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Contents
- 1 Franz Kurowski for a GA article (WWII)
- 2 Scientific Research Publishing
- 3 Past Life Regression Article
- 4 Source does not include Mike Singletary
- 5 Sources written in the future tense cited for past claims
- 6 Mirror.co.uk
- 7 Chesterfield F.C.
- 8 Herding cats: Alt-right & sources mentioning white supremacy being challenged
- 9 Paragraph removed for failed verification
- 10 Youssef Bey Karam Information Source
- 11 bulk removal of WashTimes
- 12 Musicbrainz Blog
- 13 Reliable Source for this Article?
- 14 American Renaissance Magazine
Franz Kurowski for a GA article (WWII)
Source: Kurowski, Franz (2007). Oberleutnant Otto Kittel—Der erfolgreichste Jagdflieger des Jagdgeschwaders 54 [First Lieutenant Otto Kittel—The most successful Fighter Pilot of Fighter Wing 54] (in German). Würzburg, Germany: Flechsig Verlag. ISBN 978-3-88189-733-4.
Article: Otto Kittel
Content: Two types of content (the article is largely cited to Kurowski):
(1) non-notable details and potentially unverifiable statements, such as:
- Bf 109 suffered damage and Kittel returned to base, resisting the urge to chase more and risk his life. His motto was to get back in one piece and avoid risks: "Take the safe route and avoid ill-considered and wild offensive tactics".
- Kittel was frustrated. The ground crews kept up his spirits
- JG 54 Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) Hannes Trautloft congratulated Kittel and said the following: "..."
- Many more
(2) Military statistics:
- On 3 May 1943, Kittel resumed his combat career with three victories.
- Kittel had achieved a one kill per day average to reach 94 victories on 4
- Witnesses from Kittel's formation reported that a Shturmovik had been shot down by Kittel before he himself was killed during the air battle having scored his 267th and final victory. Etc.
More info on the author:
According to the historian Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davis, Kurowski is a "guru". Gurus, in their definition, are "authors popular among the readers who romanticize the German army". In addition, the gurus are:
“authors, (who) have picked up and disseminated the myths of the Wehrmacht in a wide variety of popular publications that romanticize the German struggle in Russia….. who insist on authenticity in their writings, combine a painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals, with a romantic heroicization of the German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism. There is little in the way of historical context in the writings of these men.”
Franz Kurowski, a veteran of the Eastern front, saw his two major works released in the U.S. in 1992 (Panzer Aces) and 1994 (Infantry Aces). Smelser & Davis write: "Kurowski gives the readers an almost heroic version of the German soldier, guiltless of any war crimes, actually incapable of such behavior... Sacrifice and humility are his hallmarks. Their actions win them medals, badges and promotions, yet they remain indifferent to these awards."
Kurowski's accounts are "laudatory texts that cast the German soldier in an extraordinarily favorable light", Smelser and Davies conclude.[1]
References
- ^ * Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward J. (2008). The myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83365-3., pp=5, 173–178, 251
If you are curious about the book I'm citing, here are two reviews: Tracing the Resurrection of a Reputation: How Americans Came to Love the German Army by a professional historian ("The book is a fascinating immersion into a simple but important question: How did the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front during World War Two become hero figures to so many Americans?"), and another one, surprisingly nuanced, from feldgrau.net, one of outlets for "romancers" that Smelser and Davies critique. K.e.coffman (talk) 04:52, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Responses
It sounds as though it's not exactly history, that it's historical narrative, like Little House on the Prairie. Is the publisher, Flechsig Verlag, reputable? Is it a vanity press? Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
-
- Here other titles published by "Würzburg : Flechsig"
- To the gate of hell: the memoir of a panzer crewman by Arnim Böttger; Geoffrey Brooks; Charles Messenger (In English)
- Duel under the stars: factual report by a German night fighter, 1941 - 1945 by Wilhelm Johnen
- Panzer Regiment 11 Panzer Division 65 and Panzerersatz- and Training Division 11. Part 2 , as firefighters at the focal points of the Eastern Front - from October 1941 to May 1944 by Michael Schadewitz
- K.e.coffman (talk) 05:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- That only shows that they specialize in certain subject matter. A vanity press is a publishing company in which the authors decide what will go into print rather than going through a professional selection process.
- But let's say it is a regular, third-party publisher. The issue here seems to be whether this book is really nonfiction. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- This may help -- Kurowski has a German Wikipedia article. I had it google translated and, while it's somewhat difficult to read, statements like "historical revisionist tendencies", "right-wing publisher", "far-right", "journalism of gray and brown zone"; "inspired by British Holocaust denier David Irving", etc, appear prominently. ''The Myth of the Eastern Front" is also mentioned. The article is well sourced to various historians. K.e.coffman (talk) 06:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Here other titles published by "Würzburg : Flechsig"
- I agree that this isn't a reliable source. Smelser & Davis' analysis of Kurowski's works is convincing (I've read the book). Moreover, I can't remember ever seeing him used as a reference in high quality books on the war, despite being very prolific, and the English-language editions of his books seem to have mainly been published by firms which provide little if any editing or fact-checking of works. Nick-D (talk) 07:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
While the source The myth of the Eastern Front reminds us that we need to be cautious, I think to reject Kurowski completely as unreliable on the basis of that source is a tad bit over-zealous, and frankly, lazy. Kurowski may well indeed be a "Romanciser" of the German military, that does not mean that he is completely unreliable, particularly in regard to factual operational matters and events.
To recap what was quoted above, the historian Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davis, say Kurowski is a "guru". Gurus, in their definition, are "authors popular among the readers who romanticize the German army". In addition, the gurus are
- "authors, (who) have picked up and disseminated the myths of the Wehrmacht in a wide variety of popular publications that romanticize the German struggle in Russia….. who insist on authenticity in their writings, combine a painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals, with a romantic heroicization of the German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism. There is little in the way of historical context in the writings of these men.”
Lots of veterans have written books on WW2 topics, Brits, American, Russians, and no doubt there is a certain degree of romanticising by these authors too. However these historians do acknowledge that the "details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals" are "painfully accurate". We just need to assess each claim per WP:BIASED and leave out the bits that heroicize the '"German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism". --Nug (talk) 10:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Kurowski is an extremely prolific author, with over 400 books to his many pen names. He has written several series of children's books, and he has published a lot of his "popular history" (mostly on WW2 topics) with a number of known revisionists and extreme right-wing publishers. He's always writing to please his different audiences, not to give a factual history. It's not enough that there are some correct facts in the books to be considered RS, we need to be able to have reasonable trust in all factual statements. By that standard, Kurowski is not a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:31, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- WP:BIASED says we don't have to have "reasonable trust in all factual statements" of a source. It is not all or nothing. It depends upon the context. Historians Smelser and Davis acknowledge that authors like Kurowski have a "painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals". Is it really that difficult to identify and exclude Kurowski's "romantic heroicization of the German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism" while keeping those details of the Wehrmacht that have been acknowledged to be accurate? --Nug (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- The problem is that you cannot know when that knowledge is used and when it falls victim to the story. WW2 is one the the periods in history with the broadest and deepest academic coverage. There is no reason to go to questionable second-rate sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- That simply isn't the case with respect to the Eastern Front, it is precisely because that academic coverage isn't as broad and deep compared with the Western Front that authors like Kurowski are able to find a market to fill that gap. When it comes to broad outlines of who was involved and what equipment was used in which battles and where, I think it highly unlikely Kurowski would actually fabricate such things for sake of the "story". --Nug (talk) 20:29, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- The problem is that you cannot know when that knowledge is used and when it falls victim to the story. WW2 is one the the periods in history with the broadest and deepest academic coverage. There is no reason to go to questionable second-rate sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- WP:BIASED says we don't have to have "reasonable trust in all factual statements" of a source. It is not all or nothing. It depends upon the context. Historians Smelser and Davis acknowledge that authors like Kurowski have a "painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals". Is it really that difficult to identify and exclude Kurowski's "romantic heroicization of the German army fighting to save Europe from a rapacious Communism" while keeping those details of the Wehrmacht that have been acknowledged to be accurate? --Nug (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
Kurowski was criticized by other historians, see for example: "Military historian Jürgen Rohwer began a critical examination of the data published by Nazi Germany on successes (sunken tonnage) of submarine commanders in 1957. Afterwards, Kurowski belonged to the authors, who held on to the details of the Nazi propaganda regardless of the research results." (Please see source and exact citation on De Wikipedia article above). So his numbers of "victories" are not to be trusted.
On "authenticity" -- Smelser & Davies extend it only to "details of the Wehrmacht, ranging from vehicles to uniforms to medals". They do not extend this to operational history or actions of individual soldiers. He could be considered a reliable source on Wehrmacht uniforms or medals, but otherwise sounds like "militaria literature" to me, not a work by a historian. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
- Also from De.wikipedia: "In his 2001 book Bombs over Dresden Kurowski included a 16 pages long "eyewitness reports" of low-flying aircraft hunting civilians. In fact, that was a made-up account. Lars-Broder Keil and Sven Felix Kellerhoff criticized Kurowski in their book German legends. (Please see citation on De.wikipedia. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
-
- From the responses so far:
- Darkfrog24: "sounds like it's not exactly history, that it's historical narrative; Is this indeed non-fiction?" Is that a no?
- NIck-D: not WP:RS -- "can't remember ever seeing him used as a reference in high quality books on the war"
- Stephan Schulz: not WP:RS -- Kurowski writes "'popular history' (mostly on WW2 topics) with a number of known revisionists and extreme right-wing publisher"
- Nug: considers Kurowski to be a WP:BIASED source, but okay to use for "broad outlines of who was involved and what equipment was used in which battles and where", as potentially an only source available on the subject
- K.e.coffman: not WP:RS, as the original poster
- Question: does this constitute consensus that Kurowski is indeed a non WP:RS source for WWII articles, and I can take it to the article's Talk page? Or would I need more? K.e.coffman (talk) 15:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- RS can be like the Bechdel test; it's not always either-or. I'd say that while there maybe some case in which it is appropriate to cite this source, not in general no. Darkfrog24 (talk) 06:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- From the responses so far:
Discussion with article's editor
Infinitely more. You've been asked for sources at Talk:Otto Kittel. You haven't given any. What evidence do we have that Kurowski and the information provided by him is unreliable in relation to Otto Kittel? None has been given. This isn't a controversial book about a controversial subject. It is about one man, a pilot. It is good enough for him. Using one source, who criticises Kurowski's work on broader, controversial topics, cannot be used to infer his work on Kittel is biased. It is beyond absurd. The opinions of a few editors on Wikipedia is not enough. One editor described that it as lazy analysis, I'd go further.... Dapi89 (talk) 20:01, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- We are discussion a particular source — Kurowski, Franz (2007). Oberleutnant Otto Kittel—Der erfolgreichste Jagdflieger des Jagdgeschwaders 54 [First Lieutenant Otto Kittel—The most successful Fighter Pilot of Fighter Wing 54] (in German). Flechsig Verlag., — not other sources on Otto Kittel. Could you clarify? ("...You've been asked for sources at Talk:Otto Kittel...") K.e.coffman (talk) 20:39, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
-
- Your post doesn't make sense. Please read mine again.
- No criticism has been made of Kurowski's work on Kittel by anyone. You are the only person doing so. You have been asked over and over again to provide specific criticism of this work on Kittel by others. Thus far, you have failed to do so. No source, no go. It is that simple.
- The specific pieces of the article you have criticised in your opening address are non-controversial. It's barely believable that one could even attempt to cite total unreliability for this man's work on Kittel using them as an 'example'.
- Are you really disputing these things, such as Kittel was frustrated. The ground crews kept up his spirits, On 3 May 1943, Kittel resumed his combat career with three victories, Kittel had achieved a one kill per day average to reach 94 victories on 4, as made up facts, or some sort of evidence of bias? Are you saying that they're wrong? Are you saying they show Kurowski is guilty of hero-worship? Do these passages show he is a closet Neo-Nazi? What is it you're trying to show via these quotations?
- These complaints and accusations are really odd, at least, certainly the way you present them. Dapi89 (talk) 23:24, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
What is WP:RS?
From WP:Identifying reliable sources guidelines:
"The word "source" when citing sources on Wikipedia has three related meanings:
- The piece of work itself (the article, book)
- The creator of the work (the writer, journalist)
- The publisher of the work (for example, Random House or Cambridge University Press)
Any of the three can affect reliability. Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people."
In this case, the "creator of the work" (Kurowski), has been seriously criticized. In this context of the article in question, his account also appears to be semi-fictional, as Darkfrog24 pointed out.
I would like to hear other editors' opinions. K.e.coffman (talk) 19:15, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Where a single citation is removed because it is unacceptable, either the statement is removed or (if the statement is uncontested and material to the article) the unacceptable cite is replaced with a CN (citation needed) flag. The statement should not be left unsupported until another editor finds and flags it for proper maintenance. That is simple etiquette. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:32, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
-
- K.e.coffman, this another evasion tactic, it is not an answer. You are not offering any evidence that Kurowski's work on Kittel is unreliable.
- If we looked hard enough, we could find criticism of the most celebrated and respected authors. The fact that one other book has taken a swipe at him about other unrelated topics is not good enough.
- "His work appears to be semi-fictional"? Does it ? According to who? You?
- The canvassing for the opinion of other editors belies your ultimate problem: it isn't the opinion of Wikipedia editors that matters it sources. I've repeated this request for evidence on over 10 occasions and you have not delivered one iota to this discussion. You seem to think you can prove a case without proof itself. It's time you learned otherwise. Dapi89 (talk) 16:22, 1 March 2016
-
-
- Before accusing others of WP:Canvassing for posting to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard, the editor might do well to familiarise themselves with the concept of Appropriate notification. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
-
-
-
-
-
- Since we appear to be talking past each other, I will go ahead and post to the MilHist Talk page for outside perspective.
-
-
-
Summary
4 editors deemed Kurowski non WP:RS, 1 editor deemed it WP:BIASED and 1 editor deemed it WP:RS. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:11, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- I have come to this late, but what appears to be missing is a closer focus on the source. eg is it reliable for what it is being used for? Given the above, I would consider it reliable for non-opinion material (ie places, dates, actions). Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 11:16, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Statements that source supports
@Peacemaker67: Thank you for your comment. Here's the partial list of statements that are cited to Kurowski; there are 35 citation to this source.
- Kittel claimed his first victory on 22 June 1941, the opening day of Operation Barbarossa. Kittel took time to amass his personal tally of aerial victories. By February 1943, he reached 39 kills, relatively insignificant when compared with some other German aces. In 1943, his tally began to increase when JG 54 began to operate the Fw 190. Kittel earned the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) on 29 October 1943, for reaching 120 aerial victories. By the time he was officially awarded the decoration he had a tally of 123. A large number of his Soviet victims included the IL-2 Shturmovik aircraft, leading the German Army to call him the "Butcher Killer", a nickname they had given to the tough Shturmovik.[1] -- military statistics; odd language about "took time to amass his tally"
-
- Looks fine, prose needs tightening.
- Edith had travelled into occupied Soviet territory near the front line to marry Kittel.[2] - not notable
-
- interesting fact, you misunderstand notability?
- By the time of the Yugoslavian surrender, on 17 April 1941, JG 54 had claimed 376 aerial victories during the entire war. Kittel had yet to achieve a kill. During the course of the campaign Kittel acted as wingman for his staffel leader, who was the first to engage any enemy aircraft.[3] -- military statistics for the unit
-
- not sure this is necessary or relevant to the subject, except that he hadn't scored a victory at this point.
- On this date he claimed a Yakovlev Yak-1 and a Soviet bomber. Despite his two victories, Kittel got off to a slow start in combat. On 30 June 1941 he downed his first Ilyushin Il-2 Shturmovik.[4] -- military statistics; odd language about "slow start in combat"
-
- odd prose, but the info is fine.
- In mid-March Kittel claimed two Shturmoviks for his 13–14 aerial victories. However, his Bf 109 suffered damage and Kittel returned to base, resisting the urge to chase more and risk his life. His motto was to get back in one piece and avoid risks: "Take the safe route and avoid ill-considered and wild offensive tactics".[5] -- military statistics and potentially unverifiable statements about "resisting the urge" etc
-
- the stats are fine, the rest needs trimming to bare facts.
- In the end that alone produced success. Risking himself for a single victory was not Kittel's way. Within two months his tally had risen to 17. Sometime in May 1942 Kittel claimed a further two victories, one bomber and one fighter, in a single mission. During the combat he became involved in a dogfight with two experienced opponents. Using clever tactics, the Soviet fighters tried to force him into a trap; one chasing the other in an attempt to cut him off. Kittel's aircraft was fired on several times and hit. However, he managed to escape, in the process shooting down one of the enemy fighters.[6][7] -- military statistics and potentially unverifiable statements about "not Kittel's way" etc
-
- flowery language needs to be cut down.
- Every now and again an enemy aircraft would be sighted and shot down, but Kittel was frustrated. The ground crews kept up his spirits.[8] -- potentially unverifiable/non-notable statements about "frustrated", "spirits" etc
-
- you're a bit confused about WP:V. If he's reliable, that meets WP:V. Personally, I wouldn't include this stuff, except his frustration, the prose isn't the best.
- On 19 February 1943, Feldwebel Kittel achieved his 39th victory, which was also JG 54's 4,000th of the war. JG 54 Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commander) Hannes Trautloft congratulated Kittel and said the following: "I have instructed that you're no longer to be assigned as wingman. Instead you're to be sent on freie Jagd [combat patrol] on your own whenever there's an opportunity."[9][10] -- not notable / potentially unverifiable verbatim quoting from the commander
-
- Again, you are off-track on WP:V, and your comment about something being "non-notable" betrays a lack of understanding about WP:NOTABILITY, I'm afraid. It doesn't apply to facts, it applies to the subject (ie is this chap notable? Clearly yes.)
- Kittel, in particular, was pleased. The Fw 190 was an ideal interceptor against the tough and heavily armoured Shturmovik, his favourite target. At this point, Kittel's victory tally climbed rapidly.[11] -- not notable / potentially unverifiable ("pleased", "his favorite target")
-
- the prose isn't the best, too conversational, but the content is fine.
- By mid-March 1943, Kittel had reached 46 victories, encompassing all types of aircraft.[12] -- military statistics
-
- fine.
- His comrade, and a member of the flight, Herbert Broennle, advised him to hide after landing, to travel only by night and use a compass on a heading of 255 degrees (north-west) which would take him to Stayara Russa, towards JG 54's base behind German lines. Broennle himself had been shot down under the same circumstances in 1941, and had experience. Kittel ran for the nearest forest after landing. Several Russian women and children saw the crash from two houses nearby and came running out. No men were in sight. When Kittel got to the forest he found he had left his emergency rations behind, having only chocolate bar with him. He continued through the forest, able to move through the forest during the day unseen, resting often. Needing to eat, he raided several empty houses and found clothes but no food. Determined to find food, and now looking like a Russian peasant, he passed through several Soviet checkpoints looking for something to eat.[13] -- potentially unverifiable
-
- unless you have info that contradicts the detail, what's the problem with this? The prose could be tightened, but generally I have no issue here.
- On 10 June 1943 Kittel achieved another kill to reach 50.[14] -- military statistics
-
- fine.
- Kittel had achieved a one kill per day average to reach 94 victories on 4 September 1943.[15] -- military statistics
-
- fine.
- Kittel continued to increase his tally, shooting down another 50 aircraft by 26 August 1944, bringing his overall total to 200.[16] -- military statistics
-
- fine.
- By 13 February 1945, Kittel had a personal total of 266 aerial victories.[17] -- military statistics
-
- fine.
- Witnesses from Kittel's formation reported that a Shturmovik had been shot down by Kittel before he himself was killed during the air battle having scored his 267th and final victory.[18] -- military statistics; vague statement about "witnesses from the formation"
-
- that is how victories were scored, it is entirely unremarkable.
References
- ^ Kurowski 1996, p. 268.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 299–300.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, pp. 10–11.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 270–275.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, p. 277.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 277–280.
- ^ Weal 1996, p. 16.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, p. 281.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 285–287.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, pp. 67–69.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, p. 288.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, p. 65.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 292–296.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 302–304.
- ^ Kurowski 1996, pp. 306–311.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, pp. 87–88, 139.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, p. 142.
- ^ Kurowski 2007, pp. 142–143.
Would you consider Kurowski reliable for these statements? K.e.coffman (talk) 18:17, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- see above. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:16, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
"Journalism of gray and brown zone"
I'm not sure if you missed the discussion above, via Franz Kurowski & The Myth of the Eastern Front:
- Kurowski is a guru, an author, "(who) have picked up and disseminated the myths of the Wehrmacht in a wide variety of popular publications that romanticize the German struggle in Russia"
- In his German wiki article, statements like "historical revisionist tendencies", "right-wing publisher", "far-right", "journalism of gray and brown zone"; "inspired by British Holocaust denier David Irving", etc, appear prominently. 'The Myth of the Eastern Front" is also mentioned. The article is well sourced to historians and other WP:RS sources.
- "Military historian Jürgen Rohwer began a critical examination of the data published by Nazi Germany on successes (sunken tonnage) of submarine commanders in 1957. Afterwards, Kurowski belonged to the authors, who held on to the details of the Nazi propaganda regardless of the research results." (Please see source and exact citation on De Wikipedia article above). So his numbers of "victories" are not to be trusted, IMO.
- "In his 2001 book Bombs over Dresden Kurowski included a 16 pages long "eyewitness reports" of low-flying aircraft hunting civilians. In fact, that was a made-up account. Lars-Broder Keil and Sven Felix Kellerhoff criticized Kurowski in their book German legends. (Please see citation on De.wikipedia.)
The article is almost exclusively cited to Kurowski.
Cheers, K.e.coffman (talk) 00:28, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Peacemaker67: as I have reposted summary of criticism of Kurowski from above discussion. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:13, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes. I've read all that and taken it into account in my opinion. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:41, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Revisiting
At a separate discussion on MilHist discussion board, the involved editor posted that "in actual fact three have yet to return to give a substantial opinion" and "three (including myself) regard him as a reliable enough source for Otto Kittel".
I'm pinging @Nick-D, Darkfrog24, and Stephan Schulz: as non WP:RS voters and @Nug: as WP:Biased voter. I had thought that you guys had made your position clear, but it appears that further clarifications for the editor are needed. If you could return and restate/expand on your position, that would be very helpful. K.e.coffman (talk) 18:09, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- My opinion has been clearly stated. Kurowski is not a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:12, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- My opinion is that while the source The myth of the Eastern Front by Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davis reminds us that we need to be cautious, to reject Kurowski completely as unreliable on the basis of that source is a little bit extreme. Smelser and Davis define authors like Kurowski as "Guru" because they "combine a painfully accurate knowledge of the details of the Wehrmacht" with a "romantic heroicization of the German army". So Kurowski may well indeed be a "Romanciser" of the German military, that does not mean that he is completely unreliable, particularly in regard to operational details and events. So I would treat Kurowski in terms of WP:Biased, because while being a veteran himself his is obviously biased towards the German army, he also has a "painfully accurate" knowledge of the details, according to his critics. If we are going to exclude German writers because they were also veterans, then we must also exclude British and American writers who were veterans too because no doubt they would also tend to "heroise" their own British and American forces. --Nug (talk) 19:06, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- A very sensible summary, IMHO. Thanks, Nug. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 23:43, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- A knowledgable author (and in this case the acknowledged knowledge is quite limited) is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for reliability. As an example, David Irving is generally credited with a good knowledge of original sources - but he misrepresents these sources and synthesises positions that are widely regarded as ridiculously wrong. Kurowski is a mass market author who has written about 400 books under at least nine different pseudonyms. Many of his books have been been criticised as deeply flawed and misleading. He is not a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- So what has Kurowski synthesised about Otto Kittel that is widely regarded as ridiculously wrong? --Nug (talk) 20:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wrong question. What Kurowski wrote about Kittle might all be correct or it might all be wrong, or most likely there are some correct parts and some wrong parts. He is not reliable because there is serious doubt about the quality of his work in general. We cannot rely (als in "reliable") on the source to establish the truth of any particular claim. Reliability is not the default assumption, in particularly not for biased sources published by fringe publishers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Right question. As stated above "This page is for posting questions regarding whether particular sources are reliable in context." Note that Smelser and Davis in The myth of the Eastern Front do not question the quality of his work in general, in fact accurate knowledge of the details is a necessary pre-condition to be deemed a Guru, according to them. The only criticisms with respect to factual accuracy I've sene presented is related to Kurowski's 2001 book Bombs over Dresden and some other book about the successes (in sunken tonnage) of submarine commanders (2 out of 400 books), which Smelser and Davis don't mention. But that is unrelated to Otto Kittel. And I hardly think Osprey Publishing is a fringe publisher. --Nug (talk) 20:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wrong question. What Kurowski wrote about Kittle might all be correct or it might all be wrong, or most likely there are some correct parts and some wrong parts. He is not reliable because there is serious doubt about the quality of his work in general. We cannot rely (als in "reliable") on the source to establish the truth of any particular claim. Reliability is not the default assumption, in particularly not for biased sources published by fringe publishers. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- So what has Kurowski synthesised about Otto Kittel that is widely regarded as ridiculously wrong? --Nug (talk) 20:08, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- A knowledgable author (and in this case the acknowledged knowledge is quite limited) is a necessary, not a sufficient condition for reliability. As an example, David Irving is generally credited with a good knowledge of original sources - but he misrepresents these sources and synthesises positions that are widely regarded as ridiculously wrong. Kurowski is a mass market author who has written about 400 books under at least nine different pseudonyms. Many of his books have been been criticised as deeply flawed and misleading. He is not a reliable source. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:09, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history
A quick note about a current discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history (WWII content: Otto Kittel, other GA/FA articles) that you may be interested in.
Add: Smelser & Davies attribute to Kurowski "painfully accurate knowledge" about "medals, uniforms, and vehicles"; they do not extend it to personalities or operational history. They suggest the opposite. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:23, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Scientific Research Publishing
JzG believes that Scientific Research Publishing should not be used as a source on Wikipedia, due to supposedly being a predatory open access publisher. Even if this was the case, that does not necessarily affect the reliability of its content; researchers write the papers, not the journal, and the reliability of the science itself is not in question. Instead of trying to discuss this and gain consensus, JzG has now begun to unilaterally remove this journal wherever it is used as a source, thereby leaving many articles with unsourced statements, including featured ones (such as Smilodon, which is what brought me here). So I'd like some discussion of where we go from here. Either this gets blacklisted as an unreliable source, in which case we need to deal with the many resulting unsourced statements left, or JzG reverts his removals. FunkMonk (talk) 13:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I do understand that predatory open access publishing is a relatively new field, and it is entirely understandable that people who don't watch the fringes of our biomedical articles (where this is rife) might not be aware of the problem.
- This is a publisher which we identify in our article, based on good sources, as having substantial problems with editorial oversight, and being probably predatory. Its publications have been used by the Burzynski Clinic to publish its "studies" on so-called antineoplastons (even the clinic's own lawyer openly acknowledges that these studies are a farce), and this draft listing a bunch of publications on treatments for non-existent diseases all published either in SciRP or Ross, another predatory publisher.
- Predatory publishing clearly excludes any journal from being a reliable source. The editorial oversight that is supposed to act as a gatekeeper for good science, is replaced by the scientific publishing equivalent of a wallet biopsy. Any paper whose authors can afford the fee, gets published, and that makes the source no better than any other self-published venue. A self-=published document may be correct, as may a paper published in a predatory journal, but we exclude them because there is no editorial oversight and our own policies forbid us from being the ones to make a determination as to whether a primary source is reliable or not.
- How do we know which are the fraudulent papers paid for by researchders whose work is rejected elsewhere, versus those whose authors have simply been scammed?
- And when that publisher is actively soliciting papers promoting cancer quackery, as this one is, then there is no remaining doubt of which one might reasonably give them benefit. Guy (Help!) 13:38, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- While being published in a vanity press or predatory journal does not necessarily mean that the information in the study is false, it does mean that it's not verifiable in the sense that we mean here. What would it take, FunkMonk, to convince you personally that a journal is predatory? What do you see as your standard? Confirmation that SRP lacks of editorial oversight? Confirmation that it will publish anyone who can pay? Criticism in other reliable publications? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- This issue is not about me being "convinced" or not, but whether we blacklist this journal or not, and what we do with the resulting unsourced statements afterwards. I couldn't care less about the journal itself, I'm worried about the articles. Simply removing sources, but not the statements they support, leaves misleading articles, and is simply irresponsible. If it is indeed policy not to use "predatory publishers" (is it?), we need this stated somewhere clearly, and filter them automatically when they're added, like we do with spam-sites. FunkMonk (talk) 14:03, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- While being published in a vanity press or predatory journal does not necessarily mean that the information in the study is false, it does mean that it's not verifiable in the sense that we mean here. What would it take, FunkMonk, to convince you personally that a journal is predatory? What do you see as your standard? Confirmation that SRP lacks of editorial oversight? Confirmation that it will publish anyone who can pay? Criticism in other reliable publications? Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:55, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- All content is supposed to be verifiable from reliable independent secondary sources, so if the text depends on an unreliable primary source then we should simply remove it per WP:PRIMARY as well as WP:RS. Guy (Help!) 14:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- "All content is supposed to be verifiable from reliable independent secondary sources" – This is not true. You can WP:USEPRIMARY sources. You can use non-WP:Independent sources (e.g., nearly every article about a notable academic). All content must be verifiable in a reliable source, including non-independent, self-published, and primary sources that are reliable for the specific claim being made. Most content is supposed to be verifiable in independent sources. There is no policy requiring that "all" content be verifiable in sources that are both independent and secondary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:55, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- Why is that not what you actually did, then? In years to come, who will know that the statements left were sourced to an paper that has now been delinked? FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- WP:V say any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source. If claims are uncontentious, leaving them without a source is not optimal, but not a serious problem. Backing by an unreliable source is worse than no citation at all, because it gives a wrong impression of reliability. In this particular case, I have looked at some papers published by Scientific Research Publishing, and there is no evidence of even basic fact-checking - several are pure nonsense. The journals are not reliable and should not be mistaken for good sources. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:22, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- "Backing by an unreliable source is worse than no citation at all" Sorry, but that simply doesn't cut it for featured articles. Either there's a source, or the statement is removed. FunkMonk (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- An FA should not have unreliable sources. How do we know if an individual unreliable source is promoting some quixotic idea rejected by the mainstream? Primary sources are only to be used with caution, for uncontentious facts. If the fact is contentious or if you otherwise consider it must have a source, then using an unreliable source is simply not a valid option and the text should be, as you say, removed. Guy (Help!) 14:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- No one said a FA should have unreliable sources. I said they should not have unreferenced statements. This means that such statements should be removed, not left, if their source is deleted. FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't know the requirement of Featured Articles, but if there is no reference, why not put in the {{cn}} citation needed in its place? I thought that was the standard thing to do--or better yet find a source that supports it, if one exists. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- That would seem obvious, but JzG rejects doing this, for whatever reason. FunkMonk (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- ...and check out his contributions page[[1]]. He seems to be on some sort of "mission". DrChrissy (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, it's Operation Improve Wikipedia. Have you even read the articles on predatory publishing and these publishers themselves? In fact I'd expect you to be the very last person to object, given your kvetching about Science Based Medicine, which actually does have an editorial board and doesn't accept articles for pay - to find you apparently arguing for sources much less dependable than SBM is kind of weird.. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Is that aimed at me? If it is, please could you provide a diff regarding the purported kvetching because I have no idea what you are talking about. DrChrissy (talk) 00:18, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- How exactly does leaving a gazillion statements without source while not even leaving a note that these statements need a replacement source as result in any way "improve Wikipedia? All it does is to create unreliable articles and a giant mess for a lot of other editors to clean up. FunkMonk (talk) 00:07, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Just add the maintenance tags, Guy. That's all. You are there, you are editing the page, so finish the job. We don't need 50,000 characters of debate on the subject: Read the Template:Verify source: "If [a statement] is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability."
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- Why add a maintenance tag leaving it for someone else to fix (which they probably won't), rather than fixing the actual problem? That makes no sense. It also leaves Wikipedia boosting the reputation and prominence of, bluntly, scammers. Guy (Help!) 10:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- What part of "not doubtful" is in question, for you? The policy for "doubtful" is clear. The policy for "not doubtful" is also clear. Yet JzG does not follow either policy. How is that doing a "huge service" for Wikipedia? Frankly, all the "huge services" JzG has performed in the last few weeks must now be carefully reviewed and reworked properly by other editors who are not so cavalier. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- These are not reliable sources. The thing that makes an academic journal a reliable source, is peer review, which is the core of what is missing with predatory journals. Moreover, the journals are undermining the integrity of academic publishing as a whole, they are often published this way because no reputable journal will touch them. There are no good reasons for using predatory open access journals as sources. None. The only question is what to do when they are removed. Guy (Help!) 23:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- What part of "not doubtful" is in question, for you? The policy for "doubtful" is clear. The policy for "not doubtful" is also clear. Yet JzG does not follow either policy. How is that doing a "huge service" for Wikipedia? Frankly, all the "huge services" JzG has performed in the last few weeks must now be carefully reviewed and reworked properly by other editors who are not so cavalier. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:56, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Why add a maintenance tag leaving it for someone else to fix (which they probably won't), rather than fixing the actual problem? That makes no sense. It also leaves Wikipedia boosting the reputation and prominence of, bluntly, scammers. Guy (Help!) 10:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, it's Operation Improve Wikipedia. Have you even read the articles on predatory publishing and these publishers themselves? In fact I'd expect you to be the very last person to object, given your kvetching about Science Based Medicine, which actually does have an editorial board and doesn't accept articles for pay - to find you apparently arguing for sources much less dependable than SBM is kind of weird.. Guy (Help!) 23:51, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- ...and check out his contributions page[[1]]. He seems to be on some sort of "mission". DrChrissy (talk) 22:33, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- That would seem obvious, but JzG rejects doing this, for whatever reason. FunkMonk (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- I don't know the requirement of Featured Articles, but if there is no reference, why not put in the {{cn}} citation needed in its place? I thought that was the standard thing to do--or better yet find a source that supports it, if one exists. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:05, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- No one said a FA should have unreliable sources. I said they should not have unreferenced statements. This means that such statements should be removed, not left, if their source is deleted. FunkMonk (talk) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- An FA should not have unreliable sources. How do we know if an individual unreliable source is promoting some quixotic idea rejected by the mainstream? Primary sources are only to be used with caution, for uncontentious facts. If the fact is contentious or if you otherwise consider it must have a source, then using an unreliable source is simply not a valid option and the text should be, as you say, removed. Guy (Help!) 14:41, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- "Backing by an unreliable source is worse than no citation at all" Sorry, but that simply doesn't cut it for featured articles. Either there's a source, or the statement is removed. FunkMonk (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- All content is supposed to be verifiable from reliable independent secondary sources, so if the text depends on an unreliable primary source then we should simply remove it per WP:PRIMARY as well as WP:RS. Guy (Help!) 14:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- All but your last statement is beyond question. And what you call a "question" is already answered in Wikipedia policy. Template:Verify source "If {a statement} is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability." But if the statement is doubtful, the other policy applies: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.[3] When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.[4] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." (from Wikipedia:Verifiability) And now there is no question. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- You mean the Wikipedia article? That's not a Wikipedia policy page. FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- The Wikipedia article tells us about the publisher. WP:RS tells us not to use the publisher, as it's the academic equivalent of a vanity press. This does not seem to em to be contentious. Guy (Help!) 14:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- You mean the Wikipedia article? That's not a Wikipedia policy page. FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- Actual reliable sources describe it as a predatory publisher. Personally I never draw the fine distinction between predatory and 'vanity' that some do, either way the author pays a fee to have their work published. Publishing not based on merit or peer review means it cannot be used as a reliable source and is ripe for removal.
- While this might unfairly label some legitimate papers as unreliable, this is not a problem of wikipedia's making. This is the problem of the author choosing an unreliable publisher to get their work out. Papers sourced solely to such journals/publishers fail our requirements for RS.
- As for removing sources cited to papers from such unreliable sources but leaving the statements they are supporting, this is an editorial decision. The editor could have removed all the info. Unless its something particularly contentious, leaving it and asking for a better source is an option available. We do have a citation needed template after all. Info *may* be removed from articles. It doesnt necessarily have to be in all cases where sources may be found that can support it. Only in death does duty end (talk) 14:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Exactly. We have sympathy for the victims but we are not qualified to work out which are victims and which are knowingly exploiting lack of peer-review. Guy (Help!) 14:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- In that case, to not leave a mass of unreferenced articles, JzG should at least leave a "citation needed" tag after every sentence he makes unsourced. And the journal should be listed somewhere or blocked. FunkMonk (talk) 14:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't mind doing that where the cite is not redundant, but most of the facts I have seen don't appear to be disputed. Guy (Help!) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- What do you base that on? In the case of Smilodon, the article refers to specific theories[2], not common knowledge or some such. FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to me that if a statement required a citation before, simply removing the citation without providing an alternative, or tagging with "citation needed", is close to vandalism. I have never heard before that citations are only needed where facts are disputed - I thought this was an encyclopaedia.DrChrissy (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well, If you are not familiar with WP:V, then I suggest you read it. And of course it does not say "only when facts are disputed". In general, removing bad sources is a step in the right direction. Removing dubious unsourced content is also a step in the right direction. But nobody can or should force a volunteer editor to make more steps than they do voluntarily. Otherwise, why not demand perfect FA's immediately.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you for confirming WP:V does not state - "only when facts are disputed". I was actually referring to an editor's previous comment, not he policy. It takes no additional effort, and no further steps, to remove the material associated with a reference if this is not a RS. It simply requires an adjustment when selecting the material to remove - I don't think this is too taxing on editors. It also takes little effort to simply place a tag on the contested reference/content. DrChrissy (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- The suggestion that users can just remove sources for being unreliable without discussion, and then leaving heaps of unsourced statements for years to come, is rather baffling. Not sure what the "why not demand perfect FA's immediately" statement has to do with anything. An article does not remain an FA for long if it has unsourced statements, so these are better off removed entirely. How hard is it really for the volunteer editor to remove a sentence preceding a source? Am I missing something? It is not about "forcing" anyone, but about common sense and courtesy. By simply removing citations, the volunteer editor is leaving even more clean-up work for other volunteer editors to do (if the removal is even noticed by anyone), and yes, forcing these to do the job for them, since the quality of the article is otherwise compromised. FunkMonk (talk) 22:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- The problem with this discussion is saying "x" is always or never a reliable source, full stop, is misleading. Even highly reputable sources can contain factual errors, and in those cases it would not be appropriate to cite the source. As FunkMonk suggests, if you do not believe the facts in source are reputable enough to give a solid verification to a claim, and you don't replace it with an alternative source or at least tag it with [citation needed] or [better source needed] (thus immediately flagging it as a problem), why would you believe anything in the accompanying text is correct either? This is especially important for any featured article with a scientific emphasis. In the example given here, this edit is problematic as it gives the reader the impression that the information is cited to the next inline citation along, which is (probably) wrong - so such an edit is dangerous because it gives the impression of falsified sources. To give another example, on numerous occasions I have wandered round BLPs and taken out statements cited to The Sun, and by and large I have not left the accompanying text in (usually because doing so violates WP:BLP anyway). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 14:31, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
- The suggestion that users can just remove sources for being unreliable without discussion, and then leaving heaps of unsourced statements for years to come, is rather baffling. Not sure what the "why not demand perfect FA's immediately" statement has to do with anything. An article does not remain an FA for long if it has unsourced statements, so these are better off removed entirely. How hard is it really for the volunteer editor to remove a sentence preceding a source? Am I missing something? It is not about "forcing" anyone, but about common sense and courtesy. By simply removing citations, the volunteer editor is leaving even more clean-up work for other volunteer editors to do (if the removal is even noticed by anyone), and yes, forcing these to do the job for them, since the quality of the article is otherwise compromised. FunkMonk (talk) 22:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
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- Thank you for confirming WP:V does not state - "only when facts are disputed". I was actually referring to an editor's previous comment, not he policy. It takes no additional effort, and no further steps, to remove the material associated with a reference if this is not a RS. It simply requires an adjustment when selecting the material to remove - I don't think this is too taxing on editors. It also takes little effort to simply place a tag on the contested reference/content. DrChrissy (talk) 22:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Well, If you are not familiar with WP:V, then I suggest you read it. And of course it does not say "only when facts are disputed". In general, removing bad sources is a step in the right direction. Removing dubious unsourced content is also a step in the right direction. But nobody can or should force a volunteer editor to make more steps than they do voluntarily. Otherwise, why not demand perfect FA's immediately.... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- It seems to me that if a statement required a citation before, simply removing the citation without providing an alternative, or tagging with "citation needed", is close to vandalism. I have never heard before that citations are only needed where facts are disputed - I thought this was an encyclopaedia.DrChrissy (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- What do you base that on? In the case of Smilodon, the article refers to specific theories[2], not common knowledge or some such. FunkMonk (talk) 14:48, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I don't mind doing that where the cite is not redundant, but most of the facts I have seen don't appear to be disputed. Guy (Help!) 14:44, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- In that case, to not leave a mass of unreferenced articles, JzG should at least leave a "citation needed" tag after every sentence he makes unsourced. And the journal should be listed somewhere or blocked. FunkMonk (talk) 14:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- Exactly. We have sympathy for the victims but we are not qualified to work out which are victims and which are knowingly exploiting lack of peer-review. Guy (Help!) 14:26, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Some points that might deserve consideration. A predatory publisher essentially produces self-published sources, in relation to the author. However, the standing policy is: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the subject matter, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. So in cases where on a scientific subject professional scientists have published peer-reviewed articles, their subsequent non-reviewed articles should in principle be considered reliable.
Secondly, we should remember that it is perfectly all-right to use even a questionable source as a source about that source itself. A Wikipedia article, even when addressing utterly uncontentious content, should ideally consist of statements of the form Source X claims fact Y anyway. So, when statements of the form Object X has quality Y are changed into Scientist Z stated/concluded/suggested in xxxx that object X has quality Y, it becomes irrelevant whether said scientist published this opinion in a questionable source — unless, of course, it was some silly hypothesis that should be disregarded by us because of Undue Weight, the reason why he could only publish it in a questionable source in the first place. Simply explicitly mentioning in the main text the author(s) and the studies involved, thus solves the problem.--MWAK (talk) 18:25, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
- I agree that we should treat these as self-published sources. Publications become reliable because of their editorial oversight, and inclusion in Beall's list generally implies that a publisher has liittle or no oversight or that it allows what oversight it has to be trumped by fee-seeking behavior. But I would go farther than that. A paper on arXiv, for instance, is self-published (the editorial controls at arXiv are too weak to confer reliability) but neutral: many good sources are self-published at arXiv and then later peer-reviewed, there is no profit motive complicating the issue, etc. On the other hand, no self-respecting academic would knowingly publish at a predatory publisher: reliable non-predatory academic publishers are plentiful, confer more respect on one's publications, and are generally cheaper (often free to authors rather than charging publication fees). Therefore, publication in a predatory publisher such as SRP is a symptom that something is wrong and that one should treat the source very carefully if at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed with treating accused sources with suspicious. But black-listing a publisher should require multiple independent sources. Beall has been called "trigger-happy" by Paul Ginsparg, the creator of arXiv, in a paper in Science.[3] He's been said to be falsely accusing nearly one in five as being predatory (see Jeffrey_Beall#Counter-criticism). He often doesn't tell when a publisher is no longer in his list, and if it was because a once-predatory journal reformed or if it was accused unfairly. Although publishers like SRP and OMICS serve as clearer examples, that are many borderline and controversial cases, such as MDPI and Frontiers Media, which were cleared by, e.g., the Committee on Publication Ethics. fgnievinski (talk) 17:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
FunkMonk insists on reinserting the cite to this source demanding that if I remove it then I must also remove all text purportedly supported by it. This is surreal. Guy (Help!) 23:41, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Sigh, JzG you've done similar at Suillellus luridus. I would agree that if you are going to remove the source, please remove the fact. In this case it is pretty trivial though. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:11, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
- I have done this where i think the information is likely to be disputed. Many cites were redundant (para already had a source) and most were for information that seems unlikely to be challenged. Some were of the class "X claims this Great new Theory, source X's paper in SCIRP", and those of course I have removed in their entirety. Guy (Help!) 11:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Surreal"? It is common practice. Especially for FAs. And what does "para already had a source" even mean? The source at the end of a paragraph rarely if ever supports a sentence earlier in the paragraph that is followed by a different source. You're leaving the rest of us to clean up your mess, and that's why I've reverted you. FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- I don't know the requirement of Featured Articles, but if deleting the predatory publication leaves no reference, why not put in the {{cn}} citation needed in its place? (as mentioned above) I thought that was the standard thing to do--or better yet find a source that supports it, if one exists. If no one can find a source for it, then it gets deleted: no mess. I don't think the FA quality is reduced by using this approach, even though "citation needed" does make the article look less attractive to the reader. But leaving in a questionable source is not much better. --David Tornheim (talk) 02:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- And when the form is "X claims this Great new Theory, source X's paper in SCIRP", it should not be removed at all because even when the source would be unreliable as to the content (which, again, may only be assumed if X is not an established expert), it suffices as proof that X made the claim. You are violating the NPOV principle.--MWAK (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- To leave it in sounds like WP:OR to me. I thought grand new theories had to be reported in secondary sources, right? Can you provide WP:PAG that defends your claim that this should be left in? --David Tornheim (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Well, the existence (not truth) of even a "grand new theory" is sufficiently proven by its "primary" source if that's a scientific article. If such an article is deemed unreliable because of being published in a predatory magazine (it is BTW not to be considered unreliable if the author is an established scientist for then the rules about self-publishing should apply), this only affects the content. So we may not claim "Fact X" and merely give a citation but we may claim "Scientist Z claims Fact X" and leave it to the reader whether he wants to believe Scientist Z. To give an example: we may not claim sauropods still exist in the Congo but we may claim (and correctly do) "Roy P. Mackal in 1987 claimed that sauropods exist in the Congo" in his A Living Dinosaur? In Search of Mokele-Mbembe even though this book is very unreliable as to the biological content. Whether a predatory publisher publishes such sources then becomes utterly irrelevant.--MWAK (talk) 07:54, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- To leave it in sounds like WP:OR to me. I thought grand new theories had to be reported in secondary sources, right? Can you provide WP:PAG that defends your claim that this should be left in? --David Tornheim (talk) 02:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Surreal"? It is common practice. Especially for FAs. And what does "para already had a source" even mean? The source at the end of a paragraph rarely if ever supports a sentence earlier in the paragraph that is followed by a different source. You're leaving the rest of us to clean up your mess, and that's why I've reverted you. FunkMonk (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- I have done this where i think the information is likely to be disputed. Many cites were redundant (para already had a source) and most were for information that seems unlikely to be challenged. Some were of the class "X claims this Great new Theory, source X's paper in SCIRP", and those of course I have removed in their entirety. Guy (Help!) 11:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
Note: if one is searching for SRP publications used as sources on Wikipedia, as well as searching for their domain name in the URL, another possibility is to search for "10.4236" in the doi. Google claims to find about 231 of these. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:48, 1 March 2016 (UTC)
One aspect I do not understand here is that simply the presence of a journal or publisher's name on a list is being used to delete the reference (and sometimes the associated material). I once used the Daily Mail as a source. Due to the comments I received about this, I questioned why there is no black-list of newspapers that are widely considered as non-RS so that editors considering using these sources would be alerted prior to making the edits. In the ensuing discussion, people seemed to think that setting such lists in concrete was ill-advised, so why the difference here? I then asked about the criteria that people might use as to whether a newspaper is RS or not and whether we should include this on the policy/guideline page. I met incredible resistance to this idea. Today, I have spent some time going through several of the listed predatory journals and for some of them, the only practice they have which is different to non-listed journals is they charge money for their services.DrChrissy (talk) 20:46, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- If it were only charging money for open-access publication, many well-established and mainstream academic publishers should also be listed. But no, the real problem is not the money they charge: it's that, in order to assure the continued flow of this money, these journals either perform no adequate peer review of the papers they publish (taking all or almost all submissions from authors willing to pay) or that they let the willingness to pay override the judgements of the peer reviewers. (There are also some other bad habits that can land a publisher on this list, such as falsifying their editorial boards or spamming potential contributors, that are less central to the question of how reliable they are.) —David Eppstein (talk) 00:18, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- But how do we know whether a journal is lying on its web-site about e.g. peer-review, editorial boards? Do we just put absolute trust in Beall's list being 100% accurate? DrChrissy (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- We know Beall is reliable because he is widely considered to be reliable by known experts. I know it can seem a little strange, given the vociferousness with which unreliable sources are often attacked, but at some point, we need to trust the experts. Establishing the reliability of a source isn't an exercise in formal logic, but more like the legal concept of the preponderance of evidence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- I guess part of the problem is that I am seeing some papers in these journals which are written by well-established, highly reputable authors. I can think of several possible reasons for this, e.g. to achieve a necessary deadline so the paper can be included as "published" in a grant application/CV (in my subject area, publication in traditional journals often takes 6-12 months!). So what do we do about these papers? DrChrissy (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- You might be able to make a case that an article by a known, reliable expert published in a predatory journal is an RS. I think that's something we'd need to decide on a case by case basis, though. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes - I agree entirely. I think this is actually what is intended by WP:RS which states Beware of sources that sound reliable but... might have a reputation for "predatory" behavior. I think we should note the word "Beware" does not mean "You are not permitted to use". DrChrissy (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- If people agree that this should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis, would we also agree that the best place for this case-by-case discussion, at least initially, is at the Talk page of the article in question, rather than at a more general noticeboard such as this. This would likely involve those with the greatest interest and expertise in the subject matter. DrChrissy (talk) 20:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- It should be rejected in all cases regardless of who wrote it. A recognized expert shouldn't have any problem getting published by a respectable journal, and seeing one in a vanity journal should be considered immediately suspicious. Even under optimal circumstances, a recognized expert's paper in a reliable journal, these sources are very primary and tend to represent the personal interpretations of one researcher when the article needs to represent primarily the general consensus of the field. Passing peer review doesn't confer "truth" onto an idea, it just means that it passed enough basic review that it's worth a skeptical reading by other people trained in that field. Too often editors tend to forget that and somehow these become "truth" for uncritical perusal by an untrained audience...which is not what the paper was originally intended for. A lot of funny ideas make it past peer review because they're "safe" for other experts but would never have made it into a textbook, whose intended audience might be misled. Considering these problems, considering how many respectable journals there are that we might use instead, and considering that it's hard to see why an expert would use such a venue to make a claim representative of their field, I see no reason a vanity press should be allowed at all. Geogene (talk) 20:47, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- No. We don't reject all self-published sources (which is what these journals amount to: if you pay, they publish), so we shouldn't reject all predatory journal articles out of hand. That being said, the onus should be on the editor adding such a reference to show that this particular article is reliable, despite its publication circumstances. If someone were to come along and delete a reference to (for instance) a Brian Greene paper on string theory that was published in a predatory journal, that'd be fine. The person who added it should come back and explain carefully that Greene is a recognized expert before re-inserting it.
- Also, you raise a very good point about where reputable experts will publish. The acknowledged expert who publishes in a predatory journal will be an extremely rare bird. They will be uncommon exceptions to the rule that predatory journal articles are useless. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- @User:Geogene. Perhaps I should make my example clearer. In my area of publication, it very often takes 6 to 12 months from manuscript submission for the journal to arrive on the library shelves/on line. During that time, I may wish to apply for funds for a grant which asks for a publication list. Obviously, it is more advantageous for that paper to be cited as "Published" rather than "Submitted". The predatory journals offer a much shorter time to publication, and it might be worth me paying money to get it published there so it can be included in my grant application. As a career-researcher, I would be considering the quality of my paper and how this will be viewed by my peers after publication. The standard of my paper is actually independent of the money generating practices of the publishing house (which we should remember is not the journal). I totally appreciate this type of example will not be the case for many publications in predatory journals, but I feel we need to be extremely careful of simply deleting references on the basis they are from "predatory publishers". DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Okay, so experts would have a sensible reason to use a predatory journal after all. Having given this further thought, MjolnirPants would probably reject >98% of predatory journal papers as sources, and I'd reject 100%, the difference between the two isn't enough to try to edit policy over it. I do like giving my opinions though. Geogene (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- For the record, I would say I'd reject >99.9% of predatory journal articles. Other than that, I agree. The point I raised is something we should keep in mind, not something that should affect policy regarding what is considered reliable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- I am actually not prepared to put a figure on this. I suspect the influence of a journal being "predatory" on the suitability of a paper as being a RS varies considerably between journals and subject areas. By the way, I am not suggesting a re-write of policy. The policy already states "Beware...", which is fair enough, but it does not state, "Do not use" or "Automatically delete". DrChrissy (talk) 21:40, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- For the record, I would say I'd reject >99.9% of predatory journal articles. Other than that, I agree. The point I raised is something we should keep in mind, not something that should affect policy regarding what is considered reliable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:25, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Your example only underscores the need to look askance at such publications - the secondary gain is another reason to suspect such publications will include poor-quality research. I have no intention to impugn your work; just commenting that the example is not at all reassuring (IMHO). — soupvector (talk) 00:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Okay, so experts would have a sensible reason to use a predatory journal after all. Having given this further thought, MjolnirPants would probably reject >98% of predatory journal papers as sources, and I'd reject 100%, the difference between the two isn't enough to try to edit policy over it. I do like giving my opinions though. Geogene (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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- @User:Geogene. Perhaps I should make my example clearer. In my area of publication, it very often takes 6 to 12 months from manuscript submission for the journal to arrive on the library shelves/on line. During that time, I may wish to apply for funds for a grant which asks for a publication list. Obviously, it is more advantageous for that paper to be cited as "Published" rather than "Submitted". The predatory journals offer a much shorter time to publication, and it might be worth me paying money to get it published there so it can be included in my grant application. As a career-researcher, I would be considering the quality of my paper and how this will be viewed by my peers after publication. The standard of my paper is actually independent of the money generating practices of the publishing house (which we should remember is not the journal). I totally appreciate this type of example will not be the case for many publications in predatory journals, but I feel we need to be extremely careful of simply deleting references on the basis they are from "predatory publishers". DrChrissy (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes - I agree entirely. I think this is actually what is intended by WP:RS which states Beware of sources that sound reliable but... might have a reputation for "predatory" behavior. I think we should note the word "Beware" does not mean "You are not permitted to use". DrChrissy (talk) 20:06, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- You might be able to make a case that an article by a known, reliable expert published in a predatory journal is an RS. I think that's something we'd need to decide on a case by case basis, though. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:52, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- I guess part of the problem is that I am seeing some papers in these journals which are written by well-established, highly reputable authors. I can think of several possible reasons for this, e.g. to achieve a necessary deadline so the paper can be included as "published" in a grant application/CV (in my subject area, publication in traditional journals often takes 6-12 months!). So what do we do about these papers? DrChrissy (talk) 18:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- We know Beall is reliable because he is widely considered to be reliable by known experts. I know it can seem a little strange, given the vociferousness with which unreliable sources are often attacked, but at some point, we need to trust the experts. Establishing the reliability of a source isn't an exercise in formal logic, but more like the legal concept of the preponderance of evidence. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:39, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- But how do we know whether a journal is lying on its web-site about e.g. peer-review, editorial boards? Do we just put absolute trust in Beall's list being 100% accurate? DrChrissy (talk) 17:49, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I agree - all publications in predatory journals should be viewed with suspicion. I actually view all publications I reference in WP with the same eye I use as an editor and reviewer in several traditional science journals. The point I am trying to make is that there are some quality papers in predatory journals and to have editors on WP deleting these simply on the basis of which publishing house they come from without discussing this on the Talk page first is clearly disruptive. DrChrissy (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- The problem is that we are not allowed to be the ones to judge whether a source is reliable: we are only allowed to choose which reliable sources we include. It doesn't matter if we like the content of a paper in a junk journal or not, it's in a junk journal, so it fails the test of being in a reliable source - and that means we don't get to decide that it is reliable after all, because Wikipedia does not allow us to be the primary judge of validity of original research. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- I agree - all publications in predatory journals should be viewed with suspicion. I actually view all publications I reference in WP with the same eye I use as an editor and reviewer in several traditional science journals. The point I am trying to make is that there are some quality papers in predatory journals and to have editors on WP deleting these simply on the basis of which publishing house they come from without discussing this on the Talk page first is clearly disruptive. DrChrissy (talk) 01:38, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Thanks for the reminder about the SPS exceptions. I've occasionally used expert blogs as sources myself (everybody's got a blog, and they tend to be reader-friendly and reasonably orthodox). I'd rather not lump all the different categories of self-publishing together, because some types should attract more suspicion than others, for the reasons I've given. But the existing policy does seem to support that. Geogene (talk) 21:50, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
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Yeah, this is a category of SPS that warrants a metric fuck-ton of suspicion. That being said, I just can't escape the conclusion that there might be a few rare gems to be found. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:02, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- In spite of this discussion being ongoing, and no consensus has been reached, JzG just keeps on mass-removing sources as a bulldozer without any prior discussion (see various complaints by several editors on his talk page). I suggest he refrain from doing anything of the sort until some conclusion has been reached here. FunkMonk (talk) 23:36, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
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- This is really very simple: every single time I have removed one of these sources, it has been a WP:PRIMARY source. Primary sources are deprecated. We also know, because these are predatory publishers, that the things which allow us to sometimes use primary sources - academic peer-review weeding out the crap, basically - is absent or seriously deficient in the journals. In fact, that's the defining characteristic. So we have primary sources in unreliable journals - inappropriate on two levels. These citations neeed to go. Including them gives a false impression of validity to the publishers. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes it is very simple. Your deletions are obviously contentious (hence the number of complaints on your Talk page). Therefore, you should be discussing these deletions at the article Talk page before making them. DrChrissy (talk) 23:57, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Those removing these kind of sources need to be more careful, as discussed above, and not leave statements that looked to be referenced by a later reference that does not support he statement. So either check that it is supported by the following reference, supply an alternate reference, add [citation needed], leave the reference if the author is a recognized expert, or remove the statement and the unreliable reference. If they only remove the reference and leave a dubious statement, it is a net negative to Wikipedia readers and writers. This sort of removal is akin to just deleting words that are spelled incorrectly without fixing them up. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:45, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Oppose mass removal of text, and very dubious about mass removal of sources. If a source must be removed, then a "Citation needed" tag should be inserted to alert the rest of us to the unsourced statement. It is wrong and irresponsible to remove a source, leaving as Graeme Bartlett rightly says the wrong impression that a different source may apply. It is equally wrong, irresponsible and I suggest disruptive editing to remove both text and citation on the contentious grounds that the publisher of the journal is "predatory". It is undoubtedly despicable for publishers to squeeze money from scientists, but that does NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean the affected scientific papers are worthless, still less that all statements in such papers are unreliable. While I'd agree that the usual caveats about Primary Sources apply (a fortiori if peer review has been questionable), we can still make use of non-contentious parts of such papers, where they are summarizing well-known facts as background in particular. We really should not be running about deleting hundreds of cited paragraphs of text - whole sections sometimes - especially before discussion (such as this) has been completed. It is a shame to see experienced editors behaving in such a way, and it is a great waste of time for all other editors, as well as doing a great deal of damage to all the affected Wikipedia articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- I think you're missing the point. I know that being published in a predatory journal does not make the content automatically unreliable, but the source is unreliable: it lacks the necessary neutral peer-review. God knows that even real journals get bamboozled by people suggesting their own reviewers and so on, but these journals don't even try: they take the money and publish. There are numerous known examples of blatantly bogus publications (e.g. the Burzynski Clinic pushing out papers on its bogus "antineoplastons"). The point is that we cannot judge the difference - we're not allowed to. If a source does not have the quality controls that are required to make it reliable then we do not get to decide that some of the content is valid because we understand the subject and know it to be so. Wikipedia is designed precisely to stop that: we are not supposed to judge primary content ourselves, we are supposed to use reliable independent sources, and predatory journals inherently fail both those tests because there is no rigorous independent peer review. And that applies even if we think the content of the paper is unambiguously correct. Guy (Help!) 10:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- Oppose mass removal of text, and very dubious about mass removal of sources. If a source must be removed, then a "Citation needed" tag should be inserted to alert the rest of us to the unsourced statement. It is wrong and irresponsible to remove a source, leaving as Graeme Bartlett rightly says the wrong impression that a different source may apply. It is equally wrong, irresponsible and I suggest disruptive editing to remove both text and citation on the contentious grounds that the publisher of the journal is "predatory". It is undoubtedly despicable for publishers to squeeze money from scientists, but that does NOT AUTOMATICALLY mean the affected scientific papers are worthless, still less that all statements in such papers are unreliable. While I'd agree that the usual caveats about Primary Sources apply (a fortiori if peer review has been questionable), we can still make use of non-contentious parts of such papers, where they are summarizing well-known facts as background in particular. We really should not be running about deleting hundreds of cited paragraphs of text - whole sections sometimes - especially before discussion (such as this) has been completed. It is a shame to see experienced editors behaving in such a way, and it is a great waste of time for all other editors, as well as doing a great deal of damage to all the affected Wikipedia articles. Chiswick Chap (talk) 08:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- @JzG: primary sources are deprecated according to whom? Certainly not the policy you linked, which says no such thing. VQuakr (talk) 09:12, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- He might be thinking of WP:MEDRS, which (rightly) does warn against relying too heavily on primary sources, because of course claims made in reporting new science can be revised and criticized by other scientists, e.g. if they can't repeat the results or they find the methodology inadequate. But that is quite different from saying we must delete all primary-sourced material. We can use primary sources with care, reporting that new science occurred, with the implication that it might be revised. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with Chiswick Chap. Considering how much completely unreferenced material there is in Wikipedia, a mission to remove information cited to journals published by a particular publishing house that might have used less rigour in its evaluation than other publishers, seems unnecessary to me. Much of the information thus removed is uncontentious and only used by way of background. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- The solution to that is to reference the other material. It is absolutely clear that these are not reliable sources, so the only actual question is what to do about that. The options are: leave the unreliable sources, remove the unreliable sources and leave the text unsourced, or remove the unreliable sources and the text they support. I tried option 2 and people clearly preferred option 3. Option 1 is not in line with policy because the sources are unreliable.
- You clearly think that does not matter. I disagree. I have seen papers published in these journals written by charlatans and promoting fraudulent cancer "cures". I know these to be fraudulent because there are many other sources showing them to be so. How do I know that any other publication in one of these junk journals is not fraudulent? How do we know if they are pushing an agenda and cannot get published in a proper journal? The simple fact is: we can't know without engaging in original research. The only sane policy is to exclude predatory journals.
- Clearly a small number of valid papers might suffer. This is a result of the predatory journals doing exactly what they are trying to do: scamming academics into paying to get published. That is very sad, but it is not our problem to fix. The point of a journal as a reliable source is that it is peer-reviewed, and one of the signature features of predatory journals is that the peer review often looks no further than the credit card of the submitting author. That excludes them from use. Which leaves two optins: remove and leave uncited, or remove with the text they support. I'm happy with either. Guy (Help!) 10:24, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with Chiswick Chap. Considering how much completely unreferenced material there is in Wikipedia, a mission to remove information cited to journals published by a particular publishing house that might have used less rigour in its evaluation than other publishers, seems unnecessary to me. Much of the information thus removed is uncontentious and only used by way of background. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:35, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- He might be thinking of WP:MEDRS, which (rightly) does warn against relying too heavily on primary sources, because of course claims made in reporting new science can be revised and criticized by other scientists, e.g. if they can't repeat the results or they find the methodology inadequate. But that is quite different from saying we must delete all primary-sourced material. We can use primary sources with care, reporting that new science occurred, with the implication that it might be revised. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:27, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- This is really very simple: every single time I have removed one of these sources, it has been a WP:PRIMARY source. Primary sources are deprecated. We also know, because these are predatory publishers, that the things which allow us to sometimes use primary sources - academic peer-review weeding out the crap, basically - is absent or seriously deficient in the journals. In fact, that's the defining characteristic. So we have primary sources in unreliable journals - inappropriate on two levels. These citations neeed to go. Including them gives a false impression of validity to the publishers. Guy (Help!) 23:45, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Delete text and delete references (after checking is there's a better source). Our task here is to reflect "accepted knowledge". It is incredible that people seem willing to defend information cited to known dodgy sources (and too often the kind of claims being pushed are of the "chutney may cure can cancer" variety). If some piece of information only appears in a suspect journal it is not fit for an encyclopedia. True, some of this stuff may prove to be okay in time but it NOT OUR JOB to try and sit in judgement over these; we need to wait to see if it picked up by true RS and so becomes the "accepted knowledgde" we are meant to be relaying. Alexbrn (talk) 09:49, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- That is far too much of a "blanket" (unthinking, mass action) response. We certainly need to REPLACE dodgy sources (though I do not agree with a statement like "if it's OMICS then it's not reliable", that is far too blunt). To replace sources decently takes work, which takes time. Therefore if we have to remove a source, we should remove the associated claim if and only if that source is the only one for that claim, i.e. the claim is part of the new thesis introduced by a scientific paper, and nobody else has yet repeated the experiment or observation. When a paper (in its overview section) reviews existing work, that is likely to be correct, and it is usually easy to find replacement sources, so it is frankly stupid to delete the text in such cases. Far better to mark it "citation needed" or "better source needed" so we can replace the ref with one from a decent publisher, that's all. I've done two such today. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:14, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- It's rare I'm a little bit at odds with other folks here that work within MEDRS a lot, but the case we're dealing with in the insect articles was that super basic non-controversial information (in a GA) happened to be sourced to an OMICS publication. The key thing for a non-MEDRS topic like this is results and conclusions from a primary paper shouldn't be in articles and even moreso if it's an OMICS publication. If it's more literature review-like information though (i.e. introduction section), immediate deletion probably isn't the way to go as there are a few other things to weigh that would be more conducive with flagging and talk page notification for regulars in the topic to figure out. I personally prefer to avoid primary introduction sections, but they have occasional use in non-MEDRS topics. If it's for MEDRS though, I'd be fine with a higher tendency to delete regardless of how the OMICS source is used. Kingofaces43 (talk) 23:57, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- If the goal here is to decide what to do with claims currently sourced to articles published by predatory journals, then I say we delete the text and the claim. If one can find a reliable source, or (highly unlikely) make the case that this particular paper is reliable, then the text can be restored. But I understand why Guy would remove just the source: He's not trying to alter contents, he's trying to do some housekeeping. Instead of whining about the way he's doing it try helping. I swear to god, the most frustrating thing I see here is people whining about other editors ruining the site instead of trying to improve the site themselves. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- delete text & source or tag - it doesn't matter - what matters is that local editors watching the article react, like this. Where red-flagged sources were used, WP:FIXIT with high quality sourcing. JzG is doing a huge service to the community here - I don't care if he removes stuff or tags it - the main thing is that local editors know they have a serious issue with the integrity of content in the affected article that they actually watch and work on. The integrity of our content is what matters and we have a ton of editing work to do. Unless you are arguing that articles from predatory journals should not be redflagged (and deleting or tagging them does the same thing in the workflow of editing Wikipedia articles) then I do not understand the fuss over the minutia of how Guy is doing this. Jytdog (talk) 16:53, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- If blanking sources that accurately WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT for material that is probably not wrong is a "huge service" – thus making it more likely that future editors will not recognize and therefore not investigage the dubious origin of this material – then leaving the sources present and tagging them with {{better source}} or {{Unreliable medical source}}, or even moving the text and the lousy source to the talk page, must be rated as an "absolutely enormous service". Blanking a source only "does the same thing in the workflow" if someone is actively maintaining the article at the time JzG blanks the source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Exactly, unless JZG actually finishes the job and adds CN tags or removes the statements, he is merely hiding the fact that these statements are now unsourced. So unless other, more considerate users, realise the consequence of his edits leave misleading articles, it is a huge disservice to Wikipedia. And no, we can't just assume that other editors will do the job for him, that is simply lazy and irresponsible. FunkMonk (talk) 00:02, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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I came here via a notice on the psychology Wikiproject page. I would agree with those who say that Scientific Research Publishing journals shouldn't be used as sources. The whole set up is plainly suspect, and has been exploited by people putting forward false claims for public consumption. If the claim is non-controversial, there should be a better source for it. There is nothing to stop editors mining such articles' references for good sources. How those sources are removed is another matter. Perhaps tagging a citation with "suspect" and a relatively near date after which the material will be removed. This will give editors a chance to save that material which is OK. I am reluctant to criticise JdZ's actions because really, we should NOT be using such a source. OsFish (talk) 02:28, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Delete bad references, possibly delete text I wouldn't hesitate to delete a reference that I'm confident is non-RS. What comes next depends on the statement it supports. If it's "The sky is blue", I'd be inclined to leave it unsourced. If it is plausible and seems weighted properly, then Citation Needed. If it seems wrong, seems overweighted, is potentially a hoax, or otherwise is a high-risk item, then I'd delete the whole thing. But I think that removing a bad source should always be the case. A statement that is wrong and "sourced" is always more dangerous than one that isn't. Geogene (talk) 21:30, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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- "A statement that is wrong and "sourced" is always more dangerous than one that isn't." Not if the unsourced statement is immediately followed by another statement that is sourced, which hides the fact that the first statement has no source. And that's what we now have loads of as a result of these edits; unsourced statements masquerading as sourced ones. If other editors don't notice and fix each of these, the unsourced statements will stay there indefinitely. Much worse than before, when we could actually identify which statements that had iffy sourcing or not. FunkMonk (talk) 15:34, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
Other predatory journals
It'd have been a courtesy posting a note about the present discussion in Talk:Scientific Research Publishing and also in Talk:Predatory open access publishing.
If the position of removing citations to predatory publishers prevails, it must be applied consistently. Should we include current predatory journals only or also past predatory journals too? If a journal is no longer considered predatory, do past articles remain black-listed? And when a journal becomes recognized as predatory, do we black-list only new articles?
I've taken the liberty of notifying affected parties:
- Talk:Dove Medical Press, Talk:Hindawi Publishing Corporation, Talk:Libertas Academica, Talk:MDPI; and
- Talk:Frontiers Media, Talk:OMICS Publishing Group, Talk:Scientific Research Publishing, Talk:World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology.
fgnievinski (talk) 19:43, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
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- That is again such inappropriate use of article Talk pages! I am reverting those, and will discuss with you at your Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- Not sure why you're duplicating this discussion here then. fgnievinski (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- That is again such inappropriate use of article Talk pages! I am reverting those, and will discuss with you at your Talk page. Jytdog (talk) 20:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- To answer your questions: we are not removing these as a punishment to the journal for being predatory, we are removing them because the journal's predatory practices fail to meet our standards for what makes a reliable source. So, if a journal was once legitimate but then falls into predatory ways, or if a once-predatory journal reforms and becomes legitimate, then the references that should be removed are the ones from the period when it was predatory. But if we're not sure, we should err on the side of not accepting sources we're not sure about, rather than allowing badly sourced claims to slip into the encyclopedia. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)
- Alright, so let's go ahead and remove citations to all other articles published in journals during the periods in which their publisher was considered predatory. fgnievinski (talk) 01:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- We should summarize the present consensus in either or both WP:RS#Predatory journals and WP:MEDRS#Predatory journals. fgnievinski (talk) 17:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- agree summarize the present consensus is best (WP:MEDRS#Predatory journals)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:55, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
DOIs
Thanks to @David Eppstein: above for pointing out that some predatory publishers can be identified by DOI. Here are two, including probably the worst, wiht the DOI linked to a search:
- 10.4172: OMICS Group
- 10.4236: Scientific Research Publishing
- 10.3389: Frontiers Media (added later) fgnievinski (talk) 17:28, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Perusing these articles finds a mountain of problems other than simply crap sources. Many, many vanity articles, a lot of WP:OR and so on. Guy (Help!) 10:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
Slightly different tack
I have an academic interest in this subject as well as an interest as it relates to Wikipedia. While I think being placed on Beall's List is, generally, enough of a WP:REDFLAG to warrant severe skepticism with respect to the reliability of a source, there is actually a larger problem in academic publishing generally, as of late. This is the problem with distributed editorial control of journals and is generally the problem with even so-called "Gold Standard Open Access" as Beall puts it. The basic issue is that when one replaces a small, respected editorial board with a huge (sometimes numbering in the thousands) list of potential editors, niche subjects will end up in blind alleys with papers published that do not live up to any meaningful standard of reliability. This criticism has lately included journals that are very prestigious indeed including PlosOne (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published creationist pseudoscience[4]), Medicine (journal) (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published acupuncture pseudoscience[5]), as well as Scientific Reports (recently implicated in a problematic situation where they published Ayurveda pseudoscience[6]).
The problem for Wikipedia is not with the "predatory open access" model, per se. After all, it is to the larger Wikipedia movement's benefit that academic publishing go the way of open access, and if a journal ends up being "predatory", that's really more a matter of the ethics of publishing than it is a question of quality. No doubt that a predatory journal is much more likely to be full of low quality nonsense, but it will also, unfortunately, be prone to include a few articles that are actually decent (though the citation rates are never liable to take off because, well, predatory journals essentially by definition never show up in the standard lit. review searches done by academics). Occasionally, superb articles are dug up from predatory journals and go on to be cited widely as being particularly precocious thought or perhaps having primacy. Unfortunately, what can often happen is such papers can become memory holed once the predatory publisher decides to close shop.
From Wikipedia's perspective, the real problem is actually one of (lack of proper) editorial control. That said, just because a journal lacks proper editorial control doesn't mean that every single paper published in the journal is garbage. The only way to really tell is to look at the staying power and citations. This should be done in any case, regardless of how prestigious the journal is in which the paper is published. The use of primary sources such as journal articles should only be done after they have been vetted by several independent external authorities. After all, the vast majority of papers published in Science (journal) or Nature (journal) contain analyses and claims that are later shown to be overstated if not completely incorrect. That's the name of the game in academic research and it's exactly why WP:PSTS is so important. Wikipedia should be a non-innovative source. It should not be on the cutting edge.
I think what is needed is a sort of skepticism flag that should fly whenever a paper is a) published in a low-impact or questionable venue, b) new, c) making audacious claims that have not been commented upon by many other experts. In those cases, it's okay to put the paper in a holding area to see what may come. Because, we are not supposed to guess as to what may come. This will mean that Wikipedia lags behind the cutting edge research that excites many, but I think this is the only practical way forward.
jps (talk) 18:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Low impact journals are one thing, predatory ones another. We often debate whether or not to include material in low-impact journals, or ones with an ideological bias (e.g. quackery-specific ones), but these predatory journals are subverting the entire process of academic publishing and we should not use them at all, especially as primary sources. Guy (Help!) 23:47, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Occasionally, superb articles are dug up from predatory journals and go on to be cited widely as being particularly precocious thought or perhaps having primacy."
- Can you please provide an example of such a widely cited article? Thanks. 2601:285:101:7076:28D4:5471:9D6E:5720 (talk) 12:58, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- It depends, of course, on what we mean by "predatory". Beall's list is basically too new for this to have occurred since he started his Sisyphean task. However, there are certain journals which I have reason to believe may have been identified as "predatory" if that classification had existed at the time (and, to be fair, may have moved away from that designation since then, but are still "low impact"). There is an excellent paper from Current Science written in the 1980s that has a significant number of citations, for example. jps (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- So, no example to back up the claim. Got it. 2600:380:5730:4739:F9E3:A81F:9D73:7377 (talk) 02:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Current Science 51: 1096–1099. jps (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Do you have a citation for Current Science being a predatory journal? It does not appear to be on the list, nor identified as predatory in its Wikipedia article. They post occasional editorials about predatory journals, though, and their general advice is "... as practising researchers we may help the (scientific) community by spreading awareness about the problem (of predatory journals) and by consciously not citing papers published in such journals." So, at least they're scolding those who cite them. 2601:283:4301:D3A6:D0E0:3E67:D5AD:91EF (talk) 21:01, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Current Science 51: 1096–1099. jps (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- So, no example to back up the claim. Got it. 2600:380:5730:4739:F9E3:A81F:9D73:7377 (talk) 02:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- It depends, of course, on what we mean by "predatory". Beall's list is basically too new for this to have occurred since he started his Sisyphean task. However, there are certain journals which I have reason to believe may have been identified as "predatory" if that classification had existed at the time (and, to be fair, may have moved away from that designation since then, but are still "low impact"). There is an excellent paper from Current Science written in the 1980s that has a significant number of citations, for example. jps (talk) 15:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
Primary, secondary, tertiary
The wording of guidelines changes over time by WP:RS currently says:
- Wikipedia articles should be based mainly on reliable secondary sources, i.e., a document or recording that relates or discusses information originally presented elsewhere. [...]
- Primary sources are often difficult to use appropriately. Although they can be both reliable and useful in certain situations, they must be used with caution in order to avoid original research. Although specific facts may be taken from primary sources, secondary sources that present the same material are preferred. Large blocks of material based purely on primary sources should be avoided. All interpretive claims, analyses, or synthetic claims about primary sources must be referenced to a secondary source, rather than original analysis of the primary-source material by Wikipedia editors.
That, plus the lack of proper peer-review in predatory journals leading to the ability of agenda-driven authors to publish bullshit (OMICS has published anti-vax papers promoting the refuted vaccine-autism link, for example) means that I cannot see any defensible policy-based objection to removing these sources. Guy (Help!) 00:17, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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- "I cannot see..." I have cited you policy, Guy, above (23:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)). You either remove the statements, or you flag them for maintenance. You should not just remove the sources. Please follow the policy written by others who have been here longer than you. And when you do see the light, go back and repair the damage you have done. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Citing policy is fine and dandy, but your citation does not imply any duty to remove or flag content when bad sources are removed. Sure, just removing the sources leaves the article in a less than perfect state, but so might removing good content sourced to bad sources. And both are better than any content sourced to bad sources, because that a) is a bad precedent and b) gives a false sense of reliability. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC) (someone who has been here longer than both Guy and you, but much longer than you - not that that is a good argument)
- "I cannot see..." I have cited you policy, Guy, above (23:50, 5 March 2016 (UTC)). You either remove the statements, or you flag them for maintenance. You should not just remove the sources. Please follow the policy written by others who have been here longer than you. And when you do see the light, go back and repair the damage you have done. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 03:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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- "Duty" is a legal word. If you want to edit Wikipedia, follow the WP policy. The meaning of the policy is not ambiguous.
- Template:Verify source "If {a statement} is not doubtful, use Citation needed (or Cite quote) to request a citation to improve the article's verifiability."
- Wikipedia:Verifiability: "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step.[3] When tagging or removing material for lacking an inline citation, please state your concern that it may not be possible to find a published reliable source for the content, and therefore it may not be verifiable.[4] If you think the material is verifiable, you are encouraged to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it."
- Nothing in WP policy suggests or justifies removing the source and leaving a statement without source and without maintenance tag. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Duty" is a normal English word. Nothing in your quote suggests or implies that one needs to remove content with sources. You seem to fall for a classical affirming the consequent. I agree that it's better to also remove or tag content, but it is not required. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- With your agreement that "it's better to also remove or tag content," you and I are in sufficient agreement that removing the source without maint. tagging is a non-optimum approach to WP editing. However "great" the service others may believe Guy is performing for the Encyclopedia, you and I agree that he could be doing "better" with very little effort on his part. Given that fact, Guy's refusal to do the standard thing is somewhat curious. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Everybody gets to decide how to spend their limited volunteer time to improve the project. It's only "very little effort" if you blindly attach cn's, which also is sub-optimal. Once you try to understand what's being said and what's being supported by other sources, it's easily 2-3 times more work than just removing the bad sources. I'm a big fan of curiosity, but I don't share this particular one, and I'm not sure hat you want to accomplish with stating yours in this case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- I hold that Guy is damaging the Encyclopedia by these actions. Consider the statement: Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1][2] Source [1] states that cows eat grass, and source [2] says cows play the piano. Guy edits the page and deletes source [2] because it cites a predatory journal. Now we have the statement, Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1] It is a false statement that falsely cites source [1]. No other editor knows there is a problem with the statement until years later, some professional cow specialist dives into the source (from the university library), reads it end-to-end, and discovers that the statement ("play the piano") is nowhere in source [1]. How the heck did that happen? It looks like vandalism. But it was apparently well-sourced because Guy did only half the job and left chaos in his wake. And how many people have been miseducated about cows in the meantime? Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 19:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- How is that in any way worse than the original situation? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- First let us consider: How is it in any better? In both cases, before and after Guy has done his thing, the Encyclopedia contains the false statement with no clue to the casual reader or the experienced editor that the information is in doubt. On the other hand, the CN tag tells the reader that the statement may be a wild hair: DO NOT USE THIS STATEMENT AS ESTABLISHED FACT. The CN tag also tells the experienced editor that the statement is waiting for an RS, and exactly how long. As the policy says, that is the purpose of the CN tag. The architects of WP do not suggest or advocate -- or perhaps even consider -- that the Encyclopedia is improved by stripping it of sources, even bad sources. This is Guy's invention, and it is a bad one.
- We could compare Guy's action to a janitor inspecting theater chairs and removing any legs he found to be faulty because he didn't want the chairs collapsing during use -- then putting the 3-legged chairs back in service without warning signs. Do you see anything wrong with that plan? We expect that janitor to post a sign, like THIS CHAIR NOT FIT FOR USE. Like the theater is for theater goers, the Encyclopedia is for readers. Without warning signs, users get hurt. (See Band aid solution: Hasty solution that covers up the symptoms but does little or nothing to mitigate the underlying problem. See also quick fix.") Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 20:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- How is that in any way worse than the original situation? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- I hold that Guy is damaging the Encyclopedia by these actions. Consider the statement: Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1][2] Source [1] states that cows eat grass, and source [2] says cows play the piano. Guy edits the page and deletes source [2] because it cites a predatory journal. Now we have the statement, Cows with black spots eat grass and play the piano.[1] It is a false statement that falsely cites source [1]. No other editor knows there is a problem with the statement until years later, some professional cow specialist dives into the source (from the university library), reads it end-to-end, and discovers that the statement ("play the piano") is nowhere in source [1]. How the heck did that happen? It looks like vandalism. But it was apparently well-sourced because Guy did only half the job and left chaos in his wake. And how many people have been miseducated about cows in the meantime? Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 19:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Everybody gets to decide how to spend their limited volunteer time to improve the project. It's only "very little effort" if you blindly attach cn's, which also is sub-optimal. Once you try to understand what's being said and what's being supported by other sources, it's easily 2-3 times more work than just removing the bad sources. I'm a big fan of curiosity, but I don't share this particular one, and I'm not sure hat you want to accomplish with stating yours in this case. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- With your agreement that "it's better to also remove or tag content," you and I are in sufficient agreement that removing the source without maint. tagging is a non-optimum approach to WP editing. However "great" the service others may believe Guy is performing for the Encyclopedia, you and I agree that he could be doing "better" with very little effort on his part. Given that fact, Guy's refusal to do the standard thing is somewhat curious. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 18:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Duty" is a normal English word. Nothing in your quote suggests or implies that one needs to remove content with sources. You seem to fall for a classical affirming the consequent. I agree that it's better to also remove or tag content, but it is not required. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:34, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- "Duty" is a legal word. If you want to edit Wikipedia, follow the WP policy. The meaning of the policy is not ambiguous.
- @Sfarney: We seem to be at cross-purposes. I fully agree that either the text goes or the text is tagged as unsourced. The problem with tagging is the suggestion that the unreliable sources simply be tagged as unreliable, which experience indicates will never get fixed. Guy (Help!) 22:53, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
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Proposal
I now propose to resume removal of citations to OMICS, as arguably the most prominent predatory publisher with large numbers of cites on Wikipedia. Based on the discussions above I propose to follow this process:
- Where the source is redundant, the OMICS cite can simply be removed.
- Where a fact is sourced solely to an OMICS journal as a primary source I will remove it.
- If this is reverted (most are not, 3 out of all the articles edited to date if I recall correctly), I will replace the cite with {{citation needed}} and note on the Talk page.
- I will review each item and make all edits manually, not using AWB or any other automation tool.
I think that reflects the concerns raised. Guy (Help!) 23:01, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- OPPOSEIf a claim is truly supported by two sources, one good and one bad, by all means remove the bad source. But to know if the claim is truly supported by two sources, you have to read and understand the good source. If the source is too technical for you to understand, written in a language you don't understand, behind a paywall that you don't have a subscription to, or in a paper source that is not in your local library, you don't know if the OMICS citation is redundant or not.
- If a claim is only supported by an OMICS journal, that alone does not justify removing the claim. Well-known facts that can easily be verified, like "Paris is the capital of France" do not need a citation. You could just remove the citation and leave the claim.
- Also, it is considered a best practice, before removing a citation to an unreliable source, to attempt to find a reliable source that supports the claim.
- Finally, whether to remove a claim for which no reliable source can easily be found, or to mark it with {{citation needed}}, depends on how unlikely or potentially harmful the claim is. If the claim seems more likely than not to be true, and isn't likely to cause any harm, it can just be marked with {{citation needed}}, and then removed after a suitable period of time. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC) (Added that I oppose the proposal at 23:42 UTC.)
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- Support as amplified by Jc3s5h (talk · contribs) Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:21, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- If there are two sources, one paywalled and the other not, then the paywalled source is not a predatory open access publisher. I will remove the predatory open access publisher. If the other source is also questionable, that is a separate issue. It's not necessary to understand the material in a manifestly unreliable source in order to remove it, it probably is necessary to understand the material in an apparently relaible source in order to remove it.
- Facts sourced solely to unreliable sources are removed from Wikipedia all the time. Most such removals are not challenged. Where they are, WP:BRD applies, which is what I am proposing to do. My initial view was in line with yours, but there exists a group of editors who think that a source being removed means the text must also be removed, hence the proposal to allow restoration and discuss if challenged. There's no need to add bureaucracy to a housekeeping task, IMO. Ther eare hundreds of these and if a dozen others want to help then we can search for replacement sources but if they don't then I am going to fix the here-and-now problem of predatory sources. Guy (Help!) 23:33, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- I now oppose the proposal because I am convinced the proposer is determined to do a slap-dash job, without bothering to read other supporting sources or making any effort to independently verify the claim, even if the claim seems fairly likely. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Well, then you go it. With the time and effort spend on this discussion, the problem should vanish shortly... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Question Shouldn't this issue be raised at the Talk page of the article in question? The article watchers will likely have a much better idea idea about the quality of the journal. For example, a huge issue (and rightly so) is whether there is adequate peer-review. Article watchers are likely to have a much better idea, or even experience, of the level of peer review and overall quality than a single editor leaping from one diverse subject area to another. DrChrissy (talk) 15:59, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Well, then you go it. With the time and effort spend on this discussion, the problem should vanish shortly... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- I now oppose the proposal because I am convinced the proposer is determined to do a slap-dash job, without bothering to read other supporting sources or making any effort to independently verify the claim, even if the claim seems fairly likely. Jc3s5h (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
There is no requirement to read other sources in detail in order to remove an unreliable source, because it's an unreliable source and it shouldn't be there in the first place. To be absolutely clear here: I was not asking for your approval. It is absolutely clear that these sources are inappropriate, the only quesiton is what to do after they are removed. Requiring in-depth research before removing text that has no reliable source constitutes an arbitrary demand for shrubberies. Guy (Help!) 23:18, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Guy, are you serious about this posting? DrChrissy (talk) 23:28, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- This sounds like an argument for leaving 3-legged chairs in the theater without warning signs. Removing a source without handling the text is so bizarre, the WP policy does not imagine it. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- To answer this question again, the WP standard action is to remove the text or tag it for CN. There is no third option to leave the text hanging out like an undisputed statement. WP cannot be edited with the intelligence and discrimination of a 'bot. If you don't know the subject and the sources well enough to make an intelligent change, don't touch it. Go to the talk page and note it for someone who knows the area. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:28, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Suggestion: where two sources are commingled, I believe it's better to tag the citation to non-RS with [unreliable source?] so if someone can untangle the two, they'd know which source is unreliable. If the OP simply removes the unreliable source, it would look like the statement (of unknown accuracy, as previously in part supported by a non RS), is now all kosher. This could be misleading. K.e.coffman (talk) 03:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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Past Life Regression Article
I added “Medical doctors in Brazil, India, Portugal, Singapore and Germany have written about using past life stories to help in resolving emotional issues and medical conditions” The book quoted (Dr Peter Mack, isbn = 878 0 9567887 8 8 Inner Healing Journey: A Medical Perspective 2014) is edited by a medical doctor and contains chapters written by other medical doctors. It is not claiming past life stories resolve a specific condition but they give their personal experiences and views of using it and the healing that resulted. The objection is that "WP:MEDRS applies to this update because its an article about a subject people will have an interest in". My point is WP:MEDRS does not apply because no medical information on resolving any medical condition is given.
A sentence was removed “The technique is not taught as part of any medical internships” this is part of the rambling from an internet site from a critic with no evidence to support it. I added “The technique is included in a textbook (U. James, isbn = 978 1 910272 45 9, Clinical Hypnosis Textbook: A Guide for Practical Intervention, Radcliffe Publishing, 2015, Ch 21} for 10 UK medical schools and for medical doctors doing a MSc in Clinical hypnosis at the Robert Gordon University”. The author of the book is professor Ursula James of Robert Gordon University. She is one of the leaders in her field and the text book used as a reference book widely. It is mandatory reading for medical doctors on the MSC course. It has chapters written by psychologists and therapists and chapter devoted to past life regression and its use. It is a secondary source book about past life regression. see http://www.amazon.com/Clinical-Hypnosis-Textbook-Practical-Intervention-ebook/dp/B013K8JP8Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454379922&sr=1-1&keywords=ursula+james+hypnosis
This request is to overturn the deletion by KateWishing (talk) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Tomlinson (talk • contribs)
- Textbooks are sometimes tertiary sources, not secondary, but it's still good for use. Radcliffe Publishing is not a vanity press, and the observation that this technique is indeed taught as part of at least one medical program is appropriate. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:31, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
- The wording of the statement seems to give the impression that a substantial number of medical doctors have actually endorsed it, and that does probably run the risk of running afoul of MEDRS. It might rectify the issue if the statement was attributed to those specific doctors in-text.
- The claim that the text book is "used by 10 UK Medical schools and for medical doctors doing a MSc in Clinical hypnosis at the Robert Gordon University.", needs better sourcing. It looks like it comes from the publisher's blurb on Amazon. I don't know that a statement like that is really subjected to rigorous fact checking, and it probably isn't kept up to date. It also doesn't really seem like a great way of assessing the quality of medical information. Nblund (talk) 01:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- The major problem here is that past life regression is pseudoscientific nonsense, and we have to be careful not to imply that it has any objective merit. Guy (Help!) 14:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
- I wonder what the article is called, Past Life Regression redirects to Orbs (band)...
- (Don't think MEDRS applies to anything mentioned above, there's no statement that could reasonably be preceded by "A Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized trials found that ..".) Prevalence 16:28, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
Thanks for all your views so perhaps this can be used “Medical doctors in Brazil, India, Portugal, Singapore and Germany have written about their personal views of using past life regression to help in resolving emotional issues and medical conditions” and "The technique is in a chapter in a textbook used in at least one medical school in the UK and for medical doctors doing a MSc in Clinical hypnosis at the Robert Gordon University”— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Tomlinson (talk • contribs)
- Not directly related to the RS issue, but: although you haven't signed your statements, it appears based on your account name that you wrote the forward for this book, and that you have a close affiliation with the organization that produced it. (edit: it also appears that you wrote the chapter in the textbook) That connection might present a conflict of interest, and it's probably better to let another editor decide whether or not this particular source is noteworthy enough to warrant mention.
- The book is subtitled "a medical perspective", and it seems to emphasize the medical credentials of the individuals involved. The statement that they used the technique for "resolving emotional issues and medical conditions" also seems like it suggests that this book is offering medical advise. The wording you are proposing seems like it gives the impression that a large number of doctors in multiple countries have written about using this practice, but it actually seems like a pretty small number.
- Also, to reiterate: the second statement still appears to be coming from the publisher's blurb. I think it's a primary source in that respect, and is potentially dubious. Both of these statements seem like they might suggest that this is widely practiced or accepted among physicians, and that poses a big problem that may go beyond and RS issue into a problem of promoting a fringe viewpoint. Nblund (talk) 22:21, 27 February 2016 (UTC)
I wonder what it is about the subject of Past Life Regression that causes new information on the subject to be dismissed so easily? A simple google search on the author of the Clinical Hypnosis book “Professor Ursula James at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen” would have found on the university website http://www.rgu.ac.uk/news/clinical-hypnosis-introduced-to-support-students/
'Clinical Hypnosis is an exciting area of medical practice and we are delighted Professor James has joined our team. We look forward to working with her to develop new courses for the university as well as innovative ways of alleviating stress and improving student performance. Professor James currently heads a team which teaches clinical hypnosis at 11 medical schools in the UK including Oxford and Cambridge. As well as authoring a number of books including The Clinical Hypnosis Textbook'
Her book has been written specifically for training medical doctors in hypnotherapy at university and I would have thought this counted as a suitable reference book to quote from. Also considering the previous quote that it replaced which had been used for a few years was “The technique is not taught as part of any medical internships” and was from an internet site called the Skeptic Dictionary and was part of a critics rambling with no evidence to support it.
Turning to the other book used as a reference “Inner Healing Journey: A Medical Perspective.” Its got 11 patient case studies by 6 medical doctors( two are psychiatrists) of how they have found past life regression assisted in healing when the traditional medical approach was unhelp. An internet search on the author of the book “Dr Peter Mack, singapore” would have found that he is a practicing general surgeon trained in regression therapy which uses past life regression and he explains how it works in great detail in his books and website see http://www.petermack.sg/articles With a little more diligence and internet searches they would have found the book was sponsored by “Society for Medical Advance and Research with Regression Therapy” which has 11 medical doctors from around the world and two psychologists all who have been trained in using past life regression. see http://www.smar-rt.com/members.htm They may done more searches and found a link to the EARTh Association of Regression Therapy http://www.earth-association.org/recognized-training-programs-recognized-trainers/ and found it creates a worldwide standard and has recognised 11 schools programs and has over 200 members from around the world.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Andy Tomlinson (talk • contribs)
So is all this “psudo science” or something that needs to be taken seriously and included to a balanced views in the article on Past Life Regression. As I have a vested interest its best I withdraw but ask for an editor to pick it up and update the article. While the books mentioned and Dr Peter Mack’s website may be a useful starting point I’m willing to help if asked. Andy Tomlinson (talk) 11:10, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, it's pseudoscience. The lack of references in credible sources speaks volumes: the websites you list are all basically selling it. The appeal to anecdote (aka "case studies") used in place of robustly designed trials is also a dead giveaway. That's how chiropractors claim to cure colic and homeopaths claim to cure... well, anything. Guy (Help!) 11:15, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
- Professor Ursula James, the author of the Clinical Hypnosis textbook, also claims to have been taught healing magic by the spirit of a 16th-century prophetess.[7] She is not a credible source for medical information. KateWishing (talk) 17:17, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
This is a book of fiction that she wrote and as the universities she teaches in are not interested in her personal activities why should Wikipedia. Andy Tomlinson (talk) 17:56, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
The following article was written by Mário Simões, Professor of Psychiatry and of Consciousness Sciences, Faculty of Medicine of Lisbon, Portugal. He is the Director of the Post-Graduation Course in Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and of the Laboratory for Mind-Matter Interaction with Therapeutic Intention. The article was published in a peer reviewed ‘The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies’
‘Being symbolic in nature, imagination permits representations of things that do not exist or which are approximations of reality. It is a capacity that allows elaboration of concepts or precognitions which would be impossible to realize in any other way. The idea of exploring reincarnation is close to the concept that a patient must re-experience the primeval drama to exhaust the emotions from it. It does not matter if the experiences are true or not, what is important is an event is experienced in a personized way.’
Simoes, M. Altered States of Consciousness and Psychotherapy, The International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 2002, v 21 p150 [8]
So now can we start to have a balanced article on Past Life Regression. If not perhaps a controversial subject like this is to much for Wikipedia and it may be best for the whole article to be removed.Andy Tomlinson (talk) 12:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- If by "balanced" you mean balancing the reality based view that it is bullshit, with the views of some wacky folks who believe in it, then: no. That's not because it's controversial, it's because of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. And this is by design. Guy (Help!) 12:42, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- FWIW, I've located a link to the book on google books. The actual discussion of past life regression is not a chapter, it is a paragraph from what I can tell (on page 45), and the paragraph actually seems to discourage the use of PLR as part of hypnosis. Saying "this book discusses PLR" and "this book is used by many programs" seems like an unworkable synthesis that rather contradicts what the book actually says.
- The Skeptic's Dictionary seems like a more-than-adequate parity source to include on the page. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 17:27, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
A balanced view means talking peer reviewed secondary source information that have different views. So we already have a psychologist called Luis Cordón in his published book on psychology saying past life regression may cause delusions. Now we have Professor Ursula James in her book with a chapter saying that past life regression technique is helpful in healing. We also now have Mário Simões, Professor of Psychiatry and of Consciousness Sciences saying in a peer reviewed article that it does not matter if past lives are real or not because they clear emotions in a personal way.
The Skeptics Dictionary is not peer reviewed and was written by Robert Todd who is qualified in philosophy. This is a totally different subject from psychology or psychiatry which Luis Cordon, Ulusa James and Mário Simões are all experts in. As this part of the article is about the use of the techniques of past life regression the views of Robert Todd are simply not relevant.
We also have it stated on the University of Aberdeen website that Professor Ursula James will be using her book in several universities to teach medical doctors including Oxford and Cambridge. So I think it is safe to remove a skeptics personal comment ‘The technique is not taught as part of any medical internships.’
Guy - if you looked at the index of the Clinical Hypnosis Textbook version 3 (the lastest one) past life regression has a whole chapter (ch 21 pages 283 to 294). About your comment ‘some wacky folks who believe in it’. Did you know the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life 2009 survey [9], found 51% of the world believe in reincarnation as do 25% of American Christians.
As I said before lets get this article balanced with peer reviewed secondary courses by experts in their field.Andy Tomlinson (talk) 20:26, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, Andy Tomlinson. Clearly reasoned and elegantly stated. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 20:48, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Andy Tomlinson: Have you ever heard of an Argumentum ad populum? You may successfully claim that many people believe in reincarnation, but that does not make it true. Now, I'm willing to accept that there might be some benefit to past-life regression therapy, but no-one has ever demonstrated that this is due to reincarnation being true. A balanced article might (I haven't done the research for myself, so I don't know) validly claim that this form of therapy is widely used, or is even effective, but it may not under any circumstances claim that reincarnation is true, or that the past lives being 'remembered' are factual. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 21:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- The distinction here is a fine but important one. This Wikipedia article takes no position on past lives, angels, or whether pigs have wings. And in fact, it needs no official position. The article is about a form of therapy. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia does have an 'official' position, which is that the hypothesis that reincarnation is true has no empirical evidence. This is because this is the only position which is verifiable. With this in mind, statements in wiki voice which implicitly discount the possibility of reincarnation would be permitted, whereas statements which implicitly or explicitly confirm it would not. The only limitation on this is that WP doesn't exist to debunk false claims (but rather to explain and promote verifiable true claims), so verbiage which explicitly denies the possibility of reincarnation would be unnecessary and a waste of space, so it could be removed as readily as statements which explicitly or implicitly confirmed it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- That about sums it up. Iechyd da! Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:02, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Wikipedia does have an 'official' position, which is that the hypothesis that reincarnation is true has no empirical evidence. This is because this is the only position which is verifiable. With this in mind, statements in wiki voice which implicitly discount the possibility of reincarnation would be permitted, whereas statements which implicitly or explicitly confirm it would not. The only limitation on this is that WP doesn't exist to debunk false claims (but rather to explain and promote verifiable true claims), so verbiage which explicitly denies the possibility of reincarnation would be unnecessary and a waste of space, so it could be removed as readily as statements which explicitly or implicitly confirmed it. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- The distinction here is a fine but important one. This Wikipedia article takes no position on past lives, angels, or whether pigs have wings. And in fact, it needs no official position. The article is about a form of therapy. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 22:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Source does not include Mike Singletary
At the time of his retirement, Sapp was one of only six defensive players in NFL history to make the Pro Bowl, be named Defensive Player of the Year and win a Super Bowl or pre-Super-Bowl NFL title. The others are Mean Joe Greene, Jack Lambert, Lester Hayes, Lawrence Taylor, Bob Sanders, Reggie White, Ed Reed, Ray Lewis and Sapp's former teammate, Derrick Brooks.
Sources written in the future tense cited for past claims
This is more of a general question, but I've noticed a lot of articles with this problem. The "Ireland" source in Star Wars sequel trilogy was my immediate impetus so ... if a source written last summer says filming "will take place this week", can we use it after the fact to state that filming took place that week? I ask not because I think it didn't (I have no reason to think so) but because a strict interpretation of WP:V would mean that technically such a source is only valid for the claim "it was reported that filming would take place that week". In some cases I'm sure our citation of a source has been "updated" thusly when something had gone wrong and the source's prediction had not come true, in which cases our information is neither true nor verifiable. But even in this benign example, the information is not directly supported by the source although probably true. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 08:30, 2 March 2016 (UTC)
- You are correct. A source that reports what actually did happen should be added, or the content should be revised. For example, "...filming was planned for the week of X".- MrX 13:15, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
Mirror.co.uk
I would like some input here to help vet this so-called source. It looks questionable to me. An new IP user recently cited this article from the Mirror to add content to the Intelligence Support Activity article. Any feedback here would be appreciated. Thanks - theWOLFchild 08:04, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- Low-end English tabloid newspaper. Not a great source and has had notorious low points. If something - other than the mundane - is being added to the encyclopedia and the Mirror is the only source, it's almost certainly not something we want. (This is a general comment made without looking at this specific case). Alexbrn (talk) 12:29, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- A decent enough but Left-leaning tabloid, probably not the right source for this particular edit, due to potential ideological bias. Guy (Help!) 12:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- The actual "facts" are certainly usable - it is the "colourful commentary" on those facts which would be at issue. In the case at hand, the writer has generously used his large supply of paints to limn the facts to make the language used a tad too colourful for use in a Wikipedia article. The remaining fact claim would be "The ISA, sometimes called 'Grey Fox', is an American military and intelligence unit which currently has a mission to attack Al Qaeda, and has been used in the past for other operations, including anti-drug operations." It does not support any name for any project, as the attempted edit asserted. Collect (talk) 14:07, 4 March 2016 (UTC)
- The article starts off with; "GREY Fox – an elite American Special Forces kill squad...". My understanding is that they are primarily a recon & SIGINT/HUMINT unit, used for deep infiltration/long-term undercover operations in hostile areas. It goes on to say; ISA members were among the Operation Geronimo squad of Navy commandos who killed bin Laden... That's the first I'm hearing of that. Apparently this is basis for the attempted edit. This article states their info comes from an "unnamed intelligence source". It all sounds a little to sketchy, hence the reason I reverted the edit, and requested the IP user propose it on the talk page. They haven't as of yet, but it were to, I would suggest finding another more established and confirmed reliable source to support the edit. To me, this article sounds like they took a real unit, but added a bunch of pulp-novel-esque fiction to amp it up to sell more papers. In short, not reliable. - theWOLFchild 23:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
- Note that the edit the article would support does not include the "interesting" claims which you have a problem with at all. And I suggest that headlines, as such, are not actually source material, as they are written with the sole aim of attracting readers. Thus, Mirror.co.uk is a reliable source for the claims of fact in the article which are not presented as anonymously sourced opinion. Collect (talk) 12:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- The article starts off with; "GREY Fox – an elite American Special Forces kill squad...". My understanding is that they are primarily a recon & SIGINT/HUMINT unit, used for deep infiltration/long-term undercover operations in hostile areas. It goes on to say; ISA members were among the Operation Geronimo squad of Navy commandos who killed bin Laden... That's the first I'm hearing of that. Apparently this is basis for the attempted edit. This article states their info comes from an "unnamed intelligence source". It all sounds a little to sketchy, hence the reason I reverted the edit, and requested the IP user propose it on the talk page. They haven't as of yet, but it were to, I would suggest finding another more established and confirmed reliable source to support the edit. To me, this article sounds like they took a real unit, but added a bunch of pulp-novel-esque fiction to amp it up to sell more papers. In short, not reliable. - theWOLFchild 23:53, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
Chesterfield F.C.
There is currently a ongoing dispute at Chesterfield F.C. regarding the year in which the club was founded. An anonymous editor is using three articles published by the club[11][12][13] to backup their assertion that we use 1866 as the date of their foundation (diff). I am contending that the club cannot be considered a reliable source in this matter for two reasons. Firstly, the 1866 date means that it is their 150th anniversary this year which they are using to garner publicity and revenue (two of the articles are specificity for this purpose). Thus they are biased in this regard. Additionally, they have shown themselves to be inconsistent on which date they support. There was in-depth article about the club's foundation which was held on the club website until about 2012 that stated that the club was founded in 1919. There is also another article published on the site in January this year that uses the 1919 date.[14] Only recently have they switched to using the 1866 date. Eckerslike (talk) 19:41, 5 March 2016 (UTC)
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- The dates given in these articles are not necessarily contradictory. Many organisations go through name changes, mergers, reorganisations etc and, cetainly where several different organisations have united, it is perfectly reasonable to accept the formation of the oldest as the earliest history of the later entity. Note also, that one of the articles cited above refers to 1920, but this is only in the context of the club being incorporated as a limited company, a purely legal undertaking, and makes clear that the club existed before then. 1919 seems to be when the current name (Chesterfield FC) was adopted, for a club that already existed as Chesterfield Muncipal FC. It does not say the club was founded in 1919, or 1920. Emeraude (talk) 15:27, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- There is possibly some useful recent information here. Thincat (talk) 19:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- That is already a source for the article. The convoluted history of the club (or clubs) is already covered. The problem is just with the 1866 date of formation. As illustrated by the article given by Thincat it has highly dubious origins. All third party sources (and the club themselves until recently) use dates ranging from 1867 to 1919. An editor is insisting that we use the 1866 as the date of formation because the club is celebrating its 150 anniversary this year. I feel that they cannot be considered a reliable source due to them promoting the date for promotional/economic reasons. Eckerslike (talk) 22:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
Herding cats: Alt-right & sources mentioning white supremacy being challenged
Editing this article - and even its talk page, seems a bit like herding cats. The lead states that "The alt-right is a group of right-wing ideologies that are an alternative to mainstream conservatism" which seems more or less correct. The term itself is said to have been introduced in 2010 (in the lead, but further down earlier dates are mentioned) and is used for a heterogeneous political grouping that is seen as the main support, for instance of Trump. The lead also calls it a movement, which may be a bit strong. According to the lead it includes beliefs such as " neoreaction, monarchism, nativism, populism, racialism, identitarianism, white nationalism, and American secessionism" although the "Definition" section has a slightly different list, "neoreaction, eugenics, reactionism, racialism, white nationalism, traditionalism, identitarianism, and archeofuturism" - a couple of those being redirects.
There have been a number of sourcing issues and still are. The one that concerns me is about including "white supremacism" as part of the lead (and I guess definition). I'm on the side of including it. Sources for the term include [1] (one of the main sources used in the article) which describes it as " "white supremacy perfectly tailored for our times", Cathy Young[2] and [[Chris Hayes {journalist)]] who describes it as "essentially modern day white supremacy."
There was a source from the ADL[15] which was described as a blog by User:Maunus "ADL blog for example is not a reloiable source for what this "movement" is or isnt)." It says "Though not every person who identifies with the Alt Right is a white supremacist, most are and “white identity” is central to people in this milieu." I think we can use this source and would like specific comments on it.
Another source using the term is by Betsy Woodruff "a political reporter for the Daily Beast and formerly of Slate and National Review" in an article in The Daily Beast. Not only does she link white supremacism to the alt-right, she quotes an ADL spokesperson as saying "“It’s basically a term that white supremacists use who see themselves as part of a new movement,” she said. “They want to differentiate themselves from the conservative or mainstream right. They see the mainstream right as being opposed to white interests.”[16]
There's opposition on the talk page to including the term. User:Denarivs wrote "There aren't any sources yet that describe that, but a clear majority of sources do not describe the alt-right as white supremacy, which would be a very strange distinction to overlook. The Newsday source is of very marginal reliability–it's just an editorial and probably should be removed from the article." and ": the vast majority of sources do not describe the alt-right as white supremacist.... Based on this clear evidence from reliable sources across the ideological spectrum, I strongly oppose use of the descriptor "white supremacy" to describe the alt-right per WP:UNDUE. Reliable sources provide unambiguous evidence that the alt-right does not include white supremacy. If the phrase is included at all, it is best included in a quote in the article's body, as in the previous version of this article." and mentions " a fringe minority of marginally reliable sources with a clear idoelogical bias calling the alt-right white supremacist." (Note that one of the sources used to write for National Review", so they seem to spread across the political spectrum).
I obviously disagree. Not mentioning "white supremacy" doesn't mean we shouldn't mention it, and look at some of the ideologies mentioned in the lead and definition - it's not as though many sources mention them. WP:UNDUE may be OT for this board usually but perhaps not in this argument. I also thought that "According to Rosie Gray, "The alt right’s targets don’t include just liberals, blacks, Jews, women, Latinos, and Muslims, who are all classified a priori as objects of suspicion...The alt right’s real objective, if one can be identified, is to challenge and dismantle mainstream conservatism."[1]" was useful but it was removed as being WP:UNDUE also.
There's a general sourcing problem in that the academic world hasn't paid much attention to this yet, something that I'm guessing may change this year. We really need more eyes on this article, but I'm obviously looking for specific comments related to the use of the term "white supremacism". Doug Weller talk 11:56, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Since the term white supremacism has been associated with violence, hatred, and extremism, I vote we err on the side of caution and not use it without solid foundation -- none of which is yet available, as you note. As we remind each other constantly, WP has not undertaken the job of prognosticating events or being cutting edge. We can state what has been established, and wait for the establishment of the rest before stating it. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 20:04, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Go to White supremacy, Right-wing politics and Far-right politics and find some sources there. I know for a fact there are a number of reliable sources which identify white supremacy as an 'alternative' right-wing ideology. Hell, any good article about David Duke's endorsement of Trump is likely to contain a few passages to support the claim. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 20:32, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- All sources state that alt-right is a coalition. The "white supremacy" label can be applied to some groups within the coalition, but this does not justify the description for the coalition itself. By WP:RS, those primary sources (such as David Duke) can speak only for themselves, not for the coalition. Ref: basic set theory. E.g.: All cities in California are in the North America. But not all North American cities are in California. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The wording that Doug wants to keep states that the alt-right includes white supremacy, not that it is white supremacy. You've just acknowledged this same distinction, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. I must be reading you wrong, but to use your own analogy; you seem to be suggesting that because not all cities in North America are in California, that we shouldn't state that there are cities in California. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you meant, so could you please clarify? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- You mean this sentence? The one that concerns me is about including "white supremacism" as part of the lead (and I guess definition). I respectfully disagree with your analysis. Doug Weller says he wants to include the term as part of the definition of the group, not just a mention of "white supremacy" as one of the included factions. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 22:28, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- I strongly agree with Grammar'sLittleHelper's on this, and his arguments above. White supremacy is being used as a label for white nationalism which has already been included as an ideology in the alt-right article. It is redundant to also include white supremacy, and if so, firstly as a solution that means you'd have to identify white nationalism in the article as also being otherwise known as white supremacy, or secondly including white nationalism or white supremacy exclusively and removing one or the other, to avoid confusion. Yet, the first solution would be messy and confusing, and the second solution would still be confusing. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 22:39, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Sfarney: The group is defined as a collection of ideologies. One of those ideologies is white supremacy. You're saying that we should exclude white supremacy from that collection in the definition, but that would only make the definition incorrect. I understand that this is a charged and volatile term, but WP isn't censored. We don't misrepresent facts to avoid controversy. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Connor Machiavelli: White supremacy is different from (and a subset of) white nationalism. If some white supremacists are also alt-right (and enough of them to be worth mentioning, as has been established), then it makes sense that we should include the subgroups. By taking your argument to the logical extreme, one could argue that every group should be defined as a group of humans, since "humans" necessarily covers any subgroup. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- White supremacy is not an ideology contained in the alt-right, white nationalism is, of which white supremacy is frequently used as a label for, and of which white supremacy is considered a subset of. White supremacist is being used as a label for white nationalists, even white nationalists that consider themselves in the alt-right movement. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 22:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The sources disagree with you, and the sources always win. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The sources disagree with each other on whether or not white supremacy is an ideology within white nationalism, such as within the alt-right, with their white nationalism. It's pretty redundant to include white supremacy as an ideology in the alt-right article when white nationalism is already included. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 23:00, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The sources disagree with you, and the sources always win. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- White supremacy is not an ideology contained in the alt-right, white nationalism is, of which white supremacy is frequently used as a label for, and of which white supremacy is considered a subset of. White supremacist is being used as a label for white nationalists, even white nationalists that consider themselves in the alt-right movement. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 22:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Connor Machiavelli: White supremacy is different from (and a subset of) white nationalism. If some white supremacists are also alt-right (and enough of them to be worth mentioning, as has been established), then it makes sense that we should include the subgroups. By taking your argument to the logical extreme, one could argue that every group should be defined as a group of humans, since "humans" necessarily covers any subgroup. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:48, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- You mean this sentence? The one that concerns me is about including "white supremacism" as part of the lead (and I guess definition). I respectfully disagree with your analysis. Doug Weller says he wants to include the term as part of the definition of the group, not just a mention of "white supremacy" as one of the included factions. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 22:28, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- The wording that Doug wants to keep states that the alt-right includes white supremacy, not that it is white supremacy. You've just acknowledged this same distinction, so I'm not sure what you're saying here. I must be reading you wrong, but to use your own analogy; you seem to be suggesting that because not all cities in North America are in California, that we shouldn't state that there are cities in California. I'm pretty sure this isn't what you meant, so could you please clarify? MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- All sources state that alt-right is a coalition. The "white supremacy" label can be applied to some groups within the coalition, but this does not justify the description for the coalition itself. By WP:RS, those primary sources (such as David Duke) can speak only for themselves, not for the coalition. Ref: basic set theory. E.g.: All cities in California are in the North America. But not all North American cities are in California. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
That has no bearing on this discussion. Whether white supremacy is a subset of, or a different movement than white nationalism does not address the issue of whether or not reliable sources indicate that white supremacy is a part of the alt-right movement. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 23:05, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
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- The statement that "X includes Y beliefs" (as the topic does now) is very different from "X includes Y believers." (E.g.: While Catholicism does not include belief in ghosts, some Catholics believe in ghosts.) We have RSs that say the latter about alt-right and white supremacism. We do not have solid RSs that mply that all those who identify themselves as alt-right are white supremacists, certainly not enough to surmount the BLP bar. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:15, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Sfarney: That has got to be one of the most self-serving twists of logic I've seen in a while. Please explain to me how one goes about separating the ideology from the ideologue. By your logic, I could claim that the moon is a hotbed of communism. After all, there's a huge difference between "the moon has no communism" and "the moon has no communists." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- The statement that "X includes Y beliefs" (as the topic does now) is very different from "X includes Y believers." (E.g.: While Catholicism does not include belief in ghosts, some Catholics believe in ghosts.) We have RSs that say the latter about alt-right and white supremacism. We do not have solid RSs that mply that all those who identify themselves as alt-right are white supremacists, certainly not enough to surmount the BLP bar. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:15, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Quite politely -- and we are always polite to each other, of course -- When many people get together in a group, the people are of different beliefs and persuasions. The group itself has a defined set of beliefs and persuasions. If the group has an official belief or ideology, you can assign it to all the members. But the mere presence of one person with Zionist or Nazi or Republican or Democrat attitudes cannot be used to define the group. Thus, on the strength of the presence of one skin-headed, Nazi, etc. etc. member or supporter of the alt-right, if we cannot state that "the alt-right includes skin-head Nazi beliefs." We would be wrong. The purpose and effect of doing so would be to pretend that everyone involved endorses those beliefs. We could only say it includes those believers. And yes, there have been Communists on or near the Moon, but the Moon itself has never endorsed communism -- at least not on the record, and not recently. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, we are always polite, and let me assure you that anything I say about your arguments does not, in my mind, extend to you personally. I found your argument self-serving in that it only supports your case if applied very specifically, and it fails if applied differently, or elsewhere. If I found you personally to be lacking of positive attributes, I simply wouldn't engage with you. That being said, as I've stated more than once now, I'm not opposed to wording that states that white supremacy is included in the long list of beliefs that comprise alt-right ideology. I'm not even opposed to a disclaimer that not all alt-right people hold all of those beliefs. But, in looking at the sources, I feel that it is well established that some white supremacists are alt-right, and some alt-right people are white supremacists, and this needs to be stated in the article. I don't want the article to paint the alt-right as white supremacy with a broad brush, but I don't want white supremacy excised in the interest of whitewashing the movement, either. Also, your deconstruction of my moon analogy ignores that I stated it (intentionally) in the present sense. My point was that it would be nonsensical for the article to state something like "while white supremacy is not a part of the alt-right movement, some white supremacists are part of it." The distinction between the ideologues and their ideology is meaningless with respect to classification of a group such as this. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Quite politely -- and we are always polite to each other, of course -- When many people get together in a group, the people are of different beliefs and persuasions. The group itself has a defined set of beliefs and persuasions. If the group has an official belief or ideology, you can assign it to all the members. But the mere presence of one person with Zionist or Nazi or Republican or Democrat attitudes cannot be used to define the group. Thus, on the strength of the presence of one skin-headed, Nazi, etc. etc. member or supporter of the alt-right, if we cannot state that "the alt-right includes skin-head Nazi beliefs." We would be wrong. The purpose and effect of doing so would be to pretend that everyone involved endorses those beliefs. We could only say it includes those believers. And yes, there have been Communists on or near the Moon, but the Moon itself has never endorsed communism -- at least not on the record, and not recently. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Sources do not always win, as tempered by our WP:NPOV when there are contentious statements. As I see others arguing, while some sources might present white supremacy as a fact of being a defining trait of alt-right, others do not, and as such, should be treated as a claim per NPOV, and certainly would make sense to avoid stating in the lede if that contentious. --MASEM (t) 23:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: The sources do always win, unless you can show me where in WP policy it is ever even suggested that OR (as I was responding to) can be substituted for sourced content. NPOV concerns are addressed by finding other sources, not by inserting our own assertions. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Second point of WP:YESPOV. We don't present contentious statements asserted by a source as fact but as opinion. That's not OR in any means, but editorial discretion and that we strive for neutrality. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- But that's not actually what it says. It says "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts". Is it seriously contested that the alt-right includes some or a lot of white supremacists? Doug Weller talk 14:02, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Membership verses characterization is the important distinction here. Membership's less a touchy point but potentially can be a POV-synthesis as well; just because one or persons of group X are part of group Y does not necessarily mean that Y includes X, just that some X are Y. Characterization has to be explicitly sources; just because X is part of Y definitely does not mean Y is characterized by X. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: Do editors get to decide on their own, without recourse to RS's what constitutes a contentious statement? No, we need either reliable sources to state that some claim is contentious, or else we need sources explicitly disagreeing with each other. If it were up to editors to decide what is contentious, then any fundamentalist editor would be within his or her rights to edit all evolution related articles to attribute every statement within to the author of the source. In this case, I've yet to see a single source which states that there are no white supremacists in the alt-right movement. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:57, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- No, this is still based on consensus discussion which should evaluate the sources and the situation to decide what is contentious. Also, you can't prove a negative (that no X exist in Y) so expecting that type of source to exist is nonsense. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: I'm not sure how to respond to this, because your assertion that no reliable source has ever made a negative claim is beyond ridiculous. There absolutely could be alt-right sources writing about white supremacists which state "These groups are not a part of my movement, but rather a..." The fact that there are none presented here doesn't in any way demonstrate that there could not be. Here's an example of an article which flatly states that Libertarians are not certain things: What a Libertarian Is and Is Not. As I said before, all we need to establish that this claim is contentious (and not simply offensive to those with a bias towards the alt-right) is a few RSs stating that white supremacists aren't true alt-right, or that white supremacists are attempting to hijack the alt-right from outside, or even that most alt-right individuals disagree with the views of white supremacists. I'm not asking for a source that says "there are absolutely no white supremacists in the alt-right." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Just because there is no obvious source for someone from the alt-right stating that "white supremacy is not part of our character" does not make the inverse (that white supremacy is part of the alt-right's character) true. As others have pointed out, because of how new the "alt-right" is, it hasn't the type of academic analysis that something like libertarian has that would provide the necessary broad coverage we'd like to see. Instead, as we are hodge-podging what this is from a wide variety of news sources (which is itself not a problem), we have to recognize that because there's no clear, established definition, not every source is necessary reliable here, particularly with a political topic that clearly is being covered with a lot more opinion pieces than factual. So we have to balance NPOV with NOR/RS. Also keep in mind that "white supremacist" is a WP:LABEL and potentially a BLP if not self-stated by individuals. As I pointed out above, I don't think there's any contest to say that some self-identified white supremists fall with the alt-right, but this is not clearly shown (but instead opined) that the alt-right, by default, includes all white supremists and definitely not shown that the alt-right is characterized, in part, by white supremacy. Cited opinions that the alt-right leans towards white supremacy with the sources given above is acceptable, but we absolutely can't state that as fact. (That is, this is a WP:SYNTH issue to make that leap of logic as a fact). --MASEM (t) 16:22, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I'm not sure what you think we can state as a fact about the bundle of beliefs that are - not sure what word to use, "found"? in the alt-right. Or what sort of wording you'd like. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Also, since I think it would be crazy to suggest that all the ideologies held by people in the alt-right are held by everyone in the alt-right, there's no BLP issue here. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Except at the history I see at alt-right, that's exactly what's been happening: white supremacy is being used to define how the alt-right is characterized, rather than simply saying "There are some white supremacists in the alt-right" which is what it seems the sources can only support. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Also, since I think it would be crazy to suggest that all the ideologies held by people in the alt-right are held by everyone in the alt-right, there's no BLP issue here. Doug Weller talk 16:49, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what you think we can state as a fact about the bundle of beliefs that are - not sure what word to use, "found"? in the alt-right. Or what sort of wording you'd like. Doug Weller talk 16:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: Now we're getting somewhere. As I said below, I don't have a problem with the article saying "the alt-right includes some white supremacists" as opposed to saying that "the alt-right is white supremacist." In truth, I think the former is far better. One point however: I don't think that there's really much leg to stand on with claiming that it's merely an opinion that the alt-right contains some white supremacists. I think it's a well established fact that some white supremacists have self-identified as alt-right, and the sources back this up. Again, if it were mere opinion, we'd expect to see sources disagreeing with it, something which is notably absent. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:53, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- There's a careful bit here, in that the language "white supremacist" is a contentious label and would require self-identification: Let's say that a random notable person Joe Smith is considered without a doubt part of the alt-right (which I don't think is very contentious for this discussion), and others have called him a white supremacist because of his actions, but Smith himself has never stated (either way) that he is or isn't a white supremacist. If we are basing our statement "The alt-right contains some white supremacists" on the sources that want to classify Smith as a white supremacist, that's a problem; it might be true but its a absolute BLP violation until Smith says something otherwise. On the other hand, if Smith has self-identified that he is a white supremacist, then that above statement is fine. (This is obviously simplified, as I would expect there's a good # of people to consider as part of the "some" language, but the point still stands). And again, absence of sources that disagree with a point does not mean there's no disagreement to discuss. We use judgement and consensus to determine if a claim that is otherwise not contested by sources can still be called contentious for our purpose of being neutral, which is what things like BLP and LABEL are built on. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: I've seen a number of news articles about self-identified white supremacists supporting alt-right causes. I understand what you're saying here, but I'm not seeing that situation. What I am seeing is a number of reliable sources stating "the alt-right includes (or is) white supremacy," other reliable sources stating "these particular self-identified white supremacists have endorsed alt-right ideology or candidates, and refer to themselves as alt-right," and no reliable sources disagreeing with either claim. I understand that using the second group of sources to support claims that the alt-right includes white supremacists is edging dangerously close to WP:SYNTH but, like I said at the talk page, I don't think using them to inform our judgement of the first group of sources is questionable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- If you do have those sources, and those are RS (in other words, we know that those people identified are being quoted/paraphrased accurately), then I think you're okay to say "the alt-right includes some white supremacists". That doesn't seem like a controversial fact. But the issue of the first set of sources, that characterizes the alt-right as being white supremacy, seems very contentious. Take the Buzzfeed article by Gray; this NYTimes shows she was hit with a lot of negative feedback and complaints about it. It doesn't outright say the negative, but given how contentious "white supremacy" is to start, we as a neutral source should toe the line and avoid calling alt-right as that. We can include Gray's opinion that the alt-right is about white supremacy, cited to her, but simply avoid it as fact and instead treat it as a claim. --MASEM (t) 18:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: I've seen a number of news articles about self-identified white supremacists supporting alt-right causes. I understand what you're saying here, but I'm not seeing that situation. What I am seeing is a number of reliable sources stating "the alt-right includes (or is) white supremacy," other reliable sources stating "these particular self-identified white supremacists have endorsed alt-right ideology or candidates, and refer to themselves as alt-right," and no reliable sources disagreeing with either claim. I understand that using the second group of sources to support claims that the alt-right includes white supremacists is edging dangerously close to WP:SYNTH but, like I said at the talk page, I don't think using them to inform our judgement of the first group of sources is questionable. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- There's a careful bit here, in that the language "white supremacist" is a contentious label and would require self-identification: Let's say that a random notable person Joe Smith is considered without a doubt part of the alt-right (which I don't think is very contentious for this discussion), and others have called him a white supremacist because of his actions, but Smith himself has never stated (either way) that he is or isn't a white supremacist. If we are basing our statement "The alt-right contains some white supremacists" on the sources that want to classify Smith as a white supremacist, that's a problem; it might be true but its a absolute BLP violation until Smith says something otherwise. On the other hand, if Smith has self-identified that he is a white supremacist, then that above statement is fine. (This is obviously simplified, as I would expect there's a good # of people to consider as part of the "some" language, but the point still stands). And again, absence of sources that disagree with a point does not mean there's no disagreement to discuss. We use judgement and consensus to determine if a claim that is otherwise not contested by sources can still be called contentious for our purpose of being neutral, which is what things like BLP and LABEL are built on. --MASEM (t) 17:05, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Just because there is no obvious source for someone from the alt-right stating that "white supremacy is not part of our character" does not make the inverse (that white supremacy is part of the alt-right's character) true. As others have pointed out, because of how new the "alt-right" is, it hasn't the type of academic analysis that something like libertarian has that would provide the necessary broad coverage we'd like to see. Instead, as we are hodge-podging what this is from a wide variety of news sources (which is itself not a problem), we have to recognize that because there's no clear, established definition, not every source is necessary reliable here, particularly with a political topic that clearly is being covered with a lot more opinion pieces than factual. So we have to balance NPOV with NOR/RS. Also keep in mind that "white supremacist" is a WP:LABEL and potentially a BLP if not self-stated by individuals. As I pointed out above, I don't think there's any contest to say that some self-identified white supremists fall with the alt-right, but this is not clearly shown (but instead opined) that the alt-right, by default, includes all white supremists and definitely not shown that the alt-right is characterized, in part, by white supremacy. Cited opinions that the alt-right leans towards white supremacy with the sources given above is acceptable, but we absolutely can't state that as fact. (That is, this is a WP:SYNTH issue to make that leap of logic as a fact). --MASEM (t) 16:22, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: I'm not sure how to respond to this, because your assertion that no reliable source has ever made a negative claim is beyond ridiculous. There absolutely could be alt-right sources writing about white supremacists which state "These groups are not a part of my movement, but rather a..." The fact that there are none presented here doesn't in any way demonstrate that there could not be. Here's an example of an article which flatly states that Libertarians are not certain things: What a Libertarian Is and Is Not. As I said before, all we need to establish that this claim is contentious (and not simply offensive to those with a bias towards the alt-right) is a few RSs stating that white supremacists aren't true alt-right, or that white supremacists are attempting to hijack the alt-right from outside, or even that most alt-right individuals disagree with the views of white supremacists. I'm not asking for a source that says "there are absolutely no white supremacists in the alt-right." MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- No, this is still based on consensus discussion which should evaluate the sources and the situation to decide what is contentious. Also, you can't prove a negative (that no X exist in Y) so expecting that type of source to exist is nonsense. --MASEM (t) 15:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- But that's not actually what it says. It says "Avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts". Is it seriously contested that the alt-right includes some or a lot of white supremacists? Doug Weller talk 14:02, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Second point of WP:YESPOV. We don't present contentious statements asserted by a source as fact but as opinion. That's not OR in any means, but editorial discretion and that we strive for neutrality. --MASEM (t) 13:52, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Amen, particularly in light of BLP concerns. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:17, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Indeed. Also, it's previously been debated on the alt-right Talk page on whether or not alt-right has white supremacy as an ideology, and about that being WP:POV that it does. White nationalism has always been presented as being part of the alt-right, but white supremacy has not always been presented as such, and when white supremacy is, it appears to be conflated with white nationalism. That's what I mean. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 23:20, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Masem: The sources do always win, unless you can show me where in WP policy it is ever even suggested that OR (as I was responding to) can be substituted for sourced content. NPOV concerns are addressed by finding other sources, not by inserting our own assertions. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Answering the comment: reliable sources indicate -- the sources are not "reliable" on this point -- those cited are opinion pieces and commentary, not scholarly studies or news reports of fact. Political commentators sometimes (at least in the US) write things they know are not literally and factually true. They sometimes write color rather than substance. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 23:33, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- Also, political commentators, such as in the USA, would especially misrepresent a politically controversial movement such as the alt-right, for political reasons. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 00:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
References
- ^ a b Gray, Rosie (2015-07-07). "How 2015 Fueled The Rise Of The Freewheeling, White Nationalist Alt Right Movement - BuzzFeed News". Buzzfeed. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
- ^ Cathy Young (2016-01-25). "Donald Trump's rant against political correctness is comfort food to racists". Newsday. Retrieved 2016-02-05.
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- Right on -- opinion pieces, not factual analysis. Part of America's name-calling sandbox politics. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- User:Sfareny I wrote "mentioned in the lead and definition." "Definition" is probably a bad name for the section, but it is a section and includes a number of other ideologies included in the movement, and all I meant is that it should be included in the ideologies in both lead and the section called "definition. Both sections should say the alt-right includes white supremacists, ie add it as one of the included factions, are you arguing against this? I am NOT saying everyone in the alt-right is a white supremacist (see my comments on the talk page trying to explain to Connor about the way the terms relate) I've already lamented about the lack of scholarly studies. I'll reply to more of the above later, I've just got up and am out to the gym shortly. I don't normally use bold, but as bold is being used to (inadvertently) make it appear I'm saying something I'm not saying, I've used it. Doug Weller talk 06:36, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- User:Connor Machiavelli believes that "the sources disagree with each other on whether or not white supremacy is an ideology within white nationalism". I'm not sure if that's true, but it's irrelevant to this discussion where we are discussing what the sources that discuss the alt-right say about the ideologies are beliefs that are part of the alt-right. This is just part of the argument he is making that mentioning "white supremacism" is redundant, and that argument seems to say that all white nationalists are white supremacists, ie that there's no difference. If he doesn't believe that then there's no redundancy. And yes, Grammar'sLittleHelper, I'm happy with "x includes y believers". Doug Weller talk 08:02, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- And yes, Grammar'sLittleHelper, I'm happy with "x includes y believers". For the record, I would be quite happy with that, too. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:41, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Oh Doug Weller, apologies, but I meant alt-right's white nationalism, I forgot to mention the term alt-right before white nationalism in that sentence. I meant within the white nationalism that exists in the alt-right. The sources do disagree on that, but actually though my statement remains true even without my clarification, because they say white nationalism is another term for white supremacism, as if white nationalism is not an ideology that contains the subset white supremacism, but rather is the exact same thing as white supremacism, not another ideology that is a subset. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 18:37, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- And yes, Grammar'sLittleHelper, I'm happy with "x includes y believers". For the record, I would be quite happy with that, too. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 13:41, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- User:Connor Machiavelli believes that "the sources disagree with each other on whether or not white supremacy is an ideology within white nationalism". I'm not sure if that's true, but it's irrelevant to this discussion where we are discussing what the sources that discuss the alt-right say about the ideologies are beliefs that are part of the alt-right. This is just part of the argument he is making that mentioning "white supremacism" is redundant, and that argument seems to say that all white nationalists are white supremacists, ie that there's no difference. If he doesn't believe that then there's no redundancy. And yes, Grammar'sLittleHelper, I'm happy with "x includes y believers". Doug Weller talk 08:02, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- User:Sfareny I wrote "mentioned in the lead and definition." "Definition" is probably a bad name for the section, but it is a section and includes a number of other ideologies included in the movement, and all I meant is that it should be included in the ideologies in both lead and the section called "definition. Both sections should say the alt-right includes white supremacists, ie add it as one of the included factions, are you arguing against this? I am NOT saying everyone in the alt-right is a white supremacist (see my comments on the talk page trying to explain to Connor about the way the terms relate) I've already lamented about the lack of scholarly studies. I'll reply to more of the above later, I've just got up and am out to the gym shortly. I don't normally use bold, but as bold is being used to (inadvertently) make it appear I'm saying something I'm not saying, I've used it. Doug Weller talk 06:36, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Right on -- opinion pieces, not factual analysis. Part of America's name-calling sandbox politics. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 00:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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What? Sorry Connor, but I'm struggling with what you are saying. Let's start with some links to the sources that say white nationalism is another term for white supremacism. I know some say that there are white supremacists who call themselves white nationalists, but I assume you mean something else. Doug Weller talk 22:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
And the ADL
No one has responded to my question about the ADL source yet. Any comments? Doug Weller talk 14:03, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- I checked it out. It seems to use blogging software (or at least to be laid out more like a blog than a press release or news article), but doesn't attribute a specific author, doesn't permit comments or discussion (one of the biggest characteristics of blogs) and ends with the disclaimer not that the views expressed above are not necessarily those of the ADL, but that the ADL doesn't endorse candidates. That, my friend, is an official statement from the ADL, not a blog. I say that it's as reliable as anything they say. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:08, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- I didn't see a problem about using it so long as it's attributed. Then of course there's the quote I mentioned. Doug Weller talk 16:38, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- This ADL article seems to equate the two terms without distinction, though we should note that ADL can be like a long-tailed cat for whom all chairs are rocking chairs. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 22:11, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Remember, your opinion of the ADL is not something we take into consideration when evaluating the reliability of it as a source. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- I believe I have little direct interest in this topic, but simply knowing about what the ADL is and why they exist, and knowing what their broad stance is to aspects like white supremacy, they would not be considered a neutral source, so statements made by the ADL directly should be carefully weighed. This is not to say they are necessarily wrong in what they publish, but if they present a factual statement that cannot be corroborated by other sources and that's seemingly contentious, I would avoid using them, or at least make sure to treat it as opinion cited to the ADL. It would be like using material published by the Democratic party to source information on the Republican party. --MASEM (t) 22:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Definitely. Connor Machiavelli (talk) 00:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I don't disagree in principle, but I feel it's worth pointing out that WP:UNDUE exists for a reason, and that reason applies to the estimation of sources as well as the estimation of content. As we all know, different sources get different weight. I would contend unreservedly that the ADL is a far far more trustworthy source than any white nationalist. So it's not so much like using material published by the Democratic party for info on the Republican party as it is like using information published by the NCSE for info on the Discovery Institute. Honestly, this case is probably somewhere in the middle, but closer to the latter, in my view.
- P.S. Also note that it wouldn't be impermissible to use DNC material to source info on the GOP, we just have to be careful about it. There are certainly cases where one party might happily publish true, damaging information about the other, and the other party not respond or acknowledge it at all. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 00:49, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- The Republicans and Democrats share podiums, neighborhoods, workplaces, and fraternal lodges, and the culture of debate is strong with this one. They sometimes get married (e.g., Mary Matalin and James Carville). But many opposed groups do not conduct a dialog of charges, counter-charges, and defenses, particularly when divided by profound hostility. Nationalist causes rarely share in cross-cultural debate, and often consider each other beneath notice. Black Muslims will not be answering KKK statements, nor vice versa. ADL rarely engages in debate in any depth, and white nationalists are the same. That much only do they share. In that climate, the accusations about each other become increasingly extreme and any relation to the truth is little more than accident. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, the ADL isn't perfect, but are we really saying that because it's opposed to white supremacy, it's not a trustworthy source for info on white supremacy? That's a ridiculous standard. Setting it up as a parallel to Black Muslims and the KKK is a false equivalence. The ADL is an organization that's specific mission is to expose and combat bigotry, not a competing fringe movement. Sources which advocate for a specific position (WP:BIASED if you want) can still be reliable, and extremist views don't need to be given equal time to be discussed. Again, they have their flaws, but dismissing them because their main purpose is to oppose bigoted and racist organizations is totally missing the point. Grayfell (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I want to be clear that my statement about the ADL was not that they should be dismissed in discussing the alt right, but that we should be more critical of what they publish, and if they publish a statement that seems controversial and there's no corroborating sources, we should avoid assuming the ADL is being factually correct and instead cite as opinion. --MASEM (t) 06:51, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, the ADL isn't perfect, but are we really saying that because it's opposed to white supremacy, it's not a trustworthy source for info on white supremacy? That's a ridiculous standard. Setting it up as a parallel to Black Muslims and the KKK is a false equivalence. The ADL is an organization that's specific mission is to expose and combat bigotry, not a competing fringe movement. Sources which advocate for a specific position (WP:BIASED if you want) can still be reliable, and extremist views don't need to be given equal time to be discussed. Again, they have their flaws, but dismissing them because their main purpose is to oppose bigoted and racist organizations is totally missing the point. Grayfell (talk) 05:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- The Republicans and Democrats share podiums, neighborhoods, workplaces, and fraternal lodges, and the culture of debate is strong with this one. They sometimes get married (e.g., Mary Matalin and James Carville). But many opposed groups do not conduct a dialog of charges, counter-charges, and defenses, particularly when divided by profound hostility. Nationalist causes rarely share in cross-cultural debate, and often consider each other beneath notice. Black Muslims will not be answering KKK statements, nor vice versa. ADL rarely engages in debate in any depth, and white nationalists are the same. That much only do they share. In that climate, the accusations about each other become increasingly extreme and any relation to the truth is little more than accident. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 01:48, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Right. A mission to "oppose and combat" is not scholarship. As any lawyer will tell you, advocacy is not always consistent with the truth. We need scholars for sources, not lawyers and advocates. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 07:00, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Then remove all the sources as none of them are scholarly. This really isn't helpful as notability isn't dependent upon the use of scholarly sources. Doug Weller talk 13:38, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- @Sfarney: Three points: First, Masem is right. Just because the ADL is opposed to white supremacy doesn't automatically disqualify anything they say about it. It requires us to look a little closer, but as I said above, the ADL is the more trustworthy of those two groups by a long shot. Second, Tom Metzger, founder of the California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and White American Political Association (later renamed the White Aryan Resistance, or WAR) did in fact speak at a black Muslim event hosted by the Nation of Islam, and even donated (a small amount of) money to the group.
- Finally, Doug is also right. If we limit ourselves to scholarly sources, then we need to nominate this article for deletion, because there are no scholarly sources covering the subject. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:37, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- You don't have to limit yourself to scholarly sources, and can use newspapers and other sources, but simply keep a minds eye that this is the type of topic that will be written about with opinionated journalism by its very nature, so per NPOV, make sure to only state factually, in WP's voice, what is non-controversial, and when bringing in opinions or claims from others, make sure to state it is a claim and cite who made that claim. The ADL seem like a reasonable source to include opinions from on the alt right (as their take will be more critical of the alt right) but we just simply don't need to take every word they print on the alt right as 100% fact. --MASEM (t) 15:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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- In this context, the ADL is a biased advocacy source (it's bias is fairly mainstream, but it does have a bias... It is not neutral on the topic). That does not mean the article should omit what it says... Only that we need to hedge what it says by attributing it, and phrasing it as an opinion. The ADL is a reliable source for the ADL's opinion on things. Blueboar (talk) 14:51, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
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- We use a conservative student newspaper, The Cornell Review, 5 times, the conservative The Weekly Standard 6 times, the National Review twice, Occidental Quarterly once, Breitbart once, Taki's Magazine once, someone writing on the newconservative David Frum's forum, etc. Most of the sources are on the right. Some are attributed, some not. I've started to list some source problems on the talk page. Doug Weller talk 16:33, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Paragraph removed for failed verification
GMO conspiracy theories ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
The following paragraph was removed from this article:
Vandana Shiva, an anti-agribusiness activist, is in particular known for identifying Monsanto as the major source of the conspiracy,[1] while Bill Maher was criticized by science blogger Kyle Hill on the Scientific American website for promulgating Argumentum Ad Monsantum. According to Hill, "[m]aking the leap from Monsanto’s business practices—whatever you may think of them—to the “dangers” of GM foods is a mistake in logical reasoning. It is akin to saying landscape paintings are potentially evil because the painter was a serial killer."[2]
I would like to see some people who are independent of the ongoing controversies over GMO articles offer their evaluation of the paragraph. Are the sources adequate for what the text says? Is there a rewording that may be better?
jps (talk) 14:49, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- First - "marklynas.org" is a SPS of Mark Lynas. As such it is usable for non-contentious claims about himself, but clearly that exception does not work here.
- Second is the Scientific American blog - Kyle Hill is listed there as a "blogger" and the blog represents his opinions only usable as opinion. Alas, I find no basis for asserting that he is a recognized expert in the field, only that he has blogged on many topics, including about Sherlock Holmes. His expertise per his c.v. appears to not cover GMO issues at all.
- So, alas, I fear neither source is usable for much more than "Mark Lynas on his own website said ..." but as the claim is not directly related to Lynas, that fails. And "Kyle Hill, a blogger, says ..." which is also not exactly in the "recognized person in the field" territory." Sorry. Collect (talk) 15:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Okay. What do you think a good summary from the Lynas source would be as it relates to the subject of the article? I think we may simply have to remove the Hill source in spite of it being the first place where Argumentum ad Monstanium was coined (and it is a useful summary of closely related issues per the subsection indicated). jps (talk) 16:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- AFAICT, nothing from the Mark Lynas SPS is good for any claims on the topic at hand (GMO), though some claims about Lynas himself might be sourced to it. Collect (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- As a science communicator, some of what he says is obviously reliable. We aren't yet at the point where Wikipedia has declared suspect everything that is simply "stated by thus-and-such" except for personal claims as inadmissible. I can understand when it is a statement about another person, I guess, but if you're, say, a science communicator talking about science communication, your opinion on science communication is something that Wikipedia can report on, I would argue. If not, then why include any opinions? Having an editor isn't magic pixie dust. jps (talk) 22:12, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- AFAICT, nothing from the Mark Lynas SPS is good for any claims on the topic at hand (GMO), though some claims about Lynas himself might be sourced to it. Collect (talk) 21:24, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
- Okay. What do you think a good summary from the Lynas source would be as it relates to the subject of the article? I think we may simply have to remove the Hill source in spite of it being the first place where Argumentum ad Monstanium was coined (and it is a useful summary of closely related issues per the subsection indicated). jps (talk) 16:41, 7 March 2016 (UTC)
References
- ^ Mark Lynas (29 April 2013). "Time to call out the anti-GMO conspiracy theory". marklynas.org. Retrieved 31 January 2016.
- ^ Hill, Kyle. "Argumentum Ad Monsantum: Bill Maher and The Lure of a Liberal Logical Fallacy". Scientific American Blog Network. Retrieved 2016-02-02.
Youssef Bey Karam Information Source
Is www.youssefbeykaram.org a reliable source for having and extracting information about Lebanese Hero Youssef Bey Karam?
This site is dedicated for Youssef Bey Karam Foundation, non-profit organization.
The site contains large information about Youssef Bey Karam, his life, his battles, his toughts. It has two versions (Arabic & English).
- Yes, as far as I can tell. Additional corroborating sources would also help.- MrX 02:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
bulk removal of WashTimes
Volunteer Marek has been bulk removing citations to Washington Times, in some cases leaving previously cited material without citation. There has been no talk page discussion on any of the relevant pages. None of the citations removed appear to be regarding anything that requires special scrutiny (one of the citations is for the circulation size of a small newspaper for example) I am unaware of any larger decision which universally dismisses WT. When I asked VM about his action he said "It's enough that it doesn't satisfy the criteria for WP:RS"
Is the WT so unreliable that it can be removed without discussion and leaves material with no citation? If so, presumably it should be blacklisted. Gaijin42 (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
- I wouldn't call that "bulk removal", just four articles. But yes, in general Washington Times is not a reliable source, although of course it depends on context. It's a publication of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. See also [21]. Basically, it's not a "newspaper" with a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy". It might also be useful to check the archives of this page.Volunteer Marek (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- I do not think everything published by WashTimes should be automatically discarded, but these are good removals. For example, the source removed in the first diff above) leads here. That does not look good. Last diff is removal of link that does not lead to any specific publication; some statements are already supported by other sources (excessive citations), etc. My very best wishes (talk) 05:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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- Washington Times can be easily confused with Washington Post. The content from the former that I've seen has been "pulpy", non WP:RS. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, indeed. My very best wishes (talk) 05:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- The The Washington Times should usually be avoided, as they tend to present news with an extreme bias, similar to World Net Daily. I've also removed citations to The Washington Times, especially on controversial subjects. If no other sources can be found to support some content, it almost certainly doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article.- MrX 02:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I strongly disagree. The Washington times has rarely been caught in synthesis or exaggeration of the news in all its 30 years of history -- unlike some mainstay newspapers, such as The Washington Post. In my personal experience, I subscribed to both papers and read both daily for 20 years. I don't see any substantial support for discarding it as a source wholus bolus as you suggest here. Yes, it was initially started by the Moon group, but other newspapers were not started by Mother Teresa or Albert Einstein. The Washington Times is not run by the Moonies, and it provides a valuable balance for other papers and news sources, which being owned by a small group of international conglomerates, can tend to a corporate bias. The origin of The Washington Times could be compared to the origin of The Christian Science Monitor, the backbone of NPR news. Grammar'sLittleHelper (talk) 03:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- The The Washington Times should usually be avoided, as they tend to present news with an extreme bias, similar to World Net Daily. I've also removed citations to The Washington Times, especially on controversial subjects. If no other sources can be found to support some content, it almost certainly doesn't belong in a Wikipedia article.- MrX 02:30, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, indeed. My very best wishes (talk) 05:42, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- I agree with My very best wishes; while it may be a situationally-usable source, there are probably better sources available for most things which could also be sourced to it, and if the only source for a certain piece of information is The Washington Times, it's probably best to consider whether that citation places undue weight on a minority viewpoint. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:44, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Washington Times can be easily confused with Washington Post. The content from the former that I've seen has been "pulpy", non WP:RS. K.e.coffman (talk) 05:39, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
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FWIW, the newspaper is now a full step below direct Unification Church operations - it is in the same "Operations Holdings" group as the New Yorker Hotel Management Company, etc. and a bunch of marine corporations and the like. In short - opinions cited and sourced as opinions from it are generally usable, and direct statements of fact from its "fact articles" are generally usable as statements of fact. Material related in any way to the goals or beliefs of the Unification Church are more problematic - and should likely be regards as "self-published" in that area. Collect (talk) 14:14, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Musicbrainz Blog
Is the MusicBrainz blog a suitable source [22] for this accusation of corporate forgery? VQuakr (talk) 07:18, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, as it is the Metabrainz Foundation speaking for itself. The post in question contains the text of the accusation itself, from the organization making it and the document in question. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 07:52, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I read it, including their invitation for readers to go copy what they wrote to the Wikipedia page where you copied what they wrote. Our article on them doesn't give me the impression that their blog is a publication with a reputation for fact checking or investigative journalism. Why do we care what they have to say about birth certificate authenticity? VQuakr (talk) 08:00, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- There is no call for readers to add this to the Wikipedia page in the article, instead it is a suggestion to cite the article and the Wikipedia page in one's own defense against Web Sheriff. As to journalistic, I'm not asserting that this is journalism (3rd party investing and reporting on a matter), but merely a statement of facts (as they see them) on a subject they (MetaBrainz/MusicBrainz) are involved with. I don't see why we wouldn't cite original source of a statement. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 11:33, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, I read it, including their invitation for readers to go copy what they wrote to the Wikipedia page where you copied what they wrote. Our article on them doesn't give me the impression that their blog is a publication with a reputation for fact checking or investigative journalism. Why do we care what they have to say about birth certificate authenticity? VQuakr (talk) 08:00, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
- It's reliable to support that MusicBrainz made the accusation (and little more), but probably WP:UNDUE for inclusion in the Web Sheriff article unless accompanied by third party sources.- MrX 02:23, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
Reliable Source for this Article?
1. Source Phoenix New Media Limited Article on Sabrina Ho [23]
2. Article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Sabrina_Ho
3. Query Can I use this news source as a reliable source to demonstrate notability of the subject?
Justification: 1. Phoenix News Media Limited is a mainstream Chinese media company with financials: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/phoenix-media-reports-fourth-quarter-220000273.html 2. The article discusses the topic directly and in detail
- As far as I can tell, yes that source would contribute toward demonstrating notability, but insufficient without additional sources.- MrX 02:18, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
American Renaissance Magazine
White pride ( | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
An editor insists that American Renaissance (magazine) is a reliable source for discussing "white pride".
I disagree strongly as I think that white supremacist magazines generally should not be cited unless there is third-party notice of their positions. I would like to get some outside opinions.
jps (talk) 09:13, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- I don't think that "source" has any business being used anywhere on the encyclopedia for anything except discussion of itself. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 10:45, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- What NorthBySouthBaranof said. Advocacy for something does not make you a reliable source in the area, especially when the something is bigotry. Guy (Help!) 12:15, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Simple answer: no. More detailed answer: hell no.
- Source is technically based on a WP:FRINGE viewpoint regarding the effects of melanin. Ian.thomson (talk) 12:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- Not a reliable source for the subject of white pride. It's obviously a connected source and their fringe views would only be noteworthy if reliable sources cover them.- MrX 12:32, 10 March 2016 (UTC)
- It would, at best, only be usable for defining its own opinions cited and sourced as opinion. It appears to be problematic for "claims of fact cited as fact" at ll. Collect (talk) 14:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)