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What is the guideline on using op-ed articles (in "blog" form or not) as secondary sources? As primary? Specifically, I'm wondering if it's acceptable to cite opinion pages to support facts in a Misplaced Pages article, except in restating the opinion. (which only seems acceptable in certain articles) If this is acceptable, why? --70.142.40.34 19:59, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it would be acceptable to cite an opinion editorial except to show that the author adheres to a particular position. For example, if Ann Coulter labels herself a conservative in an editorial, then citing the editorial would be perfectly acceptable to show that Ann Coulter is a conservative.

I would generally not cite them to support factual assertions about a disputed issue. The problem is, most op-eds are about huge disputes (otherwise what's the point of taking up newspaper space), so they're inherently biased. Any citation of them needs to take that bias into account. --Coolcaesar 22:55, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Op-eds by nature, are opinion, not fact. Moreover, these pieces are seldom fact-checked by their publisher. In fact many of these carry disclaimers from them, as to dissasociate themselves from any negative consequences. Of course, in an article about the author, it is acceptable to cite these. But not acceptable to be cited on articles about others. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 00:03, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

One needs to distinguish between the statements "Ann Coulter is a conservative" and "Ann Coulter says she is a conservative". Her oped is only a good source for the second statement. Grace Note 05:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Convenience Links, definition

The convenience link may be from an unreliable source, but so long as the editor (at the unreliable source) used the actual, original source, it is the reliablility of that source which matters, not the reliability of the convenience link. Misplaced Pages readers must have confidence that such links present the original information in the manner the original author intended it be published, per WP:V. I can not agree to that statement because it says, "Misplaced Pages need not supply reputable publications. Instead, Misplaced Pages editors are to insure convenience links are accurate." The problem would be this. A personal website might be 100 per cent accurate when checked by a Misplaced Pages editor, but might become zero per cent accurate the next minute. We simply can not depend on personal websites to provide convenience links of reputable quality. A website owner might or might not maintain a high standard. We would be foolish to depend on such an etheral reliability. Our editing standards are spelled out by WP:V, not by how proven or unproven a particular website is about maintaining the accuracy of reposited, secondary material on their site. Terryeo 14:41, 6 July 2006 (UTC) To put it another way, a convenience link on an unreliable source is, itself, unreliable. period. Terryeo 14:42, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, as there is no possibility of verifying that the unreliable source is citing correctly the reliable one. There cannot be "reader confidence" that such citation is accurate, in context, etc. In addition, note that citations on unreliable sources, such as personal pages, blogs, etc., are often surrounded by innaccurate information. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 14:53, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I thought this was part of #Web forum quoting a newspaper article. The commented out statement was not one statement - it was too conflicting viewpoints, commented out (made invisible to all but someone editing the page) because I did not feel a consensus had been reaced. In short, I do not agree with your viewpoint because a "convenience link" in my view, is not a source. For example, if I am citing a book, and I have the actual, hardcopy book, I would cite the book. But I might also provide an online link to some unofficial only copy (unlikely because of copyright issues), search, summary, or review the the book, or "convenience link". But I am not citing the convenience link. I am citing the book. The link is just there because some other person, who doesn't trust my source because they can't see the book, can have something to look at easily. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 15:20, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

For me (but that's only my personal opinion), it would be acceptable to include

It is expected, however, that this convenience link is available on a website that is considered a reliable source.

(that is the sentence that Armedblowfish commented out), if additionally something in the following vein was added:

If the convenience link points to a source of a less reliable stature than the original source, that can however not be invoked as a reason to remove the reference, while this could be interpreted as "removing references for POV reasons"

--Francis Schonken 16:11, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

When modifying this policy I think we should keep the following factors in mind:

1. It will be used by editors writing articles
2. It will be used by editors modifying articles to remove what the editor perceives as problem material
3. It will be used by editors who have only read the policy and not the talk page

Acknowledging that there is not yet a concensus on whether a convenience link to an unreliable source is acceptable, what is an editor to do who comes across such a convenience link? I think the options are:

1. Do nothing
2. Find a copy of the material on a more reliable on-line source, and change the link
3. Leave the quote or statement alone, but modify the reference to refer only to the paper source and remove the convenience link.

Removing the quote, or statement based on the source, is not appropriate unless the editor obtains the paper source and verifies that the quote or fact is really not present in the source. Gerry Ashton 17:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree. The burden to provide a verifiable source is on the editor adding the material, not on the one removing it (see WP:V). I would argue that a non-reliable source is unreliable for the reasons stated in the guideline. This includes all and anything that they opine, summarize, extract, transcribe, etc if there are grounds to doubt the reliability of such summary, transcription, etc. In the ArbCom case below, all what was needed is to verify the validity of the 1957 book; and if that was verified, a direct cite to the ISBN number of the book, including a short quotation as a footnote would have been sufficient for WP:V. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

But the convience link is not a source. If the offline, hard-copy citation is reliable and has been checked, then the information has been verified by a reliable source, right? So WP:V and WP:RS have been satisfied. But what harm does the convenience link do? It doesn't make the original source less reliable. And it provides something that the casual source-checker can look at to get an idea of the source they're missing, giving them a bit more confidence in it. (Also, see Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Intermediate_sources, which doesn't look like it came to a consensus either....) Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 19:31, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

≈ jossi ≈ writes that he "respectfully disagrees", but I'm not sure what exactly he disagrees with. he mentions "the ArbCom case below" but that is too spread out for me to easily understand. I would apprecate if Jossi would restate his disagreement in a more specific and self-contained way. Gerry Ashton 19:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me like the RfAr hasn't been decided anyways.... Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 19:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

If you mean the Terryeo one, yes it has - see Misplaced Pages:Requests for arbitration/Completed requests#May for a summary of the decision. The ArbComm's verdict on the sourcing issue can be regarded as having been established as a precedent. -- ChrisO 20:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I believe you misunderstand the ruling of ArbComm on the sourcing issue. Terryeo 17:40, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Right now, we are in a situation where, in practice, many editors do not seem to accept the WP:V policy, or the WP:CITE and WP:RS guidelines. Editors think that references are not needed because "Come on, we are talking about Cheesesteaks, for crying out loud, not National Defense Policy! Its FUN to have the table in..." (Talk:Cheesesteak) or "no citation is needed because this fact is not in serious dispute," or "Third floor of College Hall at Penn has an Episcopalian Chapel. On the wall states that Penn was founded and founded by the Anglican Church of England. Go there and read it" (12:35, 28 May 2006 68.80.254.34 Ivy League) or "No other college article has citations for its list of notable alumni, so you're just picking on this one because you have some kind of issue with my college," or "I'll remove the unreferenced template, as there really isn't any way to verify most of the information currently in the article." (deleted edit, 06:40, 2 July 2006, to Talk:Eon8.

Let's not get too picky about references.

I'd much rather see a dubious reference than no reference. It shows that the editor took five minutes to do some basic fact-checking rather than relying on memory. It shows that the material genuinely belongs in Misplaced Pages, rather than being an exercise in editorial ego (I am such an expert that I know stuff that has never been published).

I'd really like to see that, um, some editors of popular culture topics who give me the impression of being young and inexperienced, are encouraged to cite sources, any sources, and given positive reinforcement for doing so.

It is relatively likely that when a web source directly quotes e.g. a book that the quote is accurate. Sure, it may be selective. It may be out of context, maybe. If it does not give a page reference there may be difficulty locating it in the actual book. And I must say that between Google Books and www.a9.com the ease of finding a direct reference are getting better all the time.

Still, a "convenience link" is better than what we have on 90% of the facts in Misplaced Pages now, which is no source at all.

Just my $0.02. Dpbsmith (talk) 20:51, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

In response to Gerry Ashton, and also to the comment above by Dpbsmith, my argument is that in some cases, a convenience link that is hosted on a non-reliable source (as per WP WP:RS), should not be used. For an extreme example that may illustrate my argument, imagine an article on Jewish liturgy that is hosted on the Aryan Nations website, specifically cited to make an anti-semitic remark, or cited in the context of other anti-semitic remarks. Would that be an acceptable "convenience link" for an article in Judaism? I would not think so... A convenience link could be a convenient way to push a POV (no pun intented), as much as eliminating such a convenience link for the same reasons. Common sense and good judgement is needed in these cases. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 21:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh, sure, but I think (hope) that's a rare situation. Obviously a link should not be used if there's any reasonable grounds for an iota of a scintilla of a glimmer of a jot of an inkling of a suspicion that the quotation could possibly be biassed. The situation I'm thinking about is a link to a fairly casual website... like a personal web page of someone who's not a famous expert... that has what the user says is a quotation, but fails to mention the source. And quick searches in Project Gutenberg and Google Books don't instantly turn up anything better. And it's not a grotesquely controversial topic, and the quotation isn't "surprising" or too good to be true (e.g. Neil Armstrong's saying "Good luck, Mr. Gorsky.") Dpbsmith (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that "convenience links" are legitimate and reasonable. A link to an online copy of an article is a convenient version of a reference to a printed article which may be difficult to find. The location of the copy does not provide the reliability - the original source does. Except in cases of the linked site that are extremist or clearly untrustworthy, I think that convenience links should be allowed. -Will Beback 21:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, with the caveat that it will need to be agreed by consensus of involved editors about the reliability of that link, the context in which the source is presented, and other factors. If the source is widely available in public libraries, I would argue that we should err on the side of caution and list just a short cite, the book title, author and ISBN number, rather than link to a transcription that may be innacurate, or in an obviously partisan website. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, jossi, are you talking about

1. <Web page>, which cites <book>

• where the editor has looked at the web page, but not the book, or

2. <Book> (also see <web page>)

• where the editor has looked at the book, and is citing, the book

I am talking about the latter, in which case I do not consider the web page to be a source. But is everyone else talking about the former? If so, I agree that the web page should be held to the same standards as any other source. (However, whether to remove such references or try to find better ones to replace them with is not something I think there is current consensus on. I would go for the latter, since the existence of an unreliable source gives hope that a more reliable one might exist, along with an in-text note regarding the unreliability of the source while it was used. I recently created Template:Unreliable.) But if the former is a "convenience link" (more like a "convenient source", IMO), what is the latter?

— Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 13:00, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Earlier on this page I raised the issue of Affidavits. Several hand typed duplications of affidavits (personal sworn statements) appeared in articles. The typed HTML documents have no indication of validity and the HTML appears on personal websites. HTML hand typed copies of past newspaper articles are also appearing on the same personal websites. We can not ask a reader to have confidence in this kind of "reposited" information. Personal websites do not necessarily honor copyrights, and do not necessarily honor the creator of an affidavit, not the writer of a newspaper article. A user can have no more confidence in a "reposited" piece of information on a personal website than they have in the owner of the website. Some readers might take the website owner's word as the word of God, while others will be completely confident the website owner is incapable of rubbing two vowels together. I don't believe Misplaced Pages should drag its toes in the mud, so to speak. Let us insist on good quality information by insisting on good reputable sources of information. Better no information than possibly false information! Terryeo 17:58, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Which of the two situations I listed above do you think is a "convenience link"? Just so we can get clear about what we are discussing. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 19:38, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a "convenience link" presently used as a secondary source at Narconon. That's not a bad one, the copyright owner is credited, permission is stated. Here is another from the same article but the second one is of lesser quality. It doesn't mention copyrights, it doesn't mention anything about permission to reproduce and it is held on a personal website. Here is a third from the same article. It too is held on a personal website, it doesn't mention copyright, it doesn't mention permission to reproduce. Affidavits too are often to be found in the Scientology articles, HTML representations that are probably handtyped without any permission or notice of copyright. That's the sort of problems I'm finding with "Reposited" material which is often held on a personal website, no copyright notice, no notice of permission to reproduce the document, they are mostly hand typed HTML reproductions of something the website owner liked. Terryeo 04:32, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The main issue for me is whether the editors used the actual, original sources when editing, or whether they used the website reproductions. In Narconon, the format of the citations would suggest the former (it cites the original publishers as publishers, not the websites), but I agree that it is less than explicit. It might be more clear if, taking your second example,

Joseph Mallia "INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY; Scientology reaches into schools through Narconon" Boston Herald Mar 3, 1998 Pg. 018

was replaced with

Joseph Mallia "INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY; Scientology reaches into schools through Narconon" Boston Herald Mar 3, 1998 Pg. 018. Also see a website reproduction of this article.

One thing that makes me more confident, besides WP:AGF, that the editors used the original sources is the page numbers, which I did not see in the website reproductions.

If the other second two examples you gave were used as sources by the editors when editing, I would agree with you that they were less than reliable - at best temporary sources pending the location of the more reliable versions.

By the way, I think WP:FAC would benefit from your attention, you have a critical eye. : )

— Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 14:01, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo wrote above "That's not a bad one, the copyright owner is credited, permission is stated" while discussing the point in the Narconon article where the article claims a Scientologist was arrested, and footnotes the claim with an article from the archives of the St. Petersburg Times. I believe it is indeed a proper footnote, but the point of the footnote is to give the author and publisher; copyright and permission are irrelevant, because it is not a quotation, and further, even if it were a quotation, it would be short enough to be fair use. It is not necessary to get permission to state a fact from a publication; it is only necessary to get permission to copy a publication.

Terryo goes on to critisize two other citations to the Boston Herald from the same article, on the basis that they provide convenience links to a web site that is not itself a reputable source. In a less controversial subject area, I'd let it pass, but Scientology is sufficiently controversial that I'd prefer not to see convenience links in this article. Terryo critisizes not only for the convenience link per se, but also because "doesn't mention copyrights, it doesn't mention anything about permission to reproduce". I submit that it is not our job to be copyright police. As long as we, or Misplaced Pages, are not the ones doing the copying, we only need concern ourselves about whether the copy is accurate, not whether the copy infringes copyright.

Finally, Terryo mentions affidavits. Affidavits, in general, are not verifiable, because they are not necessarily held in a public archive where anyone can go to read them. So I agree, they should not be used as sources in Misplaced Pages unless they have been deposited in a reputable public archive.

Gerry Ashton 16:11, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

The point I attempt to make has to do with what a reader sees when he uses a convenience link. We would like the reader to have confidence about the quality of information. A direct link to the original source of information is best. I would actually prefer that and disallow all convenience links, but I'm pretty sure a concensus of editors would not agree. But WP:V spells out, there is a minimum quality of information acceptable. We want good, reliable sources of information. Sometimes, convenience links may provide the level of quality that WP:V calls for. Other times, not. In particular, hand typed HTML presentations should be suspect because how can a reader know the information is good, that it is an exact duplication of the original? Sometimes convenience links surround the original information with opinion and evaluation, original research and additional information which puts a POV on the convenience link. About Affidavits, perhaps we can exclude all affidavits unless they are photostatic copies in PDF format ? Terryeo 23:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Would you agree with me that the change in formatting I suggested would give the reader more confidence that the editor writing the article used the original, reliable source of information? Also, do you agree with the distinction I was trying to make between using the original source, but also providing a convenience link, and using the so-called "convenience link" as a source? Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 23:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Hello ArmedBlowfish. It is completely clear to me that your suggested change above which uses 'INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY' is an improvement. I think you suggest a format change for convenience links. That second example is a better format. Further, I certainly agree and couldn't do other than agree that your suggested format makes a clean distinction between the original source and the convenience link. But there is still the issue of reader confidence in the accuracy of replication. I mean it would be obvious to a pro-scientology point of view that a convenience link on a anti-scientology personal website should at least be suspected. Terryeo 00:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Granting the reader trusts us that the convience link is not a source, I think we can allow the reader to make up their own mind about how much to trust the convenience link. We could help them out a bit by saying "Also see a website reproduction of this article on a personal website", but I feel that we should focus on stressing that these links should not be used as sources (except possibly temporarily), rather than saying that we shouldn't link to them at all. While the most reliable convenience link available would be preferred, in many cases there will probably be a lack of high-quality internet material available. The convenience link is useful, as it at least gives the reader something they can look at, both to check facts and for further reading, rather than frustrating them with sources they can neither look at or look at replacements for.

Do you feel we are approaching something we can agree on? Below is a suggested change to WP:RS, please edit it if it is still unsatisfactory. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 02:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Suggested addition to Some definitions

Feel free to modify the following to bring it closer to consensus.

• A convenience link is a reproduction of an informational source and is not the original source. It is an online reproduction of the actual source, which may be offline or require a subscription. The original source being difficult to access, it may be helpful to provide a convenience link so that the reader may view the information easily. Since convenience links are generally of lower reliability than the original source, the citation should be sure to make it clear that the convenience link is not a source. For example

Mallia, Joseph (1998-03-03). "INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY; Scientology reaches into schools through Narconon". Boston Herald: pg. 018. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help) Also see a website reproduction of this article from Holysmoke.org, an anti-scientology website (retrieved on 2006-07-10).

should be used instead of

Mallia, Joseph (1998-03-03). "INSIDE THE CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY; Scientology reaches into schools through Narconon". Boston Herald: pg. 018. Retrieved 2006-07-10. {{cite journal}}: |pages= has extra text (help); Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)

If the convenience link is of particularly low quality, it may be helpful to include a unbiased note of that in the citation, such as "from a personal website", or "from a partisan website", etc. This will encourage the reader to take the convenience link with a grain of salt. Questions to ask when determining the quality of the convenience link include: does the convenince link go beyond copyright laws, does the convenience link attribute the information to the original author, is the convenience link an accurate reproduction, have signatures and dates been reproduced on the convenince webpage, are authorizations of reproductions within the original, reproduced on the convenince link so that an earlier author in the chain is recognized, is the publisher reputable, and other questions of authenticity.

Comments

If an editor puts the above example into the reliable sources guideline, the editor is asserting that the version of the story at http://www.holysmoke.org accurately reproduces the version printed in the Boston Herald. If the editor is not prepared to make that assertion, the editor should pick a different example. Gerry Ashton 02:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

The parent policy, WP:V requires, ... have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. A reproduction of a piece of information which satisfies WP:V, would satisfy WP:V if we were certain it were a reproduction. But a summary, analysis, or other material relating to an actual source would not satisfy WP:V because it would not have previously been published by a reliable and reputable source. Granted that a convenience link is not the original source. Nonetheless, WP:V's requirement can not be ignored. I believe any Summary, any analysis, any other material must itself have been published, per WP:V, in order for it to be cited by any Misplaced Pages article. In addition, I feel Misplaced Pages must necessarily hold to that standard, rather than water that standard down Terryeo 05:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

In addition, there are questions of, does the convenince link go beyond copyright laws, does the convenience link attribute the information to the original author, is the convenience link an accurate reproduction, have signatures and dates been reproduced on the convenince webpage, are authorizations of reproductions whithin the original, reproduced on the convenince link so that an earlier author in the chain is recognized and other questions of authenticity. These are the sorts of things readers look toward in order to satisfy themselves they are getting accurate information. Terryeo 05:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Gerry Ashton - I tried to reword it a bit so that we were making it clear that we were not claiming that the convenience link was of high quality, but instead being honest about its failings, and not relying on it when editing. I feel that showing an example of dealing with a low-quality convenience link is probably helpful, since it is a delicate situation that many editors will probably have to handle. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 16:08, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Let me spell out the scenario I'm concerned about. Editor A compares offline source P to web page W, and decides they match, so provides a convenience link in article B. Later, Editor C modifies guideline G, including the same sources P and W. Since this is a different place on Misplaced Pages, Editor C is making a new claim that P and W match. Before making such a claim, Editor C should obtain the paper P and personally compare it to the web page W; Editor C should not rely on Editor A's assertion that they match. Gerry Ashton 17:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

With your new proposal we'd have to remove all images retrieved from NASA (see {{PD-USGov-NASA}})... not a good idea. Generally NASA images from space used in Misplaced Pages are: (1) only web-published; (2) not-copyrighted; (3) impossible for most earthlings to check... unless you'd own a sattelite or can fly around with a shuttle of course; (4) self-published by a big state-owned organisation, nonetheless: self-published.

Further, you propose to add something to the "definition" section, and you forget to add the essential thing: a definition of what you mean by convenience link. http://images.ucomics.com/images/pdfs/sadams/godsdebris.pdf is as much (or as less) a "source" as ISBN 0740721909 - Offering the questionable opinion that a convenience link is not a "source" is not even a definition of the concept "convenience link".

For the WP:RS guideline the quintessential question regarding sources is how reliable they are. Denying the *existence* of a range of sources is simply avoiding the question of their reliability. Not helpful for the wikipedia editor that comes to this guideline hoping to find help for assessing the reliability of sources. --Francis Schonken 07:27, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

A convenience link is a reproduction and not the original source. It is an important distinction. It says a piece of information be compared to the original source, but is not itself the original source. In the situation with NASA and with many sites, they will say that is is perfectly all right to reproduce their work, but to give them credit for having originally produced it. Of course, any encyclopedia would want to attribute the original source while reproducing a portion of the original source. For us, such attribution adds reputability. We want to indicate the original source and we want to indicate reproduction of the source, it adds to our stature to do so. Terryeo 15:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with Schonken that reliability is the primary question which WP:RS confronts. This guideline, I believe, confronts all of the first half of WP:V's statement, .. have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. The phrase already been published is critical in an era where a personal website may be viewed by anyone on the planet, or indeed, even from space. A personal website can claim a webpage's content has been previously published, but present their own personal opinion in such a way that their opinion seems to be a part of the previously published piece of information. Actually determining whether the information on a webpage has been previously published is not a trivial task. And both reliable and reputable sources are equally important. Terryeo 15:05, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Could we remove the (In some cases, it may also be a summary, analysis, or other material relating to the actual source, but this is more controversial.)? We do not want unpublished information related to the actual source, presented alongside published information do we? If we did that then readers would themselves have to sort out what is good, published information from a personal website owner's opinion, analysis and so on. And that is the task us editors have been charged with ! Terryeo 16:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, if the purpose of the link is to give a reader without the actual source an idea of what they're missing, not to actually have a source to write material based on, I feel such links do serve that purpose better than nothing. And then there's book-searching tools, which are sort of like partial reproductions (full really, except you can't see the whole thing), but are controversial for other reasons. I'm sorry if this isn't a very comprehensive response, I'm sort of busy with non-Misplaced Pages things this evening. But this is an important issue that will probably be difficult to reach a consensus on, so I'll try to write you a better response later. (For now, though, being controversial, we may as well say its controversial.) — Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 18:36, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate that we want to have an open ball park in which editors can edit, without too many constraints. WP:V tells us the edges of the ball park we edit within. An information must have been previously published by a reliable and reputable source to be present in an article. Traditionally that meant books and newspapers. The internet makes publishing much faster, easier and cheaper. WP:RS should spell out clearly how WP:V applies to specific situations. A convenience link in an article can enhance an article, but if the reader won't have confidence in the link, the reader will develop a lack of confidence in Misplaced Pages. A convenince link should not include information which is outside the threshold of inclusion. A summary or an analysis or an interpretation of previously published information which is not itself published is below WP:V's threshold and can not be included on a convenince linked page. Terryeo 15:33, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

References

(sorry for 8 other "ref"'s showing up in the list below, only the -currently- No. 9 relates to the #Convenience Links, definition section --Francis Schonken 16:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC))

1. ^ Compare (N.N.) has removed references, ArbCom case "finding of fact" based on: "(N.N.) appears to be arguing that anything hosted on a "personal website" should not be cited, even if it is actually sourced from a verifiable third party. In the example given above () (N.N.) deleted an extract from a widely-published 1957 book on the grounds that it was on a "personal website". (N.N.) has not asserted that the extract is in any way misquoted, inappropriate or otherwise not worth using. WP:RS clearly targets the use of the views of website owners as quotable facts, not third-party information quoted or provided on "personal websites"."(Removal of references for POV reasons)

Well Yeah, I did that. That was some time ago and I understood my mistake when it was pointed out to me. One of the elements which caused me confusion at that time, and which still is not clearly spelled out has to do with Convenience Links, which is why I am attempting to get some clarification in the area. Writing articles about religion is really no different than any other topic if the quality of the sources of information which can be used is made plain and clear. WP:RS does not even define Convenience Link at this moment. Some clarification is needed, I believe. Pointing out my past difficulty doesn't resolve future problems, but points out the need for clarification, don't you think? Terryeo 00:22, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Bulletin boards, wikis, and posts to Usenet

The section WP:RS#Bulletin_boards.2C_wikis_and_posts_to_Usenet states that "Posts to bulletin boards and Usenet, wikis or messages left on blogs, are never acceptable as primary or secondary sources." Understanding that the rationale behind this is the inability to ascertain who posted the material, any thoughts on modifying this section to clarify that usenet group FAQs are acceptable as a primary or secondary source when discussing that particular community? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Captainktainer (talk • contribs)

That is explained already in the guideline. See:

• Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_in_articles_about_themselves; and
• Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources#Self-published_sources_as_secondary_sources.

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:50, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

So how does the alnguage not contradict itself in this case? Especially since WP:V differs in this regard? --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:58, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'd say it does contradict itself. The major problem with the "bulletin boarts, wikis and Usenet" section, and to some extents with other parts dealing with online and/or self-published content, seems to be that it attempts to treat all such content as equal — this is rather like claiming that all newspapers are equally reliable. The point the section should be making is that such content is only as reliable as its author, and that it should be treated with caution if there is any doubt about the author being who they say they are.

The point made elsewhere about pseydonymity is also misguided; a pseydonymous source can certainly be considered reliable if its authorship can be reliably attributed to the pseudonym and the pseudonymous person in question is generally regarded as a reliable authority on the subject.

On the other hand, one concern the guideline currently fails to mention is ephemerality. In this sense, different online sources vary greatly: a Usenet post in Google's archive is a fairly reliable source for the claim that the post in question was made at a given time to a given newsgroup; a personal web site, particularly one not indexed by archive.org, on the other hand is mutable, and can be easily removed or modified at any later date. Thus, whereas Usenet posts qualify as evidence of their own existence, for a web site the reliability of even that is predicated on the reliability of the author. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

There are some very limited cases where the primary source is a Usenet post. For example, in Alt.religion.scientology#Rmgroup controversy, what is the primary source for the RMGROUP article? (I would suggest changing GoogleGroups links to use the Usenet MsgID rather than Google's internal code. This makes it easier to double-check against other Usenet archives.) And I remember when cross-posts appeared in comp.os.coherent from this Linus guy about his new OS project... Like it or not, a lot of computing history (heh) has happened on Usenet, and WP:RS should be able to handle that without editors invoking the "only a guideline" bypass. AndroidCat 03:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Present content of the section:

Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, are not acceptable as primary or secondary sources. This is in part because we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them, and in part because there is no editorial oversight or third-party fact-checking. In addition, in the case of wikis, the content of an article could change at any moment. For exceptions, see the section on self-published sources.

Some comments:

• "we have no way of knowing who has written or posted them" - Not always so. Also, I'm personally offended by this: there's no secret who I am, and that is clear from my user page, and can be checked.
• "no editorial oversight" - Also, not always so. For instance, several blogs are under the "editorial oversight" of the initiator. That doesn't make such blog less self-published (in the normal meaning of that word), but it is not correct to say that all bulletin boards, blogs and wikis are lacking editorial oversight.
• "no third-party fact-checking" - This distinction can also be deceptive: for instance, how many "reputable" newspapers do third-party fact-checking? Often newspapers will publish a "scoop" not revealing their sources (which would usually make independent third-party fact-checking quite impossible).
• "in the case of wikis, content of an article could change at any moment" - For instance, many wikis have a "fixed link" possibility. If, for instance, an article on English Misplaced Pages is started as a translation of an article on French or German Misplaced Pages, it is better to mention that source, than to mention no source at all. I mean: maybe those other-language wikipedias are not the most reliable sources, certainly if they don't mention any external sources, but if WP:RS is written in a way that Wikipedians would be encouraged not to translate articles from other Wikipedias, and if they do, not to mention their sources, then WP:RS is definitely missing the mark.

In short, I think that characteristics like "author identity", "editorial oversight", "third-party fact-checking" and "stability of the source data" are good criteria when trying to distinguish more reliable from less reliable sources. But I object to a black-and-white picture that supposes that some sources (bulletin boards, blogs and wikis) always lack these characteristics completely, while other sources (like reputable newspapers) are described as never failing these criteria in any respect. It would be detrimental to Misplaced Pages's quality if in WP:RS we can't give the picture a bit more nuance than that, I think. --Francis Schonken 08:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I have reworded the section slightly to reflect a little more flexible view of the sources. They should not be used in most situations, but when illustrating, say, a Usenet phenomenon, it is ludicrous to say that Usenet cannot be used as a source. (ESkog) 13:45, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

If an author has such repute on a newsgroup, blog, or personal website that his written word is viewed by many as having substance and repute, then WP:V would apply. The author would be quoted in newspapers and other publications and his word would satisfy, in those instances, WP:V. When a widely known (on a newsgroup or blog or personal website) author is not published by reputable and reliable sources, then his words do not satisfy WP:V and we can not use them in Misplaced Pages articles. When such an author is not published by reliable and reputable sources, his words fall into Misplaced Pages's, What Misplaced Pages is not. Terryeo 13:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that we wouldn't pull a blog posting about some other subject and call it credible commentary. However, if we had an article about a phenomenon on some blogging site, it would probably be appropriate to cite that phenomenon directly as a primary source. X, even if X is totally without credibility, can be used as evidence that X exists. (ESkog) 14:16, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Not according to WP:V, no. An information must be previously published by a reliable and reputable source or it can not be included. That is a relatively simple threshold to meet. Relatively simple. The reason it exists is because Misplaced Pages is not intended to become a repository of wild theories, unpublished and sort of published personal opinions. A NPOV can not be obtained when every crackpot personal opinion and every bulletin board notice can be included to justify an entry in Misplaced Pages. Terryeo 18:43, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the point ESkog was trying to make did NOT concern theories or opinions but the sheer existence of something in a specific context. That's something substantially different than opinions. The "relatively simple threshold" in fact is far more complicated than you make it. As an example, take jargon. Most 'reliable and reputable sources' will try to avoid jargon. If you want to show that a certain term is indeed used jargon, you'd need specific publications actually focussing on the jargon of a specific context -which are few and far between. The use of the term in a pertinent blog, however, far from reflecting "crackpot theories" establishes the use as jargon. --OliverH 10:26, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Correct. If WP:V's current wording really does imply that we can't say "X exists, because here it is", then we need to rework WP:V. (ESkog) 12:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to object to your change. While we can use a usenet source to say people talked about usenet phenom X during this time, we cannot use the content of those Usenet posts to source certain facts surrounding the incident. When random Usenet individual Y claims to have found x document on z website and here is a copy and paste of the alleged text you cannot use what he wrote as a source. In that context you're using this individual to support a fact unrelated to what occured on usenet and as such he fails a whole host of verifiability issues.--Crossmr 16:17, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

If usenet, blog postings, etc are going to be usable as a source, there have to be extreme limitations on what they can be used for and how they can be used. It would be way to easy for someone to go out and fire themselves up a few sources for whatever content they wanted to include. There may also need to be rough guidelines on how much of this sourcing you can use in an article as well. If for example your article has over 50% of its content sourced from usenet, blogs, forums, etc then you might want to rethink whats being written in the article.--Crossmr 16:24, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me you are a bit confused over what we were talking about. It is not an issue about people talking about a usenet phenomenon, but about a direct manifestation of it. You're referring to it in a secondary-source style while we're talking primary data. I'll give you an analogous example: Replace "Usenet" with "Central park". Suppose there's black swans in Central park. Now, if you want to mention that in an article and reference it, there's two ways you could go about it: You could reference people telling you they have seen black swans in Central Park. That seems to me what you are talking about. It's perfectly ok to say this is unreliable, since it is hearsay. However, there's another way: Go to Central Park, look for a black swan and make a photo. Wham. We're not talking about "XYZ said in a blog that YZX". We're talking about "People like XYZ are using the term YZX, and you can see that here." It cannot be said to be unreliable, because the single incident already establishes proof. If anything can be brought up against it, then that it's close to original research. However, for something establishing proof in as clear a fashion, I don't think that endless literature searches in the hopes of finding a very unlikely incident of the matter (see above for my jargon explanation) is really necessary in any case. We don't reference the fact that water is wet and fire is hot either. --OliverH 16:49, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

And while that photo would allow you to say "There are black swans in Central Park" You couldn't go on to theorize about how the black swans got there, or what some people said about the blackswans, or how the black swans made people feel without credible sources for those opinions and theories. While a usenet phenomenon can be established by looking at posts, any theories or opinions you express on behalf of those posts needs to come from a credible source, otherwise you're creating original research based on other people's self-published words. Someone else may interpret those another way. This is what I mean about limiting the scope of of what these sources can be used for. Going back to speaking about the existence of something, given how popular criticism sections are in a lot of articles on wikipedia, saying they can be used to speak to the existence of them gives any crank a license to go out, create a few pointless blogs, include the content he wants to put in the article and say "Hey look some people do say that". I would also argue that neither black swans in central park nor a usenet phenomenon that requires you analyze posts are not likely notable and encyclopedic.--Crossmr 17:11, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't know if this comment connects to Olivers and Eskogs last remarks (I think it does), but I wanted to say that in my opinion both WP:V and WP:RS have moved to a sort of limbo not really giving the helpful tools they could easily give for the assessment of the reliability of the sources on which Misplaced Pages should depend. When coming here looking for help on how to assess the reliability of sources, one is immersed in an elaborate discussion of often ill-defined complex concepts, that in the end appear not to be helpful at all, while ultimately narrowed down to an inability to cope with on-line sources, and a relative over-estimation of printed sources: no, not all "facts" presented in sources published by reputable publishers have been checked by third parties, nor would it be necessary or reasonable to expect or assume that.

So, what to do next? I don't know... maybe support Kim Bruning who is currently pointing out that the current "freezing" of the content of WP:V is in contradiction with Misplaced Pages:No binding decisions (...official policy), see Misplaced Pages talk:Verifiability#No binding decisions --Francis Schonken 13:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Nothing has been "frozen." The page was protected against your disruptive editing. SlimVirgin 14:40, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Just to check. Where would the world famous Tannenbaum-Torvalds debate fall? (including any and all consequences of that dabate?) ;-) Kim Bruning 11:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Since you can verifiy their identity, and they are a professional and he's commenting on something relating to him or his profession he's credible (see my comment below in blogs as sources). --Crossmr 15:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Template

Dr Zak, you restored the link to the odd template, which says "please verify the credibility of this source." What would that involve exactly? SlimVirgin 20:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Misread and misparsed the template text of {{unreliable}} as "a reliable source" (sort of a synonym for {{fact}}) and reverted myself. Thanks for pointing that out. "Verifying the credibility of a source" involves checking if any statement conforms to the scientific consensus like you find in a recent, authoritative review or monograph. (We need those words somewhere in the guideline.) Dr Zak 20:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

That said, {{Verify credibility}} looks still useful to mark a dubious source in the "References" section Dr Zak 21:01, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Template:Verify credibility

SlimVirgin - {{Verify credibility}} is a template you can use to mark a specific source as being of questionable reliability, in the hope that another editor will check its reliability, and if necessary, replace it with a better source or remove the information. Thus it made sense to put it in the "See also" section of WP:RS. But whatever. Armedblowfish (talk|mail|contribs) 21:06, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, ABF. In that case, it might be better called "check credibility" or better still "check reliability." SlimVirgin 02:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Is http://wikimediafoundation.org/ a RS?

Just a quick check, is http://wikimediafoundation.org/ a reliable source for information concerning members of the board? -- Kim van der Linde 16:52, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for disregarding professional researcher websites

The first reason previously given is simply ridiculous. Everything a researcher collects and publishes is going to be *new* otherwise they wouldn't publish it. So this reason effectively eliminates the entire category from consideration. There are many people who are professional and publish websites as their main vehicle for publication. That is the brave, new world. I'm sure that disregarding all such sites is not the intention of this section. It should be toned-down, not made so egregious. Wjhonson 22:12, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

What was the "first reason"? SlimVirgin 22:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It used to say something like let me paraphrase "it it was newsworthy it would have beeen reported somewhere else already." Which is silly. If the researcher themselves is reporting it on their own web site, why would it also need to be published in the Skykomish Bugle in order to be cited? All newspapers do, is repeat the story already writen :) Wjhonson 23:08, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It advises people to exercise caution about using material on a researcher's blog that absolutely no one else has any interest in publishing. It doesn't say not to use it, but simply advises editors to stop and think, because the information may not be notable enough for other publications, and therefore might not be for us either. SlimVirgin 23:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

You've added to the wording. It does not say "that absolutely no one else has any interest in publishing." It simply insinuates that the editor has to look elsewhere then the source which is the reported in the first place. And it does say, that it must be published in a third-party source. That's the part I removed. That restriction in the case of a reporter or professional researcher known in their field of expertise, is just plain silly. Wjhonson 23:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Where does it say that it must be published in a third-party source? Can you quote the sentence (in context)? SlimVirgin 23:40, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I removed another part, which was senseless :) Let's say Ted Koppel on his www.tedkoppel.com web site says, "The City of San Diego yesterday passed a resolution outlawing smoking, one of the members told me privately they were against it, but felt afraid to vote their mind". And he happens to live in San Diego, was at the meeting and interviewed the person. You're going to tell me, that that has to be published in the San Diego Star or wherever to be a credible source? Pardon me, but that's a dumb restriction. Editors should take precautions when using information from the sites of professional researchers. More than that is too strict. Wjhonson 22:53, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't say it has to be published elsewhere first. In the case of a well-known journalist, it says exactly the opposite. SlimVirgin 22:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Actual

Francis, I linked "actual" to Epistemology, because Epistemology is the study of actuality and how we know about it. Unfortunately, the word "actuality" links to Modal logic, which also studies actuality, but not quite in the same sense. SlimVirgin 08:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with SlimVirgin. Epistemology is not that hard. It's taught in college philosophy classes across the United States. --Coolcaesar 16:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)\

I tried to add it back, but Francis has removed it again as part of his all-out revert war here and at WP:V. Utterly bizarre. SlimVirgin 07:15, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

we are in the encyclopedia business, not philosophy. If the consensus of experts say X, Wiki says X. Rjensen 07:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

No, we were just discussing wikilinking "actual" to "Epistemology," which is the study of knowledge and how we know what's real/actual. Just a link. Even that is not allowed. :-) SlimVirgin 08:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

"Epistemology" is a field of philosophy. I understand Rjensen's remark as that this linking of "actual" to a philosophy-related article is not useful.

Further, as I pointed out several times: the Epistemology article does in no way clarify the term "actual", the term "actual" is nor defined, nor explained on the "Epistemology" page, so the ] piped link is deceptive while clicking the link does not lead to an article where the reader is helped to understand the term (s)he is clicking. --Francis Schonken 09:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Francis Schonken, I feel it worth pointing out to you, that if a person reads through this page, in nearly every instance of your posting, there is some difficulty. I'm not saying your posting is contankerous, but that generally, editors are working toward a concensus, toward an agreement, toward an alignment of editing effort. This is brought about by discussing issues, by the clearest possible communication and this is not always easy. Don't take what I say as a criticsm, please. Take it more as an attestation that many editors are working toward a common goal. Terryeo 03:55, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

So, apart from Terryeo's personal attack (for which he should in fact get blocked since he is under "permanent personal attack parole", I've notified him about that several days ago, and for me his "No" answer is not sufficient), everyone seems OK with my argument not to mix in philosophy in the "actual" piped link. Or did I miss something? --Francis Schonken 19:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Further, the sentence:

To say of a ] or ] that it is ] is to say that it refers to a fact.

is as far as I'm concerned redundant (not defining "fact", but drawing in an unrelated linguistics issue) and confusing (while seemingly contradictory with WP:V's "verifiability, not truth"). Does anyone have a problem I remove this sentence from the "fact" definition? --Francis Schonken 08:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Please leave it alone. It's simply a definition of a fact. It is only the word "sentence" that is linked to linguistics. SlimVirgin 08:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

• "Please leave it alone.", can't you leave it alone then? For what reason?
• "It's simply a definition of a fact.", no it isn't, please give at least some argumentation, if you think my analysis above is incorrect.
• "It is only the word "sentence" that is linked to linguistics." - And? Is that meant to be an argumentation? I'd rather say an irrelevant innuendo. --Francis Schonken 09:28, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Francis, please don't take this the wrong way, but we link other articles mostly to give readers a fun way to navigate around the encyclopaedia (because it's a hypertext), not as a means of creating some sort of definitional structure. You can argue whether there's much benefit to linking these words, but arguing about whether the links are appropriate in a definitional sense is usually a waste of time and effort. Also, I think the reason Slim couldn't respond to your "analysis" was that it was not sufficiently coherent. Would you mind restating it in simple terms and we can have a go at it? Grace Note 05:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• ] is a deceptive piped link. "Epistemology" and "actual" are not synonyms. It would be OK if the Epistemology article explained, clarified or defined the term "actual". No such clarifications of the word actual can be found in the Epistemology article.
• Could you explain the sentence "To say of a ] or ] that it is ] is to say that it refers to a fact." to me? I mean, in simple terms? --Francis Schonken 08:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Alternatives to "A ''']''' is an ] state of affairs.":

• A ''']''' is an ] state of affairs.
  • The Ontology article has:

    Ontology has one basic question: "What actually exists?"

    If someone wants to give a philosophical elaboration of "actual" (which I still think not needed here), the Ontology article seems, to me, more appropriate than the Epistemology article.
• A ''']''' is an ] state of affairs.
  • Why does "actual" need a philosophical clarification? A plain dictionary definition like wiktionary:actual, if any clarification is needed, seems more than enough to me.
• A ''']''' is an actual state of affairs.
  • "Actual" without any piped link works well enough for me. After all "fact" is already linked, non-piped – so what you see is what you get – isn't that more than enough? Note that the "fact" article more or less gives an overview of philosophical, scientific and other approaches to the fact concept. If we want to narrow that down for the purposes of the WP:RS guideline (do we?) that should at least not be done by a piped link.

--Francis Schonken 11:59, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyone having a problem that I proceed with the last of these proposed solutions? --Francis Schonken 07:22, 16 July 2006 (UTC)\

Yes, I object. It's fine as it is, as several people have tried to explain to you. SlimVirgin 13:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

An encyclopedia is a collection of knowledge, not a collection of "things that exist". Epistemology asks the question "When can we say we know something?", it is also the basis of the modern philosophies of science. While wictionary may tell you that a "fact" is an actual state of affairs epistemology will tell you that's quite some distance from your description or even perception of that fact. So I'd handle ontology with care here, epistemology is the far more pertinent discipline. Finally, I'm afraid that the quality of the article "fact" to me seems quite bad since the difference between the actual state of affairs and the observation of it is mangled pretty badly. --OliverH 09:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Ontology has nothing to do with the subject matter here. Epistemology does. SlimVirgin 13:03, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

indirect referencing of blogs

Something like this occurs in a WP article: According to the column "Blog Corner" in QQQ Magazine, blogger X said "Bush is ...." and blogger Y said "Bush is ..." . Does this violate WP:RS even though QQQ is a reliable (if partisan) magazine? Precis 06:13, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

IMHO... Quoting a reliable published (printed?) magazine is well within the standards of RS... but the Misplaced Pages article should use an exact quote from the magazine, and give a proper citation with issue, date, and page so readers can fact check. Blueboar 22:30, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I followed your advice, quoting a blog at The Israel Lobby at time 23:13 14 July, 2006 Precis 00:27, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually this is not true. Normal citation practice is to quote *your* source, not *their* source, so the citation to the blog is the accurate cite, also citing the underlying source, if in fact that is where the editor got their own information from. Wjhonson 23:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't agree. Precis 08:32, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

What I was talking about is quoting "your" source and not "their" source... in this case you are quoting QQQ Magazine. I would include it in the article as follows:

• According to the column "Blog Corner" in QQQ Magazine "Bloger X said 'Bush is correct' and Bloger Y said 'Bush is wrong'" <citation to issue, date and page of QQQ Magazine where this statement can be found>

Note that what is being quoted and cited in the article is QQQ Magazine and not the Blogs themselves. QQQ Magazine is (I assume) a reliable source that does their research, checks their facts, and has editorial oversite. Readers can obtain a copy of this magazine and verify that the magazine's statement actually exists. Blueboar 12:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I see nothing wrong with the July 14 passage as it stands, since the phrase in quotes was reproduced in Harper's Magazine:

• As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, writes in his blog that Mearsheimer and Walt seem "intent on blaming all the ills in U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli lobby." <reference> Ken Silverstein, A Statue to Reason, Harper's Magazine, July 13, 2006 <end reference> A Statue to Reason

Precis 14:09, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually... this does not fit the example of your original question. "A Statute to Reason" is from a blog (yes, it is a blog hosted by Harper's Magazine, but it is still a blog - written by their Washington Editor Ken Silverstein). As such it is not allowable under WP:RS.

Now, if this blog article were to be re-published in the print version of Harper's, then it would be OK. I would write it as follows:

• According to Ken Silverstein, Washington Editor of Harper's Magazine, AbuKhalil's analysis of Mearsheimer and Walt's paper... "pointed out some of the contradictions in the paper — most notably that the authors seemed 'intent on blaming all the ills in U.S. foreign policy on the Israeli lobby.'" <Referrence> Silverstein, Ken - A Statute to Reason; Harpers Magazine, July 2006 issue, Page 58.<end reference>

This makes it clear that you are quoting Silverstein and not AbuKhalil, and puts the AbuKhalil sub-quote in context. As you have it, you are quoting AbuKhalil but citing Silverstein. A double no-no. Blueboar 16:48, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

It is an incorrect, overly-exacting manner to say that all typing in a blog fails RS. The RS rules are to prevent *original text* posted to a blog. If I quote Matthew 3:12 in a blog, a person can certainly cite my blog entry as the basis for that text. While it is true, that there may be better ways of determining what the text of Matthew 3:12 is, that doesn't necessarily, by default, preclude citing my blog entry. If a person wants to go get a copy of Harper's and check the quote themselves, they can then cite Harper's. If they get their quote on what Harper's states *in their print edition* (which is the point), FROM a blog entry, then that blog entry must be cited as the source, with the additional statement that the underlying source was Harper's. That is standard citation practice. Wjhonson 18:25, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but no... If you quote Matthew 3:12 in your blog that is not sufficient to cite your blog as as a source for the Gospels, as there are many other reliable sources about Matthew 3:12. Your blog is not a reliable source for anything beyond the blog itself, unless your blog is widely considered and cited as a reliable source for a specific subject and you are a notable expert in that subject's field. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 18:44, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry but yet. If the editors source for a quote is a blog then that blog must be cited. That's standard citation practice. Wjhonson 19:23, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Blogs are not reliables sources and should not be used as secondary sources. See WP:RS. The exception is when the article is about that blog (if that blog warrants an article in WP). ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:54, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Blueboar's analysis is problematic on several counts. First BB suggests that if Silverstein's blog in Harper's were republished in the PRINT version of Harper's, it would be OK. But I see no evidence that the print version of Harper's is subject to any more editorial scrutiny than the online version. Hence I question BB's assertion that Silverstein's blog in Harper's is not allowable under WP:RS. Next BB says "As you have it, you are quoting AbuKhalil but citing Silverstein. A double no-no." To be more precise, I am citing S and quoting S's quotation of A. That point is obvious to the reader who checks Harper's. BB is suggesting that it be made obvious for readers who do not check Harper's as well, and I take no issue with that. Precis 22:12, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Personal webpages and blogs are not acceptable as secondary sources, unless the owner of the blog is a widely recognized expert in the field. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 22:56, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Jossi hits the nail on the head... current wiki policy is that NO blog may be used as a secondary source. Thus the need for Silverstein's column to appear in the PRINT version of Harpers (which, by my reading of the guidelines, would be considered reliable). If it is not re-printed in the print version, then the quote and citation must be removed.

Now, I understand that the whole point using the Silverstein citation is to include the indirect quotation of AbuKalil's comment. Since we can not know if Silverstein quotes Abukalil correctly... (we can assume it, but we do not know for sure)... we MUST make it explicit that we are quoting Silverstein and not AbuKalil directly. I feel this needs to be stated explicitly in the Article. This should be true when citing any indirect quotation. Blueboar 00:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

An overly legalistic interpretation. The letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two seperate things. No page is set in stone, they represent what we as editors do, they do not dictate what we must do. The blog quotes a reliable source. The only rationale for not using that quote and citing the blog as source and the magazine as underlying source, would not be that wiki policy prohibits every citing a blog (which is a legalistic interpretation of the prohibition), but rather that you cannot be certain the blog entry correctly quotes the reliable source. Wjhonson 01:16, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Jossi's remark I view as irrelevant, since an editor's blog on Harper's is not the same as a personal webpage or a personal blog. Established magazines are unlikely to risk their reputations by being lax on editorial oversight (either on printed or online versions). BB's claim that a printed Harper's blog is an acceptable source, whereas an online Harper's blog is not, seems arbitrary indeed. I see no evidence of that being current WP doctrine. I take no issue with BB's claim that we must make it explicit that S is quoting a quotation of A. Precis 02:14, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

My comment above was a general comment and not one specific to Harper. The question to be asked is this case is: Is this blog a personal blog of a Harper's editor, or not? It contains op-ed pieces, or it reflects Harper's publication as a whole. As in most of these issues, context is everything. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The Harper's blog is a compendium of political interviews, political analysis, and breaking political news stories put together by editor Ken Silverstein. How can one judge whether or not this "reflects Harper's publication as a whole"? There is a more practical question: Who has the burden of proof in showing that Harper's blog meets the standards of Harper's as a whole? In my opinion, a WP editor is entitled to assume that Harper's blog is reliable, and an antagonist has the burden of proof of showing unreliability. My reasoning is that it is unlikely that an established magazine would jeopardize its reputation by lowering its standards for selected content published by its staff (either in print or online). Precis 05:49, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Blogs as sources

There has been considerable discussion about blogs as sources. The guideline currently states "At the other end of the reliability scale lie personal websites, blogs, bulletin boards, and Usenet posts, which are typically not acceptable as sources." (emphasis added). I simply want to point out that blog is a relatively new term, and in this guideline seems to refer to a website where the blog author adds comments frome time to time with no editorial oversight or fact-checking. If we were to come across some website that called itself a blog, but actually had editorial supervision and fact-checking, it would not be a blog for purposes of this guideline, and could be used as a source. Gerry Ashton 01:23, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

SOME blogs should absolutely be allowed. The question is where do we draw the line. I tihnk a strict reading that disallows, say, a blog at The Washington Post or National Review Online is too strict, but we certainly don't want the latest conspiracy blog or some blog-like reporting from TruthOut to become the norm either. Some of the best sports and music journalism, for example, comes from blogs on the web. We're doing a disservice to our own abilities to write good articles by not allowing some sourcing from blogs. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Some of the best does, and so does pretty much all the bad. The problem is in leaving it up to interpretation you're again giving license for a person or group of people with an agenda to try and push content on wikipedia. I think you have to draw the line at something well defined that isn't really open to interpretation, it mentions somewhere that usable self-published sources should only be someone who is a professional researcher/journalist who's been published credibly. Thats not an unreasonable line to draw. It could be expanded a bit to include credible professionals and recognized subject matter experts, but I think there should be some notability to their usage. For example CEO of a notable company blogs and you can verify it as his blog, it can be used in the context that he's speaking about his company or the industry that its part of. the CEO of a thumb tack company who blogs probably shouldn't be cited for his views on the theory of relativity. A similar rule should extent to subject matter experts. If they're considered a SME on political science. Don't cite their blog for things relating to a local cheese festival.--Crossmr 01:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Notability should not be a criteria in this case. We don't go by the notability of a publication when using it for sourcing, and the notability of a blog associated with a publication certainly shouldn't matter. Credibility is the key, mostly, and while we can almost certainly trust blogs attached to reputable publications (at least as much as we can trust the reputable publication), it's once we move past there that it gets hairy. --badlydrawnjeff talk 01:53, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is why we need to attach something to the blogger to establish usage. Establishing them as some kind of credible professional or SME should be necessary for usage. I think one big criteria is establish identity. If you can't reasonable say blogger X is person Y, it should automatically be out, I think it has to go a bit beyond their assertion if they've ever made it as well. And notability does play into credibility. If they're not attached to a credible institution of some sort and they're not notable, exactly why are we citing them? --Crossmr 02:02, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

So long as the site had that yes. For example if a media site allowed their journalists to post blogs you could see that as no different from a column in their newspaper/magazine if they posted the content the same way. The emphasis would be on the person who wanted the content included to prove that the site indeed does that if its not obvious or well known. Perhaps we should expand a blog section to spell out their usage to show the difference between citing something from a well known credible person writing in a blog style and joe blow annonymous blogger. --Crossmr 01:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

One solution to the blog issue might be to equate them with printed "Op-Ed" pieces such as are found in newspapers. How do we treat Op-Ed columns? (My understanding is that they can be considered reliable sources if we are discussing what the columnist said - ie if they are used as a primary source on the views of the columnist - but they should not considered reliable as secondary sources on what other people say). Perhaps we need a section in the guidelines dealing with "opinion pieces"... listing Editorials, Op-Ed columns, and Blogs - and spelling out how to cite them. In other words, break Blogs away from "Personal Websites" entirely.

Which works. We can't take a usenet, forum, blog posting and label it as an opinion relating to "some" or "many". But again I'd have to say 95% of the time random usenet/blog/forum posting is going to come from some unknown and why is their opinion encyclopedic? Also how do we handle "facts" taken from those sources. The article that got me involved in this debate Lumber Cartel is about 95% based on usenet posts and not just used to express what one person said, they're used to present facts, make accusations, etc. That's a different ball of wax entirely.--Crossmr 15:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree... perhaps we need to make a distiction between a journalist's blog, hosted by otherwise reputable sources (ex: on-line newpapers and magazines) and personal blogs, forums and usenet postings. The first is, in essence, an on-line Op-Ed column and should be considered reliable for citing the opinion of the columnist. The others are unreliable. Blueboar 16:09, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the distinction is covered adequately there, especially given that this is policy WP:V#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29. I think the definition could be expanded to include any relevant professional (not just researchers and journalists). I think we could agree that outside of blogs that are tied credibly to one of these professionals, none of these other things should be used as sources on wikipedia.--Crossmr 16:18, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's the least bit controversial to expand to relevant professionals, but I wouldn't say that other types of blogs are something I'd agree should not be used. The only problem I see with using them is separating the useful and credible with the ones that are not, and it's the only thing that's prevented me from pushing harder on it. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

And how exactly are you going to do that? In order for an opinion to to be encyclopedic, I think its got to come from someone who's notable either in general or in relation to the subject. Otherwise you might as well have Joe Blow fire off whatever opinion you want to include, and honestly it almost borders on original research if you're digging up information or a non-professional blog to figure out if this person knows what they're talking about.--Crossmr 16:29, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

If I knew, I'd be doing it, heh. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats the crux of it. I don't think there is anyway to do that. If we make ambiguous statements about blogs we can include it leaves it up to the editors opinion on whether or not he thinks that blog entry has merit. Doing that just leaves the door open to all sorts of garbage finding its way onto wikipedia. I think the standards have to be laid out in such a way that they're very unambiguous so that any objective person could come along and draw the same conclusion about a blog's inclusion that anyone else could draw. Leaving it open to random interpretation is what leads to edit wars.--Crossmr 16:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Regardless, let's stay on topic for now. I'm not advocating it currently, and won't be anytime soon. Certainly, we agree on allowing for blogs are reliable sources if associated with a credible organization or publication, so let's focus on that for now. Have we seen any opposition to that as of yet? --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, I don't think we have. Some criteria along these lines for inclusion might be:

• The individual is an verifiable employee of the company that is the subject of the blog.
• The individual is a verifiable employee in a management position of the company or the industry that the company belongs to that is the subject of the blog.
• The individual is a verifiable top level manager in a company and the blog content relates to the company, the industry its a part of, or a related industry.

Obviously that needs lots of tweaking, but I think we should establish general guideliness for who's opinion has weight in regards to what topic. For example the Microsofts janitor's opinion probably doesn't mean much in regards to McAfee's latest decision with their software. On the other hand, Bill Gate's opinion on the subject would be much more relevant. You could probably take that same janitor's opinion though on a controversial new policy the company implemented that gained press--Crossmr 16:55, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I just want to say that you two, while I was sleeping have carried on a fantasticly useful discussion of the issue so far. To your list above, we should add journalist blogs of reliable sources, and the blogs of professional researchers in their field of expertise. In some fashion, I'm not sure how we draw the line, but I think this is a great start. Should not we create a new guideline page and ask people to contribute there? Then it can be linked page to this discussion and probably the main page (provided no strong opposition). I think it would be a great addition. Wjhonson 19:36, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good idea, to this end I've created Misplaced Pages:Guidelines_for_Blog_Citation and started it. Everyone is of course free to add to it. I'm going to try and include the major points that we discussed here and hopefully we can build from all this. --Crossmr 20:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is a test case. I believe the following blog could be considered an acceptable source. Comment is Free Precis 22:01, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

In what context? Thats park of what we're exploring here. While a blog may be acceptable as citation in one case, it may not in the other because of relevance, etc.--Crossmr 22:07, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Besides the context question, the Comment is free site contains both text by reputable journalists, which in some cases could be cited, and also by anyone who cares to append a comment, which is not suitable for citation. Gerry Ashton 22:12, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with both comments. That's why I used the word "could". Precis 00:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

An unclear sentence

This sentence in the second paragraph of the article is kind of hard to understand:

"It is the responsibility of the person seeking for content to be included to provide references."

Could someone fix it, or delete it? I'd do it myself, but I'm not really sure what the sentence is trying to say. -- Zeno Izen 01:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

It means that the burden to provide references is on the editor adding material to an article. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

WP:RS-related RfC

Talk:List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people - Is one book which asserts a historian's own personal interpretation of historical documents a sufficient source to list someone as LGBT, when no other source is known to share that view? Bearcat 19:31, 18 July 2006 (UTC) (copied here by Francis Schonken)

What is the scientific consensus about so-and-so being gay? Is the perception that that person was gay sufficiently popular that saying he was wouldn't give undue weight to a minority opinion? Dr Zak 21:14, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that "no other source known" is your opinion. Based on nothing. That is WP:OR. Now if you can cite a source which states that then fine. Wjhonson 22:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Unsourced edits

I think this is good:

It is always appropriate to ask other editors to produce their sources. The burden of evidence lies with the editor who has made the edit in question, and any unsourced material may be removed by any editor. However, some editors may object if you remove material without giving people a chance to find a source, particularly when the material is not obviously wrong, absurd, or harmful. Instead of removing such material immediately, editors are encouraged to move it to the talk page, or to place the {{fact}} template after the disputed word or sentence, or to tag the article by adding {{not verified}} or {{unsourced}} at the top of the page. See Verifiability and Misplaced Pages:No original research, which are policy, and Avoid weasel words.

However this has sometimes been use in support of the robotic removal of common knowledge from articles. For instance the words "faggot" and "dyke" were removed from List of sexual slurs because no reference was provided, despite those being common words that are defined in every good dictionary and known (almost) universally.

I don't think we would need to make a big change to deprecate this kind of treatment. It seems to me that the problem in the case I've cited is that the editor performing the removal knew the terms but removed them anyway on principle. But if a claimed fact isn't common knowledge there will be one person who doesn't know it. So it seems reasonable to me that we should discourage people from such robotic removal by saying:

Do not, however, remove statements that you believe to be both true and common knowledge, simply because they aren't sourced. Don't, for instance, remove a reference to "earth's elliptical orbit" simply because the writer has not supported the assrtion that planetary orbits are elliptical. If you do honestly disbelieve a statement, do remove it and request a source on the talk page. If you do honestly think it isn't common knowledge, do tag it as requiring a reference or query it on the talk page. --Tony Sidaway 13:02, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with adding that, so long as we make clear that anything negative in living bios, whether regarded as common knowledge or not, has to be reliably sourced or removed. But I think we do make that clear elsewhere on the page, so this addition shouldn't be a problem. SlimVirgin 13:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I assume that it is regarded as common good practice, not to say good manners, to note prominent removals on the talk-page and request sources? —Phil | Talk 13:41, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

SlimVirgin is right. I thought about that some more and added the following, but it seems to have been lost in an edit conflict:

And do be skeptical about claims of "common knowledge" about people, especially living people. Gossip is not common knowledge. --Tony Sidaway 13:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I apologize for inadvertently writing over your edits, Tony. I didn't get an edit-conflict notification. SlimVirgin 14:06, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Assume good faith

I am essentially being accussed of making up sources for my article on Kittie May Ellis. I think this falls under Assume Good Faith. A few other editors find my sources obscure and unavailable. I don't believe the burden of proof is on me, to prove that a source like History of Western Washington, 1889 exists. Sourcing a statment means providing a source. This sort of regressive argument is pointless and I feel violates AGF. Some admins even feel that other editors *questioning* RS is enough to delete. I feel this is overstrong. Questioning a source is not the same as presenting evidence that a source is unreliable. An editor opinion, based on vapor, that a source is unreliable is not sufficient to determine reliability. Only the published, source statement of an RS about another source should be used in a case where the reliability is questionable. Your thoughts? Wjhonson 05:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

A central idea of Misplaced Pages:Verifiability is that you give other wikipedians the possibility to check ("verify") the claim you made that something is published somewhere.

So, AGF on your co-editors: they're maybe only trying to bring WP:V in practice, and you could help them by finding out whether the book you try to use as reference is easily available in libraries and/or has a web-copy (Project Gutenberg?) and/or is described in more accessible sources (so that it becomes possible to assess it's reliability), etc.

And maybe try to find out whether other sources confirm the statement you want to source to a 1889 book. If the 1889 book is absolutely the only "reliable" source regarding the statement you try to see confirmed by published sources, it still might be a "tiny minority view" (see WP:NPOV#Undue weight), and so not necessarily suited to be enclosed in Misplaced Pages. --Francis Schonken 06:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

But do you agree that the mere opinion of another editor, without basis, that a source is unreliable, is insufficient for that to be asserted as the basis for wikinclusion ? Wjhonson 06:29, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Content with references doesn't have "immunity": the references may be flawed (for instance unreliable, linkspam), or the content may be trivia, or an incorrect rendering of the content of the referenced work, or not relevant to the article in question, or a tiny minority view, or generally not belonging in an encyclopedia, or a copyright infringement, or whatever...

But yes, normally if the references are sound and the content is relevant, someone else shouldn't remove just because they don't like it: that would usually be qualified as vandalism.

I don't exactly know the situation you're talking about but from what you tell about it I surmise that fellow-wikipedians have problems with the notability aspect (WP:NPOV#Undue weight: "If a viewpoint is held by an extremely small (or vastly limited) minority, it doesn't belong in Misplaced Pages (except perhaps in some ancillary article) regardless of whether it's true or not; and regardless of whether you can prove it or not."). Also in order to check whether content added to Misplaced Pages is a correct rendering of the content of the referenced work it is important to make transparent where these sources can be accessed. So, again, try to cooperate with your fellow-wikipedians. Your viewpoint is that Kittie is notable enough to be included in Misplaced Pages in a separate article. The basic sentence from the current version of that article that IMHO needs sourcing in that sense is: "Notable as one of, and perhaps the, sole, narrative primary source for many newsworthy events in the various local communities in which she lived." - Who said that? I mean the implication that she would be notable for that? Give sources for that, and also: AGF on your fellow Wikipedians if on the present content (& references) of the article they assess that the notability (in Misplaced Pages sense) isn't proven (yet). --Francis Schonken 09:49, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The Kittie May Ellis article is subject to deletion because while it has numbers in brackets after the quotes, the numbers are a dead-end. There is no References section with a list of the publication and page numbers showing where each and every quote came from. Perhaps the sources were mentioned in the article's talk page rather than the article itself; this does not count. A reader should not have to look through the history of the talk page trying to find sources.

Another problem with this article is there are templates for deletion and speedy deletion, but the article does not seem to be mentioned on the pages that the templates point to. Gerry Ashton 06:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The article was deleted and had to be re-created from a defective copy. That is why the number is brackets are there. I've already removed them all now anyway. Wjhonson 06:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

in the interests of tightness and simplicity

• However, that a source has strong views is not necessarily a reason not to use it, although editors should avoid using political groups with widely acknowledged extremist views, like Stormfront.org or Al-Qaeda.

could be replaced by

• Strong views need not disqualify a source, but editors should avoid citing extreme political groups, like Stormfront or Al-Qaeda.

Precis 08:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. SlimVirgin 13:39, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree, though I'd like it to read "though where possible editors should avoid..." I see no reason to discourage direct references to primary material issued publicly by such groups which can be taken as authoritative on their published opinion. For instance, one might say "on 19 May, 2008, the British Nasty Party announced that it planned to sponsor Mr Bimmler as its candidate in the General Election, contesting the Prime Minister's parliamentary seat", and it would not only be perfectly in order, but desirable, to cite a press release issued by the Nasty Party, always assuming that the significance of the announcement passed all other criteria of balance and neutral point of view for the article in question.

Caution is sometimes necessary, however. Sometimes, for instance, political parties have schisms, with two or more factions each claiming to represent the true party. In the UK, political parties are relatively informal affairs compared to some countries, so it's quite possible for two different entities to continue to duke it out for some time. The classic case was when the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the Liberal Party held a joint conference and unified as the Liberal Democratic Party. Some dissenting Social Democrats continued to fight by-elections and council elections under the SDP name (Social Democratic Party (UK, 1988), Social Democratic Party (UK, 1990)) --Tony Sidaway 14:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest we eliminate the nameing of "Stormfront or Al-Qaeda" whatsoever. Saying that Al-Qaeda is an "extreme political group" seems like POV. I'm sure the members of it, don't necessary feel its true. They feel that they are the "hand of God" perhaps, so an entirely righteous group. Whether a source is extreme or not, should be a matter debated on the discussion for that particular article, and not legislated here.Wjhonson 14:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

As to the use of direct quotation from primary sources, I agree that quotations about a person, or group *by* that person or group should be able to be linked to the primary source material. Wjhonson 14:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The suggestions above are tenable, but I'd like to make counterarguments anyway.

• One meaning of the word "avoid" already takes into account "where possible". For example, when the doctor tells you to avoid sugar and salt, she means "avoid sugar and salt where possible". Avoidance is not as strong as proscription.
• I don't think weasel phrases WP:AWW like "widely thought of as extreme" are necessary with Al Qaeda or Stormfront. Yes, the members of these groups think they are righteous, but even they undoubtedly realize they are far from mainstream. WP should not have to avoid all judgments. We can say the earth is rounded, the Flat Earth Society notwithstanding. Precis 21:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. WP discourages extremist sources, and some extremists might think we shouldn't legislate here what kind of sources to avoid. I think we can be bold and take the POV that extremist sources should be avoided, and even give examples like Al Qaeda and Stormfront, which by any dictionary definition qualify as "extremist". Precis 23:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Indirect sources

A few guidelines should probably be added to this page regarding these situations. I would recommend the following. -- Beland 15:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

• The proper way to cite indirect sources is documented at Misplaced Pages:Cite_sources#Intermediate_sources:_Say_where_you_got_it. Basically, you need to give a full citation to both the source you personally used and the underlying source.
• If at all possible, you should look up the original source and verify the quotation. You may then cite the original source directly.
• Just because a secondary source claims to be accurately quoting a reliable primary source, does not make the secondary source reliable. Nor should you necessarily assume that the quote is accurate or that the attribution is correct. For example, many independent web site authors are sloppy with their references. Common mistakes include copying the jist of a quote rather than the exact wording (which may change the original meaning, especially if repeated), recalling quotes (badly) from memory rather than printed sources, giving incorrect attribution for a quote (especially famous sayings), copying a quote from another secondary source without checking the original or citing the other secondary source (thus compounding errors already present).

We don't need even more ways in which editors can accuse each other of not using reliable sources. We have to make the assumption *until proven wrong* that a secondary source is accurately quoting the underlying primary source. We can't spend half our lives fact-checking from primary sources which may exist at only one library in the world. Wjhonson 15:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand, some degree of source checking should be encoraged. We do not want incorrect information repeated on Misplaced Pages simply because an editor is too lazy to check and see if the original is easily available. Also, in articles that deal with controvercial issues, you can have secondary sources that, for POV reasons, deliberately mis-quote the original or quote the original out of context. By asking an editor to check to see if the original is easily available, and if so, to use that instead of the secondary source is to me a good thing. Blueboar 15:46, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The argument that Misplaced Pages shouldn't be made accurate because it's too much trouble, and that we should assume that whatever is posted on some random web site is correct because it's easy to get to, does not seem to align with the goals of the project. Many political and literary figures have sayings attributed to them sprinkled all over the web...many of which are misquotes or incorrectly attributed. Most of these situations could be resolved by asking for the full citation to the original work (usually missing in the secondary source) which being all famous and everything is available at the corner bookstore or local library for ultimate verification. -- Beland 17:58, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Citations with textual attribution

I think it should be made clear that there is an intermediate step between reporting something as a fact and not reporting it at all - reporting with attribution.

For example, many scientific theories reported in Misplaced Pages have the benefit of scientific consensus; these can be reported as accepted facts. But sometimes certain scientific studies are published in reliable, peer-reviewed journals, but have not yet been (or never will be) reproduced. In a case like this, it is inappropriate to simply report the findings of a study as if it were true. Instead, an article should read something like, "A controlled study of X published in Y in 1954 found that ___".

It is important to check for professional criticism of the study; if it has been deemed faulty by scientific peers, it should not be included (unless it is notable for other reasons, such as being important to the history of the field - right or wrong - or because it was the source of a lot of controversy). If the debate over the underlying facts is still unsettled, this should be noted, and any competing studies included as well.

Someone previously asked on this talk page for guidance about what to do if there are multiple reliable sources, and they disagree. ("Inconceivable!") It could be reported, with weasel words that "sources disagree", and that "some say X" and "some say Y". But it's probably better to say in the text, "Author A says X but Committee B says Y."

I've heard that the standard that the reputable New York Times uses here is that claims supported by two independent sources may be reported as fact, but claims supported by only one source should be reported with attribution. Obviously, their journalists and fact checkers also use their editorial judgement about which claims (however many people are making them) belong in print, for reasons of credibility, liability, information content, and relevance. It will be a long time before all the claims made in Misplaced Pages can be supported by two independent sources, but it is probably a good idea to report with attribution if someone tries and fails to find multiple sources for a given claim. If there is only one source in the entire universe for a given claim, then readers will have to trust that source if they are going to trust the information. -- Beland 15:43, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Census as a source

The census cannot be used as a source? I would like to hear some comments on that claim. Wjhonson 16:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Where is the claim that the census can't be used as a source? Gerry Ashton 16:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course the census can be used as a source. It is an official government document. Blueboar 16:54, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Here Xoloz says that the census is a primary source and cannot be used. Wjhonson 16:56, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The census is indeed a primary source, so it should be used with caution. It's reasonably reliable, but does not tell us that the person recorded in the census is noteable. An articles should rely mostly on secondary sources. Gerry Ashton 17:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The issue being that Xoloz is saying the census cannot be used, period. Wjhonson 18:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah... no. I never suggested the census cannot be used; I never suggested anything even remotely close to that. I suggested it is a primary source, because it is. You have a strange way of reading, User:Wjhonson. Xoloz 20:05, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah... context.... the census is indeed a primary source. It can be used to reference itself (ie to verify a statement about what the census data is). From the context of the comment, however, Xoloz feels you are using it as a secondary source, which would not be allowed. Blueboar 17:10, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't quite agree with Blueboar. An unreliable primary source can only be used to provide information about itself, for example, this page shows that a WP editor using the name Gerry Ashton thinks the census is a primary source. A reliable primary source can be used for factual information, for example, on July 4, 1870, Honora Ashton was 39 years old. The problem with primary sources is that they often provide fine-grain details, and the process of combining large amounts of fine-grain detail into a cohesive summary tends to be original research. Gerry Ashton 17:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Undent. This is unclear. When exactly can the census be used on wikipedia and when can't it? If I'm using the census data to verify a statement made in another source I can use it? Or can't use it? And if I can't use it in that way, then when exactly can I use it? Wjhonson 17:52, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

It would depend on what you are trying to use the census for. Genrerally, you can only use it to back statements about what it actually says. It is OK, for example, to state "According to the census of 1848 the population of Origon was 3,294 people and 9000 cows"... but you could not use it to back up a statement such as "In 1848 people in Origon liked cows". Can you explain how you wanted to use the census? Blueboar 18:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

To prove the names, ages, and residence of a family. "So and so lived at this place in 1870 and was 6 years old..." That sort of thing. Wjhonson 18:48, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Census data contains private information about people? Don't think so... ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 19:59, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

U.S. census data does indeed contain private information about people, but the private information isn't released until 70 years after the census. The most recent census with full details available is the 1930 census. Ancestry.com has digitized much of the census records, and you can purchase a subscription to view the records. Or, you can purchase the microfilm from the National Archives . Gerry Ashton 20:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Xoloz did you not delete this article. And in your message to me you stated that secondary sources should be used, not primary, and furthermore that replication of a primary source is not considered secondary. However on the project page it states that a transcript by a court stenographer is acceptable. So in the same way, a transcript of a census is also acceptable. Is it not? How do these two cases differ?Wjhonson 20:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

And again you stated that I should get more secondary sources. Every source I cited is in-fact an acceptable source based on my reading of this project page. It fairly clear that published government documents are acceptable sources for wikinclusion. Wjhonson 20:17, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The major complaint about my sources is that they are obscure. But the requirement is not *on* me regarding proving a source is reliable. Rather the requirement to prove a source is not reliable is on other editors to find some WP:RS which states "source x is not reliable". Any other interpretation is WP:OR by that editor stating his/her opinion about a source, which is irrelevant. Wjhonson 20:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Without getting into the overall issue of whether a local historical figure is notable enough for Misplaced Pages or not (this is not the forum to debate that, please) ... There is a difference between reliablility and obscurity. A source can be obscure and still be reliable, it can also be easy to find and yet not reliable. I would also say that the census can (and should) be used in this situation as a source ... for it does indeed clearly verify that person W was X years old and lived in Town Y in the Year Z. If you used it for more than that (ie interpreted the data to prove a point), I would question its use. Blueboar 20:50, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

The manuscript census will always be a primary source; using it will always be original research. The published census volumes count as secondary sources (they are compiled by experts from the raw census data), Rjensen 21:09, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

No I used it for exactly what you said. To prove that person x lived in town y and what z years old. And that's all I used it for And I was using a compiled source. Xoloz says that does not matter, that even a compiled source is unusable as a secondary source. Wjhonson 21:11, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not see a reason not to accept Census data as a source for the stated purpose. ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Newspapers as reliable sources

Xoloz now outdoes his last statement with this one "and in my judgment also, your article does not contain a single reliable secondary source". One of my main sources is a newspaper the Snohomish Tribune. According to Xoloz this fails WP:RS. Wjhonson 20:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Xoloz states that newspapers are primary sources. So this would imply that a newspaper can never be used in any wiki article. Am I right? Wjhonson 20:44, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Wjhonson keeps saying that primary sources can't be used in Misplaced Pages articles. This is just plain wrong. Further, the proper balance between primary and secondary sources should be discussed at Misplaced Pages talk:No original research, not here. Read WP:NOR#Primary and secondary sources. Gerry Ashton 21:12, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not saying it at all. Xoloz is the one saying it. And further on the Project page WP:RS it states that a "journalist report who actually witnessed the event" is a primary source. That would imply that the report of a journalist who did not witness the event must be secondary, right? Or is that sort of report simply unreliable? Wjhonson 21:20, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

No, you have it correct... a newspaper contain both primary and secondary reports. A newspaper report by an eye witness journalist would be primary, a report from a non-eye witness would be secondary, as would any analysis of the events discribed. Both can be reliable depending on how they are used in an article. It sounds lik Xoloz is taking an overly strict view of WP:RS. (note that I am not saying that your article's subject is notable... only that using WP:RS in this way to say that it is NOT notable sounds wrong to me). This does sound more like it might be a NOR issue... the sources by themselves seem valid. Blueboar 23:02, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Newspaper articles can be accepted as reliable sources and thus citable, in particular if the newspaper is deemed to be reliable (e.g. not a tabloid, for example). ≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 02:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

"Not a tabloid" won't stand up. Plenty of reputable newspapers are tabloids; The Times, the Daily Mail and Libération are three that come to mind. Discriminating based on format plainly isn't viable. What you're referring to, I think, is the distinction between so-called "popular" and "quality" newspapers, though even there I'm not sure you could automatically say that one is reliable and the other isn't. -- ChrisO 23:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

This gets into a very fine-grained discussion, where we would actually need a list of those newspapers considered WP:RS and those not, or maybe just those not? Anyone wanna start that list? Then WP:RS could point to it. So a new story on Elizabeth Taylor published in The National Enquirer wouldn't stand up, but one published in the Washington Post would perhaps. I think however, we can all agree, at least, that any newspaper of a community, where it is the *sole* newspaper serving that community has to be given the benefit of the doubt on WP:RS. So all local newspapers meet this mark. Wjhonson 23:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

published

Someone removed the definition of "published" at 01:05, 22 July 2006. I do think a definition is needed, but it should not be circular. Precis 01:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I too think a definition is needed. "Publish" has become more difficult to define when anyone can create a webpage in 30 seconds and anyone esle on the planet might view it in the next 30 seconds. We need a stable definition that fulfills WP:V. The root of the word in Latin means, "present to public view". If we only use that and nothing else it will prevent some problems. In the Scientology articles people are constantly inserting unpublished information. Let's have some kind of definition of "published".Terryeo 06:45, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 06:48, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Publishing is not enough to establish a WP:RS or WP:V. Publishing per wikisource just means its in a media, not in your head. So if you write a poem in your diary you've "published" it. That's not my definition, its theirs. At any rate, the criteria for use here is that the publication is verifiable as well. So it has to actually exist somewhere where the public can access it. There is however no requirement that that access have to be simple or trivial, just possible. Wjhonson 06:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

PUBLISHED is the beginning. Presented to the public is the necessary first step. If you write a note in your diary, you have put the information into words and the words are located in a data file or on paper. There may be a definition somewhere that says that is "published" but it is not the definition in most dictionarys and it does not express the root of the word. The idea of "publish" is to present to the public. It is the beginning of understanding Misplaced Pages's NPOV. After having the idea "publish" then a person can understand "reliable sources". Terryeo 15:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I do like T's Latin phrase "present to the public view", but I propose appending "in accessible form". For example, videotapes available in libraries may be considered published, while live TV shows and public speeches per se are not (since they are inaccessible the next day). Precis 09:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that goes to the heart of it. The speech or live show as an event is not published but a recording or transcript may be (even if it's a bootleg, though in that case authentication questions may render it unreliable). --Tony Sidaway 09:37, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

"Published" means "presented to the public" and does not comment upon whether such a presentation was recorded. "Published by reliable sources" talks about recording and re-presentation. But before we can expect an editor to understand it, we must educate an editor about the first word of that which is "published" Terryeo 15:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see the logic in that proposition but as a matter of practicality, I think it goes too far. Live news broadcasts (or for that matter non-live TV or radio shows) are invariably recorded. You can usually obtain copies of the recordings or transcripts from broadcasters or media monitoring companies, although they do tend to charge for this (CNN is quite good in this regard, they seem to put a lot of their transcripts online for free). Live stage shows are a different matter - they may or may not be recorded (most of the ones I've been to haven't been) and I wouldn't consider them verifiable. You also have to consider what it means to be "accessible." A source may be publicly accessible in only one limited-access or specialist library half-way around the world (like the British Library or Harvard University Library, for instance). Would you exclude such sources from consideration? -- ChrisO 10:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Probably we're dealing with two separate threshold requirements:

• Published, in the sense that someone needs to have done the publishing. Publishing could maybe be defined as something in the sense of an act that (if it would be performed today) triggers by itself that the content becomes copyrighted or enters the public domain. Technical definition. the "if it would be preformed today" parenthesis is added for the vast amount of books that were "published" before any copyright or public domain regulations were effective.
• Available/accessible: this is important for Misplaced Pages. If a source isn't available/accessible, it is impossible to effectuate WP:V. It is difficult to draw this in the definition of "published", while that would give a definition of "published" that is incompatible with the normal understanding of that word. I tried such "combined" definition of published-including-accessible some weeks ago, it was discarded as nonsense. So I propose to separate the two requirements: the source needs to be published (in the normal sense of the word) but the source also needs to be accessible/available. These are threshold requirements, before the "reliability" of the source (which is the real core of this guideline) can be discussed.

Some examples:

• Cicero's De re publica was published more than two millenia ago. The 4th and 5th chapter of that work went lost, so these chapters can't be used as a source in Misplaced Pages (not available/accessible);
• Theatre plays, panel discussions, public lectures: if no recording nor a text/script/transcript of such sessions/performances are made available this also fails the accessibility/availability requirement.
• "Web forum" vs. "mailing list": if the communications of a mailing list aren't published in an archive, the mailing list communications are private communications between the subscribers of the mailing list, and aren't even "published". Also a web forum can be "private" (if you need an access permission to view its content), and thus "un-published". If content of web-forum discussions or mailing lists are published, they may become unavailable after a certain time. Note however that, as said, these are only threshold requirements: the "reliability" of these sources should be (and is currently) weighed too.

--Francis Schonken 11:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

We are dealing with several threshold requirements. Published (presented at some time in the past, to the public) would be first. Second would be that nformation is produced or reproduced by a reliable source. Third would be attribution to the original, primary source if applicable. Forth, perhaps, would be verifiability. WP:RS could be written a little more clearly. The fact that editors even need to talk about these thresholds should tell any editor that the guideline needs a little work.Terryeo 15:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

For #1, one could say Chapters 4 and 5 were previously published, but no longer published. For #2, one could say that these were never published at all. For #3, one could say that private correspondence is unpublished, although it could become published if leaked. When previously published material becomes completely unavailable, one could say it is no longer published. This definition of "published" may not be exactly the one that non-Wikipedians use, but there is precedent for such disparity. The definition of OR for Wikipedians is not the same as the commonly used definition, for example. Precis 11:58, 22 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. There is an element of accessibility built into the term "published" even as the term is used in common parlance. For example, minutes of a private organization are not usually described as "published" unless they are made accessible to the public. Precis 13:01, 22 July 2006 (UTC) P.P.S. In reply to ChrisO, I'd say that anything that is unreasonably difficult or expensive to verify could be called inaccessible. Of course people will debate the meaning of unreasonable, just as they debate the meaning of reliable. Precis 13:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't follow that "previously published material" would ever become unavailable. Is that a common event? With today's relatively inexpensive publication, it is rare, is it not? Terryeo 15:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Not all that rare... historians have to deal with this all the time. In fact, it is a common occurance with ancient documents. We know of many greek and roman texts that were lost during the early-medieval period. We know of them because they are referred to in some other text, or because only part of one was copied in a surviving manuscript. We also frequently face the situation where books that were once widely published and fairly common have subsequently gone out of print. As copies age and disintegrate they are thrown out and remaining copies become rare. In extreme cases, there may be only one or two copies surviving in a few libraries, and the book has become basically unavailable to the general public. This is partly why things like Project Gutenberg are being set up... to preserve these rare texts and make them more available. Blueboar 16:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

It's certainly a common problem in the field in which I took my degree (medieval history). There are many documents from the period, such as the Pipe Rolls, which exist in literally only one copy, untranscribed and often with strictly limited access (e.g. to bona fide academic historians). However, I note that the issue of primary sources is already dealt with under WP:RS#Some definitions. -- ChrisO 17:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Here is an online definition of "publish": and the first two apply: prepare and issue for public distribution or sale; "publish a magazine or newspaper" have (one's written work) issued for publication; "How many books did Georges Simenon write?"; "She published 25 books during her long career" One should look closer and ask, "Who is the intended public of the work?" Examples could be "the english-speaking world" "those residing in and around Boulder, Colorado". Here is a link to the definition of public: The first two definitions are nouns and apply: a body of people sharing some common interest; "the reading public" people in general considered as a whole; "he is a hero in the eyes of the public" The first definition listed here of public is what I am refering to. --Fahrenheit451 17:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Would you be willing to put those into the wiktionary and link them to this page? Wjhonson 18:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Really, that would be far better than what User:Fahrenheit451 just did, which was to delete out all of the definition of Publish. Terryeo 22:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Terryeo, you have referenced the article on Publishing which I have never edited. If you meant I deleted that definition from that article, your statement is a false accusation. If you meant that I reverted YOUR edit, which is Not the result of discussion, but rather your POV, yes I did, and that is my prerogative as a Misplaced Pages editor. Whichever way you intended this, it still comes across to me as a personal attack. --Fahrenheit451 23:18, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually both, Mr. Fahrenheit451. You reverted my edit which is your prerogative, but you reverted without understanding what you reverted. My edit included a link to Publishing as part of the definition, you reverted it as part of your reversion of my definition of "publish". The reason I would like a definition is because it would reduce arguements like this one (which tied up the article for days). If we include a definition of "publish" in WP:RS, it will act as a sort of insurance. Any editor disagreement could then point to what most people already understand, that "publish" means "published to the public". But I understand, you don't want a definition of publish, it is your prerogative to remove it. And you have personally told me that "published to the public" is not wikipedia policy here Terryeo 06:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Not true, Mr. Terryeo. I reverted your edit because I understood it and found it to be at odds with the common english definition.--Fahrenheit451 16:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

For Wiki purposes I suggest what we mean by "published" is that a reliable publisher has selected and approved the material. That is, a known publisher that actually makes quality control decisions. Their sales depend on the reputation. This covers most books and journals and websites from established publishers, but does not include self-published or vanity books. The key is that Wiki is searching for reliability and the reputation of the publisher is of critical importance. Rjensen 00:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It may be helpful is one of the persons who feels strongly about the issue, could start a page at say WP:Published or something like that. This debate could move there, we could reach consensus and then link the project pages on what it means to be published to wikipedians, to that page with its discussion. Wjhonson 00:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The term "published" has a much broader scope than the publishing industry. For instance, all of Misplaced Pages is a joint publishing venture. You write something on Misplaced Pages and it becomes public. This is what publishing is. --Tony Sidaway 00:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

PUBLISH is a very simple idea. But even here, where we are working together, issues get raised. If we include a simple, clear definition it will act as a sort of insurance against editors getting tied up in a really easy to grasp idea. It would be a foundation to build directions to reliable sources on. And, it would prevent several of the arguements which have tied up some articles, such as this one Terryeo 06:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I took a stab at this on the main page. Precis 08:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a start.--Fahrenheit451 16:39, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I changed the article in the definition "public" from the to a to show that publications can be targeted to groups sharing a common characteristic; for example, if a publication is english language only, it is intended for an english-speaking public.--Fahrenheit451 16:52, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

RfC from the RS experts

I'm posting here to request additional comments from you all at this link. I feel that myself and the anon have an impenetrable barrier and perhaps other voices are needed. Thanks. Wjhonson 00:36, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

1. The Princess Bride (film)