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---

RFC: RoutesOnline.com

There was a previous discussion of this source here.

Use of source: This source is mostly used on "List of <airline> destinations" articles to justify inclusion of a current or previous airline/airport route. e.g. List_of_Air_Caraïbes_destinations (3 citations), List_of_British_Airways_destinations (12 citations), and so on. The previous discussion found that it is used in over 807 articles.

Why is it relevant? There was consensus in a Village Pump RfC that any airline destinations included in Wikipedia must have a WP:RS citation.

RFC: What should RoutesOnline.com [1] be designated as?

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

TurboSuperA+ (☏) 09:15, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Comment.

• Here is their media centre overview, I can't find any editorial guidelines.
• The company describes itself as:

The Routes business is focused entirely on aviation route development and the company's portfolio includes events, media and online businesses. The company organises and operates world-renowned airline and airport networking events through its regional and World Route Development Forums. They are held in key markets throughout the year in Asia, Europe and the Americas. These events are supported by the online platform for air service development, Routes 360, which provides airports, tourism authorities and aviation suppliers with the ability to promote their market opportunities and acts as the airline industry's central source of market data and route development information. Register with us today, create your free personal profile and start connecting with the route development community online. Visit our events listing for a full list of upcoming events, find out all the latest route development news and analysis in our news area, listen to our latest podcasts and sign-up to Routes 360 for more opportunities to expand your network and join a global community of air service development professionals. Routes is part of the Aviation Week Network and is an Informa business.

Pings: @FOARP, @Jayron32, @BilledMammal, @Oknazevad since you participated in the previous discussion. I also notified WP:Airlines and WP:Airports. TurboSuperA+ (☏) 09:28, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

• Generally reliable. The references used on wikipedia seem to contain very few or no significant errors. We should remember that the world is not perfect - perfect sources do not exist. We have already decided that neither an airline website nor airport website can be used because they are considered non-independent - but people who want to buy air tickets are happy to rely on airline websites when paying (substantial) money. If we ask too much of a source, we will likely end up with nothing at all - we have to work with the real world, not a theoretical one. Pmbma (talk) 11:10, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
• It looks related to Aviation Week, which appears to be a generally reliable source. SportingFlyer T·C 12:59, 15 March 2025 (UTC)
• Not an independent source (option 3 if an option is needed) - This is basically a blog run by a firm whose main income comes from arranging events for airlines. Coverage is always information that comes direct from airline announcements. FOARP (talk) 21:30, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

Reliable in a WP:PRIMARY way, or at least all the references I checked were simple announcements. These wouldn't be independent, but that doesn't make them unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:35, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 - It always depends on WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and without having a specific edits/cite in view, you really cannot tell. I will say it’s a rather niche topic, so one cannot expect much, and that googling does turn up at least some third-party mentions that look good, in sources such as aviation week or askpot which seem to show that others think it is reasonable to use. (Though I could also say the same about Daily Mail 8-) ) Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:19, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Gut feeling of option 3. Just from looking through their About Us and Meet the Team links, it seems painfully generic and slightly unprofessional. This source just doesn't quite feel like a Legitimate Source (TM). (Hello from WP:RFCA!) guninvalid (talk) 16:47, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

Option 1 for routes. Reliable trade publication that is part of Aviation Week can be trusted to know where airlines fly. Avgeekamfot (talk) 14:12, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Why is Know Your Meme listed as unreliable

Know Your Meme being listed as unreliable with the reason that it's user-generated is senseless. There are admins that control and overview everything to make sure there is nothing fake going around, just like on Wikipedia. And KYM is one of the best and most reliable sites to look at when the topic is about memes, which is why it's user-generated. I'd understand a website being unreliable if it's e.g. about politics and user-generated but you cannot compare politics with internet memes and trends. I don't know who decides what's reliable and what isn't, but I'd suggest making KYM a reliable source or atleast the unclear level. Viceskeeni2 (talk) 22:03, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

The issue simply is that just like Wikipedia all user generated sources are unreliable for the purposes of referencing, see WP:USERGENERATED. Know Your Meme is even listed as an example of the kind of websites that the guidance of USERGENERATED covers. So it's not so much that KYM alone is unreliable, but that it's part of a whole category of sites that are not used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:55, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

Doesn't KYM have staff articles though? Has anyone done WP:USEBYOTHERS analysis on those? -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 23:13, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

They do but those always nearly include reliable sources as references which are far better suited for WP to use. — Masem (t) 23:28, 18 March 2025 (UTC)

literally all of what they document is just WP:SOCIALMEDIA chatter and goofy stuff that will be irrelevant in 10 years — I see no good reason why they need the time of day with WP:ROUTINE coverage. BarntToust 00:51, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Well, All Your Base has passed not only the 10-year test, but also the 20-year test, and is now coming up on a quarter century (even its Wikipedia article is from 2002) -- but who's counting? jp×g🗯️ 06:33, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

yeah, yeah. for every "grumpy cat" there's literal millions of 2-seconds-in-the-spotlight random memes that become a shroud in lost memory in no time flat. BarntToust 11:34, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

What they report on is irrelevant. They're not a reliable source because they don't have professional, credentialed writers, editorial oversight/policy, etc etc. Sergecross73 msg me 02:42, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, we established that. I'm talking about how the content of the sources is WP:ROUTINE. It's not like IMDB where something of a goal for factual content exists; this site is just random internet chatter. BarntToust 03:20, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Wrong again. ROUTINE has to do with notability, not reliability. Routine coverage can still be reliable. Regardless, at lease we already have a pretty strong consensus against KYM for the right reasons, so this isn't really derailing things. Sergecross73 msg me 03:40, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Sergecross73, the proposal is clearly failing in a way concerning both aspects of why KYM is not fit for Wikipedia: they of course are looking at questioning reliability, and that is one way to knock it out; they believe that the content within should be cleared for use in Wikipedia articles, and their coverage is largely run-of-the-mill events—common, everyday, ordinary events that do not stand out. The poster seems to be proposing the concept that Wikipedia should be adding a bunch of dogbitesman stuff (regardless of the editorial capacities being nyet); I could be wrong, but I'm just doing my best to read into OP's motive and thought process. BarntToust 13:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

You're perfectly right that WP has consensus against KYM for the right reasons, but I'm observing that the OP is wanting to clear a source known for routine coverage of miscellaneous memes that happen to trend for a day or two; I'm concerned about their understanding of what encyclopedic content is defined as. BarntToust 13:36, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Definitely agree that the discussion starter doesn't understand Wikipedia's standards for source reliability. But neither do you if you're citing things like WP:ROUTINE (a subsection of WP:NEVENTS.) Sergecross73 msg me 14:19, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

In order for a meme to catch the notice of a user-contributor, does it not have to become popular to a point? Assessing that a meme becoming popular enough (say, a hundred thousand views or around a million) to spread, is that not a routine event to note that a meme got really popular, enough so to catch the interest of some rando? I typically note that contributors write about the amount of views a meme got. Whatever, you'll have one way of appraising the significance of memes, I have another. Don't insinuate I have no idea how policies work, Serge. BarntToust 14:35, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

That's the other half of the problem - we're not here to "appraise memes". We're here to outline the reliability of a source. In case you've forgotten, we're on the Reliable Source Noticeboard and the question was "Why isn't this source reliable". Sergecross73 msg me 15:51, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I was attempting to bring up the implication of the OP wanting to bring in content cited to a source that publishes coverage of memes, that happen to get popular randomly. I was looking to assert that what KYM publishes is systematically wrong, and beyond them being of questionable editorial practice—WP:USERGENERATED—that Wikipedia doesn't cover much of their offerings. What does the OP's want to use a source that publishes a bunch of content with all the issues I attempted to raise above, say about what the OP believes is content fit for an encyclopedia? Whatever. Clearly my line of thinking hasn't gotten through. Toodle-pip, cheerio. BarntToust 02:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Sure, great, we're on a noticeboard for reliable sources. I'm pretty sure it isn't written in the tablets that God gave Moses, much less anywhere else, that it is the supreme law we mustn't discuss other aspects of sources presented here. BarntToust 02:31, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

On one hand, on basic principle I'd be inclined to agree that otherwise low-quality sites are a usable source for very limited types of information about memes and web culture. However, KnowYourMeme, specifically, is very frequently incorrect, and people who write entries there often make shit up (e.g. the year of a meme's origin being confidently asserted several years late because the website it came from died many years ago and didn't show up on a quick Google search). Most of the time, I would literally rather cite Encyclopedia Dramatica than KYM. jp×g🗯️ 06:30, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

• Being just like on Wikipedia isn't an argument that helps your case here; Wikipedia itself is considered WP:USERGENERATED under our policies and cannot be used as a source here. That degree of admin-ing is simply not sufficient to qualify them for the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that Wikipedia requires. While RSP isn't absolute, in practice the only real sign that a particular KYM article is an exception and therefore reliable would be secondary coverage, and in that case we could just use the secondary coverage. --Aquillion (talk) 09:07, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source either. TarnishedPath^talk 09:31, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

three words. self published source brachy08 _{(chat here lol)} 02:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

• At the very least, KYM articles that are marked as "Confirmed" may be stated as such (as that specifically requires editorial oversight from KYM staff and is valid per WP:V, since it is describing what KYM says), but the content in a non-Confirmed KYM article should not normally be used as a source per WP:UGC, and it especially should not be used in WP:BLP. Content from KYM should certainly should not be used in WP:WIKIVOICE. But something like According to its entry on Know Your Meme, "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" holds a "Confirmed" status, meaning it has undergone the site's official editorial review process and verification by KYM staff. or According to Know Your Meme, "Grumpy Cat" originally spawned from a 2012 post on /r/pics., referencing verifiable content with attribution, is acceptable for articles on Internet memes and web culture, provided that the KYM article on the subject is marked as Confirmed. 31.214.141.76 (talk) 06:54, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Simply having "staff" is not enough though. Who are they? What are their credentials? What is their editorial policy/oversight? Sergecross73 msg me 15:34, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  To be clear, I'm the IP, which was blocked for being an open proxy. The Know Your Meme guidelines state Our expert staff and global research community chronicle the internet’s most significant trends and moments. and Know Your Meme staff review and fact-check content thoroughly. We are careful to cite only reliable sources and strive to provide an impartial and balanced variety of perspectives. We are committed to updating content as new information appears, particularly for evolving stories or trends.. Their editorial staff is verifiable on their website. Further, they assert that We take errors very seriously and are quick to correct them when they occur. Major inaccuracies, not including minor typos or grammatical errors, are corrected promptly upon discovery and noted at the top of the article.

  As for how their articles are marked as Confirmed, their Editorial Rules (under "Entry Submission Guidelines") provides a set of concrete do-and-don't rules before the article is properly researched and eventually confirmed. KYM confirmation is an editorial process that involves rigorous fact-checking and verification, and that isn't inherently less reliable than any other source. That others in this RSN attest to the fact that KYM is one of the best and most reliable sites for Internet culture suggests that an RfC be opened for confirmed (staff) articles on KYM specifically.

  As a final aside, whether or not the RfC passes or not, the statement According to its entry on Know Your Meme, "All Your Base Are Belong to Us" holds a "Confirmed" status is still valid per WP:V as it is what KYM is saying, as long as it is used with attribution. Whether that statement is ultimately appropriate for the page (e.g. if the subject is not most strictly known for an Internet phenomenon per WP:UNDUE) should be determined on a case-by-case basis though. Abayomi2003 (talk) 18:38, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• I don't actually disagree that KYM is "one of the best and most reliable sites to look at when the topic is about memes" but thats says much more about the sites that only cover memes than anything else... Important memes will get coverage from mainstream sources. While KYM's quality has been improving I don't think its to the point where it justifies actually changing their status. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:56, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  I made an RFC below for certain articles marked as "Confirmed" for use in a limited manner. I think it's not fair to group "Deadpool" and "Submission" level articles as the same as articles officially verified by KYM's editorial staff, so some consideration should be made there. Abayomi2003 (talk) 19:17, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Should Know Your Meme articles marked as "Confirmed" (i.e. verified by the editorial staff) be considered reliable sources for limited use in Wikipedia articles about internet memes and web culture, when properly attributed?

Know Your Meme (KYM) is a website dedicated to documenting internet memes and viral phenomena. According to their About page, Know Your Meme's research is handled by an independent professional editorial and research staff and community members. The site features different categories of entries, including those marked as "Confirmed," which according to KYM have been carefully researched and verified by the research staff.

Currently, KYM is listed among user-generated content sources considered generally unreliable per WP:UGC. This RFC seeks to determine whether "Confirmed" articles on KYM, which have undergone editorial review and fact-checking by staff, should be considered reliable sources for limited use in Wikipedia articles about internet memes and web culture.

Proposal (KYM)

Little discussion has been had about KYM articles marked as "Confirmed" in the past. The last time this was discussed was 5 years ago, though this was when there was no information about KYM's editorial process or staff, and the result of the discussion was still unclear. Since then, KYM has developed a more robust editorial process with clear guidelines for verification and fact-checking, as outlined on their Editorial Rules page. The site now has an established team of professional editors with specific roles and responsibilities, and their "Confirmed" status has become a meaningful indicator of editorial review rather than merely user-generated content.

I propose that KYM articles clearly marked as "Confirmed" or written by staff (e.g. [2]) may be used as reliable sources for limited purposes in Wikipedia, specifically:

• For articles about internet memes and web culture
• When properly attributed (e.g., "According to Know Your Meme...")
• For factual information about the origin, spread, and evolution of memes
• Not for use in biographies of living persons
• Not to be used in Wikipedia's voice (WP:WIKIVOICE)

KYM's editorial process for "Confirmed" articles involves fact-checking and verification by professional staff. Their guidelines state that Know Your Meme staff review and fact-check content thoroughly and that they are careful to cite only reliable sources and strive to provide an impartial and balanced variety of perspectives. Their editorial guidelines clearly state the dos-and-dont's before a submission is properly researched and eventually confirmed.

This RFC does not propose any changes to the status of KYM articles marked as "Submission" or "Deadpool", which would remain unreliable per WP:UGC. Abayomi2003 (talk) 18:57, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) No. Just because their content is "fact checked" by "staff" does not make them a reliable source. It's still user-generated content, at the end of the day. Besides that, I don't really know what exactly we need Know Your Meme for that we can't get from anywhere else. All they really "cite" are social media posts; if something is notable enough to have an article, we can do much better than Know Your Meme. And if they're our only source for something, I wouldn't think it belongs on here. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 22:39, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Just because their content is "fact checked" by "staff" does not make them a reliable source. Yet, being user-generated content doesn't necessarily not make them a reliable source, e.g. WP:EXPERTSPS. And if they're our only source for something, I wouldn't think it belongs on here. Yes, agreed; it should not count toward notability. But there are plenty of KYM articles that would be sufficient to supplement Wikipedia pages, e.g. [3], [4], which never reached "mainstream" notability but are still being used for List of emoticons. Perhaps I should clarify in the RfC that such usage of KYM should not count towards notability. Abayomi2003 (talk) 23:39, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  e.g. WP:EXPERTSPS also states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Are they subject-matter experts? What qualifications do they have? And have they been published by other reliable and independent sources?

  there are plenty of KYM articles that would be sufficient to supplement Wikipedia pages. Sure, but why include them specifically? If it's notable, surely it's been covered in actually reliable and not self-published outlets. Also within EXPERTSPS is if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources. If the argument is "we already have sources, but we can also use Know Your Meme", why do we need to supplement already referenced information with an unreliable source? SmittenGalaxy | talk! 00:00, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• No per SmittenGalaxy. And we should generally follow this rule, no amount of "confirmation" can guarantee accuracy when the original author is an amateur. I would apply exactly the same principle, for example, to the recent spate of online Encyclopedia Britannica articles, which are written by random bloggers and "checked" by subject's editorial team. Unsurprisingly the quality is usually several notches below the standard set by the old print Britannica. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:09, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  no amount of "confirmation" can guarantee accuracy when the original author is an amateur. without commenting on KYM specifically (I don't have enough knowledge of the site to have a reliable opinion), I very strongly dispute the statement I quote. Just because the original author is an amateur does not mean something is incorrect. If someone who is a subject matter expert with no relevant conflict of interest confirms an amateur's work as accurate then we should treat the reviewed work as accurate - they are the experts not us. Consider also that we would unhesitatingly endorse the expert's findings if they came to the opposite conclusion. Thryduulf (talk) 00:30, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• No per SmittenGalaxy. Know Your Meme is pretty much no different from websites like IMDB and Famous Birthdays -- it's user-generated content constructed by anonymous contributors, so we have little (if any) chance of establishing whether or not most content on the site passes WP:EXPERTSPS. JeffSpaceman (talk) 23:54, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Your comment does not answer the question asked. This RFC is explicitly not about most content on the site, but about the subset of that content that is explicitly marked as having been confirmed as accurate by editorial staff. I don't know whether the editorial staff are considered experts, nor what the quality of the review is like, but content written by person A and reviewed and endorsed by independent editorial staff is almost by definition not self-published. Thryduulf (talk) 00:35, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  Re: content written by person A and reviewed and endorsed by independent editorial staff is almost by definition not self-published. is a misunderstanding of Wikipedia's definition of self-published sources. The opposite of self-publishing is traditional publishing. The Know Your Meme corporation is not a "traditional publisher" nor a "news media organization". WP:IDSPS states If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same. and Examples of self-published sources: Almost all websites except for those published by traditional publishers (such as news media organizations), including: Business websites. Despite having employees, authors, and editorial staff, the Know Your Meme website is self-published. PK-WIKI (talk) 19:35, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Immediately before what you quote it says  

  • Who is the author or creator of the work?
  • Who is the publisher of the work?

  If the answers to these questions are the same, then the work is self-published. If they are different, then the work is not self-published.

  The author and the publisher are different, so it is not self-published. There is no employment or similar relationship between the author (contributor) and publisher (KYM staff) any more than there is in a traditional publishing. Indeed, there is less of a relationship than when e.g. a columnist for a traditional newspaper is payed by the publishers of that newspaper to write the column. Even if the columnists work is not fact-checked by anyone other than themselves we do not regard it as self-published. Thryduulf (talk) 20:01, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  The concept of "traditional publisher" in relation to WP:SPS comes from the WP:USINGSPS essay, something that does not have full community support. The wording expressed does not come policy or any guideline. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:08, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  I think(?) we all agree that the Drudge Report publishing a column by Matt Drudge would clearly be self-published. You're saying that if, say, Bill Clinton submitted a article to the blog, and Matt Drudge chose to publish it on his normally self-published blog, that article would not be self-published? That loophole would seem to wildly subvert the entire purpose of vetting sources by if they are self-published. Interested in the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/SPS RfC, thanks for linking. PK-WIKI (talk) 20:46, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  No it's not that simple, Drudge publishing Clinton wouldn't make Clinton's post not self-published. However if Clinton submitted it to somewhere with editorial control then it wouldn't be self-published. Even that's a bit simplistic, a lot of this is discussed in the RFC (and the many preceding discussions). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:35, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Is your issue in the above scenario with the blog itself or just that particular piece of content not being vetted before posting? Do you think a Drudge Report citation would be not-self-published if the blog published the report of an unknown journalist, with Matt Drudge serving as an editor/publisher/gatekeeper? PK-WIKI (talk) 15:37, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  A lot of this is covered in the RFC I mention and the preceding discussions it mentions. In short in situations where there is editorial control, and an author can't publish on their own volition, then such a source wouldn't automatically be considered self published. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• No per my comments in the above section. Sergecross73 msg me 00:42, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  To clarify, that concern is that only a few of their editorial staff have any sort of credentials for writing for other RS's. I don't believe there's enough to provide full editorial control and quality with that, particularly considering how much they'd need to be reviewing of non-credentialed staff submitting content. Sergecross73 msg me 17:53, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  Could you clarify what you mean by particularly considering how much they'd need to be reviewing of non-credentialed staff submitting content. As far as I can tell they don't attempt to review the vast majority of submitted content, and unreviewed content is explicitly irrelevant to this request. What matters is only whether the content they do review is reliable. Thryduulf (talk) 18:39, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  You're right, I got off topic into a more general assessment of the website. The first sentence is the one relevant to this proposal in particular. Sergecross73 msg me 19:00, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

• No Just because the staff or 'confirmed' post aren't purely user generated doesn't mean they are reliable sources. Even without the user generation issue is a rubbish source. Looking at a couple of the past discussions there's this article[5], which reads like an advertorial, or this one[6] containing allegations that a living person is a pedophile. Outside of what may, or may not be user generated KYM is still a highly questionable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:18, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  To be clear as it seems to have been missed the first article is an undisclosed advertorials by a staff member about a meme character, and the second that contains unfounded allegations against a living person is a 'confirmed' entry. Neither confirmed or staff entries should be used, KYM does not have 'a reputation for fact checking or accuracy'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• No per much of the above. This is basically just like Urban Dictionary. It may (sometimes, not always) be informative to a general reader, as what "randos on the Internet" think something means and what its origin in (and even linguists and modern-folklorist might make some use of it for research purpose to get at usage and ideas of folk etymology that are circulating), is is clearly UGC even if some reviewing is sometimes happening, and is not a reliable source under WP's definition.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:15, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
• No That even with the editorial control over staff articles, many of their sources are still primary or not appropriate. Its fine to work from usable referencs cited in thse articles to develop content on WP, but not the KYM articles themselves. Masem (t) 04:06, 24 March 2025 (UTC)
• No, although I think most of the people voting "no" so far have not read the RfC statement -- this is not about entries written by random people! -- it is about entries that have subsequently been edited and approved by staff members of the site. The relevant question, then, is whether there is a reason for us to believe that these staff members are qualified to judge whether memes are real, or whether they function as a coherent unit of editorial will. My answer to this question would be a resounding "no": the website is mostly an attempt to provide viral entertainment and in the last decade I cannot recall ever seeing any evidence of more scholarship than a cursory Google search. jp×g🗯️ 15:44, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  To be clear, I would be in favor of treating them as a primary source in some limited edge-case circumstances (e.g. if we need to cite an actual meme image itself and there is not a fair use rationale). That is to say, presume that the image at Longcat is DMCAed, or something stupid like that: we ought to be able to give the reader some ability to look at the image. Whether that's KYM, or an archived Dramatica article, I guess is immaterial. jp×g🗯️ 20:41, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• No. Just as featured articles on Wikipedia are not reliable. It's user-generated content. I've had a college prof state that featured articles go through as rigorous a process as peer-reviewed academic journal articles. But, they still are unreliable for Wikipedia purposes because they're user-generated. KYM is reliable for research, but it's not reliable for Wikipedia because it's user-generated. Even the confirmed articles are still user-generated.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 11:56, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• No per all above, and recommend WP:SNOW close. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:06, 27 March 2025 (UTC)
• No. If a meme is deserving of coverage here, good sources that describe important aspects of the subject should be in adequate supply, without concern for a site like KYM. BarntToust 02:34, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

  This proposal is about reliability, not notability. Your comment has nothing to do with reliability. Sergecross73 msg me 00:02, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  hey Serge, I don't particularly want MEMECRUFT eveywhere on Wikipedia, and I'll use whatever rationale for refuting it I see fit. I think literally most of the discussion has established that there is NO reliability for KYM, and I would feel like an idiot for just repeating that in my vote. Now, it's been a nice couple of days/week-ish replying to you, but I'm busy with building content and would appreciate it if you would take after Paul McCartney and Let it Be. BarntToust 11:10, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  n.b. I think you mean Let It Be (song) SmittenGalaxy | talk! 14:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't want "memecruft" either, but it doesn't change the fact that that "want" is irrelevant to reliability of this website. Luckily, as you say, the consensus has clearly developed regardless. Sergecross73 msg me 16:05, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  IMO, deciding whether content is suitable for inclusion in the encyclopedia needs to come before deciding that poor sources indexing said content should not be used. Whatever. I'm not interested in propagating this conversation for much longer; I have something going on at GARC and ought to focus on that rather than running circles around my point and your counterpoint. BarntToust 16:12, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  Everyone's free to their personal opinions. Feel free to think that. But that doesn't make it a valid argument in the scope of how Wikipedia defines and identifies source reliability. Sergecross73 msg me 16:32, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  yes, reliability has been described perfectly well in this discussion. I don't believe that KYM, something that has implications for introducing memecruft here, warrants being discussed as if it is something that ought to be included—as if we need to consider and possibly accept sources from a site full of WP:INDISCRIMINATE content. Whether the site is reliable for its subject matter falls ahead of discerning whether the subject matter (the most, vast majority of it anyhow) even belongs here. BarntToust 16:38, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  INDISCRIMINATE is not a source reliability criteria. Sergecross73 msg me 17:04, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  hey, I'm just thinking different, applying different concepts and principles to other sscenarios. With all our bickering, we're beginning to sound worse than most old married couples, so maybe we oughta just forget we met one another and just move on with our respective WikiBusiness, that sound good? BarntToust 17:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  sheesh, all I want to say is that the vast majority content that KYM presents is not encyclopedic information, so we shouldn't even be going so far as to determine if they fulfill WP:RSPCRITERIA. BarntToust 17:35, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  Simply stop giving opinions that aren't rooted in policy in public forum and I'll stop correcting you. Simple as that. Sergecross73 msg me 17:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  I'll continue to offer unconventional, perspective-subverting insights just as I see fit. Simple as that. BarntToust 18:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  And discussion closers will continue to disregard it if its not rooted in a valid policy. Sergecross73 msg me 20:49, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  Yeah, I hope they don't care about our tangent-arguments here, this is awkward. KYM is unusable for several reasons, from the nature/substance of what they cover to the fact it is all user-generated, and citing "staff picks" equivocates to trying to consider a FA on Wikipedia as a reliable source. I will always think that first, rejecting a source because of what it covers being material unfit for encyclopedic coverage comes before discussing whether it satisfies WP:RSPCRITERIA. I really have enjoyed this extended back-and forth with ya, Serge. See ya around. BarntToust 21:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  If something is indiscriminate in it's inclusion criteria then it will include content about subjects that are notable as well as subjects that are not notable. That means it's not useful for determining whether any entry is or is not notable. However, if we have determined, without reference to KYM (or other indiscriminate site) that a topic is notable then the site's inclusion criteria are completely irrelevant. What matters is whether the content they have about the topic is reliable or not. Thryduulf (talk) 20:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

  turns out that the 98% or more of random memes whose coverage goes without encyclopedic merit or value are in the same reliability boat as the 2% or less "verified entries" and whatnot. Nobody seems to be voting further and I really wish a passerby could invoke WP:SNOW any day now.

  Literally, we're asking about the equivalent of a Fandom.com subsite here. I could say the same thing, 98% of entries on Fandom are stuff we reject for many reasons; other stuff fails for many more reasons. BarntToust 20:42, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Comment. While I don't disagree that KYM isn't a good source to use (and if an article insists on heavily relying on KYM, it could suggest that it does not meet WP:GNG), most of the answers above are not actually answering the RfC. The RfC proposes that the source be used for limited purposes, specifically for information about the origin, spread, and evolution of memes when properly attributed and not for notability purposes. Many above responses seem to focus on KYM's general reliability rather than addressing whether it could be useful in this limited context. The question is not whether KYM should be considered generally reliable, but whether its Confirmed articles could serve a specific, limited purpose in articles where notability has already been established through other reliable sources. To this, I am leaning towards Yes. Madeleine (talk) 01:09, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

Even that usage is not reliable because it is user-generated content.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:00, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Confirmed articles are not user-generated in the way we use that term - they have been explicitly checked by editors independent of the author. If the people doing the checking are subject-matter experts and the checking is sufficiently thorough then they are at least as reliable as an expert self-published source or something published in a traditional reliable source by an author with no track record (we generally regard such as reliable). If the people checking are not subject-matter experts or are not thorough, then the content isn't reliable but it is no more user-generated than something published in a publication like the Daily Express. Thryduulf (talk) 12:28, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

As @Thryduulf already mentioned, Confirmed articles are not WP:UGC because they have gone through a staff review and fact-checking process per KYM's own guidelines. Looking through the staff list, I see evidence that some editors at KYM have had experience at other reputable organizations like IGN and The Washington Post. Madeleine (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

• No per the extensive reasons given to say "no" by others - David Gerard (talk) 07:50, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

RFC: Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor

What is the reliabilty of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor?

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

An RfCbefore can be found here. The source is used 89 times. FortunateSons (talk) 10:59, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Survey (Euro-Med)

• Option 1 As Genabab points out (with reference to points by Thucydides411, Lf8u2, Simonm223 and Smallangryplanet) the reports by EuroMedMonitor have not been shown to be wrong. There are objections of extraordinary claims (Chess and others), but this is an extraordinary war, and Euromed has connections with people on the ground, unlike most other RS. Isoceles-sai (talk) 19:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC) — Isoceles-sai (talk · contribs) is currently under sockpuppet investigation. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:45, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

  Generally !votes are supposed to be in chronological order. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

  @chess ah, thank you for the information. (@chess is currently accusing me of being a sockpuppet) Isoceles-sai (talk) 08:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  I still think you are, but I've removed the tags (except for this one, because otherwise your reply wouldn't make sense) [7] since someone else has told me to wait until the SPI thread is over. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:57, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  That's nice. We wouldn't want people to think that @Chess was stalking me. Isoceles-sai (talk) 18:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 per my previous votes on most other advocacy groups (though I did vote to deprecate the Heritage Foundation, iirc). Like others, most of their content is gonna be op-eds or similar, and those that have hard data are going to frame that data in a way that suits their cause(s). Usable with attribution, considering they seem to be fairly high-profile, but shouldn't be put in Wikivoice unless more "neutral" GRELs back up what they're saying (in which case it'd generally be better to just cite the GREL). The training program mentioned below is questionable, but I'd need to see harder evidence of potential or confirmed disruption to drop my vote any lower. The Kip ^(contribs) 18:27, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 (invited by the bot) This is the answer for every source...context-specific. For wp:ver uses, expertise and objectivity with regards to the item which cited it. For wp:weight uses, generally unreliable because it's an advocacy organization. North8000 (talk) 19:42, 19 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3. Every single time I have seen them say something unique, which was not also available in RS, the claim was extremely unlikely. Euro-Med is a blog maintained entirely from Europe with limited-at-best access to real Middle East data or witnesses. When they make a radical claim they never provide a specific or reasonable explanation as to why they are uniquely able to report it. They never retract or correct. GordonGlottal (talk) 21:22, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  > a specific or reasonable explanation as to why they are uniquely able to report it

  I suspect that it is because Israel is finding and killing the journalists in Gaza, and not allowing in outside journalists.

  https://cpj.org/2025/04/israel-strikes-journalists-tent-in-gaza-1-killed-8-injured/ (this week)

  https://cpj.org/2025/02/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/ (summary)

  Sometimes the journalists are bombed at home, killing their families as well.

  https://www.article19.org/resources/israel-killing-of-journalists-must-prompt-independent-investigation/

  https://rsf.org/en/israel-suffocating-journalism-gaza Isoceles-sai (talk) 20:07, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

  None of those sources mention Euro-Med, let alone address why they would have access to information behind their various extraordinary claims while news organisations don't. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:10, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 3 for general content, Option 4 for ARBPIA if technically feasible The EMHRM is mostly cited by news sources who themselves have a strong bias or issues with reliability, such as PressTV, WSWS, the Palestine Chronicle, etc. Among the (significantly rarer) high-quality citations such as the Süddeutsche Zeitung often use them with some sort of attribution, such as clarifying an unclear image origin. As such, the case for WP:USEBYOTHERS is mixed at best.

The case for a strong bias, particularly against Israel, is clear. On personnel, with neither of those being conclusive but both being strongly indicative in my opinion, Richard Falk's past public statements about Israel and Jews and Ramy Abdu's indirect ties to Hamas.[8] While we don't depreciate sources for the views and actions of their high-level staff, I consider it to be strongly indicative, in line with the consideration of Greenblatt's statements for the ADL's reliability.

On specifics, there are repeated cases of statements and insinuations not in alignment with reliable sources, for which use should be avoided; prototypically, the case of alleged organ harvesting is most obvious: claims regarding organ harvesting, considered by the ADL to be reminiscent of blood libel (GUNREL; but rather detailed in this case, therefore useful), are not supported by evidence or reliable sources. In general, they regularly do not retract statements if no later evidence is found: for example, they still claim that there is no evidence of armed groups using hospitals, despite clear evidence to the contrary, as shown in our article Al-Shifa Hospital siege, which only shows a dispute about scope, not use. FortunateSons (talk) 11:29, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Israel has actually, in the past, taken Palestinian organs without their families' permission[9]. In the current conflict, it is also a fact that certain Gaza officials have stated[10] that organs were missing in Palestinian corpses (whether these statements are true is unknown). EuroMed's organ claims have been mentioned in RS[11]. Likewise Alleged military use of al-Shifa hospital shows there is disagreement in RS over whether Israeli claims regarding the hospital are true or false.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 14:01, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent Regarding the organs, yes, that is largely covered in the ADL-link I provided. Dubious information being picked up by one (or a small number of) RS doesn’t make it non-dubious, and most of the coverage of those claims has been in low-quality sources for good reason. Particularly, one cannot use an article referring to the same allegation as the claim being broadly made, the issue is that it’s them, a few officials and no-one else (the New Arab source).

For al-Shifa: there is a dispute about scope, but no serious dispute about use, and EMHRM says In a new statement released today, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called for an independent international investigation into Israel’s absurd claims that Palestinian groups were using Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes. Do you believe, based on RS, that the claim of military purposes (not: command centers) is “absurd”? FortunateSons (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Re: organ theft. First, can you kindly strike out the blood libel comment? Second, its not just EMRHM. It's also Euro News[12], Wafa[13], New Arab[14], Palestine Chronicle[15], Middle East Eye[16] who have covered allegations of missing organs.

Re: Al-Shifa. You're taking that out of context. That particular EMHRM article says "publishing three-dimensional maps of massive headquarters inside and beneath Al-Shifa Medical Complex...the Israeli army has been unable to produce any solid evidence to support its claims, said Euro-Med Monitor". It does acknowledge that "a few rifles and other armaments" were found in the hospital. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 21:44, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

@Vice regent the ADL described it as Longstanding accusations of Israeli organ harvesting have reemerged in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres. This conspiracy theory plays on the blood libel trope, which dates to the Middle Ages and alleges that Jews use the blood of Christian children to bake their Passover bread, and I attributed it to them as reminiscent of blood libel, which I think is an accurate summary. Can you elaborate on why you want me to strike that?

For the sources, the only clearly high-quality source is Euronews, which adds no new content, as far as I can tell. The others rely on the same two source (officials & EMHRM), have significant bias, disputed reliability, or a mix of those.

Regarding Al-Shifa, allow me to ask the following question: do you believe their article (which is not retracted) to contain no significant statements that are either wrong or likely to be misunderstood by the average reader? FortunateSons (talk) 22:14, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Responded here. Keep in mind EMHRM's Al-Shifa article was published on Nov 17, 2023 and evidence Israel has presented has only been made public after that, not before. Even then, evidence presented by Israel about Al-Shifa has been doubted by Al-Jazeera and Forensic Architecture. I don't find EMHRM's article "significantly wrong" when read entirely given public knowledge on Nov 17.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

I understand that view, but considering the statements (again, about military use, not command centers) were (at least almost) conclusively proven wrong within the next 3 days (not even including historical alleged use), and is phrased in an inflammatory manner, it seems like a reliable source should have issued a correction at the very least, particularly when considering the arguments (made by others, not you specifically, just to be clear) that led to the reduction of the reliability for the ADL, whose errors I found to be significantly less egregious (and some of which were factually incorrect). FortunateSons (talk) 23:21, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

Richard Falk's past public statements about Israel and Jews: Richard Falk himself is Jewish, so if you're trying to suggest that he's antisemitic, you're going to have to show some very strong evidence. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:32, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

In general, Jews can be antisemitic. I‘m not making a statement in my own voice, but our own article includes pretty significant accusations (not even including the dog incident). For Israel, the sections are extensive enough not to require further elaboration, right? FortunateSons (talk) 22:44, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

It's an extraordinary claim to call a Jewish person antisemitic, and you should only make that claim if you have very strong evidence, which you don't. This just looks like character assassination to me. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:42, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Again, I‘m not saying he‘s antisemitic, and the claim I actually did make is factually accurate, but allow me to elaborate: a) Falk has made highly contentious statements about Israel and Jews/Jewish Orgs, b) and some of those claims have been referred to as antisemitic, covered by RS enough that they are in our article about him. Do you disagree with either of those points? FortunateSons (talk) 23:55, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

This is becoming off topic. Also please be wary of bludgeoning, @FortunateSons. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Respectfully, responding only to people who directly challenge different parts of my argument, as I have done here, is generally not considered bludgeoning, particularly when considering my relative share of comments (9/36 and 6/27 in the survey section), which are less than the indicative 1/3. However, I agree that we’re moving off-topic, and appreciate the reminder! FortunateSons (talk) 07:11, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 per The_Kip above (and my own comments in this section).VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 14:07, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3 It is a biased blog Michael Boutboul (talk) 22:58, 20 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3 per finding raised by multiple editors
  • False statements or WP:EXTRAORDINARY statements without strong support from high-quality, independent sources
    • Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians [17]
    • Organ harvesting topic (debunked by BobFromBrockley see below)
  • Link between the founder Ramy Abdu and a terrorist organization (see the photo in [18]) Michael Boutboul (talk)

  bias isn't enough to deem a source as unreliable — 🧀Cheesedealer ^!!!⚟ 08:00, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  If argument given by FortunateSons are correct, IMO it is sufficient for Option 3 Michael Boutboul (talk) 11:18, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  In addition to @FortunateSons arguments, EMHRM echoed a rumor (initially broadcast by Al Jazeera) claiming that Israel was training dogs to rape Palestinian detainees. Gaza: Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians. The more I am looking for this site, I found significant evidence that the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor acts as a pro-Palestinian advocacy group and has repeatedly published false and misleading statements as fact. Michael Boutboul (talk) 10:41, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1 No one has as of yet pointed out a pattern of falsehoods from Euro-Med HRM as determined by RS, nor has a compelling argument been made to suggest that such falsehoods are inherently linked to the way Euro-Med HRM operates. The assertion that it is only cited by highly partisan sources, and therefore unreliable, is inaccurate. It has been cited by various high quality RS, such as ABC, Amnesty International, AP News, BBC, CNN, The Telegraph, Deutsche Welle, The Guardian, The Hill, The Independent, The Intercept, MSNBC, National Post, NBC News, PBS, Reuters, South China Morning Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, and Times of Israel, just to mention a few. Its reports are based on witness interviews, video and photo evidence, field investigations, and official data. They are also regularly cited by the UN. WP:USEBYOTHERS is clear: widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability.Lf8u2 (talk) 02:54, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  For example : On June 27, 2024, EMHRM echoed a rumor (initially broadcast by Al Jazeera and repeated by LFI MEP Rima Hassan) claiming that Israel was training dogs to rape Palestinian detainees Michael Boutboul (talk) 13:48, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  You need to provide sources for such statements. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 15:35, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  Here Gaza: Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians. This is just one example — FortunateSons has provided much more extensive reasoning as to why it falls short of being a reliable source by Wikipedia’s standards. Michael Boutboul (talk) 10:31, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Do you have sources showing that this is a rumour? The use of dogs has been covered by other outlets - while not all carry the sexual assault line, the Euro Med article's core claim: that released prisoners are saying that this happens, and that they are in one way or another being brutalised by dogs, is covered in other RS. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:48, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  You are mixing up several topics, you are using sources that use EMHRM as a source to prove it is EMHRM is right, it is a circular reporting. This is exactly how a rumor is launched. Michael Boutboul (talk) 12:40, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not sure what you mean. The Middle East Monitor piece mentions that there was prior reporting but includes new testimony. It builds on existing reporting that the EMHRM did. The other three sources don't mention it at all. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:46, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  None of the other media outlets (BBC, The Guardian, etc.) reported that the IDF used police dogs to rape Palestinian civilians. EMHRM has never retracted this accusation, which raises serious concerns about its reliability as a source. Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:54, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  If the statement hasn't been debunked or refuted then how does it affect their reliability? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 17:04, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Is there any RS showing that the accusation is incorrect? Smallangryplanet (talk) 17:10, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  The fact that a claim has not been refuted does not make it reliable. This is a classic argument from ignorance — assuming something is credible merely because no one has disproven it.

  Extraordinary accusations — such as the IDF using dogs to commit sexual violence — require strong support from high-quality, independent sources (see WP:EXTRAORDINARY). If such a claim is not corroborated by major human rights organizations or reputable media, then its inclusion — and the reliability of the source making it — must be seriously questioned.

  A source that publishes such extreme and unsupported allegations cannot meet the standards of WP:RS, particularly on contentious topics. Michael Boutboul (talk) 18:04, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  That a source's reporting has not been corroborated does not "raise serious concerns about its reliability as a source."

  And neither is it an extrordinary claim. It's well documented in RS that the Israeli military has sexually assaulted Palestinians and that they have used dogs to attack Palestinians as well. The idea that they used dogs to sexually assault Palestinians is therefore hardly extraordinary. Additionally, as SmallAngryPlanet showed above, the RS 972mag has reported that "a Palestinian prisoner recently released from the detention camp said that he had personally witnessed [...] cases in which Israeli soldiers made dogs sexually assault prisoners."[19] IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 18:20, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Indeed, the central allegation in the one (1) piece @Boutboul is talking about is that the Israeli military uses dogs to "attack" prisoners, something that has been cited in RS going back at least a decade or more. One surprising claim in an article (sourced to named individuals, no less) does not make a source non-RS – if that were so I'm not sure which sources we'd be able to use. To use a famous example: the New York Times once ran the WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim that Iraq had or was developing WMDs, which turned out to be false on multiple fronts, but I still see them cited up and down wikipedia. Smallangryplanet (talk) 18:26, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  The comparison with The New York Times is flawed for one crucial reason: the NYT later retracted and critically reviewed its reporting on WMDs, acknowledging its failure — a key indicator of editorial accountability. By contrast, Euro-Med Monitor has never retracted, corrected, or clarified its extraordinary claim that the IDF used dogs to sexually assault Palestinian civilians.

  This is not just a fringe detail — it is a serious allegation, unsupported by independent, high-quality sources, and remains uncorrected. That directly reflects on editorial standards, which are a core component of WP:RS. A source's reliability depends on editorial oversight, fact-checking, and a reputation for accuracy. Unlike the NYT, Euro-Med Monitor does not demonstrate these safeguards, and this example is symptomatic of a broader lack of editorial rigor. That’s why its use as a reliable source on contentious topics is problematic. Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:18, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

  Why should EMHRM correct it when it has not been repudiated? That's why I was hoping you had found evidence to show it was incorrect. Smallangryplanet (talk) 00:41, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  Just earlier in this discussion, you yourself asked for evidence that Euro-Med Monitor had made this claim — which clearly indicates that you found the assertion extraordinary enough to require verification. That alone supports the application of WP:EXTRAORDINARY.

  Now that the claim is confirmed, you're arguing that it is not extraordinary. That’s inconsistent. The fact remains: Claiming that a state military used dogs to sexually assault civilians is extraordinary by any reasonable editorial standard and demands strong, independent corroboration — not a single partisan source, not one anecdotal testimony. Euro-Med Monitor does not meet the reliability criteria outlined in WP:RS, and this kind of sensational, unverified allegation is exactly the type of content WP:FRINGE warns against promoting without robust sourcing. Michael Boutboul (talk) 19:08, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Right now, leaning toward Option 1 per the evidence of use by RS presented by @Lf8u2. I'm open to Option 2 if more evidence is presented that the source is being used detrimentally on-wiki. As with any advocacy org, it is best practice to triangulate Euro-Med's claims with what reliable news orgs are saying and treat claims outside of consensus with more skepticism. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 14:36, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 As I'd say for most reputable advocacy groups we should not assume general reliability, should be careful to attribute statements, etc. However we absolutely should not be treating a reputable advocacy group as generally unreliable solely on the basis of a perceived bias. As other editors have said, WP:USEBYOTHERS is well fulfilled. Simonm223 (talk) 14:43, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 Agree it is biased and we should be careful and attribute statements. It seems to work above board though so I'm happy with it. NadVolum (talk) 15:52, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2: EMHRM has an on-the-ground network of sources that provide information, which other news outlets rely on, as other editors have shown above. The only reason I'm not saying Option 1 is because all sources (even the saint New York Times) have to be considered in context. Disregarding EMHRM for the Israeli-Palestinian subject area would be absurd, given that that's precisely the area where EMHRM is strongest and where it provides novel information that other reliable sources quote. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:42, 21 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 1 - There is no pattern of verifiable (using other RS) falsehoods from Euro-Med as has been alleged. Nor has it been shown that there is a systemic reason – for example through the lack of rigorous editorial and investigatory standards – for these falsehoods to be produced in the first place. EuroMed is a reputable human rights organisation that works with bodies like the UN and European parliament, is cited by other reputable human rights organisations such as Amnesty[20], as well as being cited in a diverse array of top-notch RS as noted by @Lf8u2, a list to which I can also add the New York Times ([21], [22], [23], [24]).

I'm legitimately astounded by how Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is being described by some editors here. Blood libel, Hamas front, a blog, worthless, random opinions, constant falsehoods… what are we doing here? I did a search to see where all this might be coming from and found a "fact sheet" about it on the first page of Google results from a group called "NGO Monitor" that contains all of these things, including the stuff about Richard Falk who is chairman of the board of trustees of EuroMed. He also happens to be an esteemed Jewish scholar, Professor Emeritus in International Law at Princeton, UPenn Bsc, Yale LLb, Harvard SJD. But he had the misfortune of being appointed in 2008 by the UN Human Rights Council to be the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, and as has been the case with everyone who has held that position – including the current person, Francesca Albanese – he was subject to a vicious smear campaign by pro-Israeli groups.

This includes "NGO Monitor", which RS describe as a right-wing Israeli propaganda front [25][26][27][28] whose job it is to make these kinds of "fact sheets" that unfortunately end up being used as fodder to dismiss reputable human rights NGOs like Euro-Med. They have also been accused of spreading misinformation and having a politically motivated agenda. The Al-Shifa hospital and organ harvesting points are also on their "fact sheet"; in fact the first two listed in their "activities" section, and I can't see how this could possibly be relevant. What Euro-Med said about Al-Shifa is entirely in line with RS as we ourselves show in the article on the topic. NGO monitor's piece is an article from November 2023 when the Israeli government and military claimed it had uncovered a vast Hamas underground network under Al-Shifa Hospital. Euro-Med said that the Israeli govt had failed to provide solid evidence for this claim and called on independent bodies to investigate it. (link). The govt's claim turned out to be inaccurate as established by RS. Again, citing our article on it to suggest otherwise is strange as we currently refer to Hamas military use of the hospital as "allegations" and cite RS that say no solid proof has been provided for the claim. [29], [30], [31], [32], [33], [34], [35].

The organ harvesting article cites testimonies from doctors in Gaza who examined corpses and relayed it to the Euro-Med investigators. It then uses those allegations as the basis for calling for an investigation to verify them, as any human rights group routinely does. It also refers to reports and laws such as the Supreme Court ruling of 2019 allowing the holding of bodies – all of this is verifiable by RS. In fact, here are some sources for that from RS: [36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47] Smallangryplanet (talk) 23:07, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

I found some of this very persuasive until we got to the organ harvesting topic, which I have read a lot about over the years. Specifically, none of the reliable sources listed at the end of the comment actually support the extraordinary claims made by Euromed, but rather mostly relate to much older scandals in which individual medical researchers used organs (of Israelis and Palestinians) for illegitimate purposes, and have no bearing on the 2020s.

Euromed says “According to the human rights group [i.e itself], Israel has recently made it lawful to hold dead Palestinians’ bodies and steal their organs. One such decision is the 2019 Israeli Supreme Court ruling that permits the military ruler to temporarily bury the bodies in what is known as the “Numbers Cemetery”.” Compare this to the report by B’Tselem (a partisan but very reliable human rights organisation) or Middle East Eye (an anti-Israel weakly reliable source), which report the Supreme Court judgement accurately, with no mention of “organs”. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:31, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 per Simonm223's explanation of WP:USEBYOTHERS. It is reliable for Statements of fact (e.g. "Juan purchased a coal-powered car yesterday"); statements of analysis (e.g. "Juan's purchase of a coal-powered car contributed to climate change") and statements of opinion (e.g. "Juan should never have purchased a coal-powered car") may be problematic and should either not be sourced from it or should be used with attribution. Chetsford (talk) 21:54, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2. Attribution should always be considered, extreme caution should be taken in verifying information, and use of the source must not be undue. 🌙Eclipse (she/they/all neos • talk • edits) 22:28, 22 March 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3 for everything related to the I/P conflict. See the discussion for an example of content unsupported by reliable sources. They exhibit heavy bias, their founder and chairman used to lobby for Hamas [48] and was elated after October 7 attacks). Option 2 for everything else. If their reports are sometimes used by reliable sources, we can quote those. I don't think we should ever use information that appears only in Euromed reports. Alaexis_¿question? 08:11, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

  As far as I can see, this link does not lead to anything linking EuroMed to Hamas. Did you intend to post a different link? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:29, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

  See here [49]for example Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:16, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

  NGO Monitor is not a reliable source and nor on this topic is Israel. What is the evidence of any connection to Hamas, apart from appearing on a 2013 Israeli list? BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:22, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  The picture where you can see the founder of EMHRM with Ismael Hanyeh, former Hamas leader. This is not sufficient? Otherwise do you accept the site Conspiracy Watch as a reliable source? Michael Boutboul (talk) 08:03, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  How does this picture link EMHRM with Hamas? If you click through to the source of the image it says it's from a delegation visiting Gaza. At the time Haniyeh was arguably the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, so there's plenty of legitimate reasons for international figures to meet with him. It seems like WP:SYNTH to suggest that this picture alone is evidence of a COI between the EMHRM and Hamas. Smallangryplanet (talk) 11:37, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  It is clear that working in Gaza requires some level of interaction with Hamas, but not to this extent. Other leaders of respected NGOs such as Médecins Sans Frontières, Save the Children, Oxfam, and CARE have never had any public contact with Ismail Haniyeh.

  Unlike major humanitarian NGOs, Euro-Med Monitor does not have the same level of international recognition, transparency, or external oversight. Such public proximity to a political leader of Hamas—an organization designated as terrorist by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Egypt, and Paraguay—can be perceived as political alignment or, at the very least, a serious breach of the fundamental principles of neutrality and reliability to be used on Wikipedia. Michael Boutboul (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  The terrorist designation is a non-sequitur. How is appearing in a photo with a leader of Gaza's civil government somehow worse than the fact that the vast majority of Israeli journalists served in the IDF? Barak Ravid quit his military position only months before beginning work at Axios. Journalists are in pictures with political leaders all the time, it does not remotely suggest a conflict of interest. Monk of Monk Hall (talk) 13:52, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  I did some digging and found this summary of the delegation's activity. They also met with Save the Children (!) and the United Nations (and several other UN agencies). It sounds like Haniyeh gave a speech and held a discussion about the situation in the Gaza at the time. These are perfectly ordinary things for a group of NGO leaders to do, and does not suggest anything untoward. At any rate, we're here to discuss if this source should be considered reliable, and I can't think of any other source we deprecate solely because the person who founded it met with a person one time. (If that alone is disqualifying, it is time to disqualify the vast majority of reliable sources!) Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Bobfrombrockley, the link I've posted establishes the connection between the founder and chairman of EMHRM and Hamas. He was a senior leader in an organisation described by The Independent as a Belgian non-profit organisation that lobbies on behalf of the Hamas-led Gaza Government. I don't know whether EMHRM are in any way connected to Hamas and I didn't claim it. For me it's just one more indication of their extreme bias. Alaexis_¿question? 22:25, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Alaexis that article does not establish[es] the connection between the founder and chairman of EMHRM and Hamas. Shin Bet makes a claim that there is a connection between the two, but the organisation says it plans to take legal action to show that it is an independent organisation. The Independent only provides Israeli intelligence agency sourcing for this claim, which as you might imagine is hardly WP:DUE for allegations of this nature. (Hamas is a proscribed organisation in the UK, so if Shin Bet's claims were true, Clare Short could in theory be at risk of legal consequences in the UK, let alone Israel.) Not only that but Ramy himself is not mentioned in the article. Did you mean to send a different link? (We can also talk about how NGOs work with agencies and governments on the ground – even the UK government's proscribed organisation laws include legal comments suggesting that 'genuinely benign' meetings may be allowed.) Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:09, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think you're interpreting the text of the article correctly. It says "Moshe Ya’alon, former IDF chief of staff, outlawed the Council for European Palestinian Relations (CEPR) – a Belgian non-profit organisation that lobbies on behalf of the Hamas-led Gaza Government – using emergency defence regulations." The part between dashes is not attributed to Moshe Yaalon, it's the author of the article explaining what CEPR is. Alaexis_¿question? 18:32, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

  In that case I'm not sure how we can possibly come to any conclusions - let alone deprecate a source - because of an unsourced and unverified comment! Smallangryplanet (talk) 18:55, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 3 There is no way to restore NPOV with this steady push to deprecate center-right/right sources and keep far-left, hyper-politicized sources like Euro-Med HRM. Also: these discussions should seek to draw in editors who have not dominated the I/P space. Allthemilescombined1 (talk) 22:02, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1: per Thucydides411, Lf8u2, Simonm223 and Smallangryplanet. It's cited by the following (among others):

https://abcnews.go.com/International/kite-festival-gaza-offers-children-rare-break-ongoing/story?id=108629524

https://apnews.com/article/gaza-family-home-evacuation-israel-troops-f1d9838c60225a8c454e372df72ca245

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/articles/c4nn9x23zxzo

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/27/world/middleeast/gaza-israel-hamas-evacuations-strikes.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/12/world/middleeast/israel-hostage-gaza-koslov-hamas.html?searchResultPosition=4

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/15/world/israel-news-hamas-war-gaza?searchResultPosition=2#those-with-family-in-gaza-struggle-with-frantic-calls-and-constant-fear

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/12/world/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news/the-israeli-military-acknowledges-mistaking-a-bike-for-a-weapon-in-a-strike-but-stands-by-the-attack?searchResultPosition=1

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/12/07/middleeast/gaza-israeli-soldiers-detained-men-intl/index.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/gaza-palestinian-children-killed-idf-israel-war

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trapped-jobless-gaza-youths-look-way-out-2023-03-22/

Furthermore, they also work with the UN and the EU parliament and are cited by Amnesty International:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/MDE1551412022ENGLISH.pdf

https://reliefweb.int/organization/euro-med-monitor

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/ced/comments/general-comment1-euro-med.docx

https://reliefweb.int/updates?list=Euro-Mediterranean%20Human%20Rights%20Monitor%20Updates&advanced-search=%28S49218%29

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/3273/Euro-Med-Monitor-Discusses-Gulf%E2%80%99s-Human-Rights-Situation-at-EU-Parliament

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/3726/Euro-Med-Monitor-Report-Inspires-EU-Parliament-Question-about-Middle-East-Prisons-Conditions

Their extensive use and citations means they are a RS and no one has shown or linked any point where they were wrong about something or anything that would indicate that they are unreliable. Just because they are critcial of Israel where there is evidence Israel has committed abuses, doesn't mean they should be listed as unreliable. Genabab (talk) 23:32, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

ADL is cited more frequently than EMHRM, but it is not considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia policy, citation frequency does not equate to reliability. Michael Boutboul (talk) 16:21, 25 March 2025 (UTC)

I'm curious how you can square Option 1 for an advocacy group, when you've previously said option 3 for a WP:NEWSORG solely because of bias. Samuelshraga (talk) 08:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 per the sources mentioned by Lf8u2 and Smallangryplanet, but acknowledging it as an advocacy group (so not option 1), Huldra (talk) 22:32, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 as my usual response that as policy is WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, it depends on the specific edit proposed and the specific cite, there is no 'this source is always right' or 'this source is always wrong'. I add the obvious limit of this source does not have much WP:WEIGHT of coverage, so other sources are more likely useful. And this source is an advocacy group and like all such may be usable as RS of the WP:BIASED kind as a POV but not as objective fact -- use in-text attribution on anything from here, not WP:WIKIVOICE. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2, which Mark outlined the reasoning for above nicely. Regardless of how they describe themselves, they're essentially an advocacy organization and should not be cited without in-text attribution. I do not think other editors have outlined an actual pattern of falsehoods or deception, however, and other editors have noted their use among other RS. ThadeusOfNazereth(he/him)^{Talk to Me!} 16:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 3. Euro-Med is an extremely partisan advocacy group in the I/P space. This would put it in the same categroy as CAMERA, NGO Monitor and others. Both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli NGOs of this type easily fulfil WP:USEBYOTHERS in that they are frequently cited in RS, typically by RS with a bias towards "their" side. However Wikipedia should never take the claims made by such groups and put them into its own voice, and should wait for those claims to be filtered through RS before repeating them with attribution. Given that this source makes extraordinary claims for which it seems to be the only source (e.g. claiming that Israel recently legalised organ theft from Palestinians), and that no one seems to have pointed to any clear editorial processes or history of retraction, I am shocked that anyone is advocating Option 1. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:04, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 4, or Option 3, first choice would be Option 4, but Option 3 would be a decent minimum place to start if Option 4 does not have clear consensus. I agree with the reasoning for why provided by FortunateSons. This source has no proximity to reliability. Iljhgtn (talk) 21:44, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1, as Lf8u2, Genabab, and Smallangryplanet stated, Euro Med is used by many reputable sources and works with many international bodies & human rights group like Amnesty International and the United Nations. No evidence has actually been presented to prove they spew false information, they're simply gathering testimonies of abuse and advocate for investigations (in many countries such as Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, Bahrain, etc., not just Israel). I would believe anything other than Option 1 sets a bad precedent. Geo (talk) 23:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 3. Israel training police dogs to rape Palestinians is a bizarre and obvious conspiracy theory. I am surprised that editors here are defending it as truth. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:44, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

  Just because you personally don't believe a source, that doesn't make it unreliable. (Argument from incredulity)

  This is also hardly an extraordinary claim. Confer this Oct 2024 Al Jazeera documentary at time 1:04:20 where the allegation is made by a Fadi Bakr of Gaza, who per the CBC was "a law graduate from the University of Palestine, was searching for food for his wife and kids in Khan Younis on Jan. 5 when he was caught in the crossfires of fighting between Hamas militants and the IDF. He was shot and took refuge in a nearby building, [...] Then, he was arrested."

  This allegation/testimony was also reported by +972 Magazine: "Multiple media outlets, including CNN and the New York Times, have reported on instances of rape and sexual assault at Sde Teiman. In a video circulating on social media earlier this week, a Palestinian prisoner recently released from the detention camp said that he had personally witnessed multiple rapes, and cases in which Israeli soldiers made dogs sexually assault prisoners."[50] IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 11:42, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

  Fadi Bakr of Gaza is literally the only source for that claim. He's the same person cited by Euro-Med Monitor and all of the other sources.

  Going from a single prisoner saying he witnessed individual Israeli soldiers using dogs to sexually assault Palestinians to Gaza: Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians is the problem with that source. Most sources do not take a single individual's testimony and use their own voice to say the Zionists are training rape dogs to abuse Palestinians. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:49, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  You apparently haven't read the source, which says "Euro-Med Monitor received horrific testimonies from recently released detainees confirming the brutal and inhumane use of Israeli police dogs to rape prisoners and detainees". Fadi Saif al-Din Bakr is the only named witness. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  @IOHANNVSVERVS: I did read that. No other news outlet has been able to interview someone other than Fadi Bakr, and Euro-Med Monitor doesn't provide any other testimony from other detainees. The closest is this:

  Thirty-six-year-old Hassan Abu Raida, another released detainee, stated: “They moved me and the other detainees to a prison. They threw us to the ground and made the dogs urinate on us [as we lay there]. In addition, one of the soldiers struck my right knee with an iron pipe, and I am still recovering from that injury.”

  That's not rape. It's wrong and is prisoner abuse, but I think Euro-Med Monitor is stretching the definition of "rape" (which usually requires penetration) here to fit their POV instead of presenting the facts accurately, because implying penetration by dogs is much more scandalous than urination by dogs. Similar to how Israeli civilians being mutilated was exaggerated into beheaded babies by ZAKA, which also isn't reliable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 22:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

  @Chess you are misrepresenting the source. This is now the second time I have seen you do this in a short period of time, as you did with the Bloomberg article here. This assertion was initially made by Boutboul, who also claimed that Euro-Med Monitor reported Israel was "systematically" training dogs to rape Palestinians. Euro-Med Monitor has not stated anywhere that Israel is systematically training or using police dogs to rape Palestinians. The actual report explicitly states that Israel is systematically using dogs to attack Palestinian civilians—not to rape—and bases this on cited testimonies, with the specification of "at least one reported rape". Not systematic rape by dogs, not training dogs to rape, but at least one reported case of rape, and then they cite the testimony for that which other RS have also cited as @IOHANNVSVERVS and myself have noted.

  Fadi Bakr of Gaza is literally the only source for that claim - no he is not. Here is another testimony saying he witnessed the use of dogs to rape prisoners. Not only that, but EMHRM does not treat this claim as verified but calls for an investigation.

  Criticising a human rights organisation for documenting and reporting victim testimony of alleged abuses—and for urging further investigation—is certainly an interesting position to hold. Smallangryplanet (talk) 13:37, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  “Gaza: Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack, rape Palestinian civilians”: I didn’t make it up — that’s the actual title of the article. And I completely agree with you that it’s absurd, which is precisely why this source isn’t reliable. Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  That's not what the article says, though. WP:HEADLINES makes it clear we should look at what the body of the source text says. Palestinian Territory – The Israeli military is using police dogs to systematically attack Palestinian civilians during military operations in the Gaza Strip. The dogs are also used to intimidate, beat, and sexually assault prisoners and detainees in Israeli detention facilities. (Emphasis mine.) I do not think we should deprecate or downgrade a source because of a poorly deployed comma splice in a headline on a single article. Smallangryplanet (talk) 14:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  That's a big move of the goalposts. You said "not stated anywhere", now it's "stated in the headline, but that doesn't count". Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 18:30, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Goalposts remain firmly in place, because the headline has been updated, to a version which reads Gaza: Israeli army systematically uses police dogs to brutally attack Palestinian civilians, with at least one reported rape. The archival version of the piece that @Boutboul is citing was taken on 28 Jun 2024 05:38:44 UTC. The updated version was itself first archived roughly 9 hours later, at 28 Jun 2024 14:30:44 UTC. So not only did they have accurate content in the body from the get-go, but they very quickly moved to update to a more precise headline that same day. The updated version is still live to this day. Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:21, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  Pick one argument. At the start of this discussion, you said Why should EMHRM correct it when it has not been repudiated? That's why I was hoping you had found evidence to show it was incorrect. Now you're saying that it has been repudiated, but EMHRM corrected it.

  So, what factual position are you currently endorsing?

  1. Israel systemically uses dogs to rape Palestinians
  2. Israel has raped one person with a dog
  3. One detainee said they saw another detainee be raped by a dog, but it's unconfirmed whether that is true

  I think 3. is a correct assessment of the situation. EMHRM said 1. initially, then silently changed it to 2 without a public correction. The vast majority of sources that do cover the alleged canine molestations go with option 3: quoting Fadi Bakr but without endorsing his claims as true. However, EMHRM says they "confirmed" this based on one person's uncorroborated testimony. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  Repudiation is "the act of refusing to accept something or someone as true, good, or reasonable". There has been no repudiation here, just a routine editorial improvement of a headline to better align it with the content of the article. The original headline could have been read in 2 different ways and now it is clearer. Isoceles-sai (talk) 08:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  Agree with @Isoceles-sai on repudiation. I am not endorsing any factual position, other than that I am correctly interpreting an old initial headline. None of the three options you listed, @Chess, are correct interpretations of the headline. The original title does not make the claim that dogs are being trained to systematically rape Palestinians. They put attack, rape. If they had been making the claim that position (1) is correct, then they would have said "attack and rape." In any case, it was quickly clarified and, again, WP:HEADLINES. The content of the article reports what EMHRM has been told (testimonies...confirming... is a standard formulation used by plenty of RS for all manner of things) and then they call for an investigation, which is perfectly reasonable. Smallangryplanet (talk) 10:01, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  https://archive.is/OkJE8 Michael Boutboul (talk) 14:44, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2 - Advocacy. Can be used with in text attribution. Blueboar (talk) 20:02, 11 April 2025 (UTC)
• Option 2 - should be attributed, but its well cited and their reports are cited by reliable sources. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't see what the fuss is about with PIA topic area? If the only reason we are knitpicking supposed errors (that some of their reports weren't reposted by other groups) is because a human rights org is saying there are human rights violations in Gaza, some of these votes should be considered in that context. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:30, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 1 or if necessary Option 2 - In practice, labeling a source as 'advocacy' is too often misused to selectively cast doubt on that source. The line between advocacy and journalism is much, much too blurry to be a convenient pass/fail test for Wikipedia editors. As for the "police dog" issue, the article itself is somewhat ambiguous about what exactly happened, because the testimony it discusses is somewhat ambiguous. Per the source Israeli attack dogs were used against Palestinian civilians. This doesn't qualify as an extraordinary claim. Grayfell (talk) 20:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  What about the claim that the Israeli supreme court legalised organ theft from Palestinians? Samuelshraga (talk) 08:28, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Option 2. Highly partisan advocacy group that we should not use without attribution. Use by RSs with attribution suggests it is a source we can cite, but at least one egregious example of highly inaccurate reporting on an inflammatory topic (organ traffic, where they eg made a false claim about an Israeli court decision, documented above) indicates we should not cite it without extreme care and caveats. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:50, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (Euro-Med)

• It's important to note that Euro-Med runs Wiki-Rights, which "trains" Wikipedians with what appears to be a desire to change the coverage of certain topics to allign with their values. I believe that any participant is at minimum obligated to disclose their COI if they choose to participate in this discussions. FortunateSons (talk) 11:06, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  @FortunateSons while I see your reasoning, I think WP:ADVOCACY/WP:SOAP might be better targets than WP:BATTLEGROUND there. ADVOCACY covers trying to shape Wiki articles to fit certain beliefs or narratives in violation of WP:NPOV, while BATTLEGROUND moreso constitutes general aggressiveness and incivility (sometimes in pursuit of advocacy, but not always). The Kip ^(contribs) 18:26, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  Ah, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 11:33, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

  Jesus fucking christ... — 🌙Eclipse (she/they/all neos • talk • edits) 22:11, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Wow, they've been running this program since 2015! Considering that I've never seen anyone disclosing this, there are definitely WP:COI/WP:CANVASSING issues here, however they should probably be discussed elsewhere. It's definitely a biased source, with their founder and chairman being really happy about the October 7 attack. Alaexis_¿question? 14:54, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

  The political views of Jeff Bezos have zero impact on the reliability of Washington Post, so long as he doesn't interfere in the newspaper in a way that would undermine its accuracy. Same applies here.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 13:39, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

  @Vice regent If I recall correctly, though, statements made by Jonathan Greenblatt outside of his role as head of the ADL were partly used as rationale to rate the ADL as GUNREL; there's also been other instances where the views/statements of a publication's main or sole owner/editor/etc were similarly used as points of unreliability, such as The Grayzone and Max Blumenthal's other outlets. That's not to say Abdu's had direct effects on EMHRM's reliability/lack thereof, but from a hypotheticals standpoint I don't think the argument that his views have impacted their publications is that out there.

  WaPo's a bit of a poor comparison as well, considering it's a large newspaper with an editorial process and (at least formerly?) fairly robust fact-checking; EMHRM, like the ADL, is an advocacy group, which aren't usually run to those same standards. The Kip ^(contribs) 16:36, 20 March 2025 (UTC)

  Don't forget the Jewish Chronicle, unreliable due to right-wing ideologues taking it over.[51] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

  Of course, newspaper owners have influence over their publications! That’s true for Jeff Bezos and many others. Michael Boutboul (talk) 13:15, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  The views of a proprietor have no bearing on the reliability of the publication they own, correct. But the false statements of an editor do, I think, have bearing on the reliability of the publication they own. It’s not comparable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

• Did the proposer of this just think there wasn't enough happening in the world? They should not be wasting people's time dragging up again without some good reason. None was provided. NadVolum (talk) 15:45, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

  The original discussion wasn’t an RfC, this is. The source comes up in discussions regularly, and is cited within many contentious articles, so a clear consensus on reliability is beneficial. FortunateSons (talk) 15:54, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

• Regarding the lack of reliability, here is a good example [52]

“ After failing to find any evidence of a military presence in the medical facility, the Israeli soldiers went crazy and deliberately carried out a series of executions, eliminating and directly shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood. ”

They published it in November 2023. It's hard to prove that this didn't take place but we can check whether anyone else has reported on this ever since. Amnesty International said nothing about summary executions of the wounded in their piece about the Al-Shifa raid, which is otherwise quite critical of Israel's actions. I searched for other reports and found none.

It's possible that their reliability varies and sometimes their bias doesn't prevent them from publishing valuable information that is then re-published by reliable sources, as demonstrated by some editors. In that case we should use those reliable sources. I don't think we should ever use information that appears only in Euromed reports. Alaexis_¿question? 08:02, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

"It's hard to prove that this didn't take place" - then this is in no way "a good example of their lack of reliability". IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 14:49, 23 March 2025 (UTC)

Is https://edifiant.fr reliable?

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.

---

Can anyone here determine who manages and runs edifiant.fr [53] ? I can not see it on their page. If we can not determine who manages the site can it be reliable, if we can not determine the quality control measures they use?

They say they are a "Catholic investigation site" but my take is that they are a Catholic promotion site, given that they have a button on the top about "how to become a Catholic" and the content is pretty promotional. They seem to be a blog newsletter, and may be managed by just one unknown person for all I can see. And who knows if that person is "sane".

The page in question is this one [54] about a "missing letter" from Joseph Ratzinger that someone remembers hearing read to a group 30 years ago. Yes, 30 years ago.

So can anyone figure out who runs that site and if that person is sane. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 21:55, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

RFC questions are meant to be both brief and neutral, see WP:RFCBRIEF. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:19, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

This is not a rfc, but a general discussion. A rfc would have been an overkill before a discussion. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:33, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Wasn't the discussion already had here? Anyway, that's fine, if you want to get more clarity on this point before doing an RfC. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Arkenstrone, but in that discussion I directly asked you if you know who runs that website, given that you have used it in the article. So answer it here: "Do you know who manages edifiant.fr ?" Just say yes or no, and if yes, tell us who that person is. So, do you know? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 01:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

No I don't. But that's not saying much. An anonymous entry in the WHOIS database doesn't mean that a website is automatically unreliable or untrustworthy. Privacy is an important concern for many. Plus, that website appears to be a platform that provides a variety of Catholic content, including videos, testimonies, articles and other resources, as well as newsletter subscriptions. Would I use it for secondary sources? No.

As you've probably seen in previous RfC discussions, reliability is context-dependent per

WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. If you're using the website as a secondary source for statements of fact, then it's certainly unreliable per WP:RS. But if you're referencing the hand-written testimony of a well-known French Catholic journalist and author who states she was a witness to certain events, and that website hosts a digital copy of her hand-written testimony, then for that very limited use, it should be fine per WP:RSPRIMARY.

Remember, all that's being said is that a digital copy of her hand-written testimony is a reliable primary source for her own words and testimony. Nothing more. Arkenstrone (talk) 04:38, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

User:Arkenstrone brings a good point. If the claim is about a testimony, it probably can be cited for that. If there are no other sources are available. What is the claim the source is being used for? Ramos1990 (talk) 04:47, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Geneviève Esquier, a French Catholic journalist and author, published a hand-written testimony of correspondence received between 1990 and 1994 from Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and addressed to Marcel Clément, the director of the French Catholic publication L'Homme Nouveau. She states that Ratzinger's letter requested a suspension of articles and sales of Valtorta’s works due to theological concerns, especially relating to Valtorta's writings on marriage. She further states that about one year later Ratzinger sent another letter permitting the resumption of articles and sales of Valtorta's works, expressing that after reviewing the work, nothing in Valtorta's writings contradicted faith or morals.[55] Arkenstrone (talk) 05:21, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Cool. I see the handwritten letter. I don't see an issue with it, in that case. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there anything to show the provenance of the letter? Anyone could reproduce a letter on a website and claim it was original. Also what is this going to be used for? Anything beyond the basic point that Esquier claimed that the correspondence existed wouldn't be supported. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:00, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there any other source that testifies to the legitimacy of the letter claim to be from Esquier? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:06, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

ActivelyDisinterested : Aaaaah, at last someone with a sense of logic! You just injected some sanity into the discussion. You are right to ask about the provenance of the letter. But why should you even have to? We all know that it would take me just two hours to produce a website with an image of a letter from Winston Churchil (letterhead and all) that recommends Ramos and Arkenstrone as thenext two prime ministers of England. Is there any reliable website that discusses that letter. No. Of course there is not. Else they would have used that! Would Britannica use that image? No. No way. Would any book by a major publisher? No. Would the London Times, the Guardian or the NY times? No. They use that unknown, obscure, Catholic promotional website because they have nothing else. As of this moment Wkipedia is the only major websource that refers to it, except for some lunatic fringe places in France. The only word I have for that discussion is ludicrous, of course. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 11:40, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

And breathe. I would agree, without some sort of evidence of the legitimacy of the image showing the letter it's not a reliable source. I can't find any WP:USEBYOTHERS for the website. It has an about us page[56] but there's no indication of who the author, editors or operators are, or if there are any and this isn't a self-published source.
An image existing on a website of unknown quality doesn't prove the image is legitimate, or written by the person the website claims wrote it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:57, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, of course. One item I should mention is that we do not even know if the whole thing is a hoax or practical joke. Remember Jar'Edo Wens ? How do we know Jared is not involved in that website? We do not. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 12:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Esquier’s testimony on edifiant.fr is a primary source: she asserts it’s her own handwritten account. Edifiant.fr, a Catholic platform, presents this as her authentic submission, and its 88% trust score from ScamDoc (despite domain owner anonymity) suggests it’s not inherently dubious. This handwritten letter has been in the public domain for about 2 years, and there has been no claim that it is fake or illegitimate by Geneviève Esquier or anyone else. It is understandable that Esquier would choose to submit the letter to edifiant.fr as it appears to be a popular Catholic platform among the lay community in France.

Also, Mariavaltorta.com cites the exact same testimony in an article here.

Mariavaltorta.com is not a neutral source, as they are in the business of selling Valtorta's published works. However, nobody would claim that they are fabricating primary source materials as that would land them into hot water with certain anti-Valtorta factions of the Catholic Church. And it would be exceedingly easy for people in the right places, beginning with Esquier herself, to confirm this as fake if it were indeed the case.

Finally, the article on the MariaValtorta.com website has this addendum:

"By sharing this information in writing for the first time, Geneviève Esquier has made this fact, which was previously known mainly to scholars of the work, more widely accessible to the general public in a detailed manner."

Take it for what you will, but there is no reason to believe Esquier's handwritten testimony is illegitimate. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:55, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

That's all that the source is being used for: Esquier claiming the correspondence existed and that she was a witness to it. Provenance discussed below, but summarizing, edifiant.fr include footnotes indicating the letter was received by mail on March 8, 2023 by Esquier and published on the website the same day. They also mention they had direct verbal communication with Esquier. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:54, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Ramos, it may seem cool to you, but laughable to me. Why do I object to this item? Because it makes Wikipedia look ludicrous. Just ludicrous . You may site 12 different policy/guideline items why it can be included, but to anyone with a sense of logic a "30 year old memory" based on an image on a website of unknown origin is just laughble and not encyclopedic. And it is all about a letter no one can find. So please feel free to site 11 other guidelines, but it will not make the item less ludicrous to me, or anyone else with a sense of logic. What is next? Adding "testimonies" about D B Cooper having a copy of the letter with him when he jumped off the plane? Do you have guidelines to support that as well? Give us a break, please. Ludicrous is ludicrous regardless of anything else. But then Wikipedia can at times be ludicrous if logic goes out of the window. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 08:40, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I concur with ActivelyDisinterested. I read over the about section and the privacy page too for good mention and the website seems quite deliberate anonymous. This is a WP:SPS posting a letter of unknowns provenance. Simonm223 (talk) 10:59, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Is this a reply to @Ramos1990? Judging from the poor indent hygiene, you didn't press the reply button in making your response. You really should, as he may not otherwise get your response. Plus proper indent hygiene makes all the responses easier to follow. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:05, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Fixed. Arkenstrone (talk) 00:57, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I found a foundation and house museum devoted to Maria Valtorta [57] that has the same letter [58] from the journalist Geneviève giving her testimony on the matter. It was an unpublished letter of Ratzinger. Might this be a better source, Arkenstrone? The foudnation has the rights to Maria Valtorta's writings and other things. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:23, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Ramos & Arkenstone, The foundation and house is the same organization as Mariavaltorta.com. They receive royalties when the books are sold. You need to check the Italian website details. And I am pretty sure they "just copied" what the edifiant.fr had. The way it works on these things is that the "Valtorta fanatics" in France email everyone and his cousin about all their crazy ideas. The Italian heritage foundation is pretty passive and just copies what the French fanatics tell them. That is no source at all. No way. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:30, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I linked the foundation [59] "The Foundation holds the heredity of Maria Valtorta for having received the ownership of her original manuscripts with copyright, the ownership of the Valtorta house in Viareggio, restored and open to visitors as a house-museum, and the ownership of any kind of documentation on the person and writings of Maria Valtorta that was found in the house." Looks quite relevant. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:46, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, if no secondary sources can be found, edifiant.fr appears to be a legitimate source for this handwritten letter per WP:RSPRIMARY. Coupled to the additional detail that ScamDoc gives the website an 88% trust score (despite its anonymity), suggests it is not inherently dubious. As I said, the handwritten letter has been in the public domain for about 2 years, and it would have been exceedingly easy for Esquier to confirm the letter as fake if it were indeed the case.

Also, edifiant.fr states explicitly that they received the letter by mail from Esquier on March 8, 2023 and are reproducing it below on the same day. They also state that they had direct verbal communication with Esquier. The fact that mariavaltorta.com presents the same information (which I agree, they certainly obtained from edifiant.fr) suggests edifiant.fr has some legitimacy in the French Catholic lay community.

You keep advancing opinions on this matter that are based on your own personal beliefs, views and original research. But we're not here to do WP:OR but present sourced facts and evidence. And that's what this primary source is: evidence of Geneviève Esquier's handwritten words. Arkenstrone (talk) 04:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I think Yesterday is right in that the letter on mariavaltorta.com was very likely obtained from edifiant.fr as they also provide additional information on the provenance of the letter by stating it was mailed to them by Geneviève Esquier and received on March 8, 2023, and that they also spoke to her directly, and published it on their website on the same day. I think edifiant.fr is the better source in this case as they also provide digitized images of the letter. Arkenstrone (talk) 04:13, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• Not that this has now reincarnated as an Rfc below! Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:34, 16 April 2025 (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.

For The Win (USA Today)

At the college basketball WikiProject talk page, there is a concern raised positing that the reliability of For The Win may be less than that of USA Today proper. The claim in question refers to whether Olivier Rioux can be called a "national champion" using the quote Still, he's a national champion like the rest of his team… from this source. How does the reliability of For The Win compare to that of the main RSP listing for USA Today? Left guide (talk) 00:01, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

I suspect that this case is more about the specific statement made regarding Rioux being considered a champion. Per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS:

The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

It's straightforward if FTW is not considered generally reliable. Otherwise, in this team sport, it's not objectively clear if a player that never played is considered a champion. So the statement could be an error, or it could be an opinion, in which case WP:INTEXT attribution might be needed for inclusion, assuming WP:ONUS is met. —Bagumba (talk) 02:46, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Partial WP:REDACT, per Rikster2 below and my own subsequent research.—Bagumba (talk) 03:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not seeing much WP:USEBYOTHERS by high-quality sources. According to their press release, they launched as the first mainstream sports media property focused exclusively on 'social news,' with a steady stream of stories that fans are, or will be, talking about right now.[60] I looked at its recent article on Michael Malone's firing. It seems the site style might be to incite readers with a partisan tone. Examples such as "this duo's petty infighting" and "he didn't throw him under the bus outright". While fun for recreational reading, there's probably better reliable sources to use that would be more impartial in their tone. They don't seem like an original source for any deep, insightful reporting. If they say they're about "social news", believe them.—Bagumba (talk) 06:56, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

This is not just about the Olivier Rioux discussion, though that is what led me to investigate further. Why is USA Today considered a reliable source? It is because over time, this newspaper (which like all papers has a ton of online-only readers) has proven to be a journalistic enterprise with all that this entails. “For The Win” is a sub-brand owned by USA Today that is meant to create viral social media posts to drive traffic (like the images of a 7’9 player cutting basketball nets without a ladder). That’s marketing, not journalism. In my opinion, it’s a decent source for the fact that (in this case) this event happened, but hardly should be given the same weight that an actual article in the paper would. To me this is similar to blog sites housed within reputable on-line news sites or editorial pages within newspapers - entertainment not news. Rikster2 (talk) 13:41, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I think we're generally in agreement. FTW isn't going to have anything factual that wouldn't be on a more reliable site, but it will blend in some opinionated POV for "social news" fodder. —Bagumba (talk) 14:29, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

@Bagumba: Did you try searching "ftw.usatoday.com" in Google Books? Doing so shows promising WP:USEBYOTHERS from reputable mainstream book publishers. Left guide (talk) 11:34, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I was searching "For the Win" on news sites. My NPOV concern with their self-professed mission of "social news" still stands. They don't seem to do original reporting. For example, this recent piece on Russell Westbrook is just repackaging content from The Athletic, with a POV slant. Now I don't think they slander, and the events they report—at a high level—did in fact happen, but I think we're better off sourcing the original content from mainstream sources, worded by the original reporters that are more reliable, less likely to make the story even racier or more click-worthy. —Bagumba (talk) 12:22, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Those points may be valid in their own right, but the response as a whole deflects away from the WP:USEBYOTHERS in reputable mainstream book publishers; that aspect has not been meaningfully addressed or rebutted. Left guide (talk) 02:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The WP:REPUTABLE guideline says

Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process.

USEBYOTHERS is necessary but not sufficient to accept a source as reliable. Thanks. —Bagumba (talk) 03:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to doubt this veteran sportswriter and managing editor of a USA Today property's extremely benign quote that an eligible freshman on the active roster of the national championship-winning team, who is currently personally cutting down the nets to celebrate the national championship, is indeed a national champion.

It's not as if we're weighing this USA Today social media property against a better source that says the opposite. No reliable sources have been presented that even hint at Rioux not being a national champion along with the other 16 players on the active roster. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:22, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

This is not the place to argue that specific issue, that discussion (as you are aware) is at the college basketball project talk page. This board is to specifically discuss if “For The Win” is a credible reliable source, as distinct from USA Today. Rikster2 (talk) 20:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with you that it’s a decent source for the fact that (in this case) this event happened. The neutral event that happened was that a freshman on the national championship team cut down the nets to celebrate winning the national championship. That's paired with a sportswriter employed by USA Today naturally remarking that he is a national champion. That context seems entirely appropriate. PK-WIKI (talk) 21:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

You are doing it again. Please stop Rikster2 (talk) 21:17, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

He just bludgeons everything, apparently. SportsGuy789 (talk) 22:20, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

That specific issue is currently the sole argument for FTW not being reliable. If you don't want to argue that, there's nothing to argue at all, unless you can come up with further reasons why FTW shouldn't be considered reliable. Cortador (talk) 09:11, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Wrong. Check out this article about the founding of FTW. It’s modeled after WP:BUZZFEED, which is decidedly “it depends” as a source on Wikipedia. There certainly is more of a discussion that can be had about FTW as a reliable source in its own right. And btw, I didn’t bring this discussion here, I just made a good faith comment in a discussion at a WikiProject talk page and someone else wanted to flesh out the discussion more. I just gave my reasoning. Rikster2 (talk) 11:23, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

In addition to Buzzfeed, this article cites The Atlantic Wire (an offshoot of The Atlantic that had been folded back in to its parent by the time of publication), Quartz, and Upworthy as inspirations. Worth noting that The Atlantic is Generally Reliable via RSP and the couple specific discussions of Quartz in the archives were positive. Upworthy is decidedly not. Twochutes (talk) 02:24, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Just cite the original source That Digiday source says

[FTW is] a very different type of sports site. In addition to categories for sports, for example, FTW has sections devoted to GIFs and lists. Many of the posts are repackaged content that has appeared elsewhere.

As often stated at WP:RSP, just directly cite the original sources that FTW repurposed, and avoid FTW's questionable, intentionally inciting, "social news" content. —Bagumba (talk) 02:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Outside of any specific context, For The Win appears to be a textbook newsblog - a purpose it has explicitly served since founding . It states its writers adhere to the USA TODAY NETWORK Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms, and its stories have been used by USATODAY's factcheckers. As Left Guide notes, WP:USEBYOTHERS appears to be fulfilled as well.

Within the specific context, the journalist's assertion that Rioux is a national champion disagrees with a user's interpretation of the NCAA manual. It is worth noting (primarily for the archives) that at this point the only two users disputing reliability also disagree with the journalist on the subject. Twochutes (talk) 03:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

the only two users disputing reliability also disagree with the journalist on the subject @Twochutes: I haven't kept score here. I am disputing FTW's reliability, but don't see where I have said that I disagree with the journalist on the subject. Can you please clarify? Thanks. —Bagumba (talk) 03:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

That was how I interpreted this post and your subsequent explanations in the same thread that consensus and policy support an article that contradicts the FTW piece. My apologies if I misread your stance in the context. Twochutes (talk) 03:34, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

That post was a plain factual observation, ending with an open Are there other sources that call them champions? I don't mind disagreements over arguments, but please assume good faith. FWIW, I have edited WP:NBARS regarding basketball sourcing. FTW would be of interest there. Regards. —Bagumba (talk) 03:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The sentence is something of a rhetorical flourish at the beginning of an article; the writer doesn't purport to consider whether (according to the record books) Rioux is actually a national champion. For The Win is published by USA Today. Absent demonstrable factual inaccuracy--which this is not--I'd consider it reliable. Mackensen (talk) 10:21, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

• FWIW, at the bottom of the source's web page, For the Win's "About" —> "Our Ethical Principles" button links to USA Today Network Principles of Ethical Conduct For Newsrooms. Doesn't this mean For the Win is governed by the same editorial oversight and policies as USA Today proper? Left guide (talk) 11:22, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Note: Notification has been left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject National Basketball Association regarding this discussion.—Bagumba (talk) 03:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Dispute over using reddit in citations

This concerns LGBTQ themes in Western animation where I removed contents from the article, and the other editor restored it. I thought this is an insignificant information from reddit r/Arcane, while the other claimed it's not because it's a comment by the show's creator.

The discussion took place here on my usertalk page. It did not go well, so I'm bringing the case here to ask others' opinions. I still think reddit can't be used as a reliable source. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 12:14, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Reddit is a crap source in general. For AMAs sometimes people take the time to verify the author. For contributors, not really. Even if we knew this was the correct person, it's still primary, and if a primary source is the only source, then that raises issues with WP:DUE. It would be different if PCGamer or whatever picked up on it and wrote about it. Otherwise we're not in the business of compiling social media posts, or this project would just end up being a glorified twitter feed. GMG^talk 12:42, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

If the account can be 100% confirmed as the author, an accounting claiming to be a specific person is very insufficient, then it would be reliable in an WP:ABOUTSELF way or WP:EXPERTSPS as it's a writer talking about the show they write for. Whether something someone said should be included in an article is a matter of NPOV rather than reliability, just because something being reliable sourced doesn't mean it should be included. The discussion on whether it's due inclusion is something best discussed in the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:57, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Reddit is 200% not an acceptable source for anything. Even if this is a confirmed account, it's undue because it comes from a primary source. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 14:37, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

If all information from that was undue then why would we bother having the WP:ABOUTSELF carveout? Not saying the case here is appropriate but provided the account is legitimate it's not worse than any other social media. PARAKANYAA (talk) 03:07, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Exactly. That's the reason I included it. It did seem, from Overton's tweet, that the account IS genuine. I think this whole discussion is rather silly, to be honest because Reddit is only cited TWICE on the entire page, and the rules, as I understand them, say that these sources CAN be cited if they are done minimally, and they ARE cited minimally on the page as a whole. Historyday01 (talk) 11:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

If you can confirm that the account is genuine, they could be considered a reliable source for information about work that they specifically were involved in. So long as the claims are not unduly self-serving.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 16:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, but how can I confirm that if I don't even have a Twitter account (I deleted mine earlier this year) and the tweet cited has since been deleted? She still HAS a Twitter account, however. Most of that type of stuff isn't accessible anymore if you don't have an account. It's infuriating. Historyday01 (talk) 16:01, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

An archived version of the link is fine. I would say that since that account, which is known to both you and her to be genuine, that confirmation is sufficient to confirm that the Reddit account is hers.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:16, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, so does that mean that the compromise text that I put in the article, which another editor on here reversed is OKAY? Or not? I really, really don't want to get into an edit war, and another user on this forum already accused me of starting one. Because this is how the Reddit link, in question, would be used:

In the series, Caitlyn Kiramman, a recurring character, is attracted to Vi, a woman from the undercity, despite their different circumstances. Show writer Amanda Overton said that the relationship between Caitlyn and Vi is "naturally developing," with writers honoring the lived experiences of both characters.

Historyday01 (talk) 12:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It's reliable for that, again if Twitter account is genuinely hers and not that of an imposter. That doesn't necessarily mean that the content should be included.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:27, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Bluethricecreamman, I think that archived tweet is reliably sufficient for confirming that the Reddit account is the genuine person. What do you think?--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

still arguably WP:UNDUE. if it were an important detail a secondary source would have reported it Bluethricecreamman (talk) 12:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that it might not be due. I was specifically asking about whether you think that the tweet can reliably confirm that the Reddit account is the same person.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 20:13, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

There are some situations where WP:ABOUTSELF applies; WP:PRIMARY sources have to be used with caution to avoid WP:OR / WP:SYNTH, and they're not generally usable for exceptional things because in that case giving them any attention at all risks being OR, but they're not rigidly banned in all situations. For Reddit, the most likely parts that are usable via ABOUTSELF are confirmed AMA interviews, for, say, basic uncontroversial biographical details or the like. It's important to be cautious about due weight, sure, but usually one sentence or so is fine unless there's some context that makes it controversial. (Though, I believe the quality of AMAs has slipped since Reddit fired the official person who handles them - but in its hayday it was definitely been used by other RSes, so WP:USEBYOTHERS applies to that specific narrow case, even if it's still ABOUTSELF.) --Aquillion (talk) 18:59, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

agree with GMG. if it was WP:DUE, another reliable secondary source would have reported this.

as is, we can't even confirm the redditor is the actual show creator. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:45, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

@Historyday01, would you come over and explain the part where you think the redditor is the creator? Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 10:42, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Please see my comment above in reply to PARAKANYAA. Since you did not include it in your description, which sadly is not surprising coming from you, I called Overton a key series writer and noted that I would cite Reddit "if that's the only place the information can be found" and called Overton as "someone important to a show," adding "I'm not going to cite some random fan analysis. For those reading the article, it is important to add information coming from one of the show writers." That is the key thrust of what I said. I will admit that I may have overstated it a bit to call her a "key series writer" but she IS credited with writing four episodes for the show ("Everybody Wants to Be My Enemy", "Heavy Is the Crown", "Pretend Like It's the First Time", and "Killing Is a Cycle"). So, I stand by inclusion of this material. I would be willing to cut down the section, even to just one citation, but I do NOT support removing it. Historyday01 (talk) 11:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I never said that it was a comment from the show creator. It was a comment from a show writer. That is different. Please correct your comment to update that. Otherwise, you are twisting what I said. Historyday01 (talk) 11:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

A writer is a creator. I don't see the point of the distinction considering this is about sourcing a reddit comment from someone who worked on the show. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 09:39, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The distinction is important, especially when it comes to animated series. I do not understand why you think this is an issue worth bringing to this forum. I have already said my piece here, in many comments, and in order to facilitate discussion, I do not wish to participate in this discussion after this point, as it does not appear to be going anywhere productive. I ask that all participants on me do not ping me about this topic. Thanks Whatever the decision is about Reddit following the end of this discussion, I will use it as a guide for further editing going forward.Historyday01 (talk) 17:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC) Okay, I guess I basically violated this now, so I'm striking this last statement. Anyway, I do hope this discussion ends soon, sigh. It seems we are just going around in circles.Historyday01 (talk) 12:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Historyday01 Wikipedia is not a forum, an neither is this noticeboard. (Sorry for the ping but, but I though I should inform you of that.) Sheriff U3 02:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I feel that this comment is pretty unnecessary. Why did you even ping me? I don't get it. You could have just left a comment on my talk page to this effect. How is your comment relevant, in any way, shape, or form, to what we are talking about here? Historyday01 (talk) 12:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

You stated in the above comment: "I do not understand why you think this is an issue worth bringing to this forum." That is why I notified you through the above comment about WP:NOTFORUM, and I pinged you so that you would notice it. (I don't know what your notification settings are for talk page discussions.) Yes I could have told you through your talk page, but this way if someone else decided to notify you too, then they would see that I already told you about it. (Not everyone checks the talk page before starting a discussion unfortunately.) Sheriff U3 16:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I hear what you are saying. I understand why you commented on here. That's all I'll say on that. Historyday01 (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC) Update: I reduced my number of comments on here, as I found there were a number of comments on here which were unnecessary. I do not plan on commenting or replying to any other posts on here. The content has already been removed from the page (by one of the users in this discussion), so I'd say this issue is mute, and further discussion on this topic is wholly, and completely, spurious. Following this discussion, if this happens again, and I'm called to this forum by another user for this discussion, or any discussion about reliability of sources, I will decline to participate.Historyday01 (talk) 18:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Historyday01 I'm not expecting a reply based on your above statements, but as to this statement - Whatever the decision is about Reddit following the end of this discussion, I will use it as a guide for further editing going forward - : Reddit in general isn't reliable at all. However, if an account can be verified as a specific individual, their comments may be reliable as a source for verifying information about them or something they were closely involved in. If there's a dispute about whether or not that information is worth being included, the relevant Noticeboard would be Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 22:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I came here because my comment about WP:RSPREDDIT was not addressed earlier. Emiya Mulzomdao (talk) 11:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Reddit, Quora, Stack Exchange and forum posts all fall under WP:UGC. It should not be used other than for uncommon case-by-case exceptions, such as when activity on Reddit is the subject of reliable mainstream media coverage and you include the link to the Reddit thread talked about in the reliable mainstream media outlet. As a matter of general sourcing practice, forum posts and other bloggy junk should rarely be cited. Graywalls (talk) 07:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I generally agree, but in some limited cases, Reddit can be fine. I would argue this is a limited case, especially if one of the links is removed. I just limited it, in a recent edit, to ONE link, rather than two, since both were from the same discussion. It is only ONE sentence in the entire article and now there is only ONE link to Reddit on the ENTIRE page, which is very, very minimal. It does not count as "undue weight." To say so, based on the text in my recent edit, seems silly and untrue. I also cut down another related comment by Overton.Historyday01 (talk) 17:31, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

It still falls under WP:UGC. If you have to rely on bloggy junk source like Reddit, Stack Exchange and like to source it, it likely doesn't belong. If it's worthy of inclusion, it will likely be covered by reliable secondary sources. Please do not continue to edit war. Graywalls (talk) 01:41, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Reddit and similar forums are not RS. There is no oversight on the quality of the material they produce. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:28, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Graywalls and Ramos1990, forum posts can be reliable sources by a source about things they were closely involved in, if the account can be verified as genuinely that of the individual in question. See this recent discussion. Now, whether including that content is due weight, that is a different question. If there's dispute over that, I'd recommend that the question go to the neutrality noticeboard.-- 3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

@3family6:, just noting you were a major participant in that discussion, and not necessarily of neutral position. When it comes to ABOUTSELF I see it as sourcing to cover something that's universally acceptable to include and the sources are to only serve as verification of facts. If we were to assume authenticity of source is certain, it's still an absolutely unreliable source to substantiate justifiability of including what's said in it and should not be used to flesh out contents from it. So, where they were born, date of birth and sort of thing would be ok. However, things written by an individual tend to contain what the _individual wants to say about themselves_ and Wikipedia articles are not a webhost, so covering those things would be undue. This is because anything self published is almost universally a terrible indicator of inclusionworthiness. Graywalls (talk) 15:55, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

just noting you were a major participant in that discussion, and not necessarily of neutral position. Why does that need to be noted? And opinions on here aren't "neutral", they're the specific judgments of specific editors. As you can see from that discussion, I sought opinions from other editors because I was not sure of the reliability of a source in an unusual situation. You can see their responses. Do you take issue with it? If not, why bring that up.

I agree that with ABOUTSELF, it works for verification but does not mean that the content is worth including. As I stated in the comment above, whether the material posted by the character writer on Reddit is worth including is a different question, for a different noticeboard. But in terms of reliability, Reddit posts and similar forum posts can be reliable sources about an individual if about themselves.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 20:19, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, at a bare minimum AMAs by confirmed individuals reach the threshold of WP:ABOUTSELF. There's substantial WP:USEBYOTHERS for that specific case, and they have an established method of confirming identities that is clearly treated as reputable by high-quality secondary sources, so if we're not going to accept them then what ABOUTSELF stuff would we accept? Of course, ABOUTSELF comes with a lot of important restrictions (not exceptional, not unduly self-serving, nothing about third parties, etc) but it's still usable. --Aquillion (talk) 19:01, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Reddit should not be used as a reliable source, as it is user-generated content. If you can't find any other sources (that are reliable) then it most likely should not be included. Social media platforms don't have any sort of oversight. (Except for moderation of content posted, but that is different then what we want for Reliable Sources.) also we don't allow forums and wikis as Reliable Sources for the same reason. (Wikis are worse though cause the content can change from when it was originally cited.) I suggest that you try looking for a RS, then if you don't find any you just don't add the content. While you are looking though the content should not be on the page. (You can have it in your sandbox so that you have it available for it and when you find a RS.) Sheriff U3 05:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

In this case, it's an editor wanting to use a particular Reddit post as a primary source statement by a source about themselves. Which, if it's actually the individual in question, would be reliable. Whether it's worthy of inclusion, that's another matter.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 12:22, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

If the article subject is a chef and they like your steak well done and that's what it says on their official page or verified Instagram, it passes the factual reliability of the claim. Oh and he's a cat dad and likes purple cars. It's an absolute unreliable source of indicating such statement is even worth a mention.

However, if an intellectually independent writing is done by reliable secondary sources that discuss his penchant for well done steak and his culinary creation, that source can be seen as a reliable indication of inclusion worthiness. Graywalls (talk) 16:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

That's all part of WP:DUE (NPOV), not WP:RS (V). Whether something can be reliably sourced, and whether it should be included are different subjects. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It depends on the context. "reliable" isn't just factual accuracy. It's about reliably establishing inclusion worthiness as well. ANY Reddit post is a reliable indicator of the fact that the said account xx made a post on subreddit on time day month year. Graywalls (talk) 04:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

"It's about reliably establishing inclusion worthiness" could be used as the short description of WP:NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Who says there can not be some overlap between NPOV and RSN relevance? Writing a "persuasive" piece would be a POV issue even if all the sources fully pass RS criteria. A source that can reliably show that this and that company was established in 1985, but can be a non-RS for "to produce high quality widget" Graywalls (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

This has gone very far off topic, social media posts are reliable for WP:ABOUTSELF details. If those details should be included or not is a matter of NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:11, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

You're conflating reliability with neutrality here. A source could be reliable, but the content not included because doing so would violate a neutral point of view in some way. And this noticeboard isn't about the latter issue. This noticeboard is for evaluating if specific sources are reliable or unreliable for specific usages.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 20:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

The easiest solution is to find sources that no one will argue is not reliable (e.g. secondary sources, not Reddit). It may result in someone else contesting it again in the future. The content that was removed seems like it would be covered in another some secondary source about the character development. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:12, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree that secondary would be preferable, in this case, it seems that it doesn't exist. To be clear, using it as a primary source would not be citing Reddit, it would be citing the primary source that used Reddit. As I've said above, the information might not be due. But there's nothing necessarily wrong with verifying material with a primary source.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 00:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

References

If it can't be used as a source, can Reddit be used as an external link instead per WP:EL? George Ho (talk) 05:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Quillette Reassessment

Quillette is currently listed as "generally unreliable" [61], however Ad Fontes Media ranks them as factually reliable as The Atlantic or Wired [62]. Additionally its reception section on the Wiki article doesnt seem overly negative. I think a reassessment of this source is in order. MasterBlasterofBarterTown (talk) 15:54, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Ad Fontes Media is not reliable. Simonm223 (talk) 15:56, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Do you have another widely agreed upon metric? MasterBlasterofBarterTown (talk) 16:04, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't use one external source to ascertain reliability of a source. Rather we adjudicate things such as their tendency to issue corrections when they publish inaccuracies, independence of the editorial team, reputation for fact checking and the extent to which opinion and news are clearly delineated. These decisions are made on a case-by-case basis and are generally derived from many data points. Simonm223 (talk) 16:10, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

That's not what the consensus was about. Some editors feel the information wasn't reliable but the consensus was it's assessments aren't due for inclusion in articles. There were editors who would use the assessments of MBFC, Ad Fontes and others to state a source was left, right, etc within articles. There was not a consensus that the sources were not useful when evaluating other sources at RSN etc. As for Quillette, it's going to have the same problem as last time. It's lately a collection of opinion articles. Sometimes the opinions are very well reasoned, other times not so much. Net result is the source rating probably is good where it's at. What could really move the needle is if the source had clear editorial control and fact checking. Evidence of that, ie evidence that we shouldn't treat the source as basically a collection of opinion articles, would help move the needle. Springee (talk) 16:09, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Ad fontes Media remains basically just Vanessa Otero's blog. I don't personally think that a random patent attorney from the United States has any qualifications to decide whether media counts as left, right or center. Regardless using it for determining reliability would be even more suspect as reliability isn't about political orientation. Simonm223 (talk) 16:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

The last time a discussion like this came up I did some searching on Google scholar and found several reviewed papers that used and even evaluated these rating sites. They found good correlation between the sites, and thus the various methods. They certainly are used by others for research purposes. For this reason I do see it as reasonable to present as one piece of information when evaluating a source. However, it alone is not sufficient and I 100% agree that their assessments shouldn't be used in a wiki article without an independent RS reporting on it. Basically the same treatment we might expect with views published by a think tank etc. Springee (talk) 16:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Its whole stick is to post deliberately contrarian opinion stuff. It's simply not usable for factual purposes, and for opinion it's almost always undue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:08, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Ad Fontes, and other such sites, don't evaluate sources based on Wikipedie's policies and guidelines, have their own biases and tend to be very US centric, so they have little use in discussion about reliability. They can be useful as a starting point for investigating a source, in the same way that Wikipedia can, to find issues to look into and evaluate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:16, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Is there a substantive reason to think Quillette has improved any? Last RFC was clear it was highly untrustworthy, with a significant minority for full deprecation. As far as I know, it's still a deliberately contrarian opinion site and any fact there couldn't be trusted without a better source as well, in which case just use the better source. You would need to make this case - David Gerard (talk) 08:00, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

The conclusion of the last RfC strikes me as quite balanced. Yes, there are instances where the opinions expressed in Quillette may be WP:DUE, but that it should be used solely for opinion, not for factual references. CFCF (talk) 08:18, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Looking at the actual text of the RFC you linked to, while most participants were in favor of unreliability or deprecation, there was not a strong rationale as to why. Most of the option 3/4 responses focused mainly on personally disliking Quillette rather than any objective criterion of unreliability. I personally think we should reconsider this decision, given that Quilette has published highly respected scientists such as James Flynn and Jerry Coyne. Partofthemachine (talk) 04:25, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The very first response is: Option 4 they publish falsehoods. First they are most widely known for publishing racist pseudoscience - Human Biodiversity - where they claim Black people are intellectually inferior to Whites. Second - they have fallen for multiple hoaxes and even expanded on one of them they also participated in another. Third their staff have been involved with extremist groups, one of which (disgraced journalist Andy Ngo) was caught out colluding with neo-nazis attempting to stage a violent news story - it was a pure partisan farce. Third they are hyper-partisan. Fourth they publish nothing but opinion...and the occasional hoax and staged news stories etc (as already mentioned). Quillette is the very definition of a unreliable source. I'd accept a Youtube video as a citation before I'd accept Quillette. They're a better dressed version of a right-wing conspiracy outlet. If you don't think that counts as a strong rationale, it's not clear what would be - David Gerard (talk) 21:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The blind leading the blind is the best way to describe Ad Fontes recommending Quillette. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 15:32, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless OP can demonstrate that Quillette has changed notably since the last RfC, this discussion is moot. Cortador (talk) 16:47, 10 April 2025 (UTC)

It's not wiki policy, but I do like mediabiasfactcheck.

They describe Quillete as "mixed" (aka sometimes) factual reporting and a right leaning bias. According to them it fails fact checks, has poor sourcing, and engages in pseudoscience.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/quillette/ Bob drobbs (talk) 21:30, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Fox News

Can we FINALLY have an RFC and admit that Fox News Isn't News and Isn't Reliable, It's Just Propaganda? https://www.ft.com/content/7aaea62c-f9f4-4f09-b474-f79edba09a94 73.206.161.228 (talk) 04:02, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

that's more or less reflected in current consensus around WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS. There is nothing wrong with a source being biased, though increasing bias often means more likely to be undue. And further demoting Fox News for politics probably means WP:DEPREC. Please also see WP:DEPS, but it would mean there is absolutely no editorial control, and the news stories are always on the level of breitbart, oann, national enquirer, and RT, in terms of being categorically wrong. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:06, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless there is some active dispute about a usinh Fox as a source then there is no need to revisit anything. Are they being used somewhere in an article and talk page discussion on the article's talk page hasn't been able to resolve the situation, or are they being used in a way that wastes editors time having to deal with clean up? Discussions are meant to be about evaluating sources for Wikipedia's purposes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:14, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Consensus shows that fox news can be used for local topics (like the store fire in town or the school shooting.) It just can't be used for topics related to politics. I doubt that there would be support for a complete ban, just the political reporting would likely be banned for being used as a RS. (Which it currently is already for the most part.) So a RFC is not necessary I think. We already have plenty of consensus for previous discussions to show that it should not be used as a RS political topics. It would likely be a waste of time to open a rfc and find out in the end that the consensus is roughly the same as it was in 2020-2023. (That is when there was a bunch of discussion about it's reliability.) Sheriff U3 05:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Meduza

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2025/03/17/a-costly-gamble

Is Meduza an RS for content about the Russo-ukrainian war, as it is bineg used to claim Russia won in trhe Kursk offensive? Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

My understanding is that Meduza is not Kremlin-aligned. If it isn't a reliable source then we should probably have a WP:NEWSORGRUSSIA policy that makes it clear that Wikipedia treats all Russian news as unreliable. I'm kind of neutral to that. Everyone knows I want to see fewer newspapers as sources on Wikipedia but I also do have worries about anglosphere-centric bias in Wikipedia.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying I am leaning very slightly toward yes, reliable, with attribution for opinions where due. Simonm223 (talk) 11:53, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not particularly familiar with that outlet. However, they also have this story linked at the bottom, which portraits the Ukrainian army in a fairly positive light. It's just one article, but the outlet at least doesn't seem to have some pro-Russia (or pro-Ukraine) bias extreme enough that makes them generally unreliable. Cortador (talk) 11:59, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Meduza is not based in Russia. Mellk (talk) 12:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Why didn't you check the archives? Two years ago three editors said it was reliable. Here's two more editors calling it reliable a year and a half ago.

2 editors in this topic, 5 previously, that is 7 editors who have said that Meduza.io is reliable in the last two years. Unless something significant has changed regarding Meduza's reporting, I don't see the point of this thread. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 12:12, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I did, but found no real discussion. Slatersteven (talk) 12:54, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

By the way, in your first link there are two responses, one asking. Slatersteven (talk) 12:55, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

This is getting very tiresome. Even if what you say is true (and it isn't, the link links to a topic where three editors call Meduza reliable), it wouldn't change anything. So far, no editor has said Meduza is unreliable. It was cited 8 times at the Kursk offensive (2024-2025) article before I cited it in the infobox. You never seemed to have problems with it before, why do you think it is unreliable now all of a sudden? TurboSuperA+_(connect) 14:57, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Because I have not viewed every soruce in the article. But let others have their say, Im came here to ask people's opinions. Slatersteven (talk) 15:06, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Wouldn’t an isolated statement that one side “won” an offensive be a statement of opinion anyway? John M Baker (talk) 19:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

• Wikipedia has an article on the source Meduza that suggests that while the source is independent of Russian/Ukrainian regimes, it is clearly an activist website run by Russian journalists effectively in exile. See too the note inset within the the article being cited that says:

  Meduza has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine from the very start, and we are committed to reporting objectively on a war we firmly oppose. Join Meduza in its mission to challenge the Kremlin’s censorship with the truth. Donate today.

Therefore, while it would be okay to cite Meduza's analysis of the state of the Kursk offensive with attribution, as John M Baker also opines, it would be wrong to cite their take as a fact in wiki-voice. Abecedare (talk) 19:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Meduza is used as a source hundreds of times across dozens of articles. There was never an issue before. The issue arose the moment they published something editors don't like.

How can we do a Wikipedia search to see exactly how many times and on which articles a source is used? TurboSuperA+_(connect) 03:53, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

See Special:LinkSearch/meduza.io. If you have the time, it could be worthwhile reviewing whether Meduza has been cited appropriately elsewhere on wikipedia keeping in mind WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. But as far as the particular use of the source at Kursk offensive (2024–2025) is concerned, an WP:OTHERCONTENT-type argument is not of much value. Abecedare (talk) 22:07, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not sure what context you're looking for, but here's what I found (not an exhaustive list):

• Here it is used as a source for when the battle of Shusha started and here it is used as a source for when the battle in the Liakhvi Gorge started.
• Here it is used to confirm the presence of an army formation, also here.
• Here it is used as a source for the start of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.
• It is used a lot in Wagner Group–Russian Ministry of Defence conflict and quite a few times at the battle of Shusha (2020).
• Here it is used as a source for the end and outcome of a battle.

Meduza is used as a source in military conflicts, mainly RUSUKR conflicts but also others. It is used as a source for when battles began as well as when they ended, it is also used to confirm the presence and movement of military formations. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 16:27, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Slatersteven What is the claim it is being used for? This one? Yes, it's fine.

I read Meduza sometimes in Russian, they are generally pretty good. They have a robust code of conduct, they identify their editorial team, and have a lot of helpful footnotes in the articles that define potentially foreign concepts. They are identified as in opposition to the Kremlin (which is why they write from Latvia), so there may be a sound argument that they are biased. However, biased doesn't mean unreliable. Also, I don't think that it somehow weighs on their lack of impartiality particularly strongly because you can't really criticise the Russian government in Russia without being arrested or at least having a stern talk with the FSB. And even if we assume that they are cheerleading for Ukraine (and so presumably are biased in coverage in their favour), they just wrote about a thing that the Ukrainian govt would not like to admit, so they should be reliable for statements that are not favourable to their preferred side, right?

I also searched through ru.wiki discussions on their RSN, here's some of the results:

March 2017 March 2022, April 2022, January 2023

Of these results, the first three basically came to the conclusion that Meduza was reliable as no evidence of fake or inaccurate factual reporting were detected, but the source itself is polarising due to being against the Kremlin and sometimes pretty strongly so. The fourth source is based on an analysis of Meduza's "anonymous sources close to the Kremlin" reports, and it found that 90% of them proved false. That said, we already warn people to stay away from anonymous sources, and this is not the case for which we want to cite the source.

So I'd say it's generally reliable, and it's reliable for the assessment that Ukraine lost in Kursk oblast. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 22:51, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Just to add my agreement that Meduza is a highly regarded reliable source. If other good sources disagree with an interpretation about who “won” a specific battle/campaign, we should report both with attribution. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:56, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

GBNews as a source on child based sexual exploitation

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.

---

No conclusion was found here Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 465#GBNews can be reliable for group based child sex exploitation

Should or should not GBNews be given an exception on this? NotQualified (talk) 20:31, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Why would it need an need as exception? Slatersteven (talk) 20:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Please read through the link. Everything is discussed there. NotQualified (talk) 20:40, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not seeing any reason there to change it. Slatersteven (talk) 20:42, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

To summarise then: they are an immense source of information on this and they are accurate in their reporting on this. It is a detriment, not a gain, to not include GBNews. NotQualified (talk) 21:16, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

"detriment" to pushing your rightwing agenda, more like, which is basically all you do as an editor. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:22, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Aye. A brief look at the OPs userpage should explain everything. In fact, I'm a little concerned about their pushing of what appears to be a race-based agenda on quite a lot of articles. Black Kite (talk) 21:27, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Yup. NotQualified's latest article edit, stating opinion (second hand, from an opinion piece in the Spectator from what appears to be a guest writer) as fact. [64] AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:42, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this isn't DUE in Lam's article either; she isn't a relevant minister for the subject, so why is it taking up 25% of her article? Removed. Black Kite (talk) 22:08, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I also question whether this is due in Trevor Phillips article. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:16, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

I've removed that, political party 'A' says political party 'B' is bad is never going to be due for inclusion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:55, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

No, Trevor is not a Tory, his own page lists him as Labour. I added the Tory part for context. Trevor is officially Labour and his comments made headline news to the point the BBC themselves directly asked Yvette Cooper about them. This is a Labour veteran accusing the party of pandering to an Islamic extremist vote, something which obviously fits into the "Views on Islam" subsection in his article. Regardless, none of this is relevant to this discussions and frankly is just ad hominem. I have linked a huge discussion on the matter and it got auto-archived without resolution and instead I'm just having my Log Contributors deemed 'race-based' and dissected instead of addressing the matter at hand. NotQualified (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't me who added the Tories for context. The sourced article itself did! NotQualified (talk) 15:53, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Hemi, considering Trevor literally has a subsection entitled "Views on Islam", and expressed a view that has gone viral in every British mainstream media press to the point Home Secretary Yvette Cooper literally directly commented on them, I'd argue it's due. However, if you believe it should take a United Nations address by Keir Starmer himself as the minimum to entry, I'll keep you posted if that materialises. Apologies for the sarcasm, but it is a bit tiring reading through four editors dissect everything I've written with a chainsaw whilst ignoring the subject at hand, GBNews, and also ignoring how reputable sources work. NotQualified (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

You can trim it down but her comments made headline news, I didn't deem them worthy of inclusion, the media did. NotQualified (talk) 15:28, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

If you want to take them all down, fine, you can ignore what reputable sources have chosen to write about (I can find more if you wish, the comments were viral) and instead you can just decide unilaterally that it isn't worth even adding at all. I agree it was long-winded, but scrapping it to 0% is a more extreme position, we don't usually scrap information entirely because we haven't yet added different information around an article's subject, but rather, we add that different information around an article's subject. If an article is a human, and all of their organs are weak but their pancreas is healthy, we don't just stab the pancreas to get it as weak as the rest but rather try to nurture the rest of the organs to be as strong as the pancreas. NotQualified (talk) 15:40, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Andy, I included quotes of Lam's from her speech which were included in the opinion piece, not the opinion's of the writer in question around those quotes. Also, if I was quoting first hand that would mean I'd be using Lam as a source on Lam, which is not what we're supposed to do at all. NotQualified (talk) 15:14, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Andy, your comments are objectively false. I did not express 'opinion'. I quoted what Lam said from an article. I did not cite the opinions of the author. The only part which could possibly be interpreted as "opinion" is "Lam also took offense", which given her speech was on the raping of children and racism around it, I'd really find it beyond bizarre but untenable if her being "offended" is the so-called opinion you're referring to as me being irresponsible in my sourcing. Please apologise. NotQualified (talk) 15:58, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I see no reason to apologise for your inability to parse what I wrote. Or indeed, to respond any further to someone who insists other 'stay on topic', while failing to do so themselves. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

You are forcing me to go off topic, not the other way round. You said I included opinion in my writing, I did not, which means you were objectively wrong and are misrepresenting me to fit your ad hominem narrative rather than discussing GBNews. NotQualified (talk) 16:20, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I am in no position to 'force' you to do anything. Stop making shit up. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

You are accusing me of incorrect sourcing, yes that is actually forcing my hand to address that. You take issue with me instead of GBNews, and then I extensively address that, and ask to go on topic, and then you take issue with how I addressed that saying I am now the one trying to go off topic. I want to stay on topic now. NotQualified (talk) 16:29, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Special:Diff/1285124320 fails verification due to the way it was phrased. The statement "Lam also took offense that the crimes were 'racially and religiously aggravated'..." implies that the crimes were indeed "racially and religiously aggravated", despite that claim being Lam's opinion. For example, borrowing from a rhetorical example, the statement "She took offense that he beat his wife" contains a claim that the mentioned male did indeed "beat his wife", which does not sufficiently attribute the claim to the mentioned female. — Newslinger talk 16:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I see your point, I put it in quotation marks believing people would understand that this is her words and thus her opinion, which is true, however I understand it is possible to misinterpret as me claiming she is objectively correct, which is not true. I agree with her opinion, but despite that I still tried to specify it was just her words and her words only. To my understanding, this is a miscommunication between Andy and I. Thank you Newslinger. NotQualified (talk) 16:24, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• 'which is true' as in it's true it's her opinion, not that what she said was true in an objective sense. NotQualified (talk) 16:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I want to mention that the solution to this was not to delete what I had written but to add a further clarification that it was Lam's opinion. Deleting it was, to be clear, not the right decision. NotQualified (talk) 16:41, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I've had this account for years, I've only ever mentioned ethnicity or nationality around rape four times and thrice have all been this week given the amount of news around Lam's comments. On researching them, I found out about the Hydra program and added it to Grooming Gangs. The only other instance is something on Jack Straw. Whenever I write about rape gangs, I only include nationality if the writer mentions them. I am not choosing that or synthesising, the media is, so go accuse them of being racist if you so wish, their emails aren't hard to find. NotQualified (talk) 15:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

And again, this is JUST ad hominem from all of you. I'm trying to discuss if GBNews can get an exception as it was previously deemed to be accurate in its coverage by a plurality of editors on this issue, that discussion is linked. If you want to call me a bad person, my user page is open. I believe a user named 'Hitler' called me a pussy there recently, so frankly I'm all ears to criticism, even from the dead. NotQualified (talk) 15:34, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I have right wing views, sure, but I'm not a partisan. I was the one who wrote the entirety of James McMurdoch's kicking situation. I also wrote about how Nigel Farage lied to Tony Mack about financial compensation after replacing him for candidacy. Also, this is just ad hominem. NotQualified (talk) 15:10, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Hemi, this is ad hominem. NotQualified (talk) 15:24, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Unless you care to make an actual argument, unlike last time, the answer is still going to be a "no", with a side of "stop wasting our time" and an additional "repeatedly raising the same thing without any policy based arguments in favour may be considered disruptive, and is certainly not going to win you any points". I would certainly suggest considering a different approach (such as, for example, raising an argument based on policies and guidelines) as the community's patience otherwise is unlikely to be infinite. Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

It was never a 'no', it was unresolved and got auto-archived.

"repeatedly raising the same thing without any policy based arguments in favour may be considered disruptive, and is certainly not going to win you any points".

That's just blatantly untrue, this was extensively discussed prior. I didn't want to rehash everything when it has already all been written, I just needed resolution on what was discussed. Stop being so rude. NotQualified (talk) 15:17, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

"unlike last time"

Yes, I'm aware dozens of arguments were made last time, that's why I linked it instead of copy and pasting a wave of text. I just wanted a conclusion on the discussion that got auto-archived, something which was not reached last time. Again, this is insanely rude. NotQualified (talk) 15:48, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

If you find it rude for someone to point out that your proposal clearly did not attain a consensus in favour and people are going to find it unproductive unless you change tack, such as in the manner proposed above, then perhaps you would better enjoy activities which do not require discussions to reach a consensus in your favour.

If you really don't realise how the previous discussion is likely to be seen, you are free to request a formal closure of the previous discussion at WP:ANRFC, nobody here can stop you, but I expect the reception you received here would be somewhat indicative of the perceived result of the previous discussion, and if you are unable to reconcile your own expectations with that, such a formal closure unfortunately may disappoint you. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:12, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I am not referring to someone saying I should "attain a consensus" is rude, I'm saying someone who says I'm "making shit up" and generally is hostile is rude. I want to attain a consensus, that's why I'm here. NotQualified (talk) 10:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• If there's a persistent behavioral pattern of WP:TENDENTIOUS editing, then WP:ANI may be a more appropriate venue. Left guide (talk) 22:35, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

No it should not be given an exception, use a different source. Or if the situation is truly exceptional get consensus to use it on the relevant article's talk page. This board is for advice and the general sentiment of the last discussion wasn't very positive. Unless there is some new information or issue, there is no point in just having the same discussion again. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:51, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

It was neither fairly positive nor fairly negative, it was a mixed bag. Most editors agreed GBNews was factually accurate on this but some had concerns it had bias. Thank you for engaging with me on the matter at hand and contributing towards productive discourse. NotQualified (talk) 15:26, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Considering the other threads have been co-opted into things irrelevant to this, let's discuss on this thread the matter of GBNews's status. Thank you again for staying on topic. NotQualified (talk) 15:50, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

To stay on topic you don't get to keep taking another bite of the cake. You're not going to find much interest in discussing the same source again unless you provide some actual reason for doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

To rehash the prior discussion, they have an extensive accurate coverage on a particular subject and not including them is worse than including them. Yes, their coverage on other things, e.g. climate, is poor. But their coverage on this is stellar and years long. There have been times where only GBNews has been covering rape gang information, and as their coverage has been accurate, I see little reason to not include them. Major political parties respect their coverage too.

https://x.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1910610272466719152 NotQualified (talk) 16:18, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Of course a political party will appreciate sources that agree with them on an issue. What you're saying here is that because the source has a bias, that makes it more reputable.--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 16:29, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I am showing it is a respected authority on this matter to the point the official opposition cites it. Just because a political party cited information does not mean it is a stooge for them, though yes GBNews is a conservative outlet and the Tories are conservative as well. The fact it is being cited by two of the three main political parties and other reputable sources, and so frequently, on child based sexual exploitation shows it is a respected authority on this matter. It is accurate, it is respected by reputable sources and mainstream politicians to the point of directly citing them, that's the argument that needs to be beat fundamentally to not include GBNews. Is something that is mainstream, accurate, and respected in its authority by mainstream outlets and politicians not worth inclusion. NotQualified (talk) 16:35, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I don't think the fact it has been referred to by Farage and Badenoch - coincidentally (or perhaps not) two politicians who have both come under fire in the past for their alleged Islamophobia - means it is "respected"; indeed, one may suggest that its fellow travellers reflect badly on its handling of the relevant subject. Even so, trying desperately to shoehorn criticism of Labour by the right-wing parties into other articles does not suggest an editor who is editing neutrally. Black Kite (talk) 12:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If two of the three biggest party leaders treat this as if it had authority, that isn't something one can just brush off as arbitrary. It hasn't just been referred, it's been cited. On your Islamaphobia remark, Wikipedia does not have blasphemy laws and writes how things are, not how one wants them to be. Trevor Phillips' remarks made headline news, so did Lam's, I do not choose who makes the news - the news does. Again, re-direct your repeated bigotry assertions to them. Email Badenoch, Farage, and all the news companies that I sourced and the writers that wrote their articles, not me. NotQualified (talk) 12:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Not the point. In the Lam edit, for example, you wrote that she was "...citing how the government was not planning on looking into 45 out of the 50 known towns where the exploitation was happening." "Citing" suggests a fact, and is written in Wikivoice. In fact, this "45 out of 50 known towns", as the source says, was merely Lam's opinion ... which she got from a GBNews investigation! Black Kite (talk) 13:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I do believe that a GBNews investigation initially presented the listings of all the towns, which honestly bolsters the argument to include them as the Official Opposition seem to be taking them as reference, but I digress, The Independent article does not seem to contradict the claim or suggest it is merely opinion, despite it being objectively worded and falsifiable.

"Ms Lam also pressed the case for a national inquiry adding: “In five towns, these children and their families may get partial answers but I have mentioned five towns in the last few minutes alone and there are at least 45 more."

If the article were to suggest it was an opinion, or if it was disputed, it would have written so. Granted, I should have written previously that something else I had written was Lam's opinion because clearly quotation marks do cause confusion. Regardless, I do not see where the source claims Lam was giving an opinion here. It puts what she said into quotation, but that's it, that doesn't inherently mean it's an opinion and for a claim as big as this, a paper would clarify that. Lam was giving an objective styled statement, not a belief, and as that's falsifiable, any credible author would've disputed the claim if it was false. If for example Donald Trump said "Joe Biden murdered someone", you would naturally expect a paper to clarify the quotation is merely his statement and not true, even wording it as "Donald Trump claimed 'Joe Biden murdered someone'". "Pressed the case" does not suggest a claim to my interpretation, though we can get caught up in semantics if desired. NotQualified (talk) 14:40, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Also, I do not see what 'point' you were initially or now currently trying to make. You initially said that two of the three main party leaders citing a source does not make it a respected source and also they're potentially Islamaphobic and thus biased and can't be relied upon. Then it just seems to have morphed into taking issue with me, suggesting I'm bad faith, and also how I presented what a source had written on Lam's article. I feel like this is only tangentially even related to GBNews at this point and I no longer see your 'point' beyond that I'm just a bad Wikipedian. NotQualified (talk) 14:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If you really want another source besides the Independent for there being 50 towns, here's the Telegraph, a recognised reputable source, citing Charlie Peters of GBNews. [65] Again, it just bolsters my argument. Anyways, I'm off to read Wikipedia policy into all of this. NotQualified (talk) 14:49, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

No, not to rehash the previous discussion. Do you have anything new to discuss? If you have nothing new to discuss, then there is nothing to discuss. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:32, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I linked the prior discussion for others to read. If people choose not to read them I have to summarise it for them for their own understanding, that's not my fault.

"The fact it is being cited by two of the three main political parties and other reputable sources, and so frequently, on child based sexual exploitation shows it is a respected authority on this matter. It is accurate, it is respected by reputable sources and mainstream politicians to the point of directly citing them."

ActivelyDisinterested, if something is "mainstream, accurate, and respected in its authority by other mainstream reputable outlets and politicians", should it be included or not. If so, then all I have to do is prove it is those things (though 'mainstream' is not necessary, just added for thoroughness. We can disagree if it is mainstream, it doesn't really matter). Granted, there pretty much was consensus it was accurate in the previous discussion, so I only have to prove it is respected by mainstream politicians and mainstream reputable outlets, which is very easy to do because it's posted and cited by them constantly for this.

If you disagree that something that is accurate and respected by reputable sources in its authority should be added, why?

I'm trying to establish clear mutual chain of thought here. The quotations are mine but I'm quoting as not to repeat myself outright. NotQualified (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

NotQualified, You yourself described GBNews as "generally speaking not a great source" when you opened the archived discussion. Nothing you have offered here seems to justify making an exception in regard to the specific topic which is your clear focus. Community consensus has been to describe it as 'generally unreliable' at WP:RSNP, and I see no reason to override such consensus based only on an inconclusive discussion on a narrower topic.

If you wish to propose that a narrower exception be made with regard to citing GBNews for specific text in a specific Wikipedia article, you might possibly get somewhere, though I suspect even that might be difficult. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:11, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, and I still strongly agree it is "generally speaking not a great source". It is usually a poor one on things such as climate for example. However, it's coverage on rape gangs is stellar and is cited by major parties and other reputable sources frequently. It is an authority on this matter and it is accurate. That is the crux of my argument. NotQualified (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

You have provided no verifiable evidence here that remotely supports a claim that GBNews "is cited by major parties and other reputable sources frequently", or that it is "an authority on this matter". I surggest you either do so, or stop wasting peoples' time through endless repetition. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:31, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Must I scroll through Kemi and Nigel's Twitter feeds for you in full? I have cited the former conversation around this which covered in detail how other sources linked to GBNews, re-read it if needed. The reason I'm repeating myself is because you're failing to dispute the argument itself. Finally, to address your general rudeness, may I remind you that I'm here because I'm concerned about Wikipedia not having the best policies when writing about the raping of children, I'm not here because I enjoy this nor to stroke my own ego. Stop being so rude. NotQualified (talk) 17:56, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

There was no consensus for an exception last time, unless you provide new details you're wasting everyone's time. Re-doing the same discussion again and again until you get the answer you want isn't going to happen. It is up to you to convince others editors you are right. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:36, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

There was no consensus either way, for or against. That's why I'm here. I want to reach a consensus. NotQualified (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Then provide evidence to back up your claims. Actual, directly verifiable evidence, through citations. Here in this thread. Not vague handwaving about Twitter feeds. Not a link to a single Twitter thread which consists of nothing more than Badenoch responding to a post where someone else reported on something on GBNews. You stated that GBNews "is an authority on this matter". Prove it. Cite the sources to back it up. Or drop the matter, since there is clearly nothing remotely supporting a consensus here that GBNews's coverage of this topic is any better than the rest of their content, or in any way necessary to ensure proper coverage of the topic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:03, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Yoi're still not getting it. Just re-doing the last discussion over and over will get nowhere. If there is nothing new to discuss then there's no new discussion. This isn't about you or GBNews but the way discussions work, you'll see the same in the archives in other instances. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I have presented my argument, if it can't be disputed then other WIkipedians will see that themselves. I am off to gather evidence for my claims. Once brought, my view will be tenable and the burden of proof will shift. Give me time ActivelyDisinterested. NotQualified (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

If that's the case can I suggest closing this thread and opening a new one once you have gathered your evidence? That way you can present your arguments and evidence together, and have time to work out how best to present them. This thread is a mess and once something like this has gone off the rails it rarely results in anything useful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

It won't take me long to gather it, and frankly, anything to do with this goes off the rails. I'll keep this open. NotQualified (talk) 23:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

"...someone else reported on something on GBNews" No, that was a journalist working for GBNews who has worked for years on child based sexual exploitation, not "someone".

Firstly, I reject your goal post that reposting Twitter feeds by mainstream politicians is not their recognition of its value. I will however compile a list of times it has been cited by other mainstream outlets, and politicians, and present findings here. Afterwards, once that goalpost has been met, I hope you do not shift the goalpost.

"...nothing remotely supporting a consensus here." In the linked discussion, GBNews was generally found to have reported on this more than other outlets. I wouldn't be using "remotely" so flagrantly. "...any way necessary to ensure proper coverage of the topic." something doesn't have to be necessary to discuss a topic, it has to benefit the discussion of a topic. I, again, reject this goalpost. NotQualified (talk) 20:23, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh good grief, you can "reject" all you want, ultimately nobody on this noticeboard has any authority over you in real life, but on this website we have these things called "policies" and "guidelines" and those "policies" and "guidelines" indicate that the people here expect the sources used to meet certain standards. So:

Firstly, I reject your goal post that reposting Twitter feeds by mainstream politicians is not their recognition of its value.

You're certainly free to hold the belief that twitter popularity is an indicator of value, but see the title of the page you are on. It does not say "Valuable sources/Noticeboard". Politicians, and their twitter feeds, do not typically have a positive reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources, the page the application of which is what discussions on this page are about). Were I to venture a guess, the reputation is rather the opposite in most cases.

If you are in any way inclined to find out the standard against which things are measured, or, "the goalpost" if you will, Wikipedia:Reliable sources § Usage by other sources details how usage by other sources should be interpreted as evidence, and how sources would generally be used given that evidence.

GBNews was generally found to have reported on this more than other outlets.

That's not actually a good thing, insofar as your argument for using it in Wikipedia articles is concerned. You may find the last two sentences of the previously linked section useful information.

something doesn't have to be necessary to discuss a topic, it has to benefit the discussion of a topic. I, again, reject this goalpost.

So, again, you can reject things all you wish, but the expectations we have are there, written clearly black and white (assuming you haven't set some custom font colour) and it is ultimately your choice whether you wish to meet those expectations. Certainly, you don't have to follow the rules that have been set, however, the people here would likely continue to express their own wish, that you rail against those expectations elsewhere. Alpha3031 (t • c) 06:16, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I will look into all of this, thank you Alpha3031. NotQualified (talk) 10:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Obviously this is not Reliable as a source. Why are we wasting time on this? --DanielRigal (talk) 20:40, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Why isn't it, it isn't obvious to me. NotQualified (talk) 21:06, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

it is considered unreliable on all things according to WP:RSP and previous discussions on here.

to prove otherwise, there needs to be substantive proof that consensus has changed. otherwise this is WP:1AM and WP:DEADHORSE Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I know it is considered unreliable according to WP:RSP, I have suggested an asterisk to it saying that their coverage on group based child sexual exploitation is reliable. From what I've gathered, if I compile evidence that other mainstream reputable sources view it as reliable on this, as well as mainstream political figures viewing it as an authority on the matter, it would shift the burden of proof on to people saying it shouldn't be included. NotQualified (talk) 10:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

You have to understand that there must be consensus to use GBNews in this context as this is about a crime topic and the fall under BLP restrictions. If by your admission the discussion is inconclusive, that's not an unequivocal yes - something you need here. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 09:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

That is why I am here Szmenderowiecki, there was neither a yes or a no attained previously. NotQualified (talk) 10:44, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

You need an unequivocal yes, particularly for articles about living people. By your admission, there is no consensus, therefore, you can't use it. Since we are speaking about living people, we should immediately remove any material sourced in that way (WP:BLPRS)

You are yet to demonstrate that we should change our minds. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I know, someone has linked criteria. I have a life to live, give me some time to go through it all and come back. NotQualified (talk) 11:32, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I know I need a 'yes' via consensus, you know I know I need a 'yes' via consensus. Also, I haven't sourced anything via them, no need. NotQualified (talk) 11:33, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

So if you say there's "no need" to source anything through GBNews, why start a discussion about it? The purpose of RSN is to discuss proper use of sources in context, it isn't supposed to be something like, "let's have a chat about Politico because I feel like it" Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:39, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

There is a 'need' in the sense it would improve Wikipedia. Is it necessary to discuss the topic? No. Does it make the coverage of the topic better? Yes. There's a fundamental difference between 'necessary' as in to even be able to do something and 'better' as in if it would be beneficial. NotQualified (talk) 12:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

In what you're replying to however, I meant 'need' in the sense there is 'no need' to 'remove any material sourced in that way' as I haven't sourced it that way. NotQualified (talk) 12:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• Stuff relating to "group-based CSA" is usually WP:EXCEPTIONAL, and stuff relating to CSA as it touches on BLPs is perhaps as WP:BLP-sensitive as it is possible to get. Obviously such things require the highest-quality sources, and obviously we can't allow an otherwise-unreliable source to be used for that specifically. WP:RSP is a general guideline and not a hard-and-fast rule, but something that sits at this extreme of the spectrum for sourcing requirements clearly shouldn't be cited to a source like this. --Aquillion (talk) 12:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Not what I meant was I see nothing in that thread to change my views that their reporting should be exempted from them not being as RS on this topic. Slatersteven (talk) 11:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

A suggestion

At 20:37 yesterday, NotQualified wrote " I am off to gather evidence for my claims. Once brought, my view will be tenable and the burden of proof will shift. Give me time." [66] I suggest we do that, and ignore entirely anything they posted since.

NotQualified, the only way you can possibly win this argument is by providing the evidence you claim exists. Anything else (i.e. the 11 posts you've made here since stating that you were going to provide it) is achieving nothing beyond testing everyone's patience. Wikipedia:Don't bludgeon the process exists for a reason. Stop responding to anything and everything. Find your evidence. Post that. Just that. And then let us see whether the evidence supports your case. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:13, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I am concerned this may represent OR, which we can't access here. Slatersteven (talk) 13:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Please let NotQualified present their 'evidence' first. If it isn't relevant to WP:RS policy, we can say so: but we need to see it first. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:28, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a bit of a mess to be honest Slater but I'll see what I can do with the policy frameworks provided. NotQualified (talk) 14:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I am responding to others, such as I'm responding to you now, if you say something I will respond. Again, I've asked for time. I also have been informed on policy documentation which I must read. Things like this usually take a few days, especially with other personal matters to attend to. NotQualified (talk) 14:24, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Enough

Given NotQualified's clear and unambiguous failure to get the point,[67][68] I am now going to start a thread at WP:ANI, where I am going to make a rather unusual request: that NotQualified be blocked from editing this page only, and be temporarily topic banned from discussing this specific issue (the reliability of GBNews as a source) anywhere on Wikipedia for a period of 5 days only. This should hopefully permit sufficient time for NotQualified to compile the evidence claimed off-Wikipedia, while putting a halt to the budgeoning and other pointless misuse of this noticeboard. This thread can be closed, and when the block expires, a new thread, with the evidence supporting the use of GBNews "for group based child sex exploitation" presented, and evaluated per Wikipedia policy, without all the repetitive going-nowhere back-and-forth above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:24, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

You don't have to start a thread, I'll just do that out of politeness. It's not my fault others were making further comments addressed to me that I was expected to reply to from them. I'll go silent on this for a few days. Chill out. P.S. no one is forcing you to be subscribed to this thread either, if you don't want to deal with it, don't. NotQualified (talk) 15:30, 13 April 2025 (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.

EIN Presswire

There is something called EIN Presswire, and they publish press releases. Nothing wrong with that. They are sometimes re-published like here [69] at fox40.com, and so to Google it's "news". It has some presence on WP [70]. Some of these cites may be fine per WP:ABOUTSELF etc. Some may not be. For one thing, it's probably never relevant in the WP:N context. Disclaimer from the fox40 article: "EIN Presswire provides this news content "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:05, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Reliable for ABOUTSELF statements, with obvious care for unduly self-serving details, and definitely not independent for notability. Republished press releases are still pressing releases, but I'd bet most of the problematic uses are naive good faith additions. Using 'insource' highlights some more uses in articles.[71], and searching for 'fox40.com/business/press-releases/' shows press releases from other agencies as well.[72] -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:33, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

AP, and probably others, re-publish them too:[73] Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:08, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

• Can be marginaly used based on WP:ABOUTSELF but only briefly about purely claimed facts - skip all adjectives. Else we will get long advertising items. And I would avoid reprints. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:25, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Michael Jackson, the King of Pop: The Big Picture: The Music! The Man! The Legend! The Interviews: An Anthology

• Jones, Jel D. Lewis (2005). Michael Jackson, the King of Pop: The Big Picture: The Music! The Man! The Legend! The Interviews: An Anthology. Amber Books Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9749779-0-4.

Would this book count as a reliable source for concert tours and such? HorrorLover555 (talk) 12:19, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Has it been challenged? Mackensen (talk) 12:36, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

It's from a fairly small publisher and I can't find much about the author, but I can't see a reason it wouldn't be reliable for details about tours. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:02, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I see no reason why it wouldn't be reliable for concert tours either. So I guess, maybe it is passable? HorrorLover555 (talk) 11:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

It should be fine for uncontroversial information, and the interviews are usable for WP:ABOUTSELF information. I would not use it for anything controversial. John M Baker (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Seems like a ok source to use unless it is significantly challenged. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Pop Journal

Hello! I was directed to this page, so I'll just copy what I said in the teahouse.

Pop Journal (https://popjournalofficial.com/) is an online magazine dedicated to P-pop and Filipino pop culture in general. They write their stuff news-style and have a lot of original photography of these artists, like this: https://www.instagram.com/abcpopjournal/p/DHibULVyei7/?img_index=1

However, I realized that their site is hosted by Wordpress because they use a WP Moose theme for the site design. I know that Filipinos in general (both fans and artists) struggle with a lack of budget, though, so that probably explains their reliance on Wordpress as a host. They've built a pretty solid name and reputation among P-pop fans and offer lots of legit exclusive, original news and media (like pics and videos). Would they be considered an acceptable source or not? (I did read the "reliable source" article, but I thought to ask here for verification. The article said that blogs are a gray area.)

Another editor said it looks OK because the content isn't blog-like (although they are hosted on WP) and they have an editorial team, but also noticed that there are no existing uses of Pop Journal on Wikipedia articles at the moment. I believe it's because P-pop simply lacks dedicated news sites and coverage, though, and Pop Journal is a novelty (hence the lack of usage on WP so far). P-pop, as a whole, lacks recognition and dedicated fans compared to say, K-pop. But yeah, wondering if this site would be an acceptable source for articles. Bloomagiliw (talk) 13:51, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I skimmed through https://popjournalofficial.com/pop-journal-team/, and my impression is "group blog". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:16, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Damn. If I use it as a source on a lower-importance sort of article, would that be acceptable? It's not ideal, but P-pop really lacks that sort of dedicated coverage. Bloomagiliw (talk) 14:18, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

@Bloomagiliw Context matters. You can always be WP:BOLD and see what happens. It could be acceptable for uncontroversial stuff, but probably not for serious WP:BLP-stuff or WP:N, that's my guess. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:35, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

I think the two key parts to ascertain is 1) is there meaningful editorial oversight, and 2) does it have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy?--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 16:25, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay, in an advert for more writers [74], they do mention that the writers are expected to review and edit their work. But does that mean that the editors check it, too?--3family6 (Talk to me|See what I have done) 16:27, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Some of its writers have journalism degrees and/or have experience contributing to RS, but it's pop culture focused so it's very likely one can find better sources out there. I would not use this in a WP:BLP for sure. It seems to be largely dedicated to hosting press releases and/or rewriting them, eg. here here here, which are the most recent pieces in its Western Pop section. CherryPie94 🍒🥧 (talk) 20:40, 12 April 2025 (UTC)

Quartz sold, post-2025 articles likely entirely unusable

It's been kinda meh under G/O but appears to have been sold yet again. See Dupré, Maggie Harrison (8 April 2025). "Quartz Fires All Writers After Move to AI Slop". Futurism., under Redbrick I expect we would consider it entirely unusable as a source. Figured I'd raise it here so that it shows up in the archives, given there were a couple of previous times it was mentioned. (Jul 2020 / Arc301, Nov 2020 / Arc316, Dec 2024 / Arc460) Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:00, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If it's not a WP:GUNREL source yet, it is probably fast on its way to becoming one. Might be worth an RfC on it. - Amigao (talk) 19:39, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Unfiltered content from a large-language model is generally unreliable. Is there any evidence that's what Quartz is doing? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:59, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I mean, I would typically consider firing most of their editors to be fairly strong, if still indirect, evidence for the "unfiltered" part, I don't know if it would be feasible to obtain any direct evidence. Alpha3031 (t • c) 05:45, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

When sources seem misleading

I don't know where to ask, please tell me if I am in the wrong place
I read the article Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule. In it is the sentence: "According to literature, 50-70% of people with autism also have ADHD." This seems very high to me.
I check the source, which is an article in Frontiers: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8918663/#B1. Yes, it says "The prevalence of ADHD in people with ASD ranges from 50 to 70%, according to the literature (1)."
I click on link 1 in Frontiers, which leads to an article in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1750946721000349?via%3Dihub. Here it says, in Highlights:
The pooled estimate of the current prevalence of ADHD in ASD was 38.5 %.
The pooled estimate of the lifetime prevalence of ADHD in ASD was 40.2 %.
To me, the "50-70%" in Frontiers seems misleading, or maybe just a mistake. I would like to change the sentence in the article to "an average of 38-40% of people with autism also have ADHD, sourced by the second article.
Or, am I missing something, am I wrong? Lova Falk (talk) 13:42, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

See wp:or, we do not analyse or judge RS, RS do. As such unless RS has questioned the accuracy, we cannot. Slatersteven (talk) 13:45, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

"On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources." I don't do any analysis or synthesis, I just looked at the source of the first source. The numbers I found in the second source, are, by definition, sourced. Lova Falk (talk) 13:54, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

You are using source A to prove source B is wrong based upon your reading of source A, that is OR. Slatersteven (talk) 13:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I would have agreed with you if Source A didn't mention source B. But source A explicitly says: "According to source B this percentage". I read source B. Source B does not say "this percentage" but it says "that percentage".

It also says "Also, another study suggested there was a 50 %–72 % genetic overlap between ASD and ADHD, which is the most likely explanation for their frequent co-occurrence within the same patient or family". Slatersteven (talk) 15:21, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Slatersteven, the percentage of genetic overlap doesn't tell you the percentage of co-occurrence of the disorders. Lova Falk is talking about the latter, not the former. As for "You are using source A to prove source B is wrong based upon your reading of source A, that is OR," no, that doesn't make it OR. We frequently make assessments about the reliability of a source based on what we find in other sources (e.g., how could we conclude that Breitbart publishes falsehoods unless we had a way of establishing that something they published is wrong?).

Lova Falk, re: changing the sentence to "an average of 38-40% of people with autism also have ADHD," sourced to the second article, that would be misinterpreting the second article. The two percentages are for current co-occurrence vs. lifetime co-occurrence, so it's incorrect to put them in a range together. By "pooled," they're talking about a weighted average, not a range. Elsewhere, they note that for a 95% confidence interval, the pooled value for current co-occurrence ranges from 34.0–43.2% and the pooled value for lifetime co-occurrence ranges from 34.9–45.7%. They also note that if you look at individual studies, there are huge ranges: "The current prevalence rates of ADHD in individuals with ASD range from 0 % to over 90 % (Melville et al., 2008; Witwer & Lecavalier, 2010), while the lifetime prevalence rates vary between 13.8 % and 66.7 % (Joshi et al., 2013; Rubenstein et al., 2018)." Bottom line: although the 2022 article cites the 2021 article as the source of its 50-70% range, that doesn't appear in the 2021 article, so I wouldn't consider the 2022 article reliable for that piece of information. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

But its does show that the issue is rather more complex than an assertion by two sources, when we do not know what methodology they used. Source A could well have been talking about this over all figure, or making shit up (or doing what we sometimes do, cite one source for a claim made by muliple sources). As such we need a source saying they are wrong. Slatersteven (talk) 12:35, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "we do not know what methodology they used." Source A is a meta-analysis, and we do know their methodology. Source B simply presented a range, citing source A; source B is not using a methodology in citing previous literature. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:09, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

From Wikipedia:No original research: This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards. It is entirely normal procedure to evaluate specific content in a source, for ourselves. And to reject its citation if there are good enough grounds to consider it unreliable for such specific content. We can't leave that to WP:RS, since such sources are extremely unlikely to evaluate a source, and offer an opinion as to whether it is appropriate to cite under Wikipedia policies. Editorial judgement is a thing - an absolutely necessary thing - and the purpose of WP:OR policy is to prevent citation of material not supported by proper sourcing. It isn't a bludgeon to force us to use material we consider suspect. Even the best sources can be in error sometimes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:57, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

This is not a talk page, it is the RSN page. Slatersteven (talk) 13:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Don't be so obtuse: other pages which evaluate article content and sources clearly include WP:RSN, since that is its exact purpose. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:02, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Meh… I’m not going to comment on this specific situation, but when one RS analyzes another, I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask for corroboration from a third RS before we mention the analysis in an article… especially if we are presenting the information as fact. If nothing else, to see if the analysis is WP:DUE. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The solution to conflicting sources is usually more sources. Are there any other sources that estimate the prevalence of ADHD in those with Autism? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Frontiers Media is not the most reliable of publishers (just refer to the article's "controversy" section). Since it conflicts with the source it is citing, I would remove unless a better source corroborates this claim, per WP:DUE. Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:27, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I would do what Lova Falk suggests, namely cite the original source directly and ignore the intermediate source. Zero^talk 05:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Is Adam Aleksic an expert in Internet linguistics?

I am thinking of pre-ordering the book "Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language" by Adam Aleksic (better known as Etymologynerd) for the article I started on Algospeak to bring it to GA quality. But before I do so, I want to see if it would be considered reliable. Since its publisher Knopf seem to be a big-name, but non-academic publisher, I would imagine WP:EXPERTSPS would apply.

Aleksic is a popular pop-linguistics figure on social media, and has been interviewed and quoted by newsorgs multiple times [75]. His website Ca ^{talk to me!} 14:23, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

He does seem to be qualified for that topic, so yes, I think you can easily apply WP:EXPERTSPS to what he writes. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:17, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

If it's published by Knopf, it's not self-published, and he doesn't need to meet the EXPERTSPS qualification. The question is only whether it's a reliable source for what you want to source to it (and I cannot answer that). FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:28, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

The book will likely be a backbone to the article algospeak. Ca ^{talk to me!} 00:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

As it's to be published by Knopf, it doesn't need to meet the relatively stringent requirements of WP:EXPERTSPS. A book published by a major publishing house, by an author with some relevant credentials (according to his website his degree is in linguistics, although this is presumably only an undergraduate degree) and who has contributed to the Washington Post and NPR on the subject is usually presumed generally reliable. It's not a top-tier source (it's not published by an academic press, or peer-reviewed; Aleksic doesn't seem to have post-graduate qualifications in linguistics), but GA only asks for "reliable sources", which is substantially weaker than WP:FA?'s a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature ... high-quality reliable sources. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:33, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

• Sadly enough he seems like an expert. He is a young geek in the middle of the time wasting endeavor called social media. He knows it 1,000 times better than those with PhDs in physics. That makes him an expert of some type. An expert in trivia, yet an expert. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 23:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Iran: The Illusion of Power

Hello. My question is this: Is this book credible? Apparently, it has also been peer-reviewed. I'm not sure about the author, but I guess it was written by Robert Graham, a professor of economics at Hanover College in the United States, where he teaches managerial economics, microeconomics, and statistics. After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, he published several articles on a wide range of topics such as the mechanization of agriculture and the usefulness of economic theory. His recent research focuses on institutions related to the market economy. Hulu2024 (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Here's the book in full

Why do you need it? What article do you want to improve with it? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:21, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki Hi. Part of this book deals with the economic crisis during the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Another part focuses on the behavior of SAVAK. I wanted to use this book for both of my articles. Since the author seemed to be an academic, I also wanted to get confirmation from the English Wikipedia users. Thanks. Hulu2024 (talk) 18:04, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

On the one hand, he does seem to be a subject-matter expert.

On the otger, I think that there should be better sources (more up-to-date), as we are speaking of the book that literally was published in the same year as the revolution. So I don't think that's a particularly good choice for the Iranian Revolution. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:36, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki "This person dedicated two chapters to two main themes that other authors have rarely addressed... The first theme is the crimes of SAVAK, and the second is the economic scandals of the Shah of Iran, which at the time had become known as the 'Dutch disease' (specific to Iran). He focused heavily on these two subjects. Hulu2024 (talk) 21:11, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

For SAVAK, for so long as at least there is some time that allowed for some cooldown and thorough analysis, I think it's OK. He seems to write with a scholarly attitude and he cites his sources, so I guess why not. Particularly if the reviews praise him for his work in the field Szmenderowiecki (talk) 21:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

RS vs post-factual sourcing

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.

---

Due to ignorance of the issues, this thread was prematurely closed. I have now provided the background and sources to make this more understandable for those who have not been following Trump's attacks on freedom of the press. Hop down to my bolded explanation beginning with BACKGROUND: It appears that some editors were caught by surprise with this thread. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:27, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

As Trump and MAGA succeed in bullying RS into silence and history/documents/databases/government records start to disappear, the fringe right-wing media's influence will become more dominant and the voice of RS will fade. It will also be harder to source good content. I don't know the exact statistics, but it appears that right-wing media already dwarf mainstream media 10 to 1, and, in the United States, Trump will go after all opposing voices and try to eliminate them.

Fringe media is Trump's alternative facts media, IOW fake news. What is said at "False or misleading statements by Donald Trump" applies to any sources that support Trump and MAGA. Right-wing media follow his lead and dare not tell the truth. That is why we find that most RS are inevitably center-left while right-wing sources are nearly universally unreliable. This leads to a (good) ideological bias on Wikipedia as editors choose sources that are truthful and backed by good fact-checking.

How will we deal with this situation? Lies do not become truth just because the sources of the lies become dominant and the lies are endlessly repeated as the big lie propaganda technique is used by Trump and his supporters. They will always be lies. It will remain a fact that Trump and his campaign aided and abetted, with very active and willing cooperation, the proven Russian interference in the elections designed to help Trump get into power. It will remain a fact that Trump acts in ways that indicate he is indebted to Putin, ways that raise suspicions that the accusations that he his a Russian asset (since 1987), even if an unwitting one, are true.

At Wikipedia, when dealing with sourcing, we need to make sure we define "fringe" in relation to facts and truth, not some majority vs minority POV contest. 1% truth dominates over 99% lies. We may be force to turn to foreign English language sources as American journalists and print and broadcast media get bullied and sued by Trump and forced to stop telling the truth.

Wikipedia is going to be the last bastion of facts as mainstream fact-checkers are threatened into silence, and we need to make that fact known and official. We need to have a prominent fact-checking task force and a separate WMF project (not part of Wikipedia itself) that journalists and the public learn to use. It will be rated as reliable by everyone, including editors here, unlike the encyclopedia part of Wikipedia.

• Wikifact is a failed proposal that must be revived.
• Wikipedia and fact-checking

We're going to get RS stating official government actions and statements that are as deceptive as anything connected with Trump always is, and we will need to follow NPOV and label it accurately using some sort of neutral descriptor that signals to readers that there is a difference between pre-Trump HHS and Trump HHS, for example.

We will need to keep info and sourcing from the CIA pre-Trump presidency distinct from CIA info publicized during the Trump presidencies. We know that he politicizes all agencies, so this type of thing corrupts the information we will need to cover. We should avoid including content that repeats lies, but we could make section headers that use dates to indicate when, and this "when" is important.

It is highly likely that Trump will only release and declassify information that he feels is useful to his POV. We're going to be dealing with "Trump's CIA", not a CIA that serves the interests of the country, but only Trump's interests.

• RS article about "Trump's Pentagon".

This is a real thing. Trump is politicizing every single government agency, so we should begin to treat everything from the Trump government as something from him, not something from an independent government serving the people and "by the people and for the people". It is all serving him and can no longer be trusted as apolitical. We need to figure out how to deal with this.

This will need a broader discussion on WP:RSN or WP:V, because WP:LOCALCONSENSUS isn't going to cut it.

We may not need to deal with it before it makes the need evident by creating a problem, but we should be prepared for it as it certainly will happen. We know that history repeats itself around here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:36, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Coming from WP:V, I don't frequent RSN, apologies if that makes this response worse. This reads as WP:SOAPBOX, WP:CRYSTALBALL and WP:WALLOFTEXT. If you have a specific issue with citing a statement from an agency or WP:NEWSORG, bring it up here, and if this occurs multiple times and a trend is established we can look at forming a broader consensus. The one source provided is insufficient for going beyond that. In the meantime, consider using more international news media outlets if you are concerned about domestic media being captured. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | contributions) 17:03, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it becomes important to emphasize that we should be writing for the long-term view rather than the short-term, as an encyclopedia. In terms of what's happening now, when it comes to current topics, our articles should focus on factual aspects of such topics (as reported by reliable sources) and avoid too much around the commentary and opinion that comes out from, since the latter is the type of material that is going to be more challenging to write about with the shift in coverage. And particularly with topics around the Trump admin, this is where we as editors have to learn to stay our hand and not get too eager to include commentary or opinions published by reliable sources to be driving content.

I would definitely agree that if the US govt under this admin starts publishing material they claim as fact that go against what our existing body of sources say should be true (for example, I'm expecting the results of that autism study that has been ordered to fly in the face of established medical knowledge), we should not consider that material trustworthy. We can use what they publish to state what laws, regulations, etc. have been established by the govt, but should treat any rational given as highly questionable. Masem (t) 17:09, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Completely agree, and I'll add that even using a government's publications to describe laws or regulations isn't ideal. Especially for the United States, there are going to be plenty of reliable secondary sources describing government actions in detail so we don't have to try and parse primary sources ourselves. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:55, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

As Trump and MAGA succeed in bullying RS into silence

No. In fact it has caused the New York Times to have quite the tonal switch; e.g. "On Politics" is now oriented on exposing the shadows of "Musk's Washington".

it appears that [fringe] right-wing media already dwarf mainstream media 10 to 1

On Wikipedia, where we have strong policies on what counts as a reliable source? Within the US, where 50% of the population are Democrats? Or solely among the supporters of MAGA?

Right-wing media follow his lead and dare not tell the truth. That is why we find that most RS are inevitably center-left while right-wing sources are nearly universally unreliable. This leads to a (good) ideological bias on Wikipedia

As mentioned above, this very much sounds like soapboxing. You have said that there are good and sound right-leaning sources and characterizing "right wing" as those demagogues we all hate is dangerous rhetoric neutrality-wise. I urge us not to veer into WP:NotForum by solely discussing real-life events (poltiics) without stating any direct impact on Wikipedia's matters and sourcing in the same sentence here.

At Wikipedia, when dealing with sourcing, we need to make sure we define "fringe" in relation to facts and truth, not some majority vs minority POV contest.

This is dangerous. We are not purely objective beings. You will find yourself arguing against someone who believes it is truth that Obama faked the moon landings. It is necessary to base objectivity on what is much less disputable instead of directly evaluating as opposed to the majority thing we currently have based on sources whose reliability we've already evaluated.

We may be force to turn to foreign English language sources

Foreign? Wikipedia has always been meant to have a global view. Use the foreign sources.

Wikifact is a failed proposal that must be revived.

The best bet we've ever had at making something like a group blog is Wikinews. At most, that should just be part of Wikinews, for all the reasons mentioned in the opposition to the Wikifact proposal. Aaron Liu (talk) 18:00, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• I mean, we've dealt with much more dramatic uses of state power to censor or control the news media in eg. China and Russia; the US isn't anywhere near there yet, but it provides us with a map to how we handle things if they do get worse. Right now, the only things I'd worry about from our end are that we should pay close attention to coverage indicating that specific sources have folded in the face of state power in a way that might alter their reliability, and we shouldn't necessarily take silence from US sources or sources directly subject to pressure from the US government as indication that something is undue. The basic principle for sources subject to state pressure anywhere is still "pay attention to how individual sources are covered to get a sense of how readily they're yielding to state pressure" coupled with "silence from sources subject to state pressure doesn't mean anything as long as it's covered robustly outside of that sphere", and perhaps a related note of "if there is a difference in coverage between sources subject to state pressure on a topic and sources that aren't, go with the ones that aren't subject to pressure." In fact, it might be worth writing a more general essay about this (not just for dealing with US sources), since it comes up far more often when discussing eg. Chinese sources for obvious reasons. Basically, when there's reason to believe a source is yielding to state pressure, that makes it less reliable; but the degree of pressure and the degree to which they yield varies and needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis. --Aquillion (talk) 18:18, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
  • Excellent! It is those thoughts, the ones we usually use when dealing with information from Russia and China, that we need to start applying more and more to information from American sources, especially official government primary sources. If they show signs they are folding to MAGA pressure, we need to reevaluate their status as RS. Thanks for the positive contribution to this discussion. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:25, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

    I agree with Aquillion, for what it's worth. I also think we agree that there's very little sign that sources are indeed folding. Aaron Liu (talk) 19:37, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

• This isn't in the purview of the noticeboard, and there's nothing actionable here. I appreciate the need to vent, but we might consider closing this. It has no real path to produce anything of value but a very real path of becoming a sprawling mess with people talking in circles. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 🛸 19:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

I agree with Thebiguglyalien. Close before it becomes a shitshow. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

BACKGROUND: It appears that some editors were caught by surprise with this thread, and apparently did not know the background. Instead of making positive suggestions related to the content, they chose to violate NPA by attacking the messenger and accusing me of crystal balling this or being unduly fearful for the future of reliable sources under Trump, and finally prematurely closing the discussion. They have apparently not been following Trump's attacks on freedom of the press. I never express such opinions without a solid background in reliable sourcing. I will explain briefly here and provide some sources for further study.

Recent events indicate the Trump administration is tightening control over which sources will have access to information and a place in the White House press pool.[76][77][78][79][80] Traditional media outlets risk getting blocked (this happened to the Associated Press) if they offend Trump. The White House Correspondents' Association no longer controls which media are members of the press pool, and Trump is allowing fringe media sources (like Breitbart News, bloggers, influencers, and a reporter from MyPillow guy’s network) that Wikipedia considers unreliable to have access to that pool.

Also, access to primary documents is being given to unreliable sources rather than mainstream medial. An example is an FBI interview of Christopher Steele. That primary document was given to Just the News, an outlet controlled by the disgraced John Solomon. It is filled with misleading information. Now, to cite that document, one must use Just the News as the source. Fortunately, they have not censored or altered the original report, so it can be used where necessary. Another example is how a number of right-wing Twitter personalities friendly to Trump are given access to Epstein File documents. They include Jessica Reed Kraus, Rogan O'Handley, Liz Wheeler, Chaya Raichik, Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, Emily Austin, Savanah Hernandez, and Chad Prather.[81]]

This is just a little of the background for my concerns, and one can read the RS I have cited. Others exist. Next time, try AGF. Personal attacks and assumptions of bad faith are not allowed and are not a good motivation for closing a thread. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 15:20, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Trump lies. Trump likes outlets that are beholden loyalists. I think most of our regulars are aware of this already. I tend to agree with the above that this thread comes off as venting and not an actionable proposal. GMG^talk 15:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It's a heads up for those who are unaware. Unfortunately, those critics' responses just revealed they were unaware, so they attacked the messenger. That's not right. Those who are aware, like yourself, can then use this knowledge as we edit into an uncertain future. I would welcome any attempts to formulate these concerns in a better manner. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:02, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not seeing where you were attacked. But this is basically a blog post. On the other hand, it probably could be could be construed as a personal attack to repeatedly call others ignorant. GMG^talk 16:31, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

See my link to Wikipedia:No personal attacks#CONCON. The focus should have been on the topic, not the messenger. I had hoped for more constructive suggestions and a way to move forward (and not continue that on this page). The personal criticism from those who had not noticed the sea change in the White House's control of the press pool was unfortunate. We are supposed to focus on content. That was what I meant by personal attacks, as that is an NPA matter. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

CrystalBall does not imply bad faith or some other personal attribute, and it is not a personal attack. I realize that I may have implied bad faith in saying "this very much sounds like soapboxing", and I apologize as that was not my intention. I'm sure that you want the best for us here; it's just that any action in this direction requires sound reasoning that must be based on a worldview that aligns with yours.

There is no indication that any of these actions have made media subservient to Trump. Pretty much all media like The New York Times, still non-blocked, still call it the Gulf of Mexico despite that being AP's block reasoning. Yes, fringe and bad sources have access to that pool and more information, but that still in no way shows that they will outshine the good sources in influence. Especially not when our editors know better. The only way your scenario will happen is if the good sources turn bad and our editors are unaware of the badness, which you still haven't shown of those domestic mainstream media. We are aware that Trump likes outlets that are beholden loyalists, like GMG says, and that does not seem to threaten our reliability judgements. Aaron Liu (talk) 16:30, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Apology accepted. Thanks. I think my heads up has been seen and we can just close this now. If anyone wants to make this a wikiproject topic, that may be the way to go forward. "Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom," and all that. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:21, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

?? "requires sound reasoning that must be based on a worldview that aligns with yours."? No, just aligned with the sources I have provided in the BACKGROUND paragraphs above. There are plenty of RS that document the changing landscape for media access and reporting possibilities. This is just the beginning, and so far, many "worst case scenarios" have been fulfilled. It doesn't look good for the press as Trump targets them individually and will likely try to silence other sources. We can hope he does not succeed. In that case, we won't have a serious problem. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:26, 14 April 2025 (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.

Nerdeen Kiswani on Ukraine

Nerdeen Kiswani has tweeted about Ukraine and Palestine not being the same many, many times, but the only source that has reported on this is Algemeiner. [82] Nonetheless, she has tweeted about it many times, so would this count as reliable, given how she has made her views on Ukraine very public? The people on that talk page don't think her tweets are enough, so I added this Algemeiner article, which includes some of her tweets verbatim. [83][84][85][86] [87][88] Brobbz (talk) 23:28, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

It's not really a question of reliability - she is always a reliable source for her own opinions. It's more about whether her opinions are suitable for inclusion anywhere (unlikely from what you describe). What articles do you want to use them in? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:46, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

Oh, I see what's happening. This text is in dispute, and the article history suggests that OP wants to add this statement.

Your argument that "if A is reliable, so should be B" has no footing in the reliable sources guideline.

Definitely do not cite tweets if you have news sources reporting on them.

There is one discussion I saw in RSN archives with any participation, here, but the only editors who commented there are either now banned or are strongly on the pro-Israel side. There was an unsigned comment that brought up a story describing how the Algemeiner invented a personality for media purposes. Which is bad.

However, I would have no problems using this particular source for these statements only. Her tweets are quoted accurately, and she is reliable for her own opinions, and it's a relatively short mention, so it's OK by me.

The motives that the Algemeiner's journalists have for publishing such statements are irrelevant. I am not, however, speaking about The Algemeiner in general. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 00:15, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

I believe Algemeiner is due for a discussion, at least on the reliability of their coverage of Israel-Palestine related topics. They seem to have similar biased tendencies exhibited by sources already deemed generally unreliable as it pertains to the topic. Mason7512 (talk) 23:52, 13 April 2025 (UTC)

no threat 222..54 2601:44:201:11B0:B089:EF54:318F:FC74 (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Although clearly in this particular case Algemeiner is accurately reporting Kiswani’s views on Ukraine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:07, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Kiswani is a reliable source for themself, so their tweets are reliable for their words in the tweet, see WP:ABOUTSELF. Algemeiner is a WP:NEWSORG, so standard WP:RSBIAS and WP:RSOPINION apply. There been little discussion of it in the archives, so it would be on anyone saying it's unreliable to prove so. Obviously news sources are not the best in the world, but intext attribution can help. Whether something should be included goes beyond reliability, though a secondary source reporting on them does add to the case for inclusion. However that's a discussion for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:07, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

It was discussed on the article's discussion page, but they told me to take it here Brobbz (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

If they were questioning the reliability then this was the correct place. But what can be reliably sourced and what should be included in an article are not the same, see WP:VNOT. What should be included in an article is a matter of WP:Neutral Point Of View, which decides what should or shouldn't be in an article.
As I said WP:ABOUTSELF says that posts by the subject of the article can be used for quoting what they say or simple details. While Algemeiner appears to have a bias, but bias doesn't make a source unreliable (see WP:RSBIAS).
This board is for advice about the reliability of sources, it doesn't decide what is in, or should be in, any particular article. If you where told to ask about Algemeiner then you have, it's now up to anyone saying it's unreliable to make a case. As I said a source being biased isn't enough to say it's unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Reliability of AVN profiles

I originally posted this topic on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pornography, but I did not get any responses, so I thought I would post here. (See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Pornography#Reliability of AVN profiles)

On 23 October 2008, Epbr123 (who is no longer active) added AVN to the "Sources" section of the project page and stated, in part: "However, their porn star profiles are often copied from other sites and cannot be treated as reliable." (diff: [89]). The current wording remains very similar and states: "In addition, their performer profiles are often copied from other sites and cannot be treated as reliable."

There was some discussion on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 175#Use of AVN (profile pages) being used as a RS in porn related articles/lists on the topic of AVN profiles from 2014, but it does not appear that a consensus was reached either way.

I am curious if there is any actual evidence or sources to support this claim that the profiles are being copied from non-RS. I have conducted a text search on several profiles and have not discovered any evidence of the profiles being copied. Unless there is an RS confirming that the current AVN profiles are indeed being copied from non-WP:RS, I do not see why AVN profiles should be treated differently from other content from AVN. Wikipedialuva (talk) 00:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

ty 2601:44:201:11B0:B089:EF54:318F:FC74 (talk) 00:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Pajaba

This is a website that considers itself as a "film, book, and television review site", though it claimed it was originally a "small political blog", which makes me uncertain in citing this website in an article. This is the post I intended to use for Neil Patrick Harris' article. Inpops (talk) 18:00, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

bizjournals.com / fastcompany.com

I partially implemented a COI edit request. I noticed "bizjournals.com" (Business Journals) and "fastcompany.com" and it seemed like they might be vehicles for advertising under the guise of journalism? The suspicion wasn't enough to make me exclude them but I am curious if this has been looked into in depth. I found a few mentions of Business Journals in the archive here (particularly Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 288#Business Journals / bizjournals.com and not much at all on fastcompany.com. —DIYeditor (talk) 21:18, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

American City Business Journals and Fast Company are generally reliable as established WP:NEWSORGs. I poked around. bizjournals.com does do native advertising under "Partner Content" and "Branded Content". Fast Company has "FastCo Works" and also "Fast Company Executive Board", which looks similar to WP:FORBESCON. CherryPie94 🍒🥧 (talk) 01:04, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Is artnet.com a reliable source?

I am looking at this article in particular which cites this use of artnet.com, but the question holds the same for any other. Does artnet.com work for notability and is it a reliable source? Iljhgtn (talk) 01:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Both prior discussions at RSN Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_348#Artnet_news, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_430#Artnet_News_+_artist's_estates suggest that it is a reliable source. I would also concur that it is a reliable source that is editorially independent from the art market website it is a part of. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes artnet and artnet news is a generally reliable source but in this context a distiction must be made between news articles which would count towards notability and auction results or other database style listings which would not. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:34, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

www.nisanyanyeradlari.com

I would like an opinion on: http://www.nisanyanyeradlari.com known as Nişanyan Yeradları (formerly Index Anatolicus).

I came across it when reverting a series of additions by an unregistered user: example (see IP's contribs for more). I am somewhat aware of ethnic tensions in this region and the website says it is just a place name database. There are 199 links on enwp and 358 links on trwp that can be evaluated. I did ask @Aintabli: about it, so this ping may lead them to drop by and add their view. Commander Keane (talk) 13:51, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

This site lists two major pieces of information on each settlement in Turkey, some of its neighbors and parts of the Balkans: First, it traces place names used in various time periods. Second, it contains the ethnic, tribal, and/or religious, and sometimes socioeconomic, makeup of some of the settlements.

The place names often come from cited publications (maps, books, etc.) but not always.

The ethnic information, unlike the place names, are not paired with cited publications, so it’s impossible to trace where the info comes from unless explicitly stated.

This site heavily relies on user comments for ethnic information, and the info for many settlements do frequently change because of that. In fact, you can create an account right now and post anything you want about each settlement.

This site is therefore on par with Wikipedia, but the latter has clear policies on original research although imperfectly implemented, and this site instead relies on original research. Allowing this site to be used as referenece thus leaves an open door for original research in this topic area.

As I have already mentioned, place names generally include citations, but not always and sometimes rely on user comments. Hence, for place names, the sources cited on this site would better be used as reference on Wikipedia after appropriate verification, because this website also contains many spelling errors and lacks any serious academic review but just by the admin. Aintabli (talk) 14:12, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

"In fact, you can create an account right now and post anything you want about each settlement" this would make it WP:User generated content, and so not a reliable source. If some of the entries have proper citations then I would suggest checking and using those sources, but in general the site shouldn't be considered a reliable source for Wikipedia's purposes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

:::Who says there can not be some overlap between NPOV and RSN relevance? Writing a "persuasive" piece would be a POV issue even if all the sources fully pass RS criteria. A source that can reliably show that this and that company was established in 1985, but can be a non-RS for "to produce high quality widget" Graywalls (talk) 17:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

@Graywalls: was your comment about this Turkey database? You may have misplaced it, or else I am confused. Commander Keane (talk) 22:17, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I did misplace it. Graywalls (talk) 23:39, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Question

Can I keep using this source on Siege of Panhala (1692–1694)? Shakakarta (talk) 16:58, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

WP:SCHOLARSHIP:

Dissertations – Completed dissertations or theses written as part of the requirements for a doctorate, and which are publicly available (most via interlibrary loan or from ProQuest), can be used but care should be exercised, as they are often, in part, primary sources. Some of them will have gone through a process of academic peer reviewing, of varying levels of rigor, but some will not. If possible, use theses that have been cited in the literature; supervised by recognized specialists in the field; or reviewed by independent parties. Dissertations in progress have not been vetted and are not regarded as published and are thus not reliable sources as a rule. Some theses are later published in the form of scholarly monographs or peer reviewed articles, and, if available, these are usually preferable to the original thesis as sources. Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence.

TurboSuperA+_(connect) 17:14, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

His work has been cited by many scholars. Shakakarta (talk) 19:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

But has that particular thesis been cited? I can't find it on Google scholar. He seems to have written this "Dr. Jaisingrao Pawar is one of the most authoritative senior historian." about himself. It looks like his books were "published" through Mehta Publishing House, a self-publishing company.

Therefore no, neither the thesis nor the author is a reliable source. TurboSuperA+_(connect) 19:48, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

Turbo, you have quoted the exact policy. But I was very surprised that the policy does not mention the quality of the university. That university scores in the lowest 1500 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. I would not use anything that scores below 1,000. To the effect I have made a proposal to tighten the policy. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 11:10, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Quality of the university really isn't relevant... The only really relevant measure would be the rigour of a given department and specific thesis board... Anything less granular than that really isn't useful, even at the best universities in the world you will still have rubber stamp theses. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Please see my response on the proposal page, and let us leave it at that. Thanks. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:22, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Are 'Sports-Reference.com' websites reliable sources for redshirt seasons and awards?

The 'Sports Reference' (SR) family of websites (Sports Reference, Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, Pro Football Reference, Hockey Reference, etc.) are widely cited on Wikipedia across multiple sports.

The SR sites appear to be WP:SELFPUBLISHED WP:TERTIARY sources and have been previously discussed on this noticeboard, but don't yet have an entry at WP:RSPS (which perhaps they should).

This discussion will focus solely on these sites's treatment of "Redshirt" seasons in college athletics.

Consider Gonzaga's Kelly Olynyk. He played two mediocre years as a true freshman and sophomore, then took a redshirt season to work on his strength and conditioning. He was still on the active roster of the 2011–12 Gonzaga Bulldogs men's basketball team, eligible to play and suited up, but his coach did not play him in any games. The next season he returned to log game minutes as the star player in 2012–13. But Olynyk's Sports Reverence profile does not have a row for his 2011-2012 season. Looking at the SR page, it's as if he was not even on the team.

Same for Cam Martin, who joined the 2021–22 Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball team as an immediately-elegible grad transfer. His SR profile does not contain this season, though, as Martin's coaches chose not to play him to strategically better their team in the subsequent seasons. Martin remained an active, eligible, suited-up player on the bench during this entire "redshirt" year.

Sports Reference denies Martin the "NCAA Champion" banner that it displays for his 2021-2022 teammates such as Ochai Agbaji. This is despite Cam Martin receiving an NCAA national championship ring as a member of the team and reliable sources calling him a "national champion".

The Sports Reference website's choice not to display seasons for which a player does not have any recorded in-game statistics is resulting in Wikipedia editors treating the player as if they were not an active, eligible, full member of the team for those seasons. From a recent discussion at Wikipedia:WikiProject College basketball:

• Despite the USA Today article, I'm quite sure SRCBB is not going to put "2025 national champion" on Rioux's profile page.
• Curry's SRCBB profile does not list "NCAA champion". Are there other sources that call them champions?
• Seth Curry not having national champion denoted in his Sports-Reference profile speaks volumes. This alone is evidence that Rioux is not a national champion as provided by the single most reliable, third-party college basketball source out there.
• And, you obviously don't know anything about Sports Reference LLC if you think they're as unreliable as you claim. A blog - lol.

Sports Reference's treatment of these redshirt seasons differs from that of reliable, independent, secondary sources. For example:

• Sports Illustrated, 1982, This Year You're Going to See Red: The redshirt gets to practice like the other players, gets chewed out like the other players, goes to sleep in meetings like the other players and takes his lumps like the other players. He does everything like the other players, except he doesn't play in games. Which is to say, he gets everything football has to offer but the fun. By doing this the player preserves a year of eligibility for later use and presumably not only learns a whole bunch—talk to a few coaches about the pass-blocking ability of an average offensive-line recruit if you want to know what's to learn—but also grows up physically. [...] The rub is that each redshirt counts against the 95 football scholarships (90 in the Pac-10) that a school can give out at one time.

• The New York Times, 2024, report on an intended "redshirt" player stepping in to the conference championship game at a time of need for his team, thereby "burning" his redshirt season in one of the final games of the season. According to this reliable source, "redshirt" players are active and eligible members of the team who can step into the game at any time.

• Kansas awarded national championship rings to all four redshirts on their 2021–22 national championship basketball team. Reliable sources subsequently call these redshirt players "national champions".

• 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes football team awarded a national championship ring in football to redshirt player T.J. Downing. This ring became a central focus of the Tattoogate scandal a decade later and the ring's existence is well documented.

Seeking opinions on if Sports Reference websites are a reliable source for players' redshirt seasons and awards/honors received during redshirt seasons. PK-WIKI (talk) 17:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

i would suggest that the question of whether a 'redshirt' should be called a 'champion' or not is something better discussed at Wikipedia:WikiProject College basketball, or the relevant article's talk page.
The about us page of Sports Reference shows that although they were started by one person back in 2000, they are now a company with multiple employees. So not a self published source, or at least not what most editors would consider a self published source. They also appear to have WP:USEBYOTHERS in works on sports by academic publishers. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:26, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The website Know Your Meme is also a "company with multiple employees"; it's still a self-published website. (As is currently being discussed in a topic above.) Sports Reference is perhaps a usable self-published source because it's produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications but it remains self-published. WP:USINGSPS: If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same. PK-WIKI (talk) 18:41, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The recent discussion is about KYM being user generated content, not self published. The arguments about 'self-published' are in regard to whether entries by recognised experts could be used per WP:EXPERTSPS. The wording in USINGSPS (an essay) goes far beyond the wording at SPS or how the policy (WP:V) is commonly interpreted. There's a very long discussion about it somewhere, but I think you may have taken part in it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:00, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I think I'm mistaken about you taking part, I must have mixed up your username with someone else. Anyway the discussion was at WT:Verifiability/SPS RfC, unless it's closed in favour of the 'traditional published' concept then it's contentious. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:19, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll let others have a say, as otherwise it will just be the two of us disagreeing. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:02, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

The sports reference family appears to be more of an info warehouse sort of operation than something which is really usable as a WP:RS. In general I would go with what long form souces say. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:55, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

GBTimes

In an Articles for Deletion discussion for the article Life of Luxury, it was pointed out the article used a GBTimes article ("Are Life of luxury videos real?") as a source: https://gbtimes.com/are-life-of-luxury-videos-real/

It seemed quite obvious to me that this was AI-generated and therefore not a reliable source, since it was describing a channel that was completely different from the one the article was about, and didn't even seem to exist. The overall writing style also seemed very much like AI (very short "paragraphs", generic section titles, extremely vague language, etc.) The entire article was blatantly hallucinated info.

It was also pointed out that according to Special:LinkSearch (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:LinkSearch&limit=500&offset=0&target=gbtimes.com), GBTimes has apparently been used as a source OVER 200 OTHER TIMES on Wikipedia. I am pretty concerned about this website that seems to AI-generate articles being used as a source so much. Is it possible that it used to be more reliable in the past? ApexParagon (talk) 20:21, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• This is pretty obviously AI slop and looking at the rest of the site, probably ought to be deprecated. Black Kite (talk) 20:32, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I will also add that most articles in the Special: list return 404 errors; but when I accessed an archived page of the first article, it looked markedly different, so there definitely has to be a time split. The article topics on their front page don't give me much feeling of confidence. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 20:33, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

I noticed that too. My best guess is that the GBTimes website from a few years ago died and was replaced by another website of the same name. Using the web archive, one can see that the "old" GBTimes has content mostly linked to China and dates back to pre-ChatGPT years. Its layout is different from the layout of the "new" GBTimes. It might be time to deprecate new GBTimes links, but the ones returning a 404 should perhaps be saved one-by-one using archive links. Pichpich (talk) 20:54, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

• Blacklist. Non-notable websites that consist solely of AI-generated blog content, such as GBTimes/GB Times (gbtimes.com  ), have no valid use case on Wikipedia and should be blacklisted. — Newslinger talk 20:48, 15 April 2025 (UTC)

  The previous incarnation of GBTimes was a Chinese state-controlled publication based in Finland that was majority (60%) owned by the Chinese state-owned broadcaster China Radio International (CRI), until CRI withdrew funding in December 2018 following a tax scandal involving GBTimes. This site was covered in the Reuters (RSP entry) article "Beijing’s covert radio network airs China-friendly news across Washington, and the world" and the Yle article "Police suspect tax fraud by China-linked Tampere media firm".

  If there is consensus for excluding the former GBTimes site from blacklisting, the spam blacklist entry can be constructed to specifically target links starting with the gbtimes.com domain, which would exclude any archived versions of the gbtimes.com   domain from blacklisting. — Newslinger talk 16:24, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

  Even the former incarnation seems pretty sus from what I read. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:42, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

• Agree with blacklisting. Just looking over their about page makes it clear that this is low-quality AI nonsense - there's no actual substance there, no indication of any degree of editorial control or fact-checking. Normally this would just render it unreliable, but the fact that it's clearly trying to pass itself off as a news source and has fooled editors enough to receive citations means that we ought to blacklist it. --Aquillion (talk) 14:46, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Blacklist definitely AI generated and probably part of a larger network of low quality AI sites given that the listed contact is a Gmail address instead of one linked to the domain name. Best, GPL93 (talk) 14:57, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting for same reasons as above. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:58, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• If it isn't blacklist its deprecate, not seeing any significant redeeming aspects to this source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Blacklist AI Cruft is inherently unreliable and spammy. Simonm223 (talk) 16:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

"Leyendas del Fondismo" YouTube channel

As far as I can tell, this is strictly a YouTube channel and Facebook page, its owner is anonymous, there is no discussion anywhere of its editorial policy or professional standards, and AFAICT it has not been used by any real news media. I would think this would fall squarely under "user-generated content" and thus be non-RS, but I've encountered two experienced editors who insist it is reliable and that interviews on it are notability-contributing for BLPs.
Thoughts? JoelleJay (talk) 15:53, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

A YouTube channel with 400 subscribers and no apparent presence other than Facebook? It certainly looks to be WP:UGC. In general unless editors can make a very good case for it I don't see why it should be considered reliable.
Interviews are not independent, which usually makes them unusable for notability purposes regardless of where they are published. But they can be reliable in a WP:ABOUTSELF way. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

The source wouldn't be notability-contributing either way, since it would count as a primary source (it just does interviews with the subjects of those articles) ApexParagon (talk) 02:43, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that is my understanding as well, but there are several editors who somehow consider such interviews to be "independent secondary SIGCOV"... JoelleJay (talk) 14:15, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

If a significant person/organisation (e.g. national TV channel) deems someone worth interviewing, that can be a point towards notability but doesn't provide it on its own. An interview by a person/organisation without that significance does not indicate anything about notability.

An interview can only ever be a primary source for the views of the person being interviewed (or the organisation they are representing) and, in some cases, the views of the interviewer (or the organisation they are representing). However a faithfully recorded/reported interview is a reliable source for those views, which are sometimes DUE. Thryduulf (talk) 15:28, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

It can be a soft indication towards notability but it does not itself contribute to GNG as, as you said, the interview is a primary source for the interviewee's statements and thus those statements are not independent secondary coverage of the interviewee. JoelleJay (talk) 15:34, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

RfC: Handwritten testimony of Geneviève Esquier

Is the handwritten testimony letter of Geneviève Esquier, a former French Catholic journalist for the French Catholic publication L'Homme Nouveau, a reliable primary source for her own words and testimony?

For previous discussions leading up to this RfC, please see the article talk page and tangential RSN discussion. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Survey (Esquier)

• Yes. (1) The website hosting the primary source document is edifiant.fr a popular French Catholic platform featuring free Catholic content including articles, resources, videos, testimonies, and newsletter subscription. (2) The website's ScamDoc trust score is 88% (despite domain owner anonymity), and a trust rating of "good". (3) The website includes footnotes to the primary source document establishing its provenance, indicating it was mailed to them by Geneviève Esquier on March 8, 2023, and published to the website the same day. (4) The website includes additional footnotes to the document, indicating they had verbal communications with Geneviève Esquier confirming certain details in the letter. (5) The primary source document has been in the public domain for over 2 years on edifiant.fr, with high visibility and no claims of inauthenticity. (6) This handwritten testimony satisfies the Wikipedia policy WP:RSPRIMARY. (7) The handwritten testimony document can be found here. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• Words? Yes, most likely. Testimony? No. We don't hold RfCs on whether primary-source material is factual, which is what 'testimony' implies. And note that agreeing that the words are hers doesn't in of itself amount to agreement that said words need to be cited in the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:31, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• (Summoned by bot) The letter is a WP:SPS? meaning that it's reliability would be confined to WP:ABOUTSELF. However the usage in the article (see Special:Diff/1285286322 for the last insertion) indicates that it was being used to make statements about third parties and thus fails the limited usage provided for by WP:ABOUTSELF. TarnishedPath^talk 22:23, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• No, No and No. We have discussed this issue forever and a day just above on this page under the title "Is https://edifiant.fr reliable?". The result there was that the source has no provenance. It is totally unclear who owns the edifiant.fr website, but it is obvious that Esquier does not because the site claims they received an email from her with the image of her letter. There is no evidence that the handwriting belongs to Esquier. For all we know this coud be a case of the Jar'Edo Wens hoax which survived in the public domain (in several languages) for about 10 years. The question is: How long do we need to discuss all this again? 20 years, 30 years? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• No It would be a reliable primary source if it's provenance could be reliably sourced, but the only place saying it's real is couple of closely aligned websites neither of which have any of the commons signs of a reliable source. That the website isn't serving malware and hasn't been sued doesn't equate to a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:56, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
• No This is a WP:SPS that has language on its website explicitly soliciting anonymous contributions. As such we cannot confirm the provenance of the document and thus it is not usable as an WP:ABOUTSELF source. Simonm223 (talk) 17:18, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
• No, not for this. The paragraph you are trying to add concerns claims about third parties and claims about events not directly related to the source and therefore doesn't pass the restrictions on WP:ABOUTSELF, even if the providence could be established. Obviously you cannot bypass that just with attribution. The purpose of ABOUTSELF is for people talking about themselves, not to cite them for statements about other people - statements about other people require sourcing that passes WP:RS, which this obviously does not. The "scam score" for a website does not imply that they perform any sort of the sort of fact-checking for statements posted there that a WP:RS would require. The obvious purpose of this paragraph is to imply a fact about Ratzinger's actions and correspondence, not to introduce a fact about Esquier; that is a totally inappropriate purpose for ABOUTSELF. --Aquillion (talk) 19:27, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Discussion (Esquier)

Why is this information important and why does it need to be included in the article per WP:DUE? Because the article conveys that Cardinal Ratzinger was not favorably disposed towards Valtorta's work, especially with recent references to Miesel's article (which contains many errors), but also through private letters by Ratzinger in 1985 and 1993 expressing his personal opinion at that time. The handwritten testimony by Esquier adds important context, as she states she was witness to correspondence received clarifying Ratzinger's views.

According to Esquier, she received a letter from Ratzinger addressed to Marcel Clément, the former director of the French Catholic publication L'Homme Nouveau asking him to stop all articles and sales of Valtorta's work until he had time to review it. One year later after reviewing the work, Ratzinger sent another letter lifting the prohibition expressing that the work contained nothing contrary to faith and morals.

This information provides counter-balance to the articles' one-sided presentation of Ratzinger's somewhat unfavorable personal views of the work without which the article conveys a misleading conclusion. Indeed, up until recently, I also believed Ratzinger was ill-disposed towards the work. Now I see this is not the case, and that the situation is more nuanced. This nuance needs to be captured in the article. Again, this handwritten testimony is an important statement of an eye-witness account. These are Esquier's own words, and she is a reliable source for her own words.

When the time comes and the original letters by Ratzinger are found (they are likely buried in the paper archives of L'Homme Nouveau), we can then replace this reliable primary source evidence with reliable primary or secondary source proof of the original letters themselves. Arkenstrone (talk) 20:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

"she is a reliable source for her own words". Yes, if they are being correctly reproduced. If that is the case it doesn't however constitute evidence that her claims regarding content of a letter from Ratzinger are factual. We don't analyse primary sources ourselves, and draw conclusions from them. We require secondary sources, with the relevant expertise, to do that. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, correctly reproduced, and no factual claims as to the content of the letter itself, which requires reliable secondary sources. Understood. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:19, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

You argue above that "This information provides counter-balance..." It doesn't. Not unless we assume that it is factual. Which we can't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Right. Counter-balance in the sense of clarifying Ratzinger's opinion concerning the work IF Esquier's statements are later proved true, beyond Esquier's handwritten testimony. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:36, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

There are no circumstances whatsoever where it is appropriate to include otherwise-questionable content on the basis that it might be proved correct later. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:44, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Okay. Esquier is a reliable source for her own words, and that's all. The content of what she says is unverified and no conclusions can be drawn from it. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:01, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Please don't put words in my mouth. I wrote above "if they are being correctly reproduced", and also wrote "most likely are", this is not an absolute assertion that Esquier is a reliable source on this matter. On reflection, that was a little confusing, but anyway, given that no conclusions should be drawn regarding Esquier's veracity, I can see little merit in inclusion of such content in the article, regardless of whether they are her own words or not. You seem to be trying to shoe-horn them in to counter what secondary sources say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:25, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to put words into your mouth, I was stating what I understood thus far based on previous statements. The merit is that she is a well-known French Catholic journalist formerly working for a well-known French Catholic publication. She said something. Given her background, some people value what she says, even if it's only an opinion. People can choose whether to accept what she said or not. What she said is relevant in context. Arkenstrone (talk) 22:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

'Some people' can value whatever they like. Wikipedia is under no obligation to follow suit. Even more so if others commenting here are correct in seeing the material as falling afoul of WP:ABOUTSELF. Though I really don't think there are legitimate grounds for inclusion either way. The whole thing seems to revolve around a letter from Ratzinger that may or may not have said something-or-other, being used as special pleading to counter reliably sourced information on things he verifiably did say. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:03, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

To expand further on the above, Wikipedia policy on notability seems adequately satisfied in regard to the Poem of the Man-God article. Satisfied through coverage of the topic in secondary reliable sources. And it is such sources we should be basing the article on. There are no legitimate reasons however why the article should become a battleground between those who have differing opinions regarding the Poems theological significance etc, and accordingly, we aren't obliged to host stuff from obscure websites just because someone wants to push a particular argument. Which you quite clearly do. Go find a forum for that. Or take it up with the Church, and let them decide. When they have, we'll have something to add to the article. From sources we base articles on. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:28, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

You may not be aware, but there was a discussion recently about whether or not to include the words of a literary critic (Miesel) from a questionable source (website that some here claimed was not a reliable source, but also her article contained several verifiable factual errors). The consensus seemed to be that the article's reliability was questionable but we should include it anyway since Miesel was a reliable source for her own words, plus she was a reasonably well-known literary critic. That reference is in the "Criticism" section, and so it naturally conveys a negative point of view concerning Valtorta's work.

Similarly, Esquier, a reasonably well-known French Catholic journalist, submitted and confirmed a handwritten letter which was published to a website that some here say is coming from a questionable source. But that website is only hosting a primary source document. The document itself is a reliable source for the authors own words which describe her own personal experience. There is no compelling reason to assume the website is inherently unreliable as a host of a primary source document per WP:RSPRIMARY which has not been contested as illegitimate in the 2 years it has been highly visible. They also provide the provenance of the document and the circumstances of its receipt. Esquier's words convey a certain point of view. In this case, that view is one that is in support of Valtorta's work, which is why it appeared in the "General support" section. In both cases (Miesel v. Esquier) we don't need to accept as objectively true the content of the opinions, words, views or statements that are being conveyed. After all, the contention is they are both reliable sources for their own words.

The whole thing seems to revolve around a letter from Ratzinger that may or may not have said something-or-other, being used as special pleading to counter reliably sourced information on things he verifiably did say.

Not to counter, but provide nuance and clarification by a well-known individual who claims she was directly involved and a witness to the events at that time. Her own words are also reliably (primary) sourced information. That's what she said. People can draw their own conclusions from that.

just because someone wants to push a particular argument

It's not about me pushing a particular argument. Everyone has a point of view. One of the purposes of Wikipedia policy is not to prohibit editors from having a point of view, but rather to prevent those points of view, as much as possible, from entering into articles without reliable sources. Criticism and support sections are naturally going to be pushing/presenting a particular argument. As long as they are reliably sourced, that isn't a problem. I won't address your other statements concerning theological significance, battlegrounds, forums, etc. as those are beside the point of this RfC.

BTW, your initial statement of words vs. testimony I accepted at face value, as I presumed you were drawing certain special meaning from the word "testimony" which I didn't intend. But upon further reflection, "testimony" is simply someone's words that are sworn or affirmed to be true. But that doesn't make them objectively true. And they are still their own words. So the distinction between words and testimony doesn't seem especially relevant in this context. Arkenstrone (talk) 19:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

By "some here claim" what Arkenstrone means is that they objected strenuously to the inclusion of the Miesel source and were frustrated that the majority of respondents disagreed with them. Simonm223 (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Please don't put words in my mouth. And at least try to be WP:CIVIL and WP:AVOIDUNCIVIL. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:42, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

she is a reliable source for her own words

Only insofar as those words pertain to herself, not in regards to the acts and words of others. TarnishedPath^talk 22:26, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Are her own words, which in this case she asserts describes her own lived experience (being a witness to hearing or seeing something), do they not pertain to herself? Arkenstrone (talk) 23:38, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Her words are a reliable source for her claiming to have witnessed something. They are not a reliable source that that thing happened or that she did witness it. If the thing is in relation to a third party (e.g. that someone else did or said something) then a self-published source can be used to verify that the author made the claim, but nothing beyond that. If a SPS is the only source for the claim being made then it is extremely unlikely to be DUE for inclusion. Thryduulf (talk) 12:31, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Fair enough. But what if the source is not SPS? There is no evidence to suggest that it is, and some evidence to suggest it is not (footnotes establishing provenance). It seems to me that WP:PRIMARY and WP:RSPRIMARY are far more relevant in this context. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:07, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

• WP:ABOUTSELF is clear - it can't be used for material that involves claims about third parties. Obviously quoting her making a claim about a third party involves claims about third parties. --Aquillion (talk) 19:41, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  And all that is setting aside whether we can even use this letter as an WP:ABOUTSELF source considering that it's a scan of a hand-written letter on a website that encourages anonymous submissions and has opaque ownership. There's a non-zero chance this is a hoax letter. Simonm223 (talk) 19:48, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  Both you and Simonm223 have made the assertion that we are dealing with WP:ABOUTSELF, but that applies to self-published sources, and questionable (secondary) sources. But this is not a self-published source nor is it a questionable secondary source. Esquier does not run that website. The footnotes to the document establishing provenance expressly state that she mailed them the letter on March 8, 2023, and it was published the same day, and that they confirmed details of the letter by verbal communication with Esquier. Also, the document is not being used as a questionable secondary source, but as a reliable primary source. I fail to see how WP:SPS and WP:ABOUTSELF are applicable in this context. WP:PRIMARY and WP:RSPRIMARY seem to be far more relevant policies in this instance.

  "Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. They offer an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on. Primary sources may or may not be independent sources."

  Arkenstrone (talk) 21:01, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  This is obvious UGC what are you talking about? Simonm223 (talk) 21:04, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

  I don't understand what you're saying. Please elaborate your point. Arkenstrone (talk) 21:12, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Given the very long discussion of this issue just above in this page (under the title "Is https://edifiant.fr reliable?") and the fact that it was decided that the source has no provenance, the key question I have is: Should we spell "stubborn" with 2b's, 3 or 4? Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 22:32, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

I think this is, what, the third time? We've had this conversation recently. I think that a snow-close is likely here. And then I hope people can move on. Simonm223 (talk) 17:20, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

I think it should be allowed to run it's course. A RFC should hopefully bring a conclusion to the matter, and a early close could be used to argue against whatever the result ends up being. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:11, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Zsa Zsa Gabor

Since practically the inception of Wikipedia, there have been persistent efforts to remove any information about the reported romantic relationship between Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and Zsa Zsa Gabor. I've gathered a dozen references published over a period spanning 73 years:

• Pardee, Alice (December 23, 1951). "Behind the Scenes". The Ogden Standard-Examiner.
• Staff (August 24, 1952). "Zsa Zsa . . . . The Mink and Pearls Girl". Truth.
• Jones, Lon (April 18, 1953). "The Exotic Miss Gabor". Star Weekly.
• Gabor, Zsa Zsa (August 25, 1954). "Life With A Turk". The Sun.
• Kent, Parker (October 8, 1960). "Not Just A Peek, Today You Can Gaze". Herald Magazine.
• "Zsa Zsa Gabor's tell-all autobiography" (Interview). Larry King Live. CNN. November 26, 1991. Event occurs at 4:37.
• Muammar, Kaylan (2005). The Kemalists: Islamic Revival and the Fate of Secular Turkey. Prometheus Books. p. 68. ISBN 9781615928972.
• Wall, Marty; Wall, Isabella; Woodcox, Robert Bruce (2005). Chasing Rubi. Editoria Corripio. p. 3. ISBN 9780976476528.
• Bennetts, Leslie (September 6, 2007). "It's a Mad, Mad, Zsa Zsa World". Vanity Fair.
• Moore, Suzanne (December 19, 2016). "Zsa Zsa Gabor knew femininity was a performance. She played it perfectly". The Guardian.
• Bayard, Louis (August 19, 2019). "Were Zsa Zsa and Eva Gabor the proto-Kardashians?". The Washington Post.
• Hall Meares, Hadley (December 23, 2024). "High Camp: Zsa Zsa Gabor, the Fabulous Fabulist". Vanity Fair.

A final decision needs to be made about this so editors like Beshogur will no longer be allowed to remove an extensively sourced, widely accepted piece of information that is relevant to the subjects' biographies. PromQueenCarrie (talk) 03:46, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Has there been an rfc and if so, can you link it/them? Of course, WP is bad at "final". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 05:53, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

This seems like something that should be settled by a WP:RFC on the articles talk page. This noticeboard is meant to be for advice about the reliability of sources, not the content of articles. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:13, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

These sources look ok to me. It is from numerous RS. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:50, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Times of Kuwait

Maybe I was too quick to make the edit on International recognition of Israel. Here is: Talk:International_recognition_of_Israel#Kuwait_state_of_war_against_Israel. I have tried to find confirmation for Kuwait's state of war against Israel in other sources, but I couldn't find anything. On the other hand, if something has been permanent for more than 50 years, newspapers may not write about this. How reliable is Times of Kuwait? Lova Falk (talk) 17:10, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

@Lova Falk: is this the same as Kuwait Times? Left guide (talk) 22:11, 17 April 2025 (UTC)