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:[[File:Red information icon with gradient background.svg|20px|link=]] '''Not done:''' please provide [[WP:RS|reliable sources]] that support the change you want to be made.<!-- Template:ESp --> This is also the wrong page for this request [[User:Cannolis|Cannolis]] ([[User talk:Cannolis|talk]]) 12:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC) |
:[[File:Red information icon with gradient background.svg|20px|link=]] '''Not done:''' please provide [[WP:RS|reliable sources]] that support the change you want to be made.<!-- Template:ESp --> This is also the wrong page for this request [[User:Cannolis|Cannolis]] ([[User talk:Cannolis|talk]]) 12:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC) |
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== RfC: Is Westeros.org an expert SPS? == |
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There is an RfC at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Oathkeeper#RfC:_Is_Westeros.org_a_suitable_source_for_this_content.3F Oathkeeper] regarding whether the site Westeros.org meets the criteria for an expert self-published source (and is therefore suitable for use on Wikipedia). It is being cited as a source for the statement "This episode was based on [specific chapters of] [specific book]." This article is likely to be affected by the outcome. Participation is welcome. [[User:Darkfrog24|Darkfrog24]] ([[User talk:Darkfrog24|talk]]) 23:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC) |
Revision as of 23:34, 2 September 2014
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Add something about never using headlines as sources?
Having run into this issue again today, I'm wondering if we can add that the headline of a news article, etc should never be used as headlines. They are not written by the journalist and are meant to catch the reader's eye, not accurately represent the article. Headlines can say things that are not mentioned in the article at all, they can even misrepresent the article. Dougweller (talk) 09:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- I can fully back Doug's point here (as per his heading - presumably "never used as headlines" should read "never used as a source"). Having worked in print media as a sub-editor for around ten years and as a section editor for seven years after that before going freelance, I can confirm that headlines are rarely (never, in my experience) written by the author of the article. The sub who writes headlines is primarily interested in "hooking" the reader; furthermore, the headline writer is often working to a tight deadline on a subject on which they have little or no first-hand knowledge of, resulting in some headlines which may be "effective" but which only impressionistically relate to the actual substance of the article. Therefore an article's headline (as opposed to the article itself) should not be treated as a reliable source for facts. Alfietucker (talk) 09:59, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- I agree... another potential problem with using just the headline of a newspaper story - it is essentially a form of cherry picking... taking one line of a source out of context and ignoring what is said in the rest of the source. Blueboar (talk) 12:02, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- Also note - if a quote fragment is "juicy" it will invariably be used out of context in a headline - and the fallacy of doing so is well-known. And headlines also can make up quotes ("Bush to New York 'Drop Dead'" is a classic). There are cases where the headline accurately reflects an article - but in such a case using the actual article as a source is invariably better. This is also true of chapter titles and book titles as being far less accurate than the contents of the book. The remaining issue -- where a juicy headline becomes the dominant part of the ref footnote, should we state that "full quotes" should be used lest anyone misleadingly think the headline is the content? Collect (talk) 12:14, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- Doug, I don't understand. What does it mean to "use a headline as a source"? and by the way it was Ford, not Bush :) Jytdog (talk) 12:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- It's creating article content sourced to text only found in the headline of a source. It seems like it would almost always be a bad idea. How about something like
Avoid including content in articles based on text found only in a headline or other text written primarily to summarize or describe a source's main content, (such as tables of contents, chapter headings, etc.)
or something similar to that? __ E L A Q U E A T E 13:45, 29 July 2014 (UTC)- I have not seen everything, but i have never seen that. incredibly lame and against pretty much everything we stand for here. seems like CREEP but if there are indeed a lot of POV-pushers who would actually base content on something so slim, then sure. I can just see the Talk "but it SAYS that, right in the headline!!!!" Jytdog (talk) 14:20, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- I agree that we need an explicit instruction here - I've seen attempts to use a headline as a source in circumstances where the piece in question directly contradicted it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:12, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- I have not seen everything, but i have never seen that. incredibly lame and against pretty much everything we stand for here. seems like CREEP but if there are indeed a lot of POV-pushers who would actually base content on something so slim, then sure. I can just see the Talk "but it SAYS that, right in the headline!!!!" Jytdog (talk) 14:20, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- It's creating article content sourced to text only found in the headline of a source. It seems like it would almost always be a bad idea. How about something like
- Doug, I don't understand. What does it mean to "use a headline as a source"? and by the way it was Ford, not Bush :) Jytdog (talk) 12:53, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
- My Web search for misleading headlines found many results, including News Bias Explored.
- —Wavelength (talk) 05:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- Good idea. I've wasted a bit of time a couple different times arguing with editors about this over 8 years. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:09, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- I support, although it all seems elementary, for some Users we just have to be more explicit. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:35, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
Would an RfC on
- Headlines, book and chapter titles and the like are not reliable sources for claims in any article.
be overbroad? Collect (talk) 18:03, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- Well, at the very least, it's a reliable source for a claim of what the title is. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- The policy should be not to use book or article titles as a source. Jytdog, what it means is that someone could add to the Ford article that he told New York City to "Drop dead." The Wikipedia article instead reports the story in a neutral tone, relying on articles that mention the headline. "The incident prompted the New York Daily News' famous headline "Ford to City: Drop Dead"...." But tendentious editors could argue he actually said that - it was in the newspaper. TFD (talk) 18:33, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- Perhaps newspaper headlines, book titles, and article titles should not be used as sources. But I don't think that should be extended to
articlechapter titles. In serious books thearticlechapter title may occasionally be necessary to give context to a statement within the chapter. For example, the meaning of a position given in the Astronomical Almanac depend on whether it appears in the "Sun" chapter or the "Moon" chapter. Let's not instruct the reader to ignore the running chapter title at the top of the page, and search for the page in the chapter that says, in prose, that this is the chapter about the Moon. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC) Fixed word 19:57 UT.- In my suggested wording I said
Avoid including content in articles based on text found only in a headline or other text...
etc. I was thinking the main issues arise when people are relying on text that only appears in a headlining summation, and is not also found in the body of the source. I would think that editors wouldn't consider material from an astronomical almanac combined with reference to its section to be material based only on the heading alone.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)- @The Four Deuces: The "Drop Dead" thing is not really an argument against headlines per se. It's an argument against using a poor-quality tabloid source like the Daily News for any sort of serious coverage. MastCell Talk 20:29, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- Obviously editors who rely on headlines also misunderstand, deliberately or otherwise, Wikipedia policy. But I can think of no case where a good editor would use the title of a book or chapter rather than its contents, so there is no harm done by excluding titles. Incidentally, rarely are titles in books written as sentences, so "common sense" would tell people not to use them. Unfortunately even obvious things need to be spelled out. In [[Talk:Socialism/Archive 17#The first socialist society was the USSR], an editor argued that because there is rs book called The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within], that we could say the USSR was the first socialist society. Obviously the editor had not read the book. However other editors then had to read through the book to see if the author had said it, which he never does in the book. But because he had an rs, the editor was able to argue the point, there was an RfC and the issue made its way to noticeboards. Why not just say to him, "If you want to claim that the USSR was the first socialist state, find a source that says so, not just a title of a book which may or may not represent what the book actually says?" TFD (talk) 21:03, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: The "Drop Dead" thing is not really an argument against headlines per se. It's an argument against using a poor-quality tabloid source like the Daily News for any sort of serious coverage. MastCell Talk 20:29, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- In my suggested wording I said
- Perhaps newspaper headlines, book titles, and article titles should not be used as sources. But I don't think that should be extended to
And the wording should be closer to "Avoid headlines..." rather than "Never use...". "Never" doesn't work as headlines would be arguably okay to cite in those very rare cases where the subject of the citation is about the headline wording itself. (Something like Dewey Defeats Truman for instance). But those are rare exceptions and it's still a good and necessary idea to warn people off headlines more generally. But phrasing it "never" would probably be too much.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- I have a dissenting view from most of those commenting here. The defining criterion for reliability is editorial oversight. Headlines are subject to editorial oversight, just as article text is. It seems odd to deem an article's text reliable but its headline unreliable, when both are subject to a newspaper's editorial oversight. Put another way, if a newspaper routinely publishes misleading, unsubstantiated, yellow-journalism headlines (e.g. the Daily Mail), then the problem is not with the headlines themselves, but with the overall quality of editorial oversight at that particular source. Outlawing headlines seems like a misguided approach, because if we don't trust the accuracy of a source's headlines, then why should we trust that source's article text any further?
I understand the concern over Wikipedians' misuse of headlines, but when I've seen editors misuse headlines it is typically in the setting of more fundamental misunderstandings of reliable sourcing. I don't think we can legislate away poor-quality editing by proscribing headlines here. MastCell Talk 20:16, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- This is thoughtful and I'd say that I think the difference is that the editors of reliable sources have themselves made clear that they don't present or use the headlines in the same way as the body of the text. I trust that the source is trying to make the headlines as accurate as possible, but the editors of better reliable sources are clear that they use headlines to summarize and organize, and most newspaper editors are clear that the headline is not meant to be a complete and accurate communication all by itself without the accompanying article. It's a similar problem with scientific abstracts and the work itself. I trust the scientists involved to work to summarize their work accurately, but they wouldn't want people relying only on the summary themselves. I don't think it's a matter of trusting the source less, but recognizing that they are using headlines for different purposes and that it's not the exact same kind of material as the body of a news article.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:40, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- I think we're on the same page in terms of the need to be careful about using headlines. As you say, even well-written headlines inevitably sacrifice nuance and detail in favor of pithiness. And examples of poorly-written or misleading headlines abound (although, I would argue, these sorts of headlines appear in sources that we should be eying suspiciously anyway, on general grounds of poor quality and editorial oversight). These are matters of good common sense but I don't see any harm in writing them explicitly into the guideline.
I also understand the concern about POV-pushing or cherry-picking from headlines, voiced by Dougweller and others above. To put my concern in context, though, I see the outlawing of headlines as equally likely to result in sophistry and counterproductive wikilawyering. I have some experience in this regard, although I'd prefer not to post links here because doing so is likely to personalize what should be an abstract policy discussion. Suffice to say that unscrupulous, careless, or ideologically motivated editors will continue to misuse sources regardless of what this guideline says on the subject of headlines. MastCell Talk 21:04, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, all systems can be gamed by bad players. I always think guidelines and policies are there to remind better editors how to avoid basic traps or troubles that more generally pop up, rather than a perfect system of instructions. I thought this might be useful if headlines were more often being abused than not. And I don't think anything can or should be completely "outlawed". I see value in general discouragement of relying solely on the headline.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- I think we're on the same page in terms of the need to be careful about using headlines. As you say, even well-written headlines inevitably sacrifice nuance and detail in favor of pithiness. And examples of poorly-written or misleading headlines abound (although, I would argue, these sorts of headlines appear in sources that we should be eying suspiciously anyway, on general grounds of poor quality and editorial oversight). These are matters of good common sense but I don't see any harm in writing them explicitly into the guideline.
- This is thoughtful and I'd say that I think the difference is that the editors of reliable sources have themselves made clear that they don't present or use the headlines in the same way as the body of the text. I trust that the source is trying to make the headlines as accurate as possible, but the editors of better reliable sources are clear that they use headlines to summarize and organize, and most newspaper editors are clear that the headline is not meant to be a complete and accurate communication all by itself without the accompanying article. It's a similar problem with scientific abstracts and the work itself. I trust the scientists involved to work to summarize their work accurately, but they wouldn't want people relying only on the summary themselves. I don't think it's a matter of trusting the source less, but recognizing that they are using headlines for different purposes and that it's not the exact same kind of material as the body of a news article.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:40, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
- agreed, mastcell. There is no way in hell that content should ever be sourced solely from any summarizing blurb, be it a headline or chapter title or whatever. The deep idea as we all know is that we are paraphrasing what the source says, overall. Anybody saying "it's in the headline so I can use it!!!!" is clearly dug in and wikilawyering to death. if i was on the other side I would want a simple flyswatter like the proposed amendment.... i hope we can all agree to include this simple clarification of WP's fundamental sourcing ethos. Jytdog (talk) 21:23, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
I have added
- Newspaper headlines are not a reliable source and should not be used.
as more accurately reflecting the above consensus than one editor's proposed
- Newspaper headlines should be used with care, and only where they are supported by the text of the associated article. Avoid including content found only in a newspaper's headlines and not in the associated article bodies.
which I fear invites disputes as to exactly how far off a headline can be and still be used as a source -- barring them as a rule is far safer than leaving the door ajar for such misuse. Collect (talk) 02:23, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think there's consensus here for the sort of categorical prohibition you're pushing for. In virtually every other edge case—even with highly dubious or questionable sources—the guideline advises care, or discourages their use, but does not absolutely prohibit them. A blanket prohibition on headlines seems disproportionate. Moreover, I think you're misreading the consensus on this page, which appears to me to be in favor of discouraging but against categorically "outlawing" headlines. I'd ask you to reconsider your edit. MastCell Talk 05:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)]
- I cannot think of a situation where something sourced only from a headline would be valid. Can anybody? Jytdog (talk) 09:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Sure, in effect: "The [publisher] published, [title]."; "His article was entitled, [title]." There no useful point in putting a straight jacket on it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- The title of a book is a reliable source for the title of the book? Not a very real example of being used as a source for any claims at all other than the evidence fact that the title is the title. AFAICT, the material in a headline of title is not a "reliable source" for anything at all, cavils to the contrary notwithstanding. "Headlines" and "titles" are never "fact checked" by publishers - vide the huge number of cases where the headlines actually contradict article. If a claim is not to be found in the actual body of the article, then the claim is not sourced. MC are you asserting that a claim made in a headline which is not sourceable otherwise to the article could ever be valid? Collect (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Since you're asking for an "absolute prohibition" instead of a more "general discouragement", then yes, I can think of the kind of very rare theoretical scenario where a newspaper makes an exception and loads the info into the headline. Off the top of my head, I could see a good small local paper announcing a low level election with a small item such as "Headline: BARNEY BUTTON ELECTED NEW DOGCATCHER Body of text: The Footown Press editorial board congratulates Barney. End story." Wikipedia could arguably use that to support a statement about how the Footown press announced the election. The more nuanced suggestion for dealing with headlines is better than the simple "Thou shall not..."; it discouraged the worst of headline-sourcing without making people turn to IAR for that kind of outlier case.__ E L A Q U E A T E 13:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Basically, I think this one is great and discourages in the best way.
Newspaper headlines should be used with care, and only where they are supported by the text of the associated article. Avoid including content found only in a newspaper's headlines and not in the associated article bodies.
__ E L A Q U E A T E 13:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Basically, I think this one is great and discourages in the best way.
- Since you're asking for an "absolute prohibition" instead of a more "general discouragement", then yes, I can think of the kind of very rare theoretical scenario where a newspaper makes an exception and loads the info into the headline. Off the top of my head, I could see a good small local paper announcing a low level election with a small item such as "Headline: BARNEY BUTTON ELECTED NEW DOGCATCHER Body of text: The Footown Press editorial board congratulates Barney. End story." Wikipedia could arguably use that to support a statement about how the Footown press announced the election. The more nuanced suggestion for dealing with headlines is better than the simple "Thou shall not..."; it discouraged the worst of headline-sourcing without making people turn to IAR for that kind of outlier case.__ E L A Q U E A T E 13:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- I might add that even the first paragraph (the lead) of an article is frequently written by media staff, rather than the author of an article. History records a case of someone being dismissed from his job because it was wrongly assumed that the first paragraph of an article was the author's own text (see paragraph 3 of http://www.tcm.phy.cam.ac.uk/~bdj10/articles/RSquestions.html). --Brian Josephson (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- The title of a book is a reliable source for the title of the book? Not a very real example of being used as a source for any claims at all other than the evidence fact that the title is the title. AFAICT, the material in a headline of title is not a "reliable source" for anything at all, cavils to the contrary notwithstanding. "Headlines" and "titles" are never "fact checked" by publishers - vide the huge number of cases where the headlines actually contradict article. If a claim is not to be found in the actual body of the article, then the claim is not sourced. MC are you asserting that a claim made in a headline which is not sourceable otherwise to the article could ever be valid? Collect (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Sure, in effect: "The [publisher] published, [title]."; "His article was entitled, [title]." There no useful point in putting a straight jacket on it. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:18, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- I cannot think of a situation where something sourced only from a headline would be valid. Can anybody? Jytdog (talk) 09:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
RfC
Are headlines for newspaper articles ever usable as a reliable source for any claim where the headline claim is not found in the body of the newspaper article?
Should this content guideline state:
- Newspaper headlines are not a reliable source and should not be used 13:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
Discussion
There is a previous discussion above which I rather thought had made clear that newspaper headlines are, at best, problematic for use as a source for any claims in Wikipedia articles, and that if the newspaper headline makes a claim that is not found in the newspaper article text that it is safe to rule the headline unusable as a reliable source for such a claim.
This RfC is to resolve the dichotomy of a proposed edit
- Newspaper headlines should be used with care, and only where they are supported by the text of the associated article. Avoid including content found only in a newspaper's headlines and not in the associated article bodies.
which I suggest implies that newspaper headlines are usable as "reliable sources" in their own right for claims in Wikipedia articles. If the actual source does not support a claim, the headline of the source ought never be used to make the claim, IMO. Clearly a headline or title is a "reliable source" for being a headline or title, but that is not the issue at hand. Collect (talk) 13:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose - "Dewey Defeats Truman". Chicago Tribune. 1948-11-03. p. 1. While you might see this as a clear argument for the proposal (the title is clearly wrong), it could be used as the reference to the title itself and the entire situation and story. Without the title...there is no story. As stated above, this puts too many limits on the use of the title when the title is the event or situation, but there may be other issues we don't even see yet. . By the way, our article does not use the title but the article itself, this was just a demonstration. That could easily be a source for "The Chicago Tribune prematurely printed the headline; "Dewey Defeats Truman". So, that title could be used as a source, primary of course, but still used as a source (just a spin on the "Elected Dog Catcher" mention above. Perhaps we should leave the section the way it is and just encourage the best practice. --Mark Miller (talk) 20:47, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- And the article for which it was a headline still contains the problematic claim - the headline is famous as a headline, and is a source for itself being a headline, but it is not a source that Dewey defeated Truman. A perfect example where this proposal would precisely and accurately allow the proper use of that source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- We edit conflicted but I have added an example of how that title could be used as a source.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Here is a better example (I wanted the above to demonstrate how even an incorrect headline could be used as a source):
- "Oahu Bombed by Japanese Planes" Honolulu Star Bulletin, Dec 7, 1941". Seems a pretty good example.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- And another:
- "Man walks on Moon" Detroit Free Press, Monday, July 21st, 1969.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:11, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Umm, Mark, I don't want to be a pain but I don't find these examples helpful, because they don't falsify
Are headlines for newspaper articles ever usable as a reliable source for any claim where the headline claim is not found in the body of the newspaper article?
They are famous headlines, but all of them are backed up by the articles they headline. When you say that the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman"could easily be a source for "The Chicago Tribune prematurely printed the headline; "Dewey Defeats Truman"
, that's actually not true. All by itself, the headline alone does not support "prematurely printed" or anything of substance beyond the spelling of the words. The only thing that supports that the headline was a mistake is some secondary source saying that. I think this line of discussion is drawing away from the actual question of how to word the proposed addition. I think that some theoretical 98% of the time, the headline alone is incomplete and unreliable as a verifiable and NPOV version of what the source is saying, without being backed up by the article itself. I don't think it's 100% of the time, so we should say "Avoid" instead of "Never". My theoretical example ofHeadline: BARNEY BUTTON ELECTED NEW DOGCATCHER Body of text: The Footown Press editorial board congratulates Barney. End story.
shows that on super rare occasions, material could be sourced to a headline, but I still support an added line telling people to generally avoid them.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)- Yes "prematurely" was indeed editorializing sorry. A primary source only allows the content that can clearly be found with any addition. But the point is, it can be used in some manner. "Dewey Defeats Truman" and this is false information. Sure..ok, pushing the envelope but still in the boundries.
- But..lets not forget what we are talking about. The title of what? A source? Well, ok a book source still might have some relevance to be cited for just what the title says, but in newspaper, magazine, journal and internet sources, the title is truly supposed to be a summary of the article. Something like "Univerity of X Professor Z, awarded Nobel Prize". That has a lot on information, like a lede in a Wikipedia article, that means it should be in the body of the source. As with any other issue, if it isn't there, then there is a problem but we can't let the fact that some glittering generalities are used in titles, we need to recognize when a title is appropriate to the source and content and when it does not. Some sources are weaker than others.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:37, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- There's no requirement that an RS support the entire sentence -- and, at any rate, although what you said about Mark's sentence is true -- it does not matter when you could easily have the sentence: "The headline was Dewey Defeats Truman." Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:43, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Ah, I was just being over-concerned about the technicalities. The Greeks might call it σχολαστικός. I think we're roughly on the same page.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- That's Greek to me, but, yes, one might say we're on the front page. :) Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:41, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Ah, I was just being over-concerned about the technicalities. The Greeks might call it σχολαστικός. I think we're roughly on the same page.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:53, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- We edit conflicted but I have added an example of how that title could be used as a source.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:03, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- And the article for which it was a headline still contains the problematic claim - the headline is famous as a headline, and is a source for itself being a headline, but it is not a source that Dewey defeated Truman. A perfect example where this proposal would precisely and accurately allow the proper use of that source. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose I've said why I oppose above. The proposal is too strict. The supporting argument has a limited understanding of "claims." Every sentence we write {and use a source for) contains multiple claims, among them are: this makes contextual sense; it is verifiable information; it is not original research; and it contributes to the neutrality of the article. The reliable source lends support for all these in different ways. We use RS for facts, we use RS for context, we use RS analysis, all of these contribute to claims made in our sentences and one simply cannot rule out the headline being unreliable for these, and the simplest examples are: "The [publisher] published, [headline]."; "His article was entitled, [headline]." "Her column was called [headline]." We certainly might want to write sentences like these and use the headline as an appropriate reliable source for such information. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:33, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose "should not be used" wording, prefer the "only where they are supported by" wording, as per the masses of text I won't repeat.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:41, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose in its current form I completely agree with the spirit of this proposal, but not the wording. As Mark points out, it's perfectly acceptable to cite the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" regarding content of that headline or related news coverage. I suggest somebody come up with an alternative wording. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose. I don't get the leap from Problem A to Prohibition 17. "Newspaper headlines, in this particular and very rare circumstance, might have problems" does not turn into "Don't you ever dare to use a newspaper headline to source anything, not even a statement about what the newspaper headline was!" WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- Proposing
- Newspaper headlines are not a part of a newspaper article used as a reliable source as they are generally not furnished by the writer of the newspaper article. Where the headline is not specifically supported by the body of the newspaper article, it ought not be used as a source for any claim on Wikipedia other than the existence of that headline.
- We have established that the headline is not written by the reporter as a rule, and is not under the same presumption of being fact-checked by the newspaper. The Chicago Tribune headline would clearly be usable to show that the headline was used, but not to show the accuracy of such a headline. And "ought not" is looser language than "never" for those who object to any absolute prohibitions here. Does this change improve the proposal? Collect (talk) 23:09, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
- 1. The issue is not the authorship of the headline and I don't think adding it to guidance clarifies here. Newspaper sub-editors who only write headlines are ethical and responsible and fact-check (presumably against the main text, of course). And some headlines/titles/etc. are written by the person who wrote the whole thing. The only thing that problematizes is headlines are a highly compressed summary and that has obvious consequence to the degree of detail/weight/meaning/nuance that is presumed to be more fully addressed in the main body of something. Whether it's a dedicated sub-editor or original reporter, the problem is that headlines like
PIRATES BOMB IN KANSAS
are meant to be a summary of a sports story, not a story complete in itself. 2. I can't see the degree of difference between "Ought not" seems identical to "never".__ E L A Q U E A T E 00:19, 1 August 2014 (UTC)- I see several problems with this proposed text. For one thing, the first part of sentence 1 is incoherent, which is undesirable in a widely cited guideline. Secondly, as Elaquate notes, the proposed text places an odd emphasis on personal authorship. In fact, this emphasis directly contradicts Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Definition of a source, which notes that the work itself, the publisher, and the author are all relevant components of reliability. Collect's text focuses solely on the author, ignoring the article as a whole and the publisher. Also, as Elaquate points out, editors presumably have as much stake, if not more, in the credibility and reliability of their publication as do article authors and are not inherently less "reliable"; the issue is the loss of nuance and this is best addressed by encouraging editors to respect the totality of the source, not by banning headlines. MastCell Talk 00:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, it seems a bit analogous to advice we might give about social media announcements. News organizations sometimes announce new stories over twitter with twitter-size summaries. If an editor wanted to source something about that news story solely to the text of a tweet and not the story it pointed to, most editors would groan, and the advice would still probably amount to "almost never do that, except in rare, rare, rare instances, such as when the tweet became part of the story." and we'd probably still 99% discourage including material where a tweet was the only place we could find that material.__ E L A Q U E A T E 01:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- I see several problems with this proposed text. For one thing, the first part of sentence 1 is incoherent, which is undesirable in a widely cited guideline. Secondly, as Elaquate notes, the proposed text places an odd emphasis on personal authorship. In fact, this emphasis directly contradicts Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Definition of a source, which notes that the work itself, the publisher, and the author are all relevant components of reliability. Collect's text focuses solely on the author, ignoring the article as a whole and the publisher. Also, as Elaquate points out, editors presumably have as much stake, if not more, in the credibility and reliability of their publication as do article authors and are not inherently less "reliable"; the issue is the loss of nuance and this is best addressed by encouraging editors to respect the totality of the source, not by banning headlines. MastCell Talk 00:54, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- 1. The issue is not the authorship of the headline and I don't think adding it to guidance clarifies here. Newspaper sub-editors who only write headlines are ethical and responsible and fact-check (presumably against the main text, of course). And some headlines/titles/etc. are written by the person who wrote the whole thing. The only thing that problematizes is headlines are a highly compressed summary and that has obvious consequence to the degree of detail/weight/meaning/nuance that is presumed to be more fully addressed in the main body of something. Whether it's a dedicated sub-editor or original reporter, the problem is that headlines like
- Strong oppose - Who says? When did that change. I admit...I never wrote a newspaper article in anything other than school but I do know this is not accurate. Titles and headlines are a part of the source or work and they more than likely are from the author unless an editorial judgment was made and as stated above they fact check (or should) but the majority of sub headlines on the front page are agreed on by the authors in most newspapers. Now...tabloids...perhaps if you tried refining in that direction Collect I could support something.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Mark, in large news orgs, you have editors who specialize in writing headlines. In small ones, however, it is normal for the headline to be written by the reporter. In very small ones, there simply isn't anyone else to do it. The Mulberry Advance only had one employee: reporter, ad salesman, editor, headline writer, and subscription manager all in one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- I don't doubt it isn't done, I doubt the statements as written to be true. Newspaper headlines are not a part of a newspaper article used as a reliable source as they are generally not furnished by the writer of the newspaper article. This statements is not accurate. Newspaper headlines are not disassociated from the source article just by being written by a copyeditor. This is a source that will have an editorial board and fact checking. I still feel the majority of titles you see in newspapers, especially in in sub headlines are written by journalist and would feel we are trying to state as fact something contentious and would surely need a strong reference to even consider.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- We have had a number of editors above noting that newspaper headlines are written by headline writers with the aim of hooking readers, and that they are not written to accurately reflect content in an article (indeed, the headline writer has a very short time in which to bait the hook), making the headline an exceedingly poor choice for a source. Those here who think that the headline is part and parcel of the entire article are extremely far from the actual practices of newspapers. Cheers -- but the "it is in the newspaper, so it must be true" position is about as poor a course of action as we can take, and those who somehow feel that noting this is "incoherent" are far afield from hoe journalist themselves view headlines. Should headlines be accurate? We hope so. Are they held to the same standards as articles and written by the same people? No. If the claim is actually found in the body of an article, it is clearly proper to use the text of the entire article as the source. If the claim is only found in the headline, then the writer of the article did not make it. [1] Inaccurate headlines are one of the most common problems with newspaper accuracy, with 15% of US headlines deemed inaccurate. [2] "Inaccurate headlines are potentially more dangerous than inaccurate stories. Collect (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Wait a minute. Where do you see people agreeing that headlines are "not written to accurately reflect content"? Of course headlines are intended to be accurate; to suggest that editors of reliable sources don't care about their headlines' accuracy is preposterous, and I see no one (except you) advancing such an argument. (Headlines are obviously subject to other pressures, like the need to attract readers; hence the need for caution and commonsense, which is what editors above are actually endorsing). You go on to dismiss a number of other arguments that no one is actually making (e.g. "it is in the newspaper, so it must be true"). I see these as casual and sweeping misrepresentations of other editors' positions, and they hinder serious discussion. MastCell Talk 18:31, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- We have had a number of editors above noting that newspaper headlines are written by headline writers with the aim of hooking readers, and that they are not written to accurately reflect content in an article (indeed, the headline writer has a very short time in which to bait the hook), making the headline an exceedingly poor choice for a source. Those here who think that the headline is part and parcel of the entire article are extremely far from the actual practices of newspapers. Cheers -- but the "it is in the newspaper, so it must be true" position is about as poor a course of action as we can take, and those who somehow feel that noting this is "incoherent" are far afield from hoe journalist themselves view headlines. Should headlines be accurate? We hope so. Are they held to the same standards as articles and written by the same people? No. If the claim is actually found in the body of an article, it is clearly proper to use the text of the entire article as the source. If the claim is only found in the headline, then the writer of the article did not make it. [1] Inaccurate headlines are one of the most common problems with newspaper accuracy, with 15% of US headlines deemed inaccurate. [2] "Inaccurate headlines are potentially more dangerous than inaccurate stories. Collect (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- I don't doubt it isn't done, I doubt the statements as written to be true. Newspaper headlines are not a part of a newspaper article used as a reliable source as they are generally not furnished by the writer of the newspaper article. This statements is not accurate. Newspaper headlines are not disassociated from the source article just by being written by a copyeditor. This is a source that will have an editorial board and fact checking. I still feel the majority of titles you see in newspapers, especially in in sub headlines are written by journalist and would feel we are trying to state as fact something contentious and would surely need a strong reference to even consider.--Mark Miller (talk) 02:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Mark, in large news orgs, you have editors who specialize in writing headlines. In small ones, however, it is normal for the headline to be written by the reporter. In very small ones, there simply isn't anyone else to do it. The Mulberry Advance only had one employee: reporter, ad salesman, editor, headline writer, and subscription manager all in one. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Only in the discussions above on this talk page, in journalism articles and texts, in newspaper articles about their headlines, and in a few dozen other places (some of which are cited above -- I would be glad to add another fifty or more such cites including from the NYT Public Editor etc.) . OTOH, you are one of the few who appears to think headlines are "reliable sources" for claims which are not made in the articles they are headlines for. The aim of Wikipedia is to be as accurate as possible -- where there is a difference between the headline and the actual article, we should use the article. Cheers -- and please avoid ad hominem attacks in edit summaries. discussion works best if one reads other editors' posts and responds to the points they're making is an extraordinarily snarky comment.
- [3] The news pages featured a story on the joyful mood in Germany, but the headline bothered some German readers, who said it played into offensive stereotypes. It read: “Germans See World Cup Win as Symbol of Global Might.”
- [4] New York Times Public Editor Questions Al Qaeda Leak Story With ‘Unacceptable' Headline
- [5] New York Times public editor slams New York Times headline
- [6] “Dueling headlines” sprout in the pages of major newspapers with such frequency that you could run a semi-regular column juxtaposing them for a laugh, as the Michael Kinsley-era New Republic once did.
- [7] Sullivan blasted the Times story for parroting the government line against other media outlets. "Not a shred of attribution ... just straight from the mouths of anonymous government sources into the automatic credibility conferred by the paper of record’s front page." The editor of the Times copy desk agreed that the headline was "not up to our standards."
- [8] The May 3 correction states:
- "This column by Mr. Nocera on Tuesday misstated the timing of an interview with Fortune magazine, in which Mr. Buffett defended his decision to abstain in a shareholder vote on the plan. The interview was on April 23, the same day Mr. Buffett gave interviews to CNBC and other news outlets on the subject — not April 28. It was not the case — as the column’s headline, 'Buffett Bites Back,' suggested — that he 'went on the offensive' after 'having had a few days to lick his wounds.'" more easily found - and from almost any newspaper one finds to be sacred. Collect (talk) 19:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
I would make a distinction between citing a headline as a secondary source and citing it as a primary source. For example... suppose an article were to include the sentence -
- "On November 3, 1948, the Chicago Tribune ran with the banner headline: Dewey Defeats Truman".
This sentence is reliably verified by citing the primary source... the November 3, 1948 edition of the Trib itself. In fact, that primary source is the single most reliable source possible for that statement, as it directly verifies that the Trib did indeed run that exact headline on that specific date. The headline, however, is a very unreliable secondary source, and would not reliably verify a statement about who won the 1948 Presidential election. Blueboar (talk) 12:35, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Right. And there should be a secondary source saying that the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman" was WP:NOTABLE and why. Otherwise it shouldn't even be discussed in an article. Jytdog (talk) 12:41, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- That's stretches WP:Notable much too far. The article subject has to be wp:notable, not every fact, they just have to be weighted correctly. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you, you are right. The correct policy is WP:NPOV, to determine what weight if any a given bit of content should be given. Yes? Jytdog (talk) 13:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Correct. Although I would also point everyone to WP:Relevance (and the other related essays linked there)... it may be "only an essay", but it gives some good advice. Blueboar (talk) 13:16, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thank you, you are right. The correct policy is WP:NPOV, to determine what weight if any a given bit of content should be given. Yes? Jytdog (talk) 13:00, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- That's stretches WP:Notable much too far. The article subject has to be wp:notable, not every fact, they just have to be weighted correctly. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:52, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes, although the NPOV analysis involves more than a single fact and more than a single RS (note, although single, it is still RS addressing issues of WP:V and sometimes NOR) -- NPOV involves article context (including what context is missing) and the review of multiple RS (the sometimes disrespected reliable tertiary sources are often good for this). Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:29, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Mark Miller, are you really saying that even if the headline mentions something that is not in the article we can use the headline as a source? Dougweller (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Uhm...no. Why?--Mark Miller (talk) 20:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- This is silly. Of course a rare scenario could conceivably happen where we might be able to use the headline alone as a secondary source (even beyond the given suggestions where we are citing just to verify the basic wording as a primary source). There's been a lot of good points about how headlines are mostly problematic for using as a source for material, and we should strongly and generally discourage using headlines where the body does not directly support the material found in the headline. But no one has convincingly said they're bad in every conceivable instance, and no one is going to be able to do that. All it takes is a single scenario with a usable headline, to falsify the assertion that they're never usable. Anecdotal evidence of a time an historical headline was correct or incorrect doesn't change the basic situation that headlines are almost always too much of a summary to be useful for article details, but on rare occasions one might be useable. The conversation is going in circles, with little chance of an actual change occurring here. Trying to prove that all headlines will be unusable (whether created in the past or the future and in all conceivable manifestations) is a waste of time.__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:11, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
- Mark Miller, are you really saying that even if the headline mentions something that is not in the article we can use the headline as a source? Dougweller (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
suggest a snowball close by the OP. The proposed language is not going to fly. Try a more nuanced one? Jytdog (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
Try:
- Newspaper headlines are not an integral part of the article for which they are written, and the use of material actually in the article is superior to use of the headline for any claim in a Wikipedia article.
Making clear the distinction between the headline and the article, and that the article is the superior source for any claims on Wikipedia. Collect (talk) 14:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- i'm ok with that. maybe actually close discussion above to re-focus everyone? Jytdog (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- No to this latest proposed iteration. The first part of the proposed sentence is extremely dubious, if not simply wrong. Headlines are obviously an "integral" part of an article from the newspaper's perspective—in fact, they're crafted by the source to present the most attention-grabbing and integral part of the piece. The reason to avoid headlines has nothing to do with whether they're an "integral part" of the source (they are). The reason to avoid headlines is that they can oversimplify the content of the source and are thus prone to misuse. The second half of the sentence suffers from the inappropriate absolutism which has been a recurring concern.
I agree it would be wise to wrap up and refocus at this point; let me ask a slightly different question. Does anyone besides Collect have a problem with the way the guidance on headlines is currently written? MastCell Talk 18:59, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- No again? Um -- the scholarly sources all state that the headline is not an integral part of an article. Unanimously. That you find what is universally accepted to be "dubious" is not impressing me a great deal at all. And I would note than more than a half dozen other editors do find the "existing language" to be a problem. Cheers -- and try not to use ad homs like "anyone besides Collect" as that is a snarky form of demeaning the discussion at best, and is dismissive in any event as well. Collect (talk) 20:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's not meant to be snarky or dismissive. It's my sense that everyone else is comfortable with the current wording, or at least finds it acceptable enough that they're ready to move on. I have the sense that you're the only one who finds the current wording problematic enough to keep this discussion going. Maybe I'm wrong; that's what I'm trying to ascertain by asking the question. MastCell Talk 20:52, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- And, as a good faith suggestion, you might consider not making absolute claims like this:
the scholarly sources all state that the headline is not an integral part of an article. Unanimously.
Even without looking, that can only come across as wild exaggeration at best. (And especially so when it's so easily shown to not be true.) The word "usually" is not a synonym for "always".__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:11, 2 August 2014 (UTC)- And? authors introduce useful frameworks for analysing language, image and the interaction between the two, and illustrate these with authentic newsstories from around the English-speaking world It is not an article on journalistic practice in the first place. The source states clearly:
- First, as part of the news process, are usually not written by the reporter/journalist, but by a subeditor usually after lead and lead development have been constructed.
- Which s precisely the case. Using quote-mining is rarely a great idea when the actual source does not agree with the purported meaning of the mined quote. In fact, the tenor of the section you cite is on the linguistic character of headlines, not on the factual content of headlines at all. Cheers -- my statement stands as accurate. Collect (talk) 11:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- Same source page 101: (Headlines include)
- ... metaphor, alliteration, proverbs, pseudo-direct quotes (which seem like they are direct quotes but are not)
- And one would then use "pseudo-quotes" as a basis for a claim? Not hardly - but that is wht the source specifically states. Collect (talk) 11:34, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- If you think quoting "usually written by sub-editors" fully supports your claim of "always written by sub-editors" then you might have bigger problems than this conversation. No one suggests we "use "pseudo-quotes" as a basis for a claim", neither the source or any editor here. (The source doesn't "specifically state it" either. Bizarre thing to say.) Pseudo-quotes are an excellent reason to usually avoid using headlines, and to examine them with care and scepticism every time. Headlines often have problems caused by lack of detail, nuance, or they use metaphors or over-compression to describe the story. IMO, they are usually unusable and should be generally discouraged (which is what the guidance currently does).__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:11, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- And? authors introduce useful frameworks for analysing language, image and the interaction between the two, and illustrate these with authentic newsstories from around the English-speaking world It is not an article on journalistic practice in the first place. The source states clearly:
- And, as a good faith suggestion, you might consider not making absolute claims like this:
- It's not meant to be snarky or dismissive. It's my sense that everyone else is comfortable with the current wording, or at least finds it acceptable enough that they're ready to move on. I have the sense that you're the only one who finds the current wording problematic enough to keep this discussion going. Maybe I'm wrong; that's what I'm trying to ascertain by asking the question. MastCell Talk 20:52, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- No again? Um -- the scholarly sources all state that the headline is not an integral part of an article. Unanimously. That you find what is universally accepted to be "dubious" is not impressing me a great deal at all. And I would note than more than a half dozen other editors do find the "existing language" to be a problem. Cheers -- and try not to use ad homs like "anyone besides Collect" as that is a snarky form of demeaning the discussion at best, and is dismissive in any event as well. Collect (talk) 20:29, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
- No to this latest proposed iteration. The first part of the proposed sentence is extremely dubious, if not simply wrong. Headlines are obviously an "integral" part of an article from the newspaper's perspective—in fact, they're crafted by the source to present the most attention-grabbing and integral part of the piece. The reason to avoid headlines has nothing to do with whether they're an "integral part" of the source (they are). The reason to avoid headlines is that they can oversimplify the content of the source and are thus prone to misuse. The second half of the sentence suffers from the inappropriate absolutism which has been a recurring concern.
- i'm ok with that. maybe actually close discussion above to re-focus everyone? Jytdog (talk) 14:39, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
it is not clear to me what the dispute is, at this point. The guideline currently says "Newspaper headlines should be used with care, and only where they are supported by the text of the associated article. Avoid including content found only in a newspaper's headlines and not in the associated article bodies." This seems perfectly fine to me, to deploy in a case where some POV-pusher is trying to use a headline unsupported by the article. (the "only" is crucial there, as is the 2nd sentence). This was the problem that kicked this thread off, and in my view it is solved. To the extent anybody doesn't like this, would you please explain what the weakness is? Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 14:30, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- The language you appear to think was the status quo was only added on 30 July - and was not there at the time all this discussion began. I find that language, moreover, to be woefully insufficient as it appears to consider the headline to be journalistically part and parcel of a newspaper article, while books and references on such make clear the fact that they are not part of the article other than in a "linguistic" sense. As I have noted, all the sources about headlines specify that they are written by copyeditors, not by the journalist, and that they use "pseudo-quotes". Now some might think one can use a "pseudo-quote" as a source, but I and others here demur on that claim. In every conceivable case except where the story is about the headline, the headline is a damn poor source for much of anything at all. Cheers. Collect (talk) 15:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- ummm all I was saying, is that this is the current language. I asked you (or anyone else who is dissatisfied) to explain what the weakness of the actual language is; you have responded with some high-level, hand-wavy discussion of principles. There is nothing I can say in return. Please do consider the guidance that is currently in the article, and let us know if there are situations where editors will still be left with unclear guidance. A straight out ban on use of headlines is not going to fly - it has already failed. So please work toward the rough, workable, practical middle that we can all live with. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- The existing language seems okay to me. I still strongly question whether we actually need to say anything about this at all. If a given fact appears only in the headline of a single source, then it's WP:UNDUE to begin with.
- Collect, if all of your sources to believe that every single newspaper even has subeditors, much less subeditors who specialize in headline writing, then I respectfully suggest that they are so woefully ignorant as to be unreliable sources for this subject. Headline writing as a specialty is not universal. It is more prevalent among the online newsmagazines (of the "One weird trick" sort) than among local or print-oriented dailies and weeklies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:28, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- Please cite what I wrote instead of ascribing claims I did not make. You provided a source which you asserted said that headlines are integral to articles. I pointed out what the source states and that it was about linguistics and not about content -- that it specifically stated that subeditors are the ones generally responsible for headline. Might a given headline have been written by a Pulitzer prize winner? Yes. If there is no byline for the headline, though, we can not make any such assumption about the author at all -- but the "generally written by subeditors" is found in all the journalism texts. Including The New York Times per the Public Editor thereof, and just a few of the relevant cites I furnished supra. Collect (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- Journalism texts are notorious for assuming that "newspaper" means "large urban daily". I've just checked the four newspapers nearest me (three weeklies and one daily). As far as I can tell, the weeklies employ zero subeditors (that's "copy editor" American English) and the daily's copy editors need to spend a while looking at Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words. So that's "generally" if "generally" means "only at one newspaper out of four". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
- Small weeklies are, in some cases, written entirely by a single person. They frequently fail WP:RS as they have zero "fact checking" reputations as a rule. Newspapers use varying terms including "copy editors", "subeditors", "headline writers", "copyeditors" [9], etc. All meaning "not the person who wrote the actual article". I would suggest that every single major newspaper with over 5,000 circulation does, indeed, have a different person write the headlines than writes the articles. IOW, far more than only one out of four. In fact, all the "generally used as reliable source" newspapers have such editors. Collect (talk) 09:30, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
- A reputation for fact-checking does not require a separate employee to do the fact-checking. It primarily requires the publication to mostly get things right, and to issue corrections when they don't. Also, it's a bit silly to say that headlines are wrong, because they're written by an editor, but that the story is correct, because that same editor did the fact-checking. Even a one-person local newspaper is generally considered a reliable source (almost always for information about local people, businesses, and events).
- I agree that "major" dailies normally have a different person write most of the headlines (although at some papers, it's typical for the reporter to provide a suggested head). However, your proposed addition does not say "major newspapers". It says "newspapers", which includes all newspapers, including everything from The Times to The Mulberry Advance (one employee).
- Oh, and all three of the weeklies I checked have circulation in excess of 5,000. So your circulation estimate for "major newspaper" is clearly wrong. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:39, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- Small weeklies are, in some cases, written entirely by a single person. They frequently fail WP:RS as they have zero "fact checking" reputations as a rule. Newspapers use varying terms including "copy editors", "subeditors", "headline writers", "copyeditors" [9], etc. All meaning "not the person who wrote the actual article". I would suggest that every single major newspaper with over 5,000 circulation does, indeed, have a different person write the headlines than writes the articles. IOW, far more than only one out of four. In fact, all the "generally used as reliable source" newspapers have such editors. Collect (talk) 09:30, 5 August 2014 (UTC)
- Journalism texts are notorious for assuming that "newspaper" means "large urban daily". I've just checked the four newspapers nearest me (three weeklies and one daily). As far as I can tell, the weeklies employ zero subeditors (that's "copy editor" American English) and the daily's copy editors need to spend a while looking at Wikipedia:List of commonly misused English words. So that's "generally" if "generally" means "only at one newspaper out of four". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:33, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
- WAID, I haven't run into a problem with this either and asked about it above; the editors wanting to add it have run into POV-pushers who find some headline they like and have wanted to use it in articles, digging in claiming that the headline is in a reliable source so can be used. I can see how ugly/frustrating that would be, and it seems like a small thing to add this. I am surprised at all this ruckus. Jytdog (talk) 16:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- What brought this issue here was a headline said "English Defence League 'not racist, just xenophobic'". The article itself said a Chatham House report concluded the EDL was "not overtly racist." The person who wrote the headline is merely summarizing what is in the article. Since we have the article available, why would we ignore it and use the headline? TFD (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- Changing the guideline from "avoid" to "never ever use" to resolve a single local content dispute somewhere might be a little short-sighted. I can think of many theoretical examples where headlines are unusable or open to misinterpretation (most examples actually), and I can think of a couple of theoretical examples where they could be useful. In the local dispute, I would most likely add support to disallowing content that only relied on the headline text, per the existing guideline and consensus about the specific example. The guideline already strongly discourages the use of material found only in the headline; that and a consensus of editors agreeing that a particular use doesn't count as a worthwhile exception should be enough in a specific dispute. Regardless of the guideline, the main part of the article is clearly a better available source for a direct quote (and I'd assume any pronouncement about someone's racism would be a direct quote anyway.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 18:11, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- What brought this issue here was a headline said "English Defence League 'not racist, just xenophobic'". The article itself said a Chatham House report concluded the EDL was "not overtly racist." The person who wrote the headline is merely summarizing what is in the article. Since we have the article available, why would we ignore it and use the headline? TFD (talk) 17:58, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- Please cite what I wrote instead of ascribing claims I did not make. You provided a source which you asserted said that headlines are integral to articles. I pointed out what the source states and that it was about linguistics and not about content -- that it specifically stated that subeditors are the ones generally responsible for headline. Might a given headline have been written by a Pulitzer prize winner? Yes. If there is no byline for the headline, though, we can not make any such assumption about the author at all -- but the "generally written by subeditors" is found in all the journalism texts. Including The New York Times per the Public Editor thereof, and just a few of the relevant cites I furnished supra. Collect (talk) 20:24, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
- ummm all I was saying, is that this is the current language. I asked you (or anyone else who is dissatisfied) to explain what the weakness of the actual language is; you have responded with some high-level, hand-wavy discussion of principles. There is nothing I can say in return. Please do consider the guidance that is currently in the article, and let us know if there are situations where editors will still be left with unclear guidance. A straight out ban on use of headlines is not going to fly - it has already failed. So please work toward the rough, workable, practical middle that we can all live with. Thanks. Jytdog (talk) 15:59, 3 August 2014 (UTC)
*Comment A-ha! I found a headline more reliable than the body of the article. Here the Guardian [10] reports about recent Wikipedia edits which accuse Donald Rumsfeld of being an alien wizard instead of an alien lizard! A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:54, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
- Comment I've removed this addition.[11] I'm not sure why this was added given the RfC is still ongoing. Also, there seems to be more oppose than support !votes. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:57, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- I re-inserted the addition. The RFC is about Collect's proposal to change the wording that was added from the previous discussion. If you look at the oppose votes they are complaints that Collect's wording makes the sentence too strict. If this was meant as an RFC on whether to have the guidance at all, then I don't think Collect's wording addresses that question.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- I've reverted the following.[12] The edit summary says that "Collect's RFC is specifically worded as his proposed change to this existing wording". Unless I'm missing something, the "existing wording" was only introduced a day earlier[13] This isn't enough time to justify that it was the consensus version. I suggest we allow the RfC to play out to the end, and not make premature changes to this guideline without clear consensus. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- If there's confusion about what the RFC is asking then that's a problem. The pre-rfc discussion had about ten editors all agreeing the guidance would be helpful, a change was made, Collect wanted to make the language stronger and opened up an RFC to advocate for that. Many of the editors who expressed support did not support Collect's proposal. I think it's strange to interpret the RFC as being about whether to have guidance, when it's not worded that way, and looking over the two discussions there's strong support for having some guidance, just not as was worded by Collect. Your own vote only addressed Collect's wording, and made no mention of the wording that was already in the guideline.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- For example, even though Mark Miller voted oppose twice (!) he said he wanted to leave in the text that existed at that moment. That's clearly not opposition to the guidance that was added, but to Collect's change. Jytdog had similar positions. The RFC was not about whether to remove Mastcell's contribution, but whether to adopt the text proposed in the RFC question. We have about fifteen editors who wanted at least moderate discouragement of headlines in the guidance, the same number who thought a complete ban was going to far. It would be misinterpreting the discussions and the RFC to take that as a consensus that editors don't want moderate discouragement of headlines in the guidance.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:41, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- What wording was already in the guideline? I looked at the diffs over the past half year, and it appears to be added on July 30, the day before the RfC was started.[14] I've checked previous versions of this guideline...
- For example, even though Mark Miller voted oppose twice (!) he said he wanted to leave in the text that existed at that moment. That's clearly not opposition to the guidance that was added, but to Collect's change. Jytdog had similar positions. The RFC was not about whether to remove Mastcell's contribution, but whether to adopt the text proposed in the RFC question. We have about fifteen editors who wanted at least moderate discouragement of headlines in the guidance, the same number who thought a complete ban was going to far. It would be misinterpreting the discussions and the RFC to take that as a consensus that editors don't want moderate discouragement of headlines in the guidance.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:41, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- If there's confusion about what the RFC is asking then that's a problem. The pre-rfc discussion had about ten editors all agreeing the guidance would be helpful, a change was made, Collect wanted to make the language stronger and opened up an RFC to advocate for that. Many of the editors who expressed support did not support Collect's proposal. I think it's strange to interpret the RFC as being about whether to have guidance, when it's not worded that way, and looking over the two discussions there's strong support for having some guidance, just not as was worded by Collect. Your own vote only addressed Collect's wording, and made no mention of the wording that was already in the guideline.__ E L A Q U E A T E 21:25, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- ...and none of them have this wording. I agree with the spirit of the proposal, but not the wording. An editor should be able to cite a famous headline such as "Dewey Defeats Truman" as several editors have pointed out. Perhaps the RfC was malformed, I don't know. But a day does not equal a stable version. I reverted back to the stable version. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- It was Mastcell's addition, and I understand your points and agree that there was a more stable version before this, but I think things are getting muddled now, with the danger that we could interpret the consensus as being the opposite of what people said they wanted. Maybe you can figure out what to do next. From my reading, it seems like almost everybody was positive about adding wording that generally discouraged reliance on headlines but did not outright prohibit them. I took the RFC as being about extending the guidance to "outright prohibition" as proposed by Collect. When you say there's more oppose than support !votes, it shows something's off as many of the oppose votes say they'd prefer the general language that you removed, and there's still more editors that supported the addition in the first discussion then made a !vote in the RFC on Collect's extreme wording. So I don't know whether we should have another RFC to make it clean. I just don't see this as a fair comment on whether we have guidance of any sort (which had clear support), just that there's overwhelming rejection that it should not be a complete prohibition.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- Basically it feels like everybody agreed we should cut the lawn, someone started an RFC on whether we should tear up the lawn completely, and opposition to that proposal is being interpreted as a consensus to have the longest grass we can.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:38, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- It was Mastcell's addition, and I understand your points and agree that there was a more stable version before this, but I think things are getting muddled now, with the danger that we could interpret the consensus as being the opposite of what people said they wanted. Maybe you can figure out what to do next. From my reading, it seems like almost everybody was positive about adding wording that generally discouraged reliance on headlines but did not outright prohibit them. I took the RFC as being about extending the guidance to "outright prohibition" as proposed by Collect. When you say there's more oppose than support !votes, it shows something's off as many of the oppose votes say they'd prefer the general language that you removed, and there's still more editors that supported the addition in the first discussion then made a !vote in the RFC on Collect's extreme wording. So I don't know whether we should have another RFC to make it clean. I just don't see this as a fair comment on whether we have guidance of any sort (which had clear support), just that there's overwhelming rejection that it should not be a complete prohibition.__ E L A Q U E A T E 22:32, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- ...and none of them have this wording. I agree with the spirit of the proposal, but not the wording. An editor should be able to cite a famous headline such as "Dewey Defeats Truman" as several editors have pointed out. Perhaps the RfC was malformed, I don't know. But a day does not equal a stable version. I reverted back to the stable version. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 22:02, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
I haven't been able to find a quote of the article associated with the "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline, but this source explains that a newspaper strike forced the paper to go to press hours before it normally would, and the managing editor made the headline call based on incomplete info about vote tallies as the first-edition deadline approached. I see here that the subhead read "G.O.P. Sweep Indicated in State; Boyle leads in City", and the sub-sub head read "Early Count Gives G.O.P Slight Edge". WP's Dewey Defeats Truman article contains quotes from the associated first edition page one story saying, "Dewey and Warren won a sweeping victory in the presidential election yesterday. The early returns showed the Republican ticket leading Truman and Barkley pretty consistently in the western and southern states [..] indications were that the complete returns would disclose that Dewey won the presidency by an overwhelming majority of the electoral vote" -- I don't see support for the headline there.
I note that the WP article titled Headline says, "A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. It is generally written by a copy editor, but may also be written by the writer, the page layout designer, or other editors." I liked the proposal by Collect quite a ways above. I'll re-propose it here with a wikilink to that WP article added:
- Proposing:
- Newspaper headlines are not a part of a newspaper article used as a reliable source as they are generally not furnished by the writer of the newspaper article. Where the headline is not specifically supported by the body of the newspaper article, it ought not be used as a source for any claim on Wikipedia other than the existence of that headline.
This allows citation of a famous headline such as "Dewey Defeats Truman" in support of an assertion that the Chicago Tribune printed an edition with that headline, but not in support of an assertion that Truman was defeated by Dewey.
The proposal is for the addition of one bullet point to a bulleted list of caveats regarding citing articles from news organizations. That list is not headlined, and follows a paragraph about opinion pieces; I further propose that the list be headlined something like Caveats:.
One caveat in the list says, "Whether a specific news story is reliable for a specific fact or statement in a Wikipedia article should be assessed on a case-by-case basis." It could be argued that this caveat makes an additional caveat about headlines unnecessary; it could also be argued that the existence of this caveat makes all the other caveats in the list unnecessary. I think that an additional caveat about headline content not being acceptable as reliable unless supported by the article body would be useful. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:49, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- This makes the same mistake the other proposed sentence makes. It doesn't matter who writes the headlines. Headlines have the same reliability or unreliability regardless of who writes them. I would like to see if any people who objected to the text proposed in the RFC actually oppose
* Newspaper headlines should be used with care, and only where they are supported by the text of the associated article. Avoid including content found only in a newspaper's headlines and not in the associated article bodies.
(I can point out that this guidance also doesn't affect any use of "Dewey Defeats Truman", as "Dewey Defeats Truman" is attached to an article all about Dewey defeating Truman.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 01:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- This makes the same mistake the other proposed sentence makes. It doesn't matter who writes the headlines. Headlines have the same reliability or unreliability regardless of who writes them. I would like to see if any people who objected to the text proposed in the RFC actually oppose
- I'd support something like this: "Avoid using news article headlines as sources as they are generally not reliable." A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 19:29, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose in its current form News headlines are reliable sources only for statements of what the headline was. Above discussion makes clear that sometimes the headline itself is worthy of mention, but usually for its disagreement with the content published below it, or for the fact that the content is itself notorious. A typical, boring, correct headline that reflects correct content below it is not worth treating as a source distinct from the content below it. An appropriate way to deal with the (not rare enough) cases of interestingly bad headlines might be to invoke wp:INTEXT citation as in "The election result was at first wrongly reported in the early edition of the Chicago Tribune under the banner Dewey Defeats Truman." In other words, it should be made apparent to our readers that it is only the headline being discussed, and not the article under that headline. LeadSongDog come howl! 20:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- The bit about "newspaper headline are not part of the article" is an assertion of real-world facts. I suspect it to be unverifiable. If I saw that in an article, I'd tag it with {{dubious}}. I don't want a statement of fact that is likely to be false to appear in our guidelines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- Proposing:
- Newspaper headlines are never to be quoted or treated as a citation for matters of fact beyond their own existence. Headlines are quite often not furnished by the writer of the article, but by a newspaper's sub-editor, and even on the most prestigious papers and even with the best will in the world, sub-editors sometimes misrepresent the article's content.
Where the headline is not specifically supported by the body of the newspaper article, itHeadlines should therefore not be used as a source for any claim on Wikipedia other than the existence of that headline, or if that headline is important in itself as a headline (e.g. provoking controversy, as reported by secondary reliable sources).
- Newspaper headlines are never to be quoted or treated as a citation for matters of fact beyond their own existence. Headlines are quite often not furnished by the writer of the article, but by a newspaper's sub-editor, and even on the most prestigious papers and even with the best will in the world, sub-editors sometimes misrepresent the article's content.
This, I think, addresses the issues Wtmitchell raised and explains the reason for the policy, while avoiding the pitfalls created by Wtmitchell's proposed wording of the policy. Alfietucker (talk) 10:44, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
- Now slightly amended in light of MastCell's comment about the last sentence (added words in bold). Alfietucker (talk) 09:12, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
- Support as covering every cavil raised. Collect (talk) 20:59, 17 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oppose; overly wordy and confusing, the last sentence, in particular. Repeats the irrelevant emphasis on who writes the headline vs. the article (and probably mis-states the matter to boot, as WhatamIdoing points out). Tacks on a ridiculously over-generalized and unsupportable claim against the competence of "sub-editors" as a group. And so on. MastCell Talk 05:20, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
- MastCell, the point being made is not about the competence of sub-editors (why the quote marks?), but the fact a headline cannot be relied upon to give a fair reflection of the article's content, as too often it fails to reflect this accurately or even sometimes at all. The reason for this is given as an explanation, not to impugn the intelligence of sub-editors as a group. (BTW I know some very intelligent and well-regarded editors, even on WP, who misinterpret texts they are paraphrasing, even when not working to a tight deadline and when they are clearly not trying to push a POV.) I see your point about the final sentence being unnecessarily complicated, so I have made a suggested amendment (see above). Alfietucker (talk) 09:12, 18 August 2014 (UTC)
Textbooks
In this guideline, textbooks are mentioned as both reliable secondary sources (in WP:SCHOLARSHIP) and tertiary sources (in WP:WPNOTRS). According to Wikipedia:PSTS, "Many introductory undergraduate-level textbooks are regarded as tertiary sources", so it's obvious that only introductory texts should be considered tertiary sources. Also, WP:PSTS states: "Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other." This contradicts WP:WPNOTRS as written, it should be rewritten to be friendlier to the use of tertiary sources. LK (talk) 07:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
- Not sure how PSTS contradicts NOTRS... both say that secondary sources are generally preferred (in broad terms), but that tertiary sources are OK and may be best for certain specific statements. It's really a question of comparative reliability. Two sources can both be deemed reliable, but one can be more reliable than the other when it comes to supporting a specific statement in an article. It's often a question of which source is the most appropriate given the situation. Blueboar (talk) 11:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's also not obvious that only introductory texts should be considered tertiary sources, or that all introductory texts should be considered tertiary or secondary. The guidance says "many are", not "all are" or "are only". It depend on the context of the claim and how it's being used in the article, of course. I think the guidance is there to remind that textbooks can possibly be RS in various contexts, not that we should put all textbooks in one pigeonhole or another.__ E L A Q U E A T E 14:57, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
Well to put it polemically or exaggerated it a bit: The first line given in WP:WPNOTRS is simply nonsense and I daresay it is hardly consensus with the WP community. However it kinda depends on how read and what you consider s tertiary source. Imho arguing a undergraduate textbook is tertiary and graduate textbook is not seems rather questionable. The whole thing is probably due to having lower quality tertiary sources in mind (high school textbooks, general purpose tertiary source, etc.) and the fact that WP is tertiary source and hence it sources need to be secondary or primary. But be that as it may that line is not to be understood as banning the use of university level textbooks, scholarly tertiary sources or obituaries for normal sourcing. You can and should use (and the community at large does so constantly anyhow). It also good not to get too hung up on the formal difference between primary, secondary or tertiary sources but pay more attention to their quality/reputation.--Kmhkmh (talk) 23:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Narrowness of expert identification
This edit is meant to clarify that experts can be identified as experts without necessarily being writers. For example, an engineer who worked on the Hoover Dam who is identified as an expert by a third-party (because he was an engineer on the Hoover Dam) can be quoted as an expert even if he never published about engineering. Publication is often an excellent indicator of expertise, but it is by no means the only such indicator.
jps (talk) 14:56, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- Loosening our definition of who we accept as self-published sources is a bit of a recipe for disaster. This seems like it would increase the use of blogs as citations, and make a designation of "expert" much easier to obtain (having a brief mention in an "independent source" is a much lower bar to meet than being published by third-party sources). The definition of what a reliable source is should be a bit narrow, or we have homeopathy "experts" becoming reliable sources without any third-party publication because they are mentioned as such in a "independent source". I don't think we should expand the definition here.__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:36, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- No, it doesn't make being named an expert easier at all. It's simply acknowledging that some people don't publish and are still experts. Does anyone deny that this is so? The homeopathy example doesn't really work because I don't know of any independent reliable sources which identify a homeopathist as an expert in, say, the chemical concentrations of their preparations. They're obviously experts in the lore of homeopathy and we can accept, for example, the interview with a homeopathist who comments on how homeopathy preparations are made as a reliable source for such. jps (talk) 16:53, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- "How homeopathy preparations are made" is heavily focused on the chemical concentration.
- We have this rule because we want people who are recognized as experts for creating information, not because he was the only person who would return the reporter's phone call.
- The stakes in this rule are whether it's okay for anyone to cite the purported expert's blog, Twitter feed, or other obviously self-published material, which is a pretty big risk.
- I agree that it's not a perfect rule, but I'm currently thinking that it's better than the alternative. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's a big risk, but it is also being used inappropriately. Surely publication record can form a part of what makes an expert, but it's not the entire thing. The other side of the coin is when certain people have publication records and then go off the deep end. The point is that we should have ways of verifying expertness. Publications can be one way, may even be a primary way, but if we insist, falsely, that it is the only way, we end up with a policy that isn't well aligned to best practices. jps (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- Well an obvious additional criteria is (university) education, degrees and the holding of scholarly positions (such as professor).--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- That is really only relevant if the subject is a scholarly one. If it's a question of what's done in a practical field, I'd frequently choose a practitioner over an ivory-tower resident. I expect someone who's run a chewing gum factory to know something about how to make chewing gum. I don't expect to find a professor of chewing gum production. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:26, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- Well an obvious additional criteria is (university) education, degrees and the holding of scholarly positions (such as professor).--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's a big risk, but it is also being used inappropriately. Surely publication record can form a part of what makes an expert, but it's not the entire thing. The other side of the coin is when certain people have publication records and then go off the deep end. The point is that we should have ways of verifying expertness. Publications can be one way, may even be a primary way, but if we insist, falsely, that it is the only way, we end up with a policy that isn't well aligned to best practices. jps (talk) 19:07, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- No, it doesn't make being named an expert easier at all. It's simply acknowledging that some people don't publish and are still experts. Does anyone deny that this is so? The homeopathy example doesn't really work because I don't know of any independent reliable sources which identify a homeopathist as an expert in, say, the chemical concentrations of their preparations. They're obviously experts in the lore of homeopathy and we can accept, for example, the interview with a homeopathist who comments on how homeopathy preparations are made as a reliable source for such. jps (talk) 16:53, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- I think we should consider removing this exception to self-published sources. If an expert has something to say then why isn't it published? Some experts develop theories far outside the mainstream, like Nobel laureates who reject relativity or claim that perpetual motion is possible, while other experts ("public intellectuals") write political polemics that should be distinguished from their scholarly writing. An engineer who worked on the Hoover dam is not btw an expert, and anything he or she writes is a primary source. But why would we want to report their comments if no secondary source has decided to? TFD (talk) 22:11, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
- The reason it's often not published is because it's not worth publishing. This is especially true in the case of WP:FRINGE work which is why WP:PARITY exists. What happens is that a person has trouble publishing their novel idea in top-rated peer-reviewed journals and so decides to pursue other avenues (e.g. self-publication, publication by press release, going on some ludicrous Discovery Channel show, or publishing in a dubious journal that claims peer review but has much more lax standards than the better journals). Once the idea starts floating around and is picked up by credulous reporters or whatever, expert begin to comment. They often do not bother getting their critiques published. Why should they? It's not as though top-tier journals are in the habit of publishing critiques of nonsense. So the experts end up commenting on their own websites or in interviews. This is to be expected. The alternative is to say that Wikipedia shouldn't include anything that is not verified in the highest standards of publication. Bye-bye Ufology, Parapsychology, Creationism, etc. jps (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Another problem is that journals publish new research. A fact that has been well-known among experts in a field for 150 years can't be the topic of a journal article. It might be mentioned in in passing in an article, but since it won't be the main topic, it will be hard to find because it won't be mentioned in any indexing scheme, keyword list, or abstract. But if it's an area of frequent confusion among non-experts, it may be mentioned on an expert's personal web page. Such an expert may or may not have published on closely related topics in reliable sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:55, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- That seems a very unlikely scenario. A fact that has been well-known among experts in a field for 150 years and we could only source it to a personal web page of a person who has never been published on any related topic by third-party sources? Even if that kind of thing ever happens, you are already so far deep into IAR that changing a general guideline to allow for it seems unhelpful. That would seem to be textbook WP:UNDUE material anyway.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:01, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Another problem is that journals publish new research. A fact that has been well-known among experts in a field for 150 years can't be the topic of a journal article. It might be mentioned in in passing in an article, but since it won't be the main topic, it will be hard to find because it won't be mentioned in any indexing scheme, keyword list, or abstract. But if it's an area of frequent confusion among non-experts, it may be mentioned on an expert's personal web page. Such an expert may or may not have published on closely related topics in reliable sources. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:55, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- The reason it's often not published is because it's not worth publishing. This is especially true in the case of WP:FRINGE work which is why WP:PARITY exists. What happens is that a person has trouble publishing their novel idea in top-rated peer-reviewed journals and so decides to pursue other avenues (e.g. self-publication, publication by press release, going on some ludicrous Discovery Channel show, or publishing in a dubious journal that claims peer review but has much more lax standards than the better journals). Once the idea starts floating around and is picked up by credulous reporters or whatever, expert begin to comment. They often do not bother getting their critiques published. Why should they? It's not as though top-tier journals are in the habit of publishing critiques of nonsense. So the experts end up commenting on their own websites or in interviews. This is to be expected. The alternative is to say that Wikipedia shouldn't include anything that is not verified in the highest standards of publication. Bye-bye Ufology, Parapsychology, Creationism, etc. jps (talk) 13:28, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Since fringe theories only merit their own articles if published secondary sources have mentioned them, there is no need to use unpublished commentary from experts' blogs. In fact experts do write published articles about fringe theories. First there is academic study of irrational belief systems. For example Jovan Byford, a psychologist, wrote the book Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction, which was published by the academic publisher Palgrave Macmillan. Second, when fringe theories achieve notability, experts are often asked to comment on them. For example, the History Channel had Roger Griffin and Robert Paxton, two of the world's leading scholars on fascism, and Chip Berlet, a leading expert on right-wing populism, comment on Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.[15]
- While journals publish new research, they also publish review studies which summarize the existing literature and explain the degree of acceptance various theories have. Also, most articles about new research also summarize the existing literature and explain the degree of acceptance various theories have.
- In summary, I can find no reason why an expert's unpublished webpage should be used. If their comments have significance they will be published. And experts are not oracles. Their published papers are trustworthy because they have been accepted by reputable publishers and peer-reviewed. Consider for example Michael Ignatieff who is a prominent political scientist and whose writings are used as sources in many articles. He was also leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Why would we consider his personal webpage comments on the Conservative Party of Canada to be a reliable source, while comments by the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada on his personal webpage would not? We are assuming that because he is an expert his comments on the Conservatives are accurate, while because his opponent is not an expert, his comments might not be.
- TFD (talk) 15:25, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Further expanding the use of SPS to any non-published person somehow considered an expert would only exacerbate that issue. As an example, if all politicians (considered to be expert politicians) were then considered reliable sources for how politics worked in general theory (if they were used not as narrow sources for material about their own career and personal experiences, but as sources for article material describing how democracy works in general, sourced to their blogs) then the articles would be bonkers. The current guideline insists on a more narrow use of SPS, because the encyclopedia is better if preference is given to reliably published third-party sources.__ E L A Q U E A T E 15:42, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
The problem is, as currently stated, the wording does not indicate what is actually practiced on Wikipedia (except in Wikilawyering environments). An alternative is including stronger wording about the need to be careful and only use sources from experts, but the inane requirement that the person have published something else is not how anyone does research-based writing. Not here, not elsewhere. Wording that, for example, implied that self-published sources could only be used if no other sources were available and that the writer had to be verified as an expert in the subject at hand would be the best. This would avoid some of the pitfalls fretted over above. To be clear, Elaqueate's example could be problematic even under current guidelines since politicians often have their speeches published by third-party publishers, for example. jps (talk) 20:48, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- The "previously published" requirement has more to do with establishing who is, and who is not an amateur expert (ie experts who are not academics) ... for example, while Stan Fischler's primary job is as a sports reporter, he is also considered an expert on the history of the New York City Subway. We know this because he has published multiple books on the subject. Thus, if he states something about the Subway's history on his personal website, twitter feed, or in his sports column we can deem it to be at least as reliable as an academic historian. Blueboar (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- The word "professional" has become useless. No one knows what it means anymore. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:35, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Can you elaborate? jps (talk) 16:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Every dentist with a blog and no other publishing history would seem to qualify; every lawyer (every lawyer!) could then arguably insert SPS-material into law articles. I still don't see why we should streamline acceptance of SPS. Seems like buckets of unintended consequence and no actual forestalling of future conflict.__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:05, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Can you elaborate? jps (talk) 16:17, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- The word "professional" has become useless. No one knows what it means anymore. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:35, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
If a dentist comments on a subject related to dentistry in a blog (say, Oil pulling) describing the problematic aspects of it but the dentist has never published a book or a paper and we have no better sources per WP:PARITY, are you really saying that this is a problem to use such a source? If a lawyer comments on a subject related to the law on which there are no better sources per WP:PARITY (say, the frivolousness of an Orly Taitz lawsuit) are you really going to say that is a problem? This part does not say we have to accept SPS sources, it merely describes the necessary conditions. There are obviously always other considerations and they are outlined exactly on this page. jps (talk) 17:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- If we want a legal opinion on the frivolousness of an Orly Taitz lawsuit, then the project is better served by having a better reliable source, with some history with the type of reliable sources we prefer, than if we just pick any lawyer of any qualification we can find who opposes it. Main-staging a completely unpublished and generally unnoted lawyer, only because they happen to agree with a position, doesn't help. It's not choosing them because we think they're a reliable source, it's ignoring their reliability because we want some particular content in. That just opens us up to more possibly stinky sources who happen to be saying the thing you want them to say. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- {And yes, if only a single unpublished dentist could be found that disagreed with a certain procedure, then I would have a problem using that source per WP:UNDUE. If the voiced professional opposition was so infrequent as to be unique, how would we know it was credible or a widely held view? The same goes for if a single unpublished doctor voiced a counter-to-the-scientific-mainstream opinion about vaccinations, I would have a problem using that source per WP:UNDUE. I think your suggestion, less-published experts, would encourage a lot more fringe than it could conceivably counter.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- This writes as though you are unfamiliar with the issues surrounding WP:FRINGE sourcing. Fetishizing publishing, which is essentially what IRS is doing right now, is problematic because WP:FRIND sources are the best. That's simply the way Wikipedia works in practice. That's what we need to describe. Your arguments to the contrary is extremely problematic because you are assuming that notable ideas can only be critiqued by sources that are based off of published experts. That's simply not true. The issue is finding independent critiques of certain points. WP:PARITY and WP:MEDRS is what prevents vaccination denialists from becoming WP:SOAP. jps (talk) 18:26, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia's verifiability policy is not suspended simply because the topic is a fringe theory.
The main thrust of WP:PARITY is that criticism doesn't necessarily need to come from a peer-reviewed journal, not that it doesn't have to come from a reliable source at all. Verifiability generally involves some connection to reliable publishing at some point in a source's history. It helps. I'm sure there are some IAR exceptions, but your suggestion would provide for more arguments about who was a "professional" or "expert", not less. __ E L A Q U E A T E 19:26, 10 August 2014 (UTC)- The point is that, in the context of WP:PARITY, there are reliable sources that are self-published that haven't necessarily been published by third parties. And yet WP:IRS claims that this isn't so. jps (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- This seems like a step backwards. If anything, given the misuse of self-published sources, we should be narrowing this policy, not expanding it. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:10, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- The point is that, in the context of WP:PARITY, there are reliable sources that are self-published that haven't necessarily been published by third parties. And yet WP:IRS claims that this isn't so. jps (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- This writes as though you are unfamiliar with the issues surrounding WP:FRINGE sourcing. Fetishizing publishing, which is essentially what IRS is doing right now, is problematic because WP:FRIND sources are the best. That's simply the way Wikipedia works in practice. That's what we need to describe. Your arguments to the contrary is extremely problematic because you are assuming that notable ideas can only be critiqued by sources that are based off of published experts. That's simply not true. The issue is finding independent critiques of certain points. WP:PARITY and WP:MEDRS is what prevents vaccination denialists from becoming WP:SOAP. jps (talk) 18:26, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- {And yes, if only a single unpublished dentist could be found that disagreed with a certain procedure, then I would have a problem using that source per WP:UNDUE. If the voiced professional opposition was so infrequent as to be unique, how would we know it was credible or a widely held view? The same goes for if a single unpublished doctor voiced a counter-to-the-scientific-mainstream opinion about vaccinations, I would have a problem using that source per WP:UNDUE. I think your suggestion, less-published experts, would encourage a lot more fringe than it could conceivably counter.)__ E L A Q U E A T E 17:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
We shouldn't be using "expert" blogs because they are generally unreliable primary sources. Given that there may be 10,000 experts in a particular field, the chances of finding someone with a particular perspective on the fringes of the wide "bell curve" of views, is likely, but completely unrepresentative of the field. That editors may take a handful of "expert" views, and then pretends that this is representative, is highly misleading. Wikipedia should not be promoting hearsay, no matter who said it. --Iantresman (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Orly Taitz is a lawyer (as well as a dentist and real estate agent). Surely we are not saying that her personal website can be used as a reliable source for whether or not Obama is the president. As for whether or not her lawsuits are frivolous, we do not need to rely on some lawyer's website. A court ruling was made and reported in the press. Had no ruling been made and no commentary been written on whether her cases were frivolous, we should not add that material to her article. In fact, "Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves" already excludes using unpublished sources for "claims about third parties." TFD (talk) 20:09, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes. That's why it's important that the context in which self-published sources are accepted be elucidated. jps (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- FRIND wants independent sources (for some things: if you're trying to describe what Group X believes, then Group X's own publications should be accepted). "Independent" and "mainstream" are not the same thing. In particular, some sources might be direct competitors: don't buy that dental quackery, buy my dental treatments! WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- True! I didn't want to bring WP:MAINSTREAM into this, but I think that's ultimately my bugbear here. There are occasions where the mainstream perspective is basically done by blogs or preprint servers (this is especially true in WP:FRINGE land). When Sean Carroll tweets about the theoretical basis for emDrive, that's a reliable source even though he has never published about emDrive (though he has published about the quantum mechanics they seem to be referencing in the technical report). jps (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- (If nobody has writes about it, then how can it be notable?) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
- A century or more ago, only three professions were recognized: clergy, lawyers, and medical doctors. Then other groups that had to go through rigorous education and other requirements were added, such as accountants, engineers, and land surveyors. The title "professional" kept getting watered down; the 1992 edition of the American Heritage Dictionary includes "Performed by persons receiving pay: professional football. I've heard it used in everyday speech to describe anyone who is doing a good job, even though the job does not come close to qualifying as a profession. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:45, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- True! I didn't want to bring WP:MAINSTREAM into this, but I think that's ultimately my bugbear here. There are occasions where the mainstream perspective is basically done by blogs or preprint servers (this is especially true in WP:FRINGE land). When Sean Carroll tweets about the theoretical basis for emDrive, that's a reliable source even though he has never published about emDrive (though he has published about the quantum mechanics they seem to be referencing in the technical report). jps (talk) 11:14, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- FRIND wants independent sources (for some things: if you're trying to describe what Group X believes, then Group X's own publications should be accepted). "Independent" and "mainstream" are not the same thing. In particular, some sources might be direct competitors: don't buy that dental quackery, buy my dental treatments! WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- Yes. That's why it's important that the context in which self-published sources are accepted be elucidated. jps (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Karma, it seems, is not without a sense of irony. Having witnessed jps's completely opposite logic and judgement realised over some reliable sources and over WP:FRINGE/WP:FRIND for some articles, it is a bit surprising to me to see some different tendencies/inclinations. However, they have a point; regarding Emdrive case, self-published critics of the experts should be safely attributable, because WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. Emdrive seems as an invention/project dating back to 1999 or even before, and there is only one text edited in a seemingly scholarly article format which tries to refute inventor's claims, but even that one -Powell's article- is self-published. We should be aware that, refuting other people's inventions or theories is not so common unless the specific subject is very common. Which should bring wikipedia to the point that, when there is no alternative, every reliable piece of information/view should be included in order to achieve WP:NPOV, without taking some qualities of the source into consideration (such as self-publishing etc.). Otherwise, excluding normally qualified but self-published expert views in Emdrive article, wikipedia would have been affecting and will be influencing "public"/"laymen" to the advantage of emdrive's inventor. Self-published tag will efficiently warn the audience and future editors, so that in case that self-published source transforms into a published one or a better source emerges in future, then the quality of the article can be enhanced more by replacing with a published/better source. Of course, expert editors' judgement will discern the quality of the self-published source in question. If the opposing party has only the argument of self-publishing for exclusion, it may mean that they also recognize/appreciate the quality of that self-published source. A voting sequence/session can also help editors to determine the quality of the self-published source collectively. Logos (talk) 18:04, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Need mention of advocacy sites' conflicts of interest?
Wikipedia:V#cite_note-COI_SOURCES-8 discusses conflicts of interest in detail, and mentions advocacy groups once. Yet advocacy sites without a journalist or academic in sight are used by advocates to promote all sorts of views. Even when it's non-notable bloggers calling themselves journalists, a bunch of advocates can claim successfully at an article talk page or even WP:RSN that the source is reliable, even in BLP. Can't we stick something in here making it clear which advocacy sites/publications/blogs are and are not reliable? Lack of clarity has brought me to WP:RSN far too many times over the years. I'll think of some specific wording later for a proposal, but throwing it out there for now. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:05, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think editors are currently confused or unappreciative of the fact that advocacy groups might possibly have a COI or bias. It's already mentioned and covered on this page in WP:BIASED. WP:RSN helps get community insight on specific proposed uses and whether a source is good in the context it's intended to be used for. A specific "banned sources for all uses" list is unlikely to work out the way you might predict.
The appropriateness of any source depends on the context.
__ E L A Q U E A T E 16:40, 9 August 2014 (UTC)- Questionable sources always can be used for their own views. The problem is when they begin to be used for neutral factoids or comments on third parties. Anyway, given this is a long term problem adding just the words "advocacy" and "conflict of interest" to the appropriate spot in that section would be helpful. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:07, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Not all biased sources are questionable. Some sources that show an identifiable bias are still considered the highest of high-quality sources, generally and in certain contexts. The guideline is very clear about that. __ E L A Q U E A T E 17:16, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Questionable sources always can be used for their own views. The problem is when they begin to be used for neutral factoids or comments on third parties. Anyway, given this is a long term problem adding just the words "advocacy" and "conflict of interest" to the appropriate spot in that section would be helpful. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:07, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- The footnote is not helpful, it is about NYT journalists' conflict of interest - but the NYT considers this before hiring journalists and publishing their stories. So any news report from them should be considered reliable regardless of the journalist's COI. Generally I would consider industry-funded advocacy groups that challenge mainstream opinion to be unreliable, such as petroleum industry-funded "thinktanks" that challenge accepted climate change science. I do not know how much detail we need to provide to this. TFD (talk) 18:37, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Sources are never reliable or unreliable in a vacuum. Context matters. The same source may be reliable in one context and unreliable in another context. An advocacy source is certainly reliable in the context of supporting a statement of "atributed opinion". It usually would not be be reliable in the context of "unatributed fact"
- To illustrate, compare the two sentences that follow:
- According to the Democratic Party, the Republicans are wrong on issue X.
- The Republicans are wrong on issue X.
- In the first sentence, the Democratic Party website (and advocacy source) would be reliable. In the second it would not be reliable. Same source... different context. Blueboar (talk) 20:35, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Or "According to David Icke, the royals are reptilian shift-changers." But that brings up another policy, weight, which would disallow the statement unless reliable secondary sources could establish its significance to the topic of the article it was added to. TFD (talk) 22:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, absolutely... reliability is definitely not the only policy/guideline that factors into whether we should say something in an article. It's only one of many policies and guidelines that have to be examined. Blueboar (talk) 22:59, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- My only concern is that in future discussions I not have to link to and even quote three or different policy/guideline pages (WP:V; WP:RS; WP:COI; WP:BLP) to make the point that many "advocacy" groups have a conflict of interest and therefore we can't just use their blogs, press releases, publications, on topics of facts - especially about BLPs. If this was made just a tad clearer here with addition of proper terms and links, it would make it easier for a lot of editors on a lot of articles to explain this policy to editors, especially new and bushy tailed ones out to further their cause. But if editors don't want to do it, I'll just keep the four links on my cheat sheet and pull them out 2 or 3 times a month when I need them. Sigh... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:11, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- You can immediately shorten your list by one, because mentioning WP:COI is irrelevant. While it is possible for a source to have a conflict of interest, it is not possible for a source to violate WP:COI. The COI guideline is about the behavior of editors, not the contents of publications. (Similarly, it is impossible for a source to violate NPOV. That policy is binding only on editors, not on sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- You are correct. Actually I was thinking of editors with WP:COIs promoting biased sites as if they were higher quality RS, but that really has to be dealt with as two separate issues. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 12:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- You can immediately shorten your list by one, because mentioning WP:COI is irrelevant. While it is possible for a source to have a conflict of interest, it is not possible for a source to violate WP:COI. The COI guideline is about the behavior of editors, not the contents of publications. (Similarly, it is impossible for a source to violate NPOV. That policy is binding only on editors, not on sources.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:44, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- My only concern is that in future discussions I not have to link to and even quote three or different policy/guideline pages (WP:V; WP:RS; WP:COI; WP:BLP) to make the point that many "advocacy" groups have a conflict of interest and therefore we can't just use their blogs, press releases, publications, on topics of facts - especially about BLPs. If this was made just a tad clearer here with addition of proper terms and links, it would make it easier for a lot of editors on a lot of articles to explain this policy to editors, especially new and bushy tailed ones out to further their cause. But if editors don't want to do it, I'll just keep the four links on my cheat sheet and pull them out 2 or 3 times a month when I need them. Sigh... Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 19:11, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- Oh, absolutely... reliability is definitely not the only policy/guideline that factors into whether we should say something in an article. It's only one of many policies and guidelines that have to be examined. Blueboar (talk) 22:59, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
- Or "According to David Icke, the royals are reptilian shift-changers." But that brings up another policy, weight, which would disallow the statement unless reliable secondary sources could establish its significance to the topic of the article it was added to. TFD (talk) 22:46, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Breaking news
News media who are normally fairly reliable tend to be unreliable when reporting breaking news. Wikipedia has the problem that current events in the news get disproportionate attention, and articles get updated with claims as they are broadcast, whether or not they later turn out to be true. Usually but not always these errors get corrected later, but having them up in the meantime helps spread false information. I'm thinking we should add some advice in this area. Any comments on the below? -- Beland (talk) 20:33, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- Breaking news reports often contain serious inaccuracies. It is better to wait a day or two after an event before updating the encyclopedia than to help spread false rumors. This gives journalists time to collect more information and verify claims, and for investigative authorities to make official announcements. The On The Media Breaking News Consumer's Handbook contains several suggestions to avoid unreliable information, such as distrusting anonymous sources, distrusting unconfirmed reports and those attributed to other news media, seeking multiple sources, seeking eyewitness reports, being wary of potential hoaxes, and being skeptical of reports of possible additional attackers in mass shootings.
- Wikipedia:Recentism is an essay about that issue that many have found useful. Maybe we could point to it somehow (link, further reading, or something like that).__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:50, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- A typical example is a parliamentary election where news media report seat totals, although they may be subject to change. I think we should put the info into the article, provided it is significant, then correct it later. If a story is in the news that typically many editors are interested.
- Another approach is to put new stories into timeline format. (One I worked on was the Timeline of Rob Ford video scandal.) As new stories come out, the timeline can be corrected.
- The use of breaking news to update an existing article can skew it toward recent events, and that should be corrected by trimming.
- Where an article is based primarily on news sources, they should over time be replaced with journal articles. This typically happens when the subject is something that achieved notability after Wikipedia was founded and hence news media were initially the only sources available.
- TFD (talk) 22:06, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
Let the news break rather than Wikipedia.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:20, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
WP is not a newspaper, we do not need to be up-to-the-minute. If there is a fast-developing story, editors should wait until more confirmed details come down the pipeline before incorporating into an article. --MASEM (t) 20:05, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- Perhaps they "should" wait, but in practice, they don't. I wouldn't mind having a sentence or two that communicates these points:
- All breaking news stories, without exception, are primary sources, and must be treated with caution per WP:PSTS
- Breaking news stories are often incorrect, and such sources should be replaced with better researched ones as soon as possible.
- We could also mention "breaking news" directly in WP:PSTS. What do you think? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:49, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Is there a list of unreliable sources?
Is there a list of sources that have been determined by community discussion/consensus to be unreliable?
I ran into a news site today, one that I have fomerly used to write citations for material in Wikipedia, that published an article that takes a lot of material from Wikipedia articles—pretty much verbatim right down to several of the subsection headings—and publishes it as news without any sources and without attribution to Wikipedia and its Creative Commons license. So now I will question that "source" in the future...
But I want to know if there is a repository for this information within the wikicommunity. I'd hate to be using other sources, thought to be news sources, only to find that they are aggregators or click-bait sites, etc. How do we, or how should we, notify others? Cheers. N2e (talk) 22:26, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- There is a blacklist for various websites/domains, which comprises material where there is consensus that they are normally unusable/undesired in WP (though unreliability is not the only issue, also spamming. illegal context, malware infections, etc.). You will notice automatically if you run across one of those as WP will not allow such links to be saved and produce an error message instead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 22:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
- @Kmhkmh: Is there anyway to have a summary list or FAQ type page of past discussions and their current consensus? E.g., HuffPo gets asked a lot. An up-to-date page would be quite helpful. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:00, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- This discussion on WP:RSN may be relevant here: [16] AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- @AndyTheGrump: Thank you! EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:18, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- This discussion on WP:RSN may be relevant here: [16] AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:08, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- @Kmhkmh: Is there anyway to have a summary list or FAQ type page of past discussions and their current consensus? E.g., HuffPo gets asked a lot. An up-to-date page would be quite helpful. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 00:00, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks, AndyTG! Just read that discussion, and it doesn't look like anything of the sort I'm asking about exists.
- So I'll just flag it here. The source I had used before, and now am quite unsure about is NextBigFuture. That is based on this article published in NBF on 9 August 2014, a good bit of which was taken verbatim, even the section headings, from this Wikipedia article. I don't know whether other parts of the NBF article are also plagiarized from other Wikipedia articles on various aspects of that particular technology, but it seems likely. If anyone has a "how Wikipedia is being copied and where it is on the internet" bot, that would probably be the easiest way to detect how text in NBF matches, or doesn't, other WP articles.
- From that discussion, it appears that there may not be a consensus of editors on having such a list exist anywhere anywhere on Wikipedia. Too bad. For if there was, it might help other editors be aware of the poor source issue from the past, and be aware of a potential WP:CIRCULAR issue if they use NBF as a source. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:17, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- This isn't what you're looking for but we do keep a List of self-publishing companies. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 20:11, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
- It's not really possible to create such a list. There's no such thing as "an unreliable source". There is only a source that is unreliable when used in a particular way. It's obvious that Albert Einstein's work is highly reliable for his theories, and that it is an utterly unreliable source for a statement about who won the most recent election in India. Similarly, the most garbage-y self-published blog is unreliable for facts about Albert Einstein, but is perfectly reliable for a statement that says, "The blog posting on X date said..."
- We get sloppy and talk about whether or not a source is "reliable", but reliability depends on how you use it, not just on its characteristics. (What we mean, when we say things like "Is this reliable?" is something like, "Is this reliable, assuming that it's being used properly to support appropriately encyclopedic statements?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 11 August 2014 (UTC)
Yes, this ( "Is this reliable, assuming that it's being used properly to support appropriately encyclopedic statements?" ) is what we are talking about here. Should a list be kept, on Wikipedia someplace, that helps editors compile known sites for things like writing "pseudo news" articles that freely republish Wikipedia articles as if they are news, and asif the material is original reporting by that site?
I think it would be helpful to have such a list. As it is now, each editor is left to their own memory/research to figure out that some sources are shaky in their publishing practices. I think that is unfortunate, as we ought to all learn from the experience and previous research of other editors, where consensus might be gained, and help A LOT of us, and in the process, make Wikipedia a better encyclopedia. N2e (talk) 17:33, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
- I don't believe that this is realistic. You're talking about thousands of hours of work, and that's not counting time to deal with the disputes over whether this or that should be on the list.
- I don't believe that this is wise, because some sources that are reliable in context will be mindlessly rejected because "it's on the bad source list". WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
Government Sources
Hi. I have a question about the reliability of government sources. I've noticed several government sources in articles (e.g. NASA in astronomy-related articles; HMIe reports in UK education-related articles; RCAHMS in articles on Scottish monuments; etc.). My question is, are all sources produced by a government considered to be reliable? For example, I consider the information produced by my government to be reliable, but wouldn't place the same trust in the government of North Korea - that's not to say Wikipedia feels the same. Conversely, it's possible Wikipedia doesn't consider any government sources to be reliable. Thank you in advance for your help. --Adam Black talk • contribs • uploads • logs 17:36, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
- I have reposted this at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard as it seems like the more appropriate place to post this question. --Adam Black talk • contribs • uploads • logs 18:34, 23 August 2014 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 24 August 2014
KenoshaMike (talk) 12:44, 24 August 2014 (UTC) Craig T. Nelson's film history does not include his role as Sam in Wonder Woman Season 3 Episode 3 entitled The Deadly Sting
- Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. This is also the wrong page for this request Cannolis (talk) 12:56, 24 August 2014 (UTC)
RfC: Is Westeros.org an expert SPS?
There is an RfC at Oathkeeper regarding whether the site Westeros.org meets the criteria for an expert self-published source (and is therefore suitable for use on Wikipedia). It is being cited as a source for the statement "This episode was based on [specific chapters of] [specific book]." This article is likely to be affected by the outcome. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:34, 2 September 2014 (UTC)