continuously being added, verified, and updated by thousands of members across the world. User participation is critical to maintaining the integrity and scope of the database – all input is encouraged!"[75] This makes it WP:USERGENERATED and so not reliable. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:28, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Creative Spirits website

Creative Spirits is a website that appears as the top Google result for most topics relating to Indigenous Australians. It's used on about 23 Wikipedia articles 156 Wikipedia articles such as this one: Australian Aboriginal identity.

This was previously discussed in January, Archive 292#Should this one be added as RS?, where the consensus was that it wasn't considered generally unreliable and that it was perhaps generally reliable. I've brought this back up because of a recent publication that mentions Creative Spirits.

The Indigenous Archives Collective has released the Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges, a resource created as a "referencing guidance for undergraduate students, and liaison librarians supporting these students, when citing Indigenous knowledges in academic writing in a Victorian context." In the document (p.9) they specifically list Creative Spirits as a resource that was not appropriate to use when researching or writing about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, history, and culture.

Creative Spirits is cited in documents from many Australian organisations (per a quick look at Google). Some websites such as Croakey have previously listed Creative Spirits as unreliable, writing it "is a site that contains much misinformation and racist myths."

People such as Dr Amy Thunig have taken to Twitter to voice their opposition to Creative Spirits. Also Dr Kirsten Thorpe from Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education & Research, Prof Sandy O'Sullivan, and Indigenous X.

I'm hoping to gain some consensus around whether Creative Spirits is reliable/unreliable, and if it is found to be unreliable I think it should be considered for inclusion to the Perennial sources list to help guide people in the future. Jimmyjrg (talk) 04:42, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

This is a single-person side project of a web developer.[76][77] Definitely not RS. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 04:56, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I think people have gravitated to this source because it makes life easy for editors by oversimplifying and lumping everything together as 'Aboriginal' without any acknowledgment of the different nations, lands, peoples, and cultures. For example, searches on the site for 'Gadigal', 'Wurundjeri', 'Noongar' does not produce any pages specific to these peoples or cultures. This oversimplification, the lack of a First Nations voice in the production of the information, the use of problematic language and perspectives all make it an unreliable source. Brigid vW (talk) 05:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Unreliable I am quoting from Creative... "Please note: At the moment I am unable to answer most emails as I'm managing other priorities in my life. I run Creative Spirits by myself in my spare time, and I'm looking forward to being able to help you better in the future. For now, please accept my apologies if I cannot respond. Thank you."

Not much to discuss here. This site should not be used for any verification support. Lourdes 06:15, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Great point! A self-published source. Brigid vW (talk) 06:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I made an error. It's actually referenced 156 times on Wikipedia. Jimmyjrg (talk) 06:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Tricky one, not a clear cut case either way. Yes, it is a self-published source, but a quick Google shows decent use by others, including in academic and governmental contexts. Notably, the National Library of Australia, in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, has selected the website for archival since 2011. Also, looking at the Indigenous Referencing Guidance mentioned in the nomination, many of the reasons the document gives for deprecating Creative Spirits do not relate to its "reputation for fact-checking or accuracy", which is what we care about when evaluating sources.

For example, the document complains Creative Spirits is not produced by Indigenous authors, does not "centre Indigenous ways of being, doing and knowing" and sometimes does not use current terminology. But none of these complaints tell us much about whether the source gets its facts right. The document says "many Indigenous scholars have openly expressed concerns about the site and asked for their content to be removed", but doesn't say anything about what these concerns were, or even whether they were related to reliability.

Overall, Creative Spirits may not be suitable for BLPs or contentious issues, and higher-quality sources ought to be used where available, but the arguments against its use seem vague. Under ordinary circumstances it seems acceptable. Probably a bit niche for RSP either way. – Teratix ₵ 02:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Libraries don't just archive reliable sources. The Library of Congress was archiving Twitter (not sure if they still do), but that wasn't because it was reliable, but because it represented the zeitgeist. Jahaza (talk) 03:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure, I agree that library archival doesn't guarantee reliability. I'm more trying to show that the situation is not as simple as the source just being a "a single-person side project of a web developer". – Teratix ₵ 04:00, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I did not mean "single-person side project of a web developer" as any kind of statement about the quality. My point was that single-person project means there is no form of editorial oversight or independent fact-checking; research, writing, fact-checking, publishing are all done by the same person. And the fact that the author is a web developer by day does in no way mean he cannot be an expert. But it means that the following clause of WP:SPS does not apply: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." So without any opinion about the quality of the content I just don't see the source meeting Wikipedia's criteria. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 16:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

'World Economics' as a source of economic data on Afghanistan

World Economics has been used in prior versions of the Economy of Afghanistan to produce the following statement:

With a population of nearly 41 million people, Afghanistan's GDP (PPP) stands at around $118.68 billion with an GDP Nominal of $120.01 billion (2023), and the GDP (PPP) per capita is about $2,844.71 while the GDP per capita Nominal is about 2,874.93.

Can this source be reliably used to produce this statement? I am currently in a dispute with another editor regarding the verifiability of this information. LeoHoffman (talk) 08:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

It seems to be a private company. I found no editorial information. They write "Radical and significant changes taking place in the world economy are obscured by poor GDP data. We provide clear guidance on what is good usable data and what is likely to mislead. We augment official (usable) data with regular quarterly surveys enabling greater data integrity." So apparently they use a mixture of external data and their own data. Some of external data sources can be accessed on the right hand side under "Public source & related data". The latest data for GDP (PPP) listed there is from 2021 provided by the World Bank with an estimate of $60.8 billion. Also noteworthy is that on their data quality rating the data for Afghanistan is rated "Extremely poor quality". All this makes me skeptical. But maybe we have someone who is familiar with the platform and can say more about it. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 10:22, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The City (website) TheCity.NYC

The City (website) which has online news on thecity.nyc is a non-profit outlet that stared in 2018/2019 ish. I am wondering how it fares as for factual accuracy; as well as due weight consideration for including contents based off of citing this source. I am starting to see it being used in some articles. Graywalls (talk) 10:07, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks like a solid WP:NEWSORG to me. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 10:27, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Media Bias / Fact Check rates it high on factual reporting and on credibility.[78] -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 10:30, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Looks to be generally reliable as a typical news organisation. It's open about its organist organisation, funding and staff (who appear to be professionals with prior experience). There's an editorial/ethical policy and a method for requesting corrections. There's some, if not much, use by other reliable sources, and I can't find any negative reporting on their reporting/journalism (although this could be hampered as searchinh for "The City" bring u a lot of unrelated results). Unless there is anything I'm missing they look fine. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Organist? 100.36.106.199 (talk) 01:49, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Ha! Thanks for spotting that, now corrected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 18:42, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh that makes more sense. Though I do like the idea that the reliability of a news organization is determined in part by the quality of the musicians it employs. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 22:57, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Is it possible to 'un-deprecate' a deprecated source?

Is it possible to 'un-deprecate' a deprecated source? If yes, how it may be done? Nivent2007 (talk) 14:09, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

See WP:CONSENSUS for more on how a new consensus can override an existing one. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:11, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Of coruse, but you would need to bring it here, and make a good case. Slatersteven (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! Nivent2007 (talk) 14:26, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Hassan Haddad, Journal of Palestine Studies

This source: Hassan S. Haddad (1974). "The Biblical Bases of Zionist Colonialism". Journal of Palestine Studies. University of California Press, Institute for Palestine Studies. 3 (4): 98-99) https://doi.org/10.2307/2535451 https://www.jstor.org/stable/2535451 is used as a source in the articles Zionism and Zionism, race and genetics, and has been questioned in terms of reliability (among other issues) on the talk pages of both. Might be good to get extra views from un-involved editors. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

For clarity, the source is used once, at Zionism, race and genetics#Politics to support the following sentence:

"The application of the Biblical concepts of Jews as the chosen people and the Promised Land in Zionism requires the belief that modern Jews are the primary descendants of the Israelites, and as such, inheritors of the Land of Israel bequeathed by God." Selfstudier (talk) 15:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

The article is changing rapidly but yes that's currently the only use, but backed up with an extremely long footnote quoting the text at length, with a more controversial and polemical passage expressing his very distinctive argument. I'm agnostic about its reliability, but see the objections posed by Tombah on the talk page. The more extensive discussion, though, is at Talk:Zionism#Question. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:40, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Fine. But what is 'suspect' here? Hassan was a distinguished American scholar of Syrian origin. Yes, an Arab, but with a chair at the University of Chicago. Really. There is no other 'anomaly'. Is any article on Zionism off-limits to scholars of Arab background with an international reputation? Nishidani (talk) 15:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, he's reliable for this claim. An academic who is widely published on the question of zionism, writing from an Arab perspective. Obviously the same rules about attribution apply here as always. --Boynamedsue (talk) 16:45, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

So you would suggest adding something like "According to Hassan Haddad" at the start of the sentence above? BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on the topic, so I wouldn't know how controversial the statement is. Looking at the statement, attribution might well be merited. In practical terms, if people are strongly disagreeing on reliably sourced text, attribution is the "let's get on with our lives" solution. --Boynamedsue (talk) 11:38, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• I'll just repeat what I wrote elsewhere: Haddad was professor of history and chair of social sciences at Saint Xavier University, where he was "known as a great man supporting a gentle spirit" and has Peace scholarship named after him that recalls him as "an internationally recognized scholar in Middle Eastern studies, whose passion was to foster understanding and peaceful relations among cultures". I see no obvious reason to impugn him. Iskandar323 (talk) 18:40, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Memoirs as sources (Indian castes/names)

Talwar (surname), second paragraph, uses memoirs as sources for the location of people called Talwar, which can be a caste name but also a generic last name. I have just tweaked it to read "some" Talwars ... but I am a bit dubious about using memoirs for this at all, and particularly so if they relate to childhood memories. We could do some heavy inline attribution (there are multiple sources used there, for related points), we could accept it as it is, or we could bin the paragraph. Thoughts? - Sitush (talk) 08:41, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Without comment on memoirs in general since they are such a fuzzy and wide-ranging category, I agree with you that in this particular case, childhood recollections and family histories recounted by Vinod Mehta and Reena Nanda are being extrapolated too much to make community-level claims. In the current version, the first sentence of the second para, Before 1947, when India was partitioned, some Talwars were located in modern-day Pakistan. is a "duh"-level claim (is there a single Indian, and particularly Punjabi, community for which this wasn't true?!), while the remaining two are wild generalizations based on an example of one (Vinod Mehta's maternal great-grandfather; reminds me of the Sheep in Scotland joke). If any of this is to be retained, per WP:RS and WP:DUE we would better (sociological) sources. Abecedare (talk) 15:17, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Would they not be wp:primary sources? Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

As Slatersteven said, memoirs would count as primary sources. WP:ABOUTSELF applies. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 18:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Regarding Forbes, does the "generally unreliable" rating also apply to "Senior Contributors"?

Currently, WP:FORBES says that only articles labeled "Forbes Staff" are deemed automatically reliable, while everyone else is deemed non-reliable in most cases. Does this apply even to "Senior Contributors" like Paul Tassi? How different are Senior Contributors compared to regular ones and staff anyway? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 11:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• Forbes' Contributors Program is basically just a group blog, though it does have editors. The Contributors are not employees. Initially they were unpaid, but later were paid by the click. Forbes also has a Council program, in which the council members pay Forbes to published the their content, so that content is basically paid-for advertising. Banks Irk (talk) 12:54, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  Thanks, but what differentiates "Senior Contributors" from just the regular Contributors? In addition, on a case-by-case basis, can certain Contributors like Tassi be exempted from the "not reliable" rating, or does that still apply regardless? Narutolovehinata5 (talk · contributions) 13:36, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  As far as I can tell, "senior" just means they've been a contributor longer and they tend to publish more articles. Maybe it's a status thing for people who care about that. The first senior contributor who showed up for me in a Google search, Jack Kelly, isn't employed by Forbes and doesn't have his content published in the print edition (that I could find).

  WP:FORBESCON authors can be exempted on a case-by-case basis if they're subject matter experts, but it would be up to you to prove that. Then they'd just be a WP:SPS expert and limited by that policy; for example, no claims about living persons. Woodroar (talk) 13:52, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with Woodroar. If someone proposes to cite a Forbes "Contributor", "Senior Contributor" or "Council Member" article as a source, they would have to show that the author is a subject-matter expert previously published in a reliable source publication other than Forbes.com's website. Being published in Forbes Magazine would qualify for that, but not the website alone. Banks Irk (talk) 15:45, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

• It's very hard to find anything on what the "senior" designation means, which does not inspire confidence. The best I could dig up is this glassdoor review by someone claiming to be a "senior contributor" specifically saying that there was zero editorial oversight, implying that it's just a meaningless title. Obviously that's just a random comment, but in the total absence of any other explanation from Forbes or anything else explaining what the title means, I'm inclined to take it at face value and say that we should treat them the same as other contributors. --Aquillion (talk) 10:04, 15 July 2023 (UTC)