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Colin Heaton's biography of Hans-Joachim Marseille

The source in question is Heaton, Colin; Lewis, Anne-Marie (2012). The Star of Africa: The Story of Hans Marseille, the Rogue Luftwaffe Ace. London, UK: Zenith Press. ISBN 978-0-7603-4393-7.

It is used several times for lengthy paragraphs in Hans-Joachim Marseille#Marseille and Nazism to make the case that Marseille was "openly anti-Nazi". I have argued at Talk:Hans-Joachim Marseille#Evidence for Marseille's "anti-Nazi" stand that these passages in Heaton's bio are almost exclusively based upon personal reminiscences by former comrades and Nazi persona like Karl Wolff, Artur Axmann, Hans Baur and Leni Riefenstahl, which are renowned for being talkative about the Nazi era and being apologetic at that. Their stories are not supported by other sources, but in fact appear to be very unlikely, if not impossible. Heaton's gives dates which contradict themselves and commits obvious errors. The stories he relates about Corporal Mathew Letulu [sic!], i.e. Mathew P. Letuku, contradict much better documented secondary literature. Apart from interviews, possibly conducted by himself, which is difficult to tell given the rudimentary nature of the footnotes, Heaton relies almost exclusively on two biographies, one by military pulp writer Franz Kurowski, the other a "tribute" by some Robert Tate. Based upon this evidence Heaton draws far reaching conclusions, namely that "Marseille was perhaps the most openly anti-Nazi warrior in the Third Reich." (p. 4) Given its focus upon oral evidence, collected somewhat 40 (?) years after the events, its poor editing and obvious errors, I consider that biography to be an unreliable source that should not be used excessively (and it is used for many more dubious claims) in a GA in the English Wikipedia, because it is misleading.--Assayer (talk) 20:14, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you that this source is very weak for an article on a Nazi era figure. I wouldn't have a problem with it being mentioned as "some biographies say", i.e. carefully attributed. It seems to be overused at the moment. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:26, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be usable only as evidence for what unreliable sources say, and I'd use it only when it is explicitly described as unreliable. Richard Keatinge (talk) 12:38, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Nothing but opinions from an agenda-driven Wikipedia editor. Assayer wants Heaton off Wikipedia. He has failed to show Heaton unreliable. Those are the facts that matter.

I am also concerned with the comments from Itsmejudith. What do you know about the literature of aerial warfare in World War II? And how could you say that about a book you've never read?

I'd encourage people to have a look at the talk page of Hans-Joachim Marseille - where the complainant makes accusation and assertion with no evidence. Dapi89 (talk) 11:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

See WP:HISTRS. Popular books by non-historians are not reliable for the history of WW2. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

• You are miss quoting what is a guideline; see section: What is historical scholarship. The question as to the book for evaluation is whether it is considered WP:RS or not; I do not know this work and therefore cannot offer an opinion. Kierzek (talk) 18:46, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, biographical works by academic historians on members of the Wehrmacht or SS below the rank of general can be numbered on the fingers of one hand, so WP:HISTRS is useless and we must fall back upon the traditional methods of evaluating a book and its author like use of primary sources, use of puffery or biased language, etc. All that requires actually reading the book more thoroughly than a Google snippet can allow. I've never read Heaton so I really don't know if I'd consider him RS or not. Personally, I'd be most interested to see what Wübbe has to say.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:19, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

@Sturmvogel 66: On Wubbe, here's input from an editor familiar with this work: The book is 20% text and 80% pictures and copies of the original documents plus newspaper clippings. Source: User_talk:Dapi89/Archive_1#Hans Joachim Marseille. I.e. it's about 80% primary material, including unreliable war-time propaganda, and 20% commentary, also potentially unreliable given the slant of the publisher. The book was published by Verlag Siegfried Bublies -- de:Verlag Bublies, "a small, extreme-right publisher from Beltheim". K.e.coffman (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

He doesnt have a biography here, but from what I can google online he probably passes muster as a reliable source. Ex-military, ex-history professor, current historian and consultant for TV/Film on WW2. He is qualified in the area, has been published on the subject as well as earning a living from it for a significant time. If the only thing being held against him requires second-guessing him, thats not how WP:V works and is bordering on original research. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:36, 3 January 2017 (UTC)

As to the argument that Heaton is "qualified in the area": According to Heaton's own CV on his own commercial website he holds a BA and two MA degrees in history, was consultant and adjunct professor to the online American Military University and guest historian for a single episode of a History channel programme. That's not very impressive. What is more, I looked for reviews of his works and could not find much. It seems, however, that Heaton regularly uses "oral testimony" from people involved. That is stressed by Stephen M. Miller in a recent review of Heaton's Four-War Boer for the Journal of African History (2016), commenting that the information of the interviews are not substantiated in the text or in the notes ("unfortunately") and Horst Boog, reviewing Heaton's Night Fighters (which is his MA thesis at Temple Univ.) for the Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift (2010). Boog also points to numerous errors, for example Heaton's estimate of 1.2 million civillian German bomb victims. (The highest estimate is actually 635,000 victims, recent research (Richard Overy) estimates 353,000 victims.) I might add that by now I am challenging the reliability of the book for a certain, controversial characterization of Jochen Marseille. Thus one does not need to read the whole book (which I did), because I refer to a couple of pages which are cited at length in the article, I point to the sources and how they are used and I point to the language.--Assayer (talk) 17:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

The above is a combination of original research which we dont do and actual genuine concerns. If multiple reliable sources have cast doubt on his credibility (critical reviews, peers countering his claims etc) then that does shed doubt on his useability in an article. Could you make a list of the sources critical of him/his book? Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:19, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

I've looked. Nothing. I did say earlier in this thread, this claim of unreliability is just an opinion of one editor. This type of personal attack on sources has been made across multiple threads and articles with the same old result. Heaton qualifies as reliable. Dapi89 (talk) 13:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'd like to add that you could find critical reviews about facets of any one of these academics work, even Overy and Miller. Using the differentials in casualty figures, which vary among all academics is a weak argument (never mind what the latest, supposedly new, research has to say, which doesn't automatically make it accurate anyway). And can you define victims? Anyone who suffered a gash from an air attack can be considered a victim. Such vague descriptions are unhelpful. Opinions are also unhelpful. Assayer is well aware of what is required here. Does this editor have reviews that are directly critical or not? Dapi89 (talk) 13:28, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: Could you please elaborate where you draw the line between OR and "genuine concerns"? Neither do I use unpublished sources nor do I come to a conclusion on my own. I simply hold what Heaton says against what other published sources say. Isn't that what User:Sturmvogel 66 asks for, if we don't have biographical works by academic historians at hand? How else could we evaluate the reliability of a publication, that is ignored by historiographical works? Please do also take into account how the material sourced to Heaton's biography is presented in the article, namely as factual accounts. Of course this is what Heaton does in his work: He weaves lengthy quotations of various anecdotes related to him through interviews into a coherent narrative. These anecdotes are not supported by third party sources and Heaton does not discuss their reliability. Thus many of the information can only be traced to oral testimony. Do we have to accept that as reliable, simply because Heaton does?

@Dapi89: Although I chose to ignore your continuous personal attacks I have to say that remarks like "Anyone who suffered a gash from an air attack can be considered a victim" are highly inappropriate. And the literature on aerial warfare in World War II is not that "vague".--Assayer (talk) 17:29, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not an attack it is an observation on your behaviour. Those comments are entirely appropriate unless you feel the wounded don't count. I didn't say it was vague. I said you're vague. All this is hot air. You're trying to use discrepancies and differentials in accounts and figures, and unbelievably spelling differences (!!), to try and have an author discredited. OR is being kind. You're views are personal and tendentious. You're a polemist. End of story. Dapi89 (talk) 20:16, 8 January 2017 (UTC)

If Horst Boog, one of the most respected German authorities on aerial warfare during WW II, devotes a whole paragraph of his review to a list of errors, concluding that there were even more errors, then this does not add to an author's reliability as a source. I take notice that this biography is predominantly cosidered to be a "very weak" source, to say the least. One editor questioned the applicability of WP:HISTRS in cases such as this, while yet another considered the evaluation of certain claims against the background of other published sources as OR. The contradictions between these different approaches were not resolved. One editor rather commented on me than on the content, so that my evidence remains unchallenged. Maybe, as a piece of WP:FANCRUFT, the article in question is fittingly based upon anecdotes told by veterans and former Nazis. I find it troubling, however, that this is a GA by Wikipedia standards and short of FA status only because of the prose, not because of dubious content or unreliable sources.--Assayer (talk) 21:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I've previously raised concerns about Heaton on the Talk page (Talk:Hans-Joachim Marseille#Unreliable sources tag) as a WP:QS source, due to problematic POV he exhibited in one of his articles. He has called an action of a German commander an "act of humanity". A "daring raid" or "skillful military ruse" would be okay, but "an act of humanity"? That is just bizarre. (See: Talk:2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich#Heaton. Comment from another editor was: "Heaton removed as biased pov and non WP:RS").

A related question, does Heaton indeed cite Franz Kurowski in his work? If yes, how extensively? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:53, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

"the applicability of WP:HISTRS" Assayer, what applicability? The link leads to Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history), which is an essay, neither policy, nor guideline. Per Wikipedia:Essays: "Essays have no official status, and do not speak for the Wikipedia community as they may be created without approval. Following the instructions or advice given in an essay is optional. There are currently about 2,000 essays on a wide range of Wikipedia related topics."

And this particular essay does not discount works of popular history: "Where scholarly works are unavailable, the highest quality commercial or popular works should be used." Dimadick (talk) 07:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dimadick: I did not bring WP:HISTRS up, but User:Itsmejudith. I did find that comment more helpful than others, though, because it provided at least some kind of guidance. I did not argue, however, that "highest quality commercial or popular works" should never be used. In general the comments during this discussion were contradictory. But how would you determine the quality of sources?

@K.e.coffman: Heaton considers Kurowski's bio of Marseille to be "very good" (p. xiv). Given the number of Heaton's footnotes I would say about a third of them refer to Kurowski. I did not check every footnote, what and how much material he borrowed. Heaton's main source are his interviews. In chapter 4 "Learning the Ropes", for example, there are 21 references, six refer to Kurowski, the rest refer to interviews.--Assayer (talk) 19:59, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dimadick: Does the editor consider Heaton to be high quality commercial / popular work? K.e.coffman (talk) 16:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

If you mean me, I am not particularly convinced of Heaton's quality. I just noted that the discussion was using an essay to ban popular history works. Dimadick (talk) 16:49, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the clarification. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:57, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

Assayer and K.e.coffman have used Wikipedia to attack sources about any German serviceman who served in World War II if it dares to complement their personal bravery or service record. Coffman has opposed the advancement of these articles, namely the Knight's Cross lists and has deleted hundreds of articles about these recipients. It should come as no surprise that their singular agenda here is to degrade and delete portions of the article that doesn't fit with their opinions. Assayer in particular has scoured the internet for anything he can find that is critical of Heaton. The tiny and weak tidbits of those academic(s) (just the one?) that are critical of small aspects of his work is nowhere near enough to decry Heaton. Virtually nothing else.

This attack on Heaton should be treated for what it is: OR and opinion by a pair of anonymous internet users. And they don't get to decide who is admitted to Wikipedia and who isn't. I'm glad at least one other editor can see that. Dapi89 (talk) 19:24, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dapi89: "at least one other editor can see that" -- Which other editor is that? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:00, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I found a review of Heaton's book on Marseille from Aviation History. Mar 2013, Vol. 23 Issue 4, p62-62. 1/2p.. It reads in part:

• "Writing the biography of a 22-year-old, most of whose life remains undocumented, isn't easy. The only way to turn it into a book is lots of photographs (Kurowski's method) or this husband-and-wife team's choice, spending way too many pages reciting the exact details of 158 aerial combats…which in turn requires suspension of disbelief on the part of readers. How, exactly, did the authors know which rudder Marseille kicked and what the airspeed read, whether he pulled full flaps or skidded to avoid a pursuer's rounds, just what Marseille saw through his windscreen and exactly when he saw it?"

K.e.coffman (talk) 06:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Which editor do you think? Or do you ignore posts you don't like?

So? If K.e.Coffman knew anything about Marseille, he'd know that through interviews with his commanding officers, and pilots in his units, Heaton is able to understand how he approached air combat. Marseille shared his knowledge with all those around him. I've seen interviews with Korner and Neumann that explicitly discuss Marseille's unorthodox tactics, some of which are sourced in the article. Simple really. Dapi89 (talk) 10:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps K.e.Coffman needs to remember (if he knew, which I doubt), that 109 of the 158 claims filed by Marseille are recorded which included many combat reports with short but vivid descriptions of how he engaged the enemy in successful combats. Dapi89 (talk) 11:00, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Herausgeber Dapi89 state that criticism of Heaton was "nothing but opinions from an agenda-driven Wikipedia editor". I have provided a 3rd party review of Heaton's work on Marseille, which points out that the work is close to being historical fiction in its depictions of the areal battles ("requires suspension of disbelief on the part of readers"). Is this review also wrong? K.e.coffman (talk) 20:52, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

That says what exactly!? I repeat; the reviewer and it's number one wikipedia fan don't seem to understand that actions, tactics and the subject's point of view are quite easy to record.

And even if this reviewer had something insightful and factually accurate to say, using it to attack and remove another source from Wikipedia shows the agenda driven nature of the attacking editor. It shows K.e.Coffman, you're not interested in researching the subject for its own sake, but scratching around for dirt you can throw at Heaton. It is absurd to contemplate labelling Heaton unreliable because he receives some form of criticism from someone who likely is not an authority on Marseille. Heaton is.

It should be obvious the reviewer, whoever they maybe, is too ignorant to be entertained. Dapi89 (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

@Dapi89: please see: WP:no personal attacks.

The review is of the work under discussion, it's by "Wilkinson, Stephan" from the Aviation History magazine. Unless the magazine is not reputable, I don't see how a 3rd party review can be dismissed on the grounds that (in the opinion of one editor) it's been shared by "agenda-driven" contributor to "scratch around for dirt [to] throw at Heaton". K.e.coffman (talk) 23:49, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

It isn't an attack. It's an observation. Understand the difference. I've lost count of the number of editors that have said the same thing.

Once more, you are using a non-expert source to attack the credibility of biographer. That is OR and Tendentious. You can see why a score or more of editors regard you as agenda driven. You've spent the last few months doing this type of thing. Your efforts to destroy the article on German personnel won't be tolerated without exceptionally good reason. Dapi89 (talk) 07:32, 23 January 2017 (UTC)

Summary on Heaton

Summarising, as the discussion has been long and involved:

• this source is very weak for an article on a Nazi era figure via Itsmejudith
• It seems to be usable only as evidence for what unreliable sources say, and I'd use it only when it is explicitly described as unreliable via Richard Keatinge
• He doesnt have a biography here, but from what I can google online he probably passes muster as a reliable source. Ex-military, ex-history professor, current historian and consultant for TV/Film on WW2 via Only in death
• I've never read Heaton so I really don't know if I'd consider him RS or not via Sturmvogel 66
• I am not particularly convinced of Heaton's quality via Dimadick

K.e.coffman (talk) 02:36, 26 January 2017 (UTC)

How many times do you have to be told, that you don't get to decide whether a source is reliable. Neither does anybody else, unless they can provide good cause.

The personal opinions of Wikipedia editors are useless. Dapi89 (talk) 21:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

@Only in death: I was able to clarify that evaluation of sources is not original research; please see this discussion: Wikipedia talk:No original research#Evaluation of sources. K.e.coffman (talk) 23:42, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

You were not evaluating a source. You don't like it. You made a decision it had to go, then scoured the internet for anything that would support your pre-existing prejudices against sources that write about German military personnel and that don't label them Nazis or falsifiers of their own records. Using anonymous reviews, from non-experts to ban sources about which they offer only the very slightest of criticism is tendentious AND OR. Dapi89 (talk) 13:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Please visit Wikipedia talk:No original research#Evaluation of sources and engage with the editors there. K.e.coffman (talk) 00:11, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't need to. You're behaviour encompasses more than OR, also Tendentious and selective editing. Dapi89 (talk) 12:48, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

The above comment incorrectly identifies historian Horst Boog as a "non-expert". He was the pre-eminent expert on the Luftwaffe operations during World War II, having contributed to three volumes of the seminal series Germany and the Second World War.

General note: this is a noticeboard to discuss reliability of sources, not user behaviour. For the latter, please see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:55, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Second summary on Heaton

• This discussion has been going on for more than a month now. It is fair to say that no consensus has developed that this source is unreliable. Let's close this discussion per WP:DROPTHESTICK. --Nug (talk) 09:52, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• I do not see it this way.

• Three editors expressed concerns about the source (see above).
• The nom expressed concerns.
• I've not considered Heaton to be reliable since encountering content cited to him at SS Division Das Reich.
• One editor stated that Heaton is probably RS and expressed concerns over OR in evaluating the source, but have not come back to the discussion.
• One editor has expressed an opinion that Heaton is RS.

Thus, the rough consensus seems clear to me that Heaton is not a suitable source for the claims in the article. K.e.coffman (talk) 20:10, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

• Expressing a concern isn't the same as declaring it unreliable. You have misrepresented what the various editors have said in your summary. For example you quote Itsmejudith: this source is very weak for an article on a Nazi era figure but omit her next sentence: I wouldn't have a problem with it being ... carefully attributed. Only you have openly stated this source is unreliable, but two stated it is RS, well make that three since Itsmejudith thinks it okay if properly attributed, actually make that four as I think Heaton is a reliable source for his own opinion that "Marseille was perhaps the most openly anti-Nazi warrior in the Third Reich." --Nug (talk) 21:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

He's a reliable source for the decades-later reports of people with a strong point of view. This does not suggest that his interpretations are reliable for the sort of judgements that are being made about "anti-Nazi" attitudes in the early 1940s. He is on the margins of usability, and then only when appropriately framed and very carefully used. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:29, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

I started this debate to get some additional input whether this particular source is reliable for the content it supports and I would like to thank you for the input. As a reminder: In the article in question Heaton's biography of Marseille is not simply used to present Heaton's opinion. Instead numerous anecdotes and stories related to Heaton through interviews and quoted by him at length are presented as facts.(Perma) It seems fair to summarize that Heaton is a reliable source for his own opinion and for the decades-later reports of people with a strong point of view. Thus the consensus of this debate is that these opinions and reports are to be carefully attributed.--Assayer (talk) 00:24, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

No I don't think that is a fair conclusion. While Heaton's opinion with respect to Marseille's anti-Nazi sentiment should be attributed, there is nothing to suggest that the numerous anecdotes and stories related to Heaton through interviews and quoted by him are unreliable. In fact a review of his book by the journal Military Review in the March-April 2015 edition states "A well-written, insightful, quality book, it entertains while it educates; it is highly recommended."[1] --Nug (talk) 02:32, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

@Nug: Since you seem to offer dissent to my conclusion that opinions and "decades-later reports" were to be attributed, please clarify: Do you argue that the anecdotes and stories that can be found in Heaton's bio are to be accepted as fact and presented as such in a Wikipedia article? Because my argument is that anecdotes and "decades-later reports of people with a strong point of view" are in general biased and opinionated and thus should be dealt with according to WP:BIASED, i.e., with WP:INTEXT at the least, although in regard to the details I would point to WP:ONUS and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. That anecdotes by former Nazis and comrades are quoted at length by Colin Heaton may add color to the picture, but does not transform their anecdotes into truthful, objective, reliable, and accurate representations of historical truth. I have specified my concerns on the talk page of the article, so you might look for examples there.--Assayer (talk) 15:06, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you have a source that backs your conclusion? I've provided a review published in the journal Military Review that highly recommends the book. I see you have ignored that. This discussion has been going on for weeks here, perhaps time to accept there is no consensus for your opinion and WP:DROPTHESTICK now? --Nug (talk) 00:30, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for clarification. So I'll take notice, that because of a review by Major Chris Buckham, a Logistics Officer in the Royal Canadian Air Force and graduate of the Royal Military College of Canada with a BA in Political Science and an MA in International Relations, you think that "first-person anecdotes and interviews with many of [Marseille's] former commanders and colleagues" (Buckham) conducted by Heaton are to be considered factual accounts and can be presented accordingly. Since you are asking for sources, please take note of the extensive material I have presented here and on the talk page of the article. I may remind you, moreover, that Dapi89, who is also very much in favor of those anecdotes, has already thrown out a slightly less favorable review of the book in question by stating, and I am quoting only his more civilized words, It is absurd to contemplate labelling Heaton unreliable because he receives some form of criticism from someone who likely is not an authority on Marseille. He considers this as OR and Tendentious. By that logic Heaton cannot be labelled reliable because of some praise he may have received by a non-expert, or can he? Unless, of course, this is not about sorting reviews by pre-existing prejudices in favor of Heaton. Consensus does not necessarily mean that every editor agrees on every issue. It is the quality of the argument that matters.--Assayer (talk) 03:32, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

So to clarify, are you saying that the opinion of an anonymous Wikipedia editor of unknown academic qualifications, self-published on this notice board, carries more weight than the opinion of an identified academically qualified military officer published in the leading professional journal of the US Army? Seriously? --Nug (talk) 08:49, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

No, I don't say that Dapi89's opinions carry a particular weight, in fact, I find most of them unsubstantiated and focused on personal attacks rather than content. I would not summarily label any reviewer as unqualified, but wanted to point out, that you cannot choose reviews to your liking. I have done what is essential for any historian as for any Wikipedian, namely checked the source against other research sources. In view of the expertise by the MGFA and other evidence I consider Heaton's narrative to be WP:EXCEPTIONAL. It is almost exclusively based upon anecdotal evidence, which, as any textbook on the methods of oral history will tell you, is factually unreliable. As Marc Bloch has famously put it: "The most naĩve policeman knows that a witness should not always be taken at by his word, even if he does not always take full advantage of this theoretical knowledge". (The Historian's Craft, 1954ff.)--Assayer (talk) 20:28, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I was referring to your opinion, you seem to be saying that we should place more weight on your opinion than the opinions published in reliable sources like Military Review. Indeed, you cannot choose reviews to your liking, but you have not provided any other review of Heaton's book. MGFA does not mention Heaton's book, so where are you sourcing these reviews you claim call Heaton's work into question? --Nug (talk) 01:15, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

First of all, in his short and broad review Major Buckham does not address the specific issues I have raised. (I might add that he finds nearly every book that he reviews to be "insightful". See his blog, The military reviewer.) Second, above you'll find another reviewer being quoted, who asks how exactly the authors found out about all the details. That review has been discarded by Dapi89 as non-authorative with an argument which basically discards any review as non-authorative. Third, it remains undisputed that Heaton's evidence are anecdotes and interviews. He has somewhat routinely used this "oral history"-method in other books, too, and reviewers have been critical of the reliability of those interviews. And rightly so because, fourth, as of January 2013 the MGFA has denied that any serious historiographical study of Marseille existed, and did not bother to even mention Kurowski's, Tate's and Wübbe's earlier works either. It noted, however, that attempts by popular literature to suggest an ideological distance between Marseille and Nazism are misleading. Thus Heaton's claims are exceptional and should be backed up by multiple high-quality sources, before they are being accepted as plain facts. But I keep repeating myself and would suggest to take further discussion to the talk page.--Assayer (talk) 04:06, 19 February 2017 (UTC)

I concur with the above; the strongest case against the Heaton source when used for the subject's anti-Nazi credentials is that the author's opinions are not supported (and in fact directly contradicted) by the military historians at the Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr (formerly MGFA). K.e.coffman (talk) 05:27, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

You would. More opinion, no proof. Again, lots of "I think" in all this. I am going to repeat Nug's question: where are you sourcing these reviews you claim call Heaton's work into question? I don't want more elaborate complaints and opinions as to why Heaton should be banned from wikipedia. I want you to tell me where there are concerns from other parties - preferably by published authorities on the Luftwaffe and Marseille. Dapi89 (talk) 11:44, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

One more thing: that Heaton is "directly contradicted by the military historians at the [[Center for Military History and Social Sciences of the Bundeswehr" is false. They do not say that he was or he wasn't a Nazi. They say they are not aware of any 'outstanding' deed to show he wasn't. One doesn't have to show any act or "deed" to show they are/were not a Nazi. Heaton's book is based on those who knew him. And they say his politics were in sharp contradiction to everything National Socialism stood for. Dapi89 (talk) 13:40, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Heaton's book is based on decades-later anecdotes related in a deeply-changed political climate. It is at best on the very margins of usability, if carefully attributed. Richard Keatinge (talk) 14:04, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

Source for your claim? Or is this another opinion? Dapi89 (talk) 16:19, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

• Comment I was asked to comment on this issue, but can better make only a general comment about sources in this area:

Essentially all biographies emphasise the importance of their subject

All biographies contain quotation about what the subject has themselves said at various occasions. It can be assumed that all such statements are self-serving. There will be various statements at various times , and it is easy to cherry-pick the one that is desired..

All references to an author's work are intended to appear balanced, unless intended as an attack piece. They will therefore contain both positive and negative statements, and it is easy to cherry-pick the one that is desired.

All members of an organization involved in immoral or illegal behavior will try to minimize their personal responsibility. In particular, all members of the German army in world war Two writing for an external audience will claim to be anti-Nazi, at least as compared to other people. (though there are a few who will instead glorify their past actions)

It is almost impossible for an historian or biographer to avoid developing a bias about the period or events or people they are describing. Some do this more successfully than others, but bias always exists. DGG ( talk ) 01:02, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Requested a close

I've requested a close at Request for closure noticeboard. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:11, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it has been open for long enough and I would say that no consensus has occurred. But with that said, leave the finial word to the closer. Kierzek (talk) 14:23, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Questionable sources for Bars and Melody

I have been working on improving the sources for the article, as I posted at Talk:Bars and Melody#Reliable sources, but there are some that I don't know about. So I created a list there with some comments based upon some research about Digital Spy, Reveal (which now routes to Digital Spy), TellyMix, IMVdB, J-14, and Irish-charts.

The content from these sources is primarily about their discography, tours, a video release date, or shows that they've appeared on. Do you have any input about whether these are reliable sources or not? Thanks so much.—CaroleHenson (talk) 23:49, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

I am guessing that no response means that there's no significant issue with these sources. Is that a fair assessment, that if there was a huge issue with any of these sources, there would be a response?—CaroleHenson (talk) 14:57, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Not really. More likely no one thinks the material is of consequence :) Collect (talk) 15:09, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

That's not really fair, OP thinks it is. OP needs to read WP:Bold. If other editors aren't fighting you just do it. Endercase (talk) 15:20, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Jonathan Ofir as translator

At Al-Dawayima massacre, 3 editors, each citing a different policy, are challenging the use of the only known translation of an article which is paraphrased and alluded in our text. The content is a link to that translation, not a use of it.

Jonathan Ofir, 'Barbarism by an educated and cultured people’ — Dawayima massacre was worse than Deir Yassin,' Mondoweiss February 7, 2016.

• The first policy objection was that of User:Shrike here citing WP:Undue. How can a mere reference in a note to the only translation existing be undue?

• The policy cited by User:Sir Joseph here is WP:RS, which the editor says excludes. Mondoweiss. No. This has been often discussed at RSN, which has never concluded MW is unacceptable at sight. The issue is not an opinion, but the translation of original content which our page mentions.
• User:Jonney2000 here says ‘translation by a musician from Denmark is not reliable for sure’.

I.e. to me this is all WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Ofir, is an Israeli classical musician, musical conductor, resident in Denmark where he conducts the Copenhagen soloists ensemble. He is multilingual, takes an interest in politics, and occasionally writes for Mondoweiss. There is not a jot or skerrick of evidence he tampers with the material he translates.

I'd appreciate neutral third party input.Nishidani (talk) 16:57, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

So let me get this straight, they are removing the English translation of a letter (printed in Mondoweiss) that was previously printed in (Hebrew or Arabic I assume?) in Haaretz? If the underlying information the letter is sourcing is still in the article, what on earth is the point of removing a translation? Is the translation being used to say something different? Is there any indication the translation is inaccurate? Mondoweiss has not been found previously to be 'not reliable' and you would think they can handle a basic translation job. Frankly this seems to be pointless. You could quote the original in English and not even provide a ready-translated version if you wanted. The only purpose appears to be not to have a link to a full English-language version, which is clearly not in the interest of the encyclopedia. Only in death does duty end (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Where did we determine that Mondoweiss is a reliable source? It is not and should certainly not be used for anything in the IP Conflict area. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 18:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

You appear to not understand how RSN works. Feel free to look in the archives where mondoweiss has been brought up before. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:16, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

You can use sources that aren't in English. Normally there should be no problem with the translation. You can make your own translation if necessary, but if it is particularly sensitive, get consensus for the translation among Wikipedians who speak the language. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:36, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

This problem not of WP:RS but of WP:UNDUE so this issue for WP:NPOVN board.--Shrike (talk) 10:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Nope. You alone asserted this was undue (nota bene: without explaining why). Others said, Lis and Mondoweiss are not reliable. So I addressed this page. This has nothing to do with NPOV, or Undue. Lis is cited as a source to allow the wiki reader to see the full text, whose context is alluded to in the article. It is frankly inane to argue that merely linking the wiki reader to a translation available online violates WP:Undue. No one has given any evidence for why Jonathan Lis's brief translation of a short and straightforward letter should be considered unreliable. You are bilingual in Hebrew and English. So if you can spot an egregious translation error in the English version, that would be an objection. Otherwise this is just the usual teamwork to exclude with a 'wave whatever policy flag' approach, regardless of the merits of the question.Nishidani (talk) 11:44, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Again question of WP:UNDUE shouldn't be discussed here as this board for discussing of WP:RS.In my view its doesn't important if the translation is reliable or not as it was printed on WP:SPS.--Shrike (talk) 12:06, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

If you have no credible argument that the translation is not reliable its neither an RS issue OR an UNDUE issue - since the content is already sourced (in another language). Undue is for inclusion of content/sources that give undue weight. Merely linking to a translation of something that is already included is not a weight issue. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The justification for removing text must be sound policy. Neither Shrike nor anyone else cited above has been able to justify the policy adduced in their edit summaries when removing this innocuous translation reference. I am now being told, however, that I need their consensus to implement the restoration of the translation. This is crazy. The policy used for removal, according to third parties, was incorrect. Worse still, the removal erased material that has been on that page, stable and unchallenged, for a year. But since those removing it are a majority, I cannot restore the material, unlerss neutral third party advice the contention rules that the removal was not policy-based. I would appreciate more input here. Nishidani (talk) 13:45, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

wp:bold? But, don't get in a revert war. That takes up server time. Also Majority or not doesn't really matter WP:NOTDEMOCRACY. Endercase (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Is a person who read two important books a reliable source for genealogy?

Ricardo canedo (talk · contribs) is adding this as a genealogical source for Henry I Sinclair, Earl of Orkney (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). I've reverted him twice but each time he replaces it. I've also pointed to WP:RS and WP:VERIFY and asked him to come here and show how Brian Dreadon, who wrote this self-published book and writes on Sinclair blogs, meets our criteria. His first edit summary was "The work is not by the owner of the website, it is by a guest writer Brian Dreadon who has made much research in the Sinclair of Dryden family and their likely descendants the Dryden of Canons Ashby family", his second "Dreadon is reliable, he read at least two important books about the Sinclairs, The Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn by Father Hay and Saint-Clairs of the Isles by Roland St.Clair". I'm obviously not going to revert a third time and I obviously can't convince him. Perhaps if he sees that others agree he'll be convinced. It's a bit worrying that someone would use such a justification for using a source. Doug Weller talk 19:34, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm convinced that Brian Dreadon is reliable and won't change my opinion on the subject but I would like to see other's opinions. Ricardo Canedo.

The whole section superficially appears to be unsourced at the moment? Jonathan A Jones (talk) 20:22, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, well, I read a book about Cryptography, WWII and Southeast Asia, so I guess I can edit those articles and cite myself, now. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:43, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Is there a reason "The Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn by Father Hay" and "Saint-Clairs of the Isles by Roland St.Clair" cannot be cited directly? Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:01, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Because they're self-published. 32.218.152.1 (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn was published in Edinburgh in 1835 by Thomas G. Stevenson,[2] and Saint-Clairs of the Isles was published in Auckland in 1898 by publisher H. Brett.[3][4] Could you share your evidence that they are WP:SPS, or did you mean that they are questionable sources because they're written by members of the family? --Worldbruce (talk) 06:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn was compiled ca. 1700 by Richard Augustine Hay, a priest who knew the family. It was later edited and published by James Maidment in 1835, with only 108 copies printed (i.e., a private printing with no editorial oversight).[5] Saint-Clairs of the Isles was printed by a private printer in Auckland, with a small number of copies printed, mainly for those on a subscription list. The subscription list can be found on pp. 557-558.[6] Again, no editorial oversight. 32.218.152.1 (talk) 06:42, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Well, books -- published or unpublished -- are usually poor sources, because they're not fact checked. You are entirely relying on the rigor and veracity of the writer. (I just came across a book published by Oxford University Press which had a fact completely wrong.)

You're not going to get a books called "The Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn" and "Saint-Clairs of the Isles" published, because there's no market for books like that. If someone somehow convinced Random House that they would be best sellers, it wouldn't make the material in them one bit more reliable. Random House will send over a proofreader (for grammar, spelling, etc.) but not a fact-checker.

But anyway as a practical matter we can't get those books -- they're out of print. But wait. We have someone who did get ahold of those books and gave us a a synopsis which we can get to. Win! And I'm not sure its fair or accurate describe this situation as "a person who read two books now trying to pass himself off as an expert". It's more like "a scholar who has read some source documents says..." type situation. It's not helpful to mischaracterize the situation.

But anyway, now we have two degrees of possible error:

1. "The Genealogie of the Saintclaires of Rosslyn" and "Saint-Clairs of the Isles" may be slipshod and full of errors or speculation -- or even deliberate lies, for all we know.
2. Brian Dreadon's reading of the books may have been slipshod and full of misinterpretations. Or maybe his report has deliberate lies, who knows?

But I dunno. Sure these people could be lying, but then, maybe everyone is lying. Maybe everyone else is robots. I'm not sure how far down that path we want to go. I'd need evidence, or at least assertion, that there's some benefit for them to lie before I much consider that.

More likely though, would be errors. Well, let's see. Brian Dreadon says he "took Law at Auckland University with studies in History and English Literature. After a varied career of [doing stuff where you have to wear a suit] He is now retired" and doing this. He's not some drunk yelling on the subway. He sounds like a serious person who is related to these people and might well care about getting this stuff right and having the acuity of mind to do so.

I don't see why the fact that there's no market for "Dryden Family History" proves that Dreadon's a montebank. I do wish we knew more about him. I wouldn't dismiss his book out of hand. It's not a great source, but when you get down into the weeds of details of obscure things, sometimes you have to either use use non-optimal sources or just give up. Herostratus (talk) 06:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

All of that is irrelevant. Yes, it can be hard to determine the truth, and yes, no source is perfect; but we have the WP:RS policy to help us sort through that. Those two books unambiguously fail it, and Dreadon himself clearly fails to fit the criteria that WP:RSSELF establishes, which seems to be what you're trying to invoke here ("...its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications.") Simply having taken some classes and sounding not-insane is not enough to let us cite random PDFs he wrote. It may be that this topic is so obscure that no reliable sources have covered it; but in that case, that means it's simply too obscure for us to cover it as well. --Aquillion (talk) 08:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

For once a question I asked appear to have got decent responses! I agree with Aquillion given the answers above. Its clear the books themselves are not reliable sources by themselves. Now if they had been referenced/used as source material by an author/scholar who would be considered reliable (published by a third party non-vanity publisher or peer reviewed paper etc, the usual RS applications) we wouldnt care about their origin. I cannot see that Dreadon fits the bill of a useable source for something like this. Given the material he is basing it off is also unreliable to be used without a reliable source interpreting it, I would say no. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:05, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Yes, those are cogent points. But my take on WP:RS is that it's a starting point. It's not a shibboleth, and it's not a substitute for detailed analysis and consideration of a particular source, which I've done.

Everything -- everything -- in WP:RS is supposed to be in service of answering one question: "How confident are we that the material is accurate"?. Everything else is just noise. For my part I am reasonably confident that that the material is probably accurate.

IMO My ability to learn something about Brian Dreadon is much more useful than anything I can learn from reading WP:RS. I would much rather have a situation like this, where at least I know that he "took Law at Auckland University with studies in History and English Literature" than I would have situation where the book was published by Random House but we don't know anything at all about the author. My take on the guy is that he's probably a serious amateur researcher. The internal clues of the material lead me to believe that. "He doesn't get paid for this by a University" means very little, to me.

With all due respect, my translation of

if they had been referenced/used as source material by an author... who would be considered reliable (published by a third party non-vanity publisher... we wouldn't care about their origin

is

if [some random thing had happened that has nothing to do with anything] we wouldn't care about their origin

"Non-vanity publishers" (even big and famous ones) do not fact-check their material. Their business model is "will this sell many copies and make us money?" not "is this true?" They can't afford to fact-check their stuff. "Published by a famous publisher" is just a shibboleth that has no actual bearing on the question at hand, which is "how confident are we that this stuff is accurate"? (I learned all this while writing Wikipedia:Reliable sources checklist, which I recommend). Herostratus (talk) 15:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Well WP:IRS makes it clear that we do weight publishers based on their reputation when evaluating reliable sources. Self-published is an indication its weak, published by a known (non-vanity) publisher is an indication its gone through an editorial process, which includes fact-checking. If you want to argue that the publisher is irrelevant in this case, you have to demonstrate that the person (Dreadon) themselves is reliable (one of the consideration criteria for which is 'has this person been published previously by a third party'). And as far as I can see, Dreadon does not cut the mustard to be cited on something like this based on his own reputation. Only in death does duty end (talk) 16:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

No, wrong! It's a very common misconception, so don't feel bad. The editorial process of book publishing does not-not-not include fact checking. There just isn't time or money for it, and it's not worthwhile from a business-model standpoint (People do say "The Times got another fact wrong, I'm cancelling my subscription"; they do not say "This Random House book got another fact wrong, from now I'm checking the publisher and not buying any more Random House books", and book publishers know they don't. (Instead, people say "...not buying any more books by this author").

(and this is why reputable magazines and newspapers do employ fact checkers (and are a lot more reliable than books, as an overall general thing). Business model. Follow the money.)

Book publishers do employ copy editors, but they are looking for spelling and grammar errors, maybe smooth out some rough prose. A copy editor might check an occasional fact, but its not really part of his remit, and he has a deadline. Sometimes authors, who have a reputation to protect, will hire a fact-checker on their own dime. And I assume that some books are fact-checked, such as the Guinness Book of World Records, since they need to not be full of errors as part of their business model. But all that is the exception.

It's a comfortable misconception, because it lets us say "big heavy book, famous publisher -- reliable!". It lets us check off a box and move on with our lives. But "comforting" is not the same as "true". Herostratus (talk) 17:26, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

(EC) That is not in line with how WP:RS (WP:IRS) indicates publishers are treated. I suggest if you want reliable sources to be judged differently, you need to alter those guidelines. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

That's not how I read WP:IRS. Read it again. WP:IRS is pretty circumspect, discussing the issue but not really wanting to say "Use this. Don't use this". However, in "Some types of sources" section they have two subsections ("Scholarship", which says "Material.... that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable", and "News organizations" which says "News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable") (And the other subsections are about sources that are not reliable). So boiling this down I get:

1. Peer-reviewed journals are assumed (not proven) reliable.
2. Periodicals with good fact-checking departments are assumed (not proven) reliable.
3. Everything else is up for analysis and discussion. Herostratus (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Reputable textbook publishers and academic presses do indeed "fact check" their books (probably not to the extent that students and scholars would always like but that's a different discussion...). ElKevbo (talk) 17:37, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

OK. I don't know about that. I was talking about regular commercial publishers. I can certainly see how University of X Press would have a operational model "We don't want to publish wrong things, as it reflects poorly on the university; and our business model isn't really to maximize the press by itself as a profit center at any cost; and we also have professional pride." I wish I knew more about university presses. Do you have any sources on that subject? Herostratus (talk) 16:48, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

• Pinging @Kittybrewster:, who is my usual go-to for this kind of thing. Guy (Help!) 11:51, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Pardon my intrusion but it seems me that the reliability question can be sidestepped altogether if this information fails the due weight test which seems likely if this information can only be found in one or two obscure books published a few hundred years ago. ElKevbo (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Do we really have an editor who actually thinks "self-published" in the 19th century is the same as "self-published" in the 2010s? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Games Research Network

Is Games Research Network a reliable source? It is a blog but in on its About page, it claims to be a "multi-disciplinary research group for academics and professionals working on gaming and play". I'm wanting to reference the cite to support the Awards section for the page of Catan. Any feedback is appreciated. Thanks! Meatsgains (talk) 23:19, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Do you see any evidence of fact-checking or an editorial policy (I don't)? The articles linked at "Our Research" might be reliable, but you would need to have a sense of the specific journals in which those articles were published rather than this website. --Izno (talk) 02:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

What's the exact link you want to use? Is is signed? The About section says it's "Based at Manchester Metropolitan University" and has "academics" and "brings together researchers from across Manchester Metropolitan".. the Research section too, makes me feel that it's not just a couple of drunken louts in a basement somewhere. OK here we see Manchester Metropolitan avowing their association with the group, so we're not relying just an the web sites say-so. They are an official arm of the English Department (!) of that University. But "We welcome members who... enjoy gaming" so maybe a bit of hobby club thing going too.

If the entry is signed by a University professor, that counts for quite a bit in my book. I assume that professors don't like to publish wrong things (even in a blog) because its embarrassing and could tend to impinge on their credibility, which is their stock in trade.

But it looks like these blog posts are not signed. To me, that's probably a deal-killer: can't use it. It's arguable... considering that they're academics and associated with a university, it doesn't seem likely that they would be like "Um I think I heard someone say at the bar last night that Catan won such-and-such award, that's good enough for me, I'll publish it", because that sort of approach to facts would end up potentially embarrassing them.

But with no signature, we don't know who is writing (maybe just a hanger-on who "enjoys gaming") or what the editorial controls are, if any. So... I guess probably not. Herostratus (talk) 16:15, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any fact-checking taking place however, in response to Herostratus - the article I am wanting to use is here and belive it or not there are signatures by Paul Wake, Tom Brock, Chris Jones. There are also references at the bottom of the article. Meatsgains (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

More context please. Also WP:VG/S might be useful. Endercase (talk) 15:17, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

recordsetter.com

An article Aaron Ozee now at AFD sourcing a "world record" to the website Record Setter. I looked to see if we has an article on "Record Setter" and found a half-dozen articles [7] using it as a source. Is this a WP:RS for "records"?E.M.Gregory (talk) 12:36, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

While investigating that AfD I looked at that site. People submit their own "records" and proof, then the website claims to investigate. There does not appear to be any valid verification.--☾Loriendrew☽ ☏(ring-ring) 14:02, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

That was the conclusion I arrived at, as well. Their FAQ page states: "RecordSetter is a free-content, openly editable records database. The community collaboratively decides when an attempt should be approved or not." They also claim to evaluate every claim within 48 hours, which means that there can't possibly be any serious verification process at work. I, too, looked into the site for the purposes of that AfD, but I think it needs to be removed from other WP articles as it is not a reliable source. --bonadea contributions talk 15:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• Yes, I think that's right. Although this gNews search [8] shows that a few New outlets have been fooled into citing it. Not many, but on the first page of the search is the local paper that Aaron Ozee got his story into.E.M.Gregory (talk) 17:13, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Here are the news links to prove recordsetter.com's credibility - > nypost.com , Forbes.com , journaltimes.com , cartoonbrew.com , Dailytimes.com ,thenextweb.com , Journaltimes.com. I found many more articles in web to prove the credibility of recordsetter.com , but mentioning only 7 here . Abrahamherews (talk) 05:05, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

You've just listed a bunch of times recordsetter was mentioned, without looking at the context. The first link just mentions record setting in passing, it doesn't talk about whether the site is reliable or even cite it for anything. Your second link is a blog (it's easy to be fooled, Forbes used to be generally reliable, but virtually the entire site is blogs now). As for the rest, it just seems to be uncritical referencing to records hosted there. To me this doesn't pass muster as "a reputation for fact checking and accuracy". Like others here, I just see way too many red flags with this website to consider it reliable. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:35, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

This site does not meet WP standards for reliable sources (WP:RS). Our guideline states that a reliable source must have "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." That hasn't been shown—the evidence provided above, from their own website, shows a decided lack of fact-checking (their claim that they evaluate every claim within 48 hours). First Light (talk) 07:41, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Kek, CONTEXT PLEASE. NO STANDARDS ARE IN PLACE FOR OUT OF CONTEXT SOURCES. I AM YELLING. Endercase (talk) 15:00, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

• We have no links to that website. #InnocentFace Guy (Help!) 15:08, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

• 48 hours is for processing and not for evaluation . You are misleading the discussion @First Light 05:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abrahamherews (talk • contribs) 05:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

(I don't know who I'm replying to here, since you didn't sign your comment) The RecordSetter FAQ page states that:

As soon as you submit your record you'll receive an email with a link to your "Under Review" page where you can see your attempt and share it with friends. Our community and moderators will then review the record and it will be marked as approved, failed, or denied. Attempts are generally processed within 48 hours.

"Processed" seems to imply that the record will be "approved, failed, or denied" within 48 hours. But it's certainly open to interpretation. It also says "RecordSetter is a free-content, openly editable records database. The community collaboratively decides when an attempt should be approved or not." In fact, there is no explanation of any fact-checking there, only a wiki-style process that doesn't meet our standards for reliablility. First Light (talk) 07:40, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe it doesn't meet your standards for "reliablility". But, we are a community, don't speak for everyone ("our standards"). Without context, this source can not be evaluated with respect to reliability. Endercase (talk) 15:00, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

@Endercase:I should have been more specific than "our standards." I meant the sourcing policies and guidelines created by Wikipedia users ("our," since I'm part of this community) and accepted by consensus and common practice. These are at WP:RS and WP:V. You'll find some reasons at those two pages that would explain why recordsetter.com is not reliable by Wikipedia standards. Please spend time reading those pages and becoming educated on them. They are central to all of the discussions on this page. First Light (talk) 06:39, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@First Light:WP:CONTEXTMATTERS you can't just logically say "recordsetter.com is not reliable by Wikipedia standards" See also WP:BIASED. I believe the general "ban everything that I don't like" syndrome here is caused by WP:QUESTIONABLE "Questionable sources are generally unsuitable". However, if you keep reading it continues with "for citing contentious claims". If the cited claims aren't contentious there are no problems. Endercase (talk) 20:38, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Endercase:If some day there is evidence that it meets the RS standard of having a reputation for fact-checking and reliability, then it could become a reliable source. I don't see that right now. It's more of a wiki type of site, based on community approval of records. But, these things can change over time. I don't even have an opinion on whether I like or "I don't like" recordsetter.com. I never even heard of the website before this discussion, and only came to discuss WP policy on reliable sources, and how it applies to this website. First Light (talk) 01:10, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

http://scholar.oxy.edu/scas/vol91/iss2/4/

This is a reliable source, yes? There is something about the web presence of this group that seems off to me. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:16, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Same question for http://scholar.oxy.edu/scas/vol97/iss2/5/. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:59, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

The journal looks ok - has an editorial board, staffed with real academics, etc - but it concerns me that their submissions guidelines ask authors to provide a list of potential reviewers, which is not how peer review is generally supposed to work. I would treat it as a lower-quality academic/open access source: probably reliable, but use with a bit of caution. The writers of both of those pieces have PhDs and are experts in the field so I think in those cases it should be fine. Fyddlestix (talk) 17:07, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

It's the official journal of the Southern California Academy of Sciences, which is based at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County; nothing fishy about that. As for asking for suggested reviewers, that's actually done by a lot of journals (I know most ecology journals do it, up to and including Ecological Modelling). -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 15:58, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Sources provided for Kristina Pimenova

All sources at Draft:Kristina Pimenova were dismissed as either not independent or unreliable (not sure which). The user declining submission looked at the article for only a few seconds. I'd appreciate some input. Lyrda (talk) 16:54, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Forum shopping is discouraged because it does not help develop consensus. The OP has already raised the issue of the draft's sources at the AfC help desk. Interested editors are invited to contribute to the discussion there. --Worldbruce (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

I prefer to discuss reliability of the sources here, hoping for expert advice. Lyrda (talk) 18:36, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

If the user was not a normal editor of that page it is possible they didn't understand context. wp:bold suggests that you just revert and call for discussion on that talk page if you want. Both versions get saved anyway. Worse comes to worse you get stuck in a revert loop until someone gives up. Might be kinda fun. Endercase (talk) 14:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

TheWrap

Is TheWrap a sufficiently RS to support keeping an assertion about a Trump administration initiative coming "from writers such as Christopher Hooton at Independent commenting that Nazi Germany-era propaganda magazine Der Stürmer, which published crimes ostensibly committed by Jewish individuals." (Note that the source is not The Independent but, rather, a website called indy100.com.) This text is being repeatedly inserted at Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement.E.M.Gregory (talk) 20:58, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

It looks like people want to add sources that draw comparisons between VOICE and Der Sturmer. My understanding is that indy100 is a clickbait spinoff of The Independent. I wouldn't trust it for real news. TheWrap is alright, but it's mostly media analysis and entertainment industry news. In their article, TheWrap links to better sources, including this article from The Atlantic. From checking Google News, there's also this article from The Washington Post. As far as analysis of the office itself, the other sources would be better to cite than TheWrap. But for analysis of what the media is saying and doing, TheWrap is fine. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:15, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Furthermore, the source is being used at Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement to support an extraordinary claim, that the Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement will be assembling lists of undocumented aliens who have committed crimes, and, from that claim, to support Nazi-era Germany comparisons. It is an extraordinary claim because it goes against the wording of the Executive Order that announced the Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement establishment. The Executive order clearly says that that the assembling of lists of undocumented aliens who have committed crimes is not going to be done by the Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement. As has been often said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In this case, to support the addition of content that goes against the specifications of a presidential Executive Order, it would be an extraordinary quantity of good sources that give specifics about what it is alleged the Office will actually do, not sources containing trite Reductio ad Hitlerum comparisons. Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I have boldly corrected the website name in the original post as the name with 1000 seems to created for Typosquatting or something like that. TheWrap seems alright as a publication (what NinjaRobotPirate said). However, I don't see that the article (this is the article, right?) even mentions Christopher Hooton directly. They are citing some tweet that links to Hooton's tweet. We should use better sources, as has been pointed out here.

indy100 is a clickbait site for people with short attention span, and it is pretty much unusable for facts. I came here because I saw someone using this and "indy100 staff" (or whoever wrote the headline) couldn't even get the headline right. They seem to add editorial commentary to pretty much every article they have. Politrukki (talk) 18:05, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Should we have a list of approved and not approved "news" sources?

First of all, this stems from Talk:Alfredo Beltrán Leyva. My POV is that the removal of "not-approved" sources from articles without specific use case reasoning is a case of Wikipedia:If it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'd like consensus on this if y'all deem it worthy. However, if y'all choose to continue in a blanket manner approve or deny specific sources then, in my POV, we should have a publicly available list that links each source to an open debate about the reliability of said source as well as archived discussions. I hold this POV because I don't believe in Argument from authority or Argumentum ad populum or fixing things that aren't broken. As it currently stands we are using a logical fallacy as policy and are therefore broken. Every use of a source that isn't "approved" is a challenge to consensus because the editor that used it obviously thought that it was reliable enough for use in that specific use case. Therefore, not having an open discussion while also removing sources violates WP:NPV and challenges the use of consensus as an administrative tool.

TLDR: In order to rectify argument from authority I suggest the use of a list of talked about sources that links to open discussion and displays current measured consensus. If this is already semi-officially in place please let me know where so I can move there. Thank you for your time Endercase (talk) 13:08, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I acknowledge that this is one step up meta and may need to be moved to Wikipedia:Dispute resolution Endercase (talk) 13:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

• No, we should not have a list. Reliability always depends on specific context, and must be assessed on a context by context basis. A source may be completely unreliable in one context, and completely reliable in a different context. What is needed is guidance on how to better assess news sources and use them appropriately in different contexts. For example: guidance on whether the source can be used to support an unattributed statement of fact (X is Y) or it be limited to supporting quotes and attributed statements of opinion ("according to source, X is Y" or "on date, source reported that X is Y") Blueboar (talk) 14:11, 3 March 2017 (UTC)
• No - such a list would, perforce, be both incomplete and inaccurate. AFAICT, the only true areas where I trust zero :sources" are in the area of "celebrity gossip" for which even the Grey Lady has been shown deficient. The current strange belief that some newspapers actually still check facts is one of our major problems. Collect (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

To be clear Blueboar and Collect support the idea that source shouldn't ever be banned outright (as they are in practice now) but be evaluated in context each time? Endercase (talk) 17:01, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Some sources are de-facto 'banned' for use in almost all situations. The exception being as a primary source on themselves. They are considered so unreliable for almost every use that no should sensibly use them without discussion first. Said discussion will usually end up at 'no' but there are exceptions for every source. Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:09, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Is this really about a general policy question (in which case you should raise this somewhere else, where they actually deal with policy stuff), or are you just fishing for someone to tell you that it's ok to use Brietbart, as you're advocating here? If that's your goal then you would have done better to be upfront about it, rather than sugar-coating the question as a general policy issue. Either way, the answer is no: Breitbart is not a reliable source for facts, and you're going to find very little support for a list of "approved" sources. That way lies madness... Fyddlestix (talk) 17:15, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

From that discussion: "it (Breitbart) is equal to that of CNN or the New York Times" yeah but no. In relation to that specific page, I would not use a far right publication which has 'issues' (putting it mildly) with people from south of the US border... on articles about crime south of the US border. I trust I dont need to point out the POV issue here? Only in death does duty end (talk) 17:34, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

There is no attempt to sugar coat anything, sources are actively being removed without discussion because of previous consensus from unrelated contexts. I have a problem with that as it goes against the very idea of consensus and is a clear logical fallacy. At the top of this page it says: "This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context." Now, that is either true or it isn't. Further, if it isn't then we need a list as described. Endercase (talk) 18:07, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

But there is a consensus that Brietbart is really only reliable for attributed opinions, not for facts. That has been confirmed over and over here in many different discussions. Whether you think it's a "logical fallacy" or not is immaterial. If you want to argue that a specific exception should be made in this particular case, go ahead. But you're not likely to prevail. Fyddlestix (talk) 18:11, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

There is also consensus that sources can't be banned. Endercase (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

If the honorable editors herein wish to push this issue I suggest we move everything above this to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard within 24-48hrsEndercase (talk)

The issue here is reliability of sources, not NPOV, so I don't think it would make sense to move the discussion to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:32, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

The outright banning of sources is POV. The only NPOV stance on this issue is the explicit policy as it is written: "This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context." Meaning sources can not be outright banned as is currently practiced. Endercase (talk) 20:53, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

What we should be doing from RS/N is to create a white/blacklist as noted above we've done for WP:VG/S that shows how a source can be considered after discussion at RS/N (reliable for fact, reliable for opinion/self-statements, or fully unreliable/unusable). It will not be exhaustive of all sources, but at least it serves as an index from past consensus discussions. We should also link to these project/topic area guidelines (we have that one for medical studies, for example) But that all should be prefaced that reliability is also a function of topic area too: I'd used IGN for anything related to video games and contemporary fiction, but would not use it at all for politics or medical data should they ever present it. --MASEM (t) 17:33, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

I love the addition of the WP:VG/S example. How do you handle issues where an author from a "reliable" source is hired by one that is considered "unreliable" and continues to produce verifiable content? For instance the case at Talk:Alfredo Beltrán Leyva. *Any specific discussion on Alfredo Beltrán Leyva should be moved to another heading or to that page. Endercase (talk) 18:26, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi MASEM, thanks for your answer. I'd like to follow-up on Endercase's response. Ildefonso Ortiz is the drug war reporter for Breitbart. He used to work for The Monitor (Texas) and did a lot of work on the Gulf Cartel/Zetas. Is there a way we can include his Breitbart reports on Wikipedia? He's published some interesting stuff on these two groups and usually works with Mexican reports to before publishing (as you may know, local reporters in Mexico are often intimidated/killed for writing about organized crime, so they rely on Texan reporters or social media to report). ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 14:21, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• No. The fallout from the absurd Daily Mail "ban" continues? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 21:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
• No. Jytdog (talk) 03:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I do not understand why y'all are voting. While voting can be a useful tool in forcing the appearance of a consensus "important" points have been brought up in the discussion that should be addressed in order to move forward. In addition, this is not a YES/NO vote; it is (Is Out of Context Banning allowed?: Iff it is then we need a list that links to discussions). This is not something you can logically just respond "No we shouldn't" too. Hopefully y'all choose to participate in this discussion. Endercase (talk) 14:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment It should probably be noted that this thread is also related to the Stealth banning article, where the OP also attempted to cite Breitbart and was challenged. The title of this thread appears to be a fallacious attempt to get users to say indirectly that Breitbart is reliable in certain circumstances (it's not a strawman argument per se but I can't quite put my finger on what the correct term for this type of argument is). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 00:24, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow that is low. First, you interrogate me on my talk page where I responded honestly and respectfully and now this. I honestly believe what I have put here. This is not a red herring of any sort. It is meta discussion about the behavior of users on Wikipedia. I noticed a problem due to the interactions at Stealth banning and chose to address it directly. There is nothing fallacious about it at all. Additionally, your comment disrespects all users who have interacted with me here in a clear and honest manner suggesting that they couldn't recognize tomfoolery when they saw it. Endercase (talk) 02:17, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Wow that is low. What is low? First, you interrogate me on my talk page where I responded honestly and respectfully Okay, that definitely is not what happened. However one interprets our interaction on that page, "honestly and respectfully" is not accurate. You dodged my question and kept going off on tangents about Donald Trump and the like, and you kept accusing me of getting angry. and now this It's pretty clear from the rest of your comment that you don't know what "this" is, so I'm not going to bother asking. I honestly believe what I have put here. I don't care what you put here; my comment was about what you didn't put here. This is not a red herring of any sort. Read my comment again. I didn't say anything about red herrings. It is meta discussion about the behavior of users on Wikipedia. It's considered extremely impolite to talk about other users without notifying or naming them, so if that is what you were doing it is wrong. I noticed a problem due to the interactions at Stealth banning and chose to address it directly. So, you admit that part of your motivation for opening this discussion was related to the Stealth banning article? Because the whole point of my posting the above was to point out that this was apparently your motivation, but for whatever reason you had not mentioned it. "Ctrl+F" the word "stealth" and you will see that you didn't mention it here until after I pointed out that you probably should have. There is nothing fallacious about it at all. If you claim that other editors are trying to prevent you from citing a source that, yes, should never be cited under almost any circumstances anywhere on the encyclopedia, but word it so that your opponents look like the ones violating policy and making up fake rules, that is indeed fallacious. Additionally, your comment disrespects all users who have interacted with me here in a clear and honest manner suggesting that they couldn't recognize tomfoolery when they saw it. No, it would have been disrespecting them if called them all idiots for assuming good faith on your initial comment. I came across this thread because I saw your comments elsewhere on this noticeboard and noticed that they all seemed to be wrong, so I checked your contribs and noticed that your main reason for coming to this noticeboard seemed to be to open this discussion, as well as the fact that this discussion was misrepresented as being about Talk:Alfredo Beltrán Leyva when it seemed to be more relevant to Talk:Stealth banning (a page you have edited four times as often). You also forum-shopped the same dispute to NPOVN, and then apparently started making the same unhelpful comments in numerous threads over there as well (although I am not as familiar with how NPOVN works as here; it's possible comments like making factual lists [of cherry-picked crimes committed by Muslims] is not POV, major edits should only be made by signed in users. You could get them for that probably, from what I've seen we shouldn't do anything. just try not to attack their free speech too [Wikipedia is not a forum for free speech], it could also mean that the user has Autism spectrum disorder, I feel like calling a "disorder" a derogatory term is actually kinda offensive ... only look disruptive to me). Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

I did not "Doge" your question, you asked "who are you" I responded. You did not initially ask if I had used alt accounts. I didn't "accuse" you of being angry, I asked if I had upset you (looks like I did, despite your assurances to the contrary). If you have a personal issue with me my talk page is a better location for this entire discussion. All of my discussions have been hyper-linked, and no "misrepresentation" has occurred. Additionally, "Forum-shopping" isn't Wp:canvassing and wp:local consensuss must be avoided for policy related discussions. Your cherry picking of my words is ridiculous. The Anti-Defamation League has often used lists of crimes committed by X group as a tool for social manipulation by providing context to counter other lists. Their actions are likely more thought out than your opinions. By allowing such lists to exist here we are able to directly provide context that would definitely not be shown in other closed media sources. Also if they wanted a judgment on NPOV they should have posted in the NPOV forum, my wording was related to apparent "reliability" of the sources. I agree that Wikipedia is not a forum for free speech, however WP:NOTCENSORED and your implication that it should be is frankly offensive. "citing a source that, yes, should never be cited under almost any circumstances" is censure. Now if you do not want to be constructive or address my points please stop. Endercase (talk) 16:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't include outright lies, nor does it include information that can only be found in sources with a reputation for printing outright lies. If you found something on Breitbart.com and you think it is accurate and verifiable, then you should have no trouble whatsoever finding another source for it. I am not saying that we should censor anything. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:49, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

No, but I think that we should not single out the mail for special attention, the Mirror needs to be banned as well.Slatersteven (talk) 17:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh my, I posted this in the wrong location. It belongs on the talk page for Reliable sources, not the Noticeboard. As the Noticeboard is for discussions on particular sources and is definitely not for meta. I do not know what to do about this. Endercase (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, that depends on how much and what kind of input you want. If there were a unanimous consensus for your proposal on any one place other than the RS talk page, then it would be inappropriate to implement it without first clearing it there as well, but just because there is unanimous consensus against your proposal here it might just be a coincidence; there are thousands of editors on Wikipedia, and we are only a tiny random sample of RSN junkies. If you want a fair representation of the Wikipedia community, then no one forum is perfect, and the best option is probably to open an RFC. But be very careful about the wording you use in your RFC question, and be sure to include links to where you had brought it up on RSN, NPOVN and Jimbo's talk page. Pinging the users who responded to you here and on those two other fora would also be a good idea. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:49, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Black Lives Matter

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.

---

In the context of Black Lives Matter, I'm wondering about the reliability and notability of the following sources.

http://heatst.com/culture-wars/toronto-black-lives-mater-slam-white-supremacist-terrorist-prime-minister-trudeau/

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/02/09/toronto-black-lives-matter-co-founder-so-racist-even-huffpo-turns-on-her/

http://cnews.canoe.com/CNEWS/Canada/2017/02/11/22703425.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/james-di-fiore/black-lives-matter-toronto-yusra-khogali_b_14635896.html

http://www.ibtimes.com/who-yusra-khogali-black-lives-matter-toronto-co-founder-racist-rant-calls-white-2491580

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/james-di-fiore/black-lives-matter-toronto_b_14736160.html

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/02/11/black-lives-matter-co-founder-appears-to-label-white-people-defects

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/02/06/banish-blmto-to-the-fringes-where-it-belongs

http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/13/black-lives-matter-leader-white-people-are-sub-human/

http://www.ibtimes.com/black-lives-matter-most-controversial-quotes-statements-2492936

http://www.journaldemontreal.com/2017/02/07/selon-une-organisatrice-de-black-lives-matter-trudeau-est-un-terroriste-supremaciste-blanc

http://info-direkt.eu/2017/02/14/black-lives-matter-mitgruenderin-nennt-weisse-untermenschen/

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/blogs/andrew-bolt/black-lives-matter-white-skin-is-subhumxn/news-story/546f8411513ac19144cb3a39257e8efe

Benjamin (talk) 15:21, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

A difference has to been made among fake news websites, white supremacist websites, reliable news websites and mainstream newspapers having national coverage. I hope this helps. Tgeorgescu (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Are some reliable and some not? Benjamin (talk) 15:29, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

That will depend on the specific statement they are sourcing. A given news source may or may not be reliable for sourcing a statement asserting something is fact... but perfectly reliable for sourcing statement that so and so holds an opinion. Context matters. Blueboar (talk) 15:45, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

A statement like, this person said this. Benjamin (talk) 15:49, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

It seems at least some of the sources are reliable for sure and can used safely--Shrike (talk) 16:45, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Huffington Post stories that are editorially selected, including major essays by major writers, are considered about as reliable as similar content in a conventionally published newspaper or magazine. However, HuffPo blogs do not fall into that category, and are essentially self-published with little or no editorial oversight, credible mostly in representing the writer's opinion. The two HuffPo links in the above list are Blog pages,

The Daily Caller is a blatantly partisan source. Suitable for representing an opinion (Tucker Carlson in The Daily Caller writes ...), but sub-optimal for verifying facts, especially when context matters.

I know nothing about info-direkt.eu, but WOT Services tells me it may be in the same boat as *The Daily Caller*.

/ edg ☺ ☭ 16:52, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

We need the full context, just write it up in a sandbox or something. Endercase (talk) 14:49, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

If you're looking for us to rubber stamp the entire list as reliable (or not), you're going about this the wrong way. If you want a useful response, you need to tell us what you want to use these sources for specifically. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:55, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

As a whole, these particular stories don’t read the way you would like reliable sources to sound. I would be more comfortable with a Toronto broadsheet paper, or HuffPo non-blog area. If you can’t find such stories in a more respected paper; ask yourself why not. But, as said above, context matters. Objective3000 (talk) 17:10, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

Is it doubtful that the events described actually happened, considering they're covered by multiple sources with differing biases? Benjamin (talk) 01:12, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Well, Breitbart is not a reliable news source, and neither is Steve Bannon. But if Steve Bannon is quoted by Breitbart as having said something in an interview, that's probably Bannon's view, so it can be rendered with attribution, if relevant. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:40, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

What about events, or the words of the subject of the articles? Benjamin (talk) 01:55, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

We are not banning sources, we just aren't. Write it up in context if you want approval. Otherwise WP:Bold. Endercase (talk) 15:42, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

As Fyddlestix, Endercase, and Objective3000 said, we can't approve or disapprove the entire list as a bloc. It's all about context. If you want a real answer, you have to indicate for what statements these are being cited for. Is in-text attribution being properly given for certain statements of opinion? Separately from the reliable sources question, is the text properly weighed in context of the entire topic? If you want a more general, broadly-applicable statement, the most I would say is that (1) we should rely to the maximum extent possible on respected journalistic and scholarly sources; and (2) Heat Street, PJ Media, and the Daily Caller are not reliable for statements of fact and can only be used, rarely and with proper in-text attribution, for the opinions of particular authors. Neutrality^talk 15:49, 4 March 2017 (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.

Sorry for not being more specific. Something along the lines of:

The co-founder of the Toronto Black Lives Matter chapter has (allegedly?) called white people sub human and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “white supremacist terrorist,”

Help rewording as appropriate is welcome.

Perhaps this is a discussion for the article talk page, but I just want to make sure that these sources are at least good enough for something before proceeding.

Benjamin (talk) 10:39, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

As I recall from the last time this came up, many of the sources are unreliable, especially for BLP issues, but that's not the most critical issue here. Even if you got over the RS hurdle, I haven't seen a consensus that this incident is significant enough for the BLM page. Someguy1221 (talk) 10:43, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Is that many sources not enough to establish notability enough for even a single sentence? Benjamin (talk) 10:47, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Without Context we can't say anything about any sources. See above discussion. wp:Bold if someone removes it or brings it up move to the talk page. If no consensus can be reached there move here. That is policy as I understand it. Endercase (talk) 15:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

BLM are a larger national organisation. So the statements of a co-founder of one local chapter may not be relevant to the larger organisation. At least some of the sources above would qualify for 'X said X' but unless they demonstrate any lasting notability or get picked up by wider media coverage, they are going to fall under WP:UNDUE for the BLM article. (If the subject of the article was BLM-Toronto it would likely be different.) Much like how the individual foibles of wikimedia chapter personnel are largely irrelevant to the wider Wikimedia community. Only in death does duty end (talk) 15:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

All newspapers that publish in tabloid format are not reliable sources?

I am developing an article which uses information from some Australia tabloid newspapers (including The Daily Telegraph (Australia), The Courier-Mail and The West Australian. However, after reading a few FA and GA candidates (such as this review), some users said that newspapers which publish in tabloid format can not be used as reliable sources for GA or FA articles. Is it true? Phamthuathienvan (talk) 12:03, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

No, it's not true. Tabloid (newspaper format) is merely a format, whereas tabloid journalism is a style of journalism unconnected to format type. See for instance, The Village Voice and the New York Daily News, both of which are in tabloid format but are Pulitzer Prize–winning newspapers generally regarded as reliable-source publications. Softlavender (talk) 12:16, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

At least in the UK the term tabloid newspapers refers to those that use tabloid journalistic techniques.Slatersteven (talk) 12:43, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

That wasn't the user's question. Softlavender (talk) 12:48, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Maybe so, but the question shows that he needs to be told that when someone calls a newspaper a "tabloid", they may be referring to its sloppy journalism and not its format, and that when used in discussions about sources, it's the journalistic techniques that matter, and not the format. - Nunh-huh 13:11, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

The OP specifically said "newspapers which publish in tabloid format" (emphasis mine), and he is specifically not talking about UK newspapers, but rather Australian newspapers. Softlavender (talk) 13:30, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

Of course it isn't true. All sources must be evaluated in context. Blanket banning of anything for any reason is POV and argument from authority. Endercase (talk) 14:45, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. Sometimes we might want a blanket ban or something very close to one. We don't use Wikipedia mirrors as sources, or sites that are entirely copyvios. There are also many web resources that we don't consider reliable, like genealogy websites. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:20, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Except... even wiki mirrors and copy bio sources are considered reliable in limited situations... such as when quoting in articles about those websites. No source is 100% unreliable. These situations may be extremely rare... but the do exist. So, rather than talking about "bans", we should talk about "limitations. Blueboar (talk) 21:32, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm glad you (Itsmejudith) disagree with me, your POV is valuable. Please join the discussion here or here it may also be helpful to read this and this and my userpage. Blueboar I think even "limitations" would still require open discussion and a list. Endercase (talk) 21:39, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

So, can we use the three Australian tabloid newspapers that I mentioned above as reliable sources for GA as well as FA article? Phamthuathienvan (talk) 23:12, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

That depends on how they are used... what is the context in which they are cited? Blueboar (talk) 23:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I am going to use this one from The Courier-Mail to talk about Adele Tour's contribution to Brisbane's economy. This is the only newspaper in Australia that has published these information. Howerver, I have a little worry because it used to have some controversies in the past. Phamthuathienvan (talk) 12:56, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

In this GA review, New York Daily News was considered as an unreliable source because it publish in tabloid format so it was replaced. Phamthuathienvan (talk) 23:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thats basically a crap review. Tabloids are not inherantly unreliable for being Tabloid. Those that engage in excessive 'tabloid journalism' are generally not going to be used for anything serious. On the other end of the scale, objecting to some of the most popular and read newspapers in various countries for 'critical reception' is frankly ridiculous. Even the Daily Mail is reliable for the Daily Mail's theatre critic's opinion. Only in death does duty end (talk) 00:46, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm in 100% agreement with OiD here. The arguments "NYDN is a tabloid and so should be replaced" are utterly craptastic and not worth considering. I'm a little surprised no-one called them out in that review. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, Barron's (newspaper) is a very reputable US newspaper published in tabloid format. Before it ceased publication, The Christian Science Monitor was published in tabloid format. Felsic2 (talk) 17:26, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

To be fair, though, the New York Daily News often indulges in a quite breezy and informal headline style. And with a tabloid format, there is usually only the one one headline on the cover. This makes the Daily News look unserious. (The same is true of the Boston Herald, also a tabloid but just as good a source with AFAIK just as good fact-checking as the Boston Globe (probably better on local matters)). So its a matter of perception and appearance -- judging the book by its cover. Wikipedia editors are no more immune to that than anyone else. But yeah, as far as I know the Daily News has a rigorous a fact-checking system as many broadsheets. Herostratus (talk) 17:46, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

International Business Times

previous discussion from 2011 can be found here. I am very skeptical as to the reliability of the IBT. It seems most of the articles are poorly researched with little editing oversight. Often it is the content of other news sources re-packaged. I came across them while editing Walton_family, where they are used to source the (highly doubtful) claim the family owns 54% of Walmart. Reuters, which is a reliable source, says the ownership is roughly 50%. This is just an example of course. I would like other editor's opinion, ideally a ruling of sorts. Thank you. --Lommes (talk) 23:53, 4 March 2017 (UTC)

You didn't provide a link to the source in question. Assuming you meant this IBT article from 2015, it attributes the percentage to this Forbes story, also from 2015, by a Forbes staffer, which says, "Six heirs of Wal-Mart founders ... together own about 54% of the global retailer." The IBT source was added to the Walton family article on 11 January 2016 to support the statement "Collectively, the Waltons own over 50% of the company, and are worth a combined total of around $150 billion." For those purposes, IBT is reliable, although it would be better to attribute the information and make the date clear with phrasing like "According to a July 2015 Forbes article, ..."

Replacing the IBT source with a 2014 figure from Reuters has drawbacks. That article says, "The Walton family ... owned 50.86 percent of Wal-Mart's stock as of Dec. 31 [2014] through an entity called Walton Enterprises, L.L.C." It doesn't account for shares family members owned directly, or through other entities. As of 8 April 2016, Walmart's proxy statement reports that four members of the family, including Steuart Walton, hold 51.24% of Walmart. The total could be somewhat higher if other family members who are neither directors nor named executive officers own less than 5% each, an amount that would not need to be disclosed in the proxy statement. So 54% is not unreasonable. Not every percentage point is notable. What Wikipedia should say, being an encyclopedia, is that the Walton family own over 50% of the company. --Worldbruce (talk) 02:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Why not just show both sources on the page with attribution and date? The Walton Family is a difficult case because they have enough influence to manipulate sources if they wanted too. Using more sources helps avoid that. Endercase (talk) 15:49, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for all your opinions, but I was giving this article only as an example. I am less interested in the article as to the reliability of the IBTimes in general. Thank you.--Lommes (talk) 19:15, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Please see the top of this page. This page only for use in determining the reliability of sources in context. Endercase (talk) 22:23, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you very much for pointing that out. While I did read the top, this one must have slipped past me. Apologies. Is there any way to find a general ruling on matters like this, or to start a discussion to generate such a ruling?--Lommes (talk) 12:49, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

References

Problematic 'references'

list of encountered pages
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
oldid on Jim Al-Khalili; ref 7, 8. oldid on Julian Hibberd; ref 2, 7. oldid on [[Ken Caldeira]; ref 10. oldid on Lisa Riley; ref 1. oldid on Michael Howard Kay, ref 4 (article contains a lot of primary references that do not really support their statements: "Spouse Penelope M. Kay" supported by a company website that does not say that they are married anywhere that I can find - the about page mentioned Penelope, but it could as well be his sister ..) oldid on Ben Garrod, ref 5. oldid on Miles J. Padgett; refs 1, 14 and 15 (article contains a lot of primary references that do not really support their statements: ".. known for .." referenced by own work). oldid on Nicholas Higham; 2, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13. oldid on Nick Talbot; refs 2, 3, 4, 5. oldid on Niko Gkionis; ref 2. oldid on Nigel Scrutton; refs 10,11. oldid on Nigel Shadbolt; ref 18 (17?). oldid on Otis Brawley; ref 1. oldid on Oxford Nanopore Technologies, ref 5. oldid on Peter Wothers, ref 4. oldid on Richard Leese, ref 3. oldid on Robert David Stevens, refs 4, 29. oldid on Roderic D. M. Page, refs 1 and 15 (article contains a lot of primary references that do not really support their statements: ".. known for .." is completely primary referenced. oldid on Roger Highfield, refs 5 & 6. Very strongly primary sourced oldid on Rosi Sexton, ref 1. Intro sentence seems a bit off referenced (references from 2003 and 2008 seem to be used to show she retired in 2014 ..) oldid on Sarah-Jayne Blakemore; refs 5, 8, 9, 10. Very strongly sourced to own publication/works. oldid on Serge Abiteboul, refs 6, 7, 9 oldid on Simon Segars, refs 9 & 10

I run lately a lot into cases like in this version of Nigel Scrutton. The problem I see are in this case references 10 and 11, which are to respectively a Google Scholar search for the subject, and a twitter feed. Here it is only 2, this sometimes amounts to a whole list of 5-6 'professional searches' and 'social networking feeds', which in my opinion do not support in any form what is written there. I have done generally a cleanup of the social networking feeds in those, but on this I also removed the google scholar search, as I feel that also that is inappropriate as a reference (and especially for the statements that they are used on). I will list some more examples here when I encounter them. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 10:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

You're right, of course. It seems to be a lazy shortcut. In this case the professor's university must have a webpage that contains most of the useful information. A list of works should be fairly easy to compile. The learned societies' websites probably have the dates he was elected to fellowship. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:02, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure if it is a lazy shortcut, or an attempt to circumvent our external link inclusion standards. In some cases they are mixed in with proper references that (at least at first glance) seem to support the sentence (see [9] on Oxford Nanopore Technologies, ref 5), on others there are mainly these general feeds/search results where I don't think they are supporting the subject.

I get a strong impression this is focused around British academics/academic institutions, and that someone thought this is good practice and that it now gets copied throughout. I think some more serious cleanup than what I am doing is warranted here. --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 03:41, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I think that refs 2, 3, 4 and 5 in oldid show a good example. This includes a Scopus search, a Google Scholar search, a Microsoft Academic Search and a Twitter feed. Those 'support' the statement "Nicholas José Talbot FRS FRSB (born 5 September 1965) is a Professor of Molecular Genetics at the University of Exeter.". The Google Scholar is also used to 'support' the statement "Fields: Molecular genetics; Plant pathology; Developmental biology" in the infobox, and similar in the prose for "Talbot's research investigates plant pathology and developmental biology". These are in this way not supporting these statements at all (or may get close to WP:OR - if you extract from the list of papers the general subjects and convey from that what his field of interest is ...). --Dirk Beetstra ^{T C} 07:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Popbitch as a RS?

Source: Popbitch

Article: WER v REW

Content: Mr Hutcheson gained an injunction but it was later partially lifted.

Submitted by --David Tornheim (talk) 16:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:bold? That is a really small article with low traffic and very few sources. Adding Sources can only help that article. Endercase (talk) 16:56, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Endercase: I agree. I don't think there are any other better sources, except perhaps this. Here's a Google search. If this doesn't pass WP:RS, I will probably submit the article and a bunch of articles like it to WP:AfD. --David Tornheim (talk) 17:55, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks like we have 2 in favor of keeping and adding sources and 0 against, feel free to move forward. If you would like to talk about that sort of thing more come join me at my talk page I don't want to pollute here. Endercase (talk) 18:06, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• I just nominated those both for AFD. Non-notable subject, sourcing does not pass muster (Popbitch are actually a primary source here as they were the subject of the orginal injunction) and the other source are a niche specialist, not going to pass GNG. The party involved is non-notable and the case itself is insignificant as far as legal cases go. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:29, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree they should go to WP:AfD contrary to what Endercase said. I did submit a note to WikiProject Law to see if anyone on that project thinks any of those article should survive. --David Tornheim (talk) 18:43, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

There are notable cases RE Superinjunctions, but these are not them. Only in death does duty end (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Notice the WP:AfD on the two article is here: Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/WER_v_REW --David Tornheim (talk) 18:50, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

To me I feel like "deleting" this or any non-(Libel, nonsense, and vandalism) article is a waste of effort, time, and hard drive space. The article gets saved anyway (takes up hard-drive space) and can still be found Wikipedia:Viewing and restoring deleted pages. I feel like this is a case of seeing a "problem" {article is really small} and responding with a hammer. But if that is what makes y'all happy I guess use Wikipedia however you want. I personally don't care about this article. Endercase (talk) 18:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I didnt nominate it because it was small, I nominated it because it was sourced inadaquately, is not notable in any way, and concerns a living person who is themselves, not notable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:01, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

POV much? "inadaquately", "Notable". It still takes up hard drive space. No one forced you to read it. Endercase (talk) 19:19, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

No-one gives a crap about hard drive space here. This article needs to go the way of the dodo because it doesn't pass WP's standards for notability. We're an encyclopedia, not a compendium of all human knowledge. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:27, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

So why should we hide this article? BTW encyclopedias are a compendium of human knowledge... Also, it doesn't meet those standards in your POV; the peer who created it obviously thought differently and their POV needs to be represented in any NPOV stance. Endercase (talk) 19:59, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

@Endercase: I can see you are a new user and are arguing with experienced editors who know the rules. Please read WP:RS and WP:GNG carefully. I have been more of an inclusionist for some of the reasons you gave, but after working at WP:AfD, I started to see how the standards for notability work and should be enforced over letting something like this article stick around. We can't police articles about everyone's favorite pet dog and a list of all their possession on Wikipedia for example. We can't list every single filing at every court. It's not the disk space, it's having articles that don't qualify as "knowledge". With notability requirements, the quality of the articles can be maintained, and the assertions checked via their WP:RS. Spend some time over at WP:AfD and it might become clear how much junk people try to put on Wikipedia that has no reliable sources. There's advertisements and people wanting to have an article because they were in the paper once, and people who were on a sports team think they should have a article, even though there is really nothing written about them. --David Tornheim (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I can see you begin by demeaning my POV with a logical fallacy (appeal to authority). #ChillingEffects I understand the pet dog case, but that doesn't even remotely apply here and is a very poor metaphor. I agree that things should be deleted. In this case, the article appears to be written by a third disinterested party, unlike every case you have mentioned. Endercase (talk) 20:54, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry. I didn't mean to demean you or your point of view. I'm not trying to chill your speech. I agree the article is probably written or created by a disinterested person. But consider if someone tried to upload every single court case ever filed, every traffic ticket ever issued, etc.--I think that's what we are dealing with all these non-notable motions. I'm just trying to explain why the article will get deleted if more WP:RS is not provided. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Additionally, Wikipedia does not have rules. It has policies based on consensus. Endercase (talk) 21:00, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I have always thought the policy WP:IGNORE all the rules quite misleading. Just talk a look at WP:AN/I, WP:AE, WP:AN/3RR, WP:COI/N, WP:CCI, WP:SPI, WP:UAA and you will see countless people investigated, admonished, punished, blocked and banned for ignoring, skirting or breaking the many obtuse and arcane rules we have here. I sometimes think new users should be given pro-bono Wiki-counsel if they end up at AN/I. --David Tornheim (talk) 22:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

I'll go to your talk page don't want to pollute here. Endercase (talk) 22:33, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

You are free to post your comments at the AFD as a reason for not deleting it. Bear in mind arguments that do not have a basis in policy like 'Its still taking up hard drive space' are likely to get little traction there. Only in death does duty end (talk) 22:42, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Endercase, this is going to be in list form because you've said quite a few problematic things:

1. Encyclopedias summarize knowledge, they do not purport to archive it all.
2. You removed the word "all" when you tried to use my words against me, which is rather disingenuous (and transparent). If you can't use someone's my exact phrase, don't attempt to throw their words back at them.
3. It's not a fallacy to point out that an inexperienced editor disagreeing with experienced editors is likely to be wrong. Nor is it a fallacy to point out that the editors an inexperienced editor is disagreeing with are experienced. In fact, it's a very good argument, as the experienced editors in this case most certainly can cite many occasions from memory where arguments fundamentally identical to your own have been found lacking by the community.
4. "Demeaning [your] argument" is the entire point of arguing with you. It does not reflect poorly on David at all that that is his goal. It is exactly what you are doing in response.
5. Your use of "#ChillingEffects" is extremely disingenuous and may be considered a personal attack or more likely, to be casting aspersions on another editor and could result in sanctions being placed against you.
6. There mere fact that an article lacks POV problems is not a reason for keeping it. AfD runs on arguments about Notability, not bias.
7. Policies are rules. Please do not create false distinctions that everyone can see through. It does not reflect well upon you. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:40, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPantsI will address all of these points when I have time. Would you like me to do so here or on your talk page? Endercase (talk)

I would prefer you address them by taking them in and accepting that we're not here to collect every scrap of information on everything every individual editor considers interesting, and that it's not acceptable to try to 'win' an argument by any rhetorical means available to you. If you insist on arguing with me instead of taking my advice and corrections for what they are, then I'd prefer you do it where I don't have to deal with it. I'm not trying to crash down on you, I'm trying to help you figure out how WP works, but that doesn't mean I have any desire to engage in a drawn-out argument about your grand view of what WP is or should be. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Alright, so I'll leave everything else alone as you don't want to engage in discussion. However, can we agree that Demeaning is not the point of arguing? As that was the most upsetting portion of your list.Endercase (talk) 18:32, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Endercase, the point of arguing is to show that your opponent's argument is -in a word- worthless. That's demeaning the argument in the most literal sense. We can agree that demeaning your opponent is not the point, but no-one has demeaned you in this thread. If you make an argument and someone comes along and says "that is an incredibly ignorant argument," they're not attacking you, they're attacking your argument. Which is as it should be, assuming they go on to explain why the argument is ignorant. It's perfectly acceptable (even if it's not always good idea) to refer to arguments as ignorant, problematic, stupid, illogical, ridiculous and other adjectives that would be inappropriate to apply to a person, so long as you justify the claim. It is a common rhetorical device, used frequently in formal debates.

With respect to this particular instance, I will say this: "you are arguing with experienced editors" is an incredibly common shorthand for an explanation as to why you're wrong that would take a very long time to type out and would be so long as to make it unlikely that you would read it. It's not unique to Wikipedia by any means, and it's commonly recognized as a very legitimate argument. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 01:30, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

MjolnirPants Ah man, I thought the point of arguing was to come to a mutuality agreeable outcome and to exchange ideas. And not to make the other person look bad by attacking their argument in an ad hominem or otherwise logically irrelevant manner. Thanks for letting me know things are different here on Wikipedia. I guess that's the danger of using populism and voting to manage an information database instead of debate, discussion, sources, and consensus. Endercase (talk) 18:55, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Use of the Family Research Council as a reliable source?

In the Teenage pregnancy article, under the subsection "Age gap in relationships", the Family Research Council is listed as an authoritative source on the issue. Considering their track record of unreliability on LGBT issues (the SPLC say they rely on "junk science"), should they be considered a reliable source at all, and should their research be considered accurate on issues outside of the LGBT community? HelgaStick (talk) 16:37, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

To me it looks like this discussion belongs on the talk page in the Teenage Pregnancy article. Endercase (talk) 18:08, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

It is also worth noting that the wording in question says "According to the Family Research Council" which allows readers to make their own value judgments. Endercase (talk) 18:11, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

There's no need to create a false balance when discussing factual matters. FRC should never be cited for such a claim. Someguy1221 (talk) 19:24, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Should never be cited for such a claim - even with in-text attribution. The FRC is a lobbying group; it has no expertise or authority on such matters. Neutrality^talk 21:40, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

• Agree with Neutrality and Someguy1221, with the caveat that the fact that the FRC should never be cited for such claims, even with in-text attribution, has nothing specifically to do with their reliability, so much as citing their (probably false) claims being a WP:DUE problem. Any source is a "reliable" source for a claim attributed to it inline, and the reason FRC should not be cited is kind of tangential to this noticeboard. (Of course, they are almost always unreliable for factual claims not attributed to them inline.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 23:52, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

• There's a significant neutrality issue here in that the data being reported are being cited from a FRC article, but they do ultimately come from perfectly good sources. It seems to me that the sourcing rule being applied is "since it comes from the FRC, it must be untrue." Yes, the FRC article is to be avoided because of the editorializing around the data, but we need to look to other use of the same data, and not do essentially what the article would accuse us of doing. Mangoe (talk) 22:27, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@Mangoe: By "here", do you mean this thread? We are entitled to our opinions on the FRC and their reliability as a source, and there is no requirement for comments on this noticeboard to conform to NPOV. If the relevant information (which I have not looked at) is accurate and can be found in reliable sources rather than just a rightist lobby-group that the SPLC brands a hate group, then it can perhaps be included, but if that is the case then why was it attributed inline to the FRC? If you think there are other sources that use the same data and don't engage in hateful editorializing, then go ahead and locate those sources and add their analysis to the article.

And I apologize if by "here" you meant "in using the FRC's analysis of the data" and actually were agreeing with the rest of us. I read your comment as a dissenting opinion but I understand it could just as easily be otherwise.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:59, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Sorry Mangoe, but no way. I read the FRC page. The specific claim that most children born to unwed teens were fathered by adult males is based on a single study of Californians on this precise issue, and another study of Washingtonians that was addressing a tangential issue. That's it. That's their evidence base. The rest of the sources are about teenage pregnancy and statutory rape, but don't address this statistic at all. Why don't we have data from the other 48 states? How can we be sure FRC didn't cherry pick the two sources that fit their narrative? Maybe those are the only two papers that tried to address this specific issue, but the same reasons we should be hesitant to tie a fact to a single primary source applies to secondary sources with a publisher as partisan as FRC. Someguy1221 (talk) 07:17, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

That said, this appears to actually be a well studied question [10][11][12][13][14][15]. Surely there is a good review from someone who actually has a good reputation. Someguy1221 (talk) 08:03, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

This appears to be a potential source we could use. I can't read the full article right now, maybe someone else can take a look. @Kmhkmh, Hijiri88, HelgaStick, and Neutrality:? Someguy1221 (talk) 08:07, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

WP:RX usually helps out to get full access to such articles.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

That's really all I'm concerned about re neutrality: that we don't lose the section. A quick look at a couple of these studies shows they are a much better basis, and I agree that we don't really want to be using the FRC as our main authority on this, so I think we're done here. Mangoe (talk) 16:31, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems reasonable, and I'm sure someone with full access to those articles could do a very good rewrite of the section using better examples and statistics.

My concern was merely regarding the use of the FRC as a source within Wikipedia, as have a reputation for editorialising and manipulating data in order to fit their agenda. Although I have not fully read the source, the comments here suggest that my suspicions were correct. HelgaStick (talk) 17:32, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Agree mostly with Neutrality and Someguy1221. Also I'd like to note that teenage pregnancy is a somewhat well researched issue with plenty of scholarly literature and reliable statistics, so there is no reason to resort to questionable/problematic sources.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:59, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

GangRule.com

Hi, I'm reviewing mafia boss Giosue Gallucci for Good Article and came across GangRule.com. It contains information about organized crime groups (mostly the Italian mafia) in the United States. It has biographies, events, photographs, family charts, etc. It claims to use a list of sources here, but sometimes the articles just state information without letting the reader where exactly where the information was used. It seems to have a lot of information and a huge source of information for some of our Italian mafia articles. Thank you, and let me know if you have any questions. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 01:50, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

Not reliable as it is an anonymous site. In the About tab there is nothing about who compiled the information. You should follow back to the sources it cites. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:47, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm helping with the same GA review as ComputerJA and here are my thoughts. Firstly, the site is not anonymous, there's an author listed with each page, usually Jon Black. The biography pages are sparsely written and unsourced (with the exceptions of Giuseppe Morello and Ignazio Lupo). The pages on subject like the Black Hand and the Morello gang are better written. I would like to point out that there is only one page in the article section, The Grocery Conspiracy. It is fully sourced and footnoted and would definitely be a reliable source. I think using GangRule should be on a case by case basis based on the page and what information is being sourced. Libertybison (talk) 21:44, 6 March 2017 (UTC)

But there's no detail about who Jon Black is or what accreditations or expertise he has, or what the site's editorial processes are. At first glance, it looks reasonably well put together, but that says nothing about veracity and doesn't necessarily stop the site being a glorified blog. Prima facie, although context always matters, it fails as WP:SPS. N-HH talk/edits 12:02, 7 March 2017 (UTC)

Hi N-HH, Libertybison, Itsmejudith - GangRule seems to be based off two reliable books, The Origin of Organized Crime in America and The First Family. But there is no way to know which pages GangRule is basing its information from. If we can use these two books, that would count as a reliable source. I can access both of these books through by library account with the University of Texas at Austin. I'd be willing to work with DonCalo or anyone else to get this to GA, but that would mean we would need a different reviewer. ComputerJA (☎ • ✎) 15:05, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

That seems like a plan. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:16, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

The Dark Corners -- Of the Lindbergh Kidnapping (self-published, vanity publisher)

• The source at issue is Melsky, Michael (2016). The Dark Corners -- Of the Lindbergh Kidnapping Volume 1. Infinity Publishing. p. 317. ISBN 978-1-4958-1042-8.
• Article: Lindbergh kidnapping
• Content citing to source (see [16]): The child's father, Charles Lindbergh, used a "meat skewer" to slice open the child's face to identify the body via the teeth.

Per this discussion [17] on the article's talk page, I removed [18] the above content because the source is self-published [19]. Another editor (who happens to be the author of the book) has twice now restored it. Opinions requested. EEng 03:08, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Big pile of Nope. Not unless its covered elsewhere. Claims like that require more than one self-published book. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Footnote: Kirkham, James S., Mercer County Chief of Detectives. Testimony. In the Matter of Paul Wendel, Mercer County Grand Jury, April 14, 1936., page 53. New Jersey State Police Museum and Learning Center Archives. M. Melsky

"And you wonder why Wikipedia recently banned the Daily Mail as a source for information on the community encyclopedia? This is why."

https://gizmodo.com/that-viral-story-about-a-japanese-man-crushed-to-death-1792986533 --Guy Macon (talk) 04:12, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Ha! It is nice to see a list of "newspapers" that took the bait alongside the clear statement that Wikipedia doesn't take the bait. We're moving up in the world. (There's a Paul Freedman lecture on YouTube -- I could locate it if anyone's interested, but it was one of these -- where he refers to come kind of misinformation or widely held but false belief in early medieval Europe as being like something from Wikipedia, before immediately correcting himself as something one might have found on Wikipedia several years earlier.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• 'Paul Dacre crushed beneath unsold copies of the Daily Mail' ...now that's a headline :) — O Fortuna! ^{Imperatrix mundi.} 06:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

What specific content, source and page are you looking for input on? If you're making the more abstract general point that sources that have ever fallen for a hoax or got things wrong need to be banned, that's not how the RS policy works. If you're just trying to make a silly point, shall we just hat this thread? N-HH talk/edits 10:13, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

@N-HH: Have some levity, will you? RSN was mentioned on an external website; mentioning that is not off-topic. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:21, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Well it's the high moral tone and constant banging on about one, singled-out source that comes even when people attempt levity or humour – which ill behoves most contributors to this site, which is riddled with errors, bias and general sloppiness itself. Plus everyone raising actual, and far more serious, concerns about the Mail ban has been told to stop clogging up this board (which I shall now do). N-HH talk/edits 12:18, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Umm... "high moral tone"? Are you talking to me? I assumed you responding Guy, but he didn't write any original text, so how you can interpret his "tone" escapes me. "constant banging on about one, singled-out source" is even worse: outside of this thread, the words "Daily Mail" appear on this page in two places, once by someone agreeing with you and once by someone de facto agreeing with you; it doesn't appear once in the most recent (read: unfinished) archive page, and on the most recent "closed" archive page there are a few brief mentions in the second half of the page, but the rest are in a thread that was closed on February 17 (read: one week after the original RFC was closed). Wikipedia doesn't have a single overriding bias: I've come across articles that have spent a half-decade being incredibly pro-Japanese and anti-Chinese, incredibly pro-Korean and anti-Japanese, incredibly pro-Korean and anti-Chinese ... I could go on. We have systemic bias, but there's no editorial conspiracy to enforce it. And most of the grammatical errors are unintentional -- it's not like we (or at least most of us) are being paid to write this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it appears that the same story was picked up by other "reliable sources". So if we had covered this incident, banning the Mail would have had no effect. We could still refer to other sources for the news. What about the CBS and Sky News? Are we going to ban them next? Maybe we should. Sławomir Biały (talk) 11:44, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, which is why Wikipedia is better than those "reliable" sources. We don't include crap sourced to fake news sources, even if some other "non-fake" news sources do. But that doesn't matter; this doesn't appear to have anything to do with Wikipedia having included this particular claim. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:49, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Although to be fair: Sky attributed the story to DM, so the ban would have prohibited us from using Sky's regurgitating of the story; CNN says they took the story from the Mirror, and ... well, I'm not a fan of that paper's style of journalism, and I wouldn't be opposed to its reliability being discussed. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 12:07, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

You seem to be of the opinion that the ban has some sort of transitive property: If a story refers to the Daily Mail, then it is unreliable. If that is true, then it should be clarified in policy. However, based on my interpretation of the way things currently stand, it would be acceptable to cite Sky, CNN, CBS, etc., on this. Viral stories like this are a real problem that need to be explicitly dealt with in black-letter policy, not WP:VAGUEWAVE arguments like the transitivity of banning. Sławomir Biały (talk) 12:42, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

If Sky reports that the Daily Mail reported that something happened, then yes, the Daily Mail ban says that we are not allowed say it happened. Sky is not the source of the information -- they are just saying that it was in the Daily Mail, not that it was factual. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 21:10, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Not so fast. The first sentence of the SkyNews report asserts, in editorial voice, that "A man has died after six tonnes of porn crushed him at his home in Japan." This is not an attributed fact. We would be perfectly justified under current sourcing guidelines to cite that fact to that source, in the unlikely event that this incident were notable enough for coverage on Wikipedia. Sławomir Biały (talk) 22:00, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

No, that would be a misreading of the source. A careful reading of it makes it pretty clear that its information comes from the Daily Mail. Yes, its wording is clumsy, but if you added the material and I removed it saying you were essentially citing the Daily Mail, and you readded it with the above rationale, I would be justified in demanding a separate source that didn't clearly say it got the information from the Daily Mail. It's kind of moot since the material in question doesn't belong on Wikipedia to begin with, but if something similar happened with a notable event, then reliable sources could be found that contradicted the "reliable" sources that were regurgitating the Daily Mail story. We wouldn't have to say that "sources differ" on whether he was found on top of or underneath the magazines, since it would be blatantly obvious that the latter sources were all getting their information from the Daily Mail. (By the way -- I haven't checked the original Japanese source yet, but if it even approached RS then all the English sources that contradicted their original source could be rejected outright. This actually does come up regularly in relation to Japanese popular culture -- anime and the like -- but I have no interest in ever touching those articles even after I've appealed my TBAN.) Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 03:54, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

No. When a reliable source writes something in editorial voice, the implication is that it is independently verified. Reliable sources that are not able to verify facts independently will explicitly say so. This needs to be made clear in the RS guideline. Sławomir Biały (talk) 10:51, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

• Reliable source? While there seems to have been a question mark over Gizmodo recently, it cites engadget to support its dubious claim that "Wikipedia recently banned" the DM. Though engadget is supposedly a tech RS, its story looks wrong, surely other sources are generally unreliable. Worse, for a tech site, engadget uses the generic link to this noticeboard, not the archived discussion it's talking about. Poor show. . . dave souza, talk 14:22, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

It's simple: if an otherwise reliable source publishes something that turns out to be inaccurate or even false, then the clarification that it is false is what prevails. We either detail the whole story (that something was published and then proved wrong), or silently skip it (if the whole thing did not generate much controversy in itself). Reliable does not infallible, all sources may be prone to mistakes. In fact, a reliable source that commits such a mistake would likely add an Erratum in their next issue, to clarify it. Cambalachero (talk) 14:47, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

• Hey, I just noticed this: For the record the Daily Mail banned all its journalists from using Wikipedia as a sole source in 2014 because of its unreliability. ... Apparently up until 2014, DM journalists were not prohibited from using Wikipedia "as a sole source". That's frickin' scary. I mean, as Freedman said in the above-alluded to lecture. By the way, I found it. Cosmolearning doesn't have an excellent transcript like for Martin's New Testament series, but this sufficed; it's on YouTube here but I don't have the minute-and-second loc. The quote is [The best libraries in Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries were not great, but they weren't terrible either.] This is not as if everything were-- well, [as of October 2011] I don't want to say Wikipedia either—if everything were like Wikipedia [in 2006], elementary and often wrong. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:03, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

List of European countries by average wage mistakes

User:TechnicianGB added in the article List of European countries by average wage a reference of Eurostat.

The article requires in a clear way ONLY net average wages and not the earnings working full time 100%.The average net wages are calculated considering all the net wages (part time,helps to families,invalid benefits and so on).In this reference there is nothing of all this.Italy and Spain haven't references from statal statistic agencies with official data about net average wages like others.TechnicianGB made so a creative editing inventing net and gross wages.His reference and so the data he posted are totally wrong in the article. They must be deleted.Thanks.Anioni (talk) 14:40, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

References

This article is a minefield. If adding something from Eurostat is problematic in an article about Europe, we have to wonder why. Can you justify the way it is currently put together, with so many sources, that may not be compatible? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:32, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Here it's all well explained [[20]]

For the ways this user acts, the english spelling he has, and the accusations/arguments he does i'm every day more convinced that's a sockpuppet user of User:Sad9721 and by consequent User:Mediolanum, an user with 60 potential sockpuppets which always acts the same, spells the same and edits the same topics.

This user edited with laugheable sources and non trustful/redundant sources (which even were talking about other thing) the article List of European countries by average wage which was edited a long time ago (and not by me, I just put the data another user wrote as it's the official EUROSTAT data) and "Anioni" started with those editions on 28th February, when all of this started.

He accuses me of "vandalism". Of being "anti-italian". That "I don't know what i'm doing". "I just write fake data". I'm really amazed how this user already can keep doing those kinds of editions on Wikipedia after it's clear which kinds of editions does and it's a clear clone of permanent banned wikipedia accounts (like User:Ambidibody or User:Sad9721) as acts exactly the same, replaces the same articles with fake data and wrong sources and then accuses anyone else which reverts his articles for "vandalism". --TechnicianGB (talk) 23:30, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot to say! I didn't edit nothing. He started to change the page for redundant sources in 28th of February. Here is the proof [[21]] and now he tells that "I added a reference" while that reference and source was from many months ago. Funny! I won't even keep being a part of this discussion. I'm really amazed how far this has went after it's all clear. This user started to edit the page for his own likings and from 1 week he just accuses me of "vandalising" and "doing changes" when I keep reverting the aspect that the European average wages page achieved a long time ago! Just because I didn't let him to make what he does in the page and to put redundant sources which talk about other topics he now even believes he has done something good and I did something wrong. Whatever... my time is not deserved for this. --TechnicianGB (talk) 23:35, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

This could potentially waste a lot of people's time, but it seems that some things have to be sorted out. You were advised on ANI to take out a sock puppet investigation. You need to do that or stop making allegations of sock puppetry. Here we can only advise on sources and I will do that now. Eurostat is the best source for comparative statistical information about European countries. Indeed it is pretty much the only source unless you go to wider international bodies like the UN or OECD. Making up tables from individual countries' data is likely to count as Original Research for the obvious reason that the methods of counting may be different. A Request for Comment might be useful, and if the article can't be improved so that it is better founded in reliable stats it might have to be deleted. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:37, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

He tries to avoid the main point that caused this situation with non sense answers or not sharp answers about the numbers of reference with Eurostat data.I think User:Itsmejudith is right writing about the field full of mines and about the use of one method.Or people delete Eurostat data of Italy and Spain because reference can't be compared with other references( that derive generally-not all- from statal statistic sites and not official tax calculators) or Eurostat data net earnings for full (100%) workers must be set for all the states for which Eurostat provides the data.The article should be renamed "List of European countries by net earnings(wages) for full time workers".In this case naturally all data of states without data in the Eurostat table must be deleted.The third option could be to delete the data of Italy and Spain and to add below another table with only Eurostat data for full time (100%) net average wages.Anioni (talk) 09:23, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Most of your editions are redundant. What do you not understand about the sources you used are not useful in any case? I'm not the only one who told you that, even a wikipedia administrator told you that in your talk page.

Yes, I opened a sockpuppet case. Btw "Anioni" you misunderstood itsmejudith, Judith was saying to delete the entire article because it's always a mine field because many users edit it with unuseful sources or vandalize it. lol

You try to avoid anything and try to defend yourself with something which can't be defended. You changed the consesus old source and data to a data which you invented from an unuseful source. End of the story. Don't try now to mix up the things.

You are a brand new editor here very suspicious and which always edit the same topics. I've been caring for that page a long time before you made your 1st edition on Wikipedia so anytime when you call me a "vandal" I can't make nothing more than laughing. You also threatened me. You also talked any kind of bs you wanted. You called me "anti-italian" when I shown you sources. You called me that "i'm an ignorant and I not know nothing about statistics" and now called me "psichiatric case"[[22]] in your page because I put a suspicion on you to be potential clone of many permanent banned wikipedia users. And you also deleted your warns about the vandalism on the page of Italy which another user made to you! So conversation closed by my part.

You readed the entire comment of Itsmejudith? Partially says the same as me. EUROSTAT is the most useful source. Doesn't matter if other countries haven't got those data, because other countries have got official data. If you want seek by yourself in the Eurostat reference and add the Eurostat data for Belgium. The thing is here that both Italy and Spain have their Eurostat references and data so you can't say nothing more. Try evading now, as always. Not a reason anymore, stop putting Belgium as an example, you have a problem with Belgium data, then, edit it by yourself, I don't have any problem with it so I will not edit it. But I will keep the official sources for Spain and Italy. And EUROSTAT is the most useful. --TechnicianGB (talk) 18:45, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Studopedia (online encyclopedia)

I have recently discovered Studopedia (http://studopedia.su), which has the top-level domain (TLD) .su (Soviet Union). My understanding of Russian is limited, but Wikipedia:Local Embassy lists 11 Russian-speaking editors (User:Abdullais4u, User:Brandmeister, User:Brateevsky, User:Calaf, User:Evgenior, User:Maxim, User:MaxSem, User:Music1201, User:Orthorhombic, User:SkyBon, User:Fenikals). Also, Wikipedia:Translators available lists some of those as well as some others (User:Daniel Case, User:Halibutt, User:Aleksmot, User:Anthony Ivanoff, User:BACbKA, User:Interchange88, User:Smack, User:TMW, User:VKokielov, User:XJaM). Is Studopedia a reliable source for Wikipedia editors?
—Wavelength (talk) 16:03, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Looks dubious to me; seems to be an aggregator-type site mainly set up to sell ad space to students looking for crib sheets. I can't find any information about who runs it or where they get their information from, which alone makes me suspicious, especially when someone has used the .su domain. I also found a link in their info to a site called WikiKak ("WikiHow"), which makes me think, along with the front-page format, these articles were sort of wiki-generated. Daniel Case (talk) 17:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your reply. (I did not understand crib sheet, so I consulted wikt:crib sheet.) Incidentally, in "категория Иностранные языки" ("category Foreign languages"), I found some pages in English.

• http://studopedia.su/17_93767_ACCENTUAL-STRUCTURE-OF-ENGLISH-WORDS.html
• http://studopedia.su/17_101321_Anatomy-of-intonation-patterns-Types-of-pre-heads-heads-and-tails.html
• http://studopedia.su/13_43341_Exercise--Open-the-brackets-using-the-Past-simple-or-the-Past-Continuous-Tense.html
• http://studopedia.su/17_101157_Types-of-allophones-and-the-main-features-of-the-phoneme.html
• http://studopedia.su/17_93785_Publicistic-Style.html
• http://studopedia.su/17_101150_The-connection-of-phonetics-and-phonology-with-non-linguistic-and-linguistic-sciences.html
• http://studopedia.su/13_172278_Types-of-allophones-and-the-main-features-of-the-phoneme.html
• http://studopedia.su/17_93761_Modifications-of-Consonants-in-Connected-Speech.html
• http://studopedia.su/12_76312_EXERCISES-FOR-CLASS-AND-HOMEWORK.html
• http://studopedia.su/6_15200_Lexicography-Types-of-dictionaries.html

Also, there are http://studopedia.ru (with TLD .ru) and http://studopedia.org. (I found http://studopedia.su from a Google search for dom brat most дом брат мост ["house brother bridge" in Polish and Russian].)

—Wavelength (talk) 23:15, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

See also User talk:Jimbo Wales/Archive 218#Studopedia (online encyclopedia) (March 2017).

—Wavelength (talk) 15:50, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Censorship by Google

A new editor is inserting a fairly large volume of unreliably sourced material on the article censorship by Google. The improper text is based mostly to (1) opinion pieces (which are as a rule not citable for contentious characterizations or contested factual assertions); (2) primary and self-published sources that don't meet the requirements for use of such texts; and (3) citations to sources that may be reliable, but don't refer to "censorship" and are clearly out of scope of the article.

More eyeballs at the article — and comments at Talk:Censorship by Google#Unreliable sources / improper self-published sources / WP:SYNTH — would be welcome. --Neutrality^talk 19:50, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Correcting what the above editor said, he is trying to remove properly sourced content along with improperly sourced content without any consensus whatsoever, and I undid part of what he removed, as I disagreed he came here, take a look at the article and give us your opinion. - Cilinhosan1 (talk) 23:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the fairly large volume he is describing, here is the amount of content he is trying to remove, exactly 14,642 bytes of content, of which 2,863 bytes is of what I inputted, the others 11,779 bytes being content that was already in the article for months that he tried to remove without any discussion, of which I reverted 8,459 bytes of the content that he removed with no discussion at all, which is what is shown on the link that he provided above, it is sad to see an editor resorting to deceiving through data manipulation with the objective to unjustify the action of others. - Cilinhosan1 (talk) 23:54, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

(1) Don't make personal attacks; and (2) your content is not "properly sourced." Neutrality^talk 01:27, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

(1) I'm not the one campaigning here; (2) you should keep that discussion in the talk page of the article, here we should only notify about the discussion. - Cilinhosan1 (talk) 11:02, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

This is a noticeboard made for the explicit purpose of letting a large number of editors know about discussions concerning reliable sources. It is not canvassing to post here, but it is highly uncivil to accuse someone of canvassing for posting here. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:28, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I didn't do anything uncivil here, what I stated is that he failed to post a notification here in a neutral manner, and I never said that posting here is canvassing, instead I was the one who asked him to post here in case you didn't read the talk page of the article. - Cilinhosan1 (talk) 14:47, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

I never said that posting here is canvassing No, but you strongly implied it by linking to WP:CAN. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:44, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

is sad to see an editor resorting to deceiving through data manipulation with the objective to unjustify the action of others. A friendly bit of advice. Don’t make accusations like this on a page frequented by admins. WP:AGF Objective3000 (talk) 14:56, 9 March 2017 (UTC)

Advice is always welcome - Cilinhosan1 (talk) 15:25, 9 March 2017 (UTC)