Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 76

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Archive 74

Archive 75

Archive 76

Is Youtube a Reliable Source

Does any staff member have any idea of YouTube is reliable 173.235.255.87 (talk) 17:30, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

There are no staff members to answer your question, because Wikipedia:Wikipedia is a volunteer service.

The answer is: It depends on which channel. Obviously, a random person uploading a video of their kids playing is not a reliable source. At the other end of the spectrum, a lot of television news shows put copies of their news on YouTube, and it would be silly to say that the news show is reliable if you watch it on TV but not reliable if you watch the same thing from the same news channel on YouTube. In between those two things, you have to use your best judgment. For example, if a musician makes a video saying why they wrote a particular song, or that they're 25 years old, then that's reliable as an WP:ABOUTSELF statement. But you wouldn't want to use a musician's video saying things about a political candidate or the price of eggs or something like that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:39, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

Ah yes, the price of eggs ... it's all a beautiful thing. (Note: not a musician) Martinevans123 (talk) 18:08, 8 May 2025 (UTC)

YouTube isn’t a source itself but a platform the actual source would be the uploader of any of the videos. Also one other thing to be careful of is the possibility of copyright violations since some people do upload content they don’t own the rights to.--65.92.245.71 (talk) 03:40, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

A source like this[1] is definitely an RS because: (1) it is produced by the museum housing the ship in question (2) it is presented by the Director of Research of that museum (3) the presenter has edited, contributed to and written three books which are an RS for the relevant article (4) the presenter is a noted expert in their field, with numerous research papers which are cited by others. I don't think you need me to give examples at the other end of the spectrum. There might be some difficulty in assessing the value of videos in the "shades of grey" area in-between these extremes. ThoughtIdRetired _TIR 12:28, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

Negative and anti historical. Pendantic wordless factoids. 159.2.155.63 (talk) 18:08, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

The comments given at WP:RSPYT discourage use of YT for any use, partly because there should be an original text source that is easier/quicker to obtain encyclopedic background. YT sources may be WP:COPYVIO, and are mostly accompanied by margin ads, which are contrary to Wikipedia's no-ad policy. YT also requires higher bandwidth, creating access challenges for users with low-quality Internet service. Best to revert any YT source per RSPYT and find a WP:RS. Zefr (talk) 19:53, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia does not have a no-ad policy. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:21, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I suppose "policy" implies a technical definition not specifically included among those at WP:PG. From the Wikimedia FAQ: "Wikipedia is not funded through advertising", which I know you knew that I knew. Zefr (talk) 20:37, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

"Wikipedia is not funded through advertising" sounds nothing at all like "Reliable sources are not allowed to have margin ads", as you know very well. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:41, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

If the margin of a YT source is populated with ads, or the video is interrupted by ads, this would signal to an editor that a better source should be found. Acceptance of a source with ads is acceptance of its advertising, then passed to the next Wikipedia user to wonder about source quality - an avoidable practice.

Is there a discussion or policy revision proposal specifically accepting sources with moderate-heavy margin or in-video advertising? Zefr (talk) 21:26, 4 July 2025 (UTC)

I think advertising is irrelevant to reliability. Remember that newspapers, which we cite extensively, typically have many advertisements. Advertisements are an aspect of the source's financial model, not an aspect of their reliability. Zero^talk 00:48, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

As others have said… YouTube is a hosting service, not a source itself. Most of what is posted to YouTube is unreliable, but some of it is quite reliable. It depends on who posted it. Blueboar (talk) 01:05, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

If the margin of an ordinary daily newspaper is populated with ads – and pretty much all of them are – do you think we should stop using newspapers, because that's a signal to an editor that a better source should be found?

Advertising is not a signal of reliability. Some ad-heavy sites are generally reliable sources, and some ad-free sites are not. The New York Times is full of advertisements; the Scientology website has none. But it's the NYT that's reliable, not the scientologists' website.

AFAIK the only serious discussion about rejecting advertisements is about Wikipedia:External links, and the usual challenge there is to convince zealous editors that when WP:ELNO#EL5 rejects "objectionable amounts of advertising", it does not mean "any advertising at all is objectionable". Even that doesn't come up very often, though. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

So I had a look at RSP on YouTube. It was marked as a "questionable source" in the early days. Template:Questionable source displays as "Generally unreliable". The initial version linked five previous discussions:

• a video of a politician that was wanted for a direct quotation, because "MSM [mainstream media] censors this"
• a video of guest lecture by an author, talking about the themes in his own work, at a major research university
• a general question of whether clips of ordinary television news reports (CNN and Reuters were given as examples) are acceptable
• a general question, to which editors say things like "very simple" because we accept "the channel of an official news organizations", "perfect examples of when YouTube can be used", etc.
• a video of a speech at a convention, to which editors say things like ""YouTube videos" are not inherently reliable or unreliable as sources, any more than "books" or "TV programmes"", and it turns out that the OP wants YouTube as a whole to be declared unreliable because this one speech "presents commercial activities" (classic case of moving goalposts).

In other words, nothing that could support the designation as WP:GUNREL.

At the time, RSP was using a three-color model: "Good", "No consensus", and "Generally unreliable". I think that in the current model, a more accurate description would be "Additional considerations apply". Specifically, it doesn't matter if it's "YouTube"; it matters whether it's an official channel for an ordinary reliable source vs a self-published video.

The currently highlighted RFC wasn't about the RSP entry; it was about whether to add a Special:AbuseFilter entry to warn editors away from citing it, or to continue relying on User:XLinkBot (which reverts newbies but not experienced editors who add links to YouTube). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:06, 5 July 2025 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#YouTube is not a source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:23, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

RfC drafting at RSP for platform categorisation

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources regarding re-categorising self-published platforms, along with amending the sections in this guideline Definition of a source and User-generated content. Please note this is not an RfC, this a drafting process for an RfC. The thread is Drafting the RFC question about platforms. CNC (talk) 10:33, 21 August 2025 (UTC)

The place to discuss changes to this guideline is the talk page for this guideline, i.e. here, not WP:RSP. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:05, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Please raise this in the discussion. Location has been discussed at length already. CNC (talk) 17:13, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

No. If they're having a discussion in an inappropriate spot, I'm not going to compound the error by joining it. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:44, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Emphasis on this was already discussed. CNC (talk) 17:48, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Peter, this idea could involve changes to:

• Wikipedia:Verifiability (small)
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources (small)
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources (major)

and probably other pages, too. When a discussion could affect multiple pages, there's no such thing as "the" talk page. There are instead multiple talk pages for multiple pages. (Personally, if this proceeds to an RFC or other decision-making discussion, I think it should be on its own page, like Wikipedia:Verifiability/2012 RfC was.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:17, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

The top of this page says "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Reliable sources page." If there are three pages to change, then three RfCs are okay. That 2012 RfC seems to have been about changes to one page, WP:V, so I fail to see why it could be considered a precedent. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:44, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Having discussions about the same thing on multiple pages is a violation of WP:MULTI and WP:TALKFORK. It's also not a logical thing to do according to common sense. What if the editors at one page decide "Yes" and the editors at the other page say "No"? Then we end up with WP:PGCONFLICT problems. It's much better to have a single centralized discussion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Yes it should be in one place: here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:37, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Why do you single out this page as the sole acceptable option? Why wouldn't a central page, like Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Sources and platforms, be acceptable? We've used that model many, many times. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

Agree… one discussion is better than multiple discussions. It doesn’t much matter where the discussion is held - we can (and should) leave notifications on other related pages pointing to the discussion. Blueboar (talk) 21:40, 15 September 2025 (UTC)

It matters, but now WhatamIdoing is pointing to examples in Wikipedia:Requests for comment rather than WP:RSP. Okay. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 23:50, 15 September 2025 (UTC)