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Contents
- 1 Are they reliable sources
- 2 Patrick Agte on Jochen Peiper (WWII)
- 3 Pride of Tamil Cinema
- 4 Nerdly?
- 5 Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content
- 6 Tampa Tribune vs. Yahoo! News in Personal life section of Graig Weich
- 7 Reason Magazine at David Lisak
- 8 The Daily Mail: When are we finally going to decide that enough is enough?
- 9 Mayweather–Pacquiao / PPV figures
- 10 Direct democracy Ireland
- 11 Use of advocacy orgs as sources in Campus sexual assault article.
- 12 Local sources, local coverage
- 13 IMDB for some things, but not for others?
- 14 Merchant sources as a source
- 15 Irish Travellers
- 16 Is Donald Trump a RS for Donald Trump's political positions? Is his *campaign staff* a RS for his political platform?
Are they reliable sources
http://www.sps-automotive.com/en_sps/track/07Nt_zonda.html http://twinrev.com/cars/Fastest-Production-car-supercars-20.6km-Nurburgring-lap-times-under-9-03.30-7119945 http://www.mobisux.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=3096509 http://fastestlaps.com/tracks/nordschleife http://www.zeperfs.com/en/classement-ci1.htm I have verified nurburgring laptimes in those site all the laptimes existing there seem to be correct.
Patrick Agte on Jochen Peiper (WWII)
Article: Joachim Peiper
Source: Agte, Patrick (2000). Jochen Peiper: Commander Panzerregiment Leibstandarte. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing. ISBN 0-921991-46-0.
Content that the source is supporting:
- In 1934, during the annual Nuremberg Rally Peiper gained the attention of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler convinced him to enlist in the SS-Verfügungstruppe [1] ....
- He developed the tactic of attacking enemy-held villages by night from all sides while advancing in his armored half-tracks at full speed, firing at every building. This tactic often set the building's straw roofs on fire and contributed to panic among enemy troops. Peiper's unit gained the nickname the "Blowtorch Battalion" as a result.[2]
- Exploiting the confusion among the enemy, the battalion advanced on Leninskij and broke the last resistance. By an immediate advance, he inflicted heavy losses on the enemy which was fleeing through open fields. The battalion destroyed one T-34, six guns 7.62 and captured 300 horses. Three sledge columns were routed. The enemy casualties amounted about to anywhere from 800 to 900. SS-Sturmbannführer Peiper has distinguished himself in all these fights by a sensible command of his battalion and personal bravery and has proven himself worthy of the Deutsches Kreuz in Gold.[3][4]
- Peiper had just started writing a book about Malmedy and what followed.[5]
References
The work in question - Jochen Peiper: Commander Panzerregiment Leibstandarte - has been referred to as hagiography in Parker, Danny S. (2014). Hitler's Warrior: The Life and Wars of SS Colonel Jochen Peiper. ISBN 978-0306821547. Agte is referred to as a "Neo-nazi" in Rethinking the Space for Religion by Catharina Raudvere and al.
It should also be noted that Agte was closely associated with Waffen-SS revisionist organisation HIAG. Perceived by the West German government to be a Nazi organization, it was disbanded in 1992, per Levenda, Peter (2014). The Hitler Legacy. ISBN 978-0892542109. HIAG's periodical Der Freiwillige (De wikipedia) (The Volunteer), continued on and Agte was (is?) its publisher. He is the current owner of Munin Verlag GmbH, a right-wing extremist German publishing company (De wikipedia). -- K.e.coffman (talk) 18:40, 4 December 2015 (UTC)
- Books published by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing have been described as 'romancing' Nazi Germany's war effort [1], and I would't treat them as reliable sources. The other commentary relating to this source and its author should rule it out IMO. Nick-D (talk) 07:07, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- I have two books they have published (not this one) and can tell you that not all of their books meet that opinion stated; but in this case, I would agree that Agte is shown to clearly not be one writing from an NPOV standpoint or objectively on the subject. There are other objective books on Peiper which can be used for sources/citing instead. Kierzek (talk) 12:43, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Pride of Tamil Cinema
This Indian National Award winning book by G. Dhananjayan, besides many factually incorrect claims, contains considerable plagiarism from our articles. I have not read the whole book, but some examples include the chapters about Karnan, Pavalakkodi and Vallinam. Those who have read the book to any extent, like Vensatry and Ssven2 (when your internet improves) are encouraged to participate in this discussion. Kailash29792 (talk) 16:41, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- If you prove lots of plagiarism from Wikipedia I would say no because Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source. It wouldn't have a reputation for fact checking. DreamGuy (talk) 17:37, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
- DreamGuy, "no" to what? The book being reliable or not? Kailash29792 (talk) 08:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
You never even gave us the name of the book, just the author, a claim that it's inaccurate and plagiarizes and some chapters.No one is going to be able to make an opinion without some details and some examples of what it's being used for. What specific claims are you questioning? -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:41, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- DreamGuy, "no" to what? The book being reliable or not? Kailash29792 (talk) 08:11, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
- At Karnan (film) now, it's being cited for his opinion that it's "only Tamil film which portrayed the mythological character Karnan in a grand manner." (footnote 40) which is closer to puffery than particularly enlightening. It's also cited for a view that the performance was from another film and "not well received" (probably could just cite author directly), for a quote by another critic and for the writers, and editor. Is the quote inaccurate? Are the writer and editor inaccurate? The two opinions could be kept or cut, as I don't know how his personal opinion would be inaccurate of himself. No citations to Pavalakkodi (either version) nor at Vallinam so I'm just puzzled here at this. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
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- The author has written two books: The Best of Tamil Cinema (in 2 volumes) and Pride of Tamil Cinema, a single book. Right now we are dealing with the latter book, which can be viewed through Google preview. Kailash29792 (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Ricky81682, can you see how much of the book is available on Google books preview? Or should I photograph each suspected chapter and show you? Kailash29792 (talk) 11:42, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- The author has written two books: The Best of Tamil Cinema (in 2 volumes) and Pride of Tamil Cinema, a single book. Right now we are dealing with the latter book, which can be viewed through Google preview. Kailash29792 (talk) 08:28, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Nerdly?
Would any of you consider Nerdly to be usable? I've read the site in the past and offhand they look to be usable enough. They do have an editorial board and they've received some mention in the media for things like this. The site's editor, Phil Wheat, wrote for Blogomatic3000, which was listed as a source in "Phil+Wheat"&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwid2ZOdgMzJAhVDVD4KHY4fB6UQ6AEITjAJ#v=onepage&q=%22Phil%20Wheat%22&f=false this academic text.
The reason I'm asking is that this being seen as a RS would greatly help with the deletion discussion for Assassin (2015 film) and would actually enable the film to pass notability guidelines. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 10:06, 8 December 2015 (UTC)
- Not sure where you discovered that Phil Wheat wrote for Blogomatic3000. If you could provide a link to confirm that would be great. If in fact he is a reputable editor, then I'd say yes, Nerdly could be used as a reliable source. Meatsgains (talk) 03:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Non-peer-reviewed paper used as sole source for two paragraphs of empirical content
At Talk:Genetically_modified_fish#Unreliable_source.3F a discussion has occurred where an editor User:DrChrissy with known WP:OWN problems is insisting their preferred content is okay.
The controversy is that the following source is used as the sole citation for two paragraphs that make a variety of empirical claims about the characteristics of genetically engineered fish:
- Kirkden, R. and Broom, D.M. (2012). "Welfare of genetically modified and cloned animals used for food" (PDF). Retrieved November 30, 2015.
The source in question is a report that apparently did not receive peer review and was "commissioned by Compassion in World Farming and made possible by a grant from the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA)." This is dubious at best. I suggest either finding a new source for the content that it footnotes or removing the content altogether.
The person who wrote the content and included the source refuses to accept that peer-review is necessary for the content, in spite of WP:SCHOLARSHIP.
Cross-posted to WP:FTN.
jps (talk) 02:08, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- The article is by Donald Broom who is a recognized expert in animal welfare and published by Compassion in World Farming a reputable advocacy group for animal welfare. The World Society for the Protection of Animals, now called World Animal Protection appears to be reputable too. There is nothing requiring peer-reviewed writing for sources. It could be that there is a weight problem but that is better discussed at the NPOV noticeboard. TFD (talk) 02:31, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- Why can I not find a peer-reviewed article that corroborates the claim? Isn't that a WP:REDFLAG? jps (talk) 02:46, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
It would have been helpful if you had mentioned which claim you dispute. However, the first claim in the Wikipedia article sourced to Broom says, "In transgenic fast-growing fish genetically modified for growth hormone, the mosaic founder fish vary greatly in their growth rate." That claim is made in Broom's paper (section 7.3.1.1) and is sourced to two peer reviewed articles:
- Devlin, R.H., Yesaki, T.Y., Donaldson, E.M. and Hew, C.-L. 1995. "Transmission and phenotypic effects of an antifreeze/GH gene construct in coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)." Aquaculture, 137: 161-169.
- Nam, Y.K. et al. 2002. "Accelerated growth performance and stable germ-line transmission in androgenetically derived homozygous transgenic mud loach, Misgurnus mizlepis." Aquaculture, 209: 257-270.
TFD (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I was looking through those sources, but I don't think that the statement in question which is meant to claim a variance from what is expected are well-supported by these citations. What do you think? jps (talk) 23:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- I think you are wasting everyone's time. If your position is that the secondary source was not supported in its peer-reviewed sources, you should have said that to begin with. TFD (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- I could be wrong. Part of the reason we insist on peer-review so strongly is to avoid poor scholarship. If you disagree with my assessment of the sources you provided, I'm happy to have the discussion. Ideally, we would replace a non-peer-reviewed source with a peer-reviewed one, but I haven't seen any offered that support the text in question -- including the ones that you mentioned which are cited in the non-peer-reviewed source. jps (talk) 03:57, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- I think you are wasting everyone's time. If your position is that the secondary source was not supported in its peer-reviewed sources, you should have said that to begin with. TFD (talk) 23:50, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- I was looking through those sources, but I don't think that the statement in question which is meant to claim a variance from what is expected are well-supported by these citations. What do you think? jps (talk) 23:34, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
You need peer-reviewed sources to back up scientific facts. See WP:SCIRS. I pointed out that there doesn't seem to be any peer-reviewed sources that back up the claims in the two paragraphs. That is a WP:REDFLAG. You tried to offer two, but I pointed out that they don't really back up the claims. So basically it is your WP:RANDY outlook which is preventing us from moving forward with figuring out whether this stuff is actually reliably sourced or not. jps (talk) 07:16, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
The OP had already been informed[2] by an independent editor that peer-review is not required, before bringing this to the noticeboard here. Wasting time? DrChrissy (talk) 00:01, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Peer review is explicitly mentioned at WP:SCHOLARSHIP.
- Would this editor please sign their post and perhaps indicate what they mean by this. It might be mentioned on the page, but does this mean that peer-review is not needed?DrChrissy (talk) 01:02, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
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- SCIRS is an essay, not a policy or guideline. Again, you should have mentioned it in your initial post. Instead, you keep bringing up new arguments when your initial ones fail. TFD (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- I have been perfectly consistent. That you have not been able to verify the factual claims in the article is the entire point. jps (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- The source you are disputing is a review article (secondary source) of primary sources. The factual content is all verifiable in the primary sources cited therein. I personally would prefer to cite the primary sources, but as WP editors, we are encouraged to use secondary sources.DrChrissy (talk) 23:09, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- I have been perfectly consistent. That you have not been able to verify the factual claims in the article is the entire point. jps (talk) 22:54, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- SCIRS is an essay, not a policy or guideline. Again, you should have mentioned it in your initial post. Instead, you keep bringing up new arguments when your initial ones fail. TFD (talk) 17:43, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
Tampa Tribune vs. Yahoo! News in Personal life section of Graig Weich
Hi. I don't want to load too many redundant citations at the end of a passage, particularly when the sources say pretty much the thing (presumably because both are derived from the same AP source). So for this passage (and for future reference), which would be the stronger, more reliable source, if either: Yahoo! News, or the Tampa Tribune? Nightscream (talk) 20:16, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Since both stories are wire reports from the Associated Press, including the pictures, the best source would be the Associated Press article, otherwise they are both equal. Both are redistributed wire reports with no staff actually adding any journalistic value. Lipsquid (talk) 21:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- If you source AP, then you should also say where you got it. But the newspaper source says that staff were involved in writing it, which could means is probably not exactly the same as the original. TFD (talk) 21:59, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
Reason Magazine at David Lisak
Is Reason, a libertarian think tank and magazine known for its longstanding opposition to anti-rape activism, a reliable source to support over one quarter of the biography of David Lisak, a prominent researcher of rape? Jvpwiki argues that the claims sourced to Reason are not disparaging but only "raised some questions about the subject's activities" and also argues that it's fine since the controversy section is shorter than the section on the BLP subject's research; while I argue that in order to claim that "controversy" about Lisak's research exists at all, reliable sources must first be cited, and then due weight must be observed according to the quality of the sources. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 23:03, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- I don't think it's accurate to call Reason "opposed to anti-rape activism". Even if you believe it's true, it doesn't help make your point here. This is the version and text @Jvpwiki: wants included for reference. I think Reason is a reliable source for Reason's reporter's personal conduct (probably an WP:UNDUE issue here though) and if there's actually links to articles, the actual criticism seems to be from a Dr. Mary P. Koss at the University of Arizona. So the question is, is Koss a reliable source or does Koss have a WP:FRINGE view in criticizing Lisak's work? Reason seems to be the middleman here. There's also Talk:David_Lisak#Restore_deleted_material for reference where a 3rd opinion seemed to support Jvpwiki. It needs to be tightened to focus on Koss to me who seems to be a reliable source. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 23:17, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
- There's also the issue of due weight. Even if a controversy sourced entirely to Reason can be included at all, Jvp's edit makes it one quarter of the article - compare the varied and reliable sourcing for the information about his research. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Reason falls under WP:BIASED (if one is charitable), but the way it's being used here by Jvpwiki is a massive violation of due weight. Massive. MastCell Talk 00:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- David Lisak's work has had a huge influence on how allegations of sexual assault are being handled on campus and elsewhere. The fates of thousands are affected. Valid questions have been raised in academic quarters and elsewhere about the methodology and application of that work. (Example: follow-up interviews of anonymous subjects.) I take no stand in my editing; for example I removed the word "alleged" from the original article's report of the research because of its implied bias. I added a report of the controversy in a concise way. If the complaint is that the controversy section has too many words, then please make that clear; how many need to be excised, in your opinion? Roscelese is simply deleting anything that could be construed as negative regarding the research. This is censorship more than editing. His original deletions included several segments of the original article prior to my edits because, again, they implied a critique of the research. When I restored the cuts after making further edits in an attempt to mollify him, he has reverted over and over, each time adding various insults in arrogant tones. I turned to 3O using a neutral description of the issue and the editor who replied concurred that the controversy should be included in the article. It is not the article that is controversial; the article includes information about a significant controversy. JCvP 02:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Then provide sources about said "questions" being raised. Academic sources. And no, a reporter remarking that he was hung up upon when he bugged the guy doesn't count. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- David Lisak's work has had a huge influence on how allegations of sexual assault are being handled on campus and elsewhere. The fates of thousands are affected. Valid questions have been raised in academic quarters and elsewhere about the methodology and application of that work. (Example: follow-up interviews of anonymous subjects.) I take no stand in my editing; for example I removed the word "alleged" from the original article's report of the research because of its implied bias. I added a report of the controversy in a concise way. If the complaint is that the controversy section has too many words, then please make that clear; how many need to be excised, in your opinion? Roscelese is simply deleting anything that could be construed as negative regarding the research. This is censorship more than editing. His original deletions included several segments of the original article prior to my edits because, again, they implied a critique of the research. When I restored the cuts after making further edits in an attempt to mollify him, he has reverted over and over, each time adding various insults in arrogant tones. I turned to 3O using a neutral description of the issue and the editor who replied concurred that the controversy should be included in the article. It is not the article that is controversial; the article includes information about a significant controversy. JCvP 02:36, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Reason falls under WP:BIASED (if one is charitable), but the way it's being used here by Jvpwiki is a massive violation of due weight. Massive. MastCell Talk 00:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- There's also the issue of due weight. Even if a controversy sourced entirely to Reason can be included at all, Jvp's edit makes it one quarter of the article - compare the varied and reliable sourcing for the information about his research. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 00:27, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Reason entries are almost all commentaries rather than news reports and therefore are not reliable for facts. While anything written there is a reliable source for what its author wrote, weight prevents use in most cases. Also, the value of a scholar's academic work should be assessed by its reception in the academic literature, not what columnists think. TFD (talk) 01:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Let me add one more observation, this particular Reason article mostly reports on the reporter's own investigation and analysis, that is, what she did, observed, and concluded (for example, using one thing that was pointed out in the addition to the Wikipedia article, the statement that Lisak ended the call after she asked a particular question is the reporter's observation of something that happened to her). As a report by a first party participant, this Reason article is mostly and perhaps entirely a primary source and subject to the restrictions set out in that policy, most importantly, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." (Emphasis in original.) It is also subject to the BLP policy section on primary sources which says to, "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources." Thus, to extend the prior example, characterizing Lisaks' ending the call (which is what was stated in the Reason article) as "Lisak hung up the phone" is an improper and incautious interpretation of the source. I express no opinion about the reliability of the Reason article and these observations are based upon the assumption that is is reliable. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 02:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Reason could be compared to Salon, which has been cited over 17,000 times and is considered a reliable source in general even though its "entries are almost all commentaries rather than news reports". Reason has been cited over 1,100 times. I'm not in sympathy with its politics, but I assume that should not disqualify it as a source for a significant part of an article. JCvP 02:41, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- The article referred to by TransporterMan cites other sources and is not a primary source unless investigative journalism as such is primary. A full professor at the University of Arizona is cited (Prof. Koss, who is not the author of the article) and her scholarly objections to the methods of research and their promotion are detailed in the article. JCvP 02:47, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- And much of investigative journalism is, indeed, a primary source. To the extent that the reporter merely repeats or reports upon what someone else has done, however, then it's a secondary source. A piece can be primary in part and secondary in part. In reading through the piece quickly, I was left with the impression that it was, as I said, mostly primary, but on a closer analysis it may well indeed only be partly primary. But even if it is primary that doesn't mean that it cannot be used if the conclusion here is that it is, in general, a reliable source and if the restrictions imposed by PRIMARY and BLPPRIMARY are observed. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 20:23, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- The Koss et al. paper which is one of the bases behind the Reason article certainly meets minimal standards for academic writings, but it is quite new and untested in terms of its impact. It's too much to base a "controversy" section on this; you would need a wider spread of sources for that, and in particular third-party non-participants. OTOH there is a smell of "anyone who disagrees with the orthodox position is of course insignificant" to this dispute. At any rate this is a biography and not an article about date rape etc., so it would be questionable to go heavily into this unless the "controversy" came to be associated with Lisak's personal "failings". Mangoe (talk) 02:58, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Agreed. At best we have a single sentence that a reliable academic paper questions or disputes. A controversy section is beyond overblown here. -- Ricky81682 (talk) 06:59, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- Let me add one more observation, this particular Reason article mostly reports on the reporter's own investigation and analysis, that is, what she did, observed, and concluded (for example, using one thing that was pointed out in the addition to the Wikipedia article, the statement that Lisak ended the call after she asked a particular question is the reporter's observation of something that happened to her). As a report by a first party participant, this Reason article is mostly and perhaps entirely a primary source and subject to the restrictions set out in that policy, most importantly, "Do not analyze, evaluate, interpret, or synthesize material found in a primary source yourself; instead, refer to reliable secondary sources that do so. Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." (Emphasis in original.) It is also subject to the BLP policy section on primary sources which says to, "Exercise extreme caution in using primary sources." Thus, to extend the prior example, characterizing Lisaks' ending the call (which is what was stated in the Reason article) as "Lisak hung up the phone" is an improper and incautious interpretation of the source. I express no opinion about the reliability of the Reason article and these observations are based upon the assumption that is is reliable. Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 02:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Linda M. LeFauve is not a reporter, she is described as a "contributor" to Reason and her full-time position is Associate Vice President for Planning and Institutional Research at Davidson College, which is an administrative position. And while the Koss et al paper qualifies as a reliable source, there is an issue of weight and we would need to show the degree of support it has. If a story is picked up only in non-mainstream writing, it usually means it lacks weight for inclusion, but that is beyond the scope of this noticeboard. TFD (talk) 18:18, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Reason is, as I understand it, an advocacy outlet, not a newspaper -- it's mostly opinion pieces. It can sometimes be cited for its own opinions, but the extent to which it's used here is clearly grossly WP:UNDUE, since their view in most things is generally WP:FRINGE. When something is covered only by them, it should get a sentence or two at most, generally attributed to them directly as their opinion. --Aquillion (talk) 21:03, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
The Daily Mail: When are we finally going to decide that enough is enough?
- http://tumblr.thefjp.org/post/10989510473/daily-mail-amanda-knox
- http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2011/oct/04/dailymail-amanda-knox
- http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/daily-mail-guuilt/
- http://www.fullstory.co/2pvfe (searchable text copy of the story in question)
This isn't the first time The Daily Mail has straight-out fabricated a news story. Even if they had guessed right on the verdict, the story was pre-written and was in no way an actual report of what happened. When are we finally going to say that we have had enough of this and declare The Daily Mail to be an inherently unreliable source? When are we going to decide once and for all that if something is in The Daily Mail the editor must find another source, and that if it is only in The Daily Mail we have no idea whether it actually happened as reported? --Guy Macon (talk) 14:11, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- I agree, it should not be considered an RS source herein. Kierzek (talk) 14:31, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Sorry - no newspaper is a good source for celebrity gossip at all ("instant analysis" included)-- but that does not mean the DM is to be ruled out as a reliable source otherwise. This has been discussed it seems dozens of times - and the consensus here has never been to blacklist the newspaper. Cheers. Collect (talk) 18:24, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- Have to agree with Collect. I hate the Daily Mail, but they do sometimes have real reporting - e.g. sending reporters on patrol with units in Afghanistan [3]. -Darouet (talk) 18:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
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- [Edit Conflict] I don't think it is stretching a point at all.
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- "As Knox realised the enormity of what judge Hellman was saying she sank into her chair sobbing uncontrollably while her family and friends hugged each other in tears. A few feet away Meredith's mother Arline, her sister Stephanie and brother Lyle, who had flown in especially for the verdict remained expressionless, staring straight ahead, glancing over just once at the distraught Knox family. Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict and said that 'justice has been done' although they said on a 'human factor it was sad two young people would be spending years in jail'." --The Daily Mail
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- Did The Guardian or any other source other than The Daily Mail provide a totally fabricated detailed eyewitness description of the reaction to the verdict that never happened? Did they fabricate a direct quote from the prosecutors? Remember, that fake direct quote would still be up on the web if not for them getting the verdict wrong, and Wikipedia could have used that direct quote as if the prosecutors had actually said that -- supported by a "reliable source" that flat out lies about things.
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- "Following the verdict Knox and [Raphael] Sollecito were taken out of court escorted by prison guards and into a waiting van which took her back to her cell at Capanne jail near Perugia and him to Terni jail, 60 miles away. Both will be put on a suicide watch for the next few days as psychological assessments are made on each of them but this is usual practice for long term prisoners." --The Daily Mail
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- Did The Guardian or any other source other than The Daily Mail provide a totally fabricated ride in a van and a totally fabricated suicide watch?
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- No, this is not the same thing as getting the verdict wrong and reporting that wrong verdict. This is hard evidence that The Daily Mail fabricates quotes and events, and an excellent reason why we should never allow The Daily Mail as a source.
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- It shows that breaking news is frequently wrong. In this case the reporter heard she was held guilty of slander and assumed she was held guilty of murder. In the Obamacare verdict, most media heard that Roberts CJ had written the opinion and determined that it ruled against the U.S. government. In 2000, news media declared Gore had won the U.S. presidential election. These errors however get corrected, which is why these sources are reliable. TFD (talk) 23:34, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
More fabrication by The Daily Mail:
- http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/people/2014/07/09/george-clooney-daily-mail-exclusive-statement-response/12368061/
- http://www.snopes.com/isis-bans-pigeon-genitals/
- http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150826/nation-current-affairs/article/jumbo-torture-%E2%80%98fabricated%E2%80%99
- http://tktk.gawker.com/my-year-ripping-off-the-web-with-the-daily-mail-online-1689453286
- http://www.lolwot.com/10-completely-fabricated-stories-published-by-the-daily-mail/
- http://listverse.com/2015/06/23/10-egregiously-false-stories-in-the-daily-mail/
- http://www.buzzfeed.com/alanwhite/how-a-fake-story-ruined-three-peoples-lives
And yes, I did puposely include several non-reliable (but better than The Daily Mail!) sources in the above list. I wanted to see if any of the DM supporters could point that out without imploding from the irony. :) --Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- In your first link, George Clooney said a false story was "picked up by hundreds of other outlets citing the Daily Mail as their source." You need to either get these sources to stop using the DM or persuade us to eliminate any news media that uses DM. We get back to how news media are not 100% accurate but they are the most reliable sources for what happened five minutes ago. I never can understand why editors want to update articles with what happened five minutes ago, when reporting may change moments later and readers are more likely to go to news sources for breaking news. But at least errors soon found are corrected. TFD (talk) 06:49, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
PCC Censures UK Daily Mail for Fabricated Amanda Knox Story
by Sydney Smith, writing for iMediaEthics
"UK print regulatory body the Press Complaints Commission “censured” the Daily Mail for its October 3 fake story reporting the wrong verdict in American student Amanda Knox’s trial, the Guardian’s Roy Greenslade reported. As we wrote at the time, soon after an Italian court found Knox not guilty in the murder of her roommate, the Mail published a story with the wrong verdict saying she had been found guilty. Shortly after publication, the Mail pulled the story from its website. The Mail published a story with the correct verdict (not guilty) and apologized for the error.
According to Greenslade, in response to the incident, the Mail started an internal review into the incident and “disciplined the person responsible for the error.” We wrote Oct. 5 about the announcement of the Mail’s internal review. The Mail claimed that the article was up only for 30 seconds, however, Seattle Weekly said the article was up for about half an hour.
Possibly most egregious, the Daily Mail’s article included quotes from prosecutors on the (fake) guilty ruling and reported on Knox’s reaction to the (fake) guilty ruling. The PCC’s ruling (see here) said that complainants questioned those quotes from prosecutors about the verdict of guilty, and a description of what happened after the guilty verdict. According to the PCC, the complaints were made by “members of the public.”
The PCC’s ruling noted that the Daily Mail claimed the quotations “had been obtained from the prosecution in advance of the trial.” However, even if that is true, iMediaEthics notes that there is no possible way for the Mail to explain away its claim that Knox “looked stunned” in response to the phony guilty verdict. That part of the story was clearly fabricated and a guess on behalf of the Daily Mail as to how Knox would react."
Source: http://www.imediaethics.org/pcc-censures-uk-daily-mail-for-fabricated-amanda-knox-story/ (emphasis added)
--Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Wasn't there some discussion of creating a list of perennial sources, similar to WP:ELPEREN? DM should be on it, with strong cautions against using it, especially in BLPs. --Ronz (talk) 00:39, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- I have no motivation to get embroiled in this again. But, what I would like to say is that content editors must have strong guidance here. I used the Daily Mail as a source a while ago, I was criticised for it, then decided to discuss this on the RS talk pages. This was a HUGE time-sink for me and others. And I only found out after that I was one of a string of editors who had similarly raised such questions. A clear decision (whichever way that goes) and guidance for editors would be a massive step forward. Please do this.DrChrissy (talk) 00:47, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
This has been discussed far too many times - and the answer remains the same - the Daily Mail and all newspapers have problems with celebrity news, but the statistics show that for other news the Daily Mail is just about the same as all newspapers - the desire to blacklist this source is simply contrary to the intent of WP:RS. And like all sources, any given claim may be given weight depending on the nature of the claim, but not on a bias that one does not like the source - I hold the same for "Russia Today", the "New York Daily News", "Huffington Post" etc. and basically all printed or media sources. And one major problem is that virtually none of them do any fact-checking at all, and most rely heavily on press releases. Perhaps we should say "no newspapers are actually reliable sources if they have no fact-checkers working at the newspaper" but that would mean we dump the New York Times etc. as well. Recall that major newspapers reported on an "amphibious" baseball player ... Collect (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I agree with Collect. Yes, there are some ridiculous publications in Daily Mail, and I have seen some ridiculous publications in Nature (journal). Yes, Daily Mail is a much less reliable source than Nature, sure, but that does not make any of these sources inherently/completely unreliable. One must simply use multiple sources, especially with regard to sensational, controversial or unusual claims. My very best wishes (talk) 06:00, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- So they are a member of the PCC which investigates all claims of inaccuracy against them. I would agree that in cases where the DM changes a story or the PCC finds it inaccurate that we should not use the original article. Otherwise there is no problem. TFD (talk) 06:57, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- There's a difference between "inaccurate" and "invented whole-cloth". This article covers why what the Daily Mail did here was so much worse than the errors you're listing. Someone working for them sat down and deliberately concocted fake quotes to pad out the article. Someone else approved and uploaded it, in advance, getting it ready for publication even though the quotes in it could clearly only have been falsified. Pre-writing articles for key events that can go one way or the other is normal (such as for an obituary or election victory, where you can cover major past events in the timeline without having to invent any facts and can therefore easily have something ready for publication the moment the core question is decided); but deliberately inventing facts for them is different, and the way it happened here clearly throws the Daily Mail's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy into question. Everyone makes simple factual errors now and then, but for a paper with obviously concocted quotes to be ready for publication the instant the verdict came down heavily implies that the Daily Mail is either performing no editorial oversight whatsoever, or that its editorial oversight is hopelessly inadequate. While of course reliability is contextual, either one would mean that it is generally not usable as an WP:RS. No one event can decide these sorts of things, of course, but can you honestly say that the Daily Mail has a "reputation for fact-checking or accuracy?" --Aquillion (talk) 20:55, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
Mayweather–Pacquiao / PPV figures
Multiple sources since September have reported the pay-per-view figure of Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao to be 4.6 million sales. Initial estimates were 4.4 million. However, User:TwoNyce disagrees and insists on sticking with the original 4.4 million figure at the Floyd Mayweather, Jr. article. He has twice reverted my edits to reflect the new figures, and claims he will keep doing so. Therefore, I present a handful of reliable and recent sources which all state 4.6 million as the sales figure:
- Yahoo! Sports: "Espinoza said sales of that fight are now up to 4.6 million, which is where he expects them to settle."
- ESPN: "The pay-per-view sales record for that fight has been amended from the originally announced 4.4 million buys to 4.6 million."
- Business Insider: "Mayweather's previous fight against Manny Pacquiao drew 4.6 million PPV sales."
- International Business Times: "... Mayweather's May 2 mega-bout with Pacquiao, which generated 4.6 million buys. "
Must I produce even more to convince him to let my edits stick? Mac Dreamstate (talk) 15:56, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
- ESPN is a top tier source for sports info, and it explicitly updates the figure from 4.4 to 4.6. The multiple sourcing clearly shows this isn't some anomalous report. I'm baffled why someone would resist updating explicitly amended figures. Alsee (talk) 01:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Direct democracy Ireland
on the DDI page there is alot of unreliable information which is not allowed to be edited.Railsparks (talk) 20:13, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
"Right-wing" no evidence and it is not even mentioned in any of the referencesRailsparks (talk) 21:35, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
fair enough right-wing is mentioned once but its to do with another political not even in ireland,just because you try to compare one party to another that does not make them right-wing or left-wing as i said before there is no evidence to substantiate the claim that DDI is right-wing "Would you agree on that point"Railsparks (talk) 23:00, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
Use of advocacy orgs as sources in Campus sexual assault article.
A couple of editors have recently insisted on large content additions to the that pull exclusively from Know Your IX and End Sexual Violence organizations. Sample edits by a new, single issue editor include [4] and [5] by one editor. After the content was removed due to WP:RS concerns by me, another predominantly single editor issue editor restored it [6].
- Know Your IX describes itself as here.
- End Sexual Violence describes itself here.
Are these reliable sources?Mattnad (talk) 00:38, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- Query seems to conflate reliability with bias. Inclusion or exclusion of this content is an editorial decision that should be decided on the article talk page. VQuakr (talk) 01:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- As VQuakr notes, there's no firm rule against citing advocacy sources, and you yourself have included several citations from advocacy sources in that very article. I think there portions of those additions that could use some editing, but I reverted you because it seemed like you undid several workable edits while providing nothing more than an edit summary that appeared to misapprehend the rule it cited. It seems hasty to bring this to a noticeboard before making any effort to discuss it on the talk page.
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- As a side note: all first time editors are "single issue editors" by definition, and maybe it would be better to offer some friendly advice and mentorship rather than biting the newcomer. Nblund (talk) 02:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- As it happens, I did provide the new editor with friendly advice with a detailed explanation on his or her talk page. And let's be clear, you've argue against including material from rights organizations unless it's covered in a reliable source like a newspaper, and then only if it's characterized as opinion (which I'm fine with). You didn't have the same reservations with the material when you wholesale reverted it back into the article until you thought better of it later and removed it.Mattnad (talk) 15:56, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- As a side note: all first time editors are "single issue editors" by definition, and maybe it would be better to offer some friendly advice and mentorship rather than biting the newcomer. Nblund (talk) 02:51, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
Local sources, local coverage
In Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nextiva Inc. and a number of other recent AfDs I've been involved in, editors have used the argument that a source is "local" against it. For example "Local newspapers are similarly unreliable with local firms" and the dismissal of The Arizona Republic as a "local" source. I don't understand this negative view of local sources, and it's not written up in any of the policies and essays about sources that I can find. I've also searched the archives on this page and have found some similar examples of bias against "local" sources.
So what is it about local sources that is negative? How do we define what is a local source? The Arizona Republic is in the top 25 newspaper by circulation in the US, so it's hardly a fly-by-night operation. Why isn't the supposed concern about "local" sources written up in any of our policies? I'm confused and would appreciate some input. Sbwoodside (talk) 03:55, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- WP:AUD is a relevant section of the notability guideline for organizations that helps to define the term. VQuakr (talk) 04:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
- The issue was whether coverage in local papers only can establish notability. They can provided the coverage is extensive and ongoing. If a local paper runs a story about a new business set up in town, which they frequently do, it does not establish notability. TFD (talk) 17:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
IMDB for some things, but not for others?
There have been many threads about IMDB on this page. I did an archive search and found some varying opinions. While I did not look through every page that mentions Imdb, I came to the conclusion that either there's no clear consensus except that it's often unreliable. But perhaps there is consensus and I'm just not seeing it.
The primary question is for what purposes do we consider Imdb a reliable source?
The specific example here is here. I removed Imdb as a reference from Mickey Rooney and Rms125a@hotmail.com reverted with edit summary "IMDB is QUITE unreliable re personal details/biodata, etc; but IMDb is QUITE reliable regarding credits, roles, etc".
I have not heard this blanket "Imdb is reliable for credits, roles, etc." argument before, and I can accept that perhaps my understanding of Imdb is incorrect but would like to make sure.
Based on some of the archived discussions, the secondary question is: what conditions, if any, must be in place for Imdb to be considered a reliable source for such purposes? For example, I saw mention of some sort of WGA certification or other indication that might exist on an Imdb page which makes it reliable? (I looked through a few profiles and haven't seen any such indicator -- perhaps it requires Imdb Pro?).
To add a little more context, there's some fishy business going on with some articles related to Warren Chaney. Many of the articles about his films and associates rely almost exclusively on user-generated content, publications for which there is no trace, and primary/self-published sources. Given the poor sourcing, I looked for pages linking to America: A Call to Greatness (the most egregiously promoted, by now-blocked sock puppets -- and indeed it was one of the socks who added the link to the Rooney article), and removed mention of the film where it only referenced Imdb and/or Americamovie.com (which was in every case). I'm going to ping a few other people not because I have any idea of where they stand regarding Imdb, but because the answer to this question would also affect their edits related to Chaney: @Tokyogirl79, NinjaRobotPirate, and Dbrodbeck: — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:03, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- IMDB is, in essence a wiki of sorts. It is user generated and not an RS as far as I am concerned. Dbrodbeck (talk) 17:13, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
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- In general this is covered by WP:USERGENERATED. Then specifically there is WP:RS/IMDB. The info at IMDB can be submitted by anyone. For me there biggest drawback is that their fact checking is woefully lacking. Also their is no accountability from the site that I can find. I can never get them to explain why they wont fix or delete something that is wrong. To be fair I have used the site for over a decade but I don't think it can or should be used as a reference for Wikipedia's purposes. I also think that it can't be used for some things and not others here at WikiP as there are too many problems that arise from that. Along with the current Chenay walledgarden mess these two hoaxes Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Bucharest Film Festival, Wikipedia:List of hoaxes on Wikipedia/Yuri Gadyukin were bolstered by their entries at IMDb and they weren't removed there until they were uncovered here. MarnetteD|Talk 17:20, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
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-
- @MarnetteD: WP:RS/IMDB (which redirects to Wikipedia:WikiProject_Film/Resources#Questionable_resources) is pretty clear about it, isn't it: "IMDb content is user-submitted and often subject to incorrect speculation and rumor. The use of the IMDb on Wikipedia for referencing is considered unacceptable and strongly discouraged".
- However, that page links to the essay that threw me off to begin with, Wikipedia:Citing IMDb, which does list some "appropriate uses". Yes, it's just an essay, but if it directly conflicts with consensus on the subject it should not be in the Wikipedia namespace. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 17:28, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping R. It looks like the Wikipedia:Citing IMDb hasn't had any serious updating in a couple years. It could probably use some :-) The film project used to have a large number of editors and, while it is still one of the more active wikiprojects, it does tend to have conversations that reach some form of WP:CONSENSUS but then the corresponding pages or MOS's don't get updated. I am not complaining - just trying to explain what you have encountered. MarnetteD|Talk 17:36, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've noticed that, too. I don't think WikiProject Film is very bureaucratic, and it tends to let conversations go without an official close. No, I don't think the IMDb is reliable for anything, and I've repeatedly said this here. The content is user-generated, and the site itself is specifically mentioned in WP:USERG as unreliable. The filmography section of the IMDb is no more reliable than any other part of it. Besides transcription errors from users that go uncorrected, I have seen people demonstrate the unreliability of the IMDb by inserting themselves into productions as cast members. The IMDb is untrustworthy because it encourages unsupervised input from the community, just like an open wiki. It is usually correct, but so is Wikipedia. We still don't allow Wikipedia as a reliable source. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- In my opinion, IMDb should not be cited on Wikipedia, but is useful for preliminary research. For example, if IMDb says a certain actor was in a certain film, a Google search including the actor name plus the film name is highl likely to uncover a superior source. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:50, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a very good point. By the way, I should mention that there are very specific areas of the IMDb that do have consensus as reliable. When the credits of a film are signed and validated by an official body, this is reliable. This would include when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) validates the writers' credits of a film. You can determine this by a badge next to the writers' credits that says (WGA). I am not aware of any other bodies that do this, but they could exist. I sometimes forget to mention this when I go off on a rant about the IMDb. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:11, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Ah. This is what I was referring to in my original post above. I saw the WGA thing mentioned but couldn't find any example of it. I suppose that's because I was looking at just the normal film pages whereas the (WGA) tag is only visible on the "Full Cast & Crew" page. For example, The Fountain has it, but Requiem for a Dream does not. Anybody know what goes into the cast listing heading of either "awaiting verification" or "verified complete"? For example, Dancer in the Dark is awaiting verification but Moon is "verified as complete" (quite an undertaking for that movie's ensemble) :) — Rhododendrites talk \\ 22:29, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, that's a very good point. By the way, I should mention that there are very specific areas of the IMDb that do have consensus as reliable. When the credits of a film are signed and validated by an official body, this is reliable. This would include when the Writers Guild of America (WGA) validates the writers' credits of a film. You can determine this by a badge next to the writers' credits that says (WGA). I am not aware of any other bodies that do this, but they could exist. I sometimes forget to mention this when I go off on a rant about the IMDb. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 22:11, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- In my opinion, IMDb should not be cited on Wikipedia, but is useful for preliminary research. For example, if IMDb says a certain actor was in a certain film, a Google search including the actor name plus the film name is highl likely to uncover a superior source. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 21:50, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Yeah, I've noticed that, too. I don't think WikiProject Film is very bureaucratic, and it tends to let conversations go without an official close. No, I don't think the IMDb is reliable for anything, and I've repeatedly said this here. The content is user-generated, and the site itself is specifically mentioned in WP:USERG as unreliable. The filmography section of the IMDb is no more reliable than any other part of it. Besides transcription errors from users that go uncorrected, I have seen people demonstrate the unreliability of the IMDb by inserting themselves into productions as cast members. The IMDb is untrustworthy because it encourages unsupervised input from the community, just like an open wiki. It is usually correct, but so is Wikipedia. We still don't allow Wikipedia as a reliable source. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:15, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping R. It looks like the Wikipedia:Citing IMDb hasn't had any serious updating in a couple years. It could probably use some :-) The film project used to have a large number of editors and, while it is still one of the more active wikiprojects, it does tend to have conversations that reach some form of WP:CONSENSUS but then the corresponding pages or MOS's don't get updated. I am not complaining - just trying to explain what you have encountered. MarnetteD|Talk 17:36, 12 December 2015 (UTC)
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- They check credits before inclusion[7] and it is used in the industry so I see no problem in using it for that. It is the most accessible source and any errors can be corrected by comparing them with credits actually displayed in films. I would not use them for detailed biographical data because they do not provide sources. And certainly user reviews should not be used. TFD (talk) 00:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: What you're saying seems at least in part at odds with what some other people are saying in this thread. For example, NinjaRobotPirate's anecdote about people demonstrating unreliability by getting themselves listed as part of a production. The impetus for this thread was a film for which verification itself is the biggest problem, with Imdb being one of the sources used most heavily to demonstrate the most basic information about it. So there's no way to correct any errors by comparing them with the credits displayed in the films, because nearly everything we know about the film comes from either Imdb or primary sources. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- They don't really check all that thoroughly. I can give you an excellent example of this: a couple of years ago some woman called Gretel Ashzinger created an IMDb profile for herself, claiming that she was going to be playing She-Hulk in the then-upcoming Captain America: Winter Soldier film. Not only that, but she also wrote that she'd given out some sort of major award, that she'd performed on multiple Disney soundtracks, and various other claims that were insanely easy to disprove because everything was fairly high profile. She was only discovered after she came on to Wikipedia to add the same hoax material on here and a bunch of us caught it fairly quickly. A couple of us reported this to IMDb and I think it still took them a few days to actually remove her profile. If they'd been properly checking credits then the profile would never have gotten onto IMDb in the first place. All they require for the profile or film creation process is a source. Her IMDb profile had some written in source but not an actual HTML link, which makes me believe that she just wrote some random thing out and whomever looked at the profile just shrugged and approved it without actually checking to see if the source was legit. (It wasn't, since it was something she tried to use on here.) Basically the TL;DNR of this is that IMDb does not have an adequate verification process to weed out fake material and it's actually not that difficult for people to sneak things past them, which is why it's taken with such a huge grain of salt on Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 04:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Just revisited Ashinger's (now deleted) article. Here's one of her claims: " In 2013, she then moved back to the U.S. in Los Angeles, California, with her first on-screen appearance being as an announcer for the live Grammy Awards best actresses." If I remember correctly, this was also on her IMDb profile and a look at that sentence should tell you how badly someone failed at verifying that profile. (Given that Grammys are music awards...) She also was supposed to have been on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., so someone really dropped the ball on that one. Basically, there's no way that claims of this nature shouldn't have been immediately caught by IMDb, yet it stayed up for an undetermined amount of time before it was finally caught by us here on Wikipedia. Mostly though I'm just saying this as a trip down memory lane because of how outlandish her claims were. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 04:56, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- As you say, they corrected the error. That is what makes it a reliable source. Unreliable sources do not do that. The top movie today, according to IMDB, is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. IMDB says it stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore are also given top billings. It came out 20 November, cost $160 million, has taken in $232 million, runs 137 min., is in color and has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.[8] Does anyone doubt that is probably true? TFD (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- They only corrected the error after several people pointed it out to them - I was one of the people who did this and it took them quite a while to actually remove it. In the meantime various places were reporting on this and openly saying that they thought that the claim was bogus. That they caught on to this and IMDb didn't doesn't really say great things about their overall quality checking, that they need someone to point out hoaxes like that. They don't really require much to create a page when it comes down to it and I've created a couple myself, to be honest. They only required one source and they didn't ask to see the source in question. As long as someone can create a legitimate sounding source name, they'll take it, as evidenced by Ashinger's profile and it won't be challenged until someone else points it out as problematic. Now when it comes to extremely high profile things, they're like Wikipedia - the higher profile something is, the more likely that any incorrect or false information will be detected. However with smaller things that get little to no information, it's more difficult for those to be caught. Until we hear back from the National Archives or until someone can find a good, authoritative source that doesn't rely on information from Chaney, we have to assume at this point that it could potentially be a hoax, given that people have made very persuasive arguments as to why it could be false. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:40, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Ultimately, that users correct each other's user-generated content doesn't change the fact that it's user-generated content -- and that the odds are pretty good that a fact it contains is probably true doesn't change that it's often enough demonstrably untrue. (Especially, as Tokyogirl79 points out, for lesser known subjects.) If a UGC project being decent at catching its own errors creates an exception to WP:UGC, that needs to be reflected in the guideline, but it seems unlikely that's the case.
- I'll play devil's advocate for a moment here. I can't argue that Imdb is a reliable source, but I can appreciate how very useful it is. I think it's a problem we would face if we were talking about another database project that relied on UGC like Discogs or something (though I hope that doesn't send us off on a tangent). Technical details, extended cast and crew lists, release variations, runtimes, etc. are not the sort of thing that typically get covered in reliable secondary sources (and when they do, I imagine they're not subject to the same editorial oversight). So it's best to get them from the primary material. Imdb makes it so only one person needs to have some obscure film in order for everybody to have access to those details. So for older and lesser-known movies especially, it does seem like we limit the amount of information we can reasonably expect to include. But if we're willing to accept a primary source and willing to assume good faith that a user on Wikipedia is telling the truth when he/she says "I have this, here's the information", what's the difference between that user and the user who added the information to Imdb? If, on the other hand, we say we'll only rely on secondary sources, we have to accept that there's a lot of information in movie that would go unfilled....hence linking to Imdb.
- Is there precedent for a type of source that we use by default but which can always be challenged with reason and must be removed/replaced if challenged? I mean, "low quality sources" in general, I guess, but more specific? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:07, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- As you say, they corrected the error. That is what makes it a reliable source. Unreliable sources do not do that. The top movie today, according to IMDB, is The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. IMDB says it stars Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. Woody Harrelson, Donald Sutherland, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore are also given top billings. It came out 20 November, cost $160 million, has taken in $232 million, runs 137 min., is in color and has an aspect ratio of 2.35:1.[8] Does anyone doubt that is probably true? TFD (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: What you're saying seems at least in part at odds with what some other people are saying in this thread. For example, NinjaRobotPirate's anecdote about people demonstrating unreliability by getting themselves listed as part of a production. The impetus for this thread was a film for which verification itself is the biggest problem, with Imdb being one of the sources used most heavily to demonstrate the most basic information about it. So there's no way to correct any errors by comparing them with the credits displayed in the films, because nearly everything we know about the film comes from either Imdb or primary sources. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 04:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
It is not like Wikipedia where anyone can add anything. IMDB requires completion of a "New Title Submission Form." Normally films in production are not accepted unless proof is submitted. While registered users submit changes they are checked by IMDB staff before inclusion. There is a process for requesting corrections.[9]
Errors will occur in the most reliable sources. The New York Times has reported errors in their reporting every day this week. Today alone they reported 20 errors. Yet we consider them reliable because they have standards for fact checking and correcting errors. Sometimes editors will find errors in reliable sources before they are corrected and we can challenge them. It does not mean we reject the source, otherwise we would have no sources for articles.
TFD (talk) 00:38, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- @The Four Deuces: I opened this without certainty, but had not seen (oops) that Imdb was specifically listed at WP:USERGENERATED and also at WP:RS/IMDB. Are you arguing for existing consensus not being accurately reflected there, or are you arguing to change the guidelines? — Rhododendrites talk \\ 15:08, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Off-topic copy/paste from another discussion |
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See [10] for the discussion.
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Merchant sources as a source
I'm in a bit of a discussion on an article where someone is trying to use an author profile to back up Amazon bestseller status for Iain King. The profile only says that he hit two bestseller lists on Amazon UK, but not which ones. There are thousands of subgenres when it comes to Amazon so it's really not difficult to sell well in something if you mince things down enough.
In general I don't think that merchant sites are usable for anything. I know that part of RS says that you can use them to back up basic details, but I don't really know that there's any details that really need sourcing that badly that it'd merit using a merchant source. My thing with merchant sources is that they're inherently promotional and can easily make an article seem like it's endorsing the product or site it's linking to, plus in many cases the information is submitted by the publisher or representative, so it's also a SPS and has all of the various issues that come with self-published sources. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 04:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I'm being reverted several times over this by Francis Schonken. Can someone please weigh in on this? I really, really don't think that this should be in the article for several reasons, which I've elaborated on in the article's talk page. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 06:04, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I suppose "merchant sites" is a totally unusable concept for determining which content is retained or excluded from Wikipedia. If the distinction is "commercial sites" and "non-for-profit" sites, we link to both, each with their own set of issues to look out for (the non-for-profit ones like IMDb having their own problems in terms of suitability for Wikipedia). Then, taking a closer look at commercial sites: where is the distinction between "merchant" sites and other commercial sites? The merchant sites selling something produced by others, the non-merchant ones only selling self-published material? Well then, merchant would often be preferred over self published for Wikipedia's purposes... or the the "merchant" ones having a "add to shopping cart" button as opposed to non-merchant commercial sites? That is an obviously unusable distinction... e.g., most pages of the New Bach Edition website have such shopping cart button, I won't link any less to that site as a reliable source.
- That being said I'm in the balance whether or not we should include this Amazon based material on the Iain King page, that's why I'm fine this being discussed on a broader forum like here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:26, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- For me, a merchant source is any place where the primary goal is to sell someone something. For example, Amazon would be a merchant source since it's a place where you purchase things. They do have some other offerings but anything they offer has the end goal of getting you to purchase an item from them. Things like publisher sites are more questionable. They weren't previously considered a merchant source because you couldn't buy something directly from them. They'd link to other sites, but that's to be expected from them. However nowadays many publishers - especially indie publishers - have storefronts on their websites. It's why I very rarely use publisher sites anymore in external links sections, as they're fairly questionable nowadays and it's much better to be safe than sorry, especially if the article is about someone or something that is only on the cusp of notability. An article with an overwhelmingly strong assertion of notability (like Stephen King or Crimson Peak) wouldn't have to worry about a merchant source being used as much as an article like say, Julie Murphy (author) would have to be cautious of using merchant or merchant-esque sources. Now when we have places that only list various places to purchase something, that's fine. IMDb, for example, wouldn't be a merchant site in my opinion because they're not directly selling something to the reader. You can purchase tickets via their site (from Fandango), true, but that's not their primary goal. Of course we can't really use IMDb as a source, but I'm mostly using them as an example. Stuff like that is fine. It's just when something is selling directly to the consumer that it begins to become problematic. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 07:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I wouldn't consider it an appropriate source at all. I've always read our policies as permitting commercial sources to support non-controversial claims, similar to self-published sources. But here it's being used to source an inherently promotional claim, not to mention (a) the source doesn't actually support the claim, (b) nor does it name the categories or give any indication of how broad or narrow they are. It also smacks of synthesis to pick two categories where this book is (supposedly) #1 and mention that as somehow worthy of note. I mean, we're not talking about some recognized category on the New York Times Best Sellers List here! If a reliable, third-party source cares to say that a "best-seller in two UK subcategories" is important, so be it. Otherwise, it seems undue to include that claim based on a single commercial link. Woodroar (talk) 06:50, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Re. "a merchant source is any place where the primary goal is to sell someone something" – so you're going for a for Wikipedia's purposes even more unusable definition of "merchant"...
- The primary goal of every for-profit organization is to sell something (even the non-profit ones are asking for your money, giving you usually nothing but a good feeling in return). Or did you think Bärenreiter, the publisher of the New Bach Edition, is some kind of charity only interested in promoting classical music without any financial gain? That their primary goal would not be "sell as many scores as possible"?
- You're asking Wikipedia editors to second guess about "intentions" of the people behind the sources we use. So you ask us to distinguish, for instance, between Univerities, that always have a mixed motivation of "spreading" knowledge for its own sake and "selling" knowledge, well, yeah in order to have more money. So what you're proposing is that Wikipedia guidance should be read as encouraging editors to find out what the balance is: when the University is slightly more motivated by financial gain its publications should not be used, when it is slightly more motivated by the idea of spreading knowledge (using money only to be sustainable), then its publications can be used at Wikipedia? Obvious nonsense, I will have no more of it. I've written quite some Wikipedia guidance, none of that is an underlying reasoning. As said, websites that are not primarily interested in "selling someone something", such as IMDb, have their own problems, and are often less useable for Wikipedia's purposes. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:04, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Re. "a merchant source is any place where the primary goal is to sell someone something" – so you're going for a for Wikipedia's purposes even more unusable definition of "merchant"...
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- Yes, we can and do consider source motivations, which is why the community created policies and guidelines like WP:NOTRELIABLE/WP:SPS and WP:SCHOLARSHIP, among others. It's silly to pretend that there's no difference between "business that sells a product and has a vested interest in promoting that product" and "academic institution that requires money simply because it exists in a market economy". If Amazon ever gains the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy despite their own interests, then perhaps we can consider them a reliable source. But they certainly don't have that reputation now, which is why we should only consider them for uncontroversial claims.
- But this is all really beside the point. The source in question doesn't even support the claim that "[a]t launch in July 2015 it became best-seller in two UK subcategories at Amazon". And it's not just part of the claim, it's the entire thing: there's nothing about "July 2015" or "best-seller" or two categories or subcategories attributed to Amazon. That NPOV and OR/SYNTH territory, not to mention edit warring to retain the material. I will politely suggest dropping the stick as consensus is clearly against you here. Woodroar (talk) 18:58, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I think that it's fairly obvious what is and isn't a merchant source when it comes down to places like Amazon and Barnes & Nobles. No one could ever deny that their primary goal is to sell you something. You wouldn't mistake it for anything other than a merchant source. Non-profit organizations are almost entirely a completely different beast and I think that the average person will tell you that there's an even more obvious difference between Amazon and any given university, so I don't think that it's really rational to equate the two together. That's reaching quite a bit. It comes down to whether or not the website is directly selling a tangible item (MP3 downloads count) to a consumer. While sure, we could say that universities are "selling" degrees to people, that's a fairly crude way of putting things and one that depreciates the amount of work that a reputable institution would require a student put into a degree. Plus very few people will consider a university a merchant in the way that Amazon is a merchant. We could, if you like, change the wording to e-commerce websites, but in my mind it's pretty much the same thing. The long and short of this is that merchant websites are directly selling things to people - you hand them money and they hand you a product. Places that require far more work from the individual like universities are not considered merchant sites as far as Wikipedia is concerned, to the very best of my knowledge. When it comes to publishers the area is - as I stated above - very gray. Traditionally their websites have not been considered merchant sources because for the very longest time they didn't sell directly to the public. If anyone wanted to purchase a book, they had to go through a middleman. The Internet has changed this to where many publishers do now offer direct sales to the public, which makes those websites all but a merchant source in my opinion. As far as the non-marketplace books goes, yes they're essentially still selling their product. However the difference here is that they aren't selling the products directly to the person visiting the page, which makes a world of difference. In that instance we can't be accused of endorsing a specific product because we're linking to the product page. I need to add that people have specifically stated this in the past when it comes to obvious and not so obvious advertising attempts in the past (like hotlinking, the external links section, or telling people where items can be found) - they've argued that because one article links to iTunes, Amazon, or any other merchant site, that they should be allowed to do the same. I've also had people accuse Wikipedia of a bias even when they're not trying to insert links to anything else, just because of the presence of merchant pages on various articles. That's why I like to avoid merchant links.
- But getting back to the subject at hand, I think that the average reader will be able to tell the difference between a merchant site like Amazon and a university website. The intentions of each are quite different when it gets down to it. Publishers websites are a grey area. The websites formerly used to be a place where the books had a basic description and blurbs from reviews and such. Promotional? Sure, to a degree, but they were't outright asking you to directly fork over your money right then and there. Over time they've become far more, to where many are their own storefronts. My general rule of thumb is that if they have a storefront, I should look elsewhere for a source. However the basic things we'd pull from these sites are very specific: basic details, the likes of which are typically listed elsewhere and/or don't generally need to be backed up with a source. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 09:33, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Basically: storefronts like Amazon are inappropriate because they're inherently promotional and can give off the impression of a bias. They're extremely dodgy when it comes to backing up anything other than basic data like ISBNs and other basic info that can almost always be found elsewhere. Publishers are more of a grey area and in general should be avoided if they're directly selling something and for the most part can't be used for any claims beyond basic data. Universities can be considered merchants of information, but they're not on the same level as Amazon. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 09:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- @Tokyogirl79: really this discussion is going nowhere when you keep insisting on the "merchant" distinction. The Bärenreiter website is a "merchant" website. It can be used as a reliable source in Wikipedia. In which circumstances it is appropriately or inappropriately used as a source in Wikipedia is unrelated to it being a "merchant" website. And again, non-merchant websites also have their problems. So "use only non-merchant websites for Wikipedia" is abject nonsense. Please leave that line of thought aside, it is going nowhere, and instead maybe say something useful on whether or not we should use the discussed content and/or its source in the Iain King article. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:16, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- However the problem is that part of the main issue here is that the only place supplied so far is an author's bio on a merchant source, so defining whether or not a merchant source is appropriate to back up a claim is something that needs to be discussed to a certain point. I've given my opinion on the difference between the various types of websites and I think that the basic rule of thumb is whether or not a reasonable person can tell the difference between a university website and a merchant like Amazon, which I think that the majority of reasonable people could. The same could be said for publisher's websites when it comes to them offering direct sales to people.
- I don't think that it should be used to back this up given that Amazon is trying to sell you, the reader, King's books and the only place that makes this claim is King himself. What makes this more difficult is that both King's article and the book's article (when it existed) had some serious issues with making grandiose claims that were really only backed up by King himself. Granted this is a fairly minor claim, but it makes verifying the Amazon claims that much more difficult. We can't really trust anything from King and I'm not sure that this claim has really been repeated by anyone who wasn't just citing King himself making the claims. On top of this the claim is pretty minor and dubious in nature, given that there are many thousands of book categories on Amazon. At some level almost every book is a bestseller if you go far enough down the categories and subcategories - and there are many of them. To add to this, he's making these claims about the UK site, which has far less traffic than its American counterpart.
- What Woodroar said is pretty much the point of the matter: this is a very, very minor claim and one that's only really backed up by King himself. Adding it to the article is at best putting undue weight on Amazon sales, especially since King doesn't state the categories. Also, Amazon never really keeps track of their sales list because they change so often. Even their list of 2015 bestsellers says that they update this daily, so there's no way to accurately track their sales, which makes it of a far different distinction than other bestseller lists. There are also things like this that further explain why very few places really consider Amazon lists to really be anything of true note, because there have been so many unscrupulous people out there. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 10:39, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- As in general merchant sources are neither always acceptable nor always to be rejected the point you've been able to make thus far is naught. Maybe possibly somewhat less walls of text too, please, if I may make a suggestion, they're far less impressive than they look. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:49, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- It was done to explain my point, since you were asking for an explanation as to my line of thought. It wasn't done to impress. My point is basically that merchant sources are inherently promotional and since the only way they can be used is to back up basic, non-controversial details that are usually backed up in non-merchant sources, that makes them unusable in my opinion. It's rare that a merchant source like Amazon will be the only place to find track listings or ISBN data and it should not be used to back up claims like bestselling status. In my opinion the policy is written to exclude merchant sources almost entirely except for that exceedingly rare situation where they're the only source available, which almost never happens, precisely because merchant sites are inherently promotional and prone to many, many issues, which include giving off the impression of a bias and the other things I've listed above. Not all "merchant" sources are the same, but the average person will likely identify a merchant source as something like Amazon, not a university page. Grey areas should be avoided because they also pose the same issues. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:08, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Again, the "merchant" vs. "non-merchant" distinction has no practical use here. Since you keep insisting on the point I reject your walls of text entirely. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:11, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Further, I'd invite you to stop venting your anti-merchant gospel. It is an unacceptable deformation of the actual Wikipedia guidance on the topic. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Ok... but I'm writing this because you're essentially saying that we should accept Amazon sales ranking claims based on a self-published source published on a website designed to sell you a product, which poses a huge conflict of interest. They will allow their authors to write almost anything on there as long as it doesn't run afoul of their basic guidelines and it takes a lot for someone to have their profile removed. As stated above, sales rankings are exceedingly easy to manipulate on Wikipedia because there are so many categories to the point where almost anyone can publish something and purchase their product until it hits bestseller status. People can and have done this. Now considering that there are many places that have openly shown that Amazon rankings cannot be trusted and are irrelevant to most people other than the publisher and author, the question is why should Wikipedia contain this information? You saying that you're rejecting everything because I'm writing long sections isn't really a good counterargument. So far one person has agreed that the Amazon sales claim has no place on the Wikipedia page. We still need others to come in, but I think I've made a fairly good argument as to why the information shouldn't be in the article - especially considering that King articles have a history of making various claims that do not hold up to scrutiny. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:21, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Also, I think that the average person can easily identify a merchant source. Amazon is a merchant source by the most common definition of the word. A university website is not. Publishers are grey areas for the reasons stated above. Also as Woodrose has stated, merchant sources are inherently promotional since they exist to sell you something. They should be avoided as sources for this very reason. That we should avoid using self-published information on a merchant site goes without saying because people can claim anything on their own profile and unless it goes against one of Amazon's guidelines, they're unlikely to challenge or question any author's addition. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Basically, Amazon wants to sell you something so they're unlikely to challenge anything that makes someone look good and by extension, makes you more likely to purchase something. This is why we can't just link to the critic review section on Amazon, because people can and have edited reviews to make them look more positive. In more than one occasion it's emerged that the review wasn't a review at all, but an offhand mention in relation to something else entirely, like an author or a topic. In one case I actually came across a review blurb that was taken directly from a film's press release, meaning that it was written by the film's PR crew and was just reprinted by a news outlet - and was very obviously from a press release. That's why you can't really trust anything written on Amazon unless it's extremely basic data and in those situations that's almost always information that's ppublished elsewhere like WorldCat or Discogs. Even their interviews are suspect since they are geared towards getting you to make that sale. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:32, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I'm going to tag User:DGG on this. He's a person whose word I seriously respect so if he says that this should remain in the article with this type of sourcing, I'll let this drop. However I also need to point out the research I'd done on the book article here because the claims in the article were that problematic. In several instances the article tried to say that various places had made a statement when they made no such claims. This is why we really cannot rely on anything King has written. That it's in a merchant source only adds a cherry to the top of everything. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 11:28, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, jumping in here, I think that even high-quality newspapers like Le Monde are in the business of making profit and selling something. Rather than figuring out of a source is "for profit" or not, we should stick to what works and determine on a case by case basis, is the source in question a high-quality reliable secondary (or, more rarely, primary or tertiary) source on the subject. Now clearly if the source is trying to sell the very item in question, that specific material has to be taken with a grain of salt and it cannot possibly be the kind of high-quality source we'd like to use. Now the question arises, is whether there are any high-quality secondary sources that cover just that information and it may well be that there aren't. In that case, the information shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Cheers, --Dailycare (talk) 11:43, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Primary sources are acceptable within the constraints of WP:PRIMARY. In this case it is a primary source (the retailer chosen by the author and the publisher of the book). The information is uncontroversial: the book had a relatively successful launch, nobody is denying that, but that's not the way we can put it in a Wikipedia article ("relatively" being a weasel word and all), so we put the information as found on the retailer's website, which is "At launch ... best-seller in two UK subcategories" of that retailer. The same sentence also contains the launch date, again, uncontroversial, and no reason why the retailer launching the book and providing that information should not be used as a source for that information. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:00, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- However the issue here is that the claim has so far only been backed up by sales in two (unnamed) categories on Amazon UK, which has less traffic than Amazon US does. It's also only really sourced to the author's page and sales rankings on Amazon are extremely fluid and unstable, so it's easy to claim bestseller status in the smaller categories since you have many different formats (Kindle, audio, print) and many different subcategories. King can claim anything he wants on his page and Amazon is unlikely to challenge the information. Most page listings are written by the author or publisher and unless they violate some hard rule on Amazon, they're left to their own devices and the information is rarely removed. There's already been good reason to suspect information supplied by King and people representing him, so I really do not think that it is wise to trust a merchant source since King's claims will benefit them and because Amazon sales rankings can be manipulated. Now if you had something more reliable than Amazon that'd be a different story, but the problem here is that the only person who is really talking about his sales is King and his agent. Did he sell well? It's likely, since most of the authors I've known don't want to go to the trouble of buying sales ranks. However the article in the mainspace was one that was pretty clearly written by a paid editor and the claims in the book and author pages had issues with puffery. It's not prudent to use merchant sources but it's really not prudent in this case, given the history behind the King related articles. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 12:18, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Also, I don't know that I'd consider sales and bestseller claims to be uncontroversial, since that's something that can actively be questioned. (Especially as the term "bestselling" can be considered vague and somewhat arbitrary.) I've always understood uncontroversial claims to be things like ISBNs, book page counts, basic publisher information that you'd find in the average database. Anything beyond that can be easily seen as controversial (IE, questioned as to its veracity and weight) and I've seen people contest even seemingly inconsequential things like where a person lived or attended school. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 12:20, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I object to you pinging people of your liking. As far as convincing me of your argumentation such actions are highly counterproductive. As I've already said: I've closed threads for less. --Francis Schonken (talk) 12:27, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Also, I don't know that I'd consider sales and bestseller claims to be uncontroversial, since that's something that can actively be questioned. (Especially as the term "bestselling" can be considered vague and somewhat arbitrary.) I've always understood uncontroversial claims to be things like ISBNs, book page counts, basic publisher information that you'd find in the average database. Anything beyond that can be easily seen as controversial (IE, questioned as to its veracity and weight) and I've seen people contest even seemingly inconsequential things like where a person lived or attended school. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 12:20, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
I'm pretty puzzled why this is even being contested, it seems obvious that the source is not an RS and that the content in question should not be in the article. Looking at the url cited, it seems that the "bestseller" claim is basically sourced to the author himself rather than to an actual list of bestsellers. More to the point, I don't think being a "bestseller" in a subcategory of a single vendor's sales is noteworthy. Such charts are way too easy to manipulate - people have been known to get on amazon "bestseller" lists by giving the book away for free, for example, or to claim "bestseller" status in a very narrow category over a very short period of time, when the number of books sold is actually tiny. I know it's for music rather than for books, but WP:CHART is dead on when it says that "Charts which rank material from a single vendor or network are generally unsuitable for inclusion in articles." I see no compelling reason why books should be treated differently. Our notability guideline for books also clearly states that "bestseller lists in merchant sources like Amazon or self-published sources like personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, wikis, and similar media are not considered reliable." Fyddlestix (talk) 14:12, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Again someone trying to use notability guidance as a guideline on article content. The footnote Fyddlestix links to is not very well formulated, but whether that is the case or not: it is a guideline on how to determine notability, and again these notability guidelines "do not limit the content of an article" (original emphasis) as it is in the intro of Wikipedia:Notability. No amount of quoting footnotes of notability guidelines out of context can remedy that. I've been looking through WP:V and WP:RS related guidance to find something similar, but didn't really find anything that would exclude Amazon to be used as a source for a publication date, when both the author and the publisher of the book indicate that site as being the retailer of the book. The NBOOKS footnote seems like a remnant of days when there were no wikis that could be used as reliable sources yet. Some wikis are now (but not as a general rule). So I'd recommend to update that footnote to current standards, or make it at least a bit more resilient against quoting out of contet. --Francis Schonken (talk) 14:39, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I was aware (and thought I had specifically acknowledged) that I was citing guidelines from a somewhat different context. I don't think it matters for my larger point, which is that we should not be using single vendor lists to label something a "bestseller" in any context. We're not here to shill for Amazon or for authors - if we don't already, then we should have a guideline for what constitutes a legit "bestseller list." And just as we do for music, that guideline should specifically rule out amazon and other single vendor lists. The fact that the letter of our guidelines doesn't clearly state this at the moment doesn't change the fact that these lists are generally considered pretty meaningless except as a marketing tool. If you know what you're doing, you can sell a couple hundred books and make amazon's "bestseller" list in a specific category. It's not a noteworthy achievement. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Which is a WP:WEIGHT argument, not a WP:RS argument. If it's OK for everyone I'd close this WP:RS discussion now as indeed, there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument, apart when starting to misread notability guidance. On the WP:WEIGHT issue, as said I'm not too sure this merits inclusion, but that's another discussion, less suitable for this noticeboard. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I think closing is premature at this point. Heck, looking at the edit summaries it looks like you're the one that insisted Tokyogirl bring this up here. You don't get to do that, then dismiss the discussion when it leans against your position. I'll not argue with you further but I think your statement that "there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument" is wholly (and very obviously) inaccurate. I'd like to see what other editors have to say. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:54, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- What's wrong with you people? Tokyogirl proposed to bring it here as we weren't agreeing on the WP:RS issue at the article talk page. I said OK, but let's not discuss it in several places at the same time. That Tokyogirl's take on the WP:RS issue was wrong from the start has been demonstrated. WP:RSN topic has come to an end. Let's look at this from the WP:WEIGHT angle. Then don't start slinging mud at me for framing this as a WP:RS issue, while I didn't: I said from the outset WP:RS was the wrong angle. Tokyogirl wouldn't believe me and that's how the topic arrived here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- This is veering into off topic and not-so-helpful territory now, but you did tell them to "take it to RSN" in this edit summary. You also specifically endorsed taking the issue to RSN on the talk page here. A non involved administration has also said on the talk page that RSN can and should resolve this.
- What's wrong with you people? Tokyogirl proposed to bring it here as we weren't agreeing on the WP:RS issue at the article talk page. I said OK, but let's not discuss it in several places at the same time. That Tokyogirl's take on the WP:RS issue was wrong from the start has been demonstrated. WP:RSN topic has come to an end. Let's look at this from the WP:WEIGHT angle. Then don't start slinging mud at me for framing this as a WP:RS issue, while I didn't: I said from the outset WP:RS was the wrong angle. Tokyogirl wouldn't believe me and that's how the topic arrived here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 16:13, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I think closing is premature at this point. Heck, looking at the edit summaries it looks like you're the one that insisted Tokyogirl bring this up here. You don't get to do that, then dismiss the discussion when it leans against your position. I'll not argue with you further but I think your statement that "there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument" is wholly (and very obviously) inaccurate. I'd like to see what other editors have to say. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:54, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Which is a WP:WEIGHT argument, not a WP:RS argument. If it's OK for everyone I'd close this WP:RS discussion now as indeed, there's no way to reject this content on a WP:RS argument, apart when starting to misread notability guidance. On the WP:WEIGHT issue, as said I'm not too sure this merits inclusion, but that's another discussion, less suitable for this noticeboard. --Francis Schonken (talk) 15:47, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I was aware (and thought I had specifically acknowledged) that I was citing guidelines from a somewhat different context. I don't think it matters for my larger point, which is that we should not be using single vendor lists to label something a "bestseller" in any context. We're not here to shill for Amazon or for authors - if we don't already, then we should have a guideline for what constitutes a legit "bestseller list." And just as we do for music, that guideline should specifically rule out amazon and other single vendor lists. The fact that the letter of our guidelines doesn't clearly state this at the moment doesn't change the fact that these lists are generally considered pretty meaningless except as a marketing tool. If you know what you're doing, you can sell a couple hundred books and make amazon's "bestseller" list in a specific category. It's not a noteworthy achievement. Fyddlestix (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- And if I may say, if you're already at the "what's wrong with you people" stage a break from the discussion might be in order. As I said above, I'm really puzzled why this is even contentious. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- He and I obviously disagree on the RS angle, but in Francis's behalf I do want to say that I had no problem with him requesting that the conversation be restricted to here. It is a form of closing, I suppose, but I saw it as more of a signal to incoming editors that the main conversation would be brought here and that we should keep it to one place for clarity's sake. It was reasonable enough. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 04:54, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Tx, basicly I wanted to know for myself too, while objecting to a general rejection of Amazon-like sites, which seems incompatible with WP:RS, so, no, I'm not contrite for supporting to bring it here. See below #WP:NBOOK's footnote 4 for my proposal to remedy the situation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- We could call this an WP:RS issue, a WP:N issue, or a WP:WEIGHT issue and it would end the same way. For WP:RS purposes, see "inline citations may be allowed to e-commerce pages such as that of a book on a bookseller's page or an album on its streaming-music page, in order to verify such things as titles and running times". In other words, the most basic information about a subject, not the subject's relationship to the vendor. I have trouble buying (pun intended) the argument that "everybody's selling something so what's the difference between Amazon and an academic journal" (paraphrasing) as genuine, let alone persuasive. Regarding Amazon Bestsellers in general, let's not forget that you can pay Amazon to promote your book (or your client's book or whatever). Promoting content on Amazon impacts sales figures on Amazon. The Amazon Bestseller list is not a survey of the industry but a measure of who sells the most books on Amazon. It's the same as going to bestbuy.com, arranging camcorders by "most popular" and writing about the top 50 on Wikipedia. — Rhododendrites talk \\ 16:31, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- And if I may say, if you're already at the "what's wrong with you people" stage a break from the discussion might be in order. As I said above, I'm really puzzled why this is even contentious. Fyddlestix (talk) 16:24, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
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- An Amazon merchant profile's automated statistics lack any form of editorial oversight, nor do they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; therefore, it trivially fails WP:RS. (Note that this is not true of some other aspects -- titles and running times have to be manually input and presumably have some degree of fact-checking and editorial control, but automated sales results do not.) Therefore you need a reliable source asserting the significance of those results, which the merchant profile itself cannot accomplish. Truthfully, I'm a bit confused that the discussion has gone on for this long -- an Amazon merchant profile is plainly not a WP:RS for the claim being made here. Find a good WP:SECONDARY source or remove it and drop the issue. --Aquillion (talk) 20:17, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I agree with the people who've said Amazon is unreliable. There are almost always better sources, and if you can't find a better source than an online store, then the information is very likely to be undue emphasis. Showing significance for an Amazon.com bestseller list is also an issue. I imagine it's not difficult to become one of the bestselling authors in dinosaur erotica. Doesn't mean we should trumpet it on Wikipedia. I think my opinions on this used to be in the minority, but, in the past few years, I've encountered very little resistance to replacing citations to Amazon.com with better ones. One of the previous times this came up here, I got attacked for saying this, and I'm puzzled why people get so worked up and uncivil over amazon.com debates. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 21:45, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
WP:NBOOK's footnote 4
Above I proposed a rewording of footnote 4, as it can be misinterpreted that the listed sources are considered unreliable across the board, which contradicts WP:RS allowing inline citations "to e-commerce pages such as that of a book on a bookseller's page" under certain strict conditions (see WP:RS#E-commerce sources).
I went ahead and updated the footnote, also replacing "merchant" by "retailer" which imho seems more to the point. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:51, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
- If we're not going to go with the term "merchant" then we should probably use the same term used at Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources#E-commerce_sources, which is e-commerce. I think that the two terms are pretty much the same thing, but if we're going to go for uniformity then it should reflect the terminology used at the other board. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 10:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I will concede that the term "e-commerce source" would be more specific for incoming users. Tokyogirl79 (。◕‿◕。) 10:21, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
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- I'd cast the web wide enough. Not every book retailer is an e-commerce. Maybe for the articles you regularly edit it is, but the rule is somewhat broader than that. To give an example: for the Hogarth Press it is known which was their author leading sales before the second world war. The publisher published its last book in 1946. It never was an e-commerce.
- I see no disadvantage in using different terminology at WP:NBOOK (currently "retailer") and WP:RS (currently: "vendor"): the first treating the "notability" aspect, the second the "content policy" aspect. If anything what was bugging me when this discussion began was the confusion between the two. --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:58, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
FYI I reverted the edit but restored the change from "merchant" to "retailer" and added e-commerce. I agree "merchant" could be ambiguous. E-commerce doesn't include offline retailers (e.g. local bookstore), and retailer doesn't include sites set up by the author him or herself. Hence "retailer or e-commerce". But I reverted because of the other change, which seems to fly against what others are saying here: the change from "are not considered reliable" to "are considered as falling below the radar of this notability criterion and/or too unreliable". — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:47, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
E-commerce at WP:RS
Someone above suggesting a guideline to "specifically rule out amazon and other single vendor lists", I think I obliged to the suggestion, here --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:07, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Irish Travellers
I need some help to decide if a source from 1909 is a reliable source or not. First of all, for some reason, some editors tried to remove the Romani origin theories from the Irish Travellers article in the past. Therefore, the "Origins" section is a quite sensitive part of the article. I placed a "dated source" tag [21] for Meyer's source in April because I assumed it wasn't appropriate for Wikipedia. After more than half a year, I decided to remove it from the article [22], but according to an editor there is nothing wrong with the reliability of the source (the dispute is here: Talk:Irish Travellers#Dated info tag). I'm not a language expert, however, I think we should use up-to-date sources instead of questionable ones. Fakirbakir (talk) 21:35, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- I am just here asking my own question but the age itself of the source is not an issue if that is all that is wrong with it. I have not looked at the article and am not volunteering to do so but if the source is being cited for the *history* or *ethnography* of this group, age might actually make it a little better. It has to be verifiable, not necessarily easily, but possible to verify. If the claim is something to do with genetics or biology or psychology, obviously the field will have changed a lot aned the issue of the source will be of more concern. Elinruby (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
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- Elinruby, It is to do with the Traveller language Shelta going back to the 13th century, it is a work by Kuno Meyer. Murry1975 (talk) 09:40, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Is Donald Trump a RS for Donald Trump's political positions? Is his *campaign staff* a RS for his political platform?
The question arises from a friendly discussion on the Donald Trump page. I am not including diffs as there really is no dispute at the moment and the failed verification templates I put on two references in the political campaign section are likely to be amicably resolved. However the same sort of issue may be elsewhere on the page; I found it the first place I checked for it.
Assuming that there does in fact exist a first-hand link to an audio clip of Donald Trump "clarifying" something he said several days earlier, would this be RS for saying that subsequenty he said that of course he had said no such thing?
In other words, Trump was initially reported to have said that all Muslim travel to the United States must be shut down. In the referenced article is a link to a film clip with an embedded phone-in from Donald Trump saying well of course US citizens are different. Yes I did listen to it that far, a voice does say that. It also talks about 9-11 and no-go zones in Paris and....you don't want to know, really you don't. In other words, the publisher is RS, it's a respectable talk show, I think, broadcast news, it's RS that he *said* it but otherwise...speechless. Surely this statement can be found somewhere in print? This is the Republican frontrunner, discussing a matter of national security and human rights. You'd like to think it would get covered.
Yet two days earlier another publication reported a named staffer saying "Mr Trump says everyone". That sounds pretty definite. I don't know that "clarify" is the right word here. My personal opinion is that we should document each pronouncement with RS, as opposed to buying into the idea each time that there was simply some misunderstanding. Do people agree? Also, what is the best documentation (video? audio? analysis?) of what Donald Trump did or did not say or might or might not favor as a candidate? Elinruby (talk) 23:33, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Determining political positions is not straight forward. What is meant and how it is phrased may differ, and pronouncements may be contradictory. Analysis is required, which is why we should use reliable secondary sources. Readers do not want every pronouncement listed, they just want to know what the positions are. TFD (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks. So if campaign staff says on Friday that the policy is x and the candidate says on Sunday that the policy is not-x, as appears to be the case here, though? Again, there is no current dispute, but since we seem to have a pattern of subsequent disavowals, and I anticipate running into this elsewhere on the page. My point is that in my opinion it is still relevant what the staff said on Friday about the candidate's platform, especially considering the space devoted to the candidate's hair. The question about video vs text also remains.~