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    Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

    Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.


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    Additional notes:

    Shortcuts
    • RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments.
    • While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy.
    • This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources.

    RfC: NewsNation

    What is the reliability of NewsNation?

    Chetsford (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]


    Survey (NewsNation)

    • Option 2: Generally reliable for reporting not related to aviation, astronomy, or physics. Unreliable for reporting on these topics generally, and for UFOs specifically (including, but not limited to, shape-shifting Mantids, flying saucers, time-traveling psychonauts, human/space alien cross-breeding programs, the Majestic 12, and treaties/diplomacy with the Galactic Federation of Light).
      • NewsNation seems to have made an overt and conscious editorial decision to lean into UFOs for ratings purposes [1]. In many cases, these stories are masked as conventional science reporting but with a heavy "/spooky event" frame. Ross Coulthart [2] is NewsNation's UFO beat reporter and files most of its prolific reports on the paranormal. Coulthart appears to be a true believer and uses NewsNation to engage in space alien advocacy versus conventional forms of journalism.
        • In an interview on NewsNation on 13 December 2024 related to the 2024 Northeastern United States drone sightings, Coulthart said "... the White House is making completely false claims! The people of New Jersey are not alone"! [3]. Multiple federal and state investigations, as well as independent evaluation by experts including Jamey Jacob and Mick West, all concluded sightings were misidentification of routine aerial and celestial objects.
        • Writing in The Skeptic, Ben Harris identifies [4] Coulthart as one of a group of UFO celebrities, describing their approach thusly: "Drama is to the forefront; they ride their high horses, full of their own self-import, their truth, making demands of Congress – and mainstream media – who they think are ‘missing the story of a lifetime’."
        • He wrote a UFO book titled Plain Sight which Jason Colavito described as a "conspiracy narrative" and a "slipshod summary". [5]
        • The Australian Skeptics gave Coulthart their "Bent Spoon Award" for “espousing UFO conspiracies, including unsubstantiated claims that world governments and The Vatican are hiding extraterrestrial alien bodies and spacecraft on Earth.” [6]
        • The Australian Broadcasting Corporation did a TV special on Coulthart's reporting in which they closed by asking "Has Coutlhart gone crazy, or is he a visionary? while strongly implying the former. [7]
        • The Sydney Morning Herald has described him as a "UFO truther" with "little appetite for scrutiny". [8]
        • Coulthart seems to have had a leading role in promoting a debunked 60 Minutes (Australian TV program) investigation into an alleged child sex ring run by British politicians. [9]
      • Beyond Coulthart, NewsNation reporters have other issues with UFOs:
        • In 2023, according to our own article on NewsNation (sourced to the Washington Post: [10]), the channel "was forced to issue corrections after incorrectly claiming that The Intercept had obtained leaked information regarding [UFO "whistleblower"] Grusch's mental health".
        • In December 2024, reporter Rich McHugh did a stand-up near LaGuardia Airport in New Jersey and showed an aerial object that he breathlessly (literally, he's panting the whole time) said "... was more sophisticated than I could ever imagine ... I couldn't believe what I was seeing". The thing he couldn't believe he was seeing was, according to Mick West's analysis, a Boeing 737 [11].
    Chetsford (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion (NewsNation)

    • For purposes of clarification, the reliability of NewsNation has previously come up in two different RSN discussions and two different article Talk page discussions. Beyond that, however, it's repeatedly invoked to source UFO articles to the point that constant re-litigation of its reliability via edit summaries is becoming a massive time sink. Chetsford (talk) 19:10, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Useage of Arabic-language sources in Battle of Ash-Shihr (1523)

    This thread is opened at the request of @Kovcszaln6 following the dispute between me and @Javext in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard#Battle of Ash-Shihr (1523) on the multiple issues regarding that article. I have translated the article from both the Arabic (My native language) and Portuguese (Using a translator) articles to try and include both POVs of the battle. Javext claims that the sources that I've used are completely unreliable and shouldn't be used on the article because he claims that:
    1. The academic backgrounds of the writers of those sources are unknown (keeping in mind that they were written by Yemenis who have limited internet access), and
    2. Yemeni state-controlled media outlets wrote them (also keeping in mind that Yemen is a poor and fractured state without any budget to have "state-controlled media outlets") Now, Javext has removed all the sources and text that they support from the article and used other sources (some of which I find no problems with using, although they provide little context compared to the other sources) and kept the sources that I've brought when I translated the Portuguese article. Special:diff/1266430566: This is the version of the article that has the Arabic sources and is the version that I want to keep and then expand with other sources that both I and Jav has used.
    Special:diff/1266448873: This is the version that Jav wants to keep Sources used by the version that I want to keep (I have run them through Google Translate's website translator for yall to understand):

    • [12]
    • [13]
    • [14]
    • [15] (This one doesn't want to get translated using the website translator but it gets translated if you right-click and press "Translate to English" on chrome)
    • [16]
    • [17]

    Extra source that I want to use after the dispute is resolved:

    Abo Yemen✉ 15:22, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I can't speak directly to the content dispute but none of the links you posted are wiki-appropriate sources. They're amateur essays. Please use academic publications instead. If you can't find a reliable source that supports your viewpoint, that viewpoint doesn't belong on Wikipedia. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:52, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle, and I would expect appropriate sources to engage with them directly. One is translated into English by R. B. Serjeant in The Portuguese off the South Arabian Coast (1963), pp. 52-53, and compare note by C. F. Buckingham at ibid., pp. 171-172, citing Portuguese records. This also seems to be a relevant document. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:08, 6 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are contemporary Arabic-language descriptions of this battle
    WP:AGE MATTERS?
    citing Portuguese records
    That is one of the things that we were discussing in the dispute. We have enough Portuguese POV in Jav's revision. Plus did you see what the sources were citing in the revisions above Abo Yemen✉ 07:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that's why I didn't say "cite these contemporary descriptions" but "expect appropriate sources to engage with them". If you want to account for non-Portuguese perception, the way to do it is find sources that discuss contemporary Arabic descriptions, not use modern amateur essays based on nothing. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:48, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    One example of another secondary source comparing the accounts (after C. F. Buckingham) is Subrahmanyam, Sanjay (1997). The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama. pp. 290-291. (link) GordonGlottal (talk) 17:06, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    GordonGlottal, why do you think that? They look to be published sources at least.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:34, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The independent arabia source cites a historian's account. Does that still count as unreliable?Abo Yemen✉ 15:58, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This is definitely the strongest source, I didn't see that you'd added it. The Independent is a solid newspaper, but specialist, technical sources are a requirement for this kind of disputed claim. I don't know who Bamousa is and google just turns up mentions of his education activism and participation in a literary society—can you find out anything about him? The basic thing is that there needs to be evidence, or a source saying it that we can assume would not be saying it without evidence. If there isn't any evidence there could still be a "modern legend" section based on these sources, I think, because it is interesting how the event is being discussed. GordonGlottal (talk) 17:14, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I tried searching for info about him online but there is limited info about him as Yemen doesn't have the best internet and the guy is really old to care about posting about himself online (Apparently he had been documenting the history there since the Quaiti Sultanate was a thing according to a Facebook post [19] made by a high school that he attended).[a] He is cited by multiple Arabic language sources, like the Independent (ofc) and al-Ayyam Aden (linked above), and is mentioned in others [20] [21] [22] [23]. He also published a book about the city of Shihr [24]. He was also visited by the minister of education of Yemen in 2023 [25]

    References

    1. ^ Machine translation: Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamusa, a native of Al-Shahr and a graduate of the third class of Al-Mukalla High School for Boys (now Bin Shihab High School for Boys)
      High School Flags
      Tuesday, September 17, 2024
      After years of parting, Abu Bakr Bin Shihab High School for Boys in Mukalla embraced Mr. Mohammed Omar Bamoussa, who graduated on the educational ladder for years and is now at the age of retirement. He visited the high school and in his gaze with passion and love for the past years, he climbed the stairs of the high school to the second floor to the office of the principal Mr. Saeed Ahmed Al-Amari, who welcomed him warmly and said that this visit gave us a boost and moral support, and the visit for Mr. Bamoussa was to ask about the old administrators, services and guards who were who were in the period of the sixties and seventies, but unfortunately the administration could not answer this and invites everyone who has information about them to raise it quickly, as Mr. Bamoussa has been working for years on writing a book about the beginning of education in Hadramawt since the time of the Qaitian Sultanate in the sixties and the beginning of the seventies, and he made a very important statement that the first principal of the high school is Mr. Karama Bammin from Tarim and then came after him Mr. Al-Sudani Al-Taloudi and this was a surprise for us and he confirmed this in his book that will see the light after completion of it.
      May God prolong his life and give him health and wellness to provide us with important information about the history of education in Hadramawt.
      The high school administration thanks Mr. Mohammed Bamoussi for this visit and this effort exerted by him for this wonderful work, and wishes the officials in the Ministry of Education, the governorate office and the local authority to adopt such people who raise the slogan of education and the slogan of Hadramawt, the land of science, knowledge and culture.

    Abo Yemen✉ 19:13, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Yeah basically, I don't see this as proof of anything. I've had a few other conversations on here about whether it's valid to include something based on an academic commenting to a reporter, and it just doesn't seem like a reliable genre of source. Even if Bamousa turned out to have sterling credentials. One of the problems is that the comment is often well outside the expert's field of expertise. Reporters don't want to call 1,000 different sources for each niche subject, so they rely on a small number of people who are willing to comment on almost anything, and these academics, who might be ultra-rigorous in another context, just regurgitate the same loose thinking anyone else would. Bamousa is a local retiree who is very active in the literary society and wrote a biography of a 20th-century bureaucrat/writer, but he probably doesn't know any more about 16th-century history than anyone else. If there's some proof of this narrative, it should be possible to find someone referencing it directly. Those references may exist but not be digitized, which is frustrating, but until one is found I think the page has to treat the contemporary evidence we do have as definitive.GordonGlottal (talk) 22:38, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Uh huh sure, but cant we use those sources for sections on the article that aren't related to the events of the battle, like the Special:diff/1266430566#Background Special:diff/1266430566#Losses and Special:diff/1266430566#Cultural significance sections? After all, some information that is still in the infobox was sourced from those sources. I have also found a book about the history of the city Internet Archive a txt version of the book that can get machine translated can it be used? (Hijri dates are used in that book) Abo Yemen✉ 07:22, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know anything about these publications. Judging from the material itself, the authors do not possess any level of technical expertise and are not basing their judgements either on any form of evidence, or on any previously published scholarship. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:55, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have been really busy these last few days and wasn't able to respond to Abo Yemen. Thank you for your participation in this debate. Javext (talk) 22:21, 7 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Javext If you're able, I think it would be a great contribution if you could copy out and translate whatever description is in this letter, which is the only primary source I could find, and then put it in a quote box or etc. as appropriate for a primary source. I know the letter contains relevant info from the catalog description but it doesn't seem to have been published anywhere and I don't read even modern Portuguese. It's probably just a few words but we may get lucky! GordonGlottal (talk) 00:26, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, @GordonGlottal. Unfortunately I am not able to translate the letter itself, since it is very difficult to even understand which words were used, I can only go by the catalog description you gave, which translated into English looks like this:
    "Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India ["India" was mainly used to refer to all Portuguese territories beyond the Cape of Good Hope], his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, capturing Al-Shihr, and how important it would be to conquer Diu." Javext (talk) 15:55, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    capturing Al-Shihr
    hm didn't you say the goal was just to sack the city and go? Abo Yemen✉ 16:32, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I said it was a strong possibility, considering that it was very normal for those types of Portuguese actions of piracy against Muslim coastal cities and the fact that Al-Shihr was a very common spot for the Portuguese to plunder.
    I also stated that if there was a reliable source that stated otherwise, I would accept it. Javext (talk) 20:56, 8 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well now we know that this isn't the case and the portuguese had failed to capture the city Abo Yemen✉ 05:30, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Source? If you are going to send those Arabic amateur essays please don't even bother responding. Javext (talk) 15:17, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Number 41 - Letter from Henrique de Macedo to the King, written from Goa on October 22, 1523, states his services in India, his campaign with D. Luis to the strait, capturing Al-Shihr, (Never happened btw) and how important it would be to conquer Diu."
    Abo Yemen✉ 15:20, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Never happened" isn't actually a source. Just a reminder that because they captured the city doesn't mean they retained it. Javext (talk) 15:35, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You cannot prove something that didn't happen. Do you have any source saying that they captured the city? Abo Yemen✉ 15:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    All of your sources said that they sacked the city, but nothing about capturing it was mentioned Abo Yemen✉ 15:44, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I do. The Portuguese captured the city and sacked it. Once again, this doesn't mean they retained it. [26][27] Javext (talk) 18:41, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    capturing a city != sacking it
    your initial sources said nothing about the Navy capturing the city but the letters say that they captured it. Something must be wrong here Abo Yemen✉ 18:45, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Once a gain they captured the city and THEN sacked it. Keep in mind that doesn't mean they kept control of it. I am not going to repeat this again. Javext (talk) 00:07, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Now show me where in your sources does it say that Abo Yemen✉ 06:59, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You were just denying that this happened after I showed you the sources, why are you asking this now? Didn't I just give them above? Javext (talk) 19:19, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What sources about capturing a city did you show me? Those letters clearly show that the portuguese wanted to capture the city and they failed as we have no proof of them being there after the battle was over. But did they lie to whoever they sent this letter to? Abo Yemen✉ 07:43, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Look bro, the letter doesn't state they failed, it states the Portuguese captured the city and then sacked it. For the fourth time, this DOES NOT mean they retained control of the city. Javext (talk) 19:53, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @GordonGlottal so we can finish with and archive this, can we use those sources in anything other than the battle section? like the other sections that I've mentioned being deleted here #c-Abo_Yemen-20250108072200-GordonGlottal-20250107223800 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 15:37, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In general I think we've established that there is currently no way of including any claim which cannot be directly traced to the 16th-century Portuguese histories or the Hadrami chronicles (which agree). This is because no source cites any other form of evidence, and because it represents the approach of English-language academic books. I have not reviewed the details and I do not know which claims qualify, but you're free to add anything you can find in an appropriate source. GordonGlottal (talk) 22:07, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    not even a legacy section like the one you proposed? 𐩣𐩫𐩧𐩨 Abo Yemen (𓃵) 06:30, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu

    The following genealogy sources are currently considered Generally unreliable at WP:RSP (A), or in repeated inquiries at WP:RSN (B and C):

    • A: Geni.com
    • B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley
    • C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav
    Long after being listed / labelled generally unreliable, these unreliable sources are still being (re-)added to hundreds to tens of thousands of articles.
    They should be:

    NLeeuw (talk) 23:38, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Background (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu)

    Preliminaries

    Probably need to add the website Genealogics.org to the list of unreliable sources. It also uses Wikipedia articles which would be WP:CIRC. --Kansas Bear 23:45, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    AD and I have decided to limit ourselves to these three sources for now in order to prevent a WP:TRAINWRECK. But it could be a good follow-up. NLeeuw (talk) 23:49, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That reminds me: maybe I should just have three separate subsections for Survey per source? That would make the voting process much easier. The voting format I'm proposing might be confusing. NLeeuw (talk) 23:51, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    PS: Done. Better now before the first vote comes in. NLeeuw (talk) 23:55, 2 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Can you clarify for us why these sites are being grouped together? I'm only familiar with Geni. GordonGlottal (talk) 00:13, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Are you disputing that they are unreliable? If so, why? If not, why waste time with this RFC? Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:22, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    These are websites that previous discussions have decided are unreliable. However due to their nature they are continually readded to articles. I believe NLeeuw is looking to get them deprecated or potentially blacklisted to stop that. For a similar instance see WP: Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 453#RfC: Universe Guide. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:33, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Read Background: B. NLeeuw (talk) 00:39, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I can't really see how this survey can change anything for geni.com? I tried clicking on the links but there is a lot to read. I don't want to cause a major distraction but I also notice a remark there that Burkes and Debretts are generally reliable. That's certainly not true for old editions which many editors are tempted to use. But even for new editions, the reliability depends upon the period etc. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:27, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Survey A: Geni.com

    Deprecate. User-generated junk that should be flagged when introduced. JoelleJay (talk) 05:50, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate.Question. Isn't it already deprecated?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:28, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate A user generated source that just keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn users against adding it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:10, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Unsure. Some doubt about deprecation as RSP says that primary sources uploaded to geni can be used as primary sources here. Is there a way of communicating that to users rather than giving a blanket warning? (I might be a little ignorant of how deprecation works in practice!) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:59, 9 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The vast majority of editors adding Geni as a citation for the primary sources it hosts are using those sources in exactly the way that is prohibited (i.e. they are using it as the sole supporting source for a statement rather than as background support for secondary sources). Even that's rare, as way way more people are citing it for its user-generated (often Wikipedia-based) "profiles" rather than whatever historical records are uploaded there. JoelleJay (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate. Really bad. Needs to go away.—Alalch E. 00:07, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Invalid RFC/No change - giving only options here that are highly negative is not a neutral stance. And there is no specific evidences shown or reason why this is even coming up or needs that all previous RSP should be declared invalid. (See discussions RSP discussions here ). Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:45, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why would we provide positive options when the overwhelming consensus already is that it is not reliable? There is absolutely no requirement that RSN RfCs be formatted with the standard options, especially when the aim isn't even to change the status quo GUNREL designation but rather to flesh out how we technically handle the source. And how could this possibly be declaring the previous discussions invalid, given that they all concluded Geni should not be used? The point of deprecating is to prevent new usage of the source, by warning editors who try to insert it that it's generally unreliable and tagging the citation if they go through with it. Geni is constantly being re-added by clueless people, deprecating would help a lot with cleaning it up. JoelleJay (talk) 05:11, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    User:JoelleJay Per WP:RFC is a dispute resolution mechanism, and if the RFC excludes anything else then it is just invalid. And most of the options *do* seem to be seeking to change the prior RSP designation. This also is not involving the editors who apparently feel Geni is to be used, or to look at usage since WP:CONTEXTMATTERS except to state they are clueless. I do not know that is so - and cannot see where this RFC looked at whether a RFC to throw out prior RSP is even needed. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:36, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ?? Where does WP:RFC say that RfC options must include all possibilities regardless of prior consensus, appropriateness, relevance, feasibility, etc.? Do you just think all RfCs that clarify an existing consensus are automatically invalid because the listed outcomes are constrained? And again, deprecation only affects how we handle citing a source that is already considered generally unreliable: There is community consensus from a request for comment to deprecate the source. The source is considered generally unreliable, and use of the source is generally prohibited. There have been no other RfCs on Geni, so it's not like deprecation has even been considered and rejected. JoelleJay (talk) 00:45, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Survey B: Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley

    Deprecate, per background discussion. JoelleJay (talk) 05:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment. I think this source has been often discussed in a superficial way, together with other sources, which does not always lead to a clear perspective. This is not like the other two. It collects a lot of useful extracts from primary sources than can be helpful for getting a grip on a topic. Although it is basically the work of one editor, this editor was assigned to do this for an organization which does make some efforts to maintain a reputation for quality. (The FMG publishes a journal, and it posts some online corrections to Keats-Rohan's reference works for the 11th and 12th century, and she has noted those helpful efforts in print.) On the other hand, Medlands does not use secondary material very much, so it is normally not going to the type of source we would use on WP on its own for anything non-obvious. I note these complications because I see that sources like Ancestry.com and Findmypast also have special notes about how they can sometimes have useful primary materials. To give a practical example of what might go wrong, what I saw in the past whenever this source was discussed, is that it was even deleted from external links sections and so on. I think this is a source that can be used for external links at the very least. I feel hesitant to say that it should NEVER EVER be used even in the main body to be honest, although I don't use it on WP.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:44, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate Crawley has no academic background in history and MedLands is self-published. It is not published by FMG only hosted by them. That it contains a lot of useful information is not the same as it having a reputation for fact checking and accuracy, something it doesn't have. Deprecation isn't blacklisting, editors are warned against adding it not blocked. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:18, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ActivelyDisinterested: I see the fine print, but we know editors who need simple rules don't understand fine print in practice. The text for deprecated says "the source is generally prohibited". I'm thinking these sorts of decisions should be made if they reduce the number of useless pseudo-legal debates, and not increase them. (In reality the main principle we should always follow is that good editors will judge based on context IMHO. There are so many possible contexts, and trying to make rules to cover them all is not always a good idea.) Andrew Lancaster (talk) 13:53, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Editors who know the fine print will be the ones using the source correctly, and will know how to handle the situation. The issue is that editors who don't know keep adding this as a reference to support content, and the many discussions on the source show they isn't support for that. Adding a warning when editors post will at least get editors to ask why they are getting the warning, and help them understand the situation.
    Deprecation of this source will reduce the pointless pseudo-legal debates, by reducing the problem of the source being repeatedly readded. Editors should use their own good judgement, but as repeated discussion about this source have shown that isn't happening. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:01, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes in effect it would reduce the possibly of any discussion, good or bad, by effectively making the source not worth discussing, or am I misunderstanding? The fine print would be irrelevant in practice, and that is my concern in this case.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion has been against using this source for at least a decade, and deprecation doesn't stop anyone wanting to question from discussing it. Deprecation doesn't in anyway stop editors from discussing anything. What effect this will have is to warn editors when they try to add the source, anything else is as you say your misunderstanding. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:38, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we both know exactly what I mean about what will happen in reality when WP goes into bot mode. I am just saying that there is a cost to rule making.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:11, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes the cost of not having to continuously patrol for this source and have the same discussion about it's reliability again and again.
    Separately before the two of us fill the survey section with our disagreement (mea culpa), should we move this discussion to the Discussion section? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:17, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Generally unreliable. I first read the definitions of the categories we are voting on. (I hope others do also.) Generally unreliable is the one which says this: "questionable in most cases. The source may lack an editorial team, have a poor reputation for fact-checking, fail to correct errors, be self-published" I think that's the accurate description in this case. It also seems to match what others are arguing, and so I note with some concern that there might be misunderstandings about what "deprecate" really means on WP. How I read it, deprecation would only allow use for self-description (for example if there was a Medlands article), and otherwise it would be prohibited. To repeat what I wrote elsewhere, I am not advising editors to use this website, but its collection of medieval primary sources is possibly going to be useful here and there to someone, and I don't think bots (or bot-like editors) should be sent out to "attack" without looking at context every time someone mentions it.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, it may be useful as a reference work, or as introductory material for the interested reader, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". Just like Wikipedia itself isn't a "source", but a collection of sources. The "Rurik dynasty" case outlined at the May 2023 MedLands RSN shows just how careless Cawley is in using sources, e.g. taking known problematic primary sources that he knows may be of little factual significance at face value just because he finds them "interesting" (but is reproduced by way of interest), and citing private emails from others as "sources" that we can't verify. Surely our readers deserve a higher standard that this. NLeeuw (talk) 14:45, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps you can explain what real disadvantages the Generally unreliable category would bring? I doubt we disagree on much here. But one idea which is guiding me is that generally speaking, I don't think we can or should try to predict every case, and write rules for everything. We should only break the basic, proven WP way of working when we really have to, and then only as far as we have to. By this I mean sources should be judged according to the core content policy, in the context of specific examples, which we can't predict. So my approach here is to read the definitions of the categories we can choose from, and pick the accurate one. I think I did it correctly. Deprecation seems to be for extreme cases where we literally accept that WP editors will now sometimes beat each other with a virtual stick if anyone dares post such a source, even in an external links section. I can understand how this might be for the best when we look at Geni, however... --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 15:36, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Andrew Lancaster, there really isn't the nuance for this source's reliability that would warrant citing it for anything. Unlike news media and niche RS where we might take into consideration the reliability of individual contributors or the scope of expertise in a publication when deciding whether it is reliable to cite for a given statement, MedLands is a non-expert SPS and thus there aren't any circumstances where it could be cited as a third-party source. It's also one of those sources widely used by amateur genealogists on other user-generated sites who come here wanting to add genealogy details; these are often drive-by users who are not regular en.wp editors and do not know/care about our policies, so merely classifying it as generally unreliable is not going to affect its continued addition here much at all. JoelleJay (talk) 21:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Generally reliable, in my experience. Furthermore, it provides footnotes to almost every claim that one can use instead of linking to the website. Ghirla-трёп- 16:15, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate per ActivelyDisinterested.—Alalch E. 00:10, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • No Change - no entry to RSP needed and seems has been accepted. This just is not something that often comes up for question and seems has not been hard to figure out the nature of so it also does not need a RSP entry. Yet as can be seen by this search, it is used and that seems evidence that common view *is* de facto RS by usage. Really seems like just declaring all those edits wrong is not a useful thing. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Editors using a source does not make it "de facto" RS... We have thousands of hits for pinterest and the like, and used to have thousands to the Daily Mail; that doesn't mean any of those are actually reliable. If you're objecting to the whole concept of RSP this isn't the place to do it. JoelleJay (talk) 04:51, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Usage has absolutely no bearing on reliability. Thousands of Wikipedians could be quoting from The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and that still doesn't make it de facto RS by usage for information on butterflies.
      This just is not something that often comes up for question It does. In Background: C Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 405#fmg.ac (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), I have indicated a long list of previous discussions on MedLands by Cawley, which has been going on for 15+ years (by now 17+ years). All this time, the conclusion that they reached repeatedly was that MedLands by Cawley was not reliable, but for a time it was thought that we could just gradually replace MedLands by other sources, and keeping MedLands template with a warning as a temporary measure until better sources had been found. However, that didn't happen, and the supposedly temporary measure became quasi-permanent until we agreed in the May 2023 RSN to no longer use the template or the website in any other way. And even after that, the website still gets used as a source by Wikipedians (usually new ones who were not aware of the previous discussions and the May 2023 decision). Deprecation is exactly what allows us to give editors a warning that it is not reliable, and to check out previous discussions and decisions, to prevent new usage. See also JoelleJay's response to your comment under Survey A: Geni.com. NLeeuw (talk) 09:15, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • User:JoelleJay I am saying that no entry to RSP is needed and that it seems an accepted source. Just trying to point out the practical difficulties and that countervailing practice exists. No, editors using it *does* make it de facto RS. De facto or ‘in practice’ this has been used as RS by many WP editors. And per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS looking at those usages shown by my search link above it seems to be simple matters such as providing an image of heraldic devices where it looks reasonable and helpful to use. If you’re objecting to the source as being bad, then show those hundreds of edits are bad to establish how much an effort is needed - why are we here? If those hundreds of use will not be easily replaced with something better then it just seems harmful to WP content. If there are better sources, fine, then sell those — but I just don’t see a need or benefit here, this looks like unnecessary criticism of an accepted RS. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:08, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Could you clarify: the search link you provided returns 17 results in total, of which 4 are about MedLands. The rest are false positives. What are the "hundreds of use" you refer to? Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:34, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      In Background: B I have done a systemic search for how often URLs to MedLands are currently used in all project spaces of Englsh Wikipedia. Quoting myself:
      http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ is currently used in 360 times in enwiki pages, 172 of which are Talk: pages (including 37 User talk: pages), 125 are User: pages (excluding User talk: pages), 54 are Wikipedia: pages (Articles for creation, Articles for deletion, RSN, Reference desk, WikiProjects, Featured article candidates, Good article reassessment, Redirects for discussion), 1 Draft: page, 1 MediaWiki talk:Spam-blacklist/archives/May 2019, 2 Portals, and apparently only 5 mainspace article links: Boniface I, Margrave of Tuscany (once) and House of Astarac (4 times). Except for those last 5, there doesn't seem to be a big issue with the http URL of MedLands. However, the https://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/ URL of MedLands is currently used 111 times in enwiki pages, 66 of which are Talk: pages (including 6 User talk: pages), 12 are User: pages (excluding User talk: pages), 4 Wikipedia: pages (excluding 1 Wikipedia talk: page), and..... the other 29 pages appear to be URLs in mainspace articles, most of them probably recently added by User:Vittoriobr (who has already been notified below). NLeeuw (talk) 05:09, 31 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
      So the total of URLs in mainspace articles currently referring to MedLands as if it is a reliable source is 5 + 29 = 34. Most of the rest are URLs in Talk pages discussing whether / why MedLands is an unreliable source. But the example of Vittoriobr, a good-faith new user who had no knowledge of the prior discussions and decisions, and single-handedly readded MedLands with 29 URLs in mainspace articles, illustrates exactly why we should Deprecate MedLands in order to send warnings to new users who are not aware of it is unreliable status as a source. NLeeuw (talk) 09:07, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This would be higher but I semi-regularly clean up new additions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:47, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I suppose you think it is ever reasonable to cite Tumblr because there are 1500+ citations to it, then? Actually, given you consider just 34 instances of MedLands being cited as evidence of its being "de facto RS", it seems that you would consider any usage of a source to mean it is RS until RSN has had 5+ separate discussions adjudicating it as unreliable, regardless of whether it is clearly SPS?
      We don't need to show that each of the edits citing it is bad when we already have consensus across multiple discussions that MedLands is an amateur SPS and thus, per policy, never acceptable to cite. Context is completely irrelevant when the source is unambiguously not RS. JoelleJay (talk) 00:11, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Survey C: genealogy.eu / genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav

    Deprecate. SPS that is far too widely cited already, probably because the url looks like it's some official site. JoelleJay (talk) 05:52, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Which website were you looking at? If you type genealogy.eu you seem to be redirected to a completely different website which I GUESS is not the one we are meant to be discussing?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav, which advertises itself as genealogy.eu and has often been cited as such on English Wikipedia, even though "genealogy.eu" these days indeed redirects to a different website (https://en.filae.com/v4/genealogie/HomePage.mvc/welcome; which is outside the scope of this RfC). NLeeuw (talk) 11:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate. Another self published source that keeps getting readded, deprecation will warn editors against doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate. I am surprised this one is being used a lot. I have not come across it yet I think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrew Lancaster (talk • contribs) 13:54, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Comment. The site is useful for quick checks. In general, it's a faithful transcription of such classic sources as the Europäische Stammtafeln, Dworzaczek's Genealogia (Warszawa, 1958), etc. It's better to refer our readers to the published sources, of course (if one has access to them). By the way, the site has not been updated since 2005. Ghirla-трёп- 16:30, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, it may be useful for quick checks, but it shouldn't be cited as a "source". NLeeuw (talk) 19:20, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Deprecate. WP:SPS. Deprecation will have a positive effect. And while it's always possible that someone in the know, who's really into genealogy, has the ability of figuring out out how the operator of this website makes it have the content that it has, that's not useful for determining reliability.—Alalch E. 00:17, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • No change to either of these - seems this is referring to two different sources, both of which are somewhat widely used in WP and neither of which seems suitable for an RSP entry. Just not seeing sufficient case or benefit from any entry either. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:13, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      They are the same website; the old url is just broken now. And the fact that it is still being widely used is exactly why it needs an RSP entry and even more so to be deprecated... JoelleJay (talk) 05:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      somewhat widely used in WP. Again, usage has absolutely no bearing on reliability. This is English Wikipedia, not Wikimedia Commons. Just because a source is widely used doesn't mean it gets a free pass. NLeeuw (talk) 09:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      These seem currently two entirely different websites according to the first post in this subthread and my brief look. The genealogy.eu current redirect does not seem like what is intended to be under discussion for RSP entry, so I suggest confirmation of this and scratching out. If you want to consider a block against future RS cites then only currently available sites seem needed. Though I suppose RSP entries can have date notes such as ‘1997-2005 this url was a blog and not RS, 2007-2015 it was a retail shop with no opinion, and 2020-2025 it is RS’. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:42, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This is a fair point which I should have been clearer about. But I refer to my earlier clarification above: [We are discussing] genealogy.euweb.cz by Marek Miroslav, which advertises itself as genealogy.eu and has often been cited as such on English Wikipedia, even though "genealogy.eu" these days indeed redirects to a different website (https://en.filae.com/v4/genealogie/HomePage.mvc/welcome; which is outside the scope of this RfC). NLeeuw (talk) 11:55, 3 January 2025 (UTC). NLeeuw (talk) 09:11, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Deprecate as persistently abused SPS. Yes, it may cite reliable sources, but we need to WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT. ミラP@Miraclepine 16:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion (Geni.com, MedLands, genealogy.eu)

    @ActivelyDisinterested: my apologies also. To be clear, I respect your concern, and I think I understand it. I think we've conveyed our concerns, and laid out some pros and cons, and background principles. I'm not stressed about that. I think its a point of getting the balance right. In practical reality the three sources should not normally be used, and I see no big disagreements. I just think the difference between the two categories offered is (or should be) meaningful, and I wanted to make that clear. I am not really disagreeing with any other specific point.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 18:19, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Although I disagree I can understand you position. It's to easy to get stuck in disagreement spirals are part of RFCs. Let's see if anyone else brings any new ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:09, 3 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I previously commented that a seperate warning for generally unreliable sources would be helpful, for ones that are problematicly readded on a regular basis would be useful. That way a warning would appear but wouldn't come with the baggage of deprecation. At the moment deprecation is the only resource available, but it is a somewhat blunt hammer. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:36, 4 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ActivelyDisinterested Thanks for restoring the discussion from the archive; it evidently was not yet closed. It would seem that we've got a clear result though. Should I request a third party to formally close it with a conclusion, or how does this go with RfCs? NLeeuw (talk) 18:00, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The {{RFC}} tag was missing, which would have added "DoNotArchiveUntil.." to the header to stop it from being archived. I've add the RFC tag which will list in for every to see (not just those to happen across it on RSN). I suggest waiting and seeing if any more comments come in, as they editors have taken part yet. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:04, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see the point to this. I can see there being concerns about quality of niche sources, but do not see a reason why a RSP entry should be made or benefit for trying it. Why should the source choice of hundreds or thousands of editors at thousands of entries be disregarded ? How can they all be effectively replaced ? I'm thinking that their de facto opinion has to be given great weight and that all those cites would either stay or that holes would be made in the affected articles -- so any RSP entry seems just pointless or causing lots of trouble rather than making any improvement. Am I missing some magic wand or an urgent concern worth the trauma ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      These are all clearly user-generated and/or amateur SPS and therefore automatically unreliable, so the source preferences of the random drive-by editors adding it absolutely should be disregarded. I've removed thousands of citations to these and similar sites, they almost invariably support undue trivia and frequently BLPNAME violations (e.g. full names, birthdates, and birthplaces of non-notable minor relatives) that shouldn't be in the article in the first place. JoelleJay (talk) 05:39, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It seems to me that Markbassett is trying to have it both ways.
      • On the one hand, he claims that all three sources are niche sources; that there is no specific evidences shown or reason why this is even coming up; and that This just is not something that often comes up for question. So it's a small matter about niche sources that are rarely discussed (and rarely used?), and there is no reason to discuss it now and change their status, because it's not important enough.
      • On ther other hand, he claims that there is no [need] that all previous RSP should be declared invalid (presumably he means previous RSN discussions on the source); that [it] seems [the source] has been accepted, [because] it is used and that seems evidence that common view *is* de facto RS by usage. Really seems like just declaring all those edits wrong is not a useful thing.; that [the sources] are somewhat widely used in WP; and finally Why should the source choice of hundreds or thousands of editors at thousands of entries be disregarded ? How can they all be effectively replaced ? I'm thinking that their de facto opinion has to be given great weight and that all those cites would either stay or that holes would be made in the affected articles. So it's a big matter about widely used sources that have been discussed many times before, but there is no reason to discuss it now and change their status, because the usage of these sources in thousands of articles is too important and too impossible to be replaced by anything else.
      These two lines of reasoning are in contraction with each other. These sources can't be simultaneously niche but also widely used; rarely discussed but also frequently discussed at RSN before; and not important enough but also too important to have their status changed. The second argument seems to undermine the first, as evidence is given for how often these sources are indeed used, and that they have been frequently discussed before at RSN, and that the impact of the decision could affect thousands of articles. The second argument also seems to invoke WP:HARDWORK. Unfortunate though that might be, it may be the conclusion we sometimes have to reach about sources that have been frequently cited in the past, but have subsequently turned out to be (very) unreliable. NLeeuw (talk) 09:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      User:Nederlandse Leeuw Saying “niche sources” was an observation that these sources are about niche topic areas, as in you’re not going to ever be seeing a lot of somehow ‘better’ alternatives. As for “there is no specific evidences shown or reason why this is even coming up”, consider the context given - my saying it doesn’t seem a valid RFC is partly because I am not seeing those and it would be a better RFC if such can be provided. As to “This just is not something that often comes up for question” — well, despite finding hundreds of usages I didn’t find many discussions about these in RSN, and WP:RSP explicitly says “Only sources that have been repeatedly raised for discussion are listed here, it is not a general or comprehensive list of all generally reliable or unreliable sources in the world, it is a summarization of discussions about the listed sources.” I can and do respect the concerns about these sources, but I just am not seeing these as having been shown appropriate for RSP. Hopefully in the literal Request For Comments sense this RFC is succeeding in providing comments and other thoughts. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:16, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      you’re not going to ever be seeing a lot of somehow ‘better’ alternatives. Well, I managed to list a whole lot of reliable sources for genealogical research at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Royalty and Nobility#Seems WP:RS. It currently stands at 11, and those are just about Scandinavia, the Baltics and Russia; I'm sure there are plenty more for the rest of the world, and probably even more than the 11 for these regions alone that I haven't yet listed. In the comments below the list, two users have already confirmed the Swedish and Finnish sources of these 11 to be Generally reliable. So it's not like we're stuck with only bad sources, and the three bad sources under nomination here (A, B, and C) should be accepted just because they are some of the "least bad" sources on genealogy. We can do better, and we are currently making an effort to do better by weeding out the sources we should no longer be using. This RfC is one step in that process.
      I am not seeing those [discussions on Geni.com]. In Background: A, I referred to "Geni.com" at WP:RSPSOURCES. That lists 5 prior discussions on Geni.com: 1 2 3 4 5. I hope that is enough for you?
      despite finding hundreds of usages I didn’t find many discussions about these [MedLands] in RSN. In Background: C, I referred to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 405#fmg.ac (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy), the Medieval Lands / MedLands by Charles Cawley RSN of May 2023. There, ActivelyDisinterested noted that Medieval Lands has been discussed before and is not a reliable source. I observed amongst other things: I now see that Medieval Lands / Cawley / fmg.ac / Foundation for Medieval Genealogy has been discussed time and again at this Noticeboard, especially in 2012 several times, again in 2014 (by which time it was clear that it was unreliable), but in a 2016 discussion (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 217#Historical sources in Zeno, señor de Vizcaya) people seemed to be unaware of the previous conclusions and were invoking Cawley again as possibly reliable. It seems quite ineffective to me to be having the same discussion all over again. I could have saved myself the trouble if it had an entry at WP:RSP (the other place where I looked before I submitted thus inquiry). It is still extensively used on Wikipedia despite repeated conclusions that it is unreliable. (...) However, I guess I never gave a complete list of those previous RSN discussions on MedLands, so I'll do it here now (next comment). NLeeuw (talk) 09:52, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Previous RSN discussions on MedLands / Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley at fmg.ac (Foundation for Medieval Genealogy):
      NLeeuw (talk) 10:09, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    PS: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 77#Foundations - Journal of the Foundation for Medieval Genealogy (Sep/Oct 2010) is about a different publication within the same Foundation for Medieval Genealogy that does not seem to be self-published, and not run by Charles Cawley. And this journal appears to be generally reliable. For this and other reasons, ActivelyDisinterested and I have decided not to nominate the fmg.ac website or the overall project as a whole for discussion, but only the subproject / subdomain fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/, which self-published and run by Charles Cawley. This is an important distinction to make. Arguably, we could even add this journal to the Seems RS list at the Royalty and Nobility WikiProject; the main issue with it, though, is that it is behind a paywall. NLeeuw (talk) 10:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    NLeeuw - Replying to your question to me for geni. No, those 5 discussions from 2016 and earlier seem not enough because they were part of the earlier RSP summarization. A call for RSP alteration should try to show info newer than the prior RSP per WP:RSPIMPROVE. Might be less about a count than about the qualities of newer RSN discussion(s) which are supposed to be about specific edits per RSN lead and per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, whether the discussion(s) are “significant” per WP:RSPCRITERIA, and whether they show that a RSP change is needed as in RSN discussions are no longer summarized by what is in the RSP table. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:56, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: Jacobin

    Which of the following best describes the reliability of Jacobin (magazine)?

    — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 16:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]


    Survey: Jacobin

    • Option 2 I am opposed to the use of WP:GREL and think that no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2. With that being said, I would list New York Times or the CBC in precisely the same way and I don't believe that any of the complainants have demonstrated in any way that Jacobin is less reliable, per Wikipedia's standards, than any other American news media outlet. I am deeply concerned that many of the complaints are about "bias" when reliability does not include a political compass test. This is not grounds to treat a source as unreliable. Simonm223 (talk) 16:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2/3, bias is one thing, getting things down right incorrect is another. As was demonstrated in the pre-discussion, the notion around the housing stock was truly an egregious error. This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts. When that happens, "Generally unreliable" or at minimum, "Additional considerations" makes sense as the guidance when using this source. I do not think further deprecation is warranted though since the reporters seem to be of a mixed quality, some are more diligent than others and the bias merging into wanton disregard for facts varies there too. The problem is, we rate sources, not just individual writers, and therefore as far as a source rating goes, "Option 2" or "Option 3" then makes the most logical sense. Iljhgtn (talk) 16:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It was corrected. Your entire case is based on a single incident where a single writer made a single mistake. And it was fixed. There is absolutely no grounds for "Generally unreliable" on the basis of presented evidence. Simonm223 (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It was corrected only after significant outside pressure and even then the correction was weak and inaccurate. The guy who wrote the article was explicitly mocking the people who pointed out his error and accusing them of something along the lines of being corporate shills. It also wasn’t a single incident as they publish nonsense regarding Russia and Ukraine, including and up to outright conspiracy theories, pretty regularly. It simply is not a reliable source, however much one agrees with their editorial stance. Volunteer Marek 19:29, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      So you agree with Iljhgtn's conspiracy theory that this was the purposeful result of pushing bias not an error? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:30, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don’t see any “conspiracy theories” from anyone here, including User:Iljhgtn and your attempts to characterize a pretty reasonable statement (“bias that creeped” in) as such are kind of offensive and disingenuous. Can you make an argument without making false and insulting accusations against others? Volunteer Marek 01:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        You misquote the editor (to your benefit), for someone so interested in errors supposedly motivated by bias that seems odd... In context its clearly stronger than that "This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." when nothing suggests that this was the result of narrative pushing (thats how you push a narrative either, as you've pointed out although lingusitically similar its an embarrassing and obvious error). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
        • You literally accused another editor, without basis in fact, of pushing “conspiracy theory” as a rhetorical device on your part to discredit and debase their views. You have absolutely no room to accuse others of, according to you, “misquoting” (which I did not do). And your attempts to litigate the meaning of “narrative pushing” (of course the article was trying to push a narrative! It was an opinion piece! That’s what opinion pieces do - this one just did it with false facts) are just typically tiresome. Volunteer Marek 01:58, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          You keep dancing around... Do you really believe that the information was changed to push a narrative? (and remember that such a specific claim about a living person falls under BLP, so if the answer is yes a source needs to be provided) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          No , I’m not. I’m simply asking you to refrain from trying to falsely characterize other people’s comments as “conspiracy theories” in a cheap attempt to delegitimize them since they’re clear nothing of the sort. Not everything you disagree with is a “conspiracy theory”. In this particular case, the article clearly had false info in it. No one has ever said that “information was changed” (as if on purpose) so please stop pretending otherwise. What was said was that “bias creeped in” which I think is a fair characterization. So please quit it with the strawman’ing. Volunteer Marek 02:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          I am pretty shocked by these accusations if true, and would ask we WP:FOC. I believe @Horse Eye's Back is a good editor and contributor to these discussions normally though, so I think I must be missing something or a miscommunication may have occurred. I will give them time and space to explain if they feel explanation is warranted. I sure would appreciate it. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:34, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
          Its you who needs to provide a source to substantiate your allegations against a living person. ""This was not a typo, or a miscalculation, this was bias that creeped so heavily into the newsroom as to make the writers push a narrative, instead of report on the facts." is a BLP violation unless a source is provided or the author drops dead. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:37, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      And what is your source for that? Nobody else is saying that this was the result of bias, the sources say that "third largest corporate owner of housing" became "owns a third of housing" which is a very understandable mistake. You appear to have constructed your own conspiracy theory around this incident. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Im sorry but “third largest owner” turning into “owns one third of all housing stock” is NOT an “understandable mistake”. It misstates the actual fact by a factor of 500. Maybe if this was like a student in some freshmen class using AI to write a paper that would be “understandable” (and still get an F) but this is supposed to be a professional, who’s job it is to get this stuff right and this is supposed to be a serious organization that has an editorial board that does fact checking. Which they obviously didn’t do. Volunteer Marek 19:36, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Its not math so the factor that it mistates it by is irrelevant, they are much more similar statements as written and to me (someone who works with the writing of other human beings every day) it is entirely understandable. That sort of error is made by every major and minor publication, it’s how they handle it which counts and here it was handled well. You can of course respond to this with a source which says that this is a major error, but I don't think that such a source exists (if it does I couldn't find it) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:28, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Whats “not math”? The difference between .0006 and .33? You sure? Volunteer Marek 01:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      And let’s see these “every major and minor publications” that make these kinds of error. Volunteer Marek 01:25, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I note the failure to provide the requested source. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:39, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I have to say I question your judgment in supporting option 3 "generally unreliable" over Jacobin publishing and then retracting a single erroneous sentence, and for having a bias/narrative/agenda, when you also !voted option 1 "generally reliable" for The Heritage Foundation which routinely publishes fabricated information without retraction. Could you kindly articulate how an admittedly biased outlet with a team of fact checkers is apparently significantly worse than a think tank that churns out misinformation and disinformation (and has a team of paid staff working around the clock to target, dox, and threaten Wikipedia editors)?  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 20:12, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 A screenshot of a tweet documenting an already corrected error is insufficient to depreciate a reliable source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gamaliel (talk • contribs) 16:54, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are a lot more issues about Jacobin than just a tweet, and include more recent topics after the last RfC like the Russian invasion of Ukraine. --NoonIcarus (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I do not see that in the above discussion, can you link to any discussion of this? Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 17:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gamaliel: Mostly Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin and at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine). Kind regards,
    Thank you for the links. I will repost once I've read through those discussions. Gamaliel (talk) 18:14, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 at the very least, change current assessment. It might be easier to comment if editors agree or not to change the current category. My position is based on coverage that mixes opinion with facts and its use of unreliable sources, some of which have been deprecated by this noticeboard (like The Grayzone). I went into more detail about this at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 8#Jacobin and at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 351#Rfc: Jacobin (magazine). --NoonIcarus (talk) 16:58, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 (intext attribution) WP:RSBIAS and WP:RSOPINION cover most of the points here. Jacobin publishes opinions peice that should have intext attribution. This is how they are used in the large amount of WP:USEBYOTHERS that Jacobin also has. I may not like Jacobin very much but bias, opinion, or minor mistakes do not make a source unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:06, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 Context matters: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable." The example given was a mistake in a book review, cubsequently corrected, about how much housing stock Blackstone owned. No reasonable editor would use this review as a source for an article on housing or Blackstone and more than one would use a reliable source on U.S. housing for an article about 19th century French poetry. TFD (talk) 17:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1-ish Jacobin are clearly a biased source but they are also clearly as reliable for facts as any other major WP:NEWSORG. When they make mistakes, they correct themselves, and that improves their reliability, it doesn't hurt it. Loki (talk) 17:17, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2: additional considerations/bad RFC - based on the discussion above, evidently there's some kind of social media uproar about some thing that Jacobin published and later corrected. It's poor timing to hold an RFC on reliability both when emotions are high and when it's in response to an isolated incident, both of which are true here. But ignoring that, it seems (again from the discussion above) that Jacobin published something that was egregiously incorrect, then retracted or corrected it. That's pretty much the standard we expect of reliable publications: errors are compatible with reliability, it's how the publication responds to and corrects errors that determines reliability in this context. Media Bias/Fact Check gives Jacobin a "high" reliability score of 1.9 (out of 10, lower scores are better), which is in the ballpark of the New York Times (1.4) and Washington Post (2.1). However, they also give it a "left bias" rating of -7 (a 20-point scale with 0 as completely unbiased), which is on the edge of their extreme ratings. Editors should consider attribution, and/or balancing this source's POV against publications more to the right. Ivanvector (Talk/Edits) 17:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2/3 While BIAS usually covers issues like, it may not be entirely sufficient for advocacy media, which includes Jacobin. While Jacobin is a fine publication and I've sourced it myself, the reality is it does not usually report Who/What/Why but almost exclusively publishes explainers and analysis pieces that have a designed structure. For instance, How Biden Embraced Trump’s Terror Smear Against Cuba [29] is not an editorial or opinion piece, it's presented as straight news reporting in the form of an explainer article. But, as an encyclopedia, we obviously can't start injecting artistic wordsets like "terror smear" into articles. So merely saying that BIAS can cover the case of Jacobin is not sufficient. For the purposes of encyclopedia writing, there will never be anything chronicled by Jacobin that is appropriate for WP which we can't find a superior source for elsewhere. They don't do spot news, data journalism, or investigative reporting, which are the three ways we use newsgathering media to reference articles. Simply looking at the current issue, I don't see a single story that is actually reporting things. Each article is an opinion piece lightly packaged as an explainer. So, while I don't think Jacobin is "unreliable" per se, I don't see any value of using it for the very scope-limited purpose of encyclopedia-writing. Chetsford (talk) 18:08, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 for facts and 2/inline attribution otherwise for articles that are mainly opinion. The hoohah over an article that was actually about Mark Fisher and since corrected such that it doesn't even mention Blackstone seems like a one off. Selfstudier (talk) 18:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Nothing in the above discussion or that I've seen in the last year leads me to deviate from my !vote in the previous RfC which was this: Option 2: mostly a partisan opinion source usable with attribution if noteworthy, but occasionally publishes well-researched pieces by experts in their fields, on topics that might not be covered in more mainstream sources, in particular on the history of the left or on socialist theory. I also think that the closing of the last RfC, and in particular green flagging on RSP, did not reflect the consensus of the discussion, as I argued when this came up on this board in 2023: I have long been unhappy with the RSP summary of the many RSN discussions of this source, where the consensus has clearly been much more negative than the summary. It is clear that several editors have major issues with its use in specific areas (e.g. Russia/Ukraine, Venezuela) and that this should be flagged, and that it publishes content by a few conspiracy thinkers (Branko Marcetic was mentioned in the last discussion, McEvoy flagged here) and again this isn't highlighted in RSP. So I'd favour a rewrite of the RSP and possibly a change from green to yellow as a better reflection of the community consensus. In short: I think we need to approach it in a much more case by case basis. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:22, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 My assessment hasn't changed from last time, jacobin publishes mostly opinion so this is largely a moot point and the rest of what they publish often contradicts itself—blindlynx 18:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • 1 or 2, I think that most of the time they should be used with attribution but they're generally reliable enough that I don't think we should be requiring attribution. I also question the need for a new RfC... It doesn't seem like there has been anything substantial since last time so this shouldn't have been opened. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Weak option 2 per above voters (especially AD and Bob), but I won't die on that hill if the consensus ultimately feels differently. Strong oppose option 3, though, for somewhat obvious reasons. The Kip (contribs) 18:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1/2 - I don't like Jacobin. They read to me like the socialist equivalent of Christian rock. But they have an editor, publisher and corrections, and I'm reasonably sure they're not actually liars. It's an opinion outlet, like a leftist analogue of Reason. I'm not convinced coverage in Jacobin connotes notability. So I'd give them a strong "considerations apply" - attribute, not ideal for notability - David Gerard (talk) 19:13, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1/2 Jacobin's fine. It's left-leaning, but it doesn't cook up facts or make shit up. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 19:15, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 or 4 They publish outright falsehoods and when they issue corrections these are weak and weaselly. The recent completely absurd claim in one of their articles that Blackstone owns 33% of US single family housing stock is an example (it’s actually 1/10 of 1%). Whether you’re sympathetic to their editorial position is irrelevant. Garbage is garbage and facts are facts and as an encyclopedia we can’t rely on click bait nonsense for sources. Volunteer Marek 19:21, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1, with attribution for analysis and opinion pieces. The Blackstone mistake was bad, and the author's petulant attitude upon being corrected leaves much to be desired. But the error was corrected relatively promptly, and they have an editorial team on staff. I'm not in favor of downgrading a source based on a single mistake. However, Jacobin has an explicit editorial stance that informs nearly all of its articles, and if it's used for more than straightforward facts, it should probably be attributed as e.g. "the socialist magazine Jacobin". I'm open to changing my view if others can demonstrate a more sustained pattern of errors or falsehoods. Astaire (talk) 20:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 (with caveats) due to the lack of developments since the last RfC which could actually change the conclusion of general reliability, as opposed to demonstrating fallibility or bias. I do have some sympathy with the no media outlet, no matter how reliable, should be listed higher than option 2 position articulated above, but I think that comes down to how we interpret "generally reliable" in practice. In other words, "additional considerations" always apply, in principle. The difference between option 1 and option 2 comes down to how likely we expect those "additional considerations" to be of practical relevance, and how exactly we should address them. XOR'easter (talk) 20:47, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1, it doesn't seem anything has changed since the last RfC. Corrections and retractions is what a reliable source is expected to do and is a sign of reliability. Mistakes which are far greater than this are commonplace across the array of reliable sources (what matters is whether there are corrections or not) nor does partisanship equate to unreliability. Here the error appears to be about what's more or less a single sentence, an ancillary point or side-note in an opinion piece which has been corrected since. It should be treated no different a manner than any other openly partisan neworgs such as Reason (RSP entry). There is no requirement for reliable sources to be "neutral" or for the matter any standard that suggests newsorgs with an explicitly stated ideological position are any better or worse in matters of reliability than newsorgs that don't have an explicitly stated ideological position. WP:NEWSORG and WP:BIASED are quite clear. 
    Though the standard disclaimers apply which are to check for whether what they publish has due weight for inclusion (not an issue of reliability), use in-text attribution with their political position made apparent when quoting opinion and that the context always matters. That there is a subreddit post critical of a error that was corrected is no basis for determining reliability of sources on Wikipedia or starting an RfC, so this is also a Bad RfC. This discussion has been had at a much greater depth in the previous RfC where it was shown that the magazine in question has quite significant use by others and affirmatory coverage from reliable secondary source demonstrating that they generally have a "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" which doesn't needs to be rehashed. Tayi Arajakate Talk 20:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Option 1: Bad RfC + L + Ratio Creating this RfC immediately after some sort of ostensible social media outrage (ex. I nominated David Joyner (business executive) for deletion not long after the Killing of Brian Thompson, and people got so upset that they brigaded it via external social media) seems like a bad idea. It's been made clear in the past that Jacobin has a perspective (like literally any media outlet) but don't sacrifice factual accuracy to get there. My previous vote remains true: "While it wears its political perspective on its sleeve, it has proven itself time and again in its robust fact-checking. The issue with conservative and reactionary [and left-wing, see e.g. Occupy Democrats and Daily Kos] sources on the WP:RSP isn't that they have a bias – it's that they constantly express said bias through the use of provable mis- and disinformation. Jacobin does not sacrifice factual accuracy for the sake of a bias."
    I would say the same of any other outlet whose perspective coexists peacefully with actual facts. The sort of neoliberalism adopted by American news outlets which we categorize as generally reliable (correctly so) isn't some sort of default worldview that needs to be treated as sacred and less biased than any other. If we're allowed to point to a single incident, then I could just as easily (but wouldn't, because I'm acting in good faith) point to the NYT's 2002–2003 reporting about Iraq and WMDs which was so unbelievably mistaken and grounded in literally nothing that we spend a paragraph attributing it to falsely luring Americans into supporting an illegal invasion based on lies, yet Wikipedia (even in the days when that story was reasonably fresh) would balk at the idea of calling them 'marginally reliable', let alone 'generally unreliable'. Meanwhile, this one is literally just a typo in a single article – a bad typo, but one anyone with a brain could understand didn't reflect reality and which was quickly corrected. Reading some of the stories on the front page right now, they report on events similar to what would be covered in a magazine like the generally reliable New York and contain no obvious factual errors. TheTechnician27 (Talk page) 21:34, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2, mainly per u:BobFromBrockley. The Blackrock error was quickly corrected, so I don't hold it against them. Consider this quote from CANZUK Anglo-conservatives sometimes fantasize about reuniting the dominions ... where workers could be exploited freely. A not-insignificant percentage of the content supported by Jacobin is of similar nature. Alaexis¿question? 21:56, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 A screenshot from Reddit detailing an error which was corrected is not reason to lower our consideration of the reliablity of the publication. WP:GREL is generally reliable, not always reliable. Admittedly the publication does contain a lot of opinion peices, however that is already covered by WP:RSOPINION and WP:RSEDITORIAL. Notably, The Economist is similarly heavy on opinion pecies and community consensus is that it is WP:GREL. TarnishedPathtalk 22:09, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 Jacobin is basically the left-wing equivalent to the right-wing British Magazines Spiked and The Spectator. Like these publications, most of its content is opinion orientated, and citing less opinion-focused sources should be preferred. It's clear that the current "generally reliable" rating is suggesting to readers of RSP that Jacobin's opinionated content is usable carte blanche without caveat, which I do not think is accurate. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:16, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Some Jacobin pieces have openly pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories [30], as well as conspiracy theories about the Euromaidan [31] which have not been retracted. The Green RSP rating has mistakenly led people to believe these pieces were reliable [32], Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_407#https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:20, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You should probably read farther than the headline. Simonm223 (talk) 23:05, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The pieces (which are both by staff writer Branko Marcetic) are strongly slanted, but you're perhaps right that saying they are "pushing conspiracy theories" is going a bit far. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "The CIA bungled intel pre-9/11" is somewhat the opposite of a conspiracy theory since it literally attributes to incompetence what conspiracists attribute to malice. Simonm223 (talk) 14:01, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • (Summoned by ping in this thread) Bad RFC / No listing just as in 2021. Or Option 2, it is a liberal analysis magazine, to be considered frequently as WP:RSOPINION. See you at the next 1-day social media hysteria. MarioGom (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This doesn't really matter for the purposes of the RFC, but Jacobin is not remotely liberal. It's far left, and quite anti-liberal. --Trovatore (talk) 22:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC) [reply]
      For whatever far left and anti-liberal mean in the US, I guess so. It does not change my point at all. MarioGom (talk) 22:35, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I find it really funny when Americans see somebody holding mainstream social democratic politics and start calling them extreme. Simonm223 (talk) 22:55, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1. Correcting a mistake is a sign of reliability. The normal caveats about bias/opinion and attribution apply, but not seeing enough to move it down to 2. -- Patar knight - chat/contributions 23:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 The current summary at WP:RS/P acknowledges that Jacobin is biased and that editors should take care when using it, which is exactly how it should be. Bias and adherence to factual accuracy are two different things; neutrality is not objectivity and vice versa. We do not need to demote it purely for being biased. Agree with others that an RfC being started based on a Reddit thread of a screenshot of a tweet of an editor who made a mistake which was ultimately corrected is a bit silly.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 23:32, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 as per the analysis by Selfstudier, XOR, and Tayi. Cambial — foliar❧ 23:43, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 WP:GREL already has certain considerations and it doesn't mean that 100% of what is published can make it to WP. Editors are expected to use their judgement. The article in question is a WP:NEWSBLOG. I don't see any reason for downgrading them based on a reddit thread. Lf8u2 (talk) 01:49, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 This entire RfC appears to be politically motivated and is predicated on a correction of a sentence that mixed up "third largest" with "a third of". Many other mainline newspapers have made similar, if not worse, errors before. The question is whether corrections were made when such errors were pointed out. And the correction was made here, meeting requirements of reliability. This is likely also about an opinion article, which makes this even more pointless. SilverserenC 02:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Weapons of mass destruction from the New York Times? Was that ever retracted? TarnishedPathtalk 11:14, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • 3. If you can't get a better, more disinterested outfit than Jacobin to vouch for a given fact, that's poissibly a problem. Maybe the fact just isn't important enuff to use, seeing as nobody else has seen fit to bother reporting it.
    It's not a matter of some particular instance about mistakes regarding mixing up "third largest" with "a third of" or whatever. Heck everybody does stuff like that. The NYTimes has has published more (unintentionally) misleading or plain-wrong charts than I've had hot meals. I mean, here we've got Nature finding that "among the 348 documents that we found to include the [egregiously bogus and not-even-wrong 'fact' that 80% of the world's biodiversity is found in the territories of indigenous peoples] are 186 peer-reviewed journal articles, including some in BioScience, The Lancet Planetary Health, and Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, and 19 news articles targeted at a specialist audience." Imagine that. I would guess that that's largely because "puts indigenous peoples in a good light" trumps "is true" in the emotional hind-brain of the leather-elbow-patch set. It's not a lefty thing in particular, right-wingers are just as bad I'm sure.
    Which just strengthens my point, there're no blinders like ideological blinders, so its not so much a matter of how many fact-checkers you have as in how you maybe are presenting facts which, while individually true, are cherry picked or incomplete or out of context or one-sided or otherwise misleading. It might not even be intentional, exactly. Mind-sets are like that. Better to stick with Time or other people who are more into just blandly attracting a broad readership rather than with people who have points to make.
    They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine. As long as we include the qualifier. Herostratus (talk) 04:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Herostratus: not to backseat comment but if "They're big and smart enough that reporting their opinions are worthwhile, of course. "According to Jacobin, consumption of oligarchs is (due to their high protein-to-fat ratio) a potential avenue for ameliorating world hunger" is fine." isn't that a 2? I'm in much the same boat and offered a split 1/2, my understanding is that a 3 shouldn't be used for opinion. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:50, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Backseat comments are totally fine. I live for them. I'm not sure about the details of our rule, but aren't all publications are completely reliable for their contents? If the News of the World says "the moon is made of green cheese" we can certainly say "According to the News of the World, the moon is made of green cheese" if for some reason that was useful. The ref is just so the reader can check that they did indeed print that. Similarly for any opinion or other statement. Since all entities are reliable for their own contents, I assume we are not talking at all about that. Why would we.
    What we are talking about is: if entity X says "FBI stats say that African-American violent crime was up 50% in Los Angeles in 2024", can we say that in our own words because we can be confident that it is true because we know that entity X has a good fact-checking operation? Can we be very very sure that entity X would also point out if violent crime for all races was also up 50%? Can we be very very sure that this increase is not because the FBI started using a new definition of "violent crime", because entity X would surely point that out? Can we be very very sure that violent crime in the city of Los Angeles is steady and the increase is purely from Los Angeles County (or whatever), because entity X would surely point that out? In other words -- can we be very very sure that entity X would not cherry-pick some facts and leave out others because they are here to make points? We want to be careful about being led by the nose by these people. Herostratus (talk) 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the thing is our due weight policy says that due weight (noteworthiness) is apportioned based on the amount of attention given in reliable sources. I take that to mean opinion in generally reliable sources is worth reporting; opinion in generally unreliable sources isn’t. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:35, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The Daily Mail is not reliable for its own contents, having doctored its archives. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 00:05, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 The author's attitude certainly leaves much to be desired... but I don't think a single mistake that was quickly fixed – in a blog piece, which generally wouldn't even be cited except in very limited circumstances and with attribution per WP:NEWSBLOG – is a good enough reason to downgrade their reliability. Smallangryplanet (talk) 07:52, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 My opinion is unchanged from the previous RfC. It is absurd that we've opened up another RfC over a minor issue that was quickly corrected, all because a few neoliberal redditors got mad about it. I think citations to Jacobin should require attribution, but trying to tar them as unreliable over this one case is ridiculous. Log off Reddit, there is nothing worthwhile to be found there. --Grnrchst (talk) 09:59, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2. I concur with other editors that this RFC should never have been opened. Please be more considerate of your fellow editors' time. GordonGlottal (talk) 14:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 possibly Option 3. I don't see that the source is any better than it was in 2021. Per Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d's previous comments and references from the 2021 RfC copied below as well as this recent incident. Yes, making a mistake and correcting it is good but when the mistake is so egreious and the author attacks people who note the error how much faith should we put in the source? Last time I also noted that per Adfont's media review (not a RS but still worth a look) this source is more biased than Breitbart!
    Normally, we put these extremely ideological sources in the Option 2 category (e.g., Salon (RSP entry), Townhall (RSP entry)). Jacobin obviously doesn't report straight news, so it (i) always needs to be attributed and (ii) check to see if it complies with WP:WEIGHT. However, Jacobin has additional issues. Its stated political mission is to: centralize and inject energy into the contemporary socialist movement [33]. So it is more in line with an advocacy group than a news source. Also, it has pretty fringe views. James Wolcott identifies Jacobin as part of the alt-left [34]. It's pretty fringe-y on topics concerning Venezuela [35], the USSR/Communism [36][37], and anti-semitism [38], [39]. I would avoid using Jacobin for those topics. But if you need a socialist/Marxist opinion on something, then Jacobin is definitely a good source to use. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2021 (UTC) Based upon Noonlcarus's comment, Jacobin does seem to frequently use deprecated/unreliable sources for facts. Some examples include Alternet (RSP entry) [40][41][42], Daily Kos (RSP entry) [43], Raw Story (RSP entry) [44], The Canary (RSP entry) [45], and the Electronic Intifada (RSP entry) [46].Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 04:53, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
    As I mentioned above, when a source is this biased we have to ask if that level of bias is going to have too great an impact on both the weight they give various facts thus leading to questionable conclusion and their ability to verify otherwise factual claims as we saw here. I think that puts the source deep into the use with caution territory Springee (talk) 18:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    And yet you rated the Heritage Foundation at 2/3 below and didn't find any problem with their extreme ideological bent, saying in their defense that deprecating the foundation would reflect more on the biases of editors than on the true quality of the source and would again push Wikipedia away from the goal of collecting knowledge. This is a group that is regularly equated in academic best sources with fascism such as in:
    1. Neo-fascist trends in education: neo-liberal hybridisation and a new authoritarian order Díez-Gutiérrez, Enrique-Javier, Mauro-Rafael Jarquín-Ramírez, and Eva Palomo-Cermeño, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies (JCEPS). Sep2024, Vol. 22 Issue 2, p125-169
    2. Pandemic abandonment, panoramic displays and fascist propaganda: The month the earth stood still. By: McLaren, Peter, Educational Philosophy & Theory, 00131857, Feb 2022, Vol. 54, Issue 2
    3. THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY THINK TANK. By: Stewart, Katherine, New Republic, 00286583, Sep2023, Vol. 254, Issue 9 (note that the think tank that they call "The West Point of American Fascism" in this article is the Claremont Institute but that they refer to Heritage as participating in Claremont events.)
    4. The Road Ahead Fighting for Progress, Freedom, and Democracy, Weingarten, Randi, American Educator. Fall2024, Vol. 48 Issue 3, p2-9. 8p.
    So I guess my question is one of consistency: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the fascist-adjacent Heritage foundation? If not why do you believe that the Heritage Foundation is more valuable to the "goal of collecting knowledge" than Jacobin? Simonm223 (talk) 19:20, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You are missing a major difference. HF isn't a media source, they are a think tank. Jacobin is a media source, not a think tank. I've argued that all think tanks should be used with great care and in particular we should generally not cite them unless an independent RS points to their work. So the question is can we cite HF when a RS mentions the views/claims/etc of HF with respect to the article topic. In that regard I'm suggesting we treat them more like a primary source vs a RS. Jacobin is different and the relevant question is can we treat them like a regular RS as we do with many other news media sources. If Jacobin publishes a claim about an article subject should we cite them? I argue they should be evaluated by the same standards we use for news media sources. By that standard it's strong bias etc means we should use it's claims and reports with caution and should question if they have weight to justify inclusion. In your post above you provided a list of texts but absent links I can't see what they say nor if their arguments are sound or crap but they don't impact the distinction I've made. Springee (talk) 21:09, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The list of texts are available via Wikipedia library which is why I provided bibliographical information rather than links as links to material on WP library don't work. With the exception of New Republic all are academic journals. And now please answer my original question: do you believe Jacobin is more ideologically compromised than the Heritage Foundation? Simonm223 (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to cite those sources to support an argument you should tell us what they say or at least why you think they support your position. As for your question, I already answered. It doesn't matter if the HF is more or less compromised because the purpose of each is different. When it comes to topics of automobiles Honda is more compromised than the AP but they also might be a better source if we are asking about stratified charge combustion in automobile engines. Springee (talk) 21:23, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    On this charge I will defend Springee. I don't necessarily agree with them but I'm not seeing the dissonance in their arguments, especially as they seem to be going 2/3 on both (there is not formal vote here but that seems to be the upshot of what they're saying). Their slighlty idiosyncratic argument about the purspose of the source being primary is also one which they've been making consistently for years. With all due respect I think you're being too hard on Springee. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:27, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I take the idea that a publication being openly social democratic is too biased to be reliable personally offensive. Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center. But I will concede that Springee is being consistent. And I actually agreed that think tanks should be treated as primary sources. Frankly, were Springee to be more reasonable on the "political bias" overreach, we might otherwise be agreeing. Simonm223 (talk) 21:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We may not be disagreeing at all given we both are giving them a "2". I'm arguing that their bias is too much to make them a 1. The possible 3, the same score I gave them last time, is a concern regarding things like the issue that started the recent discussion. I was about to post something about really disliking the RSP's simplistic bucketing. It's really not a good system as we really should put more effort into asking if a source is appropriate for the claims being supported and when an encyclopedia should be citing strongly biased sources in general. If we need to use such a strongly biased source is the information DUE? Springee (talk) 21:54, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    We do agree on disliking the RSP bucketing system. My personal opinion is no news media source should be treated as a blanket "generally reliable" because reliability is contextual. However I do think that Jacobin is, from a global perspective, not in any way ideologically extreme. Social democracy is a normal left-of-center political position. The extreme-right shift of US politics over the last few decades makes them seem like outliers but that's the real bias problem right there. Simonm223 (talk) 22:22, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Jacobin is not merely social democratic; their About Us page states they offer socialist perspectives and approvingly includes quotes describing them as supporting radical politics and very explicitly on the radical left, and sort of hostile to liberal accommodationism. Crossroads -talk- 22:29, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would strongly advise against getting too side-tracked by having a conversation about "social democracy" vs "democratic socialism" (same goes for any arguments over distinctions between "left" vs "liberal" in this thread). I can say from experience that these semantics rabbitholes are shockingly deep, and they're not at all necessary or helpful for this RfC. All I'll say is that these terms are commonly used as synonyms by at least some people, and the "Ideology and reception" section of Jacobin (magazine) notes the political diversity of contributors, incorporating "everyone from social democratic liberals to avowed revolutionaries", so I don't think either you or Simonm223 are wrong on this. Different people are gonna use different terms and apply different meanings to each of them.  Vanilla  Wizard 💙 03:23, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Anywhere outside the United States Jacobin would be seen as barely left of the political center. Where outside the United States are you talking about? The world where barely 20% of countries recognize same-sex marriage? Where sixteen countries have banned the burqa? Is it Japan, where the conservative Liberal Democratic Party has been in power since 1955? Or China, where a media outlet that is as critical of the Chinese Communist Party as Jacobin is of the Democratic Party would have long been banned, and their writers arrested? I think we all need a reality check here, especially if we want to represent reality in our articles. feminist🩸 (talk) 03:54, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    While I can't speak for them, I'm guessing they probably had in mind specifically other western democracies, as it's common for European countries to have a mainstream Socialist Party with an ideology listed as social democracy (to name a few: Spain, Portugal, France, Albania, etc).
    I'm comfortable speculating this is their argument because it's one that's often repeated in American progressive-left circles. This argument is usually presented as follows: Bernie Sanders is viewed as the furthest left one can go in America, the things his supporters want are not radical to other developed countries (paid time off, universal healthcare, etc), therefore what is far left in America is only moderately left elsewhere.
    Not saying I entirely agree or disagree with that argument, either how Simonm223 phrased it or how I interpreted it. Just saying I think they had in mind comparable democracies, not the entire world.
     Vanilla  Wizard 💙 16:52, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. I don't feel the need to put a million qualifiers on a comment on a WP discussion board when all I really need to say is that the United States has an abnormal political compass compared to its peers. But also there used to be lots of socialists, for instance, throughout the Middle East. American allies killed most of them. Simonm223 (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This has become a discussion about Overton windows rather than the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:11, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 or 2 - Right-wing outlets that mix opinions in their articles, selectively choose facts to promote a political agenda, or sloppily misrepresent the truth have rightly been marked as unreliable ages ago. There is no reason to have a different standard for other political positions. And regardless of that, outlets that do that cannot be relied on (i.e. are unreliable) to present an accurate picture of the facts on a given topic, nor are their writers' opinions noteworthy in our articles. Op-eds from even mainstream papers like NYT, WaPo, etc. are routinely removed as sources; outlets like Jacobin that consist entirely of such articles should likewise not be used (and we have already done this for right-wing opinion outlets like Quillette). The green checkmark at RSP misleads editors into thinking opinions and claims published in Jacobin are more noteworthy than they really are. Crossroads -talk- 22:47, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Jacobin's raison d'etre is to promote socialism, and it has a strong ideological perspective that makes it unreliable for coverage of contentious geopolitical issues, hard news, or factual reporting. However, it may be used with caution for topics within its area of expertise (such as the theory and history of socialism, labor movements, and socialist cultural commentary), provided proper attribution and corroboration from neutral sources are applied. 2601:340:8200:800:30C1:6FF8:F57B:FCF8 (talk) 03:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This is no more a good argument than it would be to state that the raison d'etre of X publication is to promote capitalism and the geo-political interests of the United States, and it has a strong ideological perspective that makes it unreliable for coverage of contentious geopolitical issues, hard news, or factual reporting.
      I could apply that faulty argument to shitloads of mainstream US publications that are currently considered to be generally reliable. TarnishedPathtalk 05:19, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1. Folks have said it well already so I won't belabor the point. I can't really imagine an occasion when I would cite Jacobin, but I consider them roughly a left-wing equivalent of The Economist or Reason (also publications I'd be unlikely to cite –– all three of these are usually rather predictable and tend to offer shallow analysis). I wasn't sure how we list those other two so I checked RSP just now and saw that they're 1s. Yes, OTHERSTUFF is a poor argument, but I was more interested in getting a baseline on where the community draws the line between 1 and 2. With respect, I object to Crossroads' comparison to Quillette, which leans heavily into platforming fringe ideas and displays little editorial oversight. (Interestingly, here's some solid reporting by Jacobin on a hoax published in Quillette, revealing the latter's abysmal editorial practices, courtesy of this past RSN discussion.) Generalrelative (talk) 01:09, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Personally I don’t see Reason and Economist as equivalent, and was surprised to see Reason green flagged for the same reason that I don’t think Jacobin should be. That is, whereas Economist is mostly reporting and some opinion, both Reason and Jacobin are mostly opinion and some reporting. The Jacobin piece on the Quillette hoax looks good to me, but everything else they’ve published by that author wouldn’t be usable for facts as they’re pure op eds. I’d put the Spectator and National Review in the category as Jacobin and Reason. (Whereas Spiked and American Conservative are worse, red flag territory rather than amber.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:02, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Additional considerations apply. As I indicated in the discussion above which I started, the mere fact that Jacobin thought it appropriate to publish a statement that Blackstone Inc. "owns a third of US housing stock" indicates that they do not do adequate fact-checking before publishing articles. Therefore, one should attempt to corroborate any facts they publish with more reliable sources before relying on Jacobin to support any factual statements in articles. feminist🩸 (talk) 03:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1. Our guideline on reliable sources is explicit that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. I may not personally love the political perspective of Jacobin, but they don't go out of their way to platform disinformation that flatly contradicts academic consensus about reality. Regarding Jacobin as unreliable on the grounds of its bias would require evidence that said bias leads it to regularly publish misinformation and untruths. I haven't seen this established.
      Moreover, the error brought up that somehow has sparked this RFC was both A) corrected in a timely manner, which is what we expect from a reliable source; and B) a case where context matters, as the original source was a book review of several books written by Mark Fisher. If cited, it should be cited to warrant information about Fisher or his books or the genre he wrote in, etc. The Blackstone number was Information provided in passing, and we already know that such info occasionally may not be reliable, and so we use our best judgment as editors, citing and reading a wide variety of sources and going to the best sources. For a topic like Mark Fisher, looks like Jacobin is a good resource. For Blackstone and housing, try an article from the journal Urban Studies. Not every source is perfect at every subject, but when a source has a known editorial staff, issues corrections to publications, and is grounded in reality, it's reliable, even if I wouldn't personally enjoy talking politics with the editor.
      Finally, when a piece published in Jacobin is an opinion piece, we can just treat it as such, per our guideline about opinion pieces in reliable sources. The Economist and The Wall Street Journal publish a lot of opinion pieces too, yet GREL they've remained. As the perennial list says of The Economist, editors should use their judgement to discern factual content—which can be generally relied upon—from analytical content, which should be used in accordance with the guideline on opinion in reliable sources. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:51, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1/Keep the current RSPS summary I think a few people arguing for additional considerations are misremembering the current RSPS legend. Additional considerations doesn’t refer to things like weight, or bias, or that you need to attribute opinion pieces because those are all standard considerations that apply to all sources. The current RSPS summary already says (in part) Editors should take care to adhere to the neutral point of view policy when using Jacobin as a source in articles, for example by quoting and attributing statements that present its authors' opinions, and ensuring that due weight is given to their perspective amongst others'. I can't find anything that indicates that's not still a perfectly good summary. CambrianCrab (talk) 01:10, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1* Jacobin is a biased source, something that should obviously be considered by anyone thinking of sourcing them for anything contentious, but their reporting has never been an issue in terms of establishing basic factual information about a situation. One writer for a book review making a dumb statement that was corrected by the source doesn't change that. BSMRD (talk) 04:19, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1: Nothing of substance has been presented to suggest that this source is not GREL. Most of the reasons being presented for MREL appear to be about bias, but that is not of direct relevance to reliability unless it can be shown that any bias directly impinges somehow on its reliability. That it provides a perspective from a rarefied position on the political spectrum is a moot point in terms of reliability. Arguably it is good to have sources from all different positions on the political spectrum for the purposes of balance, but that is, again, irrelevant to its reliability. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:41, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1/2: generally reliable, they have a correction policy. Bias for opinion pieces and essays should be taken into account, attribute accordingly. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 00:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Bad RfC As on 25 July 2021. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:44, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 I previously commented in the 2021 RfC based on our guideline for use of biased sources. In particular I found this 2019 assessment by the Columbia Journalism Review persuasive. Most recently this January 4, 2025 article from the Columbia Journalism Review cites a Jacobin article from November 2024 positively. A major trade publication in the field of journalism still seems to find Jacobin worth citing as "demonstrat[ing] convincingly" how Harris lost the pro-labor vote in the 2024 election. Why should we not follow CJRs lead? The arguments seem to be (1) Jacobin recently issued a major retraction and (2) Jacobin has a left-wing bias. I could buy into (1) if they constantly issued retractions, but no one has shown that that is the case. (2) is contrary to WP:BIASED. Altogether, I don't see why we should treat Jacobin differently from reliable but right-of-center-biased publications like The New Criterion or The Atlantic Monthly. — Wug·a·po·des 07:08, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 or Option 3: Not only is Jacobin an extremely biased, ideologically charged source, but their reporting has been called into question multiple times. At the very least, additional considerations do apply. Doctorstrange617 (talk) 13:14, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2. This is not a WP:NEWSORG. Its stated purpose is "to foster class consciousness and build the institutions that can tame and eventually overcome capital". Compare to the missions of the NYT: "We seek the truth and help people understand the world."; or the BBC: "to act in the public interest, serving all audiences through the provision of impartial, high-quality and distinctive output and services which inform, educate and entertain". The NYT and the BBC are both biased (every source is biased), but they do at least aim to deliver reporting. Jacobin, on the other hand, is an advocacy organisation. That doesn't make it automatically unreliable, nor does that make it solely a source of opinions, but that does makes it qualitatively different from the newspapers that others have compared it to - and that is an important additional consideration worth noting. For the record, I disagree that one incident of inaccuracy is enough to downgrade a source, particularly one that was corrected. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:41, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Just because I note that my earlier !vote wasn't posted in to this section, for the avoidance of doubt, whilst I think this is a Bad RFC because there's no reason for initiating it, I support Option 2 or Option 3 because it is strictly an opinion site and not one that should be relied on for statements of fact about anything but itself. FOARP (talk) 14:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 – Jacobin may be biased, but that has no bearing on reliability. They have many well-respected articles that have been cited by other reliable sources, have transparent editorial controls, and a demonstrated process for retraction and correction. I see a couple complaints above that Jacobin isn't a news organization; however, this isn't relevant to reliability. Just like The Economist, Jacobin publishes more retrospective, interpretive articles which for certain subjects can often be better than using contemporaneous news articles. Overall this is a very bad RfC given the creator's undisclosed connection to the previous overturned RfC (see comment by Tayi Arajakate) and a complete lack of any examples of actual uses on Wikipedia where the reliability is questioned. This is as far as I can tell a knee-jerk reaction to a single example of an error on an unrelated topic in an offhand remark inside a book review, and which wasn't even used on Wikipedia. An absurd reason to open an RfC. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 15:40, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 per Silver seren and Wugapodes (and thank you for providing actual reported information on their editorial process rather than speculation, heavy irony in this whole discussion). This whole saga is based on one correction? Really? Gnomingstuff (talk) 19:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1 bias has nothing to do with reliability. Meanwhile, corrections are a strong signal of reliability. --Pinchme123 (talk) 22:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Bias has plenty to do with reliability, or can. It's a worthwhile thing to take into consideration. Herostratus (talk) 21:56, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your caveat is doing all the work here. Literally (not hyperbolic) every source of every kind has a bias. Just having a bias means nothing in relation to reliability. Unless of course what you mean is that a source claims to not have a bias, which would then be a significant ding to its reliability (but that isn't true for this source). --Pinchme123 (talk) 04:20, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3/4: An encyclopedia should focus on high-quality, fact-driven sources. Not on ones that report the news with heavy political agendas, at least not without qualifying it. Using a highly politically charged source (of whatever political persuasion) inevitably leads to
    1. Bias and lack of objectivity: Sources with extreme political leanings present information very selectively and often distort facts to support an ideological agenda. This can lead to biased or one-sided entries that undermine neutrality. It can also lead to including content that is not encyclopedic. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not.
    2. Erosion of credibility: Wikipedia is expected to provide balanced, factual, and well-researched content. Reliance on politically extreme sources can damage its reputation as a reliable and neutral reference.
    3. Misinformation and inaccuracy: Sources like Jacobin often contain errors, conspiracy theories, or exaggerated claims that, when included in encyclopedia entries, could mislead readers and spread misinformation.
    4. Cherry-picking evidence: Extreme political sources may omit contrary evidence or fail to represent the full range of perspectives. This results in incomplete or skewed coverage. Critical context is lacking.
    5. Harm to reputation of the field: Normalizing unreliable content can set a dangerous precedent here. Per Wikipedia policy, a fact worthy of entry in an encyclopedia would be covered by multiple reliable sources. It would be difficult to "counter" each instance of citing Jacobin with another source of equal repute but on the opposite political extreme covering the same story.
    Further, Jacobin is mostly an opinion source. While it is not the worst source in the world, it hardly ranks among reliable sources. According to Ad Fontes Media, which monitors news value and reliability, "Ad Fontes Media rates Jacobin in the Hyper-Partisan Left category of bias and as Mixed Reliability/Opinion OR Other Issues in terms of reliability."
    The goal of Wikipedia, which prioritizes reliable secondary sources, is to present information with a sense of detachment. There is no shortage of such sources, and those are the ones to use. --Precision123 (talk) 21:30, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well said. Iljhgtn (talk) 21:31, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you, @Iljhgtn:. I'd also like to add that @Herostratus: put it nicely above: "If you can't get a better, more disinterested outfit than Jacobin to vouch for a given fact, that's poissibly a problem. Maybe the fact just isn't important enuff to use, seeing as nobody else has seen fit to bother reporting it." --Precision123 (talk) 21:38, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That is also a good point. I imagine that is why as a standalone source it likely should not be relied upon for reliable reporting on the facts, but that maybe it could work to bolster a claim made already by another reliable source. Option 2 of "Additional considerations" is where I am leaning. Iljhgtn (talk) 21:40, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The OP @Feminist also spoke to this. Iljhgtn (talk) 21:41, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    1. All sources are biased, it's a natural part of human nature. This is covered by WP:RSBIAS, if that bias effects accuracy and fact checking then that needs to be shown by examples. Biased sources are not unreliable simply because of their bias.
    2. People's opinions of Wikipedia are not a criteria for determining a reliable source.
    3. Instances of errors or misinformation should be shown, saying they might exist isn't evidence that they do exist.
    4. This is again covered by WP:RSBIAS.
    5. This point relates to NPOV not reliability. Editors should take WP:DUE, WP:BALASP, and WP:FALSEBALANCE into account, but ultimately whether a source should be used is not the same as if a source is reliable.
    -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:06, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Detachment is specifically not required of sources per RSBIAS "... reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective." -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:24, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Precision123: did you employ ChatGPT or other LLM to compose this response? The structure is suspiciously similar to ChatGPT's writing style and your response is primarily platitudes with no specific examples or references to the specific policies undergirding RSP. Your sentence Sources like Jacobin often contain errors, conspiracy theories, or exaggerated claims that, when included in encyclopedia entries, could mislead readers and spread misinformation is especially LLM-like and makes the spurious claim that sources like Jacobin may use conspiracy theories which hasn't been brought up anywhere here. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 02:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I was going to comment on their lack of examples given for claims, but correctly assessed that someone else would probably do so. TarnishedPathtalk 03:06, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is an unfortunate aspect of LLMs that they generate nice sounding wording that has no understanding of Wikipedia policies or guidelines. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:40, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I referenced specific Wikipedia policies and also cited a credible evaluation of the source. Here it is again: "Ad Fontes Media rates Jacobin in the Hyper-Partisan Left category of bias and as Mixed Reliability/Opinion OR Other Issues in terms of reliability." That does not sound like an option-1-level source. I also disagree with the "well everything is biased" statement, which opens the door to including sources that are not worthy of encyclopedic entry. Several newsrooms maintain a commitment to objectivity—and even if there are problems in one given piece—the point we have made is that a fact should be able to be covered by multiple reliable sources anyway. In addition, news sources have been evaluated for their reliability. For example, The Guardian is a left-leaning news source that is very reliable by credible observers. Each source should be evaluated on its own. This one does not make the cut for option 1 inclusion. --Precision123 (talk) 17:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ad Fontes Media* is not a reliable source, see the archives, and the only policy you mentioned was WP:NOT that is about article content and has nothing to do with reliable sources (see WP:V and WP:RS).
    *Specifically the general issue with Ad Fontes Media and similar sites is that they use their own methodology for evaluating sources and not Wikipedia's criteria. The discussion isn't about whether the source is reliable in some absolute sense, but whether it's reliable for the purposes of Wikipedia. Additionally most of these sites are US based and simply reflect US public opinion on the political leaning of a source, and the political leaning of a source has absolutely nothing to do with if it is reliable or not. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:12, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Please keep in mind that AFM is not a RS in context of use in Wikipedia articles. That does not mean it isn't a useful source when evaluating the RS of other sources. For example, if a prof of journalism had a page where he had detailed examples of journalistic failures made by various sources we would have to treat it as self published. However if his arguments were solid we certainly could use it for evaluating other sources in terms of reliability, bias etc. When AFM, MBFC and AllSides all say the source is strongly partisan we should pay attention. These rating sites are used by others and in that regard we should give them some weight (not WEIGHT) in our discussions. However, as a non-RS we should never put something like "According to AFM, [source name] is rated as [rating]". This was a problem for a while and is the reason why editors said don't use the rating sites as RS in the article space. Springee (talk) 17:55, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Absolutely editors could use such sites for researching the quality of a source, but just saying "such and such site says" isn't meaningful. If there are failures that show a reputation that lacks facts checking and accuracy, then those need to be presented as evidence. Editors are in no way obliged to agree with how any external website rates a source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:03, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I put his reply into 3 different AI detectors (the top 3, not that they are infallible). The results were: 100% human, 0% AI; 100% human 0% AI, and; 96% human, 4% AI. Accusing someone of using AI/LLM without evidence is a personal attack, and stating some asinine remark like "It is an unfortunate aspect of LLMs that they generate nice sounding wording that has no understanding of Wikipedia policies or guidelines" when you have no evidence presented is laughable. I would strike this. Just10A (talk) 17:32, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I second that the baseless accusation should be amended to a strikethrough like this, and the discussion should remain focused on content. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:43, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    AI detectors are notoriously unreliable (often giving false positives and false negatives). While there's no way to know for sure, I don't blame Dan Leonard for having a sneaking feeling. Numbered points pithy subtitles following by vague elaboration without specific examples or evidence is, after all, a very GPT-style way to answer questions. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:26, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, which is why I said they're not infallible. However, they still have 0 evidence presented (in fact they now have substantial evidence against), and Accusations about personal behavior that lack evidence are personal attacks. "Serious accusations require serious evidence, usually in the form of diffs and links." End of story. Just10A (talk) 18:47, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My general comment about how useless AI comments is not a personal attack or an "asinine remark" as AI comments waste other editors time. However editors shouldn't tag other editors replies as being AI as it's not very useful, instead they should feed them back into a chatbot to generate a reply. That way their time isn't wasted replying to such comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:21, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Accusing @Precision123 of using an ChatGPT or LLM type tool to generate a response is baseless and is failing to WP:FOC. Jacobin is a bad source at best with additional considerations, or generally unreliable at worst, but neither of those details are raised when accusing this editor of bad faith without evidence. Iljhgtn (talk) 17:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that we should keep this discussion respectful. Whether or not Ad Fontes Media itself is to be included as a source in the body of a Wikipedia article (due to a straight-line self-publication rule) is different as to whether editors can consult it in good faith when evaluating reliable sources. Ad Fontes Media is, in fact, well respected and regularly cited by newspapers of record and other solid news sources: Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today. The idea that newspapers of record can regularly reference it but Wikipedia editors cannot even look at it when discussing the reliability of sources does not make sense. AFM is known to be independent with a a clear and comprehensive methodology that speaks not just to bias but more importantly to reliability.[47] Again, this is not about including Ad Fontes Media as a source in in other Wikipedia articles. This discussion is about another source that, after going through an independent review of its articles, came out about as reliable as Breitbart. --Precision123 (talk) 18:20, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You're welcome to divine source reliability in tea leaves too for all that matters - it's just that an RfC closer will rightly ignore such arguments and, I would hope, will ignore arguments that basically come down to a WP:GUNREL source saying "they're scary leftists." Simonm223 (talk) 18:25, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Saying that one of these sites rates a source in a particular way is meaningless. If there is evidence of a reputation of poor fact checking or accuracy then evidence needs to be presented here. Editors don't have to agree with Ad Fontes Media, AllSides, or whatever, so just stating that sites opinion doesn't add anything to the discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:07, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Such a site could be useful for researching an argument you can present here. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:09, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My apologies to Precision123 if this is unfounded. I thought the bolded, numbered list structure and lack of policy specifics was similar to recent LLM use on the AfD nominations of Bhaskar Sharma and seed oil misinformation, but I acknowledge I may have been a bit too quick to the draw here. I invite an uninvolved editor to mask this with a {{collapse}}. Dan Leonard (talk • contribs) 22:07, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Asking someone if they used an LLM to write something, as Dan Leonard did here, is not an accusation of anything, let alone an accusation of bad faith. It's a perfectly reasonable and polite thing to do when you suspect someone might have. Not everyone knows that LLMs are discouraged and asking gives people an opportunity to be learn about community norms. CambrianCrab (talk) 01:13, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2. They are an analysis/opinion magazine rather than a strait news source, so their pervasive bias has to be carefully considered when assessing its use as a source. Eluchil404 (talk) 00:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 Yes, we allow biased sources, but a source like this with explicitly declared bias that includes its title should be balanced against our NPOV policy, particularly. WP:IMPARTIAL and WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV. In Perennial sources we reserved option 1 for the established reliable sources like BBC or Time magazine. Brandmeistertalk 09:59, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      BBC as unbiased, hmm ... Hutton Inquiry, criticism of the BBC, etc. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:28, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      And Time Magazine has never had a spicy political take either. Simonm223 (talk) 12:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Having a spicy take is not the same thing as "spicy" being both your brand and your model for all writing. Though that is to say nothing of the outright egregious falsehood discussed earlier that was begrudgingly and reluctantly retracted (with insult to the commenter pointing out the error just for good measure). Iljhgtn (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You have failed to demonstrate that the publication Jacobin did any of the above in any of your many comments above. You just repeatedly point back to a bad tweet the author of one article made and then throw all kinds of WP:WEASEL language around Jabobin's retraction. Focus on policy rather than your personal politics please. Simonm223 (talk) 17:49, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2. I sympathize with Marek's concerns about reliability and published falsehoods and with the perceived higher standard editors like Simon have outlined. I'll note that, regarding Wugapodes's comment on how a substantial number of journalists hew to Jacobin's analysis on the labor vote, there's the obvious ideological angle to take into account, but that doesn't justify special treatment. We ought to take all sources with appropriate context and salt. I personally think that analysis is bullshit, as do many others like me who conduct analyses on data and on elections. But that's WP:OR and thus irrelevant. That the citing journalists trust this data is not a mark on Wikipedia but on them. My bigger issues are with how the socialist classist lens blinds contributors and the editorial team to errors like the 1/3 of housing stock canard. I've seen variations on that rumor online, with each repetition more dramatic in the telling. Did the team pass it by out of incompetence or out of truthiness? How did fact-checkers, editors et al. let this blatant falsehood through so easily? I'm also dissatisfied with the correction itself. But it's nice that it was made at all. In any case, it's the essays and opinion pieces that offend facts the most (Blackstone, Ukraine, Georgia, the Eisenhower). It's the lack of clear separation of reportage from opinion that worry me; this is unlike newspapers, so let's look at magazines. I can't claim to have read every magazine of this vibe, but I know that the The New Yorker, Time, and the former National Geographic didn't have issues of this nature. NG even had a clear remit! And while we're on the topic of misleading essays, might we remember Salena Zito interviewing registered Republicans in diners in 2017? I think then that the best practice is to examine linked sources that Jacobin pieces include, not necessarily the content of the pieces themselves. If we are to follow this practice, then, we must at minimum seek option 2. Iseult Δx talk to me 02:18, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      You may wish to place a bolded "Option 2 or Option 3" or whatever it is you choose to emphasize then as well at the start of your comment. I believe this makes it easier for an uninvolved closer to see all of the !votes and to close most accurately in the end of the RfC. Thanks for your comment @Iseult Iljhgtn (talk) 13:57, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2 The Jacobin is a socialist outlet that posts primarily opinion pieces from a socialist point of view. Opinion pieces should be treated as such. The Jacobin strikes me as somewhat more reliable than genuine fringe left outlets - you’re not going to find, for example, defenses of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, or pro-Assad pieces, typical hallmarks of “tankie” outlets. So I don’t see any major red flags here, with the caveat that opinion pieces are just that. Toa Nidhiki05 14:32, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Bad RfC. RSP is supposed to be about saving editors' time, i.e. BBC is reliable, conspiracysite.com is not. Otherwise, rating sources encourages editors not to critically interrogate sources every time, and to get into long arguments about consistency, like this one. The Jacobin falls into the biased but usable category of generally decent journalism. It featured and eventually corrected a shoddy article, but then again, no newspaper/magazine hasn't. Most articles are op-eds, and not relevant to us. Sometimes, it may feature useful investigative journalism or reporting, although even then, better sources often exist. Whether this puts it in generally reliable or additional considerations is down to personal editing philosophy. I don't care whether it stays green or goes yellow, but I do suggest that accompanying summary has the following added to remind editors: "opinion pieces should be judged by WP:RSOPINION, WP:RSEDITORIAL, and WP:NEWSBLOGS". See you all in a year or two when we get pinged again to vote once more. Jr8825 • Talk 15:20, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 1, As other editors have pointed out, being left-wing or right-wing does not necessarily mean you are unreliable. It doesn't mean you lie. It just means you're political. As long as Jacobin reports the facts, which it does, then there isn't a reason to depreceate it. Genabab (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 2: its existence as an advocacy outlet combined with its blending of fact and opinion means considerations apply beyond general reliability. A previous discussion about Jacobin suggested that it's willing to publish conspiracy theories about the Russo–Ukrainian war, but I'd want to see more examples before declaring it generally unreliable. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion: Jacobin

    • Comment Editors should bear in mind that reliability does not mean infallibility. It merely means we can use sources where applicable. In this case, the impeached article is a book review, which combines a description of a book and the reviewer's opinions. The only acceptable use of a book review - whoever wrote it and wherever it is published - is in an article about the book reviewed.

    Ironically, there can be no article about the book because it lacks notability. It was only reviewed in Jacobin. We are basically working to prevent things that will never happen. Under current policy therefore this source could never be used.

    Our time would be better spent ensuring that RS policy is adhered to.

    TFD (talk) 17:39, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Bad RFC because we should not be rating things just for the sake of rating things, but since we're doing this: Jacobin is clearly an opinion outlet, not a news outlet. We shouldn't be relying on them for statements of fact for that reason alone. FOARP (talk) 17:57, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Notwithstanding my !vote above I do agree this is a bad RFC because there's not ever been an example presented of Jacobin being used to source anything even remotely questionable during the RFCBefore discussion. Simonm223 (talk) 18:18, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Well, there was one example that generated the 2023 discussion which was Jacobin being used to source a description of the 2014 Maidan Revolution as "the far-right U.S.-backed Euromaidan protests", so that's one occasion of it being used to source something questionable. It was also used by the same editor on the 9/11 attack page to source the claim that the CIA facilitated the attacks and intentionally withheld information that could have stopped the attacks.
      That editor is now blocked (because of their conduct on this noticeboard I think?) but they used the green flag at RSP to justify their edits. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:26, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Absolutely a bad RfC, I rolled my eyes when I was pinged about this. Nothing fundamental has changed about Jacobin's editorial line or policy since the last RfC was opened four years ago. I can't believe we're hashing this out again because of a single reddit post. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:02, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Jacobin author who wrote the nonsense claim that Blackstone owns 1/3 of US housing stock literally mocked the people who tried to correct him and the correction - which itself was inaccurate and weaselly - was issued only after social media pressure. This is an outlet that very obviously does not care one bit about fact checking if it gets in the way of producing click bait pieces. It’s exactly the kind of source we should NOT be using, especially as the whole media landscape is shifting that way. Volunteer Marek 19:24, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      They issued a correction. This is what we expect of reliable outlets. Your personal characterization of the correction as "weaselly" is your personal opinion on tone and has nothing to do with any Wikipedia policy. Simonm223 (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Did this correction at least state what the correct % was? Like, the correction itself tries to make it seem like a minor overstatement rather than, you know, a completely wild exaggeration that tried to take advantage of general innumeracy. “I’m a billionaire!”. “No you’re not”. “Ok that was an overstatement”. Come on. It’s quite disappointing to see how many people are fine with misinformation, weak sourcing and “alternative facts” as long as it agrees with their ideological preconceptions. Whats even more disappointing is when these are people who are claiming to be building a factual encyclopedia. Facts are facts and garbage is garbage, regardless of whether it come from the left or right. Volunteer Marek 03:19, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes facts are facts and garbage is garbage but as long as we allow garbage like New York "Iraq has WMDs" Times to be treated as a reliable source I don't see why we should treat Jacobin differently. Jacobin is compliant with Wikipedia's requirements. If you want to talk about tightening those requirements I'd be open to the discussion at WP:VPP. Simonm223 (talk) 14:05, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Was the weapons of mass destruction bit ever retracted by New York Times? As far as I'm aware it wasn't. Perhaps we should be wasting community time and having a discussion about them? TarnishedPathtalk 14:15, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah my point is just that a lot of editors are establishing a double standard where Jacobin is being held to a higher standard than what Wikipedia generally expects from news organizations. I would like it to be measured against the same standard as anyone else. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. I'm not the biggest fan of them because there's so much oped stuff but we've never thought that reason to downgrade The Economist. TarnishedPathtalk 14:33, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. And that is kind of what I was getting at when I suggested the right venue for what Volunteer Marek was concerned about was WP:VPP. If we allow these kinds of sources then we allow these kinds of sources. I would be happy to restrict these kinds of sources more than we do but it has to be handled at a policy level rather than via exceptions to present policy. Simonm223 (talk) 14:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is not the case that a book review can only be used in an article about that specific book. For example, they are frequently cited in biographies of authors, in order to demonstrate that those authors meet the relevant wiki-notability standard. And an article about the pedagogy of some subject could cite reviews of textbooks about that subject. XOR'easter (talk) 20:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The Heritage Foundation

    Moved to WP:Requests for comment/The Heritage Foundation
     – Due to how large the discussion has become, and size constraints on the noticeboard, this discussion has been moved to it's own page. LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:32, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Ontario Bar Association and Artificallawyer

    Is this sigcov [48], [49] reliable for Draft:BRYTER? HelixUnwinding (talk) 09:01, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The first link goes to a summary of a detailed software review by Friedrich Blase, the “Innovator-in-Residence” of the Ontario Bar Association. It looks like Dr. Blase, whose LinkedIn profile references writings on legal technology, might qualify as a subject matter expert, so I would be inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. The second link goes to a blog, which would not be a reliable source. John M Baker (talk) 18:11, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ok, thank you very much. HelixUnwinding (talk) 22:50, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with @John M Baker -- especially since the second source's author is anonymous (we have no way of knowing who artificiallawyer is or their credentials), it casts doubt on the reliability of the source. Oraclesto (talk) 17:35, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Pirate Wires?

    Pirate Wires describes itself as an "American media company reporting at the intersection of technology, politics, and culture." It doesn't shout "reliable source" to me (feels more like a group blog), but could somebody else take a look at this and help me determine if (a) its articles, or (b) its claims about itself should be cited in articles or BLPs, as was done here? — Fourthords | =Λ= | 20:42, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Wouldn’t this be an aboutself citation anyway? I would be more concerned about primary/OR here in that case.
    Regarding the source: they are likely to be pretty biased, but according to the page linked, they seems sufficiently reliable for this, unless someone can dig up large-scale issues I missed. Employees, proper funding etc. all seem to be fine. FortunateSons (talk) 21:29, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So I'd be fine enough trimming it to something to the effect of as of January 2025, his profile at the online publisher Pirate Wires lists him as a senior editor? I just wanted to make sure PW was something worth mentioning at all, or if it was more akin to 'he's the senior editor this super-serious blog' and name-dropping a site that bore no mention. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 21:57, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m not sure, but think being descriptive is fine for “articles about Wikipedia” and stuff, “critical“ is probably better coming from a specific source, even if it’s obvious. With everything else, it’s probably a question of DUE, not RS. FortunateSons (talk) 22:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd eschew calling out any of his particular articles over others, since there's... no reason to, right? Without reliable third-party sourcing, they're no more notable or inclusion-worthy than his others. — Fourthords | =Λ= | 22:31, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think this is a case for BRD, but it seems like a reasonable option FortunateSons (talk) 22:56, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Pirate Wires has a strong right wing "libertarian tech bro" bent to its coverage, unsurprising given its links to Peter Thiel. The way it frames events is often strongly slanted, sometimes to the point of being misleading. Take for instance the recent story claiming that the WMF had been taken over by "Soros-backed operatives" [50]. I would argue that this framing is conspiratorial and hyperbolic. I think it might sometimes be usable with caution for uncontroversial facts, but more objective sources should be preferred. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's a Business Insider story on Pirate Wires that gives a good sense of its ethos [51]. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:01, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Invoking George Soros conspiracy theories to attack an organization is not a good start for Pirate Wires, a new publication that does not have much of a reputation at this point. Definitely not generally reliable, and I would avoid using this publication for claims about living people. — Newslinger talk 02:52, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't call it a "group blog", it just has a niche audience in the tech industry. It is certainly more factually based than Fox News. The article you linked is using it problematically though. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 14:24, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Words of the founder Selfstudier (talk) 14:33, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Solana is the founder and operator of Pirate Wires, so maybe it's wise to consider his pieces in particular self-published. No idea the level of editorial rigour other contributors are under though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Do you have an evidentiary basis for your claim? I ask because I was recently described in a Pirate Wires article as a member of a powerful pro-Hamas group, and while this was entertaining in its foolishness, the important point for RSN is that it was a factual error. The article contained many inaccuracies about various things, and it was clear that no attempt had been made to avoid errors and erroneous conclusions. So, using it for BLPs might be unwise, and the notion that it is "generally truthful/accurate" seem highly questionable. Of course, I only have one data point, so it could be an outlier, but I doubt it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 17:30, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. I was not happy about Pirate Wires being used for that whole fiasco. But as for the evidence look above at the link Selfstudier provided in which Mike Solana says, "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever." Simonm223 (talk) 17:36, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    When the editor in chief is also the owner and there is no editorial board for him to answer to and also he writes a lot of the content I don't know how we could describe it as anything other than a personal blog. Even if he sometimes brings in guest writers it's still quite obviously his personal thing. Simonm223 (talk) 17:38, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There are many other editors from what I can tell, such as Ashley Rindsberg. It is not even close to a blog. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:53, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ashley Rindsberg, the author of the article with inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions. For Wikipedia's purposes, its main utility may be as a tool to identify potential disinformation vectors that could degrade the integrity of Wikipedia content. Sean.hoyland (talk) 10:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" are you referring to? Can you cite specific examples please and quote from the source directly? Also, are there other reliable sources which then criticize PW for "inaccuracies and erroneous conclusions" or is that WP:OR and/or your own conclusion being reached? Iljhgtn (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Considering that comment and the fact that founder Mike Solana is the chief marketing officer of Founders Fund, Pirate Wires has a major conflict of interest with all of the individuals and organizations associated with Founders Fund, and is a non-independent source with respect to all related topics. — Newslinger talk 03:07, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Pirate Wires is trashy far-right culture wars content. It is at best a group blog - David Gerard (talk) 10:17, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Marginally reliable, there seems to be a pretty wide spread quality wise because they seem to allow their writer a loose leash. This means that some articles are very good and some are very bad. Personally I've found them solidly reliable for the more wonkish techy stuff but have a lot of issues when they start to cover politics or culture/society in general. Crypto seems to be the only blindspot within their otherwise area of expertise, their crypto coverage is just awful and should be avoided like the plague. When used I would attribute and I would strongly advise against any use for BLP not covered by ABOUTSELF. I agree that pieces by Solana should be treated as self published and that coverage by Pirate Wire is not to be considered independent of the Founders Fund. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:02, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Need context before coming to RSN

    At this point, the source is used in only 7 articles in mainspace. [52]. in general, RSN really shouldn't be used to approve sources ahead of time, editors exercise their own discretion, debate merits of source in the talk page of article, and come here if the same source is debated over and over again, or if reliability is still at issue. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:41, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    But they don't have any indication of editorial controls, or a fact-checking process, or any of the things that an WP:RS would have; neither is there any reason to think they have a particular reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. A statement like "I am the overwhelming majority owner of pirate wires, with no board. nobody tells me what to write or cover, nor will they ever" makes it pretty clear that it's not structured the way we'd expect a RS to be structured. I'm with the editors above who describe it as a blog - there's just nothing here that even has the shape of an RS. The fact that the person who runs it sometimes also includes guest posts by other people doesn't change the fact that there's no editorial board, no source of fact-checking, and most of all no reputation. Like... what makes you think that it's a WP:RS, according to the criteria we use? Where do you feel its reliability comes from? --Aquillion (talk) 20:31, 16 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah by that criteria this is a SPS, one guys blog is still one guys blog even if they let their friends post. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:16, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Usage in Ideological bias on Wikipedia

    Is the Pirate Wires piece "How Wikipedia Launders Regime Propaganda" by Ashley Rindsberg a reliable source of claims for the Ideological bias on Wikipedia article? Rindsberg has published other content about Wikipedia on Pirate Wires, including "How Soros-Backed Operatives Took Over Key Roles at Wikipedia". — Newslinger talk 04:10, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It's at best, usable for the attributed opinion of Rindsberg only, but even then, it's obviously polemical and partisan. There's lots of right-wing criticism of Wikipedia that I personally find disingenuous, but inevitably an article on "Ideological bias on Wikipedia" is going to have to include some partisan sourcing, but not framing it as fact is essential. I am unsure whether Pirate Wires is prominent enough a publication that it would be due to mention in any capacity. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:31, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't even think its usable for that... Can't find anything that suggests that Rindsberg is a subject matter expert. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Sources in that article should have some leeway, as Wikipedia is obviously going to be criticised by such sources. But I totally agree with Hemiauchenia that framing is key. This is the opinion of a hyper partisan source, framing it as fact is wrong. Whether it should be included or not is a discussion for the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:18, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is more or less a group
    blog that mostly publishes opinion, including eg antisemitic Soros conspiracy theories. Any Wikipedia editor reading their coverage of this project will immediately spot multiple falsehoods and errors, and also personal attacks on names editors based on these inaccuracies. At best on a par with Quillette. In short, not reliable for this topic, and if this topic is a guide to how robust its general reporting is it’s probably not reliable for anything. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:16, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Both unreliable and WP:UNDUE. Rindsberg's views on any topic are quite irrelevant to anything. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:34, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree fully. Unreliable and undue. Simonm223 (talk) 14:22, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    almost certainly no. the article attacking wikipedia has falsehoods and even ignoring that and arguing its an opinion piece we could use with attribution , it goes at it from a very marginal POV … there are more useful opinion pieces from more reliable outlets out there.Bluethricecreamman (talk) 07:27, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How is it used by others or is it even used by others? If sources have cited their work then I think we can as well. However, I would be very cautious about using it as an independent reference. Very cautious to the point where I would generally say no. Perhaps in a case where it's spot on topic (ideological bias of Wikipedia) but then only with attribution. Speaking generally, these sort of sources are always difficult as they may provide very good information but other than editors reading the text and using their own common sense, OR, etc, we don't have a good way to judge the quality of the output. BTW, this is also why I think "use with caution" may not be specific enough. Some sources are more like "use with caution but probably OK" while others are more like "use with extreme caution but there is probably a case where it provides more than about self content". Springee (talk) 14:20, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Pirate Wires itself is notable as it's had coverage in other notable outlets [53] but its viewpoint about Wikipedia per se might not have been documented in RS yet. But I'm confused -- Why are some of these other media outlets' self-published viewpoints included without them necessarily being considered RS themselves? Manuductive (talk) 13:09, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The term self-published refers to sources without adequate editorial oversight, which includes most group blogs. Well-established news outlets are not self-published sources. — Newslinger talk 14:12, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Imo Having Wikipedia articles that discuss whether Wikipedia is reliable, biased, antisemitic, etc is silly. We're all too inherently conflicted as Wikipedia editors to give a sober assessment of these topics and what is/isn't due to include. These topics are best left to scholars. That said, Pirate Wires is a lot less established than these other publications you mention. Hemiauchenia (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Outright rejecting Pirate Wires because it's "right-wing criticism of Wikipedia" and has "a very marginal POV" is the issue with WP:RSN that the piece is trying to critique. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 13:58, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But it does affect WP:DUE weight (which requires balance between sources, and which is the real concern for something that, as a WP:SPS or a website with no reputation, would obviously be opinion at best.) The article already contains a large number of right-wing sources with a similar perspective; does this piece add anything to them? My feeling is that articles like this are subject to problems where editors try to do this nose-counting thing where they add dozens of opinionated or biased sources saying the same thing because they feel it's a really important perspective - but that's not how opinion is really meant to be used. If we have twelve sources that are fundimentially similar saying the same thing, they ought to be condensed down to a single sentence or so saying "a bunch of sources said X" (unless some of them are individually noteworthy on their own merits somehow, eg. if they're an opinion from a significant expert, but that obviously isn't the case here.) --Aquillion (talk) 14:09, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Chess makes a perfectly valid point. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:10, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's being rejected because it's a random tech guy's blog - not because it's right wing. Simonm223 (talk) 14:11, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    One thing @Hemiauchenia said I half-agree with. The question of Wikipedia bias is one best answered by academics - which we should document appropriately and neutrally - the opinion of Ashley Rindberg on a blog with no editorial board is not a notable opinion, again, not because of its left-right bent but because she's just some person with a megaphone. Simonm223 (talk) 14:14, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It is your opinion that it is a blog. That itself would need evidence and probably an RfC. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:16, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Also, Ashley Rindsberg is a man. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Evidence has already been provided. In this thread. The founder brags about having no editorial board on twitter dot com. Simonm223 (talk) 14:17, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Getting neither the gender "she's" nor the spelling "Ashley Rindberg" correct shows me you may not have looked into this very much. Iljhgtn (talk) 14:20, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oh do stop. That's an awful lot to take from a bloody typo. Simonm223 (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Here's a freebee for all the people looking to say Wikipedia has a left-wing bias. This is what a reliable source accusing Wikipedia of a left-wing bias looks like: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10584609.2020.1793846 Simonm223 (talk) 14:22, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Two can play that game. [54]https://manhattan.institute/article/is-wikipedia-politically-biased Iljhgtn (talk) 14:25, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The Manhattan Institute is a think-tank with no particular reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; it is obviously not a WP:RS. --Aquillion (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This too, in addition to my comment below. Frankly I'm finding this interaction very strange. Simonm223 (talk) 14:28, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I should add that the Manhattan Institute was discussed previously here; the discussion was never closed or added to WP:RSP but by a quick nose-count the total unreliable + deprecate opinions outnumbered the "unclear" opinions almost two-to-one (and there were almost no people saying it was GREL.) --Aquillion (talk) 14:33, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There's a related discussion in progress at Talk:Ideological_bias_on_Wikipedia#Manhattan_Institute Manuductive (talk) 14:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What game? I literally provided a source accusing Wikipedia both of left-wing bias and of bias against women at the same time. Simonm223 (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • We don't actually require an RFC for every individual dispute; and sources certainly do not automatically default to reliable. Just doing a quick nose-count in this discussion suggests that it's extremely unlikely that an RFC on Pirate Wires' reliability would support your contention that it is reliable - numerous issues have been raised, especially regarding its lack of editorial controls and its lack of the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that RS requires. We can pull it through an entire RFC if you really think it's necessary but I think your time would be better-spent looking for more clearly reliable secondary sources covering this, if you want it in the article. This would also turn things back to the more fundamental WP:DUE problem I mentioned above - this looks identical to dozens of similar pieces posted by people with similar opinions; given that it's published in what's at least a low-quality source compared to the ones already in the article, what makes this one significant enough to highlight? --Aquillion (talk) 14:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For disclosure, I originally wrote the Mike Solana article. I think the answer is no to this question specifically, and similar questions generally.
    Pirate Wires is an advocacy media outlet. Its writing is in a punchy tone -- a tech-ish form of gonzo journalism -- that blends opinion with explanatory reporting. They don't do spot news. So there's just no utility in using it for encyclopedia-writing.
    That's not to say it's either good or bad, merely that it doesn't serve the limited purposes for which we use sources here. (It ran a widely cited interview with Jack Dorsey and I don't think anyone believes they made-up the interview. But if we need to cite that interview in an article it can be referenced to any of the numerous RS that, themselves, cited it through précis', versus Pirate Wires directly.) In any case, anything it publishes that is encyclopedic will be covered in a second, more conventional RS and we should reference the second source. Anything not referenced in a pass-through outlet is probably undue. Chetsford (talk) 18:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Respectful comment: This discussion would be more helpful if we focused on how reliable sources treat a specific startup news organization and less on original research and personal opinion. --Precision123 (talk) 21:55, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    While I'm generally one to prefer deferring to what reliable sources say about sources, I would point out that our policy on original research is explicit that it doesn't apply to talk pages. In the absence of substantial clear-cut reliable sources saying something about X source, it isn't unreasonable or disallowed for Wikipedia editors to make observations about X source that inform their assessment of it. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Update: I am open to ideas. I did a little research to see how it is treated in by credible news sources. While the site appears to be just a few years old, Pirate Wires has been cited/covered in some credible news sources, including The Washington Post, which described it as a "tech news site," NBC News, Politico, which described it as a "media outlet regularly tweaks the tech industry's critics and regulators," Gizmodo, which described it as a "prominent crypto-news account," and Fortune, as well as by a very prominent reporter on PBS. In sum, after doing a little digging to see its treatment in the media, it should not simply be blacklisted. Every source should be used with caution. As of now, it appears to be emerging in the tech news world, and reports on topics related to that field. --Precision123 (talk) 17:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't see anyone above who was even proposing "blacklisting" Pirate Wires, but there are some who do not believe it is reliable. Iljhgtn (talk) 18:01, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for that clarification. It appears to be fine for tech-related topics. --Precision123 (talk) 18:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The PBS example is not as much of an endorsement when one digs in to what the journalist actually says: there's this very interesting newsletter I read, Pirate Wires, by this guy, Mike Solana (emphasis added). "Newsletter by this guy" is pretty below the standard of a reliable source on Wikipedia. It's too new, and it's too dominated by Solana. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 06:26, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Emphasis could be added on another part of that same sentence and taken to mean something altogether different, though I believe more accurate, "there's this very interesting newsletter I read, Pirate Wires, by this guy, Mike Solana" (emphasis now added on "very interesting"). Best we do not therefore add any emphasis, and take at face value, I think the claim neutrally is supportive of PW as, at minimum, "very interesting" (and presumably therefore at least basically reliable). Iljhgtn (talk) 14:03, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "Very interesting" is irrelevant to notability. "Newsletter by this guy Mike Solana" is directly relevant to reliability and indicates it's WP:SPS Simonm223 (talk) 14:22, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    +1. Moon landing conspiracy theories could also be called 'very interesting'. Interestingness doesn't on its own mean dependability for facts. A failure to adhere to reality could, in fact, be very interesting. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:43, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hawar News Agency

    Should we be using articles from the Hawar News Agency, especially in relation to the (geo)political side of Rojava? This also includes articles in the scope of the Syrian civil war. It has ties to the SDF, which means there is a significant conflict of interest here; I should also add that the YPG/YPD/SDF heavily censor narratives critical of theirs, which raises concern over its reliability. I want to get community consensus before I do anything, especially because the article in question (Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria) is related to a CTOP. 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST) 19:40, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    (Copying this response from the talk page of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria:) Of course we have to use Hawar, simply because it is one the most prominent news sites from Syria. It shouldn't be used as the sole source for contentious issues (unless it cites claims), but for basic facts such as local election results, regional policy decisions, etc. it is one of the only sources available. It is also used as a source by academic researchers such as in The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, The Kurds of Northern Syria: Governance, Diversity and Conflicts, Soldiers of End-Times. Assessing the Military Effectiveness of the Islamic State, and Statelet of Survivors. The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria.
    (The following part is new, written for RSN:) These are books written by experts on Syria, released by reputable publishers such as ‎ Oxford University Press, and they have seemingly deemed Hawar to be a partisan, but useable source. Speaking from experience as an editor who has been active in editing articles on the Syrian civil war for ten years, I would also note that Hawar was previously discussed by editors and similarily assessed, as it is fairly reliable though should be used with caution in especially problematic fields such as casualty numbers (where partisanship becomes a major problem). Applodion (talk) 20:28, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Having read through the article you linked[55] it doesn't show that media is heavily censored. A relevant sentence would appear to be:
    "In the current situation, the journalists we interviewed usually stress that, on the one hand, they enjoy relative freedom of expression. The PYD did not forcefully close those it considers as antagonistic media. Reporters can move freely in the region and cover a wide array of issues. Additionally, journalists from international or regional media are also generally allowed to operate freely. However, they also say that there is always a tension with the authorities in power and there are red lines that cannot be crossed."
    As well as:
    "Gradually, they seem to have adopted an editorial line that is less critical, if not supportive, of the political system in Rojava. This support, according to some local journalists, is not due so much to direct imposition from the authorities, but rather to their own convictions and, even more important, to the feeling that doing otherwise would be very unpopular in a conflict-ridden context."
    So it doesn't sound like they have the most freedom of media, but it appears a long way from heavily censored. Restrictions on reporting matters that could effect security are common in areas of conflict (and even outside of them).
    Hawar News Agency has some WP:USEBYOTHERS[56] and would probably be covered by WP:NEWSORG. Issues of bias (WP:RSBIAS) and opinion (WP:RSOPINION) don't immediately make a source unreliable. In general I would agree with Applodion, reliable but caution should be taken for issue where it's bias or censorship of security matters may effect it's reporting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:41, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree with above, helpful to understand its bias, but this means to use with caution and understanding rather than preventing use. CMD (talk) 00:31, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agree with the above. If we are citing it for contentious claims, then it's better we provide attribution. Unless OP or someone else can come up with credible sources that question the reliability of Hawar, I don't see any reason to worry about its inclusion. Looking over the article, it seems most of the citations to it are for easily verifiable facts (i.e. changes in AANES leadership, recognition by the Catalan parliament, etc.), rather than anything contentious. --Grnrchst (talk) 10:54, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we consider TRT sub-optimum in relation to Rojava and the Syrian war because of its affiliation to the Erdogan government (see above on this noticeboard), the same should apply to Hawar. It’s fine for reporting the statements by AANES/PYD/SDF or uncontentious facts, but it should always be attributed and triangulated for anything at all contentious. I’d rate it above Al-Masdar and below the SOHR for reporting facts about eg battles in the Syrian war, but like them is a weak source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 20:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is there anything to show that Hawar is not independent of the SDF? I couldn't find anything making an explicit link. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:44, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @ActivelyDisinterested: "Misdirected US strike killed 18 allied fighters in Syria" from the Associated Press: "On Thursday, the group held funerals for 17 of its fighters in the border town of Tal al-Abyad, the SDF-linked Hawar news agency said...". 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST) 22:36, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That would indicate a need for caution. Whether to the level of TRT I couldn't day. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:17, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The difference between Hawar and TRT seems to be how they are treated by independent academics and subject experts; as far as I know, TRT has been repeatedly accused of spreading outright falsehoods (such as here), whereas Hawar is seemingly deemed to be mostly reliable despite its connections to the PYD and SDF. Applodion (talk) 18:41, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Being censored is a WP:BIASED issue and a reason to use a source with caution (with attribution for anything remotely contentious), but it doesn't automatically render them completely unreliable. The big question is whether they're yielding to pressure to publish things that are actually inaccurate rather than just one-sided. If not, they can still be used with caution - we'd want to cite better sources when possible and avoid giving WP:UNDUE weight to a source with a clear bias, but there's some advantage to having sources that are close to conflicts. And a major problem with removing sources simply for being subject to censorship is that it could produce systematic bias by removing every source from a particular region; I'm not familiar with the Syrian press specifically, but in other regions with similar censorship, there's still a difference between sources that carefully report as much as they can get away with and as accurately as they can within the restrictions of government censors, and sources that full-throatedly broadcast misinformation to support the party line. --Aquillion (talk) 15:00, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: LionhearTV

    Moved from Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines/Sources § RfC: LionhearTV
     – Royiswariii, 19 January 2025 00:55 (UTC)

    I want your comments about the reliability of LionhearTV, I can't determine whether it is reliable or not, on New Page Sources, the Lionheartv is in the unreliable section, but, despite of that some editors still using this source in all Philippine Articles. So let's make a vote:

    Royiswariii Talk! 10:06, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Deprecate. The Philippines has plenty of WP:RS to choose from. If you are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find refs for something or someone and have to use this, I'd say consider against and don't add it to the article. Howard the Duck (talk) 13:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment: For better understanding and context, especially for editors unfamiliar of this topic's origin:
    LionhearTV is a blog site, as described on its "About Me" page, established in 2008 and functioning primarily as a celebrity and entertainment blog. The site is operated by eMVP Digital, which also manages similar blog sites, such as DailyPedia and Philippine Entertainment.
    In addition to these blogs, LionhearTV organizes the RAWR Awards, which recognize achievements in the entertainment industry. This accolade has been acknowledged by major industry players, including ABS-CBN and GMA Network.[57][58] Like other awards, the RAWR Awards present physical trophies to honorees.[59]
    A discussion about LionhearTV’s reliability as a source took place on the Bini (group) talk page in September 2024 (see Talk:Bini (group)/Archive 1 § LionhearTV as a reliable source). The issue was subsequently raised on the Tambayan Philippines talk page (Wikipedia talk:Tambayan Philippines/Archive 52 § Lionheartv) and the WP:RSN (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 452 § LionhearTV). However, these discussions did not yield a constructive consensus on whether LionhearTV can be considered a reliable source. The discussion at Tambayan deviated into a debate about SMNI, which was unrelated to the original subject. Meanwhile, the sole respondent at the RSN inquiry commented, It may come down to how it's used, it maybe unreliable for contentious statement or comments about living people, but reliable for basic details.
    At this moment, LionhearTV is listed as unreliable on Wikipedia:New page patrol source guide#The Philippines as result of the no consensus discussion at RSN.
    AstrooKai (Talk) 13:57, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Lionheartv is one person operation. How can there be editorial discretion on that case? Howard the Duck (talk) 14:06, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm more surprised on how a single person actively manages three blog sites and one accolade, with the accolade even giving out physical trophies to its winners. Like, how is he/she funding and doing all of these? AstrooKai (Talk) 14:17, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's immaterial on how we determine WP:RS. What could be very important that other WP:RS missed out on that only this blog carries? If it's only this blog that carries articles about something, it's not very important. This blog is the very definition of WP:RSSELF. I'm surprised we're having this conversation. A blacklist is needed. Howard the Duck (talk) 02:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Option 3. There's something about its reporting and organizational structure that is off compared to the regular newspapers. Borgenland (talk) 14:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Though, I find it strange and concerning that reputable sources copypasted some of LionhearTV's articles:
    1. LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts/ (December 8, 2024)
      Sunstar: https://www.sunstar.com.ph/davao/2024-spotify-wrapped-radar-artists-hev-abi-bini-lead-the-philippine-charts (December 10, 2024)
    2. LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2025/01/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 11, 2025)
      Manila Republic: https://www.manilarepublic.com/dylan-menor-signs-with-universal-records/ (January 14, 2025)
    These are two instances I found so far where other sources copypasted from LionhearTV. But I saw other instances where LionhearTV is the one who copypasted from other sources, such examples include:
    1. LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/12/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-im-okay-to-cinemas/ (December 30, 2024)
      Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/entertainment/showbiz/music/2024/12/29/moira-dela-torre-brings-her-new-album-i-m-okay-to-cinemas-0948 (December 29, 2024)
    2. LionhearTV: https://www.lionheartv.net/2024/06/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game/ (June 27, 2024)
      Original: https://www.abs-cbn.com/starmagic/articles-news/bini-set-to-showcase-sneak-preview-of-their-new-single-cherry-on-top-in-mobile-game-22637 (June 24, 2024)
    I honestly don't know about these editors, they just copying each other's works. Probably cases of churnalism. AstrooKai (Talk) 16:05, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Option 3 - As much as possible, LionhearTV and its sibling sites under the eMVP Digital should not be used as sources when more reliable outlets have coverage for a certain event, show, actor and so on. Even if a certain news item is exclusive to or first published in a eMVP Digital site, other journalists will eventually publish similar reports in their respective platforms (refer to some examples posted by AstrooKai). -Ian Lopez @ 15:03, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What I fear in these kinds of low quality sources is that people will find something very specific about someone, e.g. "This person was seen in a separate engagement vs. the others in their group," and this low quality source is the only source that carried this fact, and since this it is not blacklisted, this does get in as a source, and most of the time, that's all that's needed. We don't need articles on showbiz personalities tracking their every movement as if it's important. Blacklist this. Howard the Duck (talk) 01:00, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Discussion about moving RFC to RSN
    The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
    @AstrooKai, @Borgenland, @Howard the Duck, if you don't mind we can move this discussion to Noticeboard to get more opinions and votes on other experienced editors. Royiswariii Talk! 16:19, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Support. Borgenland (talk) 16:24, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Support. Though, I suggest finishing or closing this discussion so that we don't have two running discussions that tackles the same thing. If we want to construct a consensus, we better do it in one place. Alternatively, we first seek consensus from the local level first (by finishing this discussion) before moving one level up (the RSN). AstrooKai (Talk) 16:30, 18 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hatebase.org

    Is hatebase.org a reliable source? GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 19:51, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Is there an WP:RFCBEFORE for this? And/Or some context for the use case? FortunateSons (talk) 19:58, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have checked and I can't find any previous discussion, hence why I opened this one. There is an article about the site. I intend to use it to expand list of slurs articles. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m not making a statement on the source, as I’m not familiar with it .Then this doesn’t require an RfC, just a normal source discussion, if you’re concerned about reliability. Do you mind removing the descriptor from the title? And best of luck! :) FortunateSons (talk) 20:22, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, I just added it because I saw some of the other discussions had it. I am removing it from the title. GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 20:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That happens, don’t worry about it! Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 20:39, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    used in 4 wikipedia articles, seems highly premature. use best judgement until it can't be resolved in an article's talk page between editors, and needs wider wikipedia community feedback. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:25, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wish this were otherwise because it looks like a really interesting website but it uses user-generated content. Which is a problem from an RS perspective. Simonm223 (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    None of the uses are for anything other than Hatebase itself, and as the site was been retired since 2022 it's unlikely it will see much more use ('retired' as it's been closed to editing, all user data deleted, and may go offline at any point, so not quite closed but very close). As most of the supporting data is gone, and what there was was user generated, I don't think it could be used as an RS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:06, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    LaserDisc Database?

    I'm working on adding citations to the home media section of King Kong (1933). I'm looking for a source that supports the sentence "Image Entertainment released another LaserDisc" [after the 1984 release]. I've found the laserdisc in question on LaserDisc Database here. Can I use it as a source? The "register now" box states that users can "submit" new Laserdiscs, which implies some editorial oversight compared to other websites with user-generated material (although it looks like there may be just one editor). My other options are worldcat or interlibrary loaning the original Laserdisc. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 19:16, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The bottom of the page has "Disclaimer: The data on this webstite is crowd-sourced..." and from the page you linked[60] it's unclear what amount of checking is done before any submitted updates happen. Worldcat is the better option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:31, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    oops, I missed that. Thank you for the advice. I'll use WorldCat if I can't find a news article. Rachel Helps (BYU) (talk) 22:47, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Usage of AirPlay Direct for music articles

    Is airplaydirect.com reliable for use in articles about music (such as songs, albums, artists, etc.) GoldenBootWizard276 (talk) 23:51, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Per their about page[61] they are not a normal news source, but a promotional platform. Their articles, etc are likely based on press releases and information from the subject of the article. So they might be reliable as a WP:PRIMARY source within the limits of WP:ABOUTSELF. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:37, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Global Defense Corp

    Global Defense Corp should be deprecated as it is a incredibly unreliable source which frequently fabricates information they are incredibly biased against Russian technology to such an extent as to lose all objectivity here I will share just a small snippet of the blatantly false information they have spread over the years

    1. they've claimed that Azerbaijan using either an Israeli or Turkish drone was able to destroy a Armenian nebo-m radar which is impressive considering Armenia doesn't even have that radar or has at any point Displayed any interest in buying that radar there evidence for this is a footage of Azerbaijan destroying a p-18 radar and them claiming it's the nebo-m and they didn't just claim this once they've claimed it at least twice in two different articles[1][2].

    2. in this article you can see a picture of the Su-57’s internal weapons bays but what they don't tell you is that this picture is CGI at no point do they communicate this in fact they claim it's from the Sukhoi design Bureau even though it's not[3]. 

    3. in this article they talk about how the S 400 range decreases against objects at low altitudes [1] which is true but fail to explain that this is true for all radar guided Sam systems thanks to an effect known as radar horizon where objects at low altitudes are able to hide behind the curvature of the earth and therefore can only be detected at certain distances[4] but not only do they not explain this to the reader creating a false impression that this is an issue unique to the S 400 but they even claimed that Turkey accused Russia of fraud because of this.[1] which is weird for several reasons one Russia has at no point claim that the S400 range does not decrease with altitude but also because it implies Turkey believed the S 400 could defy the laws of physics they also have no source of this claim and no other articles on the Internet claim this.

    4. In this article they claimed SU57 lacks sensor fusion which it doesn't [5] and then just ignore that low probability of intercept radar is a thing [6].

    5. in this article they berate the S 400 for not intercepting Israeli F35’s [7] in Syria but forgot to mention that Russia and Israel were long believed to have an agreement in the Syrian civil war to not engaged each other[8].

    There bias is also evident in just in the words that they say frequently attacking Russian equipment with ad hominems such as cooling the S 400 ,another lame duck missile system, or starting there articles with stupid Russians or Russian equipment exposed. they also lack of any transparency no one knows who owns the website none of the articles say the names of the people that wrote them making the website Even more suspicious but despite all of this they are still frequently cited all the time on Wikipedia.

    Sources 1.https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2020/02/01/turkey-exposed-fatal-flaws-in-russian-made-s-400-surface-to-air-missile/

    2. https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2021/07/11/rostec-nebo-m-radar-is-it-a-scam-or-propaganda/

    3. https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2020/12/28/russian-su-57-will-carry-four-missiles-in-the-internal-weapons-bay/

    4. Radar Horizon. (n.d.). www.ssreng.com. Retrieved January 6, 2025, from https://www.ssreng.com/pdf/Radar_Horizon.pdf

    5. Butowski 2021, pp. 78–82

    6. https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2022/01/24/sukhoi-su-57s-x-band-n036-byelka-and-n036l-1-01-l-band-radars-are-not-what-you-think/

    7. https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2019/09/22/over-hyped-s-400-and-s-300-surface-to-air-missile-failed-to-detect-f-35i-adir/

    8. When Israel bombs Syria, Russia turns a blind eye. (2022, January 3). thearabweekly.com. Retrieved January 22, 2025, from https://thearabweekly.com/when-israel-bombs-syria-russia-turns-blind-eye Madnow2 (talk) 15:50, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Do we use them? Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The S 400 Wikipedia page has 20 citations from them and the su 57 Wikipedia page has four. Madnow2 (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Amigao (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that they're generally unreliable but I'm not so sure I'd chalk it up to bias rather than incompetence. They seem to be suggesting that the news they publish is a sideline to their core business of international security consulting[62]... But they're spamming the cheapest ads on the internet alongside that content suggests that this is their primary income. To me it looks like a vanity site, I also suspect they are ripping stories off or using generative AI. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:50, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I will agree with you that they are incompetent But I think you can be incompetent and bias, some mistakes they've made such as having a image of the SU57 that is CGI on the web page and claiming it was a picture taken by Sukhoi I could see that being a result of incompetence but stuff like claiming Turkey accused Russia of Fraud over the S 400 because its range decreased against objects at lower altitude I have a harder time believing is just incompetence specially since the mistakes that they made seemed to always understate Russian equipment’s capabilities I have never been able to see and correct me if I'm wrong any incidents where they have overstated a piece of Russian equipment’s capabilities and yet I have seen dozens of mistakes in the opposite direction which suggests to me it is not random error. but quite frankly if their biassed or not I think is irrelevant even if we somehow conclude that they do have a neutral point of view there is still no way they could be considered a reliable source by Wikipedia standards as they do not meet the other criteria mainly the one which is in quote ‘Articles should be based on reliable, independent, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy’ there is no universe where they pass that one and as a result they cannot be considered a reliable source something which you agree with this alone should be enough to get the website Deprecated irrespective of if their bias or not. Madnow2 (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the one thing that seems to be universally agreed on is that this is not a reliable source. Simonm223 (talk) 20:57, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would agree, that regardless of whether it's bias or incompetence, it all adds up to unreliability. Cheers. DN (talk) 23:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed that this is a very low-quality vanity site / ad farm attached to a consulting business. Definitely not reliable and it should be deprecated. - Amigao (talk) 14:52, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Should we trust Social Blade for statistics

    Certain pages about certain living subjects contain an infobox template that really emphasises view counts and subscriber statistics. However, that data is often sourced from Social Blade. Here's what WP's page about Social Blade says;

    "An official YouTube Twitter account, @TeamYouTube wrote that "Please know that third party apps, such as SocialBlade, do not accurately reflect subscriber activity." Social Blade's Twitter account responded to that tweet, commenting "We don't make up data. We get it from the YouTube API. We rely on it for accuracy." Social Blade's community manager Danny Fratella suggested that YouTube content creators may notice subscriber and view count purges more due to a higher accessibility to data-tracking tools like Social Blade."

    The question is should we trust it?

    Plus, why do pages about gamers and vloggers place so much emphasis on what appears to be arbitrary, trivial information that is prone to fluctuation?𝔓420°𝔓Holla 15:59, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It is WP:PRIMARY - I don't think WP:SELFPUB applies since it is drawing its data out of an API but I'd say it's a marginal source. Simonm223 (talk) 16:03, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It certainly isn't a source that I would trust but it is frequently cited in certain articles to populate value statement parameters such as subscriber count, view count, like count etc in this template. My understanding is that WP:PRIMARY sources shouldn't be used to verify value statements? 𝔓420°𝔓Holla 17:08, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Prior discussions for reference; Aug 2021, Jan 2024, June 2024, RFC June 2024. The general opinion appears to be that it's marginal at best. Personally I doubt how reliable their data is, if it's available from the original source that should be used and if it's not available from the original source I wouldn't trust it. They also have 'rankings', which are worthless for anything other than the opinion of Social Blade. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:32, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: EurAsian Times

    The EurAsian Times (used to have its own article but it was apparently PRODed) is cited in several hundreds of articles, mostly pertaining to Russian military hardware and South Asian issues, but not exclusively. It was mentioned a few times on this noticeboard but only on a surface level.

    In light of all this, how would you rate the EurAsian Times?

    Thank you. Choucas Bleu 🐦‍⬛ 22:55, 22 January 2025 (UTC) PS: it is the first time I create an RFC, I hope it is not malformed[reply]

    - Amigao (talk) 15:01, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Survey (EurAsian Times)

    • Option 2/Do not enter to RSP I’d tend to evaluate depending on what the edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and think no evaluation without that can be really valid except option2. In this case, I don't see a reason to make any RSP entry -- there doesn't seem to be a lot of RSN discussions to summarize or adjudicate and if it is in use hundreds of times then making a RSP entry at this point seems to be problematic. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 02:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Option 3 Based on prior discussion at RS/N and WP:NEWSORGINDIA I'd suggest this is a generally unreliable source. I don't think there's a case for deprecation though. Simonm223 (talk) 15:18, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion (EurAsian Times)

    flightconnections.com

    I wonder if flightconnections.com is a reliable source. Examples of it use are on Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport and Los Angeles International Airport. In both cases WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT asks for airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE. I have doubt if flightconnections qualifies as reliable. The Banner talk 02:18, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I can't find any information about who runs the site or where it gets it's information from. There are quite a few articles promoting it or about how to use it, but that is unsurprising as it operates an affiliate programme. From a Google book search it has some extremely limited USEBYOTHERS[63] (note several of the results are not reliable sources), but not enough to be meaningful. I couldn't get any useful results from Google Scholar. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:17, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I do see it as reliable. They are buying the data from one of the large brokers (likely either Cirium or OAG, I wish they said who) and simply providing a wrapper to explore that data, and selling ads and subscriptions to pay for the extremely expensive subscription the brokers charge. RickyCourtney (talk) 19:00, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It can work at least as a starting point. It lists both charter and regularly scheduled flights. You can find the flight number of a given route and then cross-reference it on another source as well. --Precision123 (talk) 22:02, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    But it does not list start and/or end dates for non-permanent connections. The Banner talk 14:25, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It does. When you drill down on a route level basis, under the airlines it lists timespans for seasonal service and shows beginning and end dates as appropriate. RickyCourtney (talk) 16:10, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Pegging

    At this point, after educating people about pegging for the last 14 years, I do indeed qualify as an expert. I am the go-to person for information about pegging in the sex education world.

    Could this conversation about the veracity of my 'opinions' in 2017 perhaps be reviewed? I am the only sex educator I know of who specializes in pegging. I have taught countless classes since 2012 (in person and over Zoom) for beginners, equipment, and advanced pegging, and written many, many articles about pegging as well. Were they published in magazines or on websites that made me edit the crap out of what I'd written until it lost its meaning? No. Wouldn't play that game because the message was too important to me, and because they wanted free material.

    I am not a person of notoriety like Tristan Taormino or Dan Savage, but that does not mean I don't know what I'm talking about or what I put out into the world about pegging is just my 'opinion'. There have been no 'studies' on pegging and there aren't likely to be anytime soon, for obvious reasons.

    Since when was the only measure of an expert their notoriety? I have gone down the rabbit hole of pegging and remained there. I have held space for all the different expressions of pegging during that time, which are numerous. I have advised hopeful givers and receivers how to approach their partners, while also educating them about the (intensely) common misconceptions and assumptions about the sexual act, and so many more things that are a part of pegging. Masculinity, role reversal, communication, etc, etc.

    I have helped countless couples find the best equipment for them, which is much more complicated and individual than a cheap strap-on and dildo. Educating interested people about pegging has been my mission for the last 14 years. Other sex educators have more surface knowledge about this sexual act - knowledge that can be gleaned from a simple Marie Claire article.

    My apologies if I sound a little irritated. My intentions are good. Famous people are not the best sources, necessarily. In sex education circles I am widely known as the go-to expert.

    https://peggingparadise.com/ (my original website)

    https://www.theartofpegging.com/ (my educational and patron platform)

    https://pegging101.com/ (pegging with no kink for the vanilla people)

    With Respect For All That You Amazing People Do, Ruby Ryder RubyRyder (talk) 05:15, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Ms. Ryder,
    What would help here is if you could point us to either reliable, independent sources citing your work, or of you writing for publications that you don't publish yourself.... something that helps us see that, as you say, "in sex educations [you are] widely known as a go-to expert." I fully believe that you are.
    The problem with someone using your sources as a reference has to do with Wikipedia's rules on using self-published sources, which your websites, videos, etc, count as. We can use such sources as reference (if within some limits), but only if we can see that the creator is a recognized expert in the field... and by recognized, that means either cited by or hired to write on the topic by reliable sources. I know that it seems like your voluminous experience and the visible quality of your materials should count for something here, but alas it does not. I don't think we'd be expecting, say, the New York Times or the Journal of the American Medical Association in this case, just some recognizable source that takes such sexual matters seriously. It doesn't even have to be material that is online (although that would help.) Articles that quote you or recommend your sites or training services would really help. Can you point us to such citations? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 06:10, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I appreciate the work that you do. Unfortunately Wikipedia editors cannot use their own judgement to assess the expertise of someone. There are people who research topics and work in a field their entire lives who become experts in those fields and publish their work on their own websites. But there are also pseudo-experts who do the same thing. Editors on Wikipedia are not allowed to use their own judgement to discern the difference between the two, but must rely on a third party to establish their expertise. If you have ever given an interview on pegging for a newspaper or a magazine, or had your website cited by a sexologist or another recognizable sex expert as a good resource on pegging, for instance, then that would allow us to recognize the reliability of your site for the purposes of Wikipedia. Photos of Japan (talk) 07:46, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you comment on and notify the article talk page you want to edit? We really cannot help without context around what changes you want to include.
    that conversation from 2017 is old. I have no clue if that is what Wikipedia editors believe today, nor the state of the article you want to change. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 19:47, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am highly confident that Pegging (sexual practice) is the main article on the topic. Cullen328 (talk) 19:56, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would concur. Simonm223 (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Their comment wasn't asking which page the 2017 discussion was on (which is linked to), but was asking RubyRyder to leave a comment on the talk page of that article. Photos of Japan (talk) 20:09, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is the only reason we want to include this information because its from RubyRyder and it would be good publicity? or is there a specific bit of info that they want to include that is missing?
    • have they tried including it and seeing what happens? (see WP:BRD) Are regulars who wrote and watch the pegging article notified that this debate is happening?
    • This post seems mostly like rehashing and trying to start up an argument from 2017 for the sake of a debate. would like info on what we are doing here, exactly, and what the debate is?
    Bluethricecreamman (talk) 20:27, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Semi-protected edit request on 23 January 2025
     – Thank you for your response. I understand the reasoning. I was asked for other sources, and below I am listing well-known sexologists and people with letters after their name who have interviewed me on their podcasts.

    Cam Fraser - the Power and Pleasure of Pegging with Ruby Ryder: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0naA7WaumMhL1t5wE2vaj5?si=IFqLYzGzT_aQomGXWKvSww&nd=1&dlsi=3c896a210a7d4408

    Great American Sex Podcast with Sunny Megatron - Pegging with Ruby Ryder:https://sunnymegatron.com/ruby-ryder-pegging-paradise/

    Great American Sex Podcast with Sunny Megatron - Butt Stuff 201: Pegging & Vagus Nerve w/ Ruby Ryder: https://sunnymegatron.com/vagus-nerve-pegging/

    Smart Sex, Smart Love with Dr Joe Kort - Ruby Ryder on Pegging - https://joekort.com/ruby-ryder-on-pegging/

    Please let me know if you have further questions or if I can help in any way - and if there is a better way to respond to this conversation.

    With respect,

    Ruby Ryder RubyRyder (talk) 19:37, 23 January 2025 (UTC)    [reply]
    I will quickly note that Sunny Megatron is an XBIZ Sexpert of the Year award according to our XBIZ Awards page, and is used as a reference elsewhere. Joe Kort is clinical director of The Center for Relationship and Sexual Health. So these aren't random peoplecasts. That does not establish, of course, what information you are to be cited for... and as others have, I suggest that you take the issue back to Talk:Pegging (sexual practice) for fresh discussion. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 22:59, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    agreed. I think RubyRyder seems useful as an expert. their information could be used, if correctly attributed. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:07, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. These look like good sources. Ultimately the reliability of a source is dependent on the specific article text that it is being used to support, so your site still wouldn't be reliable to support a medical claim, for instance, but it should be reliable to support general statements about pegging. Photos of Japan (talk) 01:56, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    NationalWorld.com

    What do we think about NationalWorld.com being used for a living porn star's month of birth? Courtesy ping to @Diademchild:.--Launchballer 19:04, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Based on National World, not necessarily crap. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 21:00, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Remember that WP:DOB says full names or birth dates should be widely published by reliable sources and that the standard for inclusion isn't just verification. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:17, 23 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, the article doesn't actually have a full DOB. Policy suggests "err on the side of caution and simply list the year". Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:21, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This section is about using this source to support the month. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are there no other sources available for this info? Ramos1990 (talk) 05:55, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I’m not familiar with NationalWorld, but it’s editorial code of practices sounds reasonable and I’m not aware of any reason why it would not be a reliable source. I would not consider this one source to be “widely published,” but it should support the birth year. John M Baker (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Is this citation/reference using Answers in Genesis reliable for Mosaic Authorship

    [64] edit summary by IP ")apart from the cited website, the edit has nothing to deal with YEC. It simply attests, citing the Bible with a secondary source, that some verses of the Pentateuch mention Moses as its author " Oddly the text it presumably means to back it is all in the citation. Doug Weller talk 15:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Absolutely not a reliable source. In fact I'm somewhat surprised that Answers in Genesis isn't deprecated as a disinformation and pseudoscience source. Simonm223 (talk) 15:48, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Surely there are better sources for such a claim? Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:55, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For the fact the author claims this to be thre case, yes. For it being true, no. Slatersteven (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the problem is that, outside of biblical literalists, nobody is going to claim that Moses personally authored verses of the Pentateuch as that would depend on asserting that Moses was an historical figure. I would call this claim highly controversial and, frankly WP:FRINGE. As such we definitely should not use an in-universe WP:FRINGE source to discuss it. If the claim of Moses' authorship has found any interest outside fringe sources another citation should be fully possible. Simonm223 (talk) 16:20, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's an extract from a book published by a company that produces Christian textbooks for homeschooling, and was written by authors with a backgrounds in geology and engineering. This is a topic area that has had extensive academic writing, there should be no need to use such a source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:24, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For example, through Wikipedia Library users can access the Oxford Research Encyclopdias, which has an article about the Pentateuch that looks like it both explains the reasons for/origins of the traditional Judeo-Christian belief that Moses wrote the Pentateuch as well as contextualizes that belief with the historical critical approach and why it has concluded the authorship was otherwise. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you'll permit a brief off-topic aside I have to say that the Wikipedia Library is one of the biggest benefits to participation in this project. I strongly encourage anyone who is able to use it to do so regularly. Simonm223 (talk) 19:36, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks all. I've told the IP about this discussion. Doug Weller talk 16:38, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Answers in Genesis (AiG) is absolutely not a reliable source. Although claims of Mosaic authorship indeed have nothing to do with Young Earth Creationism (YEC), which AiG is notorious for promoting, we should not be relying on its expertise in interpreting biblical quotes on other matters either. I'm looking at some of the Bible verses invoked by AiG, and it very much seems like the author Terry Mortenson (educated as a geologist) is an untrained Bible reader going through the text and chalking up every time Moses is said to be writing something down as "evidence" that Moses wrote that text itself. Not really. Moses is described in the third person singular as writing some text down that is not quoted within the given narrative, but allegedly existed outside of it. The degree to which some parts of the Bible may claim that Moses wrote other parts of it, should be dealt with by specialised textual biblical scholars who understand something about authorship claims and how to interpret bibical texts. It's a valid subject, but AiG is not an appropriate source to invoke in order to discuss it. NLeeuw (talk) 20:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Beyond that, the Bible is probably the single most heavily-studied book in all of human history. There's no reason why we would ever rely on a low-quality source, which makes the WP:RS / WP:DUE standard for it much higher than it is for most other texts - any remotely mainstream interpretation will have massive amounts of text written about it in high-quality sources. Indeed, the things that the IP was trying to add about how some parts (but only some) are attributed to Moses in the text is already mentioned the article further down the section, just with more context and cited to a higher-quality source. (...the process which led to Moses becoming identified as the author of the Torah may have been influenced by three factors: first, by a number of passages in which he is said to write something, frequently at the command of God, although these passages never appear to apply to the entire five books..., cited to [65]. It even has a footnote somewhat like the one the IP was trying to add (listing all of them according to McEntire, in more detail than the IP even added). --Aquillion (talk) 21:56, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hah, very well said Aquillion. I hadn't even seen that, but that is even a better way of saying what I observed above, and it is said in a way-more-reliable source than AiG.
    Incidentally, although I do see a lot of discussion around the impossibility of Moses recording his own death in Deut 34:5 and following, but I do not see any discussion of other passages that I have seen counter-apologists talk about, namely:
    • to this day no one knows where his grave is. (Deut 34:6), which Moses probably couldn't have written about his own grave, given that he was presumably dead and buried inside it by the time this passage was written down. It also suggests Moses died a long time ago, and the author wasn't alive when it happened.
    • Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, (Deut 34:11), which seems to indicate that a long time had passed since Moses' death, possibly generations, before this text was written down. (According to the scholarly consensus, if a Moses figure existed at all, that would probably have been in the 13th century BCE, while the Book of Deuteronomy is generally dated to the 7th century BCE, so that's about 600 years).
    These are two simple internal-evidence-based refutations against Mosaic authorship for the entire Pentateuch, because at the very least, he couldn't have written those last lines of Deut 34. But here, too, we need to rely on RS by specialised biblical scholars (which I might try later if I feel like it), and not e.g. some atheist blogger making this argument against Mosaic authorship. For the same reason we can't cite AiG to make an argument in favour of Mosaic authorship. NLeeuw (talk) 11:19, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    PS: Heh, this discussion has inspired me to finally buy the e-book edition of Ostrowski, Donald (2020). Who Wrote That? Authorship Controversies from Moses to Sholokhov. Cornell University Press. doi:10.7591/cornell/9781501749704.001.0001. ISBN 978-1-5017-4970-4., which I was already considering. I've added it to the Bibliography, and may use it for some further improvements if useful. Ostrowski claims that he is one of the first to do a meta-analysis of the regular arguments used by proponents and opponents of authenticity in specific authorship controversies. It seems that these controversies are usually discussed in isolation of each other, even though the strength or weakness of particular types of arguments in favour or against authenticity should in theory be universally applicable, without the need to "reinvent the wheel". That might very well be true. We've got a Category:Authorship debates, but no main article. Authorship redirects to Author, and Authorship controversies, Authorship debates etc. do not exist. I might eventually try to write that on the basis of Ostrowski's book, which might hopefully not be a too narrow basis. Perhaps it should start as a list that simply includes links to existing articles about particular authorship debates. We'll see. NLeeuw (talk) 12:05, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Book review hosted at a generally reliable website of a book self-published on CreateSpace

     Courtesy link: Alison Weir (activist),  Courtesy link: ref [1]

    Here's a situation I haven't run into before. Alison Weir (activist) is a political analyst specializing in critiquing media coverage of Israel-Palestine issues. The article has been around since 2013, and the Talk page has recently become active due to a non-EC user (Kenfree (talk · contribs)) making edit requests and actively participating in discussion. A recent discussion topic concerns the reliability of a 2015 book review in Truthout by L. Hager, who reviews a 2014 book by Weir. The tricky part here, is that while I believe Truthout is considered generally reliable (nine archive mentions), Weir's book was published by CreateSpace, Amazon's on-demand vanity publisher. If cited directly, I'm pretty sure the book would be rejected as WP:PRIMARY, non-independent, and WP:SPS. But maybe that doesn't apply to Hager's review, which is clearly secondary, and from a website generally considered reliable. I guess the part that bothers me, is that it seems like using a reliable book review kind of holds the book at one remove, and whitewashes any reliability issues of the book itself. Or, does it not work that way, and it's fine to cite the book review? Mathglot (talk) 08:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I would say Hager's review is secondary and if the publication is RS then it is reliable for Hager's view on the book. It might also provide partial justification for the book falling under WP:EXPERTSPS depending on the content of the review. Simonm223 (talk) 14:02, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As a longtime user of Amazon's publishing services, let me clarify that Createspace was not the publisher of this book; they were a provider of publishing services, rather than a publisher in itself. Seeing them listed in the "Publisher" fields just reflects someone decided to use the free ISBNs Createspace offered rather than buying their own ISBN number, and this may have been done to save money, to save time, or to enable certain distribution options to the library market that were available to folks using that.
    The book does have a publisher listed on the back cover (which can be seen in the preview at its Amazon page): If Americans Knew.org ... which is the organization that Weir was the Executive Director of at the time. As such, this does presumably qualify as a self-published source. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:31, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I have encountered this scenario a few times with fringe authors in particular. If an author has self-published works, it is ok to cite those works in a limited fashion in their biographical page, since it elaborates on their views and if there are no better source to be found. A review by a secondary source is also ok to cite since it provides commentary by someone who not the biographical person in question. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:44, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes I agree about applying WP:EXPERTSPS. Experts often self-publish excellent books for many reasons, including the rapacity of publishers. The rise of self-publishing platforms has in made our rules about self-published books somewhat outdated. The rules were designed for the world in the early 2000s, when mostly it was crackpots who self publish. These days there are new york times bestsellers (The Martian was originally self-published, many other examples). -- GreenC 21:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we mean Andy Weir's The Martian, that book is a novel. Wikipedians' reasons for preferring sources with editorial control are usually irrelevant to the reading public's enjoyment of a work of fiction. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:00, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Based on what you've said, Weir's book Against Our Better Judgment would presumably be a case of an acknowledged expert's self-published source (though be mindful that the policy on biographical content about specific living persons does not permit the use of even experts' self-published sources). Truthout's review of Weir's book is a secondary source for the book, treating the book as a primary source (whereas the book is a secondary source for the United States' involvement in the origins of the nation-state of Israel). Reviews can also be a way to gauge if this self-published source qualifies as expertly-written.
    If concerns about the book persist, it looks like Against Our Better Judgment has endnotes and a full bibliography to numerous academically-published works, so you could also take the book as a starting point for personal learning, read the cited books (perhaps through a library), and cite those on Wikipedia. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 22:07, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Hugh Harkin

    In an article on Project Pluto, I used a source by Hugh Harkin. He writes mainly about aerospace matters and the history of Scotland. He is a member of the Institute of Physics and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. He has written over 60 books, but most were published by Centurion Publishing, a small British publishing firm that went out of business in 2019. The majority of the books it published were by Harkin. A trawl through Google Books only found one that cites one of Harkins' books. There are a handful of citations here, here, and here. Reliable? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:31, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RFC: Tornado Talk

    What is the reliability of Tornado Talk?

    The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:46, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Background (Tornado Talk)

    Previous Discussion Links (Recent to oldest): 1, 2

    TornadoTalk.com, according to their about page is a team of people who write summaries about tornadoes and they do a "damage analysis" for the tornadoes. Their about page also lists the bios of three editors with the notes of other editors (no bios). Wikipedia currently 13 articles which cite TornadoTalk's website. On several articles/summaries written by Tornado Talk, they cite Wikipedia with nearly all of these cases being for photographs (example: [66]). Several articles by Tornado Talk are behind paywalls and unable to be verified or checked due to an anti-archiving and anti-coping extensions on their website. Tornado Talk articles are unarchivable to the Wayback Machine.

    Secondary Reliable Sources entirely about or mentions Tornado Talk: [67] (Jul 2024; fully about + mentions one author), [68] (Mar 2024; single sentence mention), [69] (Aug 2023; fully about one author).

    In August 2023, amid the Good Article Review for the Tornado outbreak of February 12, 1945, Tornado Talk was removed from the article as its reliability was questionable. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 21:46, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion (Tornado Talk)

    • Option 2 over 1 - Grazulis-esque but more unreliable IMO.
    Wildfireupdateman :) (talk) 22:19, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Generally Unreliable per WP:SPS, which says, Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, podcasts, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources.. No evidence that any of the writers listed here [70] qualify as subject matter experts. In the sciences, a subject matter expert would normally have a Ph.D., an academic posting, and a history of relevant publication in peer reviewed journals. Geogene (talk) 05:46, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Plugged In

    Review site run by Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization. I'm currently planning to rewrite the reception section for the Deltarune article and stumbled across their Chapter 1 & 2 review. I generally wouldn't mind using this source with attribution, but Focus has a reputation of misinterpreting information in favor of their viewpoint, and that makes me concerned of its reliability. Maybe this source could be considered marginally reliable? I don't know. — 💽 🌙Eclipse 💽 🌹 ⚧ (she/they) talk/edits 23:15, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I would recommend against using it for critical reception. Not necessarily because it's unreliable -- at least with that review, I've played the game and everything there is accurately described. But it's a very niche source and not really a critical outlet. The link you posted calls itself a "review" but it's more a content guide for parents, with surface-level facts and plot summary that can be found elsewhere, and almost no critical analysis besides "there is violence in this work" etc. So using it as an example of what video game critics had to say is a clear case of WP:UNDUE, except maybe for Christian media or works that had an unusually notable amount of backlash from religious groups. Gnomingstuff (talk) 01:45, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Retrieved from "http://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&oldid=1271885415"