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RfC: Reliability of La Patilla

What is the reliability of La Patilla?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

WMrapids (talk) 22:17, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

 Comment: A previous discussion was raised regarding the reliability of La Patilla. In the discussion, concerns about the reliability of La Patilla included its reposting of deprecated and blacklisted sources (including Stop the Steal, anti-immigrant articles and frequent opinion articles from WP:BREITBART, WP:EPOCHTIMES, WP:ZEROHEDGE, WP:IBTIMES and others), its heavy bias and its leadership working directly on behalf of Juan Guaidó (one user describing the outlet as "propaganda"). Those defending La Patilla said that it is one of the most popular websites in Venezuela and that though it reposts questionable sources, it does not do it often.

@NoonIcarus, Visviva, and Burrobert: Pinging users previously involved. --WMrapids (talk) 22:33, 25 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1: La Patilla is currently one of the main outlets in Venezuela, with 13 years of experience mostly as a news aggregator, and as such, a valuable resource for references in Venezuela related topics. While concerns with editorial independence have been brought up, examples of how it has been affected have not been given. Per WP:SOURCECOUNTING, examples of unreliability were uncommon, and links provided before were not representative of La Patilla's overall performance.

I really don't want to go over the details again and the previous discussion can be consulted, and I would like new editors to participate and give their feedback, but I can invite them to look after its use in articles about Venezuela, and see that in those cases there have not been concerns regarding reliability. Pinging @Kingsif, JML1148, Red-tailed hawk, and SandyGeorgia:, who also participated in the last discussion. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:05, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

While I have the chance, I'll put out to WP:BLUDGEON concerns pointed out in the previous RfC, as well as related ones. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Please don't attempt to canvass as it seems that you have attempted to notify a user noted above in a dubious manner.--WMrapids (talk) 00:39, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

--NoonIcarus (talk) 00:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 Concerns have been raised over the quality of reporting decreasing since 2019 or 2020; before some cut-off date in that period, La Patilla can be considered generally reliable. After this, it is typically accurate but may present bias - sticking to the facts rather than using it as a gauge of sentiment would be wise, and editors could include in-line attributions. Obviously any of the reposts from other sources should be judged based on the reliability of the original source. There was a mention that alleged recent unreliability for coverage of politics; I don't find much credence to this, and think the allegation mistakes partisanship in a fact-checking source for "propaganda" (I won't speculate as to why). Kingsif (talk) 00:23, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

  The issue with placing a date on this is that La Patilla has reposted WP:RTCOM since at least 2013, WP:EPOCHTIMES since 2014, WP:BREITBART since 2015, WP:ZEROHEDGE since 2016 and PanAm Post since early 2018. WMrapids (talk) 05:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 I know I previously said I didn't want to be involved in this dispute anymore, but I feel quite strongly about this one. La Patilla has reposted articles from unreliable right-wing sources Breitbart and Epoch Times, among others. There has also been links made between La Patilla and right-wing politicians. Considering the Western sources that have been deprecated, I don't see why this shouldn't be considered unreliable. JML1148 02:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4: Per the previous discussion, La Patilla republishes WP:BREITBART, WP:EPOCHTIMES, WP:ZEROHEDGE, WP:IBTIMES articles, so obviously that is the audience they are catering for. NoonIcarus previously stated "Breitbart's unreliability is not as known is the Spanish speaking sphere also has to be considered", but if La Patilla were a quality source and had decent editorial staff, they would obviously not be republishing such articles like they have been doing for years. The argument that they are "one of the main outlets in Venezuela" is also a red herring since it has nothing to do with La Patilla's reliability. We can look at WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS as an example; Fox News may be "the most-watched cable network in the U.S.", but that does not make it reliable. Visviva also stated in the previous discussion "I don't really have an objection to option 3 either. I went with the more cautious choice mostly just out of concern that there might be some valuable use of this source that hasn't come to light". Looking at what this user said, there are really no examples of La Patilla being cited by reliable sources except for discussing court proceedings against the outlet. BBC News did however describe La Patilla as a "satirical website" while BBC Monitoring wrote in an article discussing Venezuelan outlets that La Patilla "churns out a barrage of pro-opposition and anti-government news items", that the outlet "has a penchant for dramatic headlines, such as 'Venezuela in its third day of paralysis and anguish due to the red blackout, with no solution in sight'" and described La Patilla as "rabidly anti-government" . Overall, much of La Patilla's content has a pretty heavy bias and it republishes articles from unreliable sources.--WMrapids (talk) 03:47, 26 June 2023 (UTC) (Edit: Adding "or 4" after content farm concerns were raised)1 -- WMrapids (talk) 04:35, 28 June 2023 (UTC) Edit: Striking in support of Option 4, after finding fact-checking article about Breitbart article reposted by La Patilla (which is still uploaded). --WMrapids (talk) 06:41, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

An edit breaking down how La Patilla is a questionable source, how it is not used by other sources and how the outlet has used fake news to promote its POV, providing the conclusion that La Patilla is an unreliable source.--WMrapids (talk) 17:18, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 There is quite strong evidence here of publishing content which is unusable for us, if it were a UK website, I have no doubt it would already be deprecated. Boynamedsue (talk) 05:16, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

As commented in the previous discussion, the examples provided for this is either content originally posted by reliable sources or statements by foreign politicians or entities. WP:ABOUTSELF applies specially in the case of RT; hence why WP:SOURCECOUNTING was cited: a large list of links was offered, only having in common word matches, without examining reliability in depth, and the few exceptions did not prove this was systematic for the WP:GUNREL qualification. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:15, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 some important examples of unreliable behaviour have been brought here but a few examples are not sufficient to make it a perennial or deprecated source per WP:SOURCECOUNTING. As far as I can see from the previous conversation (uninvolved) the notability of the source has been demonstrated but few articles, if any, really investigate the topic of La Patilla unreliability and it is more about government pressure on the news site. I think the best compromise would be to add general considerations as to not be used "to substantiate exceptional claims or unsourced investigations" due to sensationalistic titles and rapid coverage. I think its mistakes are not really topic related. Accusations of partisanship have been brought forward but it is clear that La Patilla is independent and has published many articles about government and opposition scandals. Also let us remind that opinion articles are never to be used without attribution independently of the source.--ReyHahn (talk) 23:13, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

How does listing examples of La Patilla reposting deprecated and blacklisted sources equate to WP:SOURCECOUNTING? Someone made the backhanded request of "Continue the discussion until it is pages long just like Fox News (23, last time I checked WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS), providing repeated instances of factual errors, and perhaps I'll concede." So, I was obliged to answer with many instances of La Patilla reposting articles from poor sources. Are we not here to review La Patilla's editorial behavior? It doesn't matter that La Patilla removes some words or phrases from the poor sources when they repost articles, La Patilla is still citing poor sources. Why would La Patilla's editorial team repost articles from poor sources for over ten years?

Here is just one example. In late-2022, La Patilla reposted the article "Maduro's regime empties prisons and sends violent criminals to the US border" from WP:BREITBART through their own editorial voice. In the article, La Patilla is asserting that the Maduro government is sending criminals to the US and that a "source, who is not authorized to talk to the media, told Breitbart Texas that the measure recalls a similar action taken by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during the Mariel boatlift in the 1980s." However, looking at the facts surrounding the Mariel boatlift, only about 2% of the 125,000 migrants sent were estimated to be criminals, while other individuals were involved in small crimes or were formerly imprisoned political opponents. Just from this one example, we can see La Patilla pushing a false narrative, with the help of WP:BREITBART, to demonize the Maduro and Castro governments. WMrapids (talk) 05:35, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Quick note that La Patilla withdrew a related article and that Castro did release criminals during the Mariel boatlift, offering the option between emigration and jail time. Also, when I mentioned that discussions should be as long as Fox News', I did not mean they had to be artificially prolonged with a list of links, only that there such be enough community participation for that amount of time to reach the same conclusions. --NoonIcarus (talk) 07:31, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Please stop the continuation of the false narrative. If you read the source, the Cuban government wanted to release “undesirables”, such as political opponents and homosexuals, not specifically criminals. As the other sources state, the majority were not “criminals” as they are normally defined. WMrapids (talk) 13:16, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a reliability problem, since convicts were released regardless. The same can be said for many of the other point brought up, including calling Fidel Castro a dictator: describing the leader of a one-party state that ruled for almost 50 years is only normal. That it might be a debatable term and other sources won't use it is another matter, but it is unrelated to reliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:59, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

You should stop using an inaccurate persuasive definition; you are "more concerned about swaying people to one side or another than expressing the unbiased facts" in an effort to avoid the truth. The truth is that the information provided by Breitbart and in turn La Patilla an extremely biased narrative that was created to push disinformation. Please stop. WMrapids (talk) 22:15, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, here is an edit showing that FactCheck.org had said that such reports made by Breitbart and in turn La Patilla were false. WMrapids (talk) 06:50, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

See response below. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2: For La Patilla to be considered "generally unreliable" as a source, there has to be sufficient amount of evidence proving that it has been routinely publishing misinformations and asserting them as facts. Like the newspapers of records that have been deemed generally reliable by the community, a news source that has been active for over a decade like La Patilla is bound to have published some mistakes from time to time. So cherrypicking a few examples of false or misleading statements is not going to be enough and the other participants of this discussion supporting Option 3 have not provided any example whatsoever.

Also, republishing translated articles from unreliable and deprecated sources does not automatically or necessarily mean that any of the informations in those republished articles is false. Claiming that an info that happens to be in a source has to be false because that source routinely publishes misinformation is association fallacy. You are going to have to check the republished articles one by one to see if most of them actually contain misinformation to actually support this assertion. If the primary concern is over these republished articles, then we could include in the summary on WP:RSPSOURCES that "republished articles from unreliable or deprecated sources should not be used to support exceptional claims or statements of fact" especially since La Patilla always clearly indicates the respective original news source and author either near the start or at the end of those republished articles. That is why I support Option 2 for "additional considerations apply".

Furthermore, as NoonIcarus said in the previous discussion on Talk:La Patilla, this source has retracted articles and removed questionable statements before indicating at least a degree of editorial oversight.

Lastly, being biased or opinionated for politics is not really significant or relevant for assessing reliability. Most of the generally reliable newspapers of records and other sources whose editorial stances and biases have always been clear to everyone do not even have their summaries on WP:RSPSOURCES indicate that they are biased. Jacobin is much less subtle about its political bias compared to La Patilla and yet it is still considered "generally reliable" (so far anyway).

--StellarHalo (talk) 11:46, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

• Bad RfC. The OP says complaints are about reposting "anti-immigrant" or "opinion articles" or "bias". That means it's not about "Reliability of La Patilla", it's about politics of La Patilla. That's an improper basis for starting a WP:RSN RfC with banning options. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:55, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  La Patilla’s use of blacklisted and deprecated sources, in addition to its spread of false narratives (example above), is directly related to its reliability in addition to its extreme bias. WMrapids (talk) 19:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  This brings up another important issue from the last discussion: many of the links cited as examples of unreliability were actually opinion articles. These are clearly distinguished from news articles, and as such should not be considered to weight unreliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  Your opinion seems dubious as you are someone who wanted to remove Breitbart from being blacklisted. WMrapids (talk) 22:25, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4. I read a dozen or so articles and a few dozen headlines, and I'm not seeing much that I'd consider trustworthy. Most of the articles were reposts, which suggests that they're a "content farm" more than a "news outlet". That they readily repost Breitbart, Epoch Times, RT, etc. should be an instant fail as far as reliability goes. If they do repost news from an otherwise reliable source, then we should use the original article, not La Patilla. Few reliable sites repost LP articles and (as mentioned above) several consider them biased or satirical, which points to their lack of a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And, to be clear, it's not that their bias makes them unreliable, but that their bias leads to them repost fake news, rush content (and then retract it), write misleading headlines, etc.—which is what makes them unreliable. Woodroar (talk) 23:42, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

  I agree with this assessment. La Patilla appears to be content farm since there is little original content provided across its articles. And yes, search through the list of WP:GREL sources and their use of La Patilla; you will find little to nothing. After reviewing "Healthline: deprecate or blacklist?", La Patilla seems to be similar to Red Ventures websites in the way that it may participate in churnalism. WMrapids (talk) 04:32, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Where did check for these headlines again? A quick browse through its website (lapatilla.com) will easily show plenty of articles that are original content. Here are some examples, just from today's headlines:

• Domestic:
• International:
• Opposition primaries (precandidates for next year's elections):

La Patilla is far from being a content farm at all. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:06, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Domestic:

1. Repost of EFE
2. Repost of press release
3. Original to LP
4. Original to LP

International:

1. Original to LP
2. Repost of a journalist's post
3. Repost of Daily Star (United Kingdom) tabloid
4. Repost of Agence France-Presse

As for opposition primaries, of course La Patilla will cover the process themselves as they are the opposition outlet. So yeah, the majority of what you shared that is not directly related to the opposition is just reposts from other sources. WMrapids (talk) 20:39, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Translations are not reposts, specially when original content is added. It's also interesting to see how the goalposts are moved in face of the examples. --NoonIcarus (talk) 21:59, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3. La Patilla acts as a propaganda outfit for the opposition against the Venezuelan government. Its extreme bias means we can't rely on it to provide accurate reporting. WMrapids has provided extensive documentation of its many editorial failings. As pointed out by Woodroar, its bias affects the type of content it publishes. It regularly refers to Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro as a dictator. It published articles that supported, and sometimes encouraged, the attempted regime-change operation to install Juan Guaidó as President. One of its articles exhorted its readers to "Follow the example that Caracas gave: They confirm nightly protests against Maduro in 30 capital communities". Another is titled "Support for Maduro's departure continues to grow: 85.4% of Venezuelans want the Chavista nightmare to end now". It is currently running a campaign called #NoEsNormal against the Venezuela government, in which it tells its readers to "avoid getting used to the vices of Chavismo".

Regarding the connection between bias and reliability, there is a point at which bias does affect reliability. Even when biased sources are not found to be generally unreliable, editors have decided that the use of such sites should be attributed (see entries for the Cato Institute, CEPR, Common Sense Media etc.) There are a number of examples on the Perennial list of sources found to be unreliable, with a note that the sources' bias contributed to the rating. Some examples:

- California Globe: Editors also note the highly opinionated nature of the site as evidence against its reliability.

- The Canary: “There is consensus that The Canary is generally unreliable. Its reporting is sensationalist at times; selective reporting, a left-wing bias, and a poor distinction between editorial and news content were also noted”.

- CESNUR: “CESNUR is an apologia site for new religious movements, and thus is inherently unreliable in its core area due to conflicts of interest ".

- Epoch Times: “Most editors classify The Epoch Times as an advocacy group for the Falun Gong, and consider the publication a biased or opinionated source that frequently publishes conspiracy theories as fact”.

- The Federalist: “The Federalist is generally unreliable for facts due to its partisan nature and its promotion of conspiracy theories”.

- Heat Street: “many editors note that Heat Street does not clearly differentiate between its news articles and opinion. There is consensus that Heat Street is a partisan source ".

Burrobert (talk) 12:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Yet again it is claimed that the editorial line affects the reliability, but no examples of this are given. --NoonIcarus (talk) 11:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)

Burrobert's response was provided after examples were provided below which shows that La Patilla manipulates news coverage in favor of their bias (i.e. La Patilla a questionable source that has limited use by others and has promoted manipulated content). WMrapids (talk) 17:59, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

References

1. Peña, Susana (2013). Oye Loca: From the Mariel Boatlift to Gay Cuban Miami. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-6554-9. Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. Retrieved 13 July 2019.
2. "CPI autorizó reanudar investigación por crímenes de lesa humanidad en Venezuela (Comunicado) - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
3. "Amnistía Internacional: Situación del espacio cívico en Venezuela ante el aumento de la represión - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
4. "Alacrán José Brito atacó la candidatura de María Corina Machado: la primaria "está condenada al fracaso"". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
5. "Alacrán Luis Ratti pedirá a la CPI investigar a María Corina Machado, Juan Guaidó, Leopoldo López "y otros"". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
6. "Panel de Expertos de la OEA celebra reanudación de la investigación por parte de la CPI en Venezuela - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
7. "El dramático relato de Sergio Jaramillo y Héctor Abad tras resultar heridos durante bombardeo ruso en Ucrania". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
8. "¡Impactante! Salen a la luz las primeras imágenes del submarino Titán implosionado LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
9. "Un hombre quema páginas del Corán ante mezquita en Estocolmo (Fotos) - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
10. "Alacrán José Brito atacó la candidatura de María Corina Machado: la primaria "está condenada al fracaso"". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
11. "Freddy Superlano envía emotivo mensaje a la diáspora venezolana - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
12. "En el comando de campaña de "Er Conde" hay más dudas que certezas (VIDEO)". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
13. "Carlos Prosperi: Queremos despolitizar las Fuerzas Armadas y reinstitucionalizar los poderes públicos en Venezuela - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
14. "Nueva jugada: Alacranes visitan la Contraloría para desenterrar inhabilitaciones de candidatos a primaria". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
15. "Consejo Superior de la Democracia Cristiana para Venezuela emite comunicado ante elección primaria - LaPatilla.com". Retrieved 2023-06-28.
16. "Vente Venezuela en Sucre recibe el respaldo de Alianza Bravo Pueblo". Retrieved 2023-06-28.

Questionable and WP:FRINGE information examples

Here is a list of examples showing some questionable information presented by La Patilla:

• "Maduro's regime empties prisons and sends violent criminals to the US border" – A repost of a WP:BREITBART article that compares the alleged actions of the Maduro government to the false narrative that Castro packed criminals into the Mariel boatlift to send to the US
• "Report: Venezuela’s worst and darkest head North for destinations like Martha’s Vineyard" – Another WP:BREITBART repost that uses the Mariel boatlift comparison; "Socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro is freeing some of Venezuela’s most violent criminals from prison and sending them to the U.S. southern border ... The source, not authorized to speak to the media, told Breitbart Texas the move by Venezuela of freeing criminals who then head for the U.S. is reminiscent of a similar action taken by Cuban dictator Fidel Castro during the Mariel boat lift in the 1980s"
• "This US airline will fire 593 workers who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19" – A repost of a WP:EPOCHTIMES article that states "the company would start the process of dismissal of employees who refused to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the disease caused by the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party), according to a memorandum addressed to employees, obtained by The Epoch Times", with no editorial removal of this WP:FRINGE content from La Patilla.
• "When could the world be free of coronavirus? What some experts say" – Citing the WP:EPOCHTIMES for information about COVID-19; "According to an extensive article in The Epoch Times, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in the world cannot be controlled until at least 2027." Um, yeah.
• "Faith and freedom: How a Shen Yun dancer escaped from China" – A WP:EPOCHTIMES propaganda piece promoting the Falun Gong and Shen Yun; "like tens of millions of people in China, were in the crosshairs of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) due to his religious faith. From night to morning, approximately 70 to 100 million Falun Gong practitioners, also known as Falun Dafa, went from being known to the general public as kind people who practiced meditation and followed "Truth, Benevolence and Tolerance," to being branded as enemies of the state in 1999."
• "Republican Mitch McConnell warns of the return to confinement in the United States if people do not get vaccinated against Covid-19" – More WP:FRINGE from an WP:EPOCHTIMES repost; "Many governors in 2020 imposed tough measures, such as the closure of schools and businesses. The result was widespread unemployment and an increase in health problems such as drug abuse. Some experts said that the closures helped stop the spread of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus, which causes COVID-19." Again, La Patilla left this dubious material in the article.
• "Iran's revenge on the United States after Soleimani's death could pass through Venezuela" – Pushing WP:FRINGE info from PanAm Post suggesting that Iran and Hezbollah would try to attack the US with the help of Venezuela.

This is what I've had time to place. May add more later if necessary, but this should provide a picture of La Patilla's editorial quality which promotes quantity over quality.--WMrapids (talk) 04:04, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Let's go through your claims of questionable info and WP:FRINGE one by one:

• Mariel boatlift comparison: Neither of those articles actually say that Castro sent criminals to the United States. They were just pointing out the similarity in which both Maduro and Castro regimes took advantage of mass exoduses to get rid of people they saw as undesirable.
• "This US airline will fire 593 workers who refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19": "CCP Virus" is simply a term the Epoch Times uses as a substitute for SARS-Cov-2 virus and a term that will never be used on here due to WP:UNDUE. Besides that, the content of this short article has no false info, as seen here
• "When could the world be free of coronavirus? What some experts say": That claim was clearly attributed to a subject matter expert and reported on by a newspaper of record and other sources. Not sure how that would be considered questionable or WP:FRINGE.
• "Faith and freedom: How a Shen Yun dancer escaped from China": You are going to have to point out which specific part of that quote you highlighted from this article is false.
• "Republican Mitch McConnell warns of the return to confinement in the United States if people do not get vaccinated against Covid-19": Again, besides keeping "CCP Virus" from the original, which part of the highlighted quote is WP:FRINGE?
• "Iran's revenge on the United States after Soleimani's death could pass through Venezuela": Analysis made by a subject matter expert on topics of national security, Latin America, and Iran affiliated with at least one prominent think tank and appearing in several reliable sources for relevant comments (Ex: 1, 2) is not WP:FRINGE especially when the expert knows about the content of the PanAm Post article.

Also, all this focus on reposted articles from unreliable or deprecated sources is nothing more than red herring. How many of the articles from this source currently being used as citations on 313 pages   are actually reposted from any of the aforementioned unreliable or deprecated sources? How many of those are actually reposted from somewhere else for that matter? There are several pages of subjects related to Latin American topics currently using original articles written by La Patilla itself as citations. If anyone here wants to erase all those citations, then you will have to prove that they contain misinformations.

StellarHalo (talk) 08:13, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

It is astounding what you are attempting to ignore.

• The Breitbart/La Patilla articles comparing Venezuela and Cuba are directly implying that both countries were attempting to send criminals to the United States (similar to the "weaponizing migration" charges below). For the former, the "source" was "not authorized to speak to the media" while only speaking with Breitbart (fishy) and for the latter, research has already determined that a very small percentage of Mariel boatlift migrants were criminals.
• The fact that La Patilla published "the disease caused by the CCP virus (Chinese Communist Party)" obviously pushes the fringe theory that the CCP were involved with the creation of the virus. If we were reading a good source, we wouldn't have to worry about WP:UNDUE terms, let alone WP:FRINGE terms, but this is not the case with La Patilla as their editors republish questionable material through a poor review process.
• Regarding the COVID-19 end date article, La Patilla is citing the Epoch Times on COVID-19 information. What reputable source would do that?
• Humire is a dubious source of such information and often participates in fear mongering. He is an Epoch Times contributor. He was a panel host at CPAC where he pushed conspiracy theories, calling COVID-19 the "china virus" (2:55), implied that the US-Mexico border is "heading into" the condition of the Colombia-Venezuela where he says China, Iran and Russia are present (10:15) and said that "Venezuela is weaponizing migration" (18:15). The Washington Office on Latin America has said that the SFS has made claims from "unspecified" sources in the past. Much of the information appears to be hearsay or conspiracies. Whether he is an Atlantic Council commentator or not, we have to pick apart each source and he is obviously not a good one.
• Your "red herring" charges are in fact a red herring itself, with your distraction tactic sounding like "You're showing that La Patilla is reposting questionable content from unreliable sources, but this is not related to reliability. La Patilla has previously been spread throughout Misplaced Pages, so we can't remove it do to its widespread use". Even if La Patilla were on every article in the project, it does not take away from the fact that it is unreliable and reposts material from other unreliable sources.

As perfectly explained above by Woodroar, La Patilla seems to be a content farm that does not fear (or have the capability to prevent) reposting unreliable content. WMrapids (talk) 16:15, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

This is blatantly false and can be easily proven by taken a quick look through its main page, as I explained above. There is plenty of original content, and most of its reposted content are translations from reliable sources such as AFP and Reuters (something that I also mentioned at the original discussion), while including some original text, which is common practice among newspapers. Jumping to this conclusion demonstrates carelessness in assessing the outlet's reliability. --NoonIcarus (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

First, please read Misplaced Pages:No original research. Your personal analysis of what conclusion or narrative those articles imply has no relevance to the source's reliability as far as Misplaced Pages is concerned. Only what the sources clearly and explicitly state themselves is relevant. The same goes for your interpretation of "CCP Virus". Second, as I mentioned in the main discussion above, you are using guilt by association to push and jump to unwarranted conclusions that info in a reposted article must be wrong, questionable, or WP:FRINGE solely based on the reputation of the original news site the article was taken from and more importantly that La Patilla routinely publishes misinformation just because some of the reposted articles originated from unreliable sources. Third, quoted speculative analyses on near future events or courses of actions by subject matter experts are used all the time by RS in articles and news broadcasts especially when those experts also happen to be specialists in the specific relevant topics of the breaking news in question. You calling those analyses "conspiracies" and "fear mongering" does not make them WP:FRINGE. Again, you are using guilt by association to dismiss the views of an academic who has a long history of being used as subject matter expert by RS rather than engaging with the substance of the speculative argument itself.

Most importantly, as I already said above, you have to prove that La Patilla routinely publishes misinformation if you want your claim of it being generally unreliable to hold any water and you have not done so. Also, and just as important, I have not gone through all the 313 pages using this source as citations but from what I have seen, vast majority of those are original articles of La Patilla rather than reposted and none of the few reposted articles being used are actually from any of the aforementioned unreliable sources. For reposted articles, it is easy to just assess the original sources they were taken from individually to determine if they should be used or simply just not use reposted articles at all like I suggested. It is quite clear that you are trying to use questionable origins of a minority of contents to dismiss the rest of the content of La Patilla wholesale. You keep focusing on the notion that reposting articles from unreliable sources affect the reliability of La Patilla's original contents without any evidence. StellarHalo (talk) 04:12, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

The RfC process is based on users interpreting which sources should or shouldn't be used based on reliability concerns and determining a consensus on the source in question. It's not difficult to see that "the disease caused by the CCP virus" is disinformation phrasing that was either promoted or ignored by La Patilla editors, which would show unreliability in both instances. The whole purpose of WP:RS is that "Misplaced Pages articles should be based on reliable, published sources". Why would Misplaced Pages users find a source that uses unreliable sources reliable? This is not guilt by association if La Patilla is directly reposting articles from unreliable sources, La Patilla then becomes the unreliable source as it is not just association. Further, per WP:QUESTIONABLE, "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts or with no editorial oversight. Such sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, that are promotional in nature, or that rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. ... The proper uses of a questionable source are very limited."

• Is La Patilla a questionable source? Y Yes

Now we can visit WP:USEBYOTHERS, which states "How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation. ... For example, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts, whereas widespread doubts about reliability weigh against it." Already recognizing that La Patilla is a questionable source, we can visit the concerns by other users (such as @Visviva and Woodroar:) who note that La Patilla is not used by WP:GREL sources.

• Is La Patilla a questionable source and has limited use by others? Y Yes

Lastly, let's focus on fake news promoted by La Patilla. Not only does La Patilla post questionable content from deprecated and blacklisted sources, it does so itself. For instance, during the 2014 Venezuelan protests, La Patilla published the article "Unacceptable: Repressive forces beat and arrest a special young man (Photos)" (it still hasn't been fixed after nearly 10 years), though the photographer later explained the photos saying "I'm going to be very clear about this image, I took it, and it's a GN official helping a protester to breathe" and the Associated Press stated "A Bolivarian National Guard officer holds a demonstrator’s head up to help him breathe". The conservative Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia would also write "The violinist was the latest victim of the disproportionate violence of 'the paramilitary forces of the Chavista dictatorship,' as repeated in digital opposition media such as La Patilla ... However, as at other times in this crisis, the narrative of a heroic youth massacred by the Bolivarian dictatorship does not stick to the facts", with the article further explaining that La Patilla said a tear gas canister was the cause of death while further investigation showed that a ball bearing, possibly fired by protesters, was the deadly projectile and that Reuters had photos of protesters with makeshift firearms. In another instance, El Mundo analyzed a photograph from Hurricane Irene in 2011 that was used by La Patilla show shortages in Venezuela, writing "Whether for laziness and lack of diligence when it comes to verifying the origin of the image or because of a desire for manipulation, ... the Venezuelan opposition decided to systematically use this image."

• Is La Patilla a questionable source that has limited use by others and has promoted manipulated content? Y Yes

With these concerns identified, one can see that La Patilla is unreliable. WMrapids (talk) 08:19, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

N No. Three "examples" are provided to argue "fake news" promotion by La Patilla. Since I have already commented on use by others below, I'll comment on these here:

• The article on the 2014 detention of Carlos Requena includes further evidence to demonstrate that he was beaten when arrested, including by his pro-bono lawyer defense organization director, Alfredo Romero. Requena would need to be admitted to Caracas' Military Hospital due to this reason so, not really a fake news? Besides, your link of Associated Press does not redirect to AP, but rather to an obscure local radio News Radio Kman? What the hell?
• La Patilla does not say with an editorial voice that Armando Cañizales was killed by a tear gas canister (2017). Quite the opposite, it states that: The 17-year-old was hit and caused a penetrating trauma to the neck, Cañizales went into shock and then into cardio-respiratory arrest.. The article cites witnesses regarding the tear gas canister version, which was one of the earlier versions of the death: just the week before, Juan Pablo Pernalete was killed with a tear gas cannister.
• You neglect to mention that El Mundo's article says that the photograph from Hurricane Irene was used by dozens of Latin American outlets and even Google: A hoax that even Google itself has come to consider true. Using the image search option offered by the search engine, Google matches the image with the search terms "shortage Venezuela". While it can be cited as an example of an editorial mistake shared with a lot of other outlets, La Patilla is far from being solely responsible for its promotion, and the article would go on to be corrected: "El gobierno es el único culpable del desabastecimiento y la escasez", yet another example of editorial oversight.

If after all this time these are the best examples that can be provided on unreliable content by La Patilla, it is very telling on why it would be far from the best description for the source. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:32, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

1. Great job on using Twitter as a source. However, Romero is not his lawyer. With the photo, KMAN is pulling the content directly from the Associated Press with the photo and caption. The fact that the reporter didn't mention abuse by authorities and reported that the National Guard was instead helping Requena proves the contrary to La Patilla's claims.
2. La Vanguardia is much more reputable than a content farm like La Patilla. They explicitly write about La Patilla making such allegations. I'll take their word for it.
3. If a newspaper of record source like El Mundo calls you out, of course you are going to perform a correction ASAP. Whether or not "dozens" of other sites perform poor reporting does not take away from the fact that La Patilla participated in manipulated content. Regarding the Google algorithm, it will use that image due to relevance, which El Mundo said is "thanks to the fact that the snapshot has been indexed hundreds of times erroneously in the search engine". The sites that were mentioned beside La Patilla are blogs, dubious websites and opposition platforms, with La Patilla seemingly belonging to the two latter categories.

Overall, La Patilla is WP:QUESTIONABLE due to their extreme bias, the WP:USEBYOTHERS is extremely limited to opposition-related sources and the manipulation by the website is documented. WMrapids (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• If you look closer at the article, you'd notice that I cited Twitter because it is the same link mentioned in the article, just like it happens with the article you have provided. Both lawyers are members of Foro Penal, Requena's pro-bono legal defense organization, where Romero is the director. So yeah, potayto potahto, it still shows that the information provided by La Patilla isn't false. On the other hand, the photographer has since deleted his tweets, probably retracting from his original statement. Hence the question, why wasn't the Associated Press first cited?
• La Vanguardia's article focuses more on the side responsible for Cañizales' death, rather than the manner, and cites Néstor Reverol for the other side of the story, Maduro's interior affairs ministry. You probably don't want to take the word from the same officials who lied about the deaths of Juan Pablo Pernalete and Fernando Albán. An independent panel of experts of the Organization of American States found the Bolivarian National Guard responsible for Cañizales' death. Again, La Patilla is not publishing false information.
• Don't move the goalposts: several other reliable outlets committed the same mistake and La Patilla corrected it afterwards, showing editorial oversight, because even reliable sources are fallible. The Fake News Awards, created by Donald Trump, share this reasoning, seeking to discredit reliable sources for specific mistakes that would later be corrected.

Along with further proof of WP:USEBYOTHERS below, your case for deprecating La Patilla is very weak. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4: La Patilla has republished stories taken directly from the white-supremacist website Breitbart, an already depreciated source infamous for its hiring of Neo-Nazis and its promotion of conspiracy theories. This along should be enough to have La Patilla blocked entirely from Misplaced Pages. I am genuinely confused how some of the editors above can see republished Neo-Nazi propaganda and choose Options 1 & 2, unless they were motivated by blind support of the Venezuelan opposition. Very embarrassing. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 23:13, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Note: I tried to include links as evidence but I could not save my changes, with a note telling me it was because wiki had blacklisted one of the URLs. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 23:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

@The History Wizard of Cambridge: Dear: I kindly invite you take a look at the original discussion on the issue (Talk:La Patilla#RfC: Reliability of La Patilla). It shows that a vast majority of the examples provided for republishment are uncontroversial statements made by foreign leaders or politicians, and some of the linked examples were cited for things as small as just using a photo also used by Breitbart.. Sure, we can agree that it's preferrable for the original article to come from a reliable source, but this is not representative among tens of thousands (and maybe more) published in the span of over 13 years. There are actually several La Patilla articles where Breitbart is described as right-wing, far-right wing or partisan, as well as associated people such as Steve Bannon, and in other cases La Patilla actually offers a more impartial wording of the news. There simply hasn't been evidence in this discussion that La Patilla is republishing "Neo-Nazi propaganda"

That is the reason why it has been commented that the argument is simply a fallacy by association. If you re-examine this situation, I would really appreciate if you reconsidered your position. --NoonIcarus (talk) 22:39, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

The only correct number of articles republished from white supremacist and Neo Nazi propaganda outlets is zero. No ifs, no buts. The History Wizard of Cambridge (talk) 05:29, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

So, which are the white supremacist articles and Neo Nazi propaganda published by La Patilla again? --NoonIcarus (talk) 12:32, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

We can start with the anti-immigrant articles La Patilla reposted from Breitbart. This includes La Patilla's "Maduro's regime empties prisons and sends violent criminals to the US border", which reposted from Breitbart's "EXCLUSIVE: Venezuela Empties Prisons, Sends Violent Criminals to U.S. Border, Says DHS Report" (see: *breitbart*.com/border/2022/09/18/exclusive-venezuela-empties-prisons-sends-violent-criminals-to-u-s-says-dhs-report/ , hope posting this URL is ok?). This specific article was fact-checked by FactCheck.org, which says about the reports from Breitbart and La Patilla about Venezuela sending criminals is false, concluding that "immigration experts tell us there is no evidence of that happening". So you can add that to the list of fake news spread by La Patilla... WMrapids (talk) 06:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Response regarding this can be found at the original RfC, which includes a retraction by La Patilla, and again: not "white supremacist" or "Neo Nazi" articles. This ignores the aforementioned fact that La Patilla has been critical of Breitbart, describing the outlet and related people as such. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 per WMrapids and The History Wizard of Cambridge. The source is clearly unacceptable. Mackensen (talk) 11:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment Besides previous rebuttals, it has also been argued that La Patilla has WP:USEBYOTHERS. Several uses include: El Estímulo, Tal Cual, Efecto Cocuyo and El Pitazo (archives). These tens of instances easily demonstrates that La Patilla does not have a limited use, and that the opposite is the case. --NoonIcarus (talk) 09:57, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Those are examples of similar Venezuelan opposition or opposition-leaning sources using La Patilla. In no way are those examples of WP:USEBYOTHERS by WP:GREL sources. WMrapids (talk) 18:53, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

  "Opposition", sure... --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:33, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  Have any of these sources been reviewed here previously? Mackensen (talk) 00:55, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

  @Mackensen: No, but multiple sources describe these websites as opposition or opposition-leaning (Tal Cual, Efecto Cocuyo and El Pitazo), though NoonIcarus believes the descriptions are WP:UNDUE. All of this is a completely other discussion, however... WMrapids (talk) 01:36, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Mackensen: No, although entries and discussions can be found at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources. WMrapids has been very insistent on labelling them as "opposition" after they were cited in a move discussion, even though they're among the main outlets in Venezuela.

Use by reliable sources outside Venezuela include but is not limited to Reuters (), France24 (), AFP ( ), The New York Times and the The Washington Post. --NoonIcarus (talk) 08:51, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Again, a reach. Many of the WP:GREL sources only discuss La Patilla when reporting on censorship and getting their take. You also cite some usage of tweets by sources (which were in turn La Patilla reposting from more reliable sources, not original reporting) and a blog from the NYT. WMrapids (talk) 17:07, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Most of the linked sources cite La Patilla on topics unrelated to censorship, but I can provide further examples: the BBC (), Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and The Economist. In the case of the rest of the region, we also have Semana (, Clarín () and La República (), to mention a few. Withdrawing the argument about a "extremely limited" WP:USEBYOTHERS is always an option. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:22, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

For USEBYOTHERS claims, we need to consider the context in which those sources are used. Most appear to be embedded tweets, sources of quotations, sources of images, and so on—essentially, reputable media crediting their primary sources. What's more important for USEBYOTHERS claims is when media cites facts and analysis, especially when doing so without comment. If La Patilla makes a case for something and the WaPo repeats and links to that analysis, that's positive. If the WaPo attributes that analysis to a "rebel media" outlet, that's at best neutral—they're essentially saying "take this with a grain of salt".

I mention "rebel media" because that's what the WaPo called La Patilla (and El Pitazo) in your own linked source. Two of your other linked sources labelled La Patilla as an "opposition website" (translated by Google) and "close to the opposition" (translated by Google). It's not difficult to believe that opposition sources would uncritically cite other opposition sources. Woodroar (talk) 17:54, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Woodroar: Thank you kindly for your feedback. I have put further examples above. Please let me know if I can help more with this. --NoonIcarus (talk) 00:24, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Three sources from Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Aryen Suresh Kute

The following three websites were called out in the above AFD as needing a discussion here regarding whether they should, in general, be considered RS or not. Provided are the specific links used in the article, but the three sites overall are in question.

• ZeeNews India
• Daily Pioneer
• ABP Live

If this list should be split into 3 separate discussions, that's fine. @Actualcpscm, Noneate, and Oaktree b: - Courtesy ping based on the AFD. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

All three sources are clearly and unambiguously paid-for promotional flimflam. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:31, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Anytime you see brand-wire (and similar phrases on other Indian sites), it's a paid marketing article. The writing alone on all three is so over-the-top it's obvious this came from a PR team. The lack of a name on the by-line, but just "Agencies" or "Bureau" is another red-flag. All are junk sources that should be removed from the article. Ravensfire (talk) 15:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

• The problem with most Indian newspapers and news-webites, and not just the three mentioned here, is that they publish sponsored content without labeling it clearly. For example, all the "supplements" published by The Times of India; the "Special" section of the Daily Pioneer; the "Brand Wire" section of ABP Live etc. And this is apart from articles that are potentially not paid for but are quick rewrites of press-releases nevertheless. Ravensfire has noted some other features to look for.

Unfortunately this practice is so ubiquitous among the organizations that also cover regular news legitimately that we cannot simply tag all these sources as "unreliable" and be done with it. So eternal vigilance, and not relying on WP:NEWSORG blindly, is perhaps the best we can do. Abecedare (talk) 15:24, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Should add that most of such article creations are done by editors with a WP:COI or as WP:UPE. Abecedare (talk) 15:33, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Can we list them at WP:RS/P noting that while the sites themselves aren't banned, there are some indications of sections of the sites which should not be used? Something we can point to so that article/draft writers can be alerted. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:47, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

No objections from me if someone has a concrete proposal. The only problem may be that this applies to dozens, and possibly hundreds, of Indian newspaper and TV channel websites. Maybe we can make a single entry pointed to by (say) WP:NEWSORGINDIA that mentions this intermingling of regular news and sponsored content. Abecedare (talk) 16:08, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

That would be most excellent. - UtherSRG (talk) 16:13, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I've drafted a proposal below based on the discussion here (and heavily cribbing some of your verbiage). - UtherSRG (talk) 16:43, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Ungh, those articles are obviously PR, with the flowery language. I'm not sure we can label the entire website as non-RS however. We could perhaps slap a label on the citation tool that when they pop up, it gives the user a gentle nudge to double check (I know we have certain sites that are black listed, but I'm not sure we can put a "warning" on sources). Best would be to perhaps list them as case-by-case here with yellow background. Oaktree b (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Exactly what I'd like to see happen. - UtherSRG (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: Yellow/warning triangle for "Various India-based websites"

Many India-based news-style websites offer a mix of actual news and sponsored content. Caution should be taking in using such sites without a close examination and determination if the content is news or sponsored. Examples of sponsored content include "supplements" published by The Times of India; the "Special" section of the Daily Pioneer; the "Brand Wire" section of ABP Live etc.

• Support in principle; open to any tweaking of format, language, examples etc. This issue is well known to regulars at RSN but it would be good to have it memorialized somewhere especially for the benefit of WP:NPP and WP:AFC responders. See some previous RSN discussions (1, 2, 3 among many). this discussion, and this related writeup by Ms Sarah Welch for more background. Abecedare (talk) 18:00, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support as a great start. I would include some of the other clues - is there a disclaimer on the article that the story is provided by someone else and they are not responsible? Overly promotional in tone? There's certainly more, will add over time. And second that excellent page by Ms Sarah Welch, which should be linked as a helpful page. Ravensfire (talk) 21:20, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. Having such quick guidance would be very helpful in evaluating sources, with the added benefit that use of such sources can be an indicator of UPE. JoelleJay (talk) 22:42, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. It seems that some guidance would be helpful. Xxanthippe (talk) 23:17, 6 July 2023 (UTC).
• Support this proposal as a good starting point; I'd like to have each source evaluated individually for the list of RS, but that seems like a monumental task. Oaktree b (talk) 04:30, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

  A perfect example popped up today , sourced to a press release, but the source bot tags it as a "green" source simply by where it was published. Oaktree b (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support. This could be expanded beyon India eventually as well, but I believe it is needed for Indian news websites right now. I was linked to this discussion from Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Rajesh Rajan. As noted in that discussion, I am currently unsure on freepressjournal.in (especially articles with byline of "FPJ Web Desk". —siroχo 04:13, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Taking a stab at expanded guidance:

Even legitimate Indian news organizations (print, television, and web) intermingle regular news with sponsored content and press-release-based write-ups, often with inadequate or no disclosure. This is especially the case in articles about celebrities, reviews, and profiles of persons, companies and entities of borderline-notability. This issue is distinct from that of journalism quality and bias, and that of sham news-style wesbites.

Exercise caution in using such sources for factual claims or to establish notability. Look at the tone and language of the article; its placement in the publication; use of generic bylines not identifying an individual reporter or reviewer; overlap in language with articles found in other publications and on other websites, etc. Example of sponsored content include supplements published by The Times of India; the Special section of the Daily Pioneer; the Brand Wire section of ABP Live; the Press Release News or the Digpu News Network sections of Firstpost; the Business Spotlight section of Outlook India; the Brand Connect section of Forbes India; the Brand Solutions produced content on the Indian Express etc although the problematic content is not restricted to these sections alone. If in doubt, consult the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.

Feedback welcome so that we can refine the content, language and placement of such guidance. Abecedare (talk) 23:39, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

I'd print that directly, excellent wording. Oaktree b (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Bravo! - UtherSRG (talk) 13:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Where would this go.. as a bullet point under WP:NEWSORG or somewhere in an India specific page? Pardon me, it's the Friday afternoon cranking me to make Feierabend — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 13:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

@DaxServer: The WP:RSP page has a Categories section. This type of guidance can perhaps go there, with a shorter entry in the RSP table (something akin to the "Peerage websites" entry but in yellow). How does that sound? Abecedare (talk) 14:20, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Maybe a subsection "Sponsored content" or something like that with a text maybe a bit generic so it would cover the topic in general. Having a section/text on Indian news websites at RSP might be too specific. Under the See also, Topic-specific pages lists some lists. I think it would also be a good idea now to start a dedicated page for IN, maybe at a subpage of WP:IN, and compile these observations going forward, similar to WP:ICTFFAQ / WP:ICTFSOURCES. Your text would go there, further expanded if you're willing to — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 19:01, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

I think for the RSP page, its good to be specific and since improperly disclosed sponsored content in Indian media has been a regular topic at this board I think a specific mention would be justified and helpful. That said, I would also support (in addition, not in place):

1. A short mention in WP:RS or related policy/guideline page that sponsored content is not independent and therefore not considered reliable (with possibly narrow WP:SPS exceptions) if this is not mentioned already.
2. Writing up a lengthier source guideline/FAQ in the WP:IN space that incorporates or links to concerns about sponsored content; other concerns raised by the MSW essay; sham "newspapers"; sham book and journal publishers; WP:RAJ; WP:ICTF guidelines, etc.

Any volunteers for (2)? :) Abecedare (talk) 16:55, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Yupp, makes sense. MSW's essay is quite a great start, never aware of it — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The Venezuelen WikiProject advice page may serve as a good example for number 2 (lengthier source guideline)- why not start by moving the MSW essay to the WP:IN space and build from there? Schwinnspeed (talk) 13:49, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

My only concern as someone who edits frequently in the ITN and ITN/RD space is many of the news articles reporting on recent deaths would technically violate above 'criteria'. Just taking the most recent example with Sudakshina Sarma (currently nominated at ITN/RD, not ready for posting on the main page yet):

- This article from TOI reporting on her death does not have a specific reporter in the byline - a watchout mentioned above

- This article in Indian Express is written by PTI "agency"- highlighted earlier as a red flag

- Most of the news orgs reporting on her death have very similar, generic language, clearly copied from a centralized news feed or press release

I support the guidance outlined above, but examples/exceptions like this would be a daily occurence at ITN/RD. Would suggest including a caveat in the extended guidance, wherever it is ultimately published. Schwinnspeed (talk) 18:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any hindrances this guideline would cause to your said situations. The guideline is infact a watchout, to excerise caution; not a criteria to disbar and slap red flags when there's no by-line or by an agency. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:21, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

+1 to what Dax said.

But fwiw, the TOI obit for Sudakshina Sarma appears to be plagiarized from this longer obit in the Frontline, which was published a day earlier and does have a named author. Would be a good idea to cite the latter piece instead. Abecedare (talk) 11:41, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up on the Frontline vs TOI reference; have updated the Sudakshina Sarma accordingly. The 'plagiarism' is highly prevalent when it comes to death announcements in Indian media - need to carefully track down if its actually plagiarism or just regurgitating a press release, which becomes challenging during the time-sensitive RD process. Good reminder regardless. Schwinnspeed (talk) 11:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

How do we handle it when someone openly offers to sell articles on these sites, claiming they will be published without a sponsored tag (FIVERR dot com/premiumsite/publish-your-article-on-techbullion-with-do-follow-backlinks)? I think it is troubling because this is only one of many I have found offering to publish with "no disclaimer, no paid/sponsored post tag?" This takes away from the overall reliability of sites when they allow this. --CNMall41 (talk) 02:27, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

This is indeed concerning but not surprising. I think this is more of a generic problem and happens everywhere where malicious intents are overlooked for an ROI. One approach we can take is to note them in the dedicated guideline (see Abecedare #2) and writeup on how to identify them; they mostly have same patterns of language and grammar. — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 07:26, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Seems this has stalled out. What's the next thing to do here? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Should I go ahead and update WP:RSP or should a formal RfC be started? - UtherSRG (talk) 11:10, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

I personally would like to see a RfC on the wording proposed by @Abecedare: above. --CNMall41 (talk) 03:45, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Done! - UtherSRG (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Good idea. May as well get it nailed down. Abecedare (talk) 17:52, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Wording wrt questionable news sources

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following lists: Misplaced Pages policies and guidelines Media, the arts, and architecture When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Should the following text (crafted in the Discussion portion of the section above) be added to the WP:RSP#Categories section? - UtherSRG (talk) 14:20, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

Even legitimate Indian news organizations (print, television, and web) intermingle regular news with sponsored content and press-release-based write-ups, often with inadequate or no disclosure. This is especially the case in articles about celebrities, reviews, and profiles of persons, companies and entities of borderline-notability. This issue is distinct from that of journalism quality and bias, and that of sham news-style wesbites.

Exercise caution in using such sources for factual claims or to establish notability. Look at the tone and language of the article; its placement in the publication; use of generic bylines not identifying an individual reporter or reviewer; overlap in language with articles found in other publications and on other websites, etc. Example of sponsored content include supplements published by The Times of India; the Special section of the Daily Pioneer; the Brand Wire section of ABP Live; the Press Release News or the Digpu News Network sections of Firstpost; the Business Spotlight section of Outlook India; the Brand Connect section of Forbes India; the Brand Solutions produced content on the Indian Express etc although the problematic content is not restricted to these sections alone. If in doubt, consult the Reliable Sources Noticeboard.

• Support as the crafter of the verbiage, which IMO reflects the gist of the numerous previous discussions at RSN and other locations (see the above discussion for links); some of the linked examples may be new but should be self-explanatory. As before, no objections to any tweaks in the exact language. Abecedare (talk) 17:44, 16 July 2023 (UTC)

  Coincidentally, today I came across this table maintained by an editor on their userpage of sponsored content in Indian media and links to their use on wikipedia (I haven't verified all the table entries but a spot-check indicates that the editor's assessment is correct). Just re-emphasizes how widespread the problem is. Abecedare (talk) 18:07, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• Support. I've encountered continual problems with India-based news sources when it comes to working on and PoV-policing articles on Indian public figures and organisations. There is frequently a clear bias that borders on press-release regurgitation or paid placement. Addressing this is overdue here.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:07, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support. But would a list format for examples work? Either way, this will definitely improve AfD discussions around Indian news sources, see also my comment in above proposal. —siroχo 22:11, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support per Abecedare. -sche (talk) 21:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support - as per my experience on Talk:Holi whereby a TOI source turned out to be right, a general caution is better than complete disregard of sponsored IN sources. Perhaps bolding the kind of content users should take special note of - "celebrities, reviews, and profiles of persons, companies and entities of borderline-notability." As per the suggestion above, a list format won't hurt.Chilicave (talk)
• Support - Based on discussion and the many sources from these outlets I have seen that are questionable. --CNMall41 (talk) 19:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support per above NW1223<Howl at me•My hunts> 19:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support as discussed — DaxServer (t · m · e · c) 08:33, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support with a few additional considerations
  • Suggest adding the following between the first and second paragraph to emphasize the extent and widespread nature of this issue and link to relevant reading elsewhere on wiki: "Paid news is a highly pervasive and deeply integrated practice within Indian news media. Coverage related to the above mentioned entities requires extra vigilance given the diverse systemic approaches to paid news and the lack of clear disclosure practices in Indian media"
  • Add WP:NEWSORGINDIA shortcut for future easy reference (something @Abecedare: referenced earlier in the above discussion) Schwinnspeed (talk) 13:34, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support This should help eliminate many of these paid placement articles. Oaktree b (talk) 17:05, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
• Support This gives some badly needed guidance and pointers on dealing with the morass of India-related sources. A few times I've had someone at an AFD challenge comments about paid/sponsored articles, it will be nice to be able point to something like this when it happens. Ravensfire (talk) 18:35, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

RFC: Use of Rotten Tomatoes for biographical information

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Can Rotten Tomatoes be used a source for biographical information, such as the date of birth, for film and television personnel? 14:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion (Rotten Tomatoes)

• Background: The question has been discussed several times on this board (Jul 2023, Apr 2023, Sep 2022, Nov 2022) but the discussions have been sparse and the opinions mixed. The aim of this RFC is to reach a firmer conclusion and update the Rotten Tomatoes entry at WP:RSP accordingly. Abecedare (talk) 14:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Yes because Rotten tomatoes wouldn't be held in such high esteem if they get the bare basics wrong or take "unnecessary risks" that can deem them forever seen as untrustworthy. It is not some small set-up in someone's basement but a major serious company that won't accept phone calls from random people or just anybody on basics about a movie release date or actor bio. If they do such things, they wouldn't be held in high esteem in the entertainment industry and so it rely on protocol and verification and trusted sources like publicists and movie studios, who are willing to talk to them, and their reputation so far has been stellar. Major media corporations wouldn't invest so heavily in them, if they had a rep of being unprofessional and untrustworthy and no minimal editorial oversight. GUPTAkanthan (talk) 16:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. If we are talking about using RT for citing birthdates (or other personal info) for BLPs, I'm not seeing a process for checking and repairing any errors. Since much of the site is crowdsourced and opinion, I'm reluctant to stamp RT for reliability for fact checking (such as is necessary). I'd be happy to be corrected. BusterD (talk) 16:36, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I think you may be mistaken on how they work. The reviews may be user-generated but not the bio. Otherwise anyone can claim to be an actor and have a page on Rotten Tomatoes. Instead the bio are being added in by the Rotten Tomatoes staff who are professionally required to verify whatever it collects and add that info in, and can't accept just anything. I imagine they must have rules where since their reputation is based on their accuracy, they would rather leave a bio incomplete or empty, rather than allow it to be filled with poorly sourced or unverified info. And if they make mistakes, it's likely to be a typo and not because of bad sourcing, like when a movie studio rep accidentally sends them the wrong data. Though that's always a possibility, it's a very slim one that would likely be corrected over time as they obviously have professional editorial oversight.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 17:48, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@GUPTAkanthan, do you have any sources to support that? I cannot find any information on their website about how they obtain or verify biographical details.AboutFAQ Schazjmd (talk) 17:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

It's self evident. You don't need a source to show you that explicitly. If it was possible for someone like me to add changes to an actor's information then it's user generated. Except I can't change it. And as Slatersteven pointed out, outside parties can suggest or alert to changes BUT it's obvious that the staff editors will have the final say on whether it will be accepted. I mean this is the same company who seems willing to go the extra step to verify if even the reviews are genuine. in order to preserve their trustworthiness. So I imagine that their business model is about the same as IMBD. IMBD welcome alerts from public for correction or submissions of new info to help make their job easier but they always have a process of verification to ensure accuracy. Similarly Rotten Tomatoes is not some small time personal blog. It's a serious corporate level company, with a legal department, and who obviously hires editors to fact check their site. And they emphasize on their website that they work hard to ensure the Facts are correct, and I see no reason why they would cheap out on a fact verification department when their hundreds of million dollars reputation relies on this.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

We don't make decisions on the reliability of sources based on our feelings that they must be reliable because "it's obvious" or that it's "a serious corporate level company". Schazjmd (talk) 19:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• No, as far as I know it uses user-generated content. "Submit Movie Information Tell us about missing or incorrect movie or TV information." tells me that. Slatersteven (talk) 17:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

They don't rely on user generated content for making the bio. They allow the public to email them in case they innocently make a mistake. But they will read that email and the staff editors will have the final say on whether it will push them to make the changes. It's no different to IMBD who is open to corrections but they will only accept to make such changes at their discretion. GUPTAkanthan (talk) 18:58, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

IMDb is considered an unreliable source. See WP:RS/IMDb. —El Millo (talk) 19:03, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there proof that they are proven to be unreliable when it comes to specifically the (bio) details. I can understand if people say the user-generated reviews are not to be trusted. But I imagine the bio is a different matter altogether. What's relevant is has IMBD ever made many mistakes in the bio or specifically the birthdates of the celebs? If they often make mistakes in those department, then I would agree it's unreliable. But I never heard of IMBD being untrusted for the details that aren't inherently promotional are are just plain hard facts like DOB.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 19:12, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@GUPTAkanthan, imdb is not acceptable for date of birth. Please read WP:DOB. Schazjmd (talk) 19:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

See also WP:IMDB. There's been over 30 discussion regarding IMDb's reliability and there is community consensus that it is unreliable. —El Millo (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

@El Millo I had read your link. The summary says info in IMBD is "user-generated" but I think that's incorrect . As according to IMBD, they say they source their info from on-screen credits, press kits, official bios, autobiographies and interviews. They actively gather information from and verify items with studios and filmmakers. So it seems unfair to summarise that IMBD is plainly user generated when it's more than that.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 20:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Any streetwalking hack can submit a bio, date of birth, "trivia," filming location, or anything else to IMDB, and 99 times out of 100, IMDB rubber-stamps it with zero fact-checking or oversight. This is the definition of useless user-generated content. Rift (talk) 05:52, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@Rift give me facts and not loaded statements hyping the unreliability of IMBD. You written that; Any streetwalking hack can submit (any changes) that will be accepted 99 times out of 100 because of zero fact-checking or oversight? And what proof do you have to support that unsourced odd statement? And if it was ever that extreme, then it should be easy for you to go to Brad Pitt's profile, suggest to change his birthday to 1997 but obviously you cannot as staff will reject that submission outright. It dispels your claim to me that IMBD have "zero fact-checking or oversight" and is an extreme obvious WP:LIE.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 19:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Might I propose that this thread is out of scope of the discussion? We're talking about Rotten Tomatoes, not IMDb. If you want IMDb's reliability to be reevaluated, you're welcome to start an independent thread for it. DonIago (talk) 20:02, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Sorry. I first mentioned IMBD to explain an example but others focused on that part of my comment and I replied. Going off a tangent wasn't intentional. I am aware that the consensus here is virtually against Rotten Tomatoes however I only disagree with the numerous users unfairly stating that RT info is lazily user generated. And consensus should be based on balanced facts and not wrongful assumptions. So I explained the only way you can submit changes, is to email Rotten Tomatoes and then staff will read that email. Idell's comment down below, explained it better than me, and noted how RT is in fact becoming less and less permissive of user submitted content. And I see no indication that the website info is primarily user generated, and or doesn't rely on paid staff. Yes, they sometimes make mistakes but I think overall, they are "generally" reliable as the company has an editorial oversight department, if they allow the public to email them for corrections.GUPTAkanthan (talk) 20:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

• No it has been shown to be unreliable in this regard and there is no information about where they get their information for bios other than user submissions and no indication of fact-checking. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 18:04, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• BLPs should be using high quality sources. If doubts exist about the reliability of RT and there is no obvious details showing how they obtain and maintain there information, then better sources should be used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:43, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Rotten Tomatoes biographies do not indicate where they obtain information from, and it is the kind of condensed information that one would expect to find from the amalgamation of multiple sources. The pages also do not list their contributors. It would be better to find sources external to Rotten Tomatoes that provide the same information. Someone mentioned above about them using user-generated content; I don't believe that specifically applies here, not that that changes my opinion. Esteem as a company is not a reasonable metric to determine if a source is reliable or not. Rman41 (talk) 20:14, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No to give some examples of the incorrect DOBs RT has listed here's John Leguizamo. Here's Tanya Roberts. Here's Ric Ocasek. Here's Judith Hoag. Within the past five or six years, all of them have had their true DOBs revealed. And as I've mentioned before, they're actors that have age disputes on Misplaced Pages(especially voice actors), however they have other bio info such as what high school or college they attended and what year they graduated(with actual legit sources) and the DOB that's listed on RT doesn't match up with their graduation year. So we don't know exactly where RT is getting those DOBs from. For all we know they could be just putting those down because that's what a lot of other sites have listed. Many sites these days web scrape without doing any fact checking and this is why actors have falsified DOBs online.Kcj5062 (talk) 20:44, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Comment: Surely, it is not user generated in the way WP:IMDb is. Claiming that it is is just speculation. Let me attempt to expand on GUPTAkanthan's argument. On its FAQ page, Rotten Tomatoes' editorial staff claims that it works hard to make sure the actor information is correct. Users are allowed to request edits and addition of content only by email, backed by some "link". RT staff exercises caution, carrying out its own checks before putting the content up. Although, any lack of resources may mean a delay in page creation and correction. (How frequently do we found their biographical data to be incorrect? Does it get rectified?) For information reported as inaccurate, they claim to check their sources (do we expect that to be an aggregate of random webpages? I don't think we require every source to disclose its sources before relying on it, rather we just establish a historical pattern and trust the process.) and may even contact the person's publicist. RT is becoming less and less permissive of user submitted content. In February 2019, they disabled public comments in addition to reviews on unreleased items. Whether it is reviews, comments or edit requests, they claim to have strong editorial oversight working to protect their "data and public forums from bad actors". Idell (talk) 20:51, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Even if I knew nothing about Rotten Tomatoes, I'd say "No" due to their lack of transparency about the editorial process, who is writing/editing/fact-checking the bios, what their education and backgrounds are, where their data comes from, and so on. They reference "data import" in the "movie/actor information" FAQ, which suggests that at least some information is added automatically, possibly without any fact-checking. That plus their history of factual errors (as mentioned above) gives me no reason to trust any biographical information found on RT. Woodroar (talk) 21:26, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
• Lean No - if I find a dob on RT, then I use that as a starting point for research, because I figure if RT has the dob, then reliable sources have it too. I have never found a wrong dob on RT. Having said that, I always use the higher quality source for the dob, right, makes sense.——— Isaidnoway (talk) 02:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. We shouldn't use a film aggregator for info on BLPs. See Ric Ocasek's bio. Infobox says born 1949, prose bio says born 1944. This kind of sloppiness is fine for writing a sarcastic one-liner summary of a film's reception, but it's not acceptable for a biography. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• No I'll add to this snowball. Not a reliable source for this kind of information. No clear editorial oversight. Birthdates should at the least be sourced to entertainment industry magazines and such. —DIYeditor (talk) 11:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• If the information submitted to it has to be " backed by some "link"", why woud we not use that instead? If this information is published in an RS, use that RS. Slatersteven (talk) 10:18, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
• No - One thing to look at is the editorial process. Rotten Tomatoes has a team of "curators" and a place to submit "missing or incorrect information" on their "About" page. That, combined with the examples above of incorrect birthdays on the site, make it seem untrustworthy for birthdates. Denaar (talk) 11:15, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
• Not really- I wouldn't consider a review aggregator site a high-quality source with expertise in the area. Birthdates would better be sourced from well-regarded on-topic magazines or books from reliable publishers (like what DIYeditor said). Edward-Woodrow :) 18:50, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
• No, Rotten Tomatoes should not be used for facts and figures except its own. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:02, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Too much evidence of errors, and a "submit your alleged corrections here" form is a bad sign. Seems like IMDb all over again.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
• No. Even if we allow the source, because of the issues others have raised, we'd need to attribute the source inline, which is a non-starter for DOBs, etc. —siroχo 22:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• No While I regularly see the Rotten Tomato score cited in reputable sources, I have never seen any other content from the site cited. I would be reluctant to consider it reliable for credits, release dates etc, nevermind biographical content. Beyond its function as a review aggregator everything else appears to be an afterthought. Betty Logan (talk) 23:22, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• No Fine for movie reviews but not for contentious BLP claims.LM2000 (talk) 07:45, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
• No - Given the apparent inaccuracies linked above RT shouldn't be used for DOBs etc movie reviews would be fine but not for DOBs. –Davey2010 17:28, 24 July 2023 (UTC)
• No Rotten Tomatoes focuses on movie and TV reviews, not comprehensive biographical data. It lacks details about background, education, and personal life. Its user-generated content might lack accuracy and privacy. Reviews are subjective, unlike verifiable biographical facts. The platform's purpose is to guide entertainment choices, not to provide extensive biographies.SpunkyGeek (talk)

City Journal as a source covering RationalWiki

There is an on-going dispute about whether an article published in City Journal can be used as a reliable source. RationalWiki has a history of its users (including board members) interfering with discussions related to RationalWiki. The discussion at the article's talk page has been mentioned at RationalWiki's "Saloon Bar". Original research aside, is this article a reliable source for criticism of RationalWiki? PCHS-NJROTC 22:28, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

City Journal is a publication of the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. We could perhaps debate the City Journal's status in general, but that isn't needed in this case: The article in question is an obvious opinion piece and should not be used to support claims of fact. It is also probably worth mentioning that the City Journal article is condemning attacks on a group of academics (Emil Kirkegaard, Noah Carl, Heiner Rindermann, etc.) who tend to publish racist pseudoscience. That whole mess will no doubt be familiar to anyone who follows RFCs or controversial topics, as we have had many RFCs and Arbcom proceedings on it. MrOllie (talk) 22:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

I certainly agree that this is an obvious opinion article and wouldn't be usable as a reliable source. A general discussion on City Journal might not be a bad idea though, it doesn't seem to be a reliable source.

From a quick check, while they have an editorial team, there's no published fact checking policy or any obvious way to contact the publication for corrections. At least one former contributor has asserted that there was a decline in editorial independence from the think-tank in 2007 after a change in the editorial lead, and that the Trump presidency corresponded with increased "editorial interference coming from the boardroom." I'd need to do some digging though to find out if this contributor is alone in his assertions. Sideswipe9th (talk) 00:02, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

city-journal.org: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

I'm seeing hundreds of cites in articles, many in BLPs. Just browsing, I'm not seeing a lot worth preserving, even predating the 2007 change in leadership. Grayfell (talk) 01:25, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

This is part of the reason why I brought it here, I knew it would get a better analysis as a source for the article here, but I also question whether a publication by a think-tank is a good source for Misplaced Pages in general. PCHS-NJROTC 02:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

"whether a publication by a think-tank is a good source for Misplaced Pages in general" It can be extremely useful in determining the think-tank's worldview and the kind oif policies it promotes. It is practically useless for reliable information on other topics, since most of them do not have a reputation for fact-checking. Dimadick (talk) 09:18, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

• I concur with MrOllie's opinion here, while RationalWiki by its own admission really acts as hosting site for what on Misplaced Pages would be described as attack pages (though that does not mean that the content is untruthful), this article is far from an unbiased account. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:54, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

As an an addendum, this article seems to be heavily based on an article published on an anonymous substack. Definitely unreliable. It's also not clear that "David Zimmerman" is a real journalist (this is the only piece listed on their profile for City Journal, and there's no links to any social media or anything confirming that this is a real person). It could be a pseudonym, possibly by the author of the substack. Hemiauchenia (talk) 04:42, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm seeing similarities with claims made by blocked user Gardenofaleph there. - MrOllie (talk) 12:24, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

• To summarize what I said on the article's talk page, the source's omissions and misrepresentations are too plentiful and too convenient to be brushed-aside as a coincidence or simple mistake. Compensating for these issues would introduce undue weight and likely also original research. Any use of the source without compensating for these issues would introduce WP:FRINGE and WP:BLP issues. It's a bad source and it's not worth using. Grayfell (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
• As I said at Talk:RationalWiki, I agree with the assessment that this City Journal item is not a usable source, for reasons that start with WP:RSOPINION and go on from there. XOR'easter (talk) 00:03, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• I agree with Sideswipe9th, Grayfell, and XOR'easter. SNOW close in order? TrangaBellam (talk) 00:34, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• The Manhattan Institute is one of the market-fundamentalist think tanks that have spread disinformation about climate change. That alone disqualifies their publications from being a reliable source on anything except their own opinions. They will put a spin on everything; they do not have any goal related to telling the truth. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:31, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
• The Manhattan Institute is not a WP:RS for anything and should never be cited without attribution under any circumstances. As a political think tank, they're obviously a WP:BIASED source and will always require attribution, but more importantly, they have a history of distorting facts to suit their biases, whether in medicine, education, or society. Even for opinions, I would only cite them via a secondary source, for the same reason we wouldn't cite anything significant directly to a company's publication or to an ad organization they hired; the purpose of the Manhattan Institute is to push for particular outcomes on behalf of its sponsors, which (as the numerous problems show) is not really compatible with rigorous fact-checking and accuracy. If a company dumped a million dollars on an ad campaign to argue for why they should pay lower taxes, we wouldn't cite the ads; in the absence of any reason to think they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, how is citing a think tank that serves the same purpose any different? --Aquillion (talk) 13:55, 18 July 2023 (UTC)

  You provided 3 links. The first appears to be a paper that disagrees with the MI not CJ and even then such a disagreement doesn't always make a source bad. The second is a link to a book and book helpful unless you can point to specific pages. The third is a New Yorker article that has it's own biased and gets into the debate about CRT. That's not really helpful because it seems that both sides of that debate don't agree on the definition of CRT. Do we discount other sources because someone disagrees with them? The irony of the biased source argument is that, per Adfonts media bias chart CJ is less biased and more reliable than Salon, MSNBC, Vanity Fair and the Daily Beast. In terms of bias, The New Yorker is more biased as well (but gets a better accuracy score). Springee (talk) 10:47, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The first link does not simply disagree; it says that there are numerous clear methodological flaws. Obviously if a source publishes things with such flaws (and does not later retract it), that harms their reliability. You can easily find the second book's discussion of the Manhattan Institute by searching it on its page, but its most damning point is probably a quote of this source, which says that The institute's research on vouchers is not a search for truth but a search for justifications for its political program. Likewise, as far as both the New Yorker piece and your other objections go, you know how policy works - a source being WP:BIASED is not necessarily fatal to its reliability; in fact, the New Yorker, your objections aside, is green on WP:RSP with a note about its robust fact-checking process. By way of comparison, the Manhattan Institute, based on these sources, does not have a robust fact-checking process; in fact (and this is very much the point of all three) it publishes whatever it believes will advance its agenda, without regard for whether it is true or false. You may personally believe that the debate over "critical race theory" is some evenly-weighed two-sided affair; but high-quality sourcing that has covered the City Journal's involvement in it doesn't agree. The New Yorker may be written for an audience of coastal New Yorkers, which the creator of Adfonts (itself, as you know, unreliable) finds distant from what they personally consider the cultural norm; but its purpose is ultimately to inform them, and in that service it has a good reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The purpose of the Manhattan Institute and the City Journal is not to inform anyone; its purpose is to exert influence - and the sources above show that it is entirely willing to publish flatly false things in the service of that influence. They are not comparable. --Aquillion (talk) 14:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm on my phone so a complete reply is difficult but I will note you are conflating martial published by the parent organization with the magazine. Also, Adfonts isn't a RS per wp:RS and we don't use it in article space as such. That doesn't mean we should just dismiss their findings when they are inconvenient. Your argument about informing vs persuading is weak as a conservative source may have the exact same intent. At the same time the NYer might feel they are informing when writing on a topic yet fail to see their own biases. Again if their absolute bias score is higher than CJ perhaps they aren't good at being objective? The idea that they should be deprecated on such flimsy evidence is really a problem when we zoom out and look at Misplaced Pages objectivity on any controversial subject. We should handle this on a case by case basis rather than a broad brush basis. Springee (talk) 15:03, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

This seems like a good candidate for deprecation, and this is coming from a conservative actively involved in the Republican Party. PCHS-NJROTC 16:47, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• Deprecation per the reasons above. Death Editor 2 (talk) 23:39, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
• I lean towards City Journal not being reliable, but that is separate from the Manhattan Institute, which does produce research of the kind seen by other think tanks. Its issues briefs (here) seem to fall in line with that of other think tanks — certainly with an ideological bent, but sourced to and with substantive arguments, e.g. Taking the Trash Off the Streets: Innovative Waste-Management Solutions for New York City by Arpit Gupta, an NYU professor. Inline attribution of citations to MI research should not be blanket deprecated. WhinyTheYounger ※ Talk 01:58, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Does the think tank have a positive reputation for accuracy and fact checking by itself? Is there peer review? I don't see any clear indication of corrections or retractions, and this example article you have linked is mostly just one associate professor's opinion with some bland citations attached. Those sources include some reputable journals, but also blogs, two of the author's own articles for City Journal, and some NYPost tabloid junk for good measure. Looking at some of their other publications, it's all a jumble which only barely distinguishes between commentary, briefs, and news. It also looks like the same topics and positions as City Journal, even if the style is slightly more academical. Grayfell (talk) 08:31, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Striking original comment per above. WhinyTheYounger ※ Talk 00:14, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I also think its worth mentioning to the discussion that User:PCHS-NJROTC on their user page says they are an admin on Conservapedia which is often called the ideological opponent of Rationalwiki, so may not have been neutral in trying to get the source in the article and on the articles talk page was told an RSN wasn't needed and it would be "waste of the community's time". Lavalizard101 (talk) 15:10, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

I fail to see how trying to get a broader opinion on City Journal (and discussing deprecation) constitutes trying to get the source in the article but okay. As for neutrality, I don't even pretend to be neutral on RationalWiki, in fact I declare it to be a cesspool that is too cozy with WMF office banned users and other trolls. That said, I try to be fair. PCHS-NJROTC 20:38, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Uh huh, got it... Anyway, the source was garbage regardless of who added it or why. As an IP on the talk page pointed out, it appears City Journal has taken it down. No explanation why, and I do not see any clear indication of a consistent policy on issuing retractions or corrections. Publishing something like that in the first place says many things about their standards, none of them good.

There is certainly plenty of similar nonsense still on the site, going back decades.

As I mentioned above, the site is used in many articles, including BLPs and a few other important articles. From this discussion and from looking at the outlet more closely, I have been attempting to clean-up these cites. I think consensus is clear enough, but a full RFC on the outlet would simplifying things quite a bit. Grayfell (talk) 04:02, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

RfC to deprecate City Journal and The Manhattan Institute

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Misplaced Pages proposals When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

How should we classify City Journal and The Manhattan Institute as a source for Misplaced Pages in general?

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

PCHS-NJROTC 16:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion City Journal

• I am leaning toward Option 2 Option 3 or Option 4. I'm not very knowledgeable about the source, but what I'm seeing does not impress. PCHS-NJROTC 16:42, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  “Not very knowledgeable” can be addressed, in part, by observing that “City+Journal” on Google Scholar yields 107,000 results. The very first City Journal result, the article “The curse of the creative class" is cited by 442 (!), including the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, the Journal of Economic Geography, the Economic Development Quarterly, the Economic Geography (journal), Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, the European Journal of Cultural Studies and numerous (obviously around 400) peer-reviewed and other academic publications, in addition to well over a dozen books.

  It is indisputable that numerous book and peer-reviewed authors cite City Journal because these authors consider the Journal to be WP:REPUTABLE. XavierItzm (talk) 07:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  This book by Jamie Peck is the second listed work citing "The curse of the creative class". It itself has 2849 listed citations on Google Scholar. It has a very negative view of City Journal overall. —siroχo 08:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  Regarding "The curse of the creative class” from City Journal, your book quotes 5 lines of it approvingly on p. 192; approves of its statistical analysis on p. 208; quotes a 15-line portion on pp. 208-209, quotes a further 3 lines on p. 213, paraphrases it for 4 lines on p. 214, quotes it in disagreeeent for 2 lines on p. 214, and paraphrases it (with distaste) for a couple of lines on p. 215.
  Newsflash: whereas regarding “The Curse” Peck doesn’t agree overall with it, Peck finds it quite useful to bludgeon Richard Florida’s ideas, who are the clear target of each and every citation of “The Curse” article from City Journal. Yes, your book elsewhere attacks the Manhattan Institute, because, duh!, your book is a polemic against neoliberalism, but here you find no purchase: Peck relies on City Journal for his Chapter 5. XavierItzm (talk) 09:41, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  The example you give does not indicate that coty journal is reliable.197.232.48.230 (talk) 12:36, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm suggesting that Peck relies on it not as a reliable source, but specifically as an example of a biased source. In chapter 5 Peck uses phrasing like (note: striking potentially misleading context, point stands, see further discussion) "Demonstrating, if nothing else, the ease with which urban league tables can be manipulated, Malanga mischievously suggests...", and "rather than taking issue with the eccentric economics they seem more offended by liberal cultural politics and exhortation to urban invention..." The demonstration here is that lots of citations does not necessarily mean "generally reliable for factual reporting." And that the caution that Misplaced Pages readers may not know the bias from City Journal is a valid one. —siroχo 20:30, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

  That’s a serious misreading of Peck's book. Peck in pages 207-208 eviscerates Richard Florida’s statistical arguments for “bohemian places” as requirement for city success. In page 208 Peck largely relies on the article “The Curse” from City Journal: after approvingly referring to “The Curse”’s critique of Richard Florida for 7 lines, Peck goes on to add: Demonstrating, if nothing else, the ease with which urban league tables can be manipulated, Malanga mischievously suggests that Florida constructed his measures in such a way as to elevate a predetermined set of favored liberal-leaning cities, linked to the 1990s technology boom. In a classic circular fashion, certain conspicuous features of these cities are then ascribed causal significance as foundations of economic creativity. But the arguments are scrambled. Street level cultural innovation and conspicuous consumption may just as easily be consequences of economic growth, rather than causes of it. And loose correlations between economic development and certain cultural traits may be no more than contingent, or easily challenged by counterfactual cases. This is the Las Vegas critique: high growth, lousy culture, how come? (bold mine, italics Peck’s).
  You see, Peck acuses Richard Florida of manipulating urban league tables, and immediately relies on the results of City Journal’s “mischievous” arguments to demonstrate that a city with zero “bohéme” can also be a top city, like Las Vegas. I wish you would retract your comment, since your incomplete citation of the City Journal is not only misleading, but also entirely discordant with how Peck uses the City Journal as an ally to bludgeon Richard Florida.XavierItzm (talk) 19:55, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  I'm switching to option 2, per some of the other discussion. It's a biased source for sure, and caution should certainly be applied when using it, but I'm not sure that it should be deprecated. Besides, we have sources that are generally considered acceptable that I could prove embellish facts. PCHS-NJROTC 20:25, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  My intention of including that quote was really around the word "mischievously", and I probably should have quoted tighter, instead of leaving potentially misleading context. I will strike the context so its more clear to others. In my reading, it's not a zero-sum analysis, and Peck is critical of multiple things. By using the word "mischievously", I don't read an endorsement of the source as reliable but rather borrowing rhetoric from a paper that he doesn't fully endorse, which has problems he points out immediately following. —siroχo 20:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• I haven't followed the discussions above but what evidence do we have to treat them as something other than a partisan news outlet? Do we have RSs saying they are generally a bad source? I'm not saying CJ is a good source but I don't think the fact that they are part of the Manhattan Institute = bad source. That's a standard we don't apply to many other source (SPLC for example). I would also note that unless there is a history of issues with this source deprecation is inappropriate. Really, if this is a source that isn't used much we need to back away from our blanket ruling on sources and start looking at specific instances for specific claims. Springee (talk) 16:50, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

I see you couldn't pass-up the opportunity to throw shade at the SPLC, but comparing Manhattan Institute/City Journal to the SPLC is unworkable. Readers do not generally know City Journal's biases, of which there are many, and unlike the SPLC, City Journal conceals most of these biases behind pseudo-intellectualism. City Journal is not, as far as I can tell, widely described by reliable sources as experts in any particular field. To the contrary, per a few examples from the above discussion, (, , ) they have a documented history of publishing misleading information and falsehood. Not just among partisan outlets, but also among academic work. The (now deleted) City Journal story that started this discussion was misleading to a degree that no SPLC source I have seen was, not even those which the SPLC has issued retractions for (and those were pretty bad). But City Journal doesn't appear to issue retractions, it just deleted this one without explanation. Grayfell (talk) 19:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

The Washington Post ran a long article about the issues with the SPLC and their questionable tactics. Do we have anything like that for CJ? Adfonts media bias chat is generally respected around here. CJ's absolute bias and reliability scores (34.95, 10.31) are similar to sources we view as acceptable (Slate, MSNBC, Vanity Fair, Daily Beast). At the same time I'm not seeing much evidence of wide spread bad reporting. It comes off more as some people don't like them so we need to make their use unacceptable. It seems in reality they don't publish much so they don't get much coverage by other sources. Again this is something we should be looking at on a case by case basis rather than with a broad brush. At minimum editors should be sitting examples of problematic use in wiki articles before were should ever consider depreciation. Springee (talk) 10:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

On my phone now so this will be a limited reply. I did a Google scholar search for "city journal". It turns up a lot of hits with a lot of citations. Are those citations to sources saying "CJ is wrong"? I don't know but when you have a CJ article with cited by 442 other sources it's seems unlikely they are all saying the work is wrong. Springee (talk) 15:27, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

As I said, readers already know what SPLC means, attributing them provides context. Few readers know that City Journal has a history sloppy pseudo-scholorship and political ax grinding. Adfonts media bias chat is generally respected around here. What? Where on earth did you get that idea?? See Misplaced Pages:ADFONTES. It's a sloppy armchair echo-chamber. As I said, City Journal is cited in dozens and dozens of articles including BLPs. I've cleaned up a handful, but a lot more work will be needed. Treating all of these on a case-by-case basis is already creating a lot of extra work for little benefit.

As for raw cite counts, Google Scholar includes unreliable outlets, likely including other City Journal articles. Authors are free to cite themselves and outlets may encourage commentators to add links to others in the same walled garden, but this tells us nothing about reliability or notability. Google Scholor cannot categorize what kind of cites these are. Some are likely used to support a claim. Some will be in passing, some are used for examples of an opinion, and to your point, some cite City Journal specifically to refute one of its claims. Such numbers absolutely require additional context to be meaningful. Grayfell (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The results from Google Scholar "city+journal"&btnG= suggest City Journal has published articles that are widely cited. This alone should take deprecation off the table. Unfortunately I don't have ready access to most of the articles listed under "cited by" but here are a few I can access , . This is a limited sample since I can't open most references and there are quite a few cited articles. I can see arguing that they are often opinion and we need to be very careful if citing this source to be clear when we are citing an opinion/analysis vs fact. However, this does not appear to be a source that just makes things up as we view the DM. It's crazy that we would view the SPLC as an acceptable source to claim a group is a "hate group" but we would deprecate this source for making arguments that, I presume, are often outside of mainstream orthodoxy but hardly lies etc which would be the normal standard to select option 4. Springee (talk) 22:36, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

It is necessary to actually look at how a source is being cited, not just whether it is being cited (something you noted above but don't seem to have done before linking these.) I'll summarize it for you: Every single citation you presented - every single one! - is to a piece by former NYC police commissioner William Bratton defending his controversial policy of Broken windows theory; they are citing it not because they believe it is accurate, nor because he published it someplace reputable; they are citing it solely because of who wrote it, in that it provides (what we would call) WP:PRIMARY insight into Bratton's thinking and arguments. And (yes, you probably knew this was coming if you've read this far) they are largely citing it to debunk that thinking and arguments - aside from one that is just a passing mention to establish the history, they are all critical of this theories and the arguments he makes for them. As WP:USEBYOTHERS notes, negative attention like this counts against a source's reliability; in any case, they are citing it to illustrate Bratton's opinions, not for facts in the way that WP:USEBYOTHERS requires in order to establish a source's relevance. --Aquillion (talk) 04:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

If you were paying more attention I noted that I said that when something is cited 442 times it's probably not always cited as an example of something negative. I also noted that I don't have easy access to may of the sources. However, I did provide examples were the CJ papers were cited for something other than to say, "this is an example of someone who is wrong" etc. Let's go beyond that, I didn't dig into all the different examples (see my comment about limited access). You are wrong to claim all those are examples of negative. The used by others as evidence of something means other sources take the things said in CJ seriously. They may not agree and I think much of it appears to be opinion (but so is SPLC and many editors thinks it's a fine source). What is stupid is to claim the source meets the standards of deprecation. If you want to claim they are an option 3 I wouldn't agree based on the evidence presented but that at least is a defendable position. #4? You are claiming they make up quotes? You are claiming they lie about what others say? That's quite a stretch. Springee (talk) 04:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Here are some additional citation examples . That one is used for background facts. Here is an example where the authors dispute that a CJ article says but the fact that they felt a study was needed to refute it is suggests the views expressed have weight . It's also notable that the authors say they don't have a causal evidence. If nothing else that suggests that the claims are disputed but not proven one way or the other. You would be reasonable to say that means the cited CJ article is thus opinion/not RS and I would agree but not because the source is fundamentally bad. Rather because we may use RSOPINION to illustrate a POV but not for statements of fact. This is why the other considerations apply should be used here. Springee (talk) 05:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

"If you were paying more attention" What was that you said before about condescending comments?

The first three you mention all cite the same article from 1996 by Edward Glaeser. The first is from MDPI which has its own history on this talk page and is not a useful example. The Sage one cites Glaeser's other works a dozen times and only uses the City Journal once for a direct quote to summarize Glaser's opinion, not for general facts. The third does use Glaeser, along with others, for a specific basic claims. The fourth link is busted beyond my ability to fix, but to say that that refuting study implies weight is not at all correct. This approach leads to WP:PROFRINGE problems, among other things. It always takes more effort to debunk bad ideas than it does to advance them. Grayfell (talk) 22:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

The reason why you will see a number of the cites to the same source in my examples is because of the way I'm finding examples. I went to Google Scholar then clicked on the CJ article's "cited by" link. After that you can look at individual sources that cited the single story in question. Springee (talk) 23:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or maybe Option 3 with the strong understanding that the source is generally analysis/opinion rather than straight factual reporting (note that MBFC views the source as politically right but generally factual reporting, Adfonts puts the source on a level similar to Salon, MSNBC, and Vanity Fair but on the right... and slightly more neutral). The source is clearly cited by others per Google Scholar and while certainly some sources seem to disagree with their claims, that is disagreeing with analysis or opinion, not basic facts. Certainly this would be a use with care/case by case source. Really, we should be applying that sort of thinking more often rather than using broad brush declarations regarding the reliability of all things that come from a source. Springee (talk) 04:39, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 or maybe Option 3 - I've seen several superficially reliable-looking sources which were more subtle about the outlet's very specific political agenda, but in a lot of ways, that's worse. The few uses I've seen which were acceptable were as primary sources for details on City Journal's own contributors. City Journal is inconsistent at both citing sources, and at accurately summarizing those sources. Otherwise, the journal has shown itself to have poor editorial oversight by republishing the pseudo-anonymous blog that started this discussion, so any opinion published should not be presumed to be encyclopedically significant. We would need a specific reason to cite any opinion from them, even if it was written by a recognized expert. Grayfell (talk) 19:03, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  You are making claims but bringing no evidence. Please provide the links. Springee (talk) 10:35, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I already provided a few links in the reply to your comment above. Try to keep up. Grayfell (talk) 19:29, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Let's drop condescending comments like "try to keep up". I noted those links. I think only the New Yorker actually talks about CJ, the others were MI. Even then it's one thing to disagree with one or two papers etc. It's quite another to state all their work is unable. That requires a much higher level of evidence. (Note: still on my phone so if I confused links please forgive. I hope to get some actual computer time to do some additional digging) Springee (talk) 20:02, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Your comment I noted those links doesn't really align with your prior comment, You are making claims but bringing no evidence. Within this context, your objection to Try to keep up appears misplaced. Newimpartial (talk) 20:11, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Yup, exactly. Grayfell (talk) 20:14, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Your !vote here has no evidence. That is what I was referring to. Springee (talk) 20:31, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I've seen comments like this made before, but I don't know of any policy basis to tell !voting editors that they have to give links as evidence for their !vote - and it seems especially disappointing to see that broadside launched when an editor actually has provided links, just not in their !vote. Newimpartial (talk) 20:39, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

I replied to their !vote before reading their reply to my vote. Note that when someone reads their claim of Option 4 yet they aren't providing links it suggests that vote should be discounted. Springee (talk) 22:07, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That's not how consensus works. Links are not the only thing that matters, and a whole lot has already been discussed by many editors, even ignoring the discussion above the RFC. Grayfell (talk) 22:35, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

But the strength of the arguments does weigh into consensus. Springee (talk) 22:37, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, and Grayfell and Aquillion have provided stronger arguments. Generalrelative (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Yet those arguments largely boil down to a dislike of their politics or possibly their analysis. Why aren't we holding other activist/pov sites to the same standard? Springee (talk) 13:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

They most certainly do not, and accusing others of making arguments based on mere "dislike" when they have bent over backwards to give objective evidence is unhelpful. Further, at this point you appear to be WP:BLUDGEONing the discussion. You've made your case, now please allow others to have a turn. Generalrelative (talk) 14:04, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4. See my links above on medicine describing flaws in their methodology when arguing for reduced regulation of drugs, on how they posted flat lies about "critical race theory" in order to advance a political agenda, or on their continuous lies about education; the last quotes this source, which says that the institute's research on vouchers is not a search for truth but a search for justifications for its political program. There is no indication that they make any effort towards fact-checking or accuracy at all; they seem to view their role as producing whatever output they believe will move the needle in favor of their founders, without regards to whether it is accurate or not - effectively no different from (eg.) an advertising agency. Even few people trying to argue that it is reliable haven't presented any actual indication of the reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that RS requires; and it's difficult to see what could demonstrate it for a source that has published so much straightforward nonsense. Certainly being WP:BIASED alone doesn't render a source unusable, but when a source's bias becomes its overriding mission to the point where it overrules any attempts at fact-checking or accuracy, that clearly renders it unreliable. I don't see how anyone can argue that that's not the case here. --Aquillion (talk) 14:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

  Please review the number of CJ a articles that turn up in Google Scholar hits. The content seems to be cited a fair bit. It could be people just saying it's crap. It could be Google just over counting. But it could also be that other sources are using them as a useful source. Springee (talk) 15:32, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

  Can you give an example of another source using city journal (or manhattan institute)?--80.227.114.18 (talk) 17:15, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure thing. Take for example the 2010 City Journal article Preservation Follies. That article has been cited at least 38 times: for example, by the peer-reviewed Yale Law Journal, by the Journal of the American Planning Association, by the Virginia Law Review; as well as by three books, and 32 other academic articles (I exclude a book where the author cites his own City Journal article). You can peruse the full list of citations here.

This one article which I’ve taken at random from among 33 years of monthly articles goes to show that scholars rely on City Journal and therefore it meets WP:USEBYOTHERS: «widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts». XavierItzm (talk) 07:10, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3, probably 3 - unless we're about to state that Californian school children are being made to worship Aztec deities we should use this source with caution at best. In the particular article, I can see no particular factual errors but it is egregious in its omissions and euphemisms. Its definition of 'intelligence research' seems to amount to something bordering on eugenics and it presents OpenPsych as a normal scientific journal as opposed to one with a dubious peer review process.

I'm generally opposed to the deprecation of sources without evidence that editors are continuing to misuse them after the source has been deemed unreliable. ~ El D. (talk to me) 17:02, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The California Department of Education got sued precisely for making kids chant to In Lak’Ech (Mayan) and to Nahui Ollin (Aztec)! From The Los Angeles Times: frequently recited in high school ethnic studies classes in California: “You are my other me. If I do harm to you, I do harm to myself. If I love and respect you, I love and respect myself.” Nahui Ollin involves four concepts — self-reflection, knowledge, action and transformation — which are represented by the names of four Aztec gods. The chant also includes the name of a fifth Aztec god." CADoE recognized their error, deleted the worship to Aztec deities from the curriculum, agreed to "notify all school districts, charter schools and county offices of education of the deletions”, paid $100,000 as compensation, and admitted the deletion of the pagan chants is consistent with CADoE's “long-standing commitment to ensuring appropriate treatment of religion in a secular public education context.” So per your own logic “unless we're about to state that Californian school children are being made to worship Aztec deities”, your vote cannot possibly be “2 or 3, probably 3”. It looks like your source, New York Magazine, is the one that should be deprecated.XavierItzm (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any reference to $100,000 compensation, just $100,000 for plaintiffs legal fees. Your snipping also seems fairly misleading. The frequently recited thing is a poem by Luis Valdez. The chant which includes the name of an Aztec god is a "a longer chant based on In Lak’Ech and the Aztec concept of Nahui Ollin, also called the Four Movements". It's fairly unclear to me from your source if this longer chant is "frequently recited". The fact that the poem is, and that the longer chant was included in the curriculum which was only recently finalised and from what I can tell wasn't yet used, doesn't mean much. It's unclear to me whether even this curriculum, actually encouraged reciting this chant or simple included it as part of what students are meant to or encourage to learn about. While learning about an allegedly religious chant in an ethnic studies class may not be an "appropriate treatment of religion in a secular public education context", especially if there isn't equal space being given to learning about other religious chants and prayers, it doesn't mean students who learn about it are worshiping Aztec deities, or any deities. People can learn about the Lord's Prayer without worshiping the Christian God, people can learn about the Shahada without worshiping the Islamic Allah. There may be reasonable questions if children should be made to learn about on in an ethnic studies class in public education, especially if it is only one of them (or whatever), but that's different from saying learning about them means the student is being forced to worship a whatever deity. Nil Einne (talk) 09:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

You might be unclear about whether it was worship to Aztec gods, but the State of California sure did chose to delete the daily chanting, to "notify all school districts, charter schools and county offices of education of the deletions”, and to pay $100,000. So it looks like California DoE was not as uncertain as you yourself are. As to how frequent the chanting was, this is what The San Diego Union-Tribune reported: “Many ethnic studies teachers say In Lak’Ech is not used as a prayer but as an affirmation frequently recited daily in high school ethnic studies classes in San Diego and elsewhere in California.” (emphasis mine). Prayer, “affirmation," potato, potatoe, how do you like mandating it daily in schools? XavierItzm (talk) 06:00, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 3 (update, Blueboar brings up a good point below so I lean a bit more towards 3 with a big caveat around DUE opinion), maybe Option 4. To add to the evidence, in regards to The Manhattan Institute, we have a review of one of their papers (alongside a second paper from the Heritage Foundation) here (Pleace, 2021, European Journal of Homelessness), concluding "These papers do not simply contain elements of deliberate misreading and misrepresentation of the existing evidence base, they are both comprised of deliberate misreading and misrepresentation of the evidence base. Almost nothing asserted in either paper is backed by any evidence in the unqualified way that the authors assert. When actual data and results are referred to, the results are taken out of context and their implications are distorted.". This in combination with evidence presented by other editors does not paint a picture of this institute or its publications being reliable sources. I do not like the idea of deprecating sources, but the quote above might even qualify it for option 4. —siroχo 21:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

That’s an opinion article from an advocacy NGO you are using as “evidence” to justify a deprecation! Your opinion article is titled A Review Essay, and it was published in the section “Book Reviews” of the advocacy publication of "the only European NGO focusing exclusively on the fight against homelessness” (FEANTSA). Beggars belief.XavierItzm (talk) 04:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Nicholas Pleace is a subject-matter-expert, and this is also a peer reviewed journal. Given that we're evaluating the reliability of a source, this seems like a reasonable review of one of that source's works. —siroχo 20:07, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Do you really think that the “Book Reviews” section of the publication of an advocacy NGO is peer-reviewed? Yes, Pleace is a university professor; funnily enough, Professor Victoria Stanhope of New York University and Professor Kerry Dunn of University of New England are cited in Misplaced Pages arguing against the very policy Pleace advocates…in a peer-reviewed journal! This is a debated, unsettled subject and Pleace can hardly be seen in his opinion article as impartial.XavierItzm (talk) 04:39, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

• I've removed or edited several uses of City Journal which seemed unnecessary or inappropriate or both. Here are some examples:

• This article was used at New York City waste management system. The City Journal source from 2015 1992 said 26,000 tons per day of garbage while other (current) sources said about 10,000 tons (including recycling). If this source is accurate I would love to see an explanation for the discrepancy.
• At Identity politics, This removed content was an attempted summary without attribution of a very meandering, very strange opinion from Jonathan Haidt. Haidt was promoting his Heterodox Academy project, which ideologically overlaps with Manhattan Institute. In this source, Haidt calls Reed College "one of the most politically orthodox schools in the country", which is an especially bizarre thing to say as the source he cites in the same paragraph is headlined "The Surprising Revolt at the Most Liberal College in the Country".
• This was an opinionated and mildly inflammatory review of a biography of James Brown, complete with Amazon affiliate shopping link. If the book itself is reliable, this source is superfluous and just adds baggage.
• Citing Heather Mac Donald for content about race and crime at Oakland, California, without attribution, is a bad idea for many reasons. Per the NYMag: "Mac Donald has devoted her career to the proposition that anti-white racism is a far more serious problem than anti-black racism..."
• Whatever one thinks of Michael Moore, it is not appropriate to cite an over-the-top hit piece to emphasize that he dropped out of college. The author of that article is Kay Hymowitz, who's Misplaced Pages page doesn't inspire confidence.
• Several articles have cited a Christopher Hitchens piece on the Barbary Wars, such as at Interracial marriage. We still need a reason to include his opinion beyond name-recognition, and Hitchens wrote extensively on Thomas Jefferson in more reputable outlets. If necessary, a better source for these opinions should be easy to find.

Hopefully this gives some context for this proposal. Regardless of the result, there are still likely some uses which will need to be removed on their own merits, or at least more clearly attributed. Grayfell (talk) 22:28, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

The CJ article on trash you cited is dated 1992, not 2015. It says 26,000 tons so who knows. That said, this 2015 ABC news article says 25,000 tons . Unless you have some other 1992 vintage source it's hard to claim it's wrong. Also worth noting the NYT article cited next to the CJ you removed was an OpEd article and doesn't appear to use the word "ton" at all. Ironically it's arguing for government to take away private trash collection options from companies. The link to the sanitation page doesn't actually show a number (perhaps editors are supposed to dig?) Springee (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Ah, my mistake on the date, the CJ article was mistakenly dated 2015 in its cite template. If the City Journal was reliable back in 1992, which is still debatable, it would be far too outdated for the supported point. By 2015 the change of leadership discussed above had gone into effect and it would no longer be usable even when fresh.

This date error combined with the misuse of the NYT editorial (which is from the editorial board so not really an Op-ed), are indications of over-citing. This doesn't suggest that City Journal is indispensable if this is how it's being used.

As for those other sources, cleaning up all of this will take work, and deprecating bad sources makes this kind of work a lot easier. I've adjusted the New York City waste management system accordingly. Grayfell (talk) 22:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree, the whole sentence seemed poorly sourced and a 1992 article is way to old for what is meant to be a contemporary fact. In that regard the removal was correct. I also agree that cleanup is a bit of a mess. It's not clear where that "over 10k" part comes from. I also noticed the 2015 date. That's an understandable mistake given the Wiki citation was wrong. Still, using this as an example, if the discussion were actually about 1992 tonnage I wouldn't see an issue using CJ for what is a non-controversial fact (I presume the tonnage isn't a controversial fact). However, if someone is trying to use CJ to say what the solution should be to the problem of too much trash, well then it should be an attributed statement. Their free market perspective could be balanced against the NYT's suggestion that expanding the public works is the answer. We don't have to pick sides, we instead say both options have been suggested. (note: I'm not saying that was the way the sources were used, this is just a hypothetical). This is part of why I oppose deprecation. CJ does seem like a reliable perspective on a topic if we have an article that is presenting various views on a topic. Honestly. I think many of our articles on topics would be better if we tried to include a wider range of perspectives when there is a public debate (such as should private or public utilities handle an issue). As another example, the Glaeser article could be a good source for an article on the broken window policing debate. Clearly a large number of sources cited Glaseer's article even if it was only to say, "this is what a proponent has said". Great, we can cite the source for the same reasons. Yet another reason to not deprecate the source. Springee (talk) 23:12, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

10k is from the cited NYC source, which mentions "24 million pounds of trash" instead of tons, but you're right, that's closer to eleven thousand. "Tons" seems fine, per WP:CALC.

I know we've had this discussion before on other pages, but I don't accept that any two arbitrarily chosen options need to be contrasted. When we use unreliable and biased sources, it has to be for a reason beyond just how convenient it is. If a reliable sources indicated that the amount of tonnage from 1992 was encyclopedic significant, why would we need this particular source for that factoid? Knowingly adding any point from an unreliable source is a subtle form of editorializing, because we're prioritizing our opinion that this belongs over policies and NPOV. To put it another way, if the best source that can be found is City Journal, first an editor should why it belongs, and then we can evaluate if it's an exception. The starting position should be 'find something better'. Grayfell (talk) 00:01, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 Since they quite clearly and actively publish false information and misinformation in order to push their political ends. Worse than the Daily Mail, imo, since the DM is a blatantly obvious trash rag publication that is obvious to everyone, whereas the City Journal tries to present itself as a legitimate news source while publishing the exact same kind of misinformation as DM. I find the attempted muddling comparison of the SPLC above hilarious and sad. Also a worthless clearly partisan argument. Silverseren 23:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting. It is interesting to read thru all the innuendo above (example: «Readers do not generally know City Journal's biases, of which there are many, and unlike the SPLC…»); it was also funny to read the attempt to discredit the C-J with its 1992 statement regarding NY’s waste tonnage of 26k … only for NY ABC News in 2015 to state that waste tonnage was 25k (!). See what I mean by innuendo? Now, so... is the SPLC reliable because we all know it is a far left NGO of questionable ethics, but the C-J is bad because not everyone knows the C-J is published by a conservative NGO? At any rate, the C-J is a 33 year-old institution published in print by a highly respectable think tank; it’s been cited by many others. Banning it is clearly beyond the pale. I should add that Michael Moore did drop out of UMF and the fact we don’t like the tone of an author who reported this verified fact doesn’t warrant deleting evidence for the fact Moore did drop out: arbitrary deletion of good, reliable sources like this is beyond a bad look: it starts to look like a concerted effort to blacklist sources we just don’t like, no matter how accurate and on-point they are. XavierItzm (talk) 00:19, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Oh look, the guy who proclaimed that Oh, great, Misplaced Pages is now to rely on white male western politicos (and in this case an Anglican one) to tell us what Islam is and what it isn't. See, this is why this is a made up "controversy". It is because a minority of editors support a POV promoted by foreigners who are largely European/European descent infidels, instead of just accepting that all Islamic State group members call themselves, rather plainly, the Islamic State. To deny these People of Color their own identity is an interesting example of Western cultural and religious POV imperialism is back to trolling again. What a suprise. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

If I’m receiving flak, I must be right on target. Anyway, nice ad-hominem you launched there! Cheerio, mate. XavierItzm (talk) 01:07, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

How is quoting your own words on wiki that showcase your active bias in regards to editing an ad hominem? Silverseren 01:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Because instead of proposing valid arguments, the edit attempts to attack the speaker. That’s the very definition of ad hominem.XavierItzm (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Why should anyone take anything you say seriously when you openly engage in trolling discussions? In another example, you described having the title of an article in lowercase when the company stylised their name in all caps as being equivalent to deadnaming transgender people . Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:50, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

And the ad hominems shall continue, in lieu of argument! XavierItzm (talk) 04:34, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Why would anybody engage in good faith argument with your worthless trolling? I'm just warning others not to waste their time with your nonsense. You can take this to ANI IF you're feeling like a big boy, but I doubt that would go well for you. Hemiauchenia (talk) 05:17, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4. I'm surprised to have never heard of City Journal until this discussion. After reading our articles about the City Journal, the Manhattan Institute, the notable contributors, and about a dozen articles on the site itself, I can't see why we'd ever want to cite them. There's little distinction between fact and opinion (and their opinion is often based on claims that are debunked or far from the scientific consensus), many of their contributors are known for their inaccuracies, and they have connections to other unreliable sites, like Breitbart. My general opinion is that advocacy organizations (like think tanks and their publications) should be considered unreliable by default, and only reliable when significant use by reliable sources demonstrates "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". City Journal, however, appears thoroughly disreputable and should be deprecated entirely. Woodroar (talk) 13:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3 at least, but inclining towards option 4 per Grayfell, Aquillion, Siroxo, and Woodroar. I share Grayfell's evaluation of the use-by-others claims. The default presumption is that a source of this type is unreliable, just like advertising would be; overcoming that presumption is an uphill task that is nowhere near accomplished in this case. XOR'easter (talk) 22:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
• Either Option 4 or Option 3 would be warranted here. Grayfell, Aquillion, siroχo and El D. have all presented compelling arguments to this effect. Silverseren's comparison above with Daily Mail is especially apt: while DM is quite obviously unreliable, Manhattan Institute / City Journal are almost parodic in the lengths they go to to appear urbane and mainstream. And the citation figures do indeed seem to reflect the fact that mainstream academics single them out for criticism rather than that anyone takes their research seriously. Generalrelative (talk) 13:46, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  The DM was deprecated based on evidence they fabricated quotes. Where is the evidence CJ fabricated material? Springee (talk) 13:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  We're now going around in circles, Springee. Please see !votes by Aquillion, siroχo, and El D. above for just a few examples of deliberate misinformation. Insisting on "fabricated quotes" is a red herring. Generalrelative (talk) 14:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Siroxo's argument was clearly addressed by XavierItzm who noted the source was an opinion article from an opposed advocacy group. That certainly doesn't prove they misrepresented facts. XavierItzm also pointed out that the New Yorker article was wrong about the facts. At best you can argue this gets into that gray area of politics when one person says, for example, this is discrimination, while the other says it isn't. Both can make some level of rational claim. If the legal outcome supports what CJ said it's hard to claim they are wrong. As for Aquilion's examples, in the case of the medical paper it's hard to claim a deep dive into statistics is the same as falsely claiming something about medicine. It's reasonable to say their statistics are wrong in that instance, but that isn't the same as saying the source is generally unreliable (assuming there is not rebuttal etc) It's also worth noting that the author of the CJ article is a Prof at Columbia's business school with a background in medical economics . This isn't a case of a far-right ideolog throwing out nonsense. This is a case of someone who is clearly viewed as knowledgeable in the field in question. To listen to some of the claims here one might think the person making these "false claims" was random talk show host or fiery political commentator rather than a senior faculty member at a prestigious university. We are talking about someone who is clearly an expert in the field. The CRT is again, the New Yorker which has already been shown to be problematic when it comes to a different CJ topic. This is now getting into the details of CRT as a public topic and a source like the New Yorker isn't sufficient to show one side or the other is outright correct. This would be a disputed claim. Springee (talk) 14:32, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Further looking into the claims of "distorting facts to suit their biases, ... in medicine". The CJ paper in question was published by FR Lichtenberg (Columbia's business school with a background in medical economics), "Why has longevity increased more in some states than in others? The role of medical innovation and other factors". Note that editors here aren't treating this as a disagreement among academics in the field. Instead it's treated as if the intent was to knowingly mislead readers. Note, this is a health economics paper, not a paper about a specific medical treatment. This certainly isn't someone arguing for a novel use of an equine antiparasitic to fight a raspatory virus. Even if it Lichtenberg is wrong, this would be economic misinformation, not medical misinformation. Using Google Scholar I was able to pull up another paper that cites the Lichtenberg paper in question. Based on this paper it's clear that Lichtenberg has a number of publications in academic journals and over about a decade about this topic. Here is one:

  • Benefits of investment into modern medicines in Central-Eastern European countries. Inotai, András; Petrova, Guenka; Vitezic, Dinko; Kaló, Zoltán Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, Feb2014; 14(1): 71-79. 9p. (Journal Article - research) ISSN: 1473-7167 PMID: NLM24350863, While citing Lichtenberg this source states, "A frequently referenced statement based on research by Lichtenberg concludes that new medicines, in addition to increased life longevity, helped to control overall healthcare spending by reducing invasive surgeries and expensive hospital stays, and therefore, reduced hospital expenditure may offset increased expenditure on innovative medicines ."

  Citation 101 is to the CJ paper and includes the following note (bolded in the source), * This study is one of the most frequently referenced study concerning the value of pharmaceutical innovation based on U.S. data. This clearly meets the used by others standard. Even if the article ultimately uses a flawed method, that method is trying to assess the societal cost effectiveness of medical innovation and per used by others would likely be a DUE opinion on the topic. Springee (talk) 03:44, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Citation 101 in doi:10.1586/14737167.2014.86831 is not to the City Journal, it's to a Manhattan Institute PDF. That PDF, by the way, is advocating for the rights of pharmaceutical companies to market high-priced medicine. As with the rest of Manhattan Institute's output, science (and basic decency) take a back seat to ideology, but this particular study is not part of City Journal, so has little relevance to this RFC. Grayfell (talk) 05:23, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

It is the paper other editors cited as an example of medical misinformation (see the claim of "distorting facts to suit their biases, ... in medicine"). Since it was used as evidence that the source was unreliable I followed it to investigate. Springee (talk) 09:53, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 obvious outlet of a propaganda mill. oknazevad (talk) 20:45, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  Based on what? Deprecation is an extreme position. Absent strong evidence it shouldn't be on the table. This is especially true given many of the members are academics in their relevant fields. Springee (talk) 21:42, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  How about hateful transphobia? Do you think this video and others like it by the City Journal are acceptable (the video is linked on the journal) . This type of content is no different than the American Renaissance (magazine). It is misinformation that is fuelling unnecessary hate. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:16, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or 3 - once again, we are really arguing the wrong policy. CJ is an opinion journal. As such, there are limits as to HOW we should use it. Generally, any statements we write based upon it should include in-text attribution to the specific contributor and should be phrased as being opinion. It should be seen as a reliable PRIMARY source for that opinion. The NEXT QUESTION (and the one that we should be focused on) is whether that opinion is DUE or UNDUE. That is a context driven discussion. Blueboar (talk) 22:17, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Based on specific examples provided, including the now-deleted post which was republished from an anonymous attack blog, City Journal is a poor source for demonstrating that any particular opinion is due weight. So if we're going to use it for opinions, we would need some specific reason from a more reliable source to include that opinion, and in the majority of cases, we are better off sticking to that more-reliable source and City Journal is unnecessary. Grayfell (talk) 00:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree that you might need other sources to demonstrate that an opinion is DUE… HOWEVER, I disagree with your follow up. - For citation purposes, once an opinion IS considered DUE, the primary original (in this case CJ) will always be the single most reliable source. A secondary source may misquote or poorly summarize. Always go back to the original for citation purposes. Blueboar (talk) 01:06, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

A secondary source may misquote or include misleading information, but by that broad standard, City Journal is itself even less reliable. From what I've seen, City Journal has not been the sole primary source for these noteworthy opinions. Our goal is to provide context for why these opinion are noteworthy per reliable sources. Since it isn't to summarize the parts of these opinions we personally think are interesting, we really only need to use these primary sources in edge cases when City Journal is the only usable example of an opinion that would otherwise be incomprehensible without additional context. I don't think this situation is common, and we can still make exceptions when it happen. Otherwise, we're preemptively protecting the hypothetically good use of a bad source. Grayfell (talk) 10:11, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2, per Springee, or even Option 1. I've reviewed the examples helpfully provided by Aquillion and Grayfell, which I suppose are the worst and clearest examples of their unreliability and I'm not convinced. Specifically, this criticism is about the methodological flaws in a regression model. This is how science works! If we were to declare unreliable every journal which published an article that has been criticised we wouldn't have any reliable sources left. As a side note, the original article was published on the site of the Manhattan Institute , rather than the City Journal. Then it was claimed that the 26k ton figure from this article is factually wrong. However as you can see in the discussion above a similar figure was given by ABC and it seems to be close to the figures in this report (summing up figures Tables IV 2-1 and IV 4-1). So there is just no evidence for making it unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 10:01, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

City Journal doesn't pretend to be a scientific journal, it's a general audience magazine. Please read past the very first example I mentioned, which was from 1992 instead of 2015 as I initially though. Per the above discussion, City Journal had a change in editorial board in 2007, so if you think the older stuff is more reliable, feel free to explain that position. I partly added it because, as I said, I would love to see an explanation for the discrepancy. I wasn't being facitious, and mentioning this issue here has already helped improve the linked article. The PDF you link appears to be from 2003, as it only includes projections up until 2025. If NYC really had cut its garbage production by more than half in only a few years, despite its own projections, that should be explained in the article itself, but as usual, we need better sources.

For Option 1, if you want to claim, for example, that Heather Mac Donald is generally reliable for factual information about crime and race on Misplaced Pages, you should be willing to make that claim directly. Grayfell (talk) 10:34, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Okay, let's ignore the first example. The second one is the removal of this information. I do not disagree with the edit itself, but to me it looks like a matter of due weight. I don't see reliability problems there - probably the CJ can be trusted to tell us about the critique from the right-wing POV.

Regarding Heather Mac Donald, which of the facts that you removed are false? This is a genuine question, as I don't know anything about the history of Oakland. Happy to strike out Option 1 if some of these facts are false. Alaexis_¿question? 11:22, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Facts? The statement economic competition increased racial tension is unfalsifiable. It is Mac Donald's loaded opinion being presented as a bland fact, but it is not a fact. To accept that claim we would first have to accept multiple controversial assumptions about race as separate from class, as well as the degree to which economics causes racial tensions, instead of the other way around. That article wouldn't be the proper place to go into those assumptions, and Mac Donald isn't qualified to discuss them anyway. One of several problems with this outlet is that it emphasizes superficially reasonable looking statements like that one without any of the necessary context. Even in a vacuum, this statement wouldn't have worked as written, but it's not an isolated case, it's part of a larger pattern. This is why I indicated Mac Donald's controversial status as a pundit. And the source was punditry, not journalism. In the same paragraph of the source where Mac Donald highlights information about the drug dealer Felix Mitchell, she prefaces that with information about how Oakland's "poverty culture is still thriving". That isn't a factual claim, it's an opinion (and a dog-whistle), and an extremely loaded one at that. So these superficially bland facts only exist to support these non-bland opinions. Some of these claims (but not all) are factual, but that isn't enough to make the source itself reliable. We need to look at context. If the only reason a fact is being mentioned is to grind an ax, we need get better sources and go from there. Grayfell (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Well, let's be precise and start from the article in question. I don't see the phrase economic competition increased racial tension there. The closest is probably After the Johnson administration deemed Oakland ripe for the next race riot—based on unemployment and racial tensions ... the feds rolled in a $23 million pilot jobs program in 1966, hoping to forestall trouble. but it clearly doesn't say that competition increased racial tension. So probably this specific case is an example of misquoting a source. Alaexis_¿question? 09:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

It wasn't presented as a quote, but I'm not sure how much that helps. If reliable sources supported the bit about Johnson, we could use those to decide if this belongs in the article and from that neutrally summarize that history. Mac Donald is not reliable for this. As another example from that article, the source was also used for content about Felix Mitchell. Mac Donald claims that Mitchell created the country's first large-scale, gang-controlled drug operation. This is nonsense. As one obvious counter-example, the Bonanno crime family was selling narcotics in the 1930s or 40s. Mac Donald either completely misunderstood why Mitchell's life and death were significant, or was lazily misrepresenting it in an attempt to prove a specific ideological point about "poverty culture". As Mitchell's article explains, crime didn't spike due to Mitchell's gang activity, it spiked after he died in prison due to the power-vacuum he left behind. (This is likely part of why he was fondly remembered in Oakland, and this legacy is the real reason he was significant.) Grayfell (talk) 11:04, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Is that a contextual definition of gang? I personally wouldn't think of the 1930s mafia or Chicago style gangs as the same thing as the 1970s street gangs. This seems like saying she is wrong on a technicality. Would the statement be correct if it were changed to "street gang" instead of "gang"? Springee (talk) 13:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

What are the differences between the 1930s mafia or Chicago style gangs and 1970s street gangs? I can't come up with any significant ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

The wiki article on gangs lists it and mafia as separate subtypes. I presume various RSs on the subject say why they are different. Springee (talk) 16:41, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Mafia as a subtype of gang, not different from a gang. Chicago style gangs were street gangs, at least according to the sources I've read. Only real difference is race, but I'm sure thats not what you meant so what did you mean? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:11, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure that in the time of the war on drugs "gang" was used to generically refer to the mafia vs what our article defines as street gangs. It does seem reasonable that Mac Donald was referring to street gangs and presumably the one in question showed similar gangs how they could make money off the drug trade. I think it's wrong to suggest a source is outright unreliable based on this sort of distinction (assuming I'm correct about Mac Donald's intended scope of the word "gang"). I'm not sure I've heard of a source referring to people like Al Capone as street gang leaders. Springee (talk) 18:11, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Mac Donald didn't say "street gang", she said "...the country's first large-scale, gang-controlled drug operation". A "large-scale" operation is by definition not a street-level operation. There are plenty of other non-"mafia" examples of large scale drug dealing operations, also. How about Frank Lucas, Frank Matthews (drug trafficker), or Griselda Blanco? As I said, Mac Donald's claim that Mitchell created "the first" such operation is false. Mac Donald purports to be an expert on crime in the same way that City Journal purports to be an intellectual magazine. Grayfell (talk) 19:47, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, but what was the context? Was she talking about 1970s "gang" activity? If so that often was describing street gangs vs mafia or "organized crime" as mafia type groups were often described. You are saying MacDonald's claim was false but it seems based on the idea that she was describing all things that one might describe as "gangs" rather than street gangs which were a product of the 1970s. Is her statement correct if we narrow the topic to street gangs? Did Mitchell show the way for other street gangs? I'm not seeing that you have proven much beyond context matters and you think the context of her claim isn't clear. Looking at the article I would read it as the mixing of street gangs and drug operations. Perhaps she could have been more clear? Maybe. What would people in 1999 envision when "gang" was used in context of crime? I mean we can also say that alcohol is a drug in which case the prohibition era rum runners were clearly there first. However, if we are going to claim something is false we need to be careful that we aren't using gotchas to do it. Springee (talk) 20:20, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for providing more examples. I've removed option 1 from my !vote. Alaexis_¿question? 12:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

• Option 4 Manhattan Institute's City Journal is entirely unreliable hateful propaganda. It has been taken over by Christopher Rufo who is using the journal to promote transphobia and spread misinformation about LGBT , . He's also published articles trying to link LGBT to pedophilia. The journal has many other transphobic articles , , . Rufo has been described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "far-right propagandist" . Anti-vegans, transphobes and white nationalists are the City Journal's biggest followers. Click on the first links I provided by Rufo which provides a transphobic video, how can anyone take this journal seriously? It should be removed from Misplaced Pages. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:58, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Making up facts is a reason to deprecate, but being against LGBT is not. This is an international encyclopedia, and global opinions on LGBT are very diverse. PCHS-NJROTC 12:10, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 1 and option 2 As reliable as the widely accepted sources. I'm against all such overgeneralizations but responded in the format of the question. North8000 (talk) 13:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 3, at best they publish minority opinions... But I'm not seeing the sort of active disinformation that would necessitate deprecation. I would treat all of their content as opinion content with the regular restrictions and allowances that come with that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:17, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Leaning Option 2, considering that most of their publication is clearly in the form of opinion pieces, which we would already be taken with the appropriate grain of salt. BD2412 T 19:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 per Blueboar, North8000, and Springee. It's an opinion journal, and WP:IDONTLIKEIT's opinions/ideology is not a proper basis for deprecation. The other considerations are: it's opinion journal, and there should typically be in-text attribution for controversial statements. GretLomborg (talk) 06:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

References

1. DAVID SCHLEICHER (May 2013). "City Unplanning". Yale Law Journal. 122 (7): 1707. ISSN 0044-0094. Retrieved 27 July 2023. : Edward L. Glaeser, Preservation Follies, City J., Spring 2010, at 62, 64 (2010). Once land falls into a historic preservation zone, it becomes effectively impossible
2. Erica Avrami (2016). "Making Historic Preservation Sustainable". Journal of the American Planning Association. 82 (2): 109. doi:10.1080/01944363.2015.1126196. ISSN 0194-4363. Retrieved 27 July 2023. Glaeser (2010), in a study of Manhattan south of 96th Street, estimates that the average price of a midsize condo in a historic district rose by $6,000 per year more than those outside a historic district from 1980 to 2002. Glaeser attributes Glaeser, E. (2010). Preservation follies. City Journal, 20, 2.
3. Nadav Shoked (2014). "THE NEW LOCAL" (PDF). Virginia Law Review. 100 (7): 1373. ISSN 0042-6601. Retrieved 27 July 2023. Neighbors reap preservation's benefits: They enjoy the resultant pleasant environment as well as any surge in property values
4. Kristen Taketa (18 January 2022). "California to remove Mayan affirmation from ethnic studies after lawsuit argues it's a prayer". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 27 July 2023. The model curriculum also included a longer chant based on In Lak'Ech and the Aztec concept of Nahui Ollin, also called the Four Movements. Nahui Ollin involves four concepts — self-reflection, knowledge, action and transformation — which are represented by the names of four Aztec gods. The chant also includes the name of a fifth Aztec god.
5. KRISTEN TAKETA (18 January 2022). "Calif. will delete popular affirmation from ethnic studies after suit claims it's an Aztec prayer". The San Diego Union-Tribune. Retrieved 1 August 2023.
6. Stanhope, Victoria; Dunn, Kerry (2011). "The curious case of Housing First: The limits of evidence based policy" (PDF). International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 34 (4): 275–82. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.07.006. PMID 21807412.

Oryx (revisited)

I am fully aware that we have discussion about Oryx (website) before. (link to that discussion). Based on that discussion, my understanding are 1) everyone agree it's WP:SPS, 2) however it may arguably considered as SME, since its sometime cited by WP:RS 3) if we need to cite from Oryx, use caution and always state "According to Oryx" or something.

And then, I have discussion on the usage of Oryx, esp this article https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/11/far-from-finished-islamic-emirate-air.html on Afghan Air Force, whereas there is an editor who reject the usage of Oryx as it is WP:SPS even after I mentioned the previous discussion on Oryx.

So, can we use Oryx for that page? currently the article still cite Oryx as it's source and also mentioned "According to Oryx". Ckfasdf (talk) 09:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

It's cited a lot by RS and so it could be considered a subject-matter expert. On the other hand, there are concerns about its biases, for example the Warsaw Institute wrote that there are concerns that there is a pro-Ukrainian bias as there might be more photos published about Russian destroyed equipment.

I think that this should be discussed on a case-by-case basis taking into account the following considerations

• Are there RS that cover the same topic? If yes, use them rather than Oryx
• Is it likely that the coverage of a given area by Oryx is biased?
• Are the alternative data sources even worse?
• How important is it to include the data from Oryx? Can we wait until we have better sources?

Alaexis_¿question? 14:49, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

@Alaexis: The topics is about Afghan Air Force not conflict in Ukraine. And to answer your question: 1) No RS cover same topic atm, if RS available, we will use RS not Oryx, 2) unlikely, the data is provided by Oryx is based on visually confirmed aircraft, actual numbers could be higher 3) no alternative data source atm, so the option is either include or remove it, 4) given the situation in Afghanistan, we don't know for sure when better source will be available. Ckfasdf (talk) 15:15, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

If this is indeed the case then probably it can be used with the proper attribution. It would be good to hear the arguments of the user who is against the use of Oryx. Alaexis_¿question? 21:54, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

• Strongly oppose Only source(s) from Oryx are images (with no meta data) which by themselves is basically original research which is not considered a reliable. - Further the Taliban twitter feed is vague & ambiguous, it should be confirmed by an outside independent source. - FOX 52 02:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

As I mentioned before, no original research policy is only applied to us (WP:EDITORS), not the source itself. Ckfasdf (talk) 07:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It does, however, limit our ability to make statements about the content of such images. Interpreting images and extrapolating things like force strength and numbers of aircraft seems a bridge too far. If a reliable source, of subject matter experts, have analyzed such images and given their expert analysis, that's one thing. If we're doing that kind of work ourselves, it isn't. --Jayron32 16:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Strong Support Oryx has earned its place as a reputable source, being cited by prominent mainstream media outlets, including CNN, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and BBC News. Given this widespread acknowledgment, it is reasonable to consider Oryx as a reliable source. It is worth noting that the notion of "western bias" is present in mainstream media as well, but it should not be used to diminish Oryx's credibility. Ecrusized (talk) 12:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Oppose I would recommend not to use, the author has offered little evidence of the force as properly active. Photographs alone should not be the standard, and there must be a second source to authenticate working aircraft.

As Jayron32 mentioned above If a reliable source, of subject matter experts, have analyzed such images and given their expert analysis, that's one thing. Also on Afghan, secondary sources/RSes often citing Oryx report. Ckfasdf (talk) 21:17, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

My opinion before - as a fan and reader of Oryx - is that it's a blog. Though a very good one. The use by RSes is swaying me a bit, though - David Gerard (talk) 17:52, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

So, it's still somewhat OK to be used in WP? since it is used by RSes and WP:SPS also states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert.Ckfasdf (talk) 20:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It isn't whether Oryx is a RS or not, my issue is with the source(s) they used for an article (regarding the AAF) - I personally cannot tell when these poor quality pictures were taken- (which are in flyable condition?) , , , , , , , , , - only found a few flying, but what is there status today? - flying, flying, flying – other sources mentions a C-130 fixed, but no where to be found flying - tolonews.com and finally 5 pilots came back. FOX 52 22:02, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

It's your analysis as stated in your comment above that can be considered as original research. However as Jayron32 mentioned above If a reliable source, of subject matter experts, have analyzed such images and given their expert analysis, that's one thing so it's not OR. Also regarding C-130, the disputed source didn't say that it is operational, mainly due to lack pilot. So I dont see why it need to be brought up in the argument.Ckfasdf (talk) 07:06, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

As I suspect you can not answer the question I pose. And that is at the crux of the matter. The authors have only presented what they have basically pulled off of various social media platforms. - FOX 52 07:40, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

And this author seems to dispute claims made by the Taliban - wriiten this past May - FOX 52 07:43, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Plus these don't look promising , , for a wanna be functioning air force. - FOX 52 07:53, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

This discussion only to discuss whether Oryx can be used as source for number of operational aircraft in Afghan Air Force and you said we can't because it's SPS. Other editor argues that it can because its SME and RSes also use it as their source. You then argue, their analysis method is inadequate and cited WP OR policy, again other editor said that as SME, they can analyzed images and give their expert analysis. And lastly, you bring out other material which is unrelated to the topics. Please do not get off topic. Ckfasdf (talk) 08:12, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

I never said "inadequate", but their sourcing is based off of images, and whether they are in flying condition is the issue. - This article, is right on target, as it displays an opposing view, that the Talian's efforts to erect a functionally Air Force is struggling. - FOX 52 08:57, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

Again as mentioned by Jayron32 earlier, since Oryx is arguably SME, they are allowed to analyze based on images and provide their expert analysis, while we (editors) can not. Regarding your reference, IMO you can include it to the article as well, just keep it mind thay there were previous discussions on RFERL on RSN before as it also considered as propaganda media. Ckfasdf (talk) 22:26, 21 July 2023 (UTC)

This is just going in circles, we have a responsibility to the readers, not our own likes / dislikes this is an Encyclopedia, not a news blog. - were just going to wait for something more concrete - FOX 52 06:05, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

By the way oryxs is going bye-bye soon (created out of boredom) - FOX 52 07:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

It's not about WP:IDONTLIKEIT. WP:SPS explicitly states Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert and as SME they can are analyze based on images. Ckfasdf (talk) 06:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

There is no way anyone expert or not can determine whether an aircraft is airworthy, based off of image(s) (of an aircraft sitting on the ground motionless). Thats a guess on their part and is no way acceptable as reliable. - FOX 52 04:18, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

"There is no way anyone expert or not can determine whether an aircraft is airworthy" And you would be qualified to make that assertion how? And if you are not qualified to make that assertion please provide reliable sources which support this rather strong point. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/

Article: Sherbet (U.S.), Sorbet, Talk:Sorbet

Content: ,

In North America, sherbet (/ˈʃɜːrbət/), often referred to as sherbert (/ˈʃɜːrbərt/) in the United States, is a frozen dessert made from sugar-sweetened water, a dairy product such as cream or milk, and a flavoring...

I am in the middle of a debate with @Wikaviani and he claims that Merriam-Webster is unreliable due to being owned by Brtiannica. Comments on the reliability on other sources would also be welcomed. ✶Mitch199811✶ 18:39, 23 July 2023 (UTC) ✶Mitch199811✶ 18:39, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

"Considerations apply" is not the same as "not reliable". But as a general rule, dictionaries are not that helpful in determining article scope. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 19:05, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:BRITANNICA is about the encyclopedia named Encyclopædia Britannica, not about any other publications. That is, Encyclopædia Britannica, not Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.. EddieHugh (talk) 19:53, 23 July 2023 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster is definitely reliable for the history of the spelling of a term. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:04, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• Merriam Webster is as reliable for American English as the OED is for British English; it is probably the most highly respected dictionary in an American context, and I would take everything written in it as reliable, or more so, than any other such dictionary. --Jayron32 11:55, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  Would Oxford still be reliable documenting AE and M-W with BE? ✶Mitch199811✶ 13:16, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

  Yes. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:22, 24 July 2023 (UTC) Apologies, I misread your question. (More coffee needed.) I would say it depends. M-W generally documents AE, and OED BE, but sometimes they document the reverse, and they will generally indicate when they are doing so. Both publications are longstanding and have core policies regarding how they formulate definitons and track usages. voorts (talk/contributions) 13:27, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• Merriam-Webster is almost certainly reliable for something US related, I would attribute them for general statements about the English language but for something US related they should do a great job. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 13:32, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

• I can't speak specifically to Merriam-Webster, though I would imagine that they are reliable with regards to variant spellings in American English. The guidance on Britannica is largely based on their nature as a encyclopaedia (and partly based on issues relating to ensuring a large general purpose encyclopaedia remains accurate and up to date) as Misplaced Pages policy discourages the use of all encyclopaedias as they are tertiary sources, and as such not applicable to Merriam Webster as a dictionary and probably a secondary source (as it is collected from analysis of other works, as opposed to from other dictionaries, if you follow the opinion of WP:DICTIONARIES).

As regarding the exact definitions of what a sherbet is and whether or not it is a sorbet: I don't think there is a reason to prefer OED to MW, indeed as a sherbet is a American desert, I would prefer MW. However, I agree with Thebiguglyalien that I would rather use a source that specialises in food than a dictionary (more generally, I would generally sources specialising in a subject than a generalist dictionary).

Hope that helps ~ El D. (talk to me) 15:58, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

References

1. "The Scoop on Sherbet vs Sherbert". Merriam-Webster. 23 June 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-04-20. Retrieved 23 June 2021.

• Merriam-Webster is generally reliable for information about spelling, pronunciation, and definitions of words, at least in US English. On the specific issue at hand, it is certainly correct that in US English, sherbet and sorbet refer to similar but different frozen desserts. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:35, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Red Flag (newspaper)

To be honest, I can't believe I'm here asking such a ridiculously obvious question but here I am. Red Flag is the official newspaper of the political organisation Socialist Alternative (Australia). The article for Socialist Alternative likely has more citations to Red Flag than any other sources combined and it is often used in a manner for self-promotion, to speak of the organisation in glowing words or to attack political opponents. Please refer to this recent diff in which an editor inserted "opposing Israeli war crimes and occupation" as an example. As I've written the Socialist Alternative article is full of citations to Red Flag and it would be helpful to get community input (as much as I think it's already blindingly obvious) on whether it is a reliable source in the context the article or for anything at all for that matter. AlanS 10:52, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

There appear to be three references to Red Flag on the page. The Red Flag articles are used to describe the aims of Socialist Alternative, to outline the issues around the de-registration of SA by the Monash Student Association and to provide the position of SA in the 2018 Victorian state and 2019 federal elections. In each case, the articles are used appropriately because the information is either uncontroversial or attribution is used to provide the SA's viewpoint. E.g.

describes itself as aiming to organise collective struggles ...

Socialist Alternative denied this claim, noting that the pro-Palestinian event's main speaker was Jewish (the term "noting" is not appropriate here since it is a WP:word to watch)

In general, since Red Flag is SA's newspaper, it is a great source for SA's views. We should not use it as the main source for the article but using it three times out of 106 references does not seem excessive. Burrobert (talk) 11:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

My mistake when I wrote that "he article for Socialist Alternative likely has more citations to Red Flag than any other sources combined". I was probably subconsciously lumping together, citations to Socialist Alternative website and Red Flag magazine, which are for all intents and purposes the same organ. You are correct that there is content that is attributed but it is attributed in such a manner that it serves a particular bias and frankly it is irrelevant to Socialist Alternative discretely understood and only serves as a point to attack their political opponents. Red Flag used in this manner is not being used as a Reliable Source. AlanS 12:13, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Are you happy to leave the three Red Flag references alone and discuss the use of the SA website as a source for the SA page? My comment about Red Flag being a great source for the views on SA also applies to the SA website. I think we can also consider the SA website as a reliable source for SA's viewpoints. We do need to be careful when using it as a source for matters not related to SA's positions. There are also other factors to consider which would be better discussed on the article's talk page. These include whether too much time is being given to SA's views in comparison to independent sources. I did notice a few phrasing issues on the SA page which should be addressed but these don't relate to reliability of the sources being used. Burrobert (talk) 12:23, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

I think the main problem is the amount of citations which are either the website or the magazine. They're one and the same thing. Even though the Red Flag citations are only three as you correctly pointed out I don't believe they're reliable sources. You're probably very much correct that Red Flag is a good source for SA's views, however that doesn't necessarily translate to being a reliable source in the context of its organisations article particularly the articles cited have titles along the lines of "Accusations of anti-Semitism against socialist students are lies" and the editors citing it are misquoting sections which read "At Monash University, Socialist Alternative moved a motion in the Student Council, condemning Israeli war crimes and occupation." to read as "at a time when several Australian student unions were passing motions "opposing Israeli war crimes and occupation"" in the article. AlanS 12:38, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like one of those phrasing issues that should be either discussed on talk or just corrected outright. If we use the source within its limits, there should not be a problem. If an editor has misused the source, go in and correct the text. Your point about whether there has been an overuse of the SA website in creating the page is separate to reliability but still significant. Burrobert (talk) 13:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

This is not just a phrasing issue and I have brought that up in talk, as I mentioned in my previous comment the articles published by the magazine themselves can't be considered to be reliable when they have titles such as "Accusations of anti-Semitism against socialist students are lies" or "Political witch-hunt against Socialist Alternative on Australian campuses". Articles with these sorts titles are clearly problematic when they refer to the subject matter itself. AlanS 13:26, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Correction, the second quoted article isn't a Red Flag one. the first speaks for itself. AlanS 13:32, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

A simple count of references doesn't tell you everything. The bulk of those cites are from the two paragraphs listing positions they've taken in a neutral tone (Socialist Alternative has organised or participated in campaigns and protests around issues including industrial relations, student unions and higher education, Aboriginal rights, refugee rights, women's rights, LGBTI rights, the environment, and free speech. They have been involved in anti-war, anti-racist, anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist, anti-corporate, and anti-uranium mining demonstrations. Socialist Alternative has been involved in organising within anti-war campaign groups such as the Stop the War Coalition and has participated in demonstrations across the country, including the protests against the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the 2008–2009 war on Gaza, the 2007 APEC Conference, the 2006 G20 Summit, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and have been involved in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign and solidarity actions with the Arab Spring.) - that's a lot of individual citations, but it doesn't actually make up most of the article; neither is itself-serving or anything. And it's all pretty unexceptional, ie. the paragraph basically just says that it has taken the positions you would expect a modern socialist organization to take. --Aquillion (talk) 18:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

And then there is another citation published by SA that fails WP:ABOUTSELF which is used. The article fails because it involves highly contentious claims about third-parties. The citation can be seen in this diff having the title "Accusations of anti-Semitism against socialist students are lies" and its link is found here. The sentences following from the usage of this unreliable source read as "Socialist Alternative argued that similar meetings took place at campuses around Australia, at a time when several Australian student unions were passing motions "opposing Israeli war crimes and occupation" and large demonstrations were being held in support of Palestine. Matthew Lesh, Political Affairs Director of the pro-Israel Australasian Union of Jewish Students and a spokesperson for the Young Liberals, claimed that a group of Jewish students were denied entry to the Monash meeting based on their religion and assumed political beliefs. Socialist Alternative denied this claim, noting that the pro-Palestinian event's main speaker was Jewish, and a particular group of students were denied entry after they had refused to sign a petition condemning Israel's economic blockade of Gaza, and had attempted to disrupt the meeting." and given the use an unreliable source follows the quoted problematic material which would be different were reliable source used. This is primarily why have started this discussion. Would you agree this particular red flag article is not a reliable source for the purposes of this Socialist Alternative article, especially given a mainstream Australian newspaper which this noticeboard has determined to be reliable has an article on the material covered in the red flag article? AlanS 04:49, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Per WP:ABOUTSELF, published works by subjects of articles can be used as sources so long as most of the article is sourced to reliable secondary sources. In some cases, that means that self-reported views must be cut back. Readers can always go to their website, which should have a link in the article, to find more.

I see no problem with explaining their views without criticism. If we say for example that they are anti-capitalist, there is no need for us to provide views about how great capitalism is. In comparison, the numerous articles about various Christian religious denominations don't have extensive criticism by atheists.

TFD (talk) 13:25, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

WP:ABOUTSELF would work here except the citations and the way in which they are used does not meet the criteria that:

1) the material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;

2) it does not involve claims about third parties;

3) it does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;

4) there is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and

5) the article is not based primarily on such sources.

A close analysis of the citations, the way they are used and the subject lays that clear. AlanS 13:51, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

It is difficult to know how the text of the article breaches those rules without knowing the statements to which you are referring. You can't make a general argument that RedFlag or the SA website is unreliable because they breach those rules. You need to consider each statement separately and determine whether it is appropriate. E.g. the following statement is an appropriate use of Red Flag:

In the 2018 Victorian state and 2019 federal elections, Socialist Alternative campaigned alongside the Socialist Alliance to support the newly founded left-wing political party, the Victorian Socialists.

Burrobert (talk) 14:15, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Victorian Socialists pretty much is Socialist Alternative for all intents and purposes since Socialist Alliance separated from the party. AlanS 05:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

• It can be used in a limited way via WP:ABOUTSELF, but as noted above ABOUTSELF has certain restrictions. Going over the usages... the sentence in the lead that begins with ...it describes itself as... might run afoul of WP:MISSIONSTATEMENT. We don't want to devote the first paragraph of the lead to their self-description if we can help it. That said, the other things in the lead are probably fine (and summarize the body) - it's probably usable for a brief mention of the simple fact that it publishes Red Flag, due weight permitting. The statements of its positions regarding Israel / Palestine could probably be condensed; but we also have a secondary source for one of them, so perhaps rely on that - it might require attribution, though. The final usage is for an endorsement they made stated in a neutral manner, which is probably fine. --Aquillion (talk) 18:42, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
• Unreliable, considering the limitations of WP:ABOUTSELF. --NoonIcarus (talk) 10:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
• Looks fine, just make sure to attribute and that they don't make any exceptional claims about themselves.--WMrapids (talk) 00:56, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

SB Nation-staffed sports editorial blogs

Sources: Defined as blogs under the Vox-owned SB Nation brand, with paid but not full-time staff and freelanced content. This explicitly does not consider SB Nation's volunteer, amateur, or semiprofessional-run fanblogs, which already fall more clearly under WP:SPORTCRIT's guidelines against fanblogs and similar works.

All for XI, a women's association football blog, is being specifically debated on WP:Articles for deletion/Dakota Mills by @JoelleJay and @Newimpartial). It's cited in numerous articles. Its initial, past, and current editorial staff includes current or former freelancers who work for RS non-Vox publications; its initial managing editor Steph Yang is now a full-time staff writer for The Athletic, and her successors Kudzi Musarurwa and Erica Ayala are freelancers for The Athletic. Its current authors include Jenna Tonelli, an active freelancer for the New York Post's sports RS carveout and for RS New York Magazine, and Sophie Lawson, who covered the 2022 UEFA Women's Euro and 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup for ESPN (1, 2). Other similarly staffed blogs include Outsports, Secret Base, and SB Nation itself.

Per @JoelleJay:

The All for XI source is a group blog with content submitted by contributors, not journalists, and administered by "managers" and "authors" whose names just link to their SBNation user profile. It is not RS.

Per @Newimpartial:

I don't know what your issue with SBnation is; some of the best journalists covering women's football may be found publishing there.

Per @Jogurney, emphasis mine:

The SBNation article has a few useful sentences about Mills' performance in three Olympic qualifying matches (probably a little more than "routine"), but I'm unsure of its status as a reliable source versus a host for All for XI's blogposts.

Articles: The above Dakota Mills AfD; if All for XI is not a RS, then Jenna Bike, Jennifer Cudjoe, and Domi Richardson might not meet WP:GNG based on their current citations. It's the sole cited presumed-RS source for WP:BIO statements in those articles, as well as in Martin Sjögren, Manuela Zinsberger, and Taylor Aylmer, and if All for XI is not a RS then those statements should be flagged, differently sourced, or WP:BLPREMOVEd.

Content: In Dakota Mills, All for XI 's status as RS is debated toward the subject's potential notability in its AfD because one of its articles included a biographical detail about her, but that detail is not used in the article. The same article is cited for a biographical detail in Cloey Uddenberg.

In Jenna Bike:

In 2022, NWSL club NJ/NY Gotham FC invited Bike to its open tryouts, and she stepped away from her doctorate program to pursue a professional soccer career. ... In January 2023, Chicago Red Stars coach Chris Petrucelli contacted Bike about the team's need for a winger. The team subsequently signed Bike from the NWSL waiver wire to a two-year contract with an option for a third year, where she returned to playing as a forward.

In Domi Richardson:

Richardson suffered a medial meniscus tear during practice in 2022, ending her season. Gotham FC did not exercise the club's option on her contract, releasing her in 2023.

-63.224.250.203 (talk) 20:46, 27 July 2023 (UTC) — 63.224.250.203 (talk) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. This IP made this filing immediately after placing prod notices on about 100 articles about female footballers, including ones profiled by The Guardian or awarded national Player of the year honors. Those were the only previous edits from this IP. Template added by Newimpartial (talk) 22:12, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Comment. The only previous discussion of a SB Nation property not specific to a team is Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_141#bloodyelbow from 2013, where @Mtking makes the same assertion as @JoelleJay in the Mills AfD suggesting the website's author-page functionality pointing to a user-profile page indicates that the site cannot be a RS. -63.224.250.203 (talk) 20:55, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I am not aware of any policy support for the idea that a profile page link invalidates the reliability of a source, FWIW. Newimpartial (talk) 21:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Just for reference, the articles to which the last two statements are sourced were both written by Jenna Tonelli, respected soccer journalist for The Equalizer. Newimpartial (talk) 20:59, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I mentioned Tonelli's more mainstream work above. If All for XI is not RS, The Equalizer arguably has even less to stand on for reliability. Equalizer, and particularly co-founders and site operators Jeff Kassouf's and Dan Lauletta's work there, is even closer to WP:SPS than XI; at least XI is ultimately accountable to Vox. The Athletic, the Post, and NY Mag appear to be more meaningful in this scope. -63.224.250.203 (talk) 21:27, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

SBNation team blog contributors and managers are not held to the standards that professional journalism demands; while their content must abide by the general Vox ethics guidelines, there is no evidence of direct editorial oversight for the 300+ community blogs. Contributors and managers are amateur part-time freelancers; some of them are only identified by a pseudonymous SBNation username with the only means of contact being Twitter (and only if they share their Twitter account). In other discussions, like this one started by @Hog Farm, editors have even been leery about using SBNation proper as a source for non-controversial (and obviously non-BLP) statistical content, with possible exceptions on articles authored by extremely well-known experts.

That a freelancer writes for other publications that do have acceptable journalistic standards is irrelevant, in the same way that an expert with a blog is still prohibited as a source on BLPs: Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. JoelleJay (talk) 23:40, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

To start, I lean in agreement with you that XI isn't inherently reliable. I also think it's not inherently unreliable; I disagree that it isn't "content submitted by contributors, not journalists," by pointing out that the writers and editors involved are journalists but for other publications, and are not self-published, but by a narrow distinction that could mean similar sources are also unreliable by association. (At a minimum, how we're using the terms "contributors" and "journalists" may also differ, leading to confusion.)

I also don't want the discussion on the Mills AfD about the reliability of XI to be limited to that AfD. If a source is inherently unreliable, it benefits everyone to confirm that via consensus so we don't have to re-litigate each time they're removed, or articles that rely on them are in AfD. And if the consensus is that such sources should be judged case-by-case, that should also be made clear so they aren't eliminated from contention without discussion on the specific piece's own reliability.

XI is in the middle of publishing a significant amount of Women's World Cup content that will likely be cited in articles about players and managers, and if we can establish consensus on its reliability, we can point to that sooner than later.

As a point of order and not in contest to your assertions, All for XI is not a team blog, and I'm trying very intentionally to not include team blogs in this discussion because they're already covered as unreliable by WP:SPORTCRIT. I want to make sure the edge cases of SB Nation "community" works like, and not limited to, XI which aren't built around a specific team are also covered.

In the linked discussion with @Hog Farm, they also state: "However, distinction should be made between (Jon Bois's) serious reporting and satirical let's-break-video-games output. I think a lot of it depends on the site, especially with the team-specific sites." Is this a worthwhile distinction? If so, is there such a distinction that can be made for XI, and should that distinction be made universally or case-by-case for "serious" reporting by recognized experts, per @Mackensen and @Walter Görlitz in that discussion? (It at least sounds like, on that point, you don't agree.) -63.224.250.203 (talk) 01:17, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I am approaching the "contributors" issue from the consensus position at numerous other RSN discussions that treat contributed pieces (keeping in mind that "contributors" are typically also compensated but are distinct from the full-time paid staff hired by the main publisher) as generally unreliable or at least questionably reliable even when they're published in sources with defined editorial processes. See, for example, the RSP entries on Encyclopaedia Britannica, Entrepreneur (there is a consensus that "contributor" pieces in the publication should be treated as self-published, similar to Forbes.com contributors), Forbes, HuffPost, WhatCulture (WhatCulture is considered generally unreliable. Contributors "do not need to have any relevant experience or hold any particular qualifications"), etc. JoelleJay (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

And I don't think there is any distinction between the team sites and the other community blogs. JoelleJay (talk) 03:02, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I know you don't think there's a distinction, but the wording in WP:SPORTCRIT, which calls out "fan sites and blogs" and "team sites and governing sports bodies", makes something like XI — which also doesn't look WP:SPS to an untrained (and some trained) eyes — that shouldn't pass look like it could. WP:NEWSBLOG doesn't serve well here, since associations with SBN or Vox can make people think that applies instead of WP:SPS.

Barring expansion of WP:SPORTCRIT, we can comprehensively and unambiguously judge many more unreliable sources through at least noticeboard consensus on non-team, non-fanwork "community blogs" and freelancer group blogs, like XI. And if XI isn't reliable, arguably neither are any publications run by semi-professional freelancers who publish each other's work and lack editorial departments that don't appear to pass RS muster, like those still hosted by SBNation and Fansided and arguably also independent ones like The Equalizer, now-dead but still-cited Excelle Sports, The IX, The Ice Garden, former SBNation blogs that've become independent such as Stumptown Footy, etc., many of which are run by and publish the same writers published by XI or SBNation group blogs with similarly few editorial resources. -63.224.250.203 (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

To be clear, part of the reason I raise this is that I had interpreted the policies and guidelines in WP:SPS and WP:SPORTCRIT as allowing works like XI because it didn't appear self-published and the writers themselves had shown reliability. I don't doubt that @JoelleJay as a more experienced Misplaced Pages editor has a better-informed interpretation of the rules, but that interpretation is not clearly reflected in the rules themselves — it requires a degree of institutional knowledge that new editors don't have. Clarifying that via a noticeboard consensus that experienced editors can point to and say "this is why" without having to relitigate each time a non-RS source is used seems like it would help more editors make better decisions and reduce friction when removing non-RS statements from BLP or raising non-notable articles for AfD. -63.224.250.203 (talk) 17:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• I've always found SB Nation to be a decent source and have cited it a few times on gridiron football articles; additionally, as I pointed out in the AfD, its cited here over ten thousand times just as SB Nation, which does not include the countless references to the sub-websites. That would indicate there's a lot of other users who believe it has sufficient reliability. BeanieFan11 (talk) 00:26, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  its cited here over ten thousand times just as SB Nation, which does not include the countless references to the sub-websites. That would indicate there's a lot of other users who believe it has sufficient reliability. You know better than to use that argument... I couldn't say how many thousands of references to Pinterest (still has 1700+ links) and Getty images (2400+) and blogspot (78000+) I've removed. JoelleJay (talk) 00:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

  Widespread citation is a reason to raise consensus about reliability, but not a reason to consider the source inherently reliable. I agree with @JoelleJay here. 63.224.250.203 (talk) 01:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

I participated in a limited way in the 2020 discussion. I think evaluating SB Nation reliability is complicated and depends on the author and the context (also the time period; Vox gutted parts of SB Nation since then). I do college football and I'm unfamiliar with All for XI. I think the usual questions apply. Is there editorial oversight? Are the authors identified? What do other sources think of this source? What is the tenor and overall quality of what the source publishes? I would also draw a distinction between citing something on SB Nation for facts and using SB Nation to establish notability. Again, that would be a contextual inquiry. Mackensen (talk) 02:12, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Having been pinged here twice, here's my two cents: SB Nation should generally be used sparingly, as a WP:SPS source. The team-specific and other lower-level sub blogs usually have lower standards of editorial review to the extent that I would not recommend citing them. Vox gutted the overall site several years ago, and many of the better writers are no longer there; at one point I thought it might get up there to the RS bar, but it's very much a different trajectory since then. Aside from a few more recognized experts like the Jon Bois or Geoff Schwartz, the opinion pieces are going to be almost always WP:UNDUE, and any news of particular import is generally going to be covered by better sources. Unless it's one of the pieces by Schwartz or someone who can be pointed to establishing WP:SPS credentials outside of that publication, there really isn't much of a need to cite it. If you're having to base notability on these publications, you should probably be asking yourself "is this really that significant if other outlets aren't reporting on this". Hog Farm _Talk 02:23, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, @Hog Farm and @Mackensen. I think another context to be considered is whether these blogs can be used at all for BLP material, since even SPS from recognized experts is not permitted there. Without positive confirmation that content from these part-time freelance contributors is consistently high-quality and is edited to consistently high journalistic standards, I don't think even articles from Jon Bois would be acceptable (and I say this as someone who has watched his Pretty Good episode on the 222–0 Georgia Tech–Cumberland game probably half a dozen times and whose 2014 Twitter output was *cringes* almost exclusively BEEFTANK retweets...). JoelleJay (talk) 02:45, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

• This looks like a group blog so WP:SPS would apply, reliability would be based on who the author is and it shouldn't be used in BLPs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 16:36, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

UnHerd

We currently have 180 uses of UnHerd per unherd.com  . I've never been a fan of the website as a source of factual information, because it seems to an opinion magazine. Recently they published a piece that accused Misplaced Pages and UN of "censoring the climate debate", which seems to be a very uncharitable interpretation of this wiki meetup. Misplaced Pages:Meetup/SDGs/Communication of environment SDGs. Like other opinion publications such as the Spectator, I think they should only be used sparingly if at all. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:36, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Yes, whilst there is some good writing in there (notably in culture and sport), much of the political material is effectively opinion pices. To be fair, opinions and essays are generally clearly marked, although one could argue that some things, like this, marked as "Analysis" is simply opinion as well. Black Kite (talk) 09:55, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
• Agreed. Seems to consist (almost?) entirely of opinion pieces of one kind or another. Who is going to be the first to claim that this is just a "they said something mean about us, so let's declare them unreliable" discussion? -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 10:14, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• This is just a headline which we wouldn't use anyway (WP:HEADLINES) and should ignore for the purposes of determining reliability. You may not like their analysis and interpretations, but it's not sufficient grounds for considering them unreliable.Alaexis_¿question? 11:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but it's reflected by the tone of the piece, for example: This amounts to a concerted effort to police Misplaced Pages’s most viewed entries related to climate change, predominantly reflecting UN-approved perspectives and information on the subject. and Misplaced Pages editing is therefore just the latest front in the UN’s ongoing online climate change narrative control war. I don't think it's entirely unusable, but it's something that probably like The Spectator deserves a yellow rating if it were listed on RSP. Hemiauchenia (talk) 11:59, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• It's a site for promoting right-wing centrist opinion, and facts are secondary. It has good writers! But it's not a site for facts. As above, it has often played fast and loose with the facts. I would say Unherd is generally unreliable and at best used with attribution and a justification for using it at all - I wouldn't consider it WP:DUE in general. I'm not sure I'd give it (or the Spectator) a yellow rating even - David Gerard (talk) 12:16, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

  +1 to this. It's hard to imagine a case where we'd need to rely on a site that claims its goal to be "Challenging the herd with new and bold thinking" for the reporting of facts. Either the facts will have been reported in mainstream sources (i.e. "the herd") or they're not notable for our purposes. Generalrelative (talk) 13:14, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Uncharitable. Hemiauchenia only refers to one item, which has a headline containing the word "censor", but that word's not in the article so WP:HEADLINE means it wouldn't be used for that as fact anyway (indeed Hemiauchenia didn't point to any article-talk-page dispute about citing it). WP:CIRCULAR would be a good objection re citing this, but there's no claim that the article is inventing facts about the group or its funding, and in any case the gist wouldn't be a revelation, for example EMsmile has very properly disclosed being a paid editor in this realm, I don't know whether any others are. See also British Government Funds Campaign to Rewrite Climate Science Entries on Misplaced Pages. It will be comic if their next article is "Misplaced Pages censors UnHerd after UnHerd headline says Misplaced Pages moves to censor", eh? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:10, 29 July 2023 (UTC).

Thanks for pinging me. I am also pinging User:ASRASR who's also in this project. I have no opinion about UnHerd being reliable or not but if anyone is interested about the "accusations" levied there against our project, this is what I wrote back to my colleague when the first blog post (by David Icke) about this was brought to my attention (about 10 days ago): "Interesting indeed. In a way, it’s a little bit like a “badge of honour” if a climate change denier/wacko picks up our work on Misplaced Pages. It shows that he feels threatened by it and has realized its potential at having an impact. Also, every now and again it’s interesting to leave one’s own bubble of like-minded people and to listen to the rubbish that the deniers spew out. David Icke calls Misplaced Pages “Wokepedia” – I guess this says it all! Interesting also that he picked out this: “For instance, Kristie L. Ebi from the University of Washington has the curious notion that rising concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are “affecting the nutritional quality of our food”*. Might not be possible for the small brain of a climate change denier to fathom the idea that more CO2 in the atmosphere could reduce the nutritional value of some crops. This is scientifically proven though. We have written about it here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/Effects_of_climate_change_on_agriculture#Reduced_nutritional_value_of_crops - It’s probably not worth wasting any breath on arguing with guys like him. EMsmile (talk) 15:34, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• UnHerd's news side is anaemic and generally unreliable, they primarily publish opinions which as always should be evaluated based on their author's notability and expertise. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:30, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
• What article is this article being used as a source for and how is it being used? I agree with Peter Gulutzan that we shouldn't ban the use of sources because they published an opinion piece critical of Misplaced Pages. Denaar (talk) 15:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think this article is used for any Misplaced Pages article yet, as far as I know. EMsmile (talk) 15:53, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but another UnHerd article is currently being used in Salvadoran gang crackdown for factual information for example. Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:05, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

For an attributed quote of Ioan Grillo. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:56, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

• Opinion columns, in my estimation. I've not been aware of this web site before being pinged regarding this RfC, but UnHerd.com appears to be in the same category as WP:FORBESCON. Their writers and columnists are given free reign to write whatever analyses or opinions that they have synthesized about a topic. The difference here is that, unlike Forbes, we cannot separate reporting from opinion by checking whether the piece was written by a staff writer or by a contributor. At UnHerd the staff writers ARE opinion writers. Is usage of UnHerd.com wide enough for it to be included at WP:RSP? Otherwise we're limited to manually reverting an edit based on one of their citations and trying to explain to the including editor why it's unreliable. Blue Riband► 16:02, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
• I've avoided citing UnHerd in the past, even when it would be convenient to do so. Looking at some of the current cites, it's slightly better than I'd remembered, but only because it's so extremely uneven. Some of it is okay, and some of it is terrible. It's mostly opinion, and could be usable for opinion content, but it's too lax about which opinions it publishes. The way it's being cited is a problem. For example, do we really need to use this source cite Douglas Murray, for both factual claims and opinion, five times in Sweden Democrats? Grayfell (talk) 00:37, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Should be treated as a personal blog post, and really does not belong on a BLP whether positive or negative, good Lord - David Gerard (talk) 09:45, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
• I came here after reading the Signpost piece about it, and digging a bit more into links, they are actively publishing work that cites climate misinfo, and framing it as evidence for their other opinions (including the attack piece on Misplaced Pages). Clicking around a bit more, it seems to have really wide ranging, and variable quality of editorial review (if there is any), and I would err in the direction of generally unreliable, Sadads (talk) 22:29, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

HowStuffWorks dips a toe into AI-generated articles

A lot of new HowStuffWorks articles now have a note at the end: "This article was created in conjunction with AI technology, then fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor." We have over 3500 article-space links to howstuffworks.com. So far Google only sees 55 articles with the AI text on them - but take caution for the future. (No, they weren't bought by Red Ventures. I'm assuming organic in-house foolishness. They fired a lot of editors recently, and seem to be seeing if they can get away with GPT glurge.) - David Gerard (talk) 21:58, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

I mean, if they're directly stating that they are fact-checked by an actual editor, I think we can treat them as we would any other source. And if the articles end up having false facts or misinformation, then that counts as a ping against the reliability of the source as a whole. And if the articles made are fine, then fine. On their own heads be it. Silverseren 22:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

There is certainly a degree to which AI writing can be considered not greatly different from use of a spell-checker or grammar-checker. BD2412 T 22:37, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

These generative models simulate research and fact-checking, but it is a very superficial simulation. If HowStuffWorks has fired a lot of editors, and is also now using programs that require significantly more editorial oversight and more stringent fact-checking, errors are going to slip past. This is a bad sign for the outlet's reliability. Grayfell (talk) 23:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)

Specifically, it's enshittification - it was done to skimp on editors. So yeah, if it's not a problem, it's being done for reasons it's likely to become one - David Gerard (talk) 09:46, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I would consider AI writing to be a lot poorer than spell-checking or grammar-checker (as bad as that is) given there are well documented cases of GPT hallucinating. AlanS 10:04, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this specific source, but in general, it gets a big step closer to self-published, as you may only have a single human involved, instead of a minimum of 2 with a normal author->editor publication. Unless it's actually AI-->"editor"-->editor which may be less unreliable. —siroχo 10:28, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

If you look at the actual front page the fact is that it looks like a terrible source in the first place, regardless if it uses AI or not. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:42, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Huh. The site's about page mentions that the website's founder has written several books. His most recent one was self-published in 2015, and was about how "robots will soon be eliminating human jobs in startling numbers." I guess he wanted to be ahead of the curve. The book is available for free on his website. It isn't good. It paints a picture of an author who, despite the best of intentions, is far to quick to leap to outlandish conclusions, and should not be trusted. Grayfell (talk) 21:49, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

We use AI a bit in my workplace in risk models and as you've already guessed, there is plenty of work for the humans to do. The bosses will always find plenty of busy work for us to do, it justifies their existence. AlanS 11:28, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd have to suggest that there are very few subjects where HowStuffWorks would be an appropriate source to cite, regardless of how the content is written. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree. HowStuffWorks has pretty basic infotainment articles. Some of these look accurate at glance, but I'm confident that there will always a better source to cite instead. Cortador (talk) 10:51, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

We've been seeing AI content on the web for yonks, often in RS. Sports and financial reports are often written by computer around a set of known facts.

Some AI models just make stuff up; it looks plausible until you go tracking down the sources. Sometimes it's good, sometimes not.

And, I have to admit, often "AI glurge" is a lot more readable than Misplaced Pages house style, such as it is.

I've been tracking this stuff for a few years now ever since contributors began submitting AI content to the publication where I have an editorial role. At first it was very thin stuff, easily-spotted and full of ridiculous errors. Much like the first machine translation apps. Babelfish would often come up with howlers.

Nowadays, not so much. AI thinking and information sources are steadily improving. Along with emotional intelligence. I invite any skeptics to ask their favourite AI model the following: Write a New Testament story about Jesus offering advice and comfort to a trans person.

The faux-Jesus, at least in bog-standard ChatGPT, comes up with a response full of grace and compassion. Far more so than most human beings, I suggest.

AI is part of the landscape now, it is improving in quality at an unbelievable rate now that widespread user feedback is part of the mix, and as many have pointed out it is cheaper than employing people. Media outlets have been cutting back on skilled workers for decades. Sub-editors are getting very thin on the ground. I doubt that the trends we are seeing will reverse.

I wouldn't rule out a source as reliable because it employs AI.

I would rule it out for the reasons we already use. Unreliable content, political or other bias, poor standards etc.

Lets face it, Misplaced Pages has been semi-automated almost from day one. The place is full of bots of all sorts. Why should we criticise other sites for things we embrace?

As for HSW as a RS, they can be considered to be a tertiary source, I think. We can bypass them and look at the sources they use in the same way that Misplaced Pages itself is not a source. --Pete (talk) 00:28, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Are sources considered unreliable until proven otherwise?

A paragraph about the 14th Dalai Lama and Lady Gaga was removed by JRDkg for a lack of "reliable sources". UNILAD has faced criticism, but Marca (newspaper), Janta Ka Reporter, and FilmiBeat do not appear unreliable. This is a question about these sources and similarly unremarkable ones in general. I have cleared up some controversies at the Janta Ka Reporter article, and you can verify my edits with the sources there. Vacosea (talk) 09:12, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

No. If a source doesn't appear on the list of perennial sources, it only means one thing: the source hasn't been discussed yet. It's possible that the source is so awful that it doesn't warrant a discussion, or possibly a stellar source which also doesn't warrant a discussion (see here). Lack of a source having explicitly found to be reliable doesn't mean it's unreliable.

That said, it is reasonable to discuss an article that relies on uncommon sources. Cortador (talk) 10:55, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I would agree with @Cortador here. I'm not familiar with the listed sources, but I would say it's okay to use them unless there are glaring issues that need to be addressed immediately, if other more reliable sources conflict (if it's a conflict between sources with both being of similar or better reliability, I would recommend phrasing coverage as "sources conflict on X, with some saying Y while others argue Z"), or if Wikipedians discuss about it. InvadingInvader (userpage, talk) 16:21, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Its a chicken and the egg situation... Remember that in theory in order to be used in the first place an editor had to assess its reliability and decide that it was in fact reliable. The issue with that is of course that everyone makes mistakes and some people are just incompetent. IMO this means that per AGF a source is to be considered reliable unless challenged, if challenged its reliability becomes undetermined until a consensus is reached. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:27, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

No, but its also does not mean they are RS. What it means is that you use them, and see who objects and why. Slatersteven (talk) 16:29, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

In this specific case, the information reverted was controversial information about a living person. BLP policies apply here; if a source's reliability is locally challenged and there's no evidence of a broader consensus, it's best to discuss the inclusion on the article's talk page. Dylnuge 16:33, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Since we're talking about whether or not a source is reliable(particular ones that've never been discussed before), I'd like to mention that I've come across editors using sites such as Moviefone or TVinsider for refs such as WP:BLP. I did some digging and those sites don't seem much different from Rotten Tomatoes. They may be okay to use for some departments, however they also have the incorrect DOBs for some actors, which like RT, makes them questionable when it comes to biographical information. We don't know exactly where they get their info from and for all we know they could just be listing down what other sites have listed. Allmovie is another site people often use for bio details, but that's actually on the list of perennial sources and there doesn't seem to be a consensus, but like the aforementioned sites, I did some digging there and I feel that's not a trustworthy site for bio info as well. I mean it has Laverne Cox's birth year as 1984 even though her true birth year(1972) was revealed about 7 years ago. Kcj5062 (talk) 18:30, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that sources are either reliable or unreliable until proven otherwise. We should assume that if an editor cites a source, they believe in good faith that it is reliable, and if an editor challenges a source as unreliable then they in good faith believe it to be unreliable. In the spirit of WP:BURDEN and WP:ONUS, if an editor removes content on the grounds that they believe the source to be unreliable, the responsibility for demonstrating reliability should lie on those who want to include the content. Personally, whenever I edit I always make a mental assessment of how reliable the sources I am using are, and how I would demonstrate their reliability if someone challenged them.

In this particular case, the text that the sources are supporting is a negative claim about a living person; the threshold for inclusion is thus fairly high. The Dalai Lama is a extremely well-known figure who has been the subject of a pretty substantial amount of literature; if the Lady Gaga controversy is an important aspect of his public image it will be discussed by unequivocally reliable sources. Compare the February 2023 child-kissing/tongue-sucking incident, which was covered by sources including The Guardian and BBC in the UK, and CBS News and CNN in the US. If you think the content should be included and the sources are reliable, the best thing to do would be to make the case for inclusion on Talk:14th Dalai Lama. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:18, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

General Comment Also, what do we do about zines that are like Publisher lead singer of band, Editor-in-Chief his daughter, editor band member 2? Graywalls (talk) 09:41, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

That would be a self-published source (WP:SPS). -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 21:24, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not talking about one person show, but one person writes, and others act as editors. Graywalls (talk) 00:37, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2023-08-01/Tips and tricks

This gives an overview of various citation tools out there, many related to source assessment. I figured many of you would get something out of this. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:08, 1 August 2023 (UTC)

theodora.com

• theodora.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Misplaced Pages: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

We have over 250 links to this site, mostly purporting to be CIA World Factbook data - that looks like a spamming campaign to me. I raised it once before, with no response - am I wrong about this? Guy (help! - typo?) 17:25, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Looks like the site is just republishing other sources. I can't see any reason why we would use this rather than e.g. the CIA World Factbook that they are copying. At best it could conceivably be a courtesy link giving access to a reliable source that is otherwise hard to access, assuming that the copyright situation checks out; at worst if the copyright situation is not above board then linking is forbidden per WP:COPYVIOEL Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:50, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Some of their pages are copyright violations. This page, for example, is partly plagiarized from this still-copyrighted book, so it cannot be linked to per WP:COPYVIOEL. In any case, this website inspires very little confidence in me and it definitely should not be used if the World Factbook or another reputable source is usable instead. Shells-shells (talk) 21:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

California Birth Index

I sometimes come across this being used as a source for WP:DOB. I was wondering wouldn't this be violating WP:BLPPRIMARY and be considered WP:OR? Kcj5062 (talk) 02:58, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents,... This shouldn't be used at all in BLPs. WP:DOB even links back to that section when talking about misuse of primary sources, so it's doubly unusable for dates of birth. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Want to Create a Misplaced Pages page with the Reliable sources

As I got to know about reliable source, so please also confirm me from this list which are notable or not.

The Hindu Indian Express News18 Hindustan TImes Jagran Josh Livemint OP India Navbhratimes MID Day Newspatrolling PKBnews Rising Kashmir Daily Daily Excelsior The Logical Indian TFI Post Newsroom Post MP Breaking News News Track Live

thanks Infinityvision02 (talk) 05:03, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

We're not doing your legwork for over a dozen sources, no. Scroll back to the top of this page and use the "Search the noticeboard archives" button to see if there has been past discussions, and WP:RSP for major ones to see if something has already been listed definitively. Zaathras (talk) 05:07, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Go to WP:RSP and click control + F, then type the names of the organizations there. Crainsaw (talk) 05:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Consider checking WP:ICTFSOURCES which may help depending on the type of article. —siroχo 05:22, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

RfC on use of bustimes.org for bus company fleet information

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Misplaced Pages proposals When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

What is the reliability of bustimes.org for citations relating to current and historic UK bus company fleet information?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Hullian111 (talk) 07:53, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

 Comment: @Hullian111: Just for future reference, make sure you present RfCs in a neutral manner without making suggestions on a decision in the nomination. I agree that WP:UGC may be an issue, though I will have to revisit this discussion before I make a decision. WMrapids (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, very true, I knew the tone felt a bit off; just remembered the last post as a spur-of-the-moment thing. Am I allowed to strike out/blank the offending articles in this post to remove the undue weight, or must it stay for the archives? Hullian111 (talk) 08:19, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

@Hullian111: Not sure, but it looks fine now. You could probably make a comment below with a link to your old diff explaining your concerns, or maybe just paste it if you'd like. Either way, your quick fix is appreciated! Thank you! WMrapids (talk) 18:12, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Option 2 or Option 4 "Information about vehicles (colours, registrations, fleet numbers, etc.) has been contributed by dozens of enthusiastic contributors, and is available from the bustimes.org API." So at least that part is unusable as WP:USERGENERATED. The rest seems to be official WP:PRIMARY information. So Option 2 if the relevant information can be extracted from the official information. Option 4 otherwise. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 08:59, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
• Option 2 Reliable for places, bus stops, timetables and bus operator codes all of which is sourced from government databases (primary as Random person noted). Unreliable for information about vehicles (colours, registrations, fleet numbers, etc.) as user generated content. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 19:48, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Rolling Stone as a source for politics

WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS says not to use Rolling Stone as a source for "politics and societally sensitive issues". User:Fred Zepelin did it anyway using nonsensical reasoning and stating that "this is a film article", when its obviously not: https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Operation_Underground_Railroad&diff=prev&oldid=1168305820 Could someone please revert? The user is known for his edit warring and i dont want to get dragged into another pointless ANI --FMSky (talk) 08:28, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, with you constantly reverting me on that article AND the Sound of Freedom article with your hounding of my edits, it's easy to get confused. In any case, if you think Operation Underground Railroad falls under politics, you're way off. In any case "There is consensus that Rolling Stone has generally reliable coverage on culture matters", on that same page. So here's the question: why are you reverting Rolling Stone as a source on an article that's clearly under that culture umbrella and not politics? Fred Zepelin (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I clearly falls under politics and societally sensitive issues. Misplaced Pages:ROLLINGSTONECULTURE says, "Rolling Stone has generally reliable coverage on culture matters (i.e., films, music, entertainment, etc.)"... Operation Underground Railroad is none of this --FMSky (talk) 20:16, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Tchaikovsky Research?

Any thoughts on https://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/ as a RS? Dying questioned my use of it in a DYK review. My take is that this appears to be a well curated research site with appropriate editorial oversight, and thus should rank as a RS. It's running MediaWiki software, but that doesn't mean it's WP:UGC, just that the site owners found the software package to be convenient to use. RoySmith (talk) 17:40, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

I don't see why we wouldn't just use the actual sources as opposed to that site. At the end of the day they're just gathering and sourcing material, so in that case we should reference those sources and not this site. They don't seem to be putting opinion, interpretation or the like to things, just bringing everything together and referencing it like Misplaced Pages would do. I.e. they're not experts or writers but more akin to archivists. And I believe in the review you link above that's also exactly Dying's point, we would just use the source. Canterbury Tail talk 19:01, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

WP:VENRS

There has been many discussions in the recent past about WP:VENRS and its content. Information about Venezuelan sources is extremely contentious and requires more than a handful of users to be involved. WP:OWN edits have plagued WP:VENRS and it has been inappropriately used as policy on Venezuela-related articles (this can be seen here and here). With that being said, I have been attempting to spark dialogue and interest into WP:VENRS so more oversight and consensus can be established by the community and to avoid future WP:OWN issues.

With this section, I am centralizing discussions regarding WP:VENRS in an attempt to achieve more insight from the WP:RS community. In the next sub-sections are some issues that have persisted.--WMrapids (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The introduction

In the introduction of WP:VENRS, I have attempted to place information provided by the International Media Support describing both Venezuelan government and opposition sources being more focused on polarization instead of accuracy. This content has been continuously reverted by the previously mentioned WP:OWN user, who has argued it is WP:UNDUE and doesn't have consensus (there hardly any consensus as there is no other participation). Not sure how equally describing both the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan opposition is WP:UNDUE, but the current introduction only criticizes the Venezuelan government, which is the version which the WP:OWN user may be attempting to protect.

Is the proposed introduction with the International Media Support content appropriate or WP:UNDUE for describing the reliability of Venezuelan sources?--WMrapids (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Description of listed sources related to opposition

In the discussion Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources#Source description dispute, it was suggested (though with limited participation) that Venezuela sources described as being "opposition" on WP:VENRS should be placed on a case-by-case basis despite the existing inclusion of reliable sources providing descriptions of Venezuelan sources. There was also the argument that if the source was described as "independent" then it could not be described as "opposition", though there was no clear answer as whether the "independent" description was meant to describe independence from the government or from bias, etc. Assuming what the description of "independent" means without provided context is WP:OR and should be avoided. However, if as source is plainly described as "opposition" or something similar, then that is pretty cut and dry.

So after reviewing the previous concerns and recognizing that consensus can change, should the description of each source be determined by case-by-case consensus?

• Yes
• No

If answering yes, we can list each source below in this section and determine the proper description through consensus.--WMrapids (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

RfC on listed sources?

A user asked if some Venezuelan sources have been previously discussed here on the WP:RSN.

Should we open an RfC on each individual source to actually determine reliability, or should the current process of a few users using the talk page to determine reliability be used?--WMrapids (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Other suggestions?

If you have any other suggestions, please provide them here. Again, WP:VENRS needs as much interaction from the WP:RS community it can get to avoid WP:OWN issues. Thank you. WMrapids (talk) 19:13, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Comments

@WMrapids: I kindly ask you to strike your WP:OWN accusations. I have already asked you several times to stop casting aspersions, I really don't want to point out to other behavior and go in a circle with this, but most importantly they won't help at all having a constructive discussion on the issue at hand, specially regarding a topic that has turned so toxic now. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:43, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

To other users, for reference, see also Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Venezuela/Reliable and unreliable sources#Source description dispute. --NoonIcarus (talk) 23:53, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

• Other projects do maintain reference lists. Projects can't maintain them at odds with the wider community, so if you have specific sources where you disagree with the projects accessment bring them here. Marking sources with political affiliation should be handled with care, unless the sources has publicly stated there support. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 09:45, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

"PLEBISCYT 1920 ROKU. WALKA O POLSKOŚĆ WARMII, MAZUR I POWIŚLA" (Plebiscite of 1920. The fight for Polishness in Warmia, Masuria and Powisl)

• Source: a Museum exhibition by the Institute of National Remembrance.
• Article: Kwidzyn (But also other various Poland related articles)
• Content: As a result of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, the district of Marienwerder was divided. The parts west of the Vistula were incorporated into the Polish Second Republic, which had just regained its independence. The parts east of the Vistula, to which the town of Marienwerder belonged, was to take part in the East Prussian plebiscite, which was organized under the control of the League of Nations. The Inter-Allied Commission with nearly 2,000 troops often favored the Germans, and its services towards Poles were often delayed and limited, while the administration remained under German control. The town was home to the Polish Warmian Plebiscite Committee and the Committee for Polish Affairs, which, however, had to operate partly secretly. On May 16, 1920, the largest Polish plebiscite demonstration in Powiśle took place in the town, and Poles had to organize defenses against attacks by German militias. These conditions combined with German electoral fraud... Afterwards, anti-Polish terror intensified.

The IPN has been extensively criticized by many scholars and people because they think it has been politicized by Poland's ruling party PiS. The controversial amendment by PiS passed in 2018, the Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, outlined some controversial terms for the Institute's activities going forward. Saying something along the lines of "Protecting the reputation of Poland" 4 times in the amendment (full text in English here). Just go to the Institute of National Remembrance#Criticism, or read this Columbia University article about them here. The academic freedom of the institution is limited, and it can be used as a tool to rally nationalism by PiS, without having much factual accuracy, neutrality. They've said some controversial stuff about the Holocaust and Poland, and anti-Semitism in Poland (We've just had a high profile Arbcom case regarding Jews in Poland during WW2). Here's an excerpt from the Columbia article "the Polish government passed the aforementioned 2018 Amendment to the Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, which amended Article 55 to outlaw any individual who “publicly and contrary to the facts attributes to the Polish Nation or to the Polish State responsibility or co-responsibility for Nazi crimes.” Such acts ostensibly constituted an attack on the “good name of the Polish nation” and would be prosecuted by means of civil law—prohibiting the prosecution of Polish citizens who burnt alive nine hundred Jews during the Jedwabne pogrom 1941 or massacred five hundred of their Jewish neighbours in Radzilów. The 2018 amendment transforms the 1998 Act on the Institute of National Remembrance from a statute that aspires to protect the truth to one that censors it, defeating its original purpose of preserving accurate accounts of history." Crainsaw (talk) 07:41, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Taking IPN issues aside, museum exhibit poster is certainly not an ideal source. There are books/papers about this subject, so using these is recommended (I assume you may find both German and Polish). I'm no expert in history of Poland, so can't say if Krzysztof Andrzej Kierski (author of the exhibit text) has any weight in their historiography, but at least he is a historian by education working at the IPN. Pavlor (talk) 08:21, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

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