Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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. Additional notes: 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. Start a new discussion

Catholic.org (Catholic Online)

How would you evaluate the reliability of Catholic.org?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:13, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Discussion: Catholic.org (Catholic Online)

• Option 3, Catholic.org is a fansite unaffiliated with the Catholic Church run by Michael Galloway[1]. On the site you can do such things as learn about early Christians, Church teachings, and buy beef[2], wait... buy beef? Why is selling beef the primary purpose of a religious website? Color me unconvinced that this WP:SPS is a WP:RS. See also sister site catholiconline.shopping[3]. From the Justice Department source the enterprise is highly lucrative. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Having look at a brief sample of citations (from the first five pages that came up in an article-space search for 'Catholic.org'), I can't see much that looks obviously 'false or fabricated'. Some content seems to be press releases-based, or archived from elsewhere. One article cited an 'encyclopedia' article which probably shouldn't be used, but beyond that, from my limited sample I'd say that the website probably falls into a 'best not used for anything important' category - so probably option 2-ish, since they are unlikely to be fabricating press releases on the appointment of cardinals etc. As for the website flogging beef, if we excluded sources that tried to sell us stuff, we'd probably have to exclude the majority of web-based sources entirely. I'd need more to go on to convince me that deprecation for 'fabrication' was merited. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:51, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Why not Option 3 however? Deprecation is unnecessary, but this source definitely seems like it would fall under generally unreliable. Silverseren^C 17:18, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd say the trying to sell stuff bit is relevant due to its prominence, its lack of separation from the site's other information, and because Galloway was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for failing to report a massive amount of income from the site[4]. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:16, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RFC. Catholic.org is a republisher of articles and a repository for information. That information has been collected from disparate sources and its reliability for various purposes is highly variable. For example, there is certainly a good deal of information about patron saints contained herein, and that can generally be considered reliably and stably published. Likewise, the information about popular devotions and prayers is generally reliable. In my experience, this site also republished articles by reputable authors and scholars that had previously been published by news sites. I don't use Catholic.org too much due to its high quotient of ads and donation appeals, but I see no reason to deprecate it nor pronounce it as "generally reliable for whatever" but instead it should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, as editors typically do according to policy. Elizium23 (talk) 17:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  None of that makes the RfC invalid. Also, republishing of articles elsewhere doesn't make this source valid either. Wikipedia doesn't support using rehosting sources in the first place, since there's also copyright issues with that. You're really making the case that this is really not a source we should be using at all. Silverseren^C 18:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

  Catholic.org obtains copyright permission to republish the articles. I'm not sure why you would accuse them of not doing so. Elizium23 (talk) 23:55, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 3 Sounds like this is a site with no reason to be considered reliable. Rehosting of outside content doesn't make the source reliable just because of that and introduces additional issues of copyright. We should be using the original actually reliable sources, not a rehosting fansite. Silverseren^C 18:11, 17 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Site fails the basic criteria in WP:RS. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:31, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 Should not be cited but it can be used in discussions that review certain facts for accuracy (specifically feast days and anglicization of saint names). It filled the role of what should have been actually RS on so many saint articles when they were created and it’s continued use should be halted. ~ Pbritti (talk) 17:24, 18 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3/4; the things it writes itself are unusable because it's a personal website, and the stuff it rehosts without concern for copyright makes things worse because they put it under WP:ELNEVER point 2. Depending on the degree of copyright infringement and the extent to which they try to deal with it, it may require actual deprecation. --Aquillion (talk) 05:42, 19 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3. Any reprinted content is entirely dependent on the reliability of the original source, and should be cited to that original source. Any original content fails our standards for Reliability. I see no indication applies any professional-level standards for journalistic editorial oversight. I see no indication that it has any significant reputation. Anyone can establish a non-profit and anyone can throw up a website. It fails our criteria. Beyond that, the fact that the owner has apparently been indited for issues relating to the website is hardly inspiration to extend a favorable exception here. Alsee (talk) 08:55, 20 September 2022 (UTC)
• Invalid RFC as per above and oppose this "deprecation" system. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:40, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Depends on context - per RS, it depends on what for. It seems obvious that it is a decent source for general information on Saints, and equally obvious that any rfc about RS without defining on the RS topics or a specific article question and not using the RS criteria items ... is not right. I also agree with Emir dislike about this “deprecation” system ... we just do not need a rfc on this nor is a record of this rfc going to have any meaningful value. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Why? This is controversial? RAN1 (talk) 09:44, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  To elaborate, I don't think it's a good idea to RSP sources that have never had their unreliability disputed as a matter of WP:BEANS. RAN1 (talk) 18:22, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Its reliability has repeatedly been disputed, thats why this discussion was opened. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:50, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  @Horse Eye's Back: I ran a link search for www.catholic.org, and I'm pretty sure there are over 1000 articles that cite this site. Is this problem bigger than an RS issue? RAN1 (talk) 23:47, 22 October 2022 (UTC)

  Thats not a lot, we've had discussions about sources with 10k plus here. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:30, 23 October 2022 (UTC)

• Invalid RfC can't see what dispute is being addressed. I'm glad to see that others are tiring of this kind of RfC, I'm hopeful that someday what we'll ban instead is the 4-way template. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:24, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option nuke-from-orbit. This plainly self-published site is a one man project by a convicted tax-dodger previously credibly accused of defrauding Catholic charities. The comment above about its primary purpose being sales, is perceptive: he got 21 months for evading taxes on those sales. Guy (help! - typo?) 20:17, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• Options 2/3 while the website is not reliable as a secondary source … any primary documents it hosts/reprints are reliable primary sources that CAN be cited (with the usual caveats that apply to all primary sources). And when citing those primary sources, the website can be used as a WP:Convenience link within those citation. Blueboar (talk) 20:43, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 "fan" website if that makes sense. Not the best option. Oaktree b (talk) 17:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Option 3, though I would support the usage of Catholic Online for covering opinions made by the Catholic Church and affiliated organizations, preferably in conjunction with other sources (assuming such opinion is eligible for inclusion). InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

RFC (The Daily Dot)

What best describes The Daily Dot's reliability?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

X-Editor (talk) 00:05, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Sigh… none of the standard options fit… so I will say Option 5: Use with in-text attribution Blueboar (talk) 02:03, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I'm not sure this RfC is helpful. It looks like the discussion in the previous section was already reaching a consensus of something like 2 but the more difficult question is what additional considerations apply. Most people were arguing that it should be seen as a biased source and used with attribution where something is contentious. I think DFlhb's suggestion that we treat it similarly to the WP:DAILYBEAST is probably sensible. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:52, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• I just want to post here to point people to my analysis and conclusion in the section above (here). I think an "option 2 with required attribution" would be fitting, similar to User:Blueboar's option 5 idea above. It's quite unlikely that the Daily Dot would be the only source reporting on something, so other sources that don't require attribution should be preferred; and the Daily Dot shouldn't be used for notability evaluation since many editors have pointed out in the discussion above that the Dot frequently covers inconsequential topics or Daily-Mail-like gossip. DFlhb (talk) 14:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I agree with others that our typical options don't work well here. In fact I think this is a good example of why the typical options list and the color coding in general aren't very helpful. The current RSP listing says DD is reliable for internet trends. It doesn't say it's green for comments about people or politics etc. Of the options we have I would say #2 because that is where I think most sources like this should fit. Are they likely to tell an outright lie? No. Are they likely to skew what they report in a way that could lead to a false impression or that leaves out signiticant context? Yes. Are they likely to amplify a claim based on their own bias rather than based on a good analysis of the evidence? Yes. So all of these things point to a clear "use with care" type warning. However, the other issue is how much weight, if any, should be given to claims that we only find in DD? I would say just about none. I mean I'm fine with using them as a source for an otherwise mundane detail, "Ford released the new Palomino on March 5th". Should the source be used for a controversial claim ("Ford is hiding a safety defect in the Palomino"), heck no. Would I consider a claim made by another source more valid because DD echos it? No, they are trolling the web for clickable content. Thus my biggest concern is why would we give them any weight rather than are they messing up the actual facts. Springee (talk) 15:12, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 3 for politics. I think it makes sense to split this out by topic. The Daily Dot seems fine when they write about so-called internet culture, which seems to mostly consist of reporting on a viral TikTok video or the like, with a few paragraphs of analysis, which they do quite often, with a special focus on customers and employees at fast food restaurants and food delivery services, for some reason. (All of these examples are from the last four days!) It seems harmless enough. But when they cover politics, their status as a clickbait-y aggregator really becomes a problem: they still focus much of their reporting on Twitter randos and so on, with very little actual reporting, and in their analysis they seem much more interested in taking cheap shots at conservatives than at accurately capturing events. And, as User:DFlhb pointed out in the section above, even when they get things right, any non-obvious facts would be covered in other sources. So it seems useless to include them as a source for political topics. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:34, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 in general, biased and WP:RSOPINION for politics. I see no evidence above of serious failed fact checks or blatant propagandistic shenanigans like doctored images or mixing fringe POVs with factual reporting (please feel free to inform me if I missed something of this form), but it does appear to be biased and opinionated for politics, so it should have a disclaimer similar to Jacobin, Reason etc that it is an opinionated/biased sources and treated as such (attributed where usable when biased/opinion, not for weight). Andre🚐 19:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  Reason is a publication with years of history and plenty of good work to it's credit. This is none of that. It's mostly a farm for click bait stories. It's crazy that we would consider this crap source more reliable than Fox News (which isn't meant to be a compliment to Fox). Springee (talk) 20:30, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I'm open to changing my view on it, but I haven't seen any evidence, unlike copious failed fact checks and misleading statements by Fox. Andre🚐 20:36, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Probably option 1.5/2? It seems like sometimes attribution is appropriate when there's an unclear separation of reporting/analysis and commentary, but I have not seen sufficient evidence that we should consider it unreliable. Presumably we're supposed to base this, at least in part, on the list of stories which exemplify DD as unreliable in the section above. But actually looking at them, it's less a list of problems and more a list of when the OP disagrees. That DD considers Joe Rogan's statement that healthy 21-year-olds who exercise regularly have no need for vaccination to be a "false claim about COVID" is not an example of this source being unreliable. As for the Vance quote about being a "nationalist who worries about America's low fertility", as the DD article says, that's typically a white nationalist perspective. Maybe he wants there to just be more Americans, and supports lowering barriers to immigration rather than wanting more of specific types of Americans, but we don't need to know his thoughts to say that the Daily Dot pointed out that it's typically a racist argument (or a dog whistle to those who support that racist argument, with the built-in deniability that dog whistles come with). OP seemed to simply miss the point of the Musk/hair/gender-affirming care story, but that's ultimately DD highlighting a perspective other people made rather than their own, anyway, and there's no "unreliability" in there. The evidence is simply unconvincing. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 19:56, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with this read Andre🚐 20:10, 30 September 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2: There is no question that its home page looks clickbaity, and my initial reaction was to dismiss the publication outright (though not for the reasons cited by the OP, as to which I agree with Rhododendrites). But it actually seems to be reasonably accurate in its substantive news, it has something of a reputation for breaking news, and it's used by others. So on further consideration, I think it can be used with attribution. Some examples of use by others:

• "The woman [who alleges she was drugged and raped by Cliff Maloney Jr.] came forward last year shortly after the Daily Dot published an article recounting accusations that Maloney sexually harassed women connected to Young Americans for Liberty, a conservative political organization." Atlanta Journal-Constitution (5/8/2022).
• "The caller also provided police with a username, which belonged to a website's administrator, which they claimed belonged to them, suggesting that the caller's alleged motives and identity may have been fabricated, according to the Daily Dot, which first obtained a copy of the police report [about a swatting incident involving Marjorie Taylor Greene]." Independent Online (U.K.) (8/25/2022).
• "[Rep. Barry] Loudermilk gave an interview to a local Georgia radio station on the day of the riot [i.e., Jan. 6, 2021]. The Georgia Republican was still in an undisclosed secure location as he spoke. His comments would not become widely known until The Daily Dot uncovered them months later." Business Insider (6/16/2022).
• "Unjected, a dating app and the "largest unvaccinated platform" online, apparently left its entire website's back end unsecured. Security researchers, working with Daily Dot reporters, reportedly accessed the site's administrator dashboard, which had been left entirely unsecured and in de-bug mode." National Law Review (8/4/2022) (also covered in other sources).
• "The Daily Dot recently discovered that one of the companies the state authorizes to provide campaigns and political action committees (PACs) with campaign finance software is owned by an open and avowed White supremacist who still praises the Confederacy." Florida Politics (9/16/2022).

These are just some recent examples from Westlaw. John M Baker (talk) 04:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1.5/2 per Rhododendrites, but weakly oppose Option 1 due to additional considerations below. The Daily Dot evidently appears to be clickbait, and most of its culture articles are superficial, reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis. This, IMHO is echoed in its political coverage, which per the previous thread is somewhat exaggerated and leaves out context. However, I couldn't find specific examples in which The Daily Dot has written a piece that is blatantly misinformation or disinformation, but it is far from the quality of a newspaper of record or another site with high-quality editorial control. Numerous pieces previously provided are also marked as opinion pieces, which are irrelevant, such as 1 2. Also, while the label of the coronavirus piece could be slightly opinionated, IMO it is not misleading to the point of damaging reliability. Further, the previous articles definitely show that The Daily Dot is WP:BIASED, reflected by the current RSP entry Some editors have objected to its tone or consider it to be biased or opinionated. Consider whether content from this publication constitutes due weight before citing it in an article. Due to that The Daily Dot frequently covers controversial and possibly exaggerated content that possibly violates due weight, IMO attribution should be recommended, and better sources should be preferred when possible. VickKiang (talk) 01:47, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  > reporting on popular social media videos with limited analysis

  Is a lack of analysis for that a problem, I wonder? Watching and documenting the Web is also necessarily their forte (it's some of ours too). It may seem irrelevant and silly to many, or even clickbait-y. But to give a contrasting example, I found the Daily Dot indispensable in helping to catalog the cultural evolution of Pepe the Frog. An Internet cultural history that nobody could argue didn't dip into some politics, by the way. Chillabit (talk) 19:59, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. WP:RS is not based on whether editors personally disagree with a source's conclusions (which seems to be the only arguments made above), but on its reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; and nobody has presented any secondary sourcing calling the Daily Dot's reputation into question, just things they personally disagree with. We don't perform WP:OR here, we rely on what other sources say - you have to demonstrate its reputation, not just a laundry-list of articles you take issue with. And as far as its reputation goes, the source does have decent WP:USEBYOTHERS. See eg. [5][6][7]. The first two particularly stand out because the authors relied on the Daily Dot for part of their classification scheme, ie. its reputation for accuracy - when covering politics, note - was central to their research. [8] is similar, presenting an article and comparison from the Daily Dot to justify the basis of their research. That's (generally) the way we'd expect academic papers to treat a WP:RS. And coverage in other sources generally covers it the way we'd expect them to cover another RS, eg. [9][10] --Aquillion (talk) 02:36, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

  Quite a few of these are paywalled, but this one, which you describe as standing out, lists Media Bias/Fact Check the exact same way it lists Daily Dot. Yet, MBFC is not a reliable source on Wikipedia. I don't think a pile of links to largely paywalled sources that (at least some of the time) refer to them in a way they refer to unreliable sources really establishes their reliability.

  Also, the question of bias needing attribution for WP purposes is separate from the issue of factual accuracy; and the site's strong bias is quite obvious. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:27, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

  I think you need to read that source again. They aren't listing them, they're using lists from them (and three other places). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:32, 3 October 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The point is that, in context, their conclusions depend on the accuracy of data that they got from the Daily Dot, which is the way I would expect an academic paper to use a WP:RS. This alone is not always enough because we have to consider what others say about them, but since it is otherwise generally structured like a reputable news source, and since the only objections anyone seems to be raising about the Daily Dot are that they personally disagree with its conclusions, it seems sufficient in this case. --Aquillion (talk) 19:40, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 1. I just looked at TDD. A story about an incident at a Walmart ends with "The Daily Dot reached out to ...." Another about a TV weatherman using scenes of an animal caught in Hurricane Ian rising waters states "The Daily Dot reached out to WINK News...." There's one about a former employee exposing JCPenney's secret loss prevention surveillance, with "The Daily Dot reached out to Han via TikTok comment and JCPenney via email." TDD does what journalism is expected and supposed to do.
  As for opinions, and its coverage of politics and culture, WP:BIASED states: "reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. Sometimes non-neutral sources are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a subject... Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." Pyxis Solitary (yak). L not Q. 03:09, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1, there has been no evidence presented that The Daily Dot engages in misinformation or that they have purveyed factually innacurate information and refused to correct it, all publications that report on politics are biased to some extent and the only way to avoid this would be to delete all Wikipedia articles on politics. Devonian Wombat (talk) 23:17, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/Option 5 from User:Blueboar above. Per User:DFlhb's analysis in the section above The Daily Dot does not appear to draw a clear line between opinion pieces and factual reporting, so they need to be treated like a WP:RSOPINION source with in-text attribution. Their building articles around random social media posts (as shown by User:Korny O'Near's list of articles about fast food tiktok's in this section and the quoted tweets mentioned by User:DFlhb above) raises some pretty serious concerns both around WP:BLP and about its usability for establishing WP:NOTABILITY/WP:WEIGHT. As its editorial standards appear to have gone down somewhat recently, maybe it would be possible to establish a rough cut-off point, prior to which it could be used with less caveats. Siawase (talk) 08:27, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 highly biased on numerous fronts, not a source that should be generally used on Wikipedia. Bill Williams 18:15, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1. I don't see any evidence that suggests TDD is anything but a generally reliable source. In fact, the examples of TDD following (what should be) accepted journalism practices has left me more confident of their reliability than I had been previously. Woodroar (talk) 19:49, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2/5 per Blueboar, Bobfrombrockley, and others above; mixes fact and opinion and hence the rules on opinion pieces apply. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:00, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• Terrible RfC as per all the varying views offered above, which are valid answers to the question but not the options presented. The only one I would be wholeheartedly against is option 4. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - this RfC is due in part to a (now-archived) list I created of what I saw as false or misleading wording in some Daily Dot articles; you can see the list, and some discussion about it, here. Korny O'Near (talk) 00:25, 10 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2? It depends - this RFC for generic labelling doesn’t seem applicable, it would depend on the specific item in question. The DailyDot collection of pieces range in areas and sourcing and value - many are by staff writers with good rep and giving a factual reporting, many are more question pieces or about non-fact topics. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:06, 12 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Aquillion: they don't seem to have any sort of history of inaccuracy and there's sufficient WP:USEBYOTHERS to make it hard to say they're not reliable. I could see noting them down as biased but TBH they're not any more biased than something like Vox, which is also green on RSP. Loki (talk) 17:32, 24 October 2022 (UTC)
• Option 2 for political content, Option 1 for general content per Andrevan and Rhododendrites. Contentious or questionable political views (whether explicit or implied) are not enough to write a source off as unreliable, but it does warrant additional considerations in a source's use and preference for better sources when possible. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 06:00, 25 October 2022 (UTC)
• My personal view is: if text can be sourced only to the Daily Dot, then we should not include it. If it's in a more reliable source but the Daily Dot provides additional colour then it might be acceptable as a supporting source with inline attribution, but even then I'd be skeptical. It's trashy and clickbaity. We should never drop sourcing standards to the point that we can include sensationalist content just because people like it, after all. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:13, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
• Seems like Option 5 is the best; it's an ok source, but we should find better, but it's better than nothing. Oaktree b (talk) 17:09, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Options 2 or 5. I concur with Oaktree; it's not the best source to use but it's better than Infowars. Ideally, I would elect to Decide on a case by case basis. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 21:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Health Liberation Now! Relisted

Context: Original poorly formatted notification here. However, it contains how the authors and organization are covered in reliable sources. In addition, since the original listing, I created an article for Health Liberation Now!

Question: Can we use Health Liberation Now! as a source for factual information?

1) We can use it as a source without in-text attribution (X happened)

2) We can use it as a source with in-text attribution (Health Liberation Now stated X happened)

3) We can't use it as a source at all

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:47, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• 1 though 2 is an acceptable compromise (as proposer): HLN's reporting is often used matter of factly in reliable sources. The authors are considered subject matter experts and we also have practically every mention in a reliable source, especially WP:SIRS, describing them as an organization known for reporting on political attacks on transgender healthcare. While they are an advocacy group, that doesn't mean they aren't neutral or uncitable, as we quote organizations such as the Southern Poverty Law Center in a similar manner. No reliable sources have raised doubts about the accuracy of their reports, and frankly they do good reporting on an under-reported issue. For those reasons, we should be able to include details from their reporting in articles, either as facts since they often publish easily verifiable statements, or attributed to keep in line with Wikipedia policies.

TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 04:55, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• Mu. The three options in the RfC represent a false choice, which is to say that the poorly constructed RFC ignores the potential that we should treat as self-published and apply additional considerations with respect to biographies of living persons. There is not all that much significant coverage of the website itself, though the best I can piece together is that this is a two-person job that appears to be a group blog. I don't see evidence of the sorts of things that we require of news organizations, such as strong editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking. I also don't think that this is anywhere near the level of WP:SCHOLARSHIP. As always, the guidance of WP:RSSELF that Anyone can create a personal web page or publish their own book and claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published sources are largely not acceptable is worth heeding here.
  There is a narrow exception for expert sources, which is reserved for people whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Along those lines, @TheTranarchist: has the research of the two people who run this website previously been published by independent, reliable publications, such as academic or peer-reviewed journals? If so, would you be willing to provide links to some examples? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 16:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, I covered how they were considered experts extensively in the previous RFC but was chided for information overload.

  1) Leveille, Schevers, and Health Liberation Now are cited in this peer-reviewed article

  2) The independent calls Leveille a a trans researcher and health activist who has extensively documented the origins of what he calls TAnon

  3) Xtra Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who researches TERFs because she used to be one. She’s written extensively about being sucked into a cult-like “detransition” movement which convinced young transmasculine people that their dysphoria was caused by misogyny and could only be cured by radical feminism.. They also state She has been my most patient guide through the world of organized transphobia, having previously spoken to me about the rise of anti-trans activism targeting doctors and gender clinics; every conversation is a whirlwind of names, dates, times and bizarre blog posts from TERF havens, illuminating the underbelly of an obsessive and increasingly dangerous movement.

  4) Ms. Magazine describes Schevers as a researcher who tracks anti-trans activity

  5) Salon describes Schevers as a trans journalist

  6) Vice despite being a passing mention does describe Schevers as a HLN researcher

  The Indepedendent and Xtra Magazine both discuss their research in depth and use them as reliable sources.

  In addition, Schever's past involvement with transphobic detransition communities is well documented in places such as Slate.

  While they are a WP:SPS, the policy states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.

  The reason I initially listed this is because they have done in-depth reporting of modern anti-trans groups such as Genspect, and their reports are fact-based and link to evidence. Since we can't link to such evidence directly, such as when they provide receipts for Genspect partnering with anti-LGBT groups, they allow us to give a more in-depth article. An example of the kind of content they produce and how it fills in gaps in articles is also in the previous discussion. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  You are correct that Schever's work is mentioned in the journal article (along their blogspot post too). Reading the relevant portion of the article, which follows the sentence that mentions anecdotal accounts from detransitioners, Schever's work is used to represent an anecdotal account of a former detransitioner, which makes perfect sense for a journal article that wants to discuss narratives described by detransition advocates. And the remainder of the citations are used to describe Schever's sexual orientation/gender identity and personal regret with de-transitioning (i.e. the sort of stuff WP:ABOUTSELF is fine with) and their personal experience within the detrans community (again, see WP:ABOUTSELF).

  But none of this but lends credibility to Schever as being an SME broadly on the sorts of stuff that HLN covers, which per the website is the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender. And, frankly, none of the other publications appear to provide evidence that either of the founders of the website have previously published their work in reliable, independent publications; merely being referred to as a researcher or a journalist by the popular press is not evidence that an individual is an SME in light of our guidelines on self-published sources. As such, this appears to be a non-SME SPS, though if you can provide evidence either founder has actually published their research in reputable, independent publications, I'd be happy to look it over. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:19, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  Does the Advocate count (Leveille wrote the article) or are you looking for scholarly sources specifically?

  In addition, considering the social and political forces acting in opposition to health liberation for transgender, detransitioned, retransitioned, and gender diverse people, as well as those questioning their gender, the fact that Schevers has verifiably been on both sides of the issue adds credence to her expertise. The Florence Ashley paper described her factually as heavily involved in detransitioner advocacy for 6 years. There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 17:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  A commentary/opinion piece in The Advocate (or news organizations, more generally) is not the sort of thing that makes one an SME, especially in light of our general guidance that op-eds and editorial pieces are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact. (I can't imagine that writing an op-ed or commentary piece in the WSJ or the The NY Times instantly qualified someone as a subject-matter expert when we don't typically consider their regular columnists to be reliable for statements of fact.) I think the guideline looks more for academic sources or something published by reputable think tanks like Brookings Institution or the like; we typically don't even consider independent journalists who formerly worked at a major newspapers to be SMEs.

  With respect to There's also the fun aspect that transgender people pay much closer attention to legislative attacks on our rights, since they affect us directly, than cis colleagues are likely to, I don't think that I've ever advocated for discounting trans people's writings or opinions on the basis of their gender identity. I also don't think that being trans makes one an SME on the social and political forces opposing trans people, much in the same way that being Muslim or being Jewish doesn't make one an SME on the various Islamophobic or antisemitic social and political forces that prowl about the world, respectively. Is one's baseline awareness higher? I imagine so, but that's not really relevant to source analysis here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 17:48, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

  I hadn't noticed that was an opinion piece, thanks for pointing that out! My comment wasn't implying you didn't, more so reflecting on the sad fact that two trans people who've had personal experience with the hijacking of the detransition community, have created well-formed factual reports and research tracking anti-trans attacks on our rights, which have been referenced in reliable sources, can't be used since they don't report through official institutionalized channels. The presence of an editorial board doesn't mean a source will report accurately or fairly any more than its absence means they won't. The quality of their reporting hasn't been brought up, and the fact we trust authority rather than veracity of reporting is saddening on many levels. Put simply, it's depressing they point out things that are happening that are completely verifiably true and we can't say they happened or even that HLN said they happened, even when it would greatly improve the quality of an article, not because they didn't actually happen but because of technicalities. TheTranarchist ⚧ Ⓐ (talk) 18:25, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

• None/3. I don't see why this page should be listed at RSP at all. My understanding is the RSP list is for frequently used sources. This source seems to be an obscure trans-rights group run by two people without an editorial policy. The WP article for the group is actually up for AfD. I just don't see how this rises to the level of being listed on RSP - there are thousands of websites that are used more frequently. --Kbabej (talk) 16:34, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• As I noted when this question was first raised just a couple weeks ago, this is not a reliable source. It is self-published, and the co-founders are not recognized as subject matter experts. The only mentions of them or their website in independent sources are anecdotal and trivial. Neither has been published in a reliable independent source other than a single op-ed style article in The Advocate criticizing a 60 Minutes segment. The comparison to the SPLC is not apt. This is simply not a reliable source. Banks Irk (talk) 18:45, 6 October 2022 (UTC)
• 3 per what I said in the recent discussion on this, as well as Red-tailed hawk and Banks Irk above. It is a two-person activism blog with no editorial oversight whatsoever. We have actual RS on these matters we can use. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:02, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
• I prefer this format better than the one that commonly includes "deprecation". Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 11:54, 9 October 2022 (UTC)
• It's an obscure website that will most certainly be forgotten in ten years time and has only received sizable outside coverage in one LGBT magazine. There's no need for an RfC in the first place. X-Editor (talk) 20:47, 15 October 2022 (UTC)
• As above. We do not need an RfC to know whether to cite an activist website. The About page gives no indication of authority or editorial oversight, it's just two folks' website. We can quote it if it's cited in an independent RS, otherwise, not. Guy (help! - typo?) 19:07, 26 October 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable. No reputation for fact checking or accuracy. No corrections policy that I could find. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Not reliable Per the above, its clearly an SPS, with no evidence these people are regarded as experts. Slatersteven (talk) 11:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Unreliable and treat as Self-published per Red-tailed hawk's excellent analysis. Essentially a two-person blog, has a mission page outlining its aim but has no editorial policies or corrections policies, nor are the authors subject-matter-experts. WP:USEBYOTHERS is also minimal, with the article on the blog being deleted at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Health Liberation Now! with strong consensus, indeed, most of the RS cover the founder's experiences and then trivially mention the site. VickKiang (talk) 02:08, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

El American

What best describes El American's reliability?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated

NoonIcarus (talk) 21:37, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Comment I have removed several of El American's references in the past weeks. Even if the amount of articles where it was used didn't reach the hundreds, it was still used in tens of pages, it has been included in Pablo Kleinman's article several times. It has additionally already been mentioned in this noticeboard in a discussion about the John Stossel article (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 378#John Stossel's views on Wikipedia, where it was suggested to start a discussion on the outlet. I'll ping @Orangemike, Zaathras, and Peter Gulutzan:, who were involved in these discussions and might be more knowledgeable in this regard. I would personally vote for Option 4 and ask to deprecate the outlet, but I would like first to elaborate my point before, if I have the time. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Option 4: As I have now offered a neutral introduction, I would like now to explain the reasons why I believe the outlet should be deprecated. Editors or participants in the noticeboard might by familiar with PanAm Post, which was deemed unreliable by the noticeboard in 2020. El American was founded by its chief editor Orlando Avendaño after leaving the outlet the same year, and it essentially is a website that mixes news with opinion currently that has an alt-right editorial stance, with a reliability more questionable than that of PanAm Post.

Among the dubious information they have published, to say the least, are articles about the 2020 US elections ([11][12][13][14], republishing content from the deprecated outlet Breitbart ([15][16][17][18][19][20]), conspiracies related to Hunter Biden's laptop ([21][22][23][24]), that fascism is a left-wing ideology ([25][26][27]) and quoting that "not only were masks effectively worthless against stopping the spread of Covid-19, but also that wearing them might be harmful for people’s well-being and for society in general". They even have an article titled "Wikipedia Adheres to White House Propaganda by Changing Meaning of Recession"

El American has published false or fabricated information in the past, and should be deprecated as such. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:53, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Option 4 - unreliable and to be deprecated. -- Orange Mike | Talk 23:17, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. I guess I'm pinged because I commented in thread Stossel on Wikipedia Edit removed. There I said that Mr Stossel's opinions were allowable if the article's editors could agree, there was no policy against. There still isn't and no WP:RSN RfC can result in an opinion ban. This kind of question, though, can encourage people to think it's okay. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:21, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (El American)

NoonIcarus, some of your examples are opinion pieces which shouldn't be used anyway and thus are irrelevant for the discussion on the reliability ([28], [29]). Taking an article from your list which is *not* an opinion piece, can you clarify what false or fabricated information does it contain? Alaexis_¿question? 07:44, 27 October 2022 (UTC)

@Alaexis: Numerous of these inaccurate pieces indeed are opinion ones. However, this is apparently a politics, not an opinion piece, and is probably inaccurate IMO- the most serious thing happens because of what happened throughout 2020 and part from 2019: the democratic legal mobilization to change the rules of the electoral game. Here, here, and here it also cites mediocre sources such as The Washington Times, which is currently marginally reliable (though latter ones are opinion). Further, here is an economics and news-related piece which states in the body (not headline, which is automatically unreliable per WP:HEADLINE)- And to their good fortune, several major national media outlets —and pages of mass circulation across the Internet— adjusted their definitions of recession to contribute to White House propaganda. The latest was Wikipedia and seems to brand our current event tag, which is quite common and used in lots of articles, as somehow driving a biased agenda and resembling propaganda. This doesn't seem to be an accurate depiction. IMO deprecation might not gain consensus for an infrequently used source, though. Many thanks, if anything I posted was wrong please let me know! VickKiang (talk) 10:06, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

The Wire (India)

I request Wikipedia community to identify this as an unreliabkle source due to multiple reasons.

1- A prominent Indian independent news site destroys its own credibility - https://www.economist.com/asia/2022/10/27/a-prominent-indian-independent-news-site-destroys-its-own-credibility

2- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/27/indias-wire-says-it-was-deceived-by-staffer-articles-about-instagram/

3- https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/18/india-facebook-meta-the-wire/

4- https://about.fb.com/news/2022/10/what-the-wire-reports-got-wrong/

5- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/technology/sharechat-asks-the-wire-to-take-down-story-on-the-tek-fog-app/articleshow/94963861.cms

6-https://scroll.in/latest/1036058/editors-guild-removes-references-to-articles-on-tek-fog-after-the-wire-retracts-its-investigation

Those who have technical knowledge have explained that they were not deceived or cheated as they claim, but they intentionally made fake accusations and created a fictious tek fog app which never existed. 2402:3A80:1C3C:1155:34EA:FDF6:191B:630 (talk) 15:39, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Just a note that the sources you've used to talk about this story all have similar if not more troubling skeletons in their closet... One bad retracted story doesn't sink a whole paper. Also note that your ending statement there goes further than the sources do. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:43, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

Meta and tek fog are two different cases and both are taken down. You said one story, I think you didn't check all. and regarding other comment, I read tweets from verified handles. 42.105.7.4 (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I was speaking metaphorically, replace "one" with "a dozen" and the message is the same... Retraction is part of the normal editorial process. Random tweets are not WP:RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:38, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

The website is not like 'massive circulation' newspapers that covers many cases from cities and villages, or like news channel covering many stories everyday; but they focus on few cases and evem claim to investigate the story for months. I think, you don't have experience about this website and reports they make. The journalists, editors and founders of wire have verified twitter accounts. For months they debated, defended their stories. Meta is latest but tek fog is old. There is also a third case, where a Judge Loya died, his son told media, "my father died naturally", wire tried to create sensational conspiracy theory about political murder and cover up. Recently one article about judge Loya is also deleted. If you find other existing aticles about Loya, that is not the article they deleted. 42.105.7.4 (talk) 16:52, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

I agree with u:Horse Eyes Back, retraction is a normal editorial process. Having two high-profile stories retracted doesn't look good, but I don't think we should consider them unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 18:53, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

If any particular story is done exclusively by wire which is then picked up by other media?

A whole article was created about a software which even got international media coverage and those who first published this have now retracted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tek_Fog

You people are not going through the details. When their meta lies were xposed, then they also removed months old tek fog, and only one article on Justice Loya.

The editors are blaming their journalists while editors themselves were equally involved, and what they have written as apology is not whole truth.

It's not a printed or tv media. So they promote through twitter, youtube and facebook. What verified twitter accounts speak about them matters here. 2402:3A80:1A4E:513E:35F5:6C79:98BF:6107 (talk) 06:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The Wire should absolutely not be used on anything contentious until they demonstrably change. My post will be long since it seems others are only applying superficial scrutiny. Mistakes are perfectly fine; what's not fine is the complete lack of proper editorial processes, since it disqualifies them from being a WP:RS.

Please make sure your browser supports "link to text fragment", since I use them extensively to save you time.

• In their initial October 10th report, The Wire nonsensically claims that 5.8 million Facebook users have the ability to report Facebook posts, and they'll be immediately taken down, with no review by Meta. Preposterous beyond belief. Nowhere do they say they contacted Meta for comments before publication. The story was written by The Wire's Deputy Editor and Executive News Producer.
• Here's the sourcing claimed in that initial report:
  • The Wire has learnt from a well-placed source at Meta, and: in the month of September, the Meta source told The Wire. Note the singular. You never publish a groundbreaking exclusive based on a single source.
  • The internal Instagram report, which The Wire has accessed. That "report" is a screenshot of the instagram.workplace.com website. "Workplace" is Facebook's alternative to Slack, and is used internally. Note that anyone can create a Workplace instance (i.e. myinstance.workplace.com) on that site, for free (with a trial), just like Slack.
• Meta denies.
• October 11: The Wire doubles down and releases a dodgy email with horrendous ESL grammar as proof. The dodgy English should have tipped them off and got them to scrutinize the story, but they didn't. They again reference the "internal Instagram report" (from the Workplace instance). In this second report, they claim they did reach out to Meta on September 28th. Why was it ommitted from the first report?
• Meta said the emails were fabricated. A Facebook whistleblower said the emails are "clearly faked".
• October 15: The Wire triples down: ("We stand by our stories entirely"). They make several claims:
  • They say the email was obtained from a single source at Meta (again, no journalistic organization would run a story without corroboration).
  • They released the email's cryptographic information (for proof of authenticity). They further claim that two security experts verified the email's authenticity, and post screenshots of two emails from those experts.
  • They claim The Wire's sources at Meta (plural, now) have confirmed that instagram.workplace.com is used internally. At The Wire’s request, one of the sources made and shared a recording of them navigating the portal.
• The response is swift:
  • Meta disputes the new report unusually strongly.
  • Independent experts immediately said the released "cryptographic information" didn't prove anything. A researcher says it's possible they were forged.
  • The emails from the two security experts, which The Wire published, were dated October 2021. The Wire quickly photoshopped the screenshots to change the date from 2021 to 2022. The Wire claimed that this date discrepancy was caused by an incorrect system setting in TailsOS, which cannot be true since email dates are embedded in the email headers and don't depend on your operating system settings, and since TailsOS automatically synchronizes the date & time, and cannot boot without the proper date. The days of the week were also wrong, indicating an obvious Photoshop.
  • Both of The Wire's quoted security experts come out and say they never verified anything. Both of them say that they never sent the emails The Wire attributed to them and later photoshopped.
  • Meta says the Workplace instance was a spoof, created 3 days after the initial Wire article came out. The notes were all created by the logged-in user "3 hours ago", and were shared with no one. There was clearly no traffic to this instance. No one had ever heard of it. It didn't look like an internal Workplace instance would. And again, "Workplace" allows anyone to create an instance. The Wire's video shows that their instance is on a $4/month "Core" tier (which obviously wouldn't be used internally).
• The Wire quadruples down, reiterat[ing] the faith we have in our sources, the impossibility of this being a hoax, and calls the accusations baseless. Then they retract after enormous international backlash, and we're here.

To recap:

• Basic scrutiny disproved every aspect of this story. They clearly have no proper editorial processes whatsoever.
• From the beginning, they ran an extraordinary claim based on a single source. This is a clear editorial failure: no reliable journalistic outlet would ever do this. The entirety of their evidence (the emails, and the Workplace instance) was demonstrably fabricated.
• The Wire is trying to blame a single author, Devesh Kumar. But The Wire's successive articles were written by 3 authors total, not just one "bad apple". One of them is the Executive News Producer and Deputy Editor, and another is the Founding Editor. The Founding Editor also vouched for the hoax, saying the stories came from multiple Meta sources—whom we know, have met & verified. He later admitted to The Verge that wasn't true; they only verified the identity of a single source.
• The Wire was caught manufacturing emails from sources (the two security experts) from whole cloth, and later photoshopping these emails to make them look more convincing.

Editors who defend The Wire are being extraordinarily lenient. There's been instances at reputable outlets (USA Today, the New York Times) where single journalists were caught manufacturing quotes on minor stories. Never for huge international stories with the editor in chief and a senior editor on the byline, who are caught manufacturing quotes, photoshopping evidence, and lying about sources (in this case, the 2 security experts).

We decide whether sources are reliable based on their among of due diligence, scrutiny, and editorial oversight. The Wire has failed all those criteria. It's on them to demonstrate they've addressed these issues. If they do, fantastic. But until they do, they can't be treated as a reliable source. They've demonstrated that they are unreliable for tech news, not just politics and science; that's worse than Fox News! DFlhb (talk) 21:55, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

• Your rendition isn't exactly accurate. For instance, secondary sources that have covered the story haven't pushed the blame of the manufactured emails onto the entire team. Of note is that the purported emails from the experts were addressed to Kumar and the identities of the experts were kept anonymous. It became public when the independent expert who had raised the alarm on the emails being manufactured and was scruitising the story, obtained the identities of these anonymous experts from the editor himself. If the editor was in on it as you are implying it would make no sense for him to disclose their identities to him. In WaPo's coverage where the independent expert gave comments, he himself vouches for the editor's integrity.

Now, the reporter Kumar obviously fabricated those emails and probably more, whom the editor initially trusted, relied on and backed his explainations. The story was rushed and there were editorial lapses but this isn't extraordinary for reliable sources. There have been reporters who have made careers out of manufactured material and continuously slipped them past their editors. There have been bigger lapses on more significant stories, one that comes to mind is the NYT pushing the lie on WMDs in Iraq and apologising for it an year later.

In short, basically what HEB and Alaexis have already said; no source is infallible and what matters is what they do when lapses occur. In this case, The Wire retracted the story, published an apology, sacked the reporter and also retracted earlier reports he was involved in.

This kind of response is rare in the Indian news media and they are one of the best sources we have for the topic area. To give a snippet of their reputation, their reporting is described as award-winning by Colombia Journal Review and the stories they have received awards for are nearly all what one would describe as contentious. For instance their coverage of extrajudicial killings. The International Press Institute in a 2020 report stated that it "is providing some of the best coverage in the Asia-Pacific region on the impact of the coronavirus and the lock-down on disadvantaged and disempowered Indians". They are the Indian partner at the Pegasus Project. They also have a high WP:USEBYOTHERS from reliable sources in the topic area, for instance this Coda Media report (hyperlinks to 4 articles at "rebuke", "had", "observed" and "maintained") uses it as a source for facts without seeing any need for attribution, regarding migrant workers during COVID-19 pandemic and inconsistencies in the government's claims. Similarly BBC reports on nearly ever major story in India contains details or background sourced to The Wire with hyperlinks to it. In other words, it is a generally reliable source and doesn't suddenly become unreliable because they had an editorial lapse and retracted a couple stories. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 00:03, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I think your first paragraph actually distorts it a fair bit. The source was anonymous to us, obviously not to The Wire. Kumar showed the email to his boss, and if there was even minimal fact-checking, the discrepancies would have been caught. Calling sources to double-check before using them is journalism 101. The independent expert never "vouches" for Kumar, he merely "did not accuse" him. And this has nothing to do with Stephen Glass or other cases, I've already addressed that. Senior editors were on the byline; which wasn't the case with Glass, Jayson Blair or others.

Comparing this with the NYT's WMD coverage is really off the mark; the evidence back then was quite robust and stood up to scrutiny; it was just completely made up (in a sophisticated way) by the intel community, which the NYT had attributed the claims to anyway.

Editorial processes aren't there to "trust" authors; they're there to fact-check and make sure journalistic standards are met. Claims weren't fact-checked. Sources weren't called to confirm. The whole story was based on one source. No reputable org today does this, especially not on such a major story. And are you saying that The Wire isn't responsible here, that it's just Kumar's fault? Basic, reasonable journalistic standards would have prevented all of this.

The CJR award commands them for claiming to value credibility over clickbait; but the opposite is shown on display here. Further, the awards were likely partly motivated by the Wire's independent from the Indian government, rather than purely their journalistic worth. Bild and Epoch Times also won awards, and yet are not WP:RS. And Re: WP:USEBYOTHERS the vast majority of those sources use it for India-related news. Contrast that with the Tek Fog coverage in Western media, which universally attributes their claims. They're just not trusted with proper investigations. Their Pegasus Project doesn't tell us as much as we'd hope; those are joint investigations, which can paper over certain newspapers' deficiencies.

See, for example, how the Economist covered this: they say The Wire fell for a "massive conspiracy". They explicitly blame The Wire's partisanship. WaPo notes growing questions about The Wire’s integrity and accuracy. The Editors Guild of India, their national journalistic association which had previously stood by The Wire, now calls out their circumvention of journalistic norms and checks. It's hard to pretend it's business as usual. DFlhb (talk) 01:14, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Um what? Kumar is the sacked reporter, I never said the independent expert vouched for him. He vouched for the editor. And there is also no CJR award, it's an article from the CJR which states as fact that they "carry award-winning journalism", its not just about independence. And of course, the WP:USEBYOTHERS is for India related topics. What's that point supposed to mean? It's an Indian publication and it indicates that they are considered an RS by other reputed international sources for India related topics, specifically for contentious and major stories going by what they cite them for. It's a bit ridiculous to say that they would receive awards because of independence, when they specifically received them for investigations. There are many independent outlets but they don't recieve awards just because of that. There are unreliable sources which have received awards sure but they don't become defined as being award-winning nor do they receive them at this rate.

For instance in 2021 alone, they won two Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards (akin to the Pulitzer Price in India) in both "digital media" and "broadcast media" categories for their investigative journalism on misuse of public funds by members of parliament and their documentary Inside Jamia Nagar on a Muslim ghetto in south Delhi.

The point of bringing up Glass or WMDs was that there have been big lapses in reputable publishers as well because you stated that there have been only been minor ones, not that they are direct analogues here. One could even argue that Glass and Blair was worse considered it covered a lot more stories and went on for much longer. They happened because editors don't expect their reporters to be blatantly fabricating emails and quotations. In this case it was a rushed story and the emails could have been proof enough for the editor that he didn't think he would have call to confirm an email. You could say Journalism 101 wasn't done, that it was preventable and dig into the deficiencies of the story all of want but so what?

In the end, the simple fact is they have been felicitated for much of their coverage and the coverage which is now being questioned stands retracted. Yes, there is criticism with regards to this which is to be expected, nearly any major reputable publisher has some major scandal that it gets heavily criticised for. That doesn't make their other work unreliable. Also the Editors Guild also isn't calling them out, they are urging "extra care" and retracting their own statement which was based on a retracted piece. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 02:59, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

They objectively have some great journalists working for them. But the quality of their editorial processes are what we base a WP:RS determination on, and I'm basing my reasoning on that. Not on Kumar; but on the editorial processes The Wire has.

"Vouched for the editor" is overstating it; he praised Varadarajan for retracting, but said the publication "had failed its journalistic responsibility". I was imprecise with "CJR award". Individual journalists at The Wire winning awards has no bearing on the quality of their editorial processes, just on these individual journalists' work. I think I've addressed why I think this is worse than Glass or Blair; the senior editors were on the byline, and publicly vouched for the quality of (either made up or unreliable) sources; when senior editors publish a false story, without consulting independent experts to help them evaluate evidence (who would have caught it instantly), that's bad. When they don't catch obvious Photoshops, that's dubious. When they quadruple-down after one of their reporters is caught Photoshopping evidence, that makes me cringe.

What's worse is that as I note, The Wire never reached out to Meta for comments before publication! That's utterly disqualifying. They claim they only reached out for an earlier story about the removed Instagram posts, not about the massive and dubious conspiracy they alleged. Highly irresponsible.

Re: The Guild: they didn't just retract, they do explicitly say they're "disturbed" by the Wire "circumventing due journalistic norms and checks".

Here's the point: if you really think such egregious mistakes, involving senior editors and a blockbuster story, could ever have happened at the NYT, or WaPo, or anywhere else, please show evidence. The fabrications and discrepancies were too large to count. Even outlets like The Daily Beast have far stronger editorial scrutiny than The Wire demonstrated here, and I doubt even Fox has been caught in such a large scandal. The Wire doesn't disclose its editors, or editorial processes on its website. It's not a newspaper, it's an online site created in 2015. Given their short history, such a large mistake is hard to ignore based on good work their individual journalists have done before. Read the Fox News RfCs again; they've retracted or corrected many of the criticized pieces ("spin first, correct later"); but they were still downgraded because these errors were caused by bias (which The Economist also notes for the Wire). Let's not judge The Wire's quality as a WP:RS based on their Wikipedia page; what's our judgment of their editorial quality? Why shouldn't we urge caution when using them as a source? DFlhb (talk) 08:40, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Taking into account their mistake but disregarding their good work as the work of individuals is an untenable position. Through this determination you would be discarding that very work based on stories that have been retracted. Speculating on a general lack of process based on one incident is not how we make RS determinations, we look at the full scope of things.

There is no doubt that an editorial lapse occurred here but there's nothing special about that and we can clearly see there are editorial processes to rectify mistakes. We don't need to urge extra caution here because the general considerations for all reliable sources are sufficient; that one should not jump the gun with exclusive stories and for extraordinary claims one needs multiple sources. Very recently CNBC and Bloomberg fell to pranksters with joke names pretending to be fired employees from Twitter. One could say there was no editorial oversight and fact checking here. The thing is these things happen and doesn't take away from their other work. I can't say anything if you dismiss everything else as not as bad. Glass, Blair was much more extensive but I guess we can agree to disagree there.

Now Fox sometimes retracts sometimes doesn't. The most problematic part of theirs is that the errors are systemic and persistent, there are entire academic papers on how they actively promote disinformation. That's not remotely comparable to a newspaper column opining that they fell for a conspiracy because of partisanship. The presence of systemic issues is why most such sources are cautioned against but there is no evidence for that in this case.

Lastly, it's not just an online site, its a news publisher and is treated like one by other RS. Their disclosures are fairly normal, news publishers don't tend to have a blow by blow account of their exact editorial process or the structure of their staff. And it's not like they emerged from nowhere, it was established by the editor-in-chief(s) of legacy newspapers, The Hindu (RSP entry) and The Financial Express (the business news imprint of The Indian Express (RSP entry)). Also if I'm to go into the weeds a bit, EGI does not explicitly say that it was "disturbed" by the Wire "circumventing due journalistic norms and checks", you are combining two different sentences of a guarded statement to say that. Tayi Arajakate _Talk 12:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Comparing this story with the Twitter story is nonsense; that was a minor detail in a minor story. The studies on Fox News's bias almost universally focus on FNC, not Fox News Digital, so are irrelevant for our purposes. And I never asked for a "blow by blow" of their editorial processes; it's perfectly normal for reputable news outlets to have a published editorial policy. General considerations (WP:RSBREAKING) are not relevant here; they apply to all outlets; but if some outlets are less reliable than others, that should surely be noted separately (otherwise, why do we need the concept of "generally reliable/generally unreliable"?) Finally I disagree with your interpretation of EGI's statement; they clearly place The Wire's reporting as part of an industry trend of partisan reporting that does not follow due journalistic standards.

When determining a source's usability, we must focus on their editorial quality; all my arguments center around that. Your points, while well-argued, sidestep that question. I covered, in detail, the extent of The Wire's journslistic failings, and why their attempt to blame them on a single author (Kumar) aren't credible when two senior editors were on the byline, and repeatedly vouched for the story and its sourcing. Let's take The Daily Beast as an example. Again, I'd be utterly shocked if TDB committed similar mistakes to what The Wire did here; their editorial processes would have prevented such a fiasco entirely. In the RfCs and discussions on TDB almost everyone agreed that TDB doesn't made things up; they employ serious journalists with solid resumes, and even their reporting on Donald McNeil Jr., which some here saw as questionable, was corroborated by other outlets like WaPo. We should use at least as much caution about The Wire as we do for TDB, a far more serious outlet. (Note that I'm not asking TDB's rating to be changed, there are other concerns.):

An extremely similar story to The Wire's Tek Fog and Meta stories is Bloomberg's The Big Hack, which was strenuously denied by all parties, disputed by some independent experts, and which I don't find credible whatsoever; yet it was never retracted. Does that mean I believe Bloomberg as a whole is of lower quality than The Wire, which did retract its Meta story? Emphatically not; Bloomberg generally have solid editorial standards and repuable journalists. There's nuance here which I hope you're not missing. DFlhb (talk) 19:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I believed that Tek Fog app really exists as many American, Arab and European newspapers supported Tek Fog story of The Wire. Only people who were not beleiving were BJP supporters, and I though they are simply being biased. Months have passed and now another meta story came out. This time people from USA disagreed and they gave detailed technical evidence, why the meta story is fake. Wire apologised and retracted their meta story.

Now also they retracted their Tek Fog story which they defended for months. Also some two or three year old Justice Loya article is removed. I repeat only one article about Justice Loya as others are available. So any kind of story or article which is done exclusively by The Wire should be treated as unreliable. Means first it was published by The Wire and then picked up by other media. I have seen many tweets by some journalists who worked for The Wire (temporarily). They said Wire has confirmation bias. 2402:3A80:1C3C:3881:5017:974D:A19F:EC11 (talk) 03:04, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Other than META, please discuss about Tek Fog app. Those with technical knowledge can understand. I am not student of IT, software engineering or computer science. Only they can undertsand what Wire did in their Tek Fog story. Most discussion is focussing on META but Tek Fog is another case. I am not able to explain the technical details, which is necessary to discuss here.

https://scroll.in/latest/1036058/editors-guild-removes-references-to-articles-on-tek-fog-after-the-wire-retracts-its-investigation

https://www.newslaundry.com/2022/10/28/wire-meta-saga-editors-guild-withdraws-tek-fog-remarks-economist-points-to-3-lessons-from-own-goal

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/post-wire-apology-editors-guild-retracts-statement-on-tek-fog-urges-due-diligence-in-reporting-445163

Wire is removing, reinserting tek fog stories? I can still see some stories, I don't know which one they removed as they created multiple articles on Tek Fog. 2402:3A80:1C3C:3881:5017:974D:A19F:EC11 (talk) 03:10, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I focus on Meta because I'd been following that story since the beginning, and found it egregious at every step. I can't fathom WP:RS like the NYT ever falling for such poorly faked emails or made-up internal websites; this is a whole new level. But the Tek Fog investigation does seem to have been an example of bad journalism too, IMO. DFlhb (talk) 09:23, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

NYT does [30], the problem is that hindsight is 20/20, it's easy to look back with the benefit of knowing the ending and say "OMG who would ever fall for this?" but its not as easy to predict the future. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:43, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

How both are same level mistakes? In case of Meta and Tek Fog, Wire themselves created a fake story, nobody asked them to, they invented two cases which they themselves were first to report, then they confidently supported their fake stories for weeks, months. In case of the NYT ISIS story you said. Lets say after the end of second world war, an American journalist met an injured soldier who claimed that he was held captive by Japanese. Later on it was found that he was lying. So if NYT believed in some ISIS story, it was not a big mistake. As there are thousands of true cases of ISIS brutality. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2402:3a80:1a4a:7753:c5d7:e0eb:60c6:9dd7 (talk • contribs)

Janet Cooke made up a fake story while at the Washington Post, about an 8 year old Heroin addict. Her editor submitted it for a Pulitzer Prize. When they found out it was a fake they fired her and retracted the story. The Washington Post remains a reliable source and the editor in questions remains a respected journalist. Sometimes even the best publications make mistakes. Admitting the mistake and retracting is exactly what a reliable source should do. - MrOllie (talk) 01:48, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I my third comment above I mentioned why that comparison is wrong. Big newspapers and media publish many stories, covering many areas. Compared to them, Wire type new internet based media covers less stories. The editors or head of NYTimes, TimesofIndia, The Guardian, Washington Post have less time to check all stories. And the drug addicst example you gave is same like the ISIS story. These type of cases can happen. In case of Meta and Tek Fog, their entire team was involved in pushing a fake story, and they are not so busy like NyTimes, CNN, BBC that they were fooled by one person. When their fake stories were challenged by others they defended their fake stories multiple times, and when they saw they can no longer defend it, they retracted. The retract, retract thing you all are mentioning, didn't happen instantly. Like someone said "your story is fake", and they easily accepted. "yes, our story is fake, we are sorry".

Association of Religion Data Archives and World Religion Database

Æo has removed ARDA religious estimations from various wiki pages because he says it uses some World Religion Database data which he claims is affiliated to the World Christian Database which he claims is unreliable. First of all, ARDA is completely separate from both of them. Below is ARDAs impressive resume from their about page https://www.thearda.com/about/about-the-arda

Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) strives to democratize access to the best data on religion. Founded as the American Religion Data Archive in 1997 and going online in 1998, the initial archive was targeted at researchers interested in American religion. The targeted audience and the data collection have both greatly expanded since 1998, now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA is generously supported by the Lilly Endowment, the John Templeton Foundation, Chapman University, Pennsylvania State University and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion.

Below are multiple book sources that call ARDA and the World Religion Database "Reliable", including the Oxford handbook and Cambridge University: 12, 3, 4, 5 AEO does not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely his personal opinion from his own original research. He thinks he knows better than Harvard and Oxford. Foorgood (talk) 23:44, 28 October 2022 (UTC)

• Since 2022, ARDA has completely reviewed its datasets and has aligned them with those of the WRD/WCD. As I have thoroughly demonstrated here, the WRD and the WCD are the same, they are the continuation of the World Christian Encyclopedia, and are ultimately produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. They are therefore biased and unreliable (WP:PARTISAN, WP:QUESTIONABLE, WP:SPONSORED). In any case, they should never replace data from national censuses and surveys conducted by statistical organisations. In the linked discussion, I cited extensive excerpts from WP:RS which have criticised the WRD/WCD. I have also thoroughly commented the links provided by Foorgood in support of his opinion and even provided an excerpt from one of them which demonstrates my view.
• Other users who have recently been involved in discussions about these topics can intervene: Erp, Nillurcheier, Lipwe.--Æo (talk) 23:55, 28 October 2022 (UTC)
  • The World Religion Database and World Christian Database are not officially affiliated but in any case both are considered Reliable by endless scholars including the 5 I included above such as Oxford and Cambridge.Foorgood (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
    • Foorgood, "endless scholars" isn't going to cut it, and "Oxford and Cambridge" aren't scholars. It's important to be precise here. One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database. Drmies (talk) 01:13, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

      I have 5 books from scholars in the original post and then I added some of the many institutional examples: Harvards Library calls it "a good source of statistics for religions" right here https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and Stanfords Library calls ARDA "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports" here https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion but I'm done with this conversation. Have your way and make the source deprecated so that all the scholars and universities can continue to tell their students they shouldnt use Wikipedia. New editors here will now see that sources called good by Harvard are considered deprecated by Wiki. Foorgood (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Academic assessments

For the sake of information completeness, I re-copy hereunder the excerpts I originally reported on my talk page in the discussion with Foorgood.

The following academic papers express criticism about the WRD/WCD, regarding their common origin in the WCE as a missionary tool, their systematic overestimate of Christianity while underestimating other forms of religion, and their favouring certain Christian denominations (Protestant ones) over others:

• Liedhegener A.; Odermatt A. (2013). "Religious Affiliation in Europe - an Empirical Approach. The "Swiss Metadatabase of Religious Affiliation in Europe (SMRE)". Zentrum für Religion, Wirtschaft und Politik (ZRWP), Universität Luzern. doi:10.13140/RG.2.2.33430.55364. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• p. 9: "...the World Christian Database (WCD) or the World Religion Database (WRD) which is a direct offspring of the WCD. ... In itself the latter is not an unproblematic source, because its data, gathered originally from the World Christian Encyclopedia, result mostly from country reports prepared by American missionaries. Therefore, a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism".

• Hsu, Becky; Reynolds, Amy; Hackett, Conrad; Gibbon, James (2008). "Estimating the Religious Composition of All Nations: An Empirical Assessment of the World Christian Database" (PDF). Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 47 (4): 691–692. doi:10.1111/j.1468-5906.2008.00435.x.

• p. 679: ... The main criticisms scholars have directed at the WCD concern the estimation and categorization of certain religious populations. There are questions about whether religious composition within countries is skewed by the overcounting of certain groups or variance in quality of information obtained on different religious groups. There is also concern about possible bias because the WCE was originally developed as a Christian missionary tool. Some of the country descriptions in the WCE have been characterized as having an anti-Catholic and pro-Protestant orientation (McClymond 2002:881), and Martin describes the WCE as a work "dedicated to the conversion of mankind" (1990:293). Criticisms have also been raised about projections for different religious groups and demographic trends, as the WCD provides empirical data for the population of religious groups well into the future. Doubts have been raised about the WCD's estimation and categorization of new religious groups. Steenbrink (1998) criticizes the 1982 WCE data for Indonesia, which suggest the population is only 43.2 percent Muslim and 36.4 percent "new religionist." Steenbrink maintains that those classified as "new religionists" should actually be classified as Muslim, even if stricter Islamic groups might disagree. Lewis (2004) observes that the Soka Gakkai, Rissho Kosei Kai, and Nichiren Shoshu in the Japanese Buddhist tradition are classified as new religions, whereas Pentecostals (a much more recent movement) are classified as Christian rather than a new religion. The size of Christian populations is also debated. Jenkins (2002) notes a large gap between the reported size of India's Christian population in the government census and in the WCE/WCD. While he admits that census figures omit many Scheduled Caste adherents who can lose government benefits by declaring Christian identity, he suspects the WCD overcounts Christians in India. The WCE has also been criticized for including "inadequate and confusing" categories of Christian religious groups, in particular, "Great Commission Christians," "Latent Christians," "Non-baptized believers in Christ," and "Crypto-Christians" (Anderson 2002:129). Some worry that it is difficult to distinguish Christians who keep their faith secret from Christians who practice an indigenized form of Christianity that incorporates elements of non-Christian religions. McClymond writes that estimates for the "non-baptized believers in Christ" or "non-Christian believers in Christ" in India who are Buddhist and Muslim "seem to be largely anecdotal" (2002:886). Estimates of adherents in the United States have also been challenged. Noll has questioned the designation and size of certain Christian categories, for which the WCD and WCE provide the most detail. Although he finds estimates for most Christian denominations agree with other sources, he notes that "Great Commission Christians"—a category used to describe those actively involved in Christian expansion—are estimated in the United States and Europe to be a much larger group than the number of Christians who weekly attend church (2002:451). Another cause for concern is the number of "independents," a muddled category including African-American, "community," and "Bible" churches. Changes in the data set also raise issues about categories: Anderson notes that groups previously labeled as Protestant in the first edition of the WCE in 1982 (Conservative Baptist Association of America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America) were relabeled Independent in the second edition published in 2001 (Anderson 2002). Some have argued that projections of religious composition for years such as 2025 and 2050 should not be included with the empirical data, as they are merely conjecture (McClymond 2002). Irvin (2005) argues against making predictions about the future of worldwide religion based on recent statistics because Christian growth in Asia and Africa will not necessarily continue along the trajectory it has in past decades. ....
• p. 680: ... To address the criticisms mentioned above, we compare the religious composition estimates in the WCD to four other cross-national data sets on religious composition (two survey-based data sets and two government-sponsored data sets): the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department). In our analysis, we find support for some of the criticisms made by reviewers ... the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries. Another important difference between the WCD and other cross-national data sets is that the WCD includes data on 18 different religious groups for each country while other data sets only estimate the size of major religions. In evaluating some of the specific critiques discussed above, we find that WCD estimates of American Christian groups are generally higher than those based on surveys and denominational statistics. ... The majority of data came from fieldwork, unpublished reports, and private communications from contributors who are a mix of clergy, academics, and others; the Christian origins of the encyclopedia explain in part its detailed information on Christian groups. ....
• p. 684: ... Figure 1 shows that the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. This suggests that while the percentage Christian estimates are closely related among the data sets, the tendency is for them to be slightly higher in the WCD. ... On the other hand, the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions..
• p. 692: ... We find some evidence for the three main criticisms directed at the WCD regarding estimation, ambiguous religious categories, and bias. The WCD consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets. ... We also found evidence of overestimation when we compared WCD data on American denominational adherence to American survey data such as ARIS, due in part to inclusion of children, and perhaps also to uncritical acceptance of estimates from religious institutions. We agree with reviewers that some of the WCD's religious categories are impossible to measure accurately, such as "Great Commission Christians," "latent Christians," and "Crypto-Christians." ....

---

Further additions by Erp, whom I thank:

• Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122.
  • Quote: ... the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals ....
• Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246.
  • Quote: overestimate of Christianity in China, which adds a lot to the total number and percentage of world Christians: ... At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation ....

---

In one of the sources provided by Forgood (F. Lionel Young, III, World Christianity and the Unfinished Task: A Very Short Introduction, Wipf and Stock, 2020), which is itself a book dedicated to a particular Protestant missionary project and view, you can read the following lines: ...Barrett's research has continued under the auspices of an organization established in 2001 named the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, now situated on the campus of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The center's co-director, Todd Johnson, began working with Barrett in 1989, and collaborates with his colleague on several projects, including the 2001 edition of the WEC. Building on Barrett's groundbreaking work, the center launched the World Christian Database and the World Religion Database....

As a general example and point of reference, compare ARDA projections about Australia to the Australian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 14%); ARDA projections about Canada to the Canadian 2021 Census (ARDA overestimates Christianity by 10%). They are completely wrong, for every single country.

A further critical remark is that ARDA data are speculative projections, not actual surveys, and therefore violate WP:CRYSTAL. There have already been discussions about these matters in the past (e.g.), and some time ago Nillurcheier and I discussed about the possibility of making these sources WP:DEPRECATED (here).--Æo (talk) 00:15, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (ARDA and WRD)

The World Religion Database provides its estimates based on census and surveys: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/, just like Pew Research does. The sources I cited above from Oxford and Princeton call it very reliable and accurate even though it is not exact as Censuss but estimates like Pew are used all over Wikipedia.Foorgood (talk) 00:39, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

That being said, I want to confirm whether or not AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD estimates shouldn't override national censuss(which I agree with) meaning they could still be used for other estimates, OR if AEOs position is that ARDA/WRD should not be used at all(which is absurd given their reliable reputation with Oxford and Cambridge)?Foorgood (talk) 01:04, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

The WRD is not a census (survey of the entire population of a state by that state's statistical office), and, as demonstrated by Erp herebelow, their methods for collecting and elaborating data are unclear (and, n.b., circular! the WRD makes reference to Pew which in turn made reference to WRD!). With my comments, I have abundantly demonstrated the bias of the WRD and its sponsors. Please note that some of the sources you have cited are from the same sponsors of the ARDA (e.g. Pennsylvania University), others (the Oxford etc. books you claim recommend ARDA) are from years ago when the ARDA had not yet switched completely to WRD data (I myself consulted the ARDA site in 2020/2021 and their data were completely different, and more reasonable, than those from the WRD implemented after 2020/2021) and they merely list or cite ARDA as a source. That ARDA data should never replace data from national censuses is obvious. Moreover, they are WP:CRYSTAL projections. Therefore, I think that ARDA/Gordon-Conwell data, together with Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (another dataset of projections based on Pew 2001-2010 surveys) should be WP:DEPRECATED. Æo (talk) 10:47, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope you cannot radically decide to block PEW and ARDA, both globally recognized as top reliable sources, from Wikipedia just because you now think you know better than them. But what we can do is give preeminence to Censuss while allowing estimates to be provided lower in the article with the disclaimer that they are not official surveys etc. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

"Both globally recognized as top reliable sources". Please note that such alleged "global recognition" is basically the result of their own campaigns of promotion, and support by their allied journalistic media. Take the F. Lionel Young source cited above: it indeed praises the WRD within a chapter dedicated to statistical sources which are part of a precise Protestant Christian missionary project. These are, very simply, unreliable biased sources. Obviously, I cannot classify them as deprecated myself; this would require community consensus. Let's see how the present discussion will develop before proceeding with further steps. Æo (talk) 14:45, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

You actually think that PEW or ARDA, globally recognized as reliable, would meet all the requirements listed here?!: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deprecated_sources.. Again are you so extreme in your stance that you can't come to a compromise like you've done already by simply having Censuss take top priority on nations religions pages? Foorgood (talk) 15:26, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Regarding census data I have not come to any compromise; census data are simply the best, most accurate available. And yes, I think ARDA/WRD/WCD (alias Gordon-Conwell) and Pew-Templeton Global Religious Futures (projections based on outdated 2001-2010 surveys/collections of data) meet the requirement for deprecation. Note that deprecation does not mean banning a source (blacklisting), it's just a warning that will appear whenever contributors will insert links to such sources. Æo (talk) 17:10, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Ok so you are saying that you don't feel the PEW or ARDA data needs to banned entirely from articles, just given disclaimer that it's not an official survey like a census? Foorgood (talk) 17:34, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

ARDA itself is a database archive and states that when citing ARDA the original source must be included in the cite so the key question in most cases is the reliability of WRD. I have access to the World Religion Database so decided to check one recent cite in the Demographics of atheism article where the claim was "In 2020, the World Religion Database estimated that the countries with the highest percentage of atheists were North Korea and Sweden". First how on earth does anyone know what the percentage of the population are atheists in North Korea? Tunneling down through the WRD yielded the source for its info on religion in that country as "North Korea, Future of the Global Muslim Population (FGMP), 2020" and a note at the bottom of a fairly blank page was "Pew Forum Projection". Unfortunately the Pew FGMP (a) doesn't mention atheists and (b) cites the WRD as its source for the Muslim population of North Korea. I do note a WRD discussion of its methodology is at https://worldreligiondatabase.org/wrd/doc/WRD_Methodology.pdf including the paragraph:

"Religious demography must attempt to be comprehensive. In certain countries where no hard statistical data or reliable surveys are available, researchers have to rely on the informed estimates of experts in the area and subject. Researchers make no detailed attempt at a critique of each nation’s censuses and polls or each church’s statistical operations. After examining what is available, researchers then select the best data available until such time as better data come into existence. In addition, there are a number of areas of religious life where it is impossible to obtain accurate statistics, usually because of state opposition to particular tradition(s). Thus it will probably never be possible to get exact numbers of atheists in Indonesia or Baha’i in Iran. Where such information is necessary, reasonable and somewhat conservative estimates are made."

My suspicion is the estimate of the number of atheists in North Korea is a guess with very large error bars. The number of atheists in Sweden is likely to be more accurate though the latest survey they used is 2008. One should check what definition of atheist is being used by WRD. Erp (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Excuse me the 2017 Win/Gallup poll also has Sweden as the 2nd most atheist country and here https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea we can see 2 different estimates are used to give North Korea's high atheist percentage. Estimates have their own methodology and they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge so don't try to reinvent the wheel and say that we know better than these statisticians because if so you're going to have to remove every single estimate on Wikipedia for every topic- and there are thousands. Our job on Wikipedia is to include estimates that are reliable while obviously giving precedence to government surveys *When available*.Foorgood (talk) 01:52, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Actually the estimates for North Korea in the Religion in North Korea are for 'no religion' which is not the same as being atheistic. Also the 2017 Win/Gallop report (https://web.archive.org/web/20171114113506/http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/370/file/370.pdf) has China as being the 'least religious', not atheistic, of the countries polled with Sweden second. However in the same report when it comes to percentage stating they are atheists Sweden drops below China, Hong Kong, Japan, Czech Republic, Slovenia, South Korea, France, and Belgium. North Korea for obvious reasons was not among the countries polled. This does not help in showing that WRD is a reliable source. Note that does not mean I agree with @Æo that censuses are the best sources; censuses can have biases or be incomplete and good surveys/polls can be just as reliable or better if not as precise. I would be happier with WRD if it were specific on how it got its figures for each country (among other things it would avoid articles citing X and then citing WRD which in turn was using X). Erp (talk) 17:38, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

If you click here https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/np-sort?var=ADH_704#S_1 and read the top it says "Variables: Total number of Atheists by country and percent of population that are Atheists: Persons who deny the existence of God, gods, or the supernatural. (World Religion Database, 2020) (Atheists)1" Again, you guys are acting like you know better than these world renowned sources. Foorgood (talk) 17:43, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, I have thoroughly demonstrated that such "world renowned sources" are not produced by actual statisticians but by Protestant missionaries and Erp has demonstrated that their methods for collecting data are dubious. The line you have cited does not mean anything as to statistical survey methodology, it is just a conceptual category they have used to represent their data. Please read WP:NOTHERE. Æo (talk) 23:33, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I suspect the precision of exactly 4,016,422 atheists in North Korea in 2020, too precise for what is suppose to be an estimate. Have the authors not heard of significant figures or more likely it is an issue with the database design not being able to round? Also the definition at the top of the ARDA WRD chart is not quite the same as the one in the World Religion Database (the numbers do match). The latter definition is "Number of Atheists in this country's population. Atheists are persons professing atheism, skepticism, impiety, disbelief or irreligion, or Marxist-Leninist Communism regarded as a political faith, or other quasi-religions, and who abstain from religious activities and have severed all religious affiliation; and others opposed, hostile or militantly opposed to all religion (anti-religious); dialectical materialists, militant non-believers, anti-religious humanists, skeptics." There is a separate category for agnostics.

As for world renowned? Something can be well known yet still not be deemed reliable. I did a search of the Wiley Online Library for "World Religion Database", 27 hits though 16 of them were to a single book by the people who created the database. Wiley also includes the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion which had two of the cites (one of which was a critique of the World Christian Database). One would think people contributing to a journal on the scientific study of religion might be using this database extensively? I also did a search on "Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy" in Wiley, that had 1,248 hits.

I will note that Brian Grim's background does include a PhD in sociology from Penn State which should ensure some statistical training. Erp (talk) 00:35, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable 12, 3, 4, 5 Why? Because they are all statisticians from Universities around the country: ARDA Advisory Board: Renata Curty (UC Santa Barbara), Joel Herndon (Duke University), Nathaniel Porter (Virginia Tech), Ruth Tillman (Pennsylvania State University), Andrew Tyner (Center for Open Science)

ARDA Affiliates: US Religion Census, Baylor Univeristy, World Religion Database at Boston University, which is part of Brill publishing: https://www.worldreligiondatabase.org/

No, you do not know better than these experts. But AEO I'm asking you, your position is that ARDA not be banned from articles you just want it with the deprecated tag?Foorgood (talk) 01:16, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And ERP you will have to show us a screenshot if you think we will simply take your word about what WRD classifies as atheism because there is so far absolutely 0 proof of what you just stated. Foorgood (talk) 01:44, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

@Foorgood I'm not sure I'm permitted to put a screen shot in this discussion (wikipedia images are suppose to be stuff we can use in articles) or even if it would be sufficient proof for you given you apparently have no access to the database and therefore don't know what it looks like (I could after all photoshop it). Would it be better to have a third party who has access to WRD to vouch for the accuracy? A party you choose. I'm not sure whether @NebY or @Æo have access. Erp (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Nope because as I wrote below: Here is The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 14:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

@Erp: I don't have access to the database, but I personally trust your word. In any case, I think it would not be a problem if you uploaded a little screenshot of the section of the page which demonstrates unclear and circular reporting; I think it would not be a copyright violation. Regarding Foorgood, I think he is gaming the discussion system by bringing the interlocutor to exhaustion, ignoring the evidence we have put forward and stubbornly copy-pasting his links which do not demonstrate anything except that ARDA/WRD is listed among other sources on some university/library websites. Æo (talk) 17:05, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I would also remind @Foorgood: of WP:AGF. We have no reason to suspect Erp of fabricating a quotation from WRD and I very much hope that FoorGood doesn't imagine that such suspicion would be justified by or would justify misleading statements by Foorgood themself. NebY (talk) 17:41, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Many thanks for pointing that out about Good Faith. I would like someone else to check given that I am using an older browser so perhaps some things are hidden from me such as lack of sources (not the definition of atheists, that is definitely there). Or I should check on a different computer. I note @Foorgood has been contacting various people and one of them might have access.

I'm actually not so sure it was circular reporting since it isn't clear whether the surveys listed by WRD were actually listed sources or listed links for related information. The idea behind the WRD makes a certain amount of sense; however, the methodology is lacking in a few ways. What are the sources for each country and a short description on how they are used, who is responsible for the calculations in each country (or are the listed editors, Todd M. Johnson, Brian J. Grim, Gina A. Zurlo, Peter Crossing, and David Hannan, responsible for all countries?), are there regular archives so a researcher using it doesn't find the data changing out from underneath them (these archives might exist); why aren't figures rounded to avoid giving a precision that is impossible for estimates? what are the error estimates?

By the way if WRD is well known (whether for good and/or for bad), it probably should have its own Wikipedia article. Erp (talk) 02:01, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, your wrote "Oxford and Cambridge and 3 other top publishers call them reliable" and previously "they are considered Reliable by Oxford and Cambridge". Books publishesd by Oxford University Press and Cambridge University Press don't represent the opinion or judgment of OUP or CUP (or of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge), and this is true of publishers generally; for example, a book published by Harper Collins does not represent the opinion of Rupert Murdoch. An advisory board of statisticians "from Universities around the country" isn't automatically of high quality (they might be the best in the US or they might be the only ones in the US who'll work with that organisation) and the extent to which advisory boards influence an organisation's work and output varies massively. NebY (talk) 14:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Here is even The Harvard Library calling World Religion Database "a good source of statistics" https://guides.library.harvard.edu/religion and here's The Stanford Library https://guides.library.stanford.edu/religion saying of Arda "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world. The ARDA allows you to interactively explore the highest quality data on American and international religion using online features for generating national profiles, GIS maps, church membership overviews, denominational heritage trees, tables, charts, and other reports." University of Oxford Library also recommends both of them https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/collections-and-resources/data/finding-data/themes/religion. All the top Universities call it a reliable source period you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research. Foorgood (talk) 16:01, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Foorgood, note that the sites you have linked merely list ARDA among other sources, and the blurb is likely a self-presentation. They are not critical researches; critical assessments are those like the ones from which I have excerpted the quotes reported at the beginning of the discussion (Liedhegener et al. 2013, Hsu et al. 2008). Also please note, and I repeat this for the umpteenth time, that the ARDA acquired all its data from the WRD only by 2021/2022, and before then it hosted completely different data. As already expressed before, the first problem here is the WRD, and the ARDA is the secondary problem as it functions as the dissemination platform of WRD data. Æo (talk) 17:54, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

And as you saw Harvard calls World Religion Database a good source so do yourself a favor and stop humiliating yourself trying to make it seem deprecated and pretending you know better than Harvard Stanford and Oxford. Even the Yale and Princeton Library websites suggest World Religion Database. Foorgood (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That's better, at least to start with; you clearly identify those mentions as being from university libraries. But then you veer into saying "all the top universities", as if the libraries are the universities, as if those samples do call it a reliable source, and as if your sample proves that all "top" universities or even their libraries call it a reliable source. And then you tell me that "you do not have ANY reputable source that calls it unreliable it is completely your personal opinion from your own original research". You do not know what my opinion is; my comment above on your statements was my first. NebY (talk) 17:57, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

That first sentence from Stanford Library, "Data included in the ARDA are submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world", is also in our article Association of Religion Data Archives and has been since its origination in 2006. The Stanford page appears to be comparatively recent - note that this Jan 2022 list of guides from the Wayback Machine doesn't mention a religion page. The Stanford statement might be copied from Wikipedia, which is not a WP:RS, or both might be taken from a self-description of ARDA, whose website currently has "now including American and international collections submitted by the foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world."[31] (I notice that's not such a strong statement, not making a claim about all the data.) It does not appear to be Stanford Library's independent appraisal of ARDA. NebY (talk) 17:31, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Correct, as I wrote above the blurb is a self-presentation copied and pasted here and there, including on Wikipedia. Also note that the self-proclaimed "foremost religion scholars and research centers in the world" are fundamentally the same people of the WRD alias Gordon-Conwell and of the John Templeton Foundation (another organisation about which we could report plenty of criticism). Æo (talk) 17:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed that you'd found it on wikipedia too! NebY (talk) 17:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

(Personal attack removed) Foorgood (talk) 18:13, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

I think that much of the evidence presented so far by User:Foorgood indicates that ARDA is a reliable source. The set of references that were provided 12, 3, 4, 5 indicate that there is scholarly usage of such a database. Keep in mind that all major surveys have their limitations and none are really the final word - especially on atheism. Estimates of atheism are particularly problematic e.g. estimates from China differ between surveys (WIN-Gallup International vs Pew Research Center) and China and well... Asia alone shifts the global estimates of atheism considering that just China by itslef has the greatest number of atheists in the world. From wikipedia's stand point there is no issue using ARDA. It is not a depreciated source. It has limitations and problems like all other surveys. Attribution may solve the issues of putting any results from any particular survey in wikipedia's voice.

From the arguments presented against ARDA, none indicate that it is a depreciable source. ARDA has notable sociological researchers like Roger Finke in its board [32] and peer reviewed articles on it are also available [33]. Also, there are many hits from other scholarly sources on google scholar using the database too [34].Ramos1990 (talk) 00:11, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

In my view it is not ARDA that is in question but rather one of the databases it archives, World Religion Database. ARDA itself says that the source should be cited with ARDA just being the repository.

If I modify the google scholar search for just "World Religion Database" I get 559 results though some of them aren't exactly supportive. For instance

one article reviewing the database states

Second, the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals

and

[things which] would radically improve the usefulness and face-validity of the data:

• Documenting how each estimate was calculated. A Webbased format is ideal for revealing this kind of information: most users would not be interested in the details, and costs to print such information would be exorbitant.
• Providing some measure of uncertainty with each estimate (e.g., standard errors or even a qualitative evaluation by the editors). Researchers could then integrate uncertainty into their statistical models or exclude cases with uncertain estimates. As it is, estimates for Afghanistan, Algeria, China, and North Korea appear as precise as estimates from Canada and Germany. (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 21–22. ISSN 0272-6122. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

I also noted that many of the other cites were in articles authored by the database creators.

I also did a search on jstor which tends to be a bit more selective than google scholar on what is scholarly though some recent stuff (3-5 years) may not yet be available on it. There were 31 results (with at least 3 of those by people directly involved in the database). One is by Hsu et al. 2008 mentioned above which is not favorable to the database. One article had the statement

"Relying on the 2010 estimates of the World Religion Database (WRD), this method is used in instances where no better data than the religious composition of the birth country were available" (Henning, Sabine; Hovy, Bela; Connor, Phillip; Tucker, Catherine; Grieco, Elizabeth M.; Rytina, Nancy F. (2011). "Demographic Data on International Migration Levels, Trends and Characteristics". International Migration Review. 45 (4): 979–1016. ISSN 0197-9183. JSTOR 41427975. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

This seems to show a reluctance to use it if anything better was available. Also

"At the extreme high end, the World Religion Database puts the percentage of Christians in China at 7.76 percent, or a just above 100 million, but this number is most certainly an overestimation" (Marsh, Christopher; Zhong, Zhifeng (2010). "Chinese Views on Church and State". Journal of Church and State. 52 (1): 34–49. ISSN 0021-969X. JSTOR 23922246. Retrieved 2022-11-02.)

WRD seems to be on the edge of acceptability. At most it should only be used if no better source exists (I still can't imagine how they calculated the so very precise numbers for North Korea). Erp (talk) 02:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

WRD is not on the edge of acceptability. It is clearly used in the sources you cited above. Brill, which is an academic publisher, publishes the database [35] and it comes from Boston University by the way so it is RS by that measure alone. I see no reason to object to it from wikipedia's policy standpoint. The sources you brought do not show that it is a bad database, because clearly peer reviewed sources do use it. Google scholar also produces peer reviewed articles and books that use it too. I got more than 800 when looking at "world religion database (WRD)". How is this a problem for it? It is used quite a bit. Bad sources do not get used this often to build on research. So clearly it has value for academics.

Now, there are studies that do sloppy work on atheism such as WIN-Gallup which showed global atheism rising way too fast in 2012, and magically declining by half in the subsequent WIN-Gallup surveys within the same decade. This of course is preposterous - that atheists would double and then decline in 10 years. People, on a global scale, do not change radically one way and then change back in a decade. And some researchers have advised caution on WIN-Gallup's data set (e.g. Oxford Handbook of Atheism) since their numbers on atheism in China are way too large - compared to all data sets on religion and atheism available. But none of this makes WIN-Gallup an non usable or depreciated source on wikipedia.

That is because all studies have their weaknesses and they usually contradict each other in the literature (Pew vs WIN-Gallup vs WVS vs census data, etc). Wikipedia just presents what certain data sets have come up with. We as wikieditors do not psychologize or make assessments or judgments on how one database is good or bad methodologically. As long as WRD has an academic standing in some way in the literature, there is no real reason to discount it over any other. Attribution should take care of placing the weight on the database being cited for the numbers.Ramos1990 (talk) 06:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

As it has already been written and amply demonstrated, the ARDA is a repository of data which at some point between 2021 and 2022 changed all its datasets with those of the WRD/WCD alias Gordon-Conwell. It is the latter that is in question in this discussion, and judgment on the ARDA follows judgment on WRD/WCD. As it has been widely demonstrated, the WRD/WCD is a Protestant Christian encyclopedia, dataset and missionary tool. Its sources are Protestant Christian missionaries, for the most part, as stated in its own methodology paper (pp. 13-14: ... The WRD taps into knowledge from contacts in every country of the world who inform us on what is happening in non-traditional forms of Christianity, such as churches and insider movements ...; notice that some of these firsthand informers, "insiders", are sometimes completely out of reality: for instance, in 2013 some Protestant churches predicted that 10% of Mongolians would be Christians by 2020, yet between 2010 and 2020 (census data) Christians in the country have declined from 2.2% to 1.3%).

As for the sources you have listed (which are the same links provided by Foorgood), the respectability of the publisher or hosting site does not necessarily imply that the content is qualitative and reliable. Cf. WP:RS: WP:SCHOLARSHIP: "POV and peer review in journals": Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs...; cf. Drmies above who has contacted one of the hosting websites: One of the librarians listed on one of the pages you linked confirmed to me what academics already know: a note on a library guide on a university library's website should NOT be taken as any kind of official endorsement for the reliability of that database.

Regarding more in detail the sources you (and Foorgood) have listed, I repeat once again: #1 is a book dedicated to a particular Protestant Christian view and project which is ultimately the same one of Gordon-Conwell; #2 is written by one of the compilers of the ARDA itself (Finke of Pennsylvania University); #3 simply lists and comments the ARDA among other resources, and, note it well, goes back to 2011 when ARDA had not yet switched to the WRD/WCD (it says that at that time its sources were mainly the World Value Survey and the International Social Survey Program); #4 is just the list of references used within the book; #5 is not a source of a good quality and in any case I don't find any reference to the ARDA. Æo (talk) 10:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

P.S. O.T. Regarding atheism/irreligion and WIN-Gallup, which are not into question in the present discussion, notice that the definition of "atheism" and "irreligion" can vary according to the context, and that these categories overlap and are not as well definible as belief in a specific Abrahamic religion. Also notice that "atheism" and "irreligion" can overlap with the categories of Eastern religions: Buddhists could be considered atheists, while the notion of "religion" in East Asia does not traditionally apply to non-Abrahamic religions (or to forms of East Asian religions which have adopted an organisational form similar to that of Abrahamic religions), especially to East Asian diffused traditions of worship of gods and ancestors, and the same could be said for certain non-Abrahamic religions and unorganised beliefs which are emerging in the Western world. Æo (talk) 11:25, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Worth observing the Foorgood has repeatedly canvassed editors to this discussion; that's how Ramos1990 got here, for example. --66.44.22.126 (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Nowhere did he/her or anyone else reach out to me prior to me making a comment on this thread.

Back to the program, to the comments of AEO, I see that most of the discussion is not on whether it is academic (clearly it is - has peer review, Brill is an academic published with peer review, Boston University, notable academics head the project, many peer reviewed publications widely use it, etc). On this alone it is a RS per wikipedia. The stuff about WP:Scholarship applies to fringe publishers, but not Brill (which uses peer review).

Most of the issues that mentioned in this thread relate to methodology and the papers cited in the top of the thread (Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) both show generally positive views of WRD despite any shortcomings). This has nothing to do with the fact that it IS an academic source, is used by academics to advance research and that it used as a tool in academic research on religion worldwide. As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front. If bias or fault is perceived (this is not agreed upon and the uses of it in peer reviewed publications show its wide utility), this would not be a problem for wikipedia either because even WP:PARTISAN states that sources do not need to be neutral and that these sources may be better sources for numerous contexts and that attribution would be appropriate.

On top of that I see that researchers on Islam use it too The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies, and apparently Pew uses WRD data for some of its numbers in Africa for instance The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa. (interestingly it mentions that census data have design problems as well so no dataset is without its problems - which is true since censuses have inconsistent terminology and metrics on religion and some censuses like the American one do not ask about religion). Also, the Liedhegener (2013) paper mentioned at the top of this thread says WCD was used for Encyclopedia Britannica numbers too. Here is another paper using WRD in combination with other sources to get a comprehensive demography [36]. Here is another on Islam in combination with other studies [37]. Also here is one that compares WRD numbers in New Zealand on the nonreligious along with other datasets and is comparable to Pew. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7

The more I look into this the more I find that it is used quite a bit in the literature along with other datasets either As Is or in a supplementary fashion. I don't see it being used in a depreciative fashion. I see no issue with it being cited with attribution (most studies get attributed either way) and scholars generally do not have a problem with it either (which is why they use it in the first place including general positive comments on it from Liedhegener (2013) and Hsu (2008) which were cited at the top o the thread), and there certainly is no wikipedia policy basis against WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:52, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

"...As far as I have seen, no major objections have been provided on this latter front". What needed to be said has been said, about the use of the source in certain books and about the publishers of either the source itself or books which have made use of it, and academic assessments regarding its non-neutrality and dubious methodology (with one such assessments even affirming that they "seem to have constructed their estimates... from surveys of denominations and missionaries") have been provided (please see WP:IDNHT).

Moving forward, please notice that there are various precedents of sources sponsored by or affiliated to religious organisations which have been deemed unreliable: Catholic Answers, Catholic News Agency, Church Militant, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, and, most significantly, the academic CESNUR and its journal Bitter Winter, which are listed among semi-deprecated sources for being "an apologia site for new religious movements, and thus is inherently unreliable in its core area due to conflicts of interest. There is also consensus that its content is unreliable on its own merits". Also the Annuario Pontificio of the Catholic Church is not used in Wikipedia for statistics about Catholics in every country of the world, so I don't see why Wikipedia should be filled with statistics produced by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. Æo (talk) 15:10, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I think we have brought up our points on the matter and when you look at the sources, they show more than what you constantly present in your quotes. The sources you presented here usually support WRD too. For instance, its own methodology paper you cited clearly shows that WRD's sources include Censuses, surveys and polls along with denominational data (see p. 4-5) methodology paper. So just isolating "from surveys of denominations and missionaries" is incorrect on methodological grounds and even this quote misrepresents the source you extracted this from (Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable") because after reading it, Woodberry is very positive to WRD overall and acknowledges its comparativeness with other datasets and even says "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group." Plus the fact that WRD is used by Islamic researchers, nonreligious researchers, Pew Research Center (actually integrates it as part of Pew's methodological design per Barton in Palgrave Handbook), CIA estimates (per Woodberry), and Encyclopedia Britannica (per Liedhegener) show that it much more reliable and trusted than you are willing to give credit. But since all datasets have their problems - including censuses, attribution would solve any issues. And its academic status with Brill [38] which is a peer reviewed publisher helps too.Ramos1990 (talk) 00:52, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Another edition of WRD/WCD data has been the Atlas of Global Christianity (produced by the same Gordon-Conwell team). I have found negative critical assessments even for this edition, this time coming from an "insider" (Christian missionary) source, even though through an academic publisher, written by Anne-Marie Kool of the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Osijek, Croatia:

• Kool, Anne-Marie (2016). "Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation" (PDF). In Charles E. Van Engen (ed.). In The State of Missiology Today: Global Innovations in Christian Witness. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. pp. 231–49.
  • p. 1: 《... [the resource] seeks to give “as nuanced a picture as possible” of the history of Christianity over the last 100 years showing an “unmistakable” general pattern, that Christianity experiences a “severe recession” on the European continent that once was its primary base, while it has undergone “unprecedented growth and expansion” in the other parts of the world.》
  • p. 2: 《... widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data, “without robustness checking… they contain random error and probably some systematic error” ...》
  • p. 9, containing a self-criticism from Kool for having herself made uncritical use of the data: 《The World Christian Database and the World Religion Database serve as sources for the data of the Atlas. With regard to the methodology used, Woodberry is right in emphasizing that “more transparency is needed”. It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors. The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades.》
  • p. 12, about systematic overestimation of Christianity in Europe, with allusions that there might be financial reason behind such overestimations: 《The statistical image of Europe that is now communicated only re-enforces the image of Europe as a Christian continent, by not giving insight in the internal diversification and erosion. So why is only this broad definition used? Is it for fear of losing power? Or for maintaining the image of the numerically strong “World C” that provides the human and financial resources to “finish the task”? Are matters of Christian finance playing a role? Out of a sense of empire building? Or of a sense of hidden resistance to accept that Europe also is now also a mission field? Is it out of fear of becoming a minority? Fear for ending up statistically weaker than the Muslims? Or an attempt to cling to the influence of the “Western” over the “non-Western” world, based on an image of Europe as still a massive Christian continent?》
  • p. 13; it is a missionary tool designed for a specific strategy of aggression towards what in American missionary Christianity has been conceptualised as the "10/40 window": 《Eric Friede’s sharp analysis points us to the fact that the Atlas is ultimately written from the perspective of the so-called Great Commission Christians, Christians who engage in and support Christian missions, as many essays address the issue of “how to grow Christianity” in a particular region. The mission strategy invoked is then one of identifying within Global Christianity the resources needed for the task, the human resources, the GCC Christians, as well as the Christian finances that could make this enterprise work. An assessment of major tools needed for finishing this task is offered in subsequent sections, like Bible translation is followed by a section on Evangelization, with a division of the world in A, B and C, according to the level “being evangelized”. Statistics are used to motivate missionaries and national workers to mission action with Christian mission being reduced to a manageable enterprise with a dominant quantitative approach and a well-defined pragmatic orientation, “as a typical school of thought coming from modern United States”.》 Kool makes largely reference to: Eric Friede, "Book Review. Atlas of Global Christianity: 1910-2010, by Johnson, T.M. & Ross, K.R. (Eds.), 2010", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, Theological Librarianship 3(1), 2010.

Among other sources, some of which we have already analysed, Kool makes reference to:

• Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.
  • I can't access the paper at the moment. However, it is a critical assessment, once again coming from a missionary journal, that raises doubts as to the reliability of the WRD on the basis of the mismatch of the latter's data (purportedly based on censuses) with actual data from censuses, in particular those of the UK. Judd Birdsall and Lori Beaman, in Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion & Diplomacy, 22 June 2020, at p. 3 say that the WRD, despite being widely cited and impressive, "comes with limitations. In his review of the Database, the statistician Peter Brierley pointed out that for the United Kingdom the Database used denominational reports, such as Church of England baptismal records, rather than the UK census figures to calculate affiliation. A tally of denominational reporting showed that 82% of Britons were Christian, whereas only 72% of them claimed to be Christian in the UK census". (n.b. Brierley makes reference to the UK 2001 census data, showing that already in 2001 the WRD overestimated Christianity in the UK by at least 10%).

Æo (talk) 22:13, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Appreciate the references. However, again these do not impact WRD much at all. The Kool source on the Atlas mentions that WRD data is used by the Atlas, not that WRD is the Atlas or that the goal of the Atlas was the same as WRD. Just like Pew uses WRD, it makes no sense to associate Pew's agendas with WRD's database just because one uses the other. The Atlas' goal and interpretations numerical data is different than WRD and Kool rightly focuses on the contents of the Atlas, instead of WRD (WRD is not mentioned much throughout the paper). WRD is one data set and is not the only one and attribution solves any issues here on wikipedia. You keep on thinking that these papers are calling for the removal of WRD when they are actually trying to improve it and they continuously praise it overall. They all agree that it is very valuable and merely say that there are limitations to it - just as the same applies to Pew, Gallup, and censuses all around the world. This is nothing new in this and if you ever look at the numbers of nonreligion, for example; from Pew, Gallup, and Cenuses, there are significant discrepancies to be found there between these datasets (easy examples include China, Japan, and numerous countries in Europe like Netherlands and Sweden). They are all flawed and limited. None stands as the authority. Stuff like "spiritual but not religious" messes up the numbers because religion is not perceived in Western sense in most of the world.

If we want to criticize census data, there are papers showing the limitations and issues with that too [39]. Censuses get quantity - but they do not guarantee quality of course. In fact Pew's methodology mentions the limitations of surveys and census too (America has not asked on religion for 70 years, for example). Pew clearly states that "Censuses and nationally representative surveys can provide valid and reliable measures of religious landscapes when they are conducted following the best practices of social science research. Valid measurement in censuses and surveys also requires that respondents are free to provide information without fear of negative governmental or social consequences. However, variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results. Social, cultural or political factors also may affect how answers to census and survey questions are provided and recorded." Its pretty obvious that big variations exist between just these datasets alone. Anyways, Pew also mention that they used WRD data for 57 countries as a supplement in their methodology in that same section. Furthermore, Pew acknowledges that statistical reports from religious groups are also valid measures. "In cases where censuses and surveys lacked sufficient detail on minority groups, the estimates also drew on estimates provided by the World Religion Database, which takes into account other sources of information on religious affiliation, including statistical reports from religious groups themselves."

So I don't see much of an issue in light of this. So all of this thread on equating a critique of a dataset = bad dataset is preposterous when you see that all datasets have problems and issues. In fact, there is research indicating that "religion" is invented in surveys and polls (if you are interested see Wuthnow, Robert (2015). Inventing American Religion : Polls, Surveys, and the Tenuous Quest for a Nation's Faith. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190258900.) We know that WRD is used by Pew, CIA, Encyclopedia Britannica, Islamic researchers, and nonreligious researchers among many others. But most importantly it satisfies wikipedia's RS criteria since it has peer review, and is from Brill, an academic publisher.

You cited Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 34 (1): 18–20.. Cool. It says the same thing - that there are limitations. But keep in mind what he also clearly states "It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it." And after reading it, the overall view is positive to WRD, not negative on WRD.Ramos1990 (talk) 02:21, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Realtime Trains - reliable?

Want to gather the opinions of other editors on this particular site. Whilst it is not used for referencing that often, it has been in the past. Realtime Trains (RTT) is an industry data-based source which shows the movement of almost every train on the UK rail network, describing the real-time movements of each one. Recently, it has also started to feature unit allocations (roughly 95% accurate I would say). This was used in a recent edit to the Class 455 page, to refute an unsourced claim about one particular unit being stored, when RTT was used to show (in regards to the allocations) that it was still operational.

• Note: long-term services should, for consistency, reference the electronic National Rail Timetable, or the Working Time Table, so RTT - as far as I see it - does not need to be used in this instance.

I want to, therefore, gather the opinions of other editors as to whether (or to what extent) this site could be used as a reliable source. Could it be used to refute unsourced claims like this example, or could it be used to show other things, likewise if other trains are shown as stored? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattdaviesfsic (talk • contribs) 18:41, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

A major problem with realtimetrains is that information is removed after a short period, I think that it's about twelve weeks. The pages still exist, but are filled with default information - for example, as of today, 2N92 Paddington-Didcot of Sunday 7 August 2022 is live, with actual rolling stock information and stopping/passing times; but the same train one week earlier is the schedule from the Working Timetable, which may not have been met at the time. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:21, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

For more 'historical' allocations, they could feasibly be archived (although I have absolutely no experience with this); I am aware that this has been done with RTT before, but this may generally help with referencing anyhow. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 19:24, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

I'm personally of the opinion that any information that's worth being stored on wikipedia (such as "train XYZ has been withdrawn and stored at MOD Old Army Base") will be reported by the (usually specialist) media, if only with a slight time lag. If you're scrabbling around to use RTT as the only source, it shouldn't be included and an editor should wait for it for a decent source. Better to be accurate, than the first to "break the news".

It's also closely affiliated with the subject... (National Rail timetable data) and you could argue it's not a secondary source - can one actually confirm that train XYZ has been stored at MOD Old Army Base? No.

Many of the interesting things that occur across the network every year (and are shown on RTT) would be too much detail to include on wikipedia - "this train went down this weird route", "this train has 28 carriages for some reason", "no trains called at Anytown Station today" - if they were notable of inclusion, it would have been reported by the media in due course. Turini2 (talk) 08:49, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

I concur. I can't think of any reason that a Wikipedia article would need to include information so ephemeral that it only appears on RTT. Anything of significance would be reported elsewhere. It's not as if there's a shortage of literature on the UK rail network! HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Not sure I can add much to the debate other than I NEVER use them as a resource for Wikipedia. On discussion boards yes but on here - no. GRALISTAIR (talk) 19:37, 29 October 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it's a very useful resource but not for referencing Wikipedia articles. I have seen the unit allocations regularly being wrong as well (although they're pretty reliable). Black Kite (talk) 08:53, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Comment seems reliable, but I'm not sure what you'd use it for on wiki. It's basically a gps tracker for trains. It's basically a live timetable. I suppose for basic confirmation that the XYZ Express train travels between Joe Station and Blo Station. I'd always look for a better source. Oaktree b (talk) 17:13, 30 October 2022 (UTC)
• Yes it is reliable within reason, but I wouldn't use it to provide a citation for Wikipedia as the data is removed and unverifiable after a week. If it is the calling point information you want then use the official railway timetables; if it is the rolling stock information then I would want to see it corroborated from a printed source or more permanent (non-fan) website. Geof Sheppard (talk) 13:47, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
• It's reliable within its limits (which are explicitly noted in various places on the site) but not particularly useful for writing an encyclopaedia. Archive.org and similar can get around the transitory nature of the information if necessary, but I can't see why it would be - anything notable enough to be mentioned in an encyclopaedia article would be covered in the (railway) press or other static source. Thryduulf (talk) 11:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

FOTW - [40]

The FOTW webpage is generally used as reference in most of the flag related articles, including Flag of Great Britain and Flag of France, but also Flag of Canada, which is a featured article or Flag of Gdańsk, which is a good article. The page, from what it seems is a fansite, written by non-specialists, kind of similar to Fandom. They sometimes put the sources of information in the text (then we should base our articles on those sources), but there are situations, that the text has practically no confirmation in any other sources considered as reliable.

A good example of a mistake is the flag of Gmina Świdnica, Lubusz Voivodeship, as seen here: [41]. @Bolszewski Wikipedysta, seeing no documents mentioning the flag messaged the local government and got as an answer, that the flag was only a proposal and was denied by them.

In my opinion FOTW should not be used as a reference in any article, and should be included on a list of deprecated sources. Filipny (talk) 14:34, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Another examples:

- Gmina Białopole, as seen here: [42] - there is an information "that resolution was repealed by another one: # IV/18/07", because of decision of Heraldic Commision. But, unfortunately, one user added it to Commons (here).

- Powiat górowski, as seen here: [43] - information: "Probably an unofficial flag", but, of course, also in Commons

- Powiat łosicki, as seen here: [44] - in other source, Gazeta Wyborcza (here in Polish), "symbols was canceled"

There are few of them, but, in my opinion, they are confirmation of @Filipny: arguments. Best wishes, Bolszewski Wikipedysta (talk) 15:23, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Definitely an unreliable fansite with user-generated content and no fact-checking or reputation for reliability. Note that the disclaimer section of the website says:

• "The quality of images and news varies very much: the website contains not only well-known flags but also sketches and rumours, often seized on the spot from a TV report or a magazine. In any case we disclaim any responsibility about the veracity and accuracy of the contents of the website.", and
• "Most text and images contained in the website are made by the contributors themselves. If the contributor states the source of the information, we report it, otherwise we assume it is new material and the copyright is owned by the contributor."

Should not be used as a source anywhere on wikipedia. IIRC this been discussed before although I am sure whether it was at RSN or one of the articles where fictitious fan-generated flags from this site were being added. Abecedare (talk) 17:43, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Links to previous RSN discussions:

• Oct 2022
• Sep 2022
• Jan 2011

The conclusion always has been that this is an unreliable source for wikipedia. Abecedare (talk) 17:54, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• Fan site, not subject to proper editorial controls, not a recognized expert in the field, etc. etc. --Jayron32 14:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Can we add it here then? Filipny (talk) 18:09, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Modern Diplomacy .eu

Can we list the website Modern Diplomacy as an unreliable source?

It’s been discussed before at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 249#Modern Diplomacy and Ahtribune. The site’s contributors include, for example, Eric Zuesse[45] of GlobalResearch.ca (generally unreliable and blacklisted, see www.globalresearch dot ca/author/eric-zuesse), Adomas Abromaitis[46] contributor to Katehon,[47] Anna Wozniak[48] published by OpEdNews,[49] and Dmitri Trenin.[50]

It is cited in about 25 articles.[51]  —Michael Z. 22:02, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

Having a contributor that also writes for a deprecated source is not a valid reason to declare a source unreliable. Is there evidence that they publish false and/or fabricated information? Alaexis_¿question? 06:52, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

These are examples of the site uncritically publishing material that is extremely WP:POV and WP:FRINGE. That it is part of the Russian Federation’s propaganda laundering (see below) implies this could be systematic or intentional.

Here’s an example: an article alleging that donated French howitzers have been sold by Ukraine to Russia.[52] The main source: a tweet by a French lawyer (w:fr:Régis de Castelnau#Informations jugées fausses ou complotistes lors de l'invasion de l'Ukraine par la Russie), supported by responses from a Russian propaganda outfit in occupied Ukraine and a Russian state tank factory.

It is in the news category, completely lacking integrity, designed to create messaging on the common Russian propaganda of demotivating military aid to Ukraine.  —Michael Z. 15:38, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Um, it's also, by its own about us page, not a source of factual news. It says "We are a leading European opinion-maker with far-reaching influence across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. What we are not is a pure news-switchboard: we do not just provide information but expose readers to analysis." Which is to say that as attributed opinion, it may be useful, but it per WP:RSOPINION, among other places at Wikipedia, should not be used as a source for text written in Wikipedia's own voice. Whether their opinion is worth quoting is another matter entirely, and not part of the purview of the board, but as a source of opinion and analysis, it really should only be used as such. Also, we aren't going to "list" it anywhere. There is no master list of reliable and/or unreliable sites. --Jayron32 12:20, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

If this discussion comes to a consensus, then the site qualifies to be added to WP:RSP, along with other similar sites already listed.  —Michael Z. 14:32, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Has the source been discussed here, or elsewhere, at Wikipedia repeatedly with regard to its reliability? This is the only such discussion I am aware of. --Jayron32 14:42, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

See the original post above.  —Michael Z. 19:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I wouldn't say twice meets any reasonable definition of "repeatedly". It definitely falls well short of any sense of "Perennial". --Jayron32 18:26, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It meets WP:RSPCRITERIA.  —Michael Z. 18:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess. I'll grant that your entirely correct, though under objection. I still think that putting everything on the list serves us badly in two ways 1) It dilutes the usefulness of the list and 2) It gives the false impression that the list is canonical; that a source's reliability status can't be determined unless it is on the list. That's a bad idea. 99% of sources can be evaluated without discussion by people just applying the criteria at WP:RS, and 99% of disputes should be handled at the article talk pages and never get here. I'm more upset this has become a defacto "official endorsement" of reliability/unreliability and I'd rather people stop trying to rely on this board so much and instead just apply WP:SOFIXIT. This board (and the list) should be a last resort for intractable debates over reliability where everything else has failed. It shouldn't be a one stop shop for all things WP:RS. But yes, I will concede, the guidelines say that as long as you can sucker in at least two people to comment on the reliability of your pet source in at least 2 different discussions, it gets "official, certified, and guar-AHN-teed" status forever and ever amen. Carry on. --Jayron32 19:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I disagree, although I don’t think we should fill up this topic with discussion about the merits of the current arrangement. —Michael Z. 19:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Please read the Finnish article linked below (auto translate works well enough). It demonstrates how an item in MD’s “Newsroom” section is used to launder Russian propaganda, from a fake “Polish” news site, through MD, to Russian state news publishing a story falsely alleged to be from Western media.  —Michael Z. 14:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

The site is listed as a partner by the Russian Foreign Ministry and it launders Russian propaganda for a Western audience. (Yle and Christo Grozev in Finnish) Prolog (talk) 12:33, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Pinging @Mhhossein, Icewhiz, and Alsee: participants in the previous noticeboard discussion.  —Michael Z. 15:42, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

Er, I don't think there's any need to ping Icewhiz. He's been permanently blocked by the Wikimedia foundation for years. --Aquillion (talk) 07:56, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1586623916709134336 --Renat 15:46, 31 October 2022 (UTC)

• Modern Diplomacy is not reliable: They source and publish unpaid content from the general public,[53] and they disclaimer responsibility for the content.[54] The content quality is wildly uneven and the range of view expressed is almost schizophrenic and at times fringe, because the content is unpaid work of any random author. A number of articles echo Russian propaganda while, ironically, I found article warning of the threat of Russian disinformation. Alsee (talk) 11:25, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Planetmountain.com

Hi, I’m working on the stub Separate Reality (climbing route), and I want to improve sourcing before expanding. I am unsure about the source planetmountain.com. I would use this source for descriptions of this climbing route, as well as pulling relevant quotes from interviews with climbers.

I looked at two climbing-related archived discussions, one for Peakbagger.com here, where the discussion seemed to center around whether information was user submitted and about whether a certain author was enough of an expert to be a reliable WP:SPS; and another archive here about a climbing book, where it seems the issue was also about SPS.

For context, I did leave a more general note on the article’s talk page about the article's sourcing, but I think this one source is the crux of it. Regarding whether this is one-off or site-wide, I know that List of first ascents (sport climbing) cites this source extensively, as does Bouldering. Thank you kindly for your (volunteer) time. GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 07:26, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The PlanetMountain page you link lists "directors and editors": the fact that they name editors is a good sign. I can't find anything in particular about two of the names (Hobley and Tremolada) but Vinicio Stefanello seems to have separately published on the subject of climbing through actual publishers ([55]) which suggests some level of reputation. Individual news articles do appear to be credited either to Planet Mountain or to the individual author. There's no immediate glaring red flags for the site as a whole.

The only article I can find about the Separate Reality route on the site is this one, which is an interview with Heinz Zak. In general interviews are reliable sources for the opinions of the person interviewed, so the question becomes "is Heinz Zak reliable for any claims of fact he makes, and are his opinions important enough to merit inclusion in the article?" – appropriate weight is more pressing a concern than reliability in this case, I think. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 14:46, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Hi Caeciliusinhorto-public, thank you kindly for your reply. Based on your comments, I will use this source for the Heinz Zak interview, and possibly other stories than can help provide context for this route. For example, [56] details the life work of Wolfgang Güllich who made a notable climb of this route (first free solo). I appreciate the reminder about appropriate weight (Zak and Güllich are not the only experts on this route) and I will read that carefully before proceeding. Thanks again! GuineaPig_C77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:41, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Newsmax interviewee's opinions

I added some content presenting the opinion of Rabbi Yaakov Menken, who is the Managing Director at Coalition for Jewish Values. He made that opinion during a Newsmax interview. But User:Rauisuchian removed my addition with the reason "WP:NEWSMAX is a deprecated source".

I personally do not agree with deprecating Newsmax entirely, but I'm not going to discuss that at here. For now, I would like to propose a change which allows the opinions of such interviewees to be added in articles, based on the WP:RSP's saying "Fox News talk shows, including …, should not be used for statements of fact but can sometimes be used for attributed opinions." In other words, I propose that rule be applied to Newsmax interviews as well. Matt Smith (talk) 11:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

No, it's fine as is - David Gerard (talk) 12:16, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it's not fine because it prevents such interviewees' opinions from being heard and therefore is unfair. Please specify your reason. Matt Smith (talk) 12:40, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Given the reasons Newsmax is deprecated, if they are the only outlet reporting someone's views that is a strong indication that those views should be left out of Wikipedia. MrOllie (talk) 12:50, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It's not a report; it's an interview. Matt Smith (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

A distinction without a difference. MrOllie (talk) 14:22, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm very much with Blueboar, below. In theory, despite deprecation, we could use a Newsmax interview for the opinion of the interviewee, but we would need some reason to show that such an opinion was WP:DUE for inclusion--usually by showing that it was noted in reliable sources. Short of that, I don't think inclusion is appropriate, but reasonable minds may certainly differ on the subject. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. My addition is to balance the opposite opinion. There is currently no overwhelming consensus on the topic (whether Trump's comment is antisemitic or not), so my understanding is that there is no issue of WP:DUE. Matt Smith (talk) 14:29, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

When I mention WP:DUE, what I mean is representing all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Newsmax has been judged not a reliable source, so the fact that the opinion appeared there doesn't really fulfill the need for published, reliable sources. If, say, a whole bunch of newspapers printed articles to the effect of "hey, look what this person said in a Newsmax interview," it would certainly be due for inclusion to me. But I am not seeing anything along those lines here. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:33, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The talk shows of Fox News is currently considered unreliable (by participants of the discussion at that time) as well, but they still can sometimes be used for attributed opinions. So my understanding is that whether Newsmax is considered reliable should not prevent its interviewees' opinions from being used for attributed opinions. Matt Smith (talk) 14:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Yup! I agree entirely. This is what I am saying: Newsmax' status does not involve a categorical prohibition on attributed opinion found there. What you have not demonstrated (at least to me) was that any reliable sources took note of this particular opinion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 14:48, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Since the WP:RSP does not require any reliable sources to take note of an opinion presented in Fox News talk shows, I suggest that we don't ask Newsmax interviews for such a requirement as well. Matt Smith (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Fox News opinions are still very much subject to an analysis of whether they are WP:DUE, as are all Wikipedia contributions. Reliability is one inquiry, but this is another. WP:RSP only addresses the former--as a determination of whether something is due for inclusion is not going to be source-wide, but heavily dependent on context. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for not being able to follow well, but would you mind shedding some lights on whether the specific Newsmax interviewee's opinion (Rabbi Yaakov Menken) has any serious issue of WP:DUE? --Matt Smith (talk) 15:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It is not WP:DUE. It has only been shared in one unreliable source. MrOllie (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Interviews are tricky… first we have to examine the reliability of the outlet: does it have a reputation for accurately representing the views of the interviewee, or does it have a reputation for presenting what the interviewee said in ways that skew their views.

Then we have to examine the reliability of the interviewee. Are they an expert on the topic they are being interviewed about? For example… a politician would likely not be an expert on the science of climate change, but could be considered an expert on the politics of climate change (such as the flaws in a specific bit of climate change legislation).

And, of course, we have to consider DUE WEIGHT… are the views of the interviewee appropriate to mention in a specific article. Are they fringe or are they more mainstream?

In short, CONTEXT is important. The same interview might be appropriate and reliable in one article, and completely inappropriate and unreliable in another. Blueboar (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I have watched the interview, and I would say the interview does not have those issues. --Matt Smith (talk) 14:24, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

RSOPINION allows for using individual statements to be used with attribution from non RS sources. What then must occur is to whether the individual or their opinion is DUE for the content (eg the essence of Blueboar's statement above) (This assumes that we don't have a Daily Mail situation where people's words have been known to be altered and thus we can't even trust the source a accurate). Masem (t) 14:54, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your input. Could you please elaborate on "DUE for the content"? Matt Smith (talk) 15:12, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Apologies for jumping down here, but the conversational threads are converging and it seems efficient. You can think of WP:DUE as asking whether the information at issue has "mindshare" in the reliable sources. If it is in every major newspaper and the scholarly literature, etc., it is clearly due. If it is in no reliable sources, it is clearly undue. If it is in, say, one major newspaper, then you have a situation where it might be argued either way. I can see no reliable sources mentioning this interview or the opinions expressed therein. If not for this policy, every statement of opinion would be fair game for inclusion, which would obviously become quickly untenable. I have not seen any discussion of this opinion in reliable sources, so for the moment, I would argue that it is not due for inclusion. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 15:17, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

What is and is not DUE also depends on which specific WP article we are working on… to give an example: the fringe views of an author who has written books about how the Apollo 11 moon landing was faked might be DUE to mention in a bio article about that author (per WP:ABOUTSELF)… but completely UNDUE to mention in our articles on the Apollo 11 mission.

To relate this all to the NewsMax interview of Rabbi Menken… what specific WP article are we talking about? The article on Menken himself, or on some other topic? Blueboar (talk) 16:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

It's Truth Social, and the added words came after "Multiple organizations criticized Trump's comment as condescending and as repeating a "dual loyalty" antisemitic trope.[157][158]" I assume that nobody means it's due to mention the criticism of Mr Trump, but not due to mention the defence. But the "deprecated source" objection was poor. If the objection had about WP:UNDUE (which is part of WP:NPOV not WP:RS) there might have been less kerfuffle. Peter Gulutzan (talk)

Ah… a situation where I would deem both the “accusation” and the “defense” UNDUE (ie none of it should be mentioned - thus resolving the POV conflict entirely). But, yeah, that is more a NPOV question and not really a reliability issue. Blueboar (talk) 18:06, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding something, but are you suggesting that it's not ideal to include both the “accusation” and the “defense” in the specific section of the article? Matt Smith (talk) 01:40, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I’m saying that the entire section is somewhat UNDUE and should be seriously reworked or cut. Blueboar (talk) 11:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I see and agree with a rework. Some contents do not even belong to that section, such as the "licensing agreement with TMTG requiring him [...]" and "Truth Social experienced a significant uptick in downloads following the [...]" --Matt Smith (talk) 15:00, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

See WP:RECENTISM. Just because there's a burst of coverage about something that causes outrage doesn't mean it has legs to actually be of encyclopedic value. We need a LOT more editors to recognize this stance to cut down endless debates about sources, DUE and so on. Masem (t) 02:02, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the link of WP:RECENTISM. From my understanding (based on the explanatory essay), the said “accusation” and the “defense” are just recent events which are of transient merits. That is, both of them might not be worthwhile for including. Is that correct? Matt Smith (talk) 02:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Exactly. There may be longer-term implications, but we cannot crystal-ball that, so as it seems to be a typical "person make statement that creates outraged reaction, then blows over", it really is beyond appropriate to include anything surrounding it until it had critical impacts (such as a lawsuit on the matter) Masem (t) 12:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. Thanks for the confirmation. --Matt Smith (talk) 14:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Looking at the article, that whole section should be heavily trimmed. Scholarly research on the information networks and clustering of Truth Social users, or the spread of information/disinformation would be due. Random Trump tweets (or "truths" as they're now called) just don't belong there. Side note, I second your reasoning higher up above on using interviews as sources. DFlhb (talk) 03:23, 3 November 2022 (UTC) edit: when I say "your reasoning", I'm referring to Blueboar. Seems I made a mistake in the indentation. DFlhb (talk) 18:28, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm fine with trimming the whole section. Since some editors have pointed out that the argument on antisemitism is more related to NPOV and RECENTISM, I'm planning to start with removing the paragraph of the transient argument if there is no editors suggesting other solutions. Matt Smith (talk) 05:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

RSOPINION allows for using individual statements to be used with attribution from non RS sources. I know we've had this conversation before, but that's not really what WP:RSOPINION says. It sets up a secondary tier of WP:RS - some sources may be considered reliable for statements as to their author's opinion, but not for statements asserted as fact . But that is still a subset of RS and is still ultimately subject to the broad WP:RS requirements that it be from a source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, just with somewhat different standards. We cannot cite random YouTube channels, Reddit posts, or Twitter posts via RSOPINION, for instance (although there are a few other policies that can let us cite them in certain ways, like WP:ABOUTSELF, and some individual YouTube channels can be reliable.) Some people act as thought RSOPINION frees sources completely from the requirements of WP:RS as long as it's presented as an opinion and in-text attribution is added, and that's absolutely not the case. Opinions that express WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims in particular or which are themselves exceptional still require high-quality WP:RS sourcing. --Aquillion (talk) 17:59, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• This is more a question for the NPOV noticeboard. Newsmax did not misquote Menken, but then it's not the problem.

The section is pretty bad and needs a rewrite. But if you ask me if this works, well, it appears that CJV is a fairly non-mainstream American Orthodox Jewish group that the right-wing media ecosystem seems to adore. IDK about the specific preferences of each rabbi but they seem to be defending normally indefensible positions/statements so long as the political allegiance of whoever said iis Republican.

In my view, their mentioning is not DUE - hell, they don't even have a WP article of their own yet, even though it exists for 5 years. Only if you frame it as an "ultra-Orthodox pro-Trump group of American rabbis", then maybe, but then again a group that is pro-Trump will defend Trump whenever he is under fire, that sort of goes without saying, and we should avoid too much focus on recent events. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:45, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that left-leaning media like The Forward and Haaretz would criticize CJV. But why is it indefensible to defend people who quoted Hitler purely for the purpose of illustrating the danger of having someone instill bad values in children? When one wants to let the public know that it is dangerous to our society if someone can brainwash our next generation, I think it's fine for him/her to sarcastically quote Hitler and say "Hitler was right on one thing: He said, whoever has the youth has the future." So I'm not seeing the problem in that part. Matt Smith (talk) 03:54, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't see a problem with either Haaretz or the Forward - the issue is trusting their reporting, not the bias of the opinion section. WSJ's journalism is hardly conservative, but the opinion section sure is. So, I believe these sources give an impression of what this organization is.

  Also, in FORUM territory, in public, it's better just to drop the reference to Hitler, particularly if he is not being quoted sarcastically. Approvingly reciting a passage from Mein Kampf is normally going to insult Jews for obvious reasons, even if that is one thing and even if she didn't actually mean to insult anyone. But that's OT, my assessment that mentioning their position is UNDUE still stands. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 07:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I personally tend to take what left-wing outlets say about conservatives with a pinch of salt. But that's me.

  As for the congresswoman's quote, I'm not a native English speaker after all and it looks like my use of the word "sarcastically" was inaccurate. My apology for that. What I was trying to convey is that she quoted Hitler warningly to illustrate the danger of youth brainwashing. The context of her quote is: "You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing: He said, ‘Whoever has the youth, has the future.’ Our children are being propagandized." And she later also said "I sincerely apologize for any harm my words caused and regret using a reference to one of the most evil dictators in history to illustrate the dangers that outside influences can have on our youth" So the purpose of her quote was very clear that it was to illustrate the danger of youth brainwashing and was in no way endorsing Hitler. Matt Smith (talk) 09:02, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• Matt Smith, replying to, and (in the main) challenging, every opposing post is a bad thing, known as bludgeoning the discussion. By my count, you have made 16 comments here (as well as many more little tweak edits, likely to edit conflict others, as you did me just now). Please think about it, read WP:BLUDGEON, and leave more space and oxygen for other people. It's not the number of comments that establishes a consensus. Bishonen | tålk 09:51, 5 November 2022 (UTC).

  To respect your feeling about my comments, I will only address the "likely to edit conflict others". I would never do that kind of irrational/disruptive thing to others editors. Those little tweak edits are either grammar corrections or rephrasings. Kindly assume good faith. Matt Smith (talk) 11:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• The problem, as it has been across a number of deprecated sources, is that there has never been an agreement on what it means to be deprecated. And users have enforced maximalist understandings of that through reverts across the entire encyclopedia. If one is unwilling to continue edit-warring with them, their position that deprecated means entirely verboten wins out. Something should be done about that, but the last time it came up it just, as it always does, died an uneventful death, and the users who enforce their maximalist view continue to prevail by sheer force of will. nableezy - 10:11, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Is Steam a reliable source for basic facts on a title?

Can we use Steam as a reliable third-party source specifically for a game's release date, publisher and/or developer? For example, see the fact box for Stardew Valley. ERegion (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The contents of Steam pages are made by the developer or publisher so it should be recognized as primary and dependent; only the release date if In the past could be taken as safe data. Masem (t) 15:09, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

That makes sense to me. In an article about a game, would it acceptable to use the game's Steam page as a reliable source for the game's developer or publisher even assuming this is a primary source? Are we required to seek out a third-party source to determine who is the developer or publisher of a game? ERegion (talk) 15:20, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

If the only source you can find for the developer or publisher of a game is the game's Steam page, the game is unlikely to pass Wikipedia notability requirements, e.g. "significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject". I can't see how anything could give a game 'significant coverage' without saying where it was from. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

There are times where a third party article doesn't explicitly use the words "publisher" or "developer" but instead will say "made by" or "is sold by" or when an older game franchise is acquired by a new publisher like in the case of Homeworld or Fallout and the current publisher isn't the same publisher as when the game was originally released. ERegion (talk) 16:10, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Pretty sure this is about Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Star_Control. Also pretty sure that parties are not supposed to be WP:FORUMSHOPing the dispute to other noticeboards while DRN is in progress. MrOllie (talk) 16:14, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

If that's the case then the appropriate answer to the question is that no source is 'always reliable' in the abstract, and that where there are serious questions regarding whether a specific source is reliable for a specific statement in a specific article, this needs to be considered on its own merits. And if this is being discussed at DRN, it doesn't need to be discussed here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:23, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

My question does not concern a specific instance but rather the general question on whether Steam facts on release dates, developer, publisher are considered reliable or not. If this is not the place to ask a general question as to whether the product box on Steam can be used as a source then I apologize. If the answer is "it depends on the specific situation" then that is a sufficient answer. ERegion (talk) 16:39, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The release date on Steam is purely the date it was released on Steam. That makes zero claim about the date it was released in general, as not everything is released on Steam first or even on the release day. If something is taken down and put back up again, the release date will change. It's only reliable as a last release date on Steam and nothing else. And, as mentioned, the publisher and developer are who currently owns the rights, not who initially published/developed it. In many cases it's the same, but it's not a given and as a result can't be taken as reliable for the original publisher and developer. Canterbury Tail talk 16:27, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Use of The Pioneer (India) for an Indian author's Reception section

Would the The Pioneer (India) okay to use as a source for an author's Reception section, with any material sourced to it attributed to the publication in the article text? (The specific article in question can be found on this newspaper page; the headline is "2 authors highlight history of tribal warrior". Thanks! --Andreas JN466 16:36, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it would be reliable for an attributed statement about what their opinion is… however, that leaves open the question of whether their opinion is significant enough to mention (see WP:DUE). I can not comment on that. Blueboar (talk) 12:55, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks, Blueboar. There is nothing on this book in the Reception section at the moment. For reference, the only other two sources commenting on the book that I'm aware of right now are–

  • an opinion piece in Firstpost (already cited in the article, but merely to source the fact that the book was published, and when)
  • a review on New Asian Writing, which does at least have a book review policy but is basically just a group blog apparently run by a UK/Irish/Indian literary community.

  WP:DUE says, Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. So, if that's the choice of sources available, what is WP:DUE in the Reception section? It seems to me, these three sources don't differ much in their viewpoints. Cheers, --Andreas JN466 17:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• That looks like more of a publicity piece or summary than a review. Ravensfire (talk) 15:05, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
• I cannot find anything about P. G. Haridas (പി.ജി. ഹരിദാസ), the "eminent historian", except his being the erstwhile Principal of a MGU-affiliated college of no repute (1a, 1b) and post-retirement appointment (2) as the President of a BJP-patronized cultural organization (3). I agree with Ravensfire that this is not a review and probably, an example of paid news. The article in question is so poor that the quote from Haridas ends but without starting at the first place! There is no reason to use such a shabby source in our article esp. as a review. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:18, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Journal of Near-Death Studies

Is this an RS for Near death experiences, and specifically [[57]] for claims about MEDRS statements? I doubt it vey much, but have never heard of it.

See Pam Reynolds case. Slatersteven (talk) 12:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Journal of [insert pseudoscience bullshit] is never going to be a reliable source for anything scientific because it's still pseudoscience bullshit. We don't cite Journals of Homeopathy or Numerology or Astrology on science topics either. --Jayron32 18:21, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

LBC News

The British radio station LBC News publishes online news articles at https://lbc.co.uk/news . It was previously discussed at RSN here. Is this article a reliable source?

• Davidson, Gina (17 June 2022). "NHS apologises for claiming eunuch is a gender identity". LBC. Retrieved 3 November 2022.

There is a related RfC at Talk:Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People#RfC: Eunuchs. Cheers, gnu57 13:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• I don't think reliability is the concern here. Nobody is claiming the article is factually incorrect (though it may have issues). Several editors are trying to insert a "controversy" into an article that is only mentioned by press with an openly trans hostile editorial stance, or in the case of the LBC piece above, a journalist with a trans hostile agenda. The context for the LBC piece is the Gender Recognition Act changes in Scotland (which the journalist opposes) and can be viewed from that point of view as randomly digging up dirt. Most sources have ignored this story. WP:PROPORTION is what matters here, and the "body of reliable sources" includes those who choose to regard this "controversy" as a nothingburger. Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#Bias in sources advises us "This does not mean any biased source must be used; it may well serve an article better to exclude the material altogether." So we need to be concsious of both bias and reliability in our sources when working out whether to include something. -- Colin°^Talk 16:33, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I brought LBC to RSN because Newimpartial said Since when would LBC be considered a "reliable source"? and No, LBC isn't "a mainstream news organisation". I have no interest in relitigating the rest of the WPATH RfC here. gnu57 13:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes, it's a WP:NEWSORG and I see no reason to consider it unreliable. I invite anyone to read the article. How on earth is this being tarred as a "trans hostile agenda"? Like, just read it! The stuff about outlets having a "openly trans hostile editorial staff" is completely unsupported. This seems to be the fallacy of taking the most radical activists on a subject and assuming they and they alone represent the legitimate viewpoint on a matter. Imagine if people started saying anything less than abolishing police or instituting communism was anti-black or anti-labor. Then, that preconceived political viewpoint is used as a yardstick to reject any sources deemed insufficiently deferential to the activists' demands as too biased to be reliable and summarily UNDUE. That's where we're at with some of the rhetoric on trans issues. In reality, lots of trans people are not too keen to have their situations conflated with stuff like becoming a eunuch for whatever reason. Crossroads ^-talk- 17:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
• Yes. This noticeboard is about the reliability of sources. No reason has been given for judging that LBC is unreliable. Colin’s argument about whether inclusion is proportionate belongs on the article Talk page, not here, but I think it is worth saying here that referring to a publication as having an openly trans hostile editorial stance sounds like WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT. PinkNews is grossly biased, yet it is accepted as a reliable source. Sweet6970 (talk) 17:43, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  See False equivalence. Just because two things are in opposition, doesn't mean they have equal value. WP:HID and all that. If we claimed that a source was "Openly hostile against black people" and your response was to cite a source that says "Maybe black people should be treated with due decency and respect and should be afforded the same human rights as others" as "grossly biased", you're both right and wrong. I want my sources grossly biased in favor of decency and basic human rights. You're supposed to want that kind of editorial stance. Sure, "supports bigotry" and "opposes bigotry" are opposing viewpoints, but I wouldn't be fighting hard against sources that are grossly biased against bigots. It's not a good look. --Jayron32 19:37, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  I can’t work out what you’re talking about, since your post does not seem to have any logical connection with my post. And if your intent is to accuse me of being a racist, please post this on my Talk page – where it will be duly ignored. Sweet6970 (talk) 19:53, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  Jayron is making a parallel between sources that are openly hostile against trans people (like the Telegraph), against those that were historically openly hostile against black people. In both cases, the sources that are hostile against a minority are those biased against "decency and basic human rights", and that as an editorial stance we should favour sources that are biased towards "decency and basic human rights". Another equally relevant comparison would be comparing the UK media's current anti-trans stance, versus the UK media's anti-homosexual stance in the 1970s-1990s. According to Julia Serano, trans people are at least the fourth minority group targeted for bathroom panics. Past targets included Jews during the Blood libel panics of the 12th, 13th, 15th, 17th, 19th, and 20th centuries, black people during the US Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s-60s, and homosexuals during the 1970s-1990s. With both the anti-black and anti-gay panics in particular, many of the headlines like "X is coming for your children in public bathrooms" are directly interchangeable across all three eras.

  The logical connection is that sources, and by extension editors who defend those sources, are on the wrong side of history, and that it is "not a good look" to oppose a minority. Sideswipe9th (talk) 20:38, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  If Jayron wants to explain what they meant, and how this relates to my comment, they could do this themselves. There is no point in engaging on this page in any discussion which includes reference to editors being ‘on the wrong side of history’, since this is meaningless. Sweet6970 (talk) 21:09, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

  It's really very simple. If one source takes a stance that bigotry against trans people is a good thing, and a different source takes a stance that bigotry against trans people is a bad thing, while it is true that they have opposite biases, that doesn't mean we give equal weight merely because they hold opposing positions. The position that is opposed to bigotry, or in your words, "grossly biased" against bigotry, is the one we're supposed to favor. The neutral position is not "pro-bigotry" and "anti-bigotry" are equivalent, so we give them equal weight. The neutral position is bigotry is bad, and we don't pretend that pro-bigotry perspectives are worth giving weight to. Also, I haven't said one word about you or what you believe or are. I've only ever mentioned the sources. You believe what you want to believe, I don't give a shit about you. --Jayron32 11:15, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The point that is important is that this noticeboard won't settle your question for inclusion. WP:VNOT. -- Colin°^Talk 19:58, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Umm… I can’t get that point from Jayron’s comment. Sweet6970 (talk) 20:03, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I'll make it simpler. You are wrong. And persisting to argue here about whether LBC is a reliable source is wasting everyone's time, because it doesn't help your case. And selecting hateful sources and demanding Wikipedia repeats their hate, is not earning you any brownie points. -- Colin°^Talk 21:50, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Colin, this is supposed to be a discussion about whether LBC is a reliable source. It seems that you disagree with me about that. But I don’t know whether that is what you mean when you say that I am wrong. Nor do I know what you mean when you say selecting hateful sources and demanding Wikipedia repeats their hate; this does not relate to anything I have said here. Please stick to the point on this page.

If you want to engage in personal insults, then the appropriate place to do so is on my Talk page: but I’m not much interested in being insulted. Sweet6970 (talk) 22:11, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• No - the LBC site is an adjunct of a right-wing talk radio establishment; I don't believe that its blogroll has a reputation for editorial oversight or fact-checking. Newimpartial (talk) 23:45, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

To describe "LBC" as "right-wing talk radio" is absolutely detached from reality. It certainly has some right-wing presenters, but it also has leftist Lewis Goodall, and prominent centrists like James O'Brien and Andrew Marr. It's a bit right-wing for my taste, but it is well to the left of the Telegraph or the Washington Post. In any case, political positions do not determine reliability. Boynamedsue (talk) 03:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it would be fairer to say LBC has a history of hiring contributors with strong views who are not afraid to share them, vs somewhere like the BBC which is much stricter (if imperfect) at aiming for impartiality. I don't know whether it has a track record on trans issues, but the particular journalist (who is a new hire on Scottish politics) does, and presumably LBC likes the fact that they say controversial / populist things. While I think papers like the Telegraph are so extremely anti-trans that it is clear some of their stories are just plain made up and misrepresent the facts, the main problem with such sources is that selecting them selects for bias. It is tricky, when more neutral sources write nothing. Wikipedia has always had a problem in this area. WP:PROPORTION says "For example, a description of isolated events, quotes, criticisms, or news reports related to one subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially for recent events that may be in the news." Which is exactly what that Scottish debacle was: unimportant to the article topic. Most of those newspapers were dealing with the self ID debate in Scotland and the Scottish National Gender Identity Clinical Network (which doesn't even have an article). So it is arguable those sources were not writing about the article topic, but about another topic and happened to bring in this side issue because it helped their case.

So I do think it is important for both sides to abandon trying to win some vote over whether LBC is generally reliable. If they dropped the journalist who wrote the above article, and hired Ugla Stefanía Kristjönudóttir Jónsdóttir, a trans journalist, from the Metro tabloid then maybe your view of LBC as a source would change. LBC would need to be Daily Mail level unreliable for you to get a no response. What you have in the above debate is not editors examining the literature on WPATH guidelines and writing a balanced article, but editors doing a google search and finding random stuff on the internet. The debate is not WP:V but about neutrality and weight. -- Colin°^Talk 08:36, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Is it possible that you have confused LBC with GB News? gnu57 13:06, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

There was a period where Nigel Farage had a talk show on the station, which led to a feeling it was going down the right-wing shock jock route. But he's was sacked in 2020 for comparing Black Lives Matter to the Taliban. Rise of the British shock jock gives a good analysis and points towards Talkradio being the new shock jock home. -- Colin°^Talk 13:26, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

It should also be noted that LBC is primarily a talk radio station, which has recently become national and was previously London only. As a news website it is a minnow with a miniscule readership compared to BBC or Guardian. So the fact this story was found there reflects Google's ability to find keywords buried deep inside a story about something else on a minor news site. -- Colin°^Talk 13:35, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Yes. I don't see any evidence presented for its unreliability, and it is a prominent broadcaster. News articles like the one above should be fine to use.Boynamedsue (talk) 03:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
• Colin makes the salient point here; reliability of the source is not at hand. The relevant position is WP:DUE; not every single thing written in every single reliable source needs to be included in a Wikipedia article, While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. In particular, if a story appears only in a single, or a very small number of sources, it may not be a story that is relevant or important to the subject. The reliability of a source doesn't come into it here; of course if the source isn't reliable, then we shouldn't pay any attention to it at all, but even if we concede that the source is, there still needs to be consensus that the story is relevant, in the sense that it's worth documenting. Deciding which things are, and are not, worth documenting often comes down to seeing how widespread the coverage of the subject is, what kinds of sources cover it, etc. etc. That requires analysis and discussion, and isn't something we can just say "It's reliably sourced, so it must be included". Reliable sourcing is required, but is not sufficient, when deciding to include something. If there is a good faith dispute over the relevance, or wording, or phrasing, or how much of the article space to dedicate to it (if any), all of that really just depends on consensus building. There is no magic pill that means that either side in such a dispute "wins". There is only discussion and consensus. --Jayron32 11:50, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

• Could I move that this be speedily closed? No real arguments against reliability have been presented, and I think most contributors agree that the actual question is whether the claims in the source merit inclusion in a particular article according to WP:DUE? Boynamedsue (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

TimesNext - reliable?

TimesNext is being used as a source in a few articles. It doesn't seem a reliable source to me, I can't find any indication of it being considered a mainstream news source and the about page does not inspire confidence with the heavy blockchain focus. There's a related issue that some of the links have been added by one of their founders User:Heena Vinayak but I'd appreciate a general opinion on if they're a RS. JaggedHamster (talk) 14:57, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

The site's content appears to be limited to press releases, sponsored blog entries and top 10 lists, with https://timesnext.com/advertise giving the impression that companies can pay TimesNext to write favourable articles about them, with no suggestion that such content is marked up as being sponsored. I'm not seeing anything I'd recognise as journalism. Belbury (talk) 16:04, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Not a reliable source. It is a 3-year-old startup. As noted by Belbury above, its own website states that it will publish sponsored stories and press releases. Most significantly, I cannot find a single instance in which a story from the website has been cited by an independent, mainstream, reliable news source. Banks Irk (talk) 15:29, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Book of Daniel

No problem I understand and I feel the same, just to reiterate, the following all criticize the aforementioned theory by S.R. Driver, further developed by J.J. Collins:

Many of these are given by Collins:

Robert Dick Wilson of Princeton

Young and Baldwin.

The studies of C. F. Boutflower,

D. J. Wiseman

Gerhard Hasel,

K. A. Kitchen, "The Aramaic of Daniel." Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel 31 (1965)

W. H. Shea, A. J. Ferch, “The Book of Daniel and the ‘Maccabean Thesis (1983)

Vasholz, Robert I. "Qumran and the Dating of Daniel." JETS 21.4 (1978)

Beckwith, Roger. "Early Traces of the Book of Daniel." (2008)

Haughwout, Mark S. "Dating the Book of Daniel." (2013).
— User:Billyball998

Please chime in if these sources count as WP:RS, especially in view of WP:RSAGE. tgeorgescu (talk) 00:39, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

My position is that the underlying facts and analysis have not changed principally since the relevant works were created (except one issue, arguably in favor for the works, certainly not discrediting). Unless it can be demonstrated that a work is relying on an antiquated set of information that is distorting their findings, it should be treated as relevant.

"Especially in scientific and academic fields, older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed. In areas like politics or fashion, laws or trends may make older claims incorrect. Be sure to check that older sources have not been superseded, especially if it is likely that new discoveries or developments have occurred in the last few years. In particular, newer sources are generally preferred in medicine." Wikipedia:RSAGE

The article is clear that "older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light" not that they are inherently outdated. Billyball998 (talk) 00:52, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

And Wegner, Walter E. "The Book of Daniel and the Dead Sea Scrolls." (1958). tgeorgescu (talk) 01:07, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• This isn't how you present an RS query. Nobody is going to go through a list of allusions to sources, like that presented in the first part of your quote, trying to find out what they are. In the second part, you give us no publishers' information or details on the author. You give no information on the claim you wish to source, which means uninvolved users lack any context to judge reliability.

In terms of the RSAGE query, when we are talking about the Book of Daniel, anything from the nineties onwards is almost certainly fine unless there was some earth shattering discovery in 2003 that changed what everybody thinks about the question; like, I don't know, archaeologists finding a lion's den with "Daniel was here, but I'm nor actually a Hebrew" written on the wall in Aramaic or something. A 1965 source should probably be considered outdated if it espouses views that are no longer current, but may be included as part of a discussion of the history of the debate on a question, or attributed to an author with the book's age mentioned in the text.

Having said that, my initial feeling is that this is not a reliability issue,Boynamedsue (talk) 07:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

• When you say: "As far as dual authorship, the jury is still out. The idea was first put forth by Spinoza..." I would note that you do not need to be looking further back in time to look for current updates on scholarship but forwards. Anything older than a 100 years is almost totally void in terms of modern scholarship except as an example of the history of the modern scholarship. For current updates on a debate you are looking at the last two, three decades max. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:57, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

Quoted by tgeorgescu (talk) 10:29, 5 November 2022 (UTC)