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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Please clarify (talk | contribs) at 05:20, 7 February 2011 (→Clarify please: Blogs as independent reliable sources). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

RfC notice

There is a RfC at Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources#RfC on the relationship between the sourcing policies and guidelines that partially impinges on the content of a section here: Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines#Conflicts between advice pages. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:59, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, SlimVirgin would like each of the content guidelines to contain a sentence that says, in effect, "If this guideline conflicts with a policy, then the policy (always) takes precedence, and this guideline should be changed to match the policy." It would be a direct contradiction of this policy, which says that all inaccurate and broken advice pages should be fixed to match the community's current consensus, regardless of whether the pages are labeled "policy" or "guideline". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:53, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Oddly, however, attempts to fix guidelines to match policy—something the spam text specifically encourages—here and here for example, are swiftly reverted (see here and here). It would appear that only good policies count and unknown to the rest of Wikipedia (which regards this page as one of the key procedural policies) this policy page has apparently been abandoned. One guideline page even had a little edit war over the issue (original edit, restored, restored, restored). Which is strange, because policy is quite clear on the matter: "If policy and guideline pages directly conflict, one or more pages need to be revised to resolve the conflict so that all of the conflicting pages accurately reflect the community's actual practices and best advice." Sigh. Colin°Talk 18:38, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't believe anything but a short reference to the policy being supplemented is needed. This policy explicitly says 'maintain scope, avoid redundancy'. This policy says what should be done about things like this, it should not be repeated in every guideline and policy. Redundancy leads to bits contradicting each other when one changes and bloats policy and guidelines with irrelevancies. People just want to read them, and see what they say, if there is a contradiction they'll start saying something anyway. Dmcq (talk) 10:09, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Naming guideline regarding label?

There's an absence of consistency in the naming of Wikipedia policies and guidelines concerning whether the label "policy" and "guideline", whichever is applicable, appear in the page names. Are there concerns about remedying the inconsistency by adopting one format or the other? I'd propose a guideline that the label generally be omitted, unless doing so would cause ready confusion with other pages. I expect that the label is generally immaterial to people viewing the page, since most are there for the content itself without considering its authority relative to other pages, and the heading on the page itself suffices in providing that information. Agree? Disagree? Cheers. --Bsherr (talk) 20:16, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Very well. Added to the policy. --Bsherr (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Clarify please: Blogs as independent reliable sources

In the discussion about The Affiliate Marketing Awards at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Affiliate_Marketing_Awards SummerPhD states, "At present, this article has 9 sources. However ALL of them are either theaffiliatemarketingawards.com or blogs. This article needs substantial coverage in independent reliable sources to meet notability guidelines."

In the Internet Marketing industry which includes Affiliate Marketing, all of the notable independent reliable sources I can think of ARE blogs:

Blogs such as these ARE our "independent reliable sources", aren't they? Most high quality sites today including major media sites are blogs:

We need clarification of what blogs qualify as independent reliable sources and which do not. As TomSF100 added in that discussion "They may be blogs but they are corporate blogs. Adrants is a blog with editoral guidlines — Preceding unsigned comment added by TomSF100".

Some blogs are promotional; some are associated with businesses; and many of us write the truth in our blogs as we see it - unhindered by having to kowtow to advertisers. Blogs are not all the same and ethical bloggers are different than run-of-the-mill bloggers.

Please clarify for us what information you favor on Wikipedia and which is a waste of time because it will be summarily deleted anyway. We do not wish to waste your time nor our own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Please clarify (talk • contribs) 19:39, 5 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're at the wrong place, the guideline is at WP:RS and there is a noticeboard for questions like this at WP:RSN. The answer is not totally straightforward, it depends principally on whether the blog is from a reputable source e.g. a newspaperman or a working scientist writing about his field would I think be okay and some newspaper blogs are fact checked, but the reliable sources noticeboard is the right place to go. Dmcq (talk) 08:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Dmcq. I will ask there.

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