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Revision as of 21:50, 9 September 2013 editDavid spector (talk | contribs)Extended confirmed users5,047 edits →Proposal for new policy: I yield.← Previous edit Latest revision as of 21:11, 27 December 2024 edit undoWhatamIdoing (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Extended confirmed users, Pending changes reviewers121,738 edits →New Shortcut re “ONUS” section?: ReplyTag: Reply 
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== Proposal for new policy ==

(This proposal was originally posted at ], but I was asked to post it at ] and ], and, by implication, here.)

'''Limitations of RS+NOR+VERIFY, with a solution (Rev. 1):'''

The motivation for this discussion is my frequent annoyance over the years with articles that don't explain things well, or don't give enough information, because '''experts can't simply write what they know, due to ] and the need for ].'''

An example is ], where section "BOLD EDIT NOTICE" of its Talk page presents an excellent explanation (the analogy of a geared transmission) that couldn't be included in the article due to NOR and lack of RS. I personally believe that this explanation is actually correct, making this a very nice example, but it doesn't actually matter if this explanation is correct or not, just as we can rarely be sure that any information in any article is complete and correct, even when lots of RS have been cited. And, while I'm providing this as a motivational example, I want to discuss WP policies and guidelines here, not details of this example.

Now to get to the proposal: reliance on the availability of good RSs leads to a good encyclopedia, but this technique has limitations. Once in a while a Talk page provides some OR explanation that is clearer that the explanation given in the article. This example, I believe, is such a case. While this isn't the purpose of a Talk page, it is a very valuable service for WP readers who read the Talk pages as well the articles, as I do.

'''It also shows an inherent limitation of the RS+NOR policies,''' as applied to articles. An improved WP policy, and the solution I'm offering for discussion here, would be <u>to allow OR explanations or knowledge in articles and Talk pages, without a reference, until someone provides a good OR reason to object to them, or an RS is found that supports a good replacement</u>. Note that this implies that the information added without RS '''must''' be uncontroversial. Any unresolved argument among editors cancels this new policy and falls back to requiring RSs.

This new policy also applies to the large percentage of (mostly old) articles that contain no references or insufficient references. That means that presumably correct information in these many articles cannot simply be deleted by any editor. There must be an objection to it, with the opportunity to discuss the deletion on the Talk page. This allows some protection for old yet correct information.

This would be an additional policy, modifying the RS, NOR, and VERIFY policies, '''or''' would be a modification of the RS, NOR, and VERIFY policies themselves (I'm not specifying which here).

In addition to the above, this proposal affects the VERIFY policy by requiring modification to explain the situations in which OR without RS will be allowed. These situations are explained above. I will be happy to provide explicit revisions to all affected policies if this discussion eventually results in agreement. ] (]) 13:26, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
:'''Oppose''': WP is intended for a general readership. Editors should not be placed in a position where they can be told that they can't remove unsourced information because someone allegedly versed in the technical areas covered by the article knows better than they do. I find it antithetical to existing WP policy to espouse a policy that renders unsourced and potentially unverifiable information inviolate. Editors have already faced difficult situations in some cases where they removed unsourced information, even information that had been challenged for ''months'' before they did anything more serious about it. If editors cannot or will not source information, especially information that has been challenged long-term, than they should not be able to prevent its removal by claiming nothing more than, "We know this is true and we don't think it's controversial." In fact, I think once information has been challenged it should effectively be considered controversial. Given that you say any unresolved argument among editors cancels this policy, does this not basically boil down to, "You must challenge the information via a method that does not involve its removal before you may proceed with removing it?" ] (]) 16:51, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
:'''Oppose'''. Misplaced Pages is not an appropriate place for the publication of original research, regardless of whether other contributors think that it is 'uncontroversial'. This proposal radically alters the whole ethos of Misplaced Pages, and could only ever lead to a reduction in article quality. ] (]) 17:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
:If a piece of OR really is absolutely uncontroversial (i.e. not "challenged or likely to be challenged") then in fact policy already allows this. What triggers the effect of policy is the act of disputing something (e.g. by changing or removing it). At that point we resolve the dispute by reference to sources. But if nobody challenges it and nobody is likely to challenge it, then whatever you've written can stand unchallenged forever. I would be opposed to altering the wording of the policy because it's unnecessary to achieve what you want.—] <small>]/]</small> 17:30, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
*This idea has also gotten a less than welcoming reception at the long discussion at ]. Nothing you have written changes the gist of my response: if you cannot find a cite to support adding content, then sorry -- out of luck on the Pedia -- or not enough work has been done to find the cite. The reason a source is important beyond the information itself, is because they serve an important function in vetting the information for its acceptance and reliability. ] (]) 18:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Support''' - I understand the proposer to be introducing a new class of material - "Tutorial material" - material which is useful in Misplaced Pages, but comes under class (B) in ]. Supposing that I was writing an article and I developed an example showing how a debt of £100 mounts up if interest is charged at 5% per annum simple interest vis-à-vis interest at 5% compounded annually. (My mother explained this to me when I was about 10). Do I really need to get the example from a text book (and possibly run into copyright problems), or can knock out the figures on a spread-sheet and quote them? There are many such examples in Misplaced Pages. Come on, lets be sensible and add a new class of information called WP:TUTORIAL_MATTER. ] identifies a sore point - what happens if somebody challenges some decent tutorial matter that you have written just to get at you personally. I would like to be able to quote a policy and so get the community support to tell the person to "desist". ] (]) 19:12, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose''' – This is a recipe for disaster. The ban on original research is the main reason Misplaced Pages is such a useful resource and weakening it has to be done only with very great care. But no such care is visible here and no suitable proposed wording has been presented. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 23:34, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose''' per Zero and Andy. This should not have been posted at the other talk page or even at this talk page. The suggestion on the other talk page was to post it here or at ]. For a change of this kind, VPP would be a better place. Why David thinks it's "too informal" is beyond me.--] (]) 23:47, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose''' per BBB23. Misplaced Pages is not ]. Indeed, WP would not even be as good as Citizendium because it would not have CD's equivalent of peer review. People who use Misplaced Pages need to be able to confirm what they read here and not have to depend on self-appointed experts. — ] (]) 00:05, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
::Lets look at an example - the editors the article ] introduced the subject with ]. I don't know if this example was the creation of the author in question or if (s)he copied it from a text book. In either respect, it is hardly cutting-edge science - any maths undergraduate can confirm that it is correct. Where does this stand in terms of ] and of ]? BTW, the page in question gets between 1000 and 2000 hits a day and is ranked at about 7000 in terms of numbers of visitors. ] (]) 00:27, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
:::Without looking at the article, if anybody who understands the subject can tell you that the example is accurate, then it's fine. What we might need is a statement directly about the acceptability of giving ''obviously correct'' examples, comparisons, etc. We do have a small but dedicated number of editors who apparently believe that if it's not what the rest of us call plagiarism, then it's a NOR violation. I assume that this proposal is born out of long experience with such editors. ] (]) 04:56, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
::::I was going to provide a tldr reply, but I can't say it better than what Doniago said at 12:31, 19 August 2013, and Monty845 said at 13:42, 19 August 2013, both just below. — ] (]) 14:23, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose''', but with some sympathy for the types of problems that I think are causing this proposal. The thing is that I think editing suggestions which put things nicely are either blocked by other editors because their is a ''controversial'' amount of non-obvious originality or else because of a misunderstanding of the policies we already have. As per WhatamIdoing, I can perhaps imagine that some wording tweaks in policy might be possible, but I think openly calling for originality will not work.--] (]) 09:35, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
:A good deal of the problem is caused by the sentence "must '''be able''' to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented". Editors who might not understand the subject often look for in-line citations when in fact they are not necessary, or when "being able to cite" material is a matter of the expert saying "Here is a list of text books, all of which discuss the subject. Which one do you want?". ] (]) 10:06, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
::This seems a bit misleading to me. In my experience the easiest way to resolve these situations, not to mention satisfy ] is to provide a source, not to get into a debate over the issue. An expert on the subject should be able to provide a source, and ideally should recognize that arguing over it wastes far more time and effort on the part of all parties. Why ask which source should be provided rather than simply choosing one and providing it? If the expert provides a source and the source itself is then challenged, then there's grounds for a more serious discussion of the matter.
::That said, I question the use of the term "expert" in any case. I certainly don't know who here is an expert on what subject matter, and unless there are procedures for official recognition of "expert" status on WP...if there are I've never seen it come up...then nobody should wield the "expert" stick because it should be abundantly obvious that anyone can claim they're an expert on anything without that actually being the case. ] (]) 12:31, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
:'''Moral Support/Practical Oppose''' I wish there was a way for this to work, but as a practical matter, I just don't seen a standard to apply that gives more leeway then ] that wouldn't do more collateral damage then good. Requiring the opponent of inclusion to come up with a source to disprove something is simply unreasonable, if its hard to find a reference that provides a specific example, it will be far harder/impossible to find a reference that disproves it. What we really would need is editors to only invoke burden if they really do have a strong, good faith belief that the material is not accurate, and otherwise leave the material in. But the problem is that basing a decision on the subjective motive of an editor, rather an objective standard of what RS provides is just asking for Drama and baseless accusations of bad faith. I just don't see a way for the idea to work in practice. ]] 13:42, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Support (sort of)''' This is an important problem which has caused Misplaced Pages to plateau out in several areas. But it really doesn't need a new policy. It just needs:
:*An important tweak in current policy to bring the mechanics of the policy in line with (rather than conflicting with) the spirit defined by "challenged or likely to be challenged". So it would remain just as easy to knock out unsourced questioned material, but harder to knock out unquestioned material for bad reasons.
:*Explanation (maybe a guideline) to kill some immensely rampant-in-Misplaced Pages destructive urban legends which have no basis in policy. Namely that verifiability is a ''force'' for inclusion rather than just a ''requirement'' for inclusion.
:Together these two would enable expertise in editing without weakening wp:ver <font color ="#0000cc">''North8000''</font> (]) 13:52, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose''' At least, not here on WP. We have other projects where this might make sense and be more welcome, such as ]. WP cannot have a mechanism that could make this work without abandoning the principle of "anyone can edit", without which WP would die a slow and painful death. ] <small>]</small> 18:30, 19 August 2013 (UTC)
::I don't see where their proposal (vague as it is) would affect that. <font color ="#0000cc">''North8000''</font> (]) 11:48, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

:'''Oppose'''. An expert's unsourced opinion might (but not always!) be more reliable than some non-expert's citation of random sources, but the proposal says nothing about expert qualifications; this proposal would allow all kinds of junk from anyone that "knows" something to be true. If there is a problem regarding the scope an editor has in formulating examples (etc.) that should be discussed at NOR. ~ ] (]) 18:42, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I did not see any insurmountable objections to my proposal. Here are my responses to these responses. Interspersing them would interfere with their flow, so I've grouped them all here. Please feel free to continue the discussion. ] (]) 17:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

*DonIago, "WP is intended for a general readership. Editors should not be placed in a position where they can be told that they can't remove unsourced information because someone allegedly versed in the technical areas covered by the article knows better than they do." WP is not all intended for a general readership, by your implied definition. Many of the mathematics articles simply cannot be understood by your general readers, because they may not be educated in that technical area. The same is true of physics, and many other topics. You may have misinterpreted my frequent use of the word ''expert''. I don't mean it to refer to someone who is highly educated in some specialty. A person who has played with toys called ]s may only be a teenager, yet may be an expert in that subject. She may meaningfully contribute correct information about the toy's operation, even though no one can find a single RS corroborating that information. Assuming that the toy itself is NOTABLE, the new information improves WP coverage of it. My proposal would protect that information until either a source can be found, or someone else corrects it. My proposal helps WP to grow organically, as it is meant to do. "I find it antithetical to existing WP policy to espouse a policy that renders unsourced and potentially unverifiable information inviolate." My proposal shows confidence in the editors. This is a good thing, and follows WP principles. Also, you are actually incorrect. My proposal only protects information until it is challenged. As soon as it is challenged and the challenge seems to hold, my proposal no longer applies. "Editors have already faced difficult situations in some cases where they removed unsourced information, even information that had been challenged for months before they did anything more serious about it." I'm not sure what your point is here. Please explain. "If editors cannot or will not source information, especially information that has been challenged long-term, than they should not be able to prevent its removal by claiming nothing more than, "We know this is true and we don't think it's controversial." If you mean that one editor claims the change is controversial and another claims it isn't, then it's controversial and the proposed policy no longer applies. If one of the editors is unhappy with the resulting situation, they are free to make use of the existing mechanisms for resolving disputes about policy. "In fact, I think once information has been challenged it should effectively be considered controversial." Exactly, that's correct. "does this not basically boil down to, 'You must challenge the information via a method that does not involve its removal before you may proceed with removing it?'" Yes, that is part of the implication. The proposal delays removal until there is a reasonable challenge (a wild claim with no rationale by an IP editor would not be reasonable). The proposed policy provides explicit protection for information currently at the mercy of anyone to delete.
*AndyTheGrump, "Misplaced Pages is not an appropriate place for the publication of original research..." I agree. The proposal should not be interpreted as establishing WP as a place for first publication of academic research. However, if someone knows something valuable about a subject, that will improve understanding of it, something that ought to have an RS but for some reason does not yet seem to have one, this proposed policy would allow that "expert" to share her knowledge with us. The safety in doing so is that another "expert" can claim that this alleged knowledge is highly unlikely, and explain why. Such a reasoned response cancels "OR without RS" instantly. "This proposal radically alters the whole ethos of Misplaced Pages, and could only ever lead to a reduction in article quality." I'm not sure what "ethos" means, but could you explain how my proposal, in allowing experts to contribute, will always reduce article quality? That would seem to be a contradiction, since WP has always benefitted from experts in all fields.
*S Marshall, "If a piece of OR really is absolutely uncontroversial (i.e. not "challenged or likely to be challenged") then in fact policy already allows this." Sorry, no. ] forbids adding information known by the editor, no matter how sure the editor is. ] forbids adding ''anything'' for which a RS cannot be found. "What triggers the effect of policy is the act of disputing something (e.g. by changing or removing it)." It may look that way, but it is not so. An editor is allowed to remove text when it violates policy--the editor is not permitted to "dispute" policy by doing removals of text anywhere she pleases. On the other hand, she ''is'' permitted to dispute any text on the Talk page for the article. "But if nobody challenges it and nobody is likely to challenge it, then whatever you've written can stand unchallenged forever." In practice, this is exactly what happens, especially in older articles. My proposal modifies policy to allow this common case. "I would be opposed to altering the wording of the policy because it's unnecessary to achieve what you want." Currently, anyone can delete up to 25% of WP, because is consists of statements having no references. And many of those statements are true, but there are no RSs that will support them. My proposal will achieve protection and a rationale for keeping all this valuable information in WP until corroboration (or dis-corroboration) is found.
*Alanscottwalker, "This idea has also gotten a less than welcoming reception at..." I have responded to all comments there, as here. So far, I have seen little true understanding of my proposal and no objection that could not be easily countered. I think my proposal is doing very well so far, considering the experience of the long-term editors who are contributing to this discusssion. "...if you cannot find a cite to support adding content, then sorry -- out of luck on the Pedia -- or not enough work has been done to find the cite." Yes, that is the current policy, you're simply repeating it. Repeating it doesn't argue for it. "The reason a source is important beyond the information itself, is because they serve an important function in vetting the information for its acceptance and reliability." I fully agree with you. RSs are the cornerstone of the integrity and reliability of WP, such as it has. However, the reality is that 25% (or whatever) of WP consists of old articles that have no RSs at all. You can ignore them, but they're there. They are tolerated because deleting them would empoverish WP. Full enforcement of your statement would ruin WP. And, besides that, allowing better and more intuitive explanations in articles (my primary example) would clearly improve WP.
*Martinvl, I appreciate your proposal, which weakens mine so that it only applies to certain articles. I reject that. My proposal should apply to all articles, allowing people who know to contribute what they know, even when RSs cannot easily be found.
*Zero, I agree that WP should not be used to present major new research or new ideas. Yet I want to protect ''probably-true'' information and ''useful explanations''. I believe I have done so using language that respects the importance of the NOR policy. If you can offer "suitable wording" to clarify this distinction, I would undoubtedly accept it.
*Bbb23, Please explain why a proposed change in three policies should not be presented on their Talk pages, or on the Talk page for all the policies and guidelines, for that matter. It's not obvious to me. WT pages are for discussion of WP articles. I felt that Village Pump would not be the place for this discussion, but I'm willing to move it there if others agree with you.
*TransporterMan, WP has a very different strategy from Citizendium. WP's strategy is more successful. The difference is that WP gives up some authority and reliability in return for allowing '''anyone''' to edit its articles. WP believes almost everyone has something valuable to contribute. As a result, our older articles are sometimes entirely lacking in references. We have so many articles that peer-review is haphazard, and many articles "fall through the cracks" year after year, remaining without RSs. As WP editors we accept our strategy and the policies that govern it. But many editors see flaws in those policies. One flaw is that one cannot always find a RS for a good and true statement that one would like to add to an article. My example was an attempt to illustrate this. I'm not asking WP to move in the direction of Citizendium. Their policies have not proven the right ones for growth, only the right ones for providing good information (and maybe not even that, I don't know).
*WhatamIdoing, "We do have a small but dedicated number of editors who apparently believe that if it's not what the rest of us call plagiarism, then it's a NOR violation. I assume that this proposal is born out of long experience with such editors." Well, er, no. I did not have that in mind. However, that looks like another area that would benefit from my proposed modification of policies. Of course, you're employing hyperbole here--plagiarism is forbidden by WP policy.
*Andrew Lancaster, I don't understand your points. You seem to be supporting the proposal.
*Martinvl, I'm not following your response to Andrew. I don't see how this relates to the proposal.
*DonIago, Your arguments make sense only when a RS can be found. But my proposal deals with the many situations in which a RS cannot be found, such as in the example I gave.
*Monty845, "I just don't see a way for the idea to work in practice." Fine, but you don't seem to be exploring the proposal, but instead the application of BURDEN. I'm not seeing why you find the proposal impractical.
*North8000, Your first suggestion is intruiging. I'd like to see more about it. Your second appears to be incorrect. Any statement in an article can be removed when it has no RS or even inadquate RS. Please point me to policy if I'm wrong. I don't see any real objection to my proposal, though.
*LeadSongDog, "WP cannot have a mechanism that could make this work without abandoning the principle of 'anyone can edit', without which WP would die a slow and painful death." My proposal allows anyone with certain knowledge to add it to WP without having the bad experience of seeing it instantly be deleted before they can even add RSs. This supports the principle of '''anyone can edit''' in a very direct way. You must provide proof if you seriously wish to claim that my proposal will make WP "die a slow and painful death." That is a sweeping and dramatic claim, one which even other opponents of my proposal have not made so far in this discussion.
*J. Johnson (JJ), I have deliberately not brought in the need to evidence the expertise of an editor. Sometimes an editor will know a lot (which they can contribute to make WP better), sometimes an editor will know little or nothing about the article. In the spirit of WP's strategy of allowing edits to converge to something good, I worded the proposal so that editing and editor discussion would resolve most issues, as it does under the current policies. My proposal does not require anyone to be an expert in some academic way, just to have some information that they wish to contribute to the article. If it is false, other editors will remove it right away. If it is true, other editors will respect that, and allow it to stand. But my proposed policy explicitly allows such contributions to stand even though they have no references yet. It is a way to allow anyone to contribute what they know, and at the same time conserve the 25% (or whatever) of existing unsourced information in WP.

] (]) 17:16, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
::While your response improves my understanding of your proposal, I still feel it ultimately makes it more difficult for editors to remove unsourced information that does not belong here without sourcing. It's my experience that a desire/willingness to remove unsourced information is already not something found in great abundance among editors here (indeed, I've been commended on occasion for my willingness to get in the trenches to defend the removal of unsourced material...which I don't think should have needed to happen in the first place), and I believe there are sufficient protections governing the removal of such material. I don't feel we need more pressure placed on editors to leave added material alone. Bluntly - We have ] for a reason, and if an editor objects to material being removed then they should be able to satisfy said policy and consequently reinsert their material. If they ''can't'', or worse ''won't'' satisfy said policy, then I don't believe the material should be published here. ] (]) 18:10, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
::David we agree that "RSs are the cornerstone of the integrity and reliability of WP, such as it has". But you've missed my point because you've misdiagnosed the full reason why that '25% or whatever,' unsourced exists. Sourcing can be hard and requires work. Policy should continue to encourage that which we all would rather not do but need to for integrity and reliability -- more work. The rather-not-do impulse does not need reenforcement; it does well enough on its own. The insistence on sources also has important systemic benefits for collaboration in this anyone can edit model. It encourages discussion about content not persons, and increases trust and communication in the know what we're all talking about vein -- sources literally serve as the common point of reference (internally, as well as externally). ] (]) 23:34, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, all. Again, I did not see any insurmountable objections to my proposal. Here are my responses to these new responses. Interspersing them would interfere with their flow, so I've grouped them all here. Please feel free to continue the discussion here. ] (]) 19:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


== Reliability of sources ==
*DonIago, "I still feel it ultimately makes it more difficult for editors to remove unsourced information that does not belong here without sourcing." Henry, the idea that unsourced information does not belong here is part of the ''current policy'', not my proposal. My proposal is orthogonal to the question of providing references to sources. My proposal allows uncontroversial unsourced information until such time as RSs can be found. The great benefit of removing unsourced information is that, especially in the early days of WP or of most editors, there was a tendency to add incorrect information (for example, information that was remembered incorrectly). I do not oppose eliminating incorrect information. My proposal may add incorrect information, but it will also add correct information, benefiting WP by encouraging editors to add what they know to be correct. They will sometimes also make mistakes. My proposal does not prevent mistakes, but it does allow correct information to be added and does encourage editors to contribute to WP. "I don't feel we need more pressure placed on editors to leave added material alone." I'm not clear on how my proposal increases pressure on editors. It merely allows situations where RSs have not yet been found to stand instead of be deleted. We have entirely too much deletion on WP--frequently good information is deleted just as quickly as bad. BURDEN states, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed." My policy modifies this; it preserves useful material until RSs can be found. To the extent that we trust editors to grow and to do a good job, this will improve the quality of articles. Editors will be encouraged to contribute information they know to be true. Not guess, but know for sure. Maybe this should be added to the proposal. But, while RS and BURDEN certainly improve WP in the absence of true experts, my proposal would further improve WP. (''Encyclopedia Brittanica'' is an example of an encyclopedia whose philosophy is to collate the contributions of recognized experts. WP has a different philosophy.) "Bluntly - We have WP:BURDEN for a reason, and if an editor objects to material being removed then they should be able to satisfy said policy and consequently reinsert their material." Blunt or not, this is simply a statement of current policy. Do you believe that current policy has evolved to the point that it cannot be improved? "If they can't, or worse won't satisfy said policy, then I don't believe the material should be published here." Okay, so it seems that your arguments pivot on this final statement, which is simply a belief in the current policy. Belief is not a good enough rationale. Yes, I agree that the current policies are excellent; the quality of many WP articles, developed through the work of dozens of "non-expert" editors, is excellent. But pay attention, too, to the many articles that have no references at all. Pay attention to the editors who leave WP because they find it difficult to face continual arguments over policy. And pay attention to the many new editors who leave after editing just one or a few articles, either because they were criticized by other editors who know the policies inside and out, or because they found it difficult to spend so much time on research when they actually know the few pieces of information they contributed.
*Alanscottwalker, You make a good point: "Sourcing can be hard and requires work. Policy should continue to encourage that which we all would rather not do but need to for integrity and reliability -- more work." My proposal is not meant to eliminate the need for sourcing. I wouldn't want to open floodgates of adding garbage that then could never be removed. The proposal would merely make WP more lively, providing a way for editors who have good knowledge to contribute it. If even one editor, reading a new addition, sees that it is garbage, they can give a concrete objection to it and later delete it for lack of RS. The point is that at WP we trust "ordinary folks" to edit. We don't assume that they are idiots who can only contribute garbage. We welcome them, and my policy encourages this. Besides, there are many cases where RSs either haven't been found (older articles), or where RSs are difficult or impossible to find (my example of explaining how it is possible to sail faster than the wind). It is in these cases where my proposal really helps. It doesn't avoid work, but it does allow spreading it out instead of insisting that anyone can remove material lacking a RS. Finally, as to avoiding work, all editors should be encouraged to add references to older articles that have none. It may not be glamorous, but it can be fun, and satisfying to confirm correct information.
] (]) 19:39, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:*"My proposal allows uncontroversial unsourced information until such time as RSs can be found."
::And this is why I'm opposed to your proposal; you're prohibiting the removal of information ''indefinitely'', even if it is unsourced. As I stated previously, my feeling is that if the information has been challenged then it is no longer uncontroversial.
:*"in the early days of WP or of most editors, there was a tendency to add incorrect information"
::Some editors might argue that this is an ongoing tendency.
:*" I do not oppose eliminating incorrect information."
::But your policy would make it more difficult to remove such information because an editor could claim they had the right to retain it until an RS is located. Or are you saying it should be incumbent on the challenging editor to prove that the information is untrue? If so, how would they do that?
:*"My proposal may add incorrect information, but it will also add correct information, benefiting WP by encouraging editors to add what they know to be correct."
::I don't believe we need to make it easier for editors to add correct information, especially if it means they're adding information that may be correct but also is unverifiable.
:*" My proposal does not prevent mistakes, but it does allow correct information to be added and does encourage editors to contribute to WP"
::I'm not aware of issues preventing editors to contribute to WP. IMO the requirement that information be sourced or face potential deletion is not a significant challenge to contributing.
:*" I'm not clear on how my proposal increases pressure on editors. It merely allows situations where RSs have not yet been found to stand instead of be deleted."
::Which increases pressure on editors to let information stand instead of deleting it, because an editor who takes issue with the deletion can obstruct the process by claiming they need an indefinite amount of time to locate sources. I've already played the "Just give me another week to locate a source" game, and it doesn't work. Either the editor doesn't provide a source, or I move on to other things and the unsourced and potentially erroneous information remains. Where's the harm in saying, "Please re-add this information when you can provide a source"?
:*"We have entirely too much deletion on WP--frequently good information is deleted just as quickly as bad."
::I don't believe that unsourced information should be called "good" information. It should be called "information that should be sourced". As for your opinion that there's too much deletion on WP - that's your opinion, and I haven't seen anything to support it.
:*" My policy modifies this; it preserves useful material until RSs can be found."
::At what point are we allowed to conclude that they can't be found?
:*"Editors will be encouraged to contribute information they know to be true. Not guess, but know for sure. "
::How are we supposed to know whether an editor knows information is true, is guessing that it's true, or is deliberately adding incorrect information knowing they'll later be able to claim they just need time to locate a reliable source?
:*"Do you believe that current policy has evolved to the point that it cannot be improved?"
::There may be room for improvement within the current policy; I simply don't see how your proposal improves the current policy; rather I see it as weakening current policy.
:*"Pay attention to the editors who leave WP because they find it difficult to face continual arguments over policy."
::In my experience most arguments over this particular policy could be averted if the editor desiring to include information would spend more energy locating a source than arguing for the inclusion of unsourced material. Also I'd like evidence that this is why editors are leaving...have you conducted exit interviews, or is this a guess on your part?
:*"And pay attention to the many new editors who leave after editing just one or a few articles, either because they were criticized by other editors who know the policies inside and out, or because they found it difficult to spend so much time on research when they actually know the few pieces of information they contributed."
::It's my opinion that contributing to WP shouldn't just be about adding what you know to be true; it should be about what you know to be true ''and can provide a reference for such that other readers can determine from whence your information originated''.
:In short, I don't doubt that you're passionate about this, but I don't see how your proposal ultimately does anything to improve the project. As near as I can determine, at best it restates information that is already true ("Editors can add unsourced information") while at worst it undermines verifiability and gives obstructionist editors the defense of "I know my information is true and I promise to add a source...sometime."
:If you opt to respond I would appreciate it if you did so directly after my comment to make it easier to follow the conversation, rather than your current technique,which makees the flow of conversation less clear. Thank you.
:Who's Henry? ] (]) 20:36, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
::'''Oppose.''' (I voted likewise at ].) The problems are probably fatal but it's worth considering whether they can be solved.
::In answer mainly to editor ] at WT:RS (the editor suggested replying here) and at this topic/section:
::I agree that experts usually agree on a given statement in a field in which they're expert. But most of those statements would be sourceable. When they're not, disagreement becomes likelier, because being in print or on the Web attracts scrutiny about the certainty of the statement, so that the lack of print or bytes reduces scrutiny and lessens weight for certainty. While knowledge development tends to reinforce the core of a given body of knowledge, because the development of new edges challenges the core so that if a challenge fails the core is reinforced (''e.g.'', perhaps gravity does not exist but the known data is so vast it's likely to overwhelm any attempt to come up with a contradictory explanation that accounts for all the known data), if a core statement is not sourceable then developers at the edges are less likely to know of the core statement and therefore may not either agree or disagree with it, thus may not either reinforce or discredit it.
::Active bodies of knowledge that are neither very recent nor very old are more likely sourceable; inactive bodies of knowledge (like on how to repair a ]) are those that have not lately been much developed (as far as most of would know) and thus have not lately faced known challenges to their validity, so if they're not sourceable there's also probably less agreement among its experts as to a given statement.
::Any editor adding unsourceable content is presumably implicitly claiming to be an expert. (Exceptions include vandals and the mistaken (''e.g.'', grammar correctors who inadvertently alter substantive information).) By claiming ''x'' is true without a source, one is presumably asking to be believed without citing an authority other than oneself, and that probably defines a claim of expertise.
::Regarding the statement by David Spector, "my proposal would rapidly have had no effect in this example , since experts differed. WP has no way to prevent erroneous information from being added, but its virtue is that such errors are rapidly eliminated, as soon as someone with better knowledge comes along." Yes, but that means either that a second expert's unsourced view could replace a first expert's unsourced view or that replacement would not be allowed unless sourced which would mean that the first view would stay although unsourced while a second expert searched in vain for a source. So we'd either have battling experts (and we don't have a system for designating or recognizing experts so we'd really be dealing with battling editors who may or may not be experts), a pretender to expertise getting in first who stymies any expert trying to clear a matter up but has no source, or a relative success (an expert able to stop editing by a nonexpert who came afterwards); two out of three of those results are especially undesirable.
::My other examples that may not have been clear have these properties: On string theory and the disagreement with it, on an unsourced disagreement, whether a string theorist or a nonstring theorist should be the editor permitted to add unsourced content is the question; both can't be that editor. Between archaeology and Egyptology as separate disciplines, each could be the dissenter from the other, so that a point of disagreement regarding archaeology in Egypt can't be resolved be turning to the mainstream, since there are two mainstreams; the same is true of political scientists and sociologists (I think sociologists) with respect to mass movements; the same is true of scholars debating who discovered America, with even more mainstreams. The theological case had that property and also the property of applicability to a great many nontheological articles in Misplaced Pages, which risks that battles between experts would not occur as often but mainly because the second experts would probably not know that a first expert had posted somewhere that was secular (''e.g.'', on voting) and so probably wouldn't edit or counter-edit there.
::I may have misunderstood in thinking that your proposal was for experts in particular (not just any editors) to gain a degree of preservation of their unsourced edits. If it is for nonexperts too and therefore anyone to edit so that other editors should assume that any unsourced edit is the product of expertise, making reverting harder, that amounts to weakening the RS and NOR requirements without, in my opinion, enough compensating gain. I have a thought about when a baseball batter has to decide whether to swing relative to a pitch's start but I have no source and I'm not a sports expert; if I add it to Misplaced Pages my view might be read by thousands of readers because no one could delete it without first gaining consensus that my view is controversial or finding a contrary source, if there is one. Maybe I should post it at a baseball discussion forum where reliable baseball experts could weigh in or possibly unreliable commenters could refer me to a reliable source one way or the other, since most readers of Misplaced Pages are not expert in the subjects they're reading about. Misplaced Pages is heavily used by nonexperts, most of whom don't edit it at all (I tried to persuade a public librarian who found an error and had a source to edit WP herself but she wasn't willing). I frequently edit unsourced edits on the basis of my sourceable expertise; if I had to bring all of them to the talk page to gain consensus instead of being bold I'd probably soon give up for most of them, as would most editors for reasons of time and productivity, and the result would be lower editorial quality across WP (unless those with the initiative to edit first tend to be inherently more expert than those who correct them, which I doubt).
::What I was talking about regarding adding OR to other media is that OR should be submitted to subject-relevant websites or other subject-relevant media which have experts in the relevant subjects and that are RS and then, after the other media have vetted the OR, a WP editor should paraphrase from the other media into WP. It's not your proposal but it may be a solution to the problem you outline, a solution that preserves existing policies and avoids the problem of awaiting consensus before deleting wrong information because perhaps it was added on the basis of unsourceable expertise.
::When new non-BLP content is rapidly deleted for want of sourcing when sourcing could have been found, the solution now is to re-add the content but this time with sourcing.
::The plagiarism-''vs.''-NOR issue is not hyperbole, because it was describing what some editors call plagiarism and other editors don't when the latter editors demand what the former would call plagiarism because they don't trust the quality of the paraphrasing they see and so think they see OR. Arguments of that kind come up now and then.
::I was not concerned that you have a hidden agenda. Something like this is not much affected by hidden agendas.
::] requires immediate deletion of contentious content. I don't know if you propose that that policy be changed, but changing it could expose the Wikimedia Foundation to legal risks.
::Wikiversity is not a site I know well. ], ] (a proposal), and ] seem relevant. At first glance, I'm not sure that OR is allowed there.
::Crafting specific language is advantageous at some point in the discussion (and I think that's now because of already-open disagreements between you and some other editors about what your proposal actually is), posted in a way that lets it be updated before finalization as debaters raise issues you can resolve by fine-tuning the specific proposal. Crafting what a template would say is also helpful but it's not important to program one (unless you have a fancy one in mind and one could question whether it technically can be created, but what's been so far mentioned is not technologically fancy). Your proposal that if one of these cases of unsourceable expertise goes to arbitration the tradition of requiring RS and deleting OR would take over for the case is a simplifying approach; if this includes not just arbitration (a term normally used only for ] proceedings) but any dispute resolution mechanism, your proposal essentially would end when an editor requested dispute resolution, but that means that consensus that an edit is controversial would be unnecessary because a single editor could seek dispute resolution. This would lead to more disputes at the dispute resolution level and less posting to article talk pages seeking consensus. If you want to preserve the tradition that dispute resolution only follow an attempt at talk page discussion, then you should craft language so that as a result each relevant dispute resolution forum requires (or continues to require) that a consensus have been arrived at on the article's talk page (assuming it's not a ]) or that a failure to achieve consensus be invalidated.
::] (]) 16:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC) (Edited generally: 17:14, 30 August 2013 (UTC))


I've noticed that many right-wing sources on this site are considered unreliable; my question is: why? I'm politically neutral and, considering that the politics of Italy and the United States are different, I have asked myself this question. Thanks in advance. ] (]) 22:48, 28 September 2024 (UTC)
DonIago and Nick Levinson, thank you for your many points. I thought of replying to them individually as I have been doing here so far (many of them have simple answers based on simply understanding the proposal with an open mind), but realized that at this point, with mostly '''Oppose''' votes, that my continued defense is not worthwhile. If I'm seeing value in the proposal, but no one else is, the probability is that I'm wrong and everyone else is right. I therefore yield to the vast majority and sincerely thank everyone for considering my ideas. I know that present policies are not quite good enough to encourage some with good personal knowledge to offer it, so maybe I'll be back here again someday with a better and less objectionable proposal. ] (]) 21:50, 9 September 2013 (UTC)


:That's not a question with a simple answer, but whether a source is perceived as right wing or left wing shouldn't be a consideration in questions of reliability. If you look into discussions about sources the issue are rarely ideological. Instead the cause is that media organisation have diverged since the days of print media, and that divergence has impacted media on different parts of the political spectrum differently. That change in the real world has then had an impact on Misplaced Pages. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 10:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
== Gender ==


::{{Ping|ActivelyDisinterested}} the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are.<br />I repeat: I don't know the political situation in the United States in detail. In Italy we have a right-wing government; it's a government that many Italians support, because Italy is quite conservative, which for the Italian context is a very good thing; for the US context, however, it seems not, since the American right has, for example, denied climate change, which unfortunately exists.
'''What is the role of verifiability in determining the gender of the article subject?''' For example, suppose that a notable subject spent the majority of their life (including the period of time when they had the most notability) being identified as a male, by reliable sources and in self-identification. Then the notable subject announces that they have started self-identifying as a female. At this point, multiple reliable sources start identifying the subject as a female, while multiple reliable sources also continue identifying the subject as a male. How does verifiablity play into this? From my understanding, the normal resolution to a disagreement between reliable sources is to use in-text attribution, but this does not seem possible when the male/female disagreement affects almost every pronoun in the article which refers to the subject. There are also ] issues to consider, so these changes may be applied before discussion and consensus can be formed. Does anybody have any thoughts about this? Kind regards, ] (]) 07:09, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
:'''Note''': Matt Heard's post is the result of the ]/] matter. It's a topic that is popping up ] (]) 07:19, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
::Thank you, ]. Looking back at what I wrote, I should have been clearer about that. I was purposely being as general as possible so that the questions could be answered about the Verifiability process rather than about the particular article about Manning. Kind regards, ] (]) 04:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
*Use the gender pronoun the reliable sources use. Always follow the sources, don't try to be ahead of them.—] <small>]/]</small> 17:13, 23 August 2013 (UTC)
::The Manning situation is an oddball one in that I don't believe we have any actual source, reliable or not to demonstrate that Manning himself is stating the self identification. Lawyers are not the subject and we cannot know that it is their actual wish, or some legal tactic, or even true altogether. Always follow the source. If the subject contacts someone (which is doubtful in this case) it could be amended at a later date, but for now we do summarize just what the sources state.--<font face="Mistral" size="3;" style="text-shadow:1px 1px 3px #999;">]</font> 18:26, 23 August 2013 (UTC)


:::The answer to all these questions is simple... have a some ''patience''. Let a little time pass... so we know whether the sources accept or reject Manning's name change. ] (]) 01:43, 24 August 2013 (UTC) ::Returning to the main topic: the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are. ] (]) 14:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
:::{{tq|extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong)}} yes you <s>age</s> +are+ wrong. Take for example in British news media The Canary and Skwarkbox are both considered unreliable, and are on the far left of politics. Also to be clear sources aren't banned so much as actively discouraged if the consensus is that they are unreliable.
:::@]: Should we not consider for the sake of self-publication that a lawyer is a reasonable representative for a subject? Kind regards, ] (]) 04:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
:::Whether governments or voters are of a particular part of the political spectrum is also not a consideration in judging the reliability of sources. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 14:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
::@]: What should be done in situations where some reliable sources use "he/him/his" and other reliable sources use "she/her"? Kind regards, ] (]) 04:13, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
::::{{Ping|ActivelyDisinterested}} thank you very much for this detailed and very useful explanation. ] (]) 14:23, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
:::Current consensus on how to deal with such pronouns is at ]. Verifiability applies to direct quotes, where the exact pronoun used by the source is copied. Sentences made in Misplaced Pages's voice use the pronoun of the latest gender by which the BLP subject self-identifies - provided the self-identification is itself verifiable. ] (]) 09:50, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::The primary reason media sources get Deprecated (which is not quite a “ban”), is that they have repeatedly been shown to not fact check (or, in some cases, shown to completely invent “facts” which they report).
::::{{u|Matt Heard}} pretty sure we can consider the statement to have come from Manning. My point was badly made and was simply pointing out that we have to follow the source to verify that this is the subject making these identifications. As long as that is satisfied (and from everything I am seeing, I assume it is) then ] should apply and BLP policy does apply across the project broadly, including article titles.--<font face="Mistral" size="3;" style="text-shadow:1px 1px 3px #999;">]</font> 10:05, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
:::::As to why right leaning sources seem to be more likely to be deprecated than left leaning ones… this is due to the fact that right wing sources tend to get more ''scrutiny''. It’s no secret that Misplaced Pages attracts academics, who tend to be a somewhat left leaning group. They ''notice'' (and complain) when right-wing sources don’t fact check… and they tend to be a bit more forgiving when left-wing sources do the same.
:::::That being said, we ''have'' deprecated a few left-wing sources when enough evidence has been presented to show they are not properly fact checking. It’s difficult, but possible. ] (]) 15:04, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{Ping|Blueboar}} Recognizing and admitting this problem is certainly a big step forward, but '''actions are more important than words'''; I would like neutrality not to be compromised in the encyclopedia. ] (]) 20:12, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
:::::::With respect, Blueboar’s comment is not an admission of any problem, it’s an example of the long debunked myth of the liberal media, which Blueboar evidently believes is true. Virtually every aspect of their comment is untrue, IMO. For example, the vast majority of US sources are center to center right, not "left", and the leading opposition party in the US (D) takes policy positions that are considered center to center right in the rest of the world. What I’ve found most interesting about this is to look closely at the history of CNN and MSNBC, two of the so-called "leftist" bugbears attacked by the right as communists. As it turns out, both networks take center to center right positions on most issues and are run by pro-corporate, pro-big business leaders. The idea that reality has a liberal bias began in the early 1970s as a right-wing libertarian call to arms, which has created an alternate reality where right is center and center is left. This was intentional. It began as a way to limit government regulation and undermine democracy. This is a good example of what happens when people lose touch with things like facts and become a ] society. And this is the true reason right wing sources tend to be highly deprecated. They don’t believe in things like facts. And when facts no longer matter, democracy ceases to function. Apologies if this offends anyone. ] (]) 01:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


::] - Outside of politics the banning also happens. I think it is just the mechanics or effect of ]. For the UK it seems more an elitism thing than a political leaning -- for example it seems most British press by volume is excluded as low class. RSP seems to interpret 'reliable' to mean 'respected' or 'truth' to that WP editor, excluding consideration of 'available' or 'accurate' from 'verifiability'. (You can elsewhere see discussions on a paywalled source or remote paper being preferred despite readers generally not having access to such or ]) The terms RSP uses are "Blacklisted" meaning mechanically edits including that site are blocked, or "Deprecated" meaning the guidance includes "generally prohibited" by automatic warning of such an editor and removal of such edits by third parties, or "Generally unreliable" meaning outside "exceptional circumstances" not to be used with removal by third parties and pings in TALK. If you want to see what discussions on what to ban are like, they are mixed in at ]. Cheers ] (]) 04:22, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
] (''Privacy of personal information and using primary sources''. Bolding for emphasis): ''Misplaced Pages includes full names and dates of birth that have been widely published by reliable sources, '''or by sources linked to the subject such that it may reasonably be inferred that the subject does not object.'''''--<font face="Mistral" size="3;" style="text-shadow:1px 1px 3px #999;">]</font> 10:17, 26 August 2013 (UTC)


:::{{Ping|Markbassett}} I'm not convinced that this isn't political. What's the percentage between left-wing and right-wing sources that can be used? Perhaps an 80/20? ] (]) 18:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
*You know, it is amazing how ''waiting'' even just a few days will clarify issues over breaking news... despite all the angst and knee jerk contention, it turns out that there is no need to change this policy in any way. We now actually have reliable sources that discuss Manning's desire to shift from "Bradley" to "Chelsea" (and sources that discuss the shift of pronoun from "he" to "she"). It is not only verifi'''able''', but ''verifi'''ed'''''. WP:VERIFIABILITY is no longer an issue (there may be ''other'' policies and guidelines that need to be discussed... but ''not'' WP:V). ] (]) 14:59, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
::::I'm saying that banning sources via blacklisting and deprecated designations seems basically an elitism act, and that it exists in all venues or topics - so it's in effect at articles for sports or music or basically anything. I'm not talking politics, or whether some parties might exploit it for financial or personal reasons -- I'm saying it simply is always a direct issue to the policies for V and WEIGHT. You cannot have WEIGHT properly measured if you exclude considering any significant circulation because editors think those are labelled as lesser venues, and if you are selecting paywalled or tiny elite items as the one to cite, then it's preferring the not accessible ones which is contrary to it being V verifiable. Cheers ] (]) 22:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{Ping|Markbassett}} very interesting discussion. So is Misplaced Pages making a mistake in rejecting certain sources or is it doing so in good faith? In my opinion the second option is correct, but I would like to read yours. ] (]) 22:40, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::Well I tend to view RSP usage here as problematic, but my wider view is Misplaced Pages content is from editors that are just people - good people and bad people, informed one way among many, obsessive or ditzy, with good days and bad days, days they have time to be careful and days that are rushed. You can look over RS debates and RSP debates or just filter recent changes to the ones possibly vandalism and judge for yourself.
::::::For RSP in particular, I was not a fan of the idea back when it started and events have not improved my views of it and the way mechanics of it work. It supposedly was meant to capture the RS conclusions from earlier "Perennial" RS questions, so it could help the RS consideration. But folks just propose and argue from whatever stance for banning - there is not necessarily prior RS considerations or policy criteria in play. And instead of informing a RS consideration it seems mainly a blanket forever judgement - or at least I have not seen any reversals up or down. My revision of your 80/20 question back to you would be more along the lines of if WP bans 80% of the UK press, then is it a 20% valid portrayal of views ? Cheers ] (]) 23:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::{{Ping|Markbassett}} is it possible to have an accurate statistic of how many left-wing and right-wing sources are deprecated? ] (]) 00:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I think one can only get a statistic of the simple sort and count by their status like 20 banned, 44 deprecated, 133 generally unreliable, 100 no consensus, 119 generally reliable. Anything else would need a chosen filtering and categorizing. But I think RSP counts is less a concern than percentage of external, or individual articles being totally dependent on limited source.
::::::::The first concern is more how large a percentage of the total ] of coverage for a POV is being excluded by RSP, because it seems the largest or most known sources are the ones to get excluded, so a simple count such as '5' banned needs the context of is that 5 of only 6 or is it 5 of 100, and does the 5 constitute 95% of the WEIGHT or what ? For example again, almost all of major circulation are banned, and the banning for reason for banning for being 'sensationalist' or 'just sports' then means not having the best available data or best known portrayals on topics that were UK scandals or UK sports events.
::::::::The second concern is that at some articles the cites are too limited by selections which perhaps excludes what the most common view is outside of WP, or at least will not show all the common views so be a failure of NPOV. Again, this is all categories -- for example one cannot have a music article that only shows the academic views and think that reflects the world opinions and complete story. Cheers ] (]) 21:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::{{Ping|Markbassett}} ] shouldn't have been created, perhaps Misplaced Pages is unnecessarily self-complicating. ] (]) 22:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I don't think it's possible to get such a count, because you'd have to first agree on where to draw the line between left and right. For example, ] is most commonly described as centrist, but some editors think it's leftist. ] seems to be considered center-left, except that there are complaints that it's right-wing on trans issues. ] (]) 00:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::I haven’t heard the NYT described as center left in polite company. I think that’s a talking point on the right. If you followed the last presidential election, it appeared that the NYT was rooting for Trump on the regular and frequently pushes center to center right policy proposals. I think there’s this misunderstanding about the NYT that has persisted for decades, that because they cover a wide variety of topics that somehow makes them leftist. It doesn’t. If you recall, the NYT has been the subject of critiques from the left in the US since at least WWII, when they pretended Hitler wasn’t a problem and the Holocaust wasn’t newsworthy. Many controversies surrounding their conservative to right wing coverage in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, the NYT was frequently referred to by the left as '']''. In the 2000s, they were taken down a notch for supporting and promoting the Iraq War and for government stenography, failing to investigate the false claims of WMD. During the Trump, post-truth era, the NYT was described as giving Trump a free pass while also attacking Democrats who might have paid a parking ticket late, etc. One of the NYT’s lead reporters has been repeatedly accused of engaging in access journalism, replacing critical analysis with softball questions and empty analysis. I could go on. ] (]) 02:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::When I've seen people (usually inexperienced editors) complain about the New York Times (]), it's almost always because they think it's liberal/leftist. ] (]) 07:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== Semi-protected edit request on 18 November 2024 ==


{{edit semi-protected|Misplaced Pages:Verifiability|answered=yes}}
One should ask at what level the relevant information resides in the real world that we should focus on. I explain this and . ] (]) 15:07, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
The birth place of Sam Mills is not Neptune City New Jersey because there is not a hospital with maternity facilities in Neptune City and his parents never lived there. Therefore change Neptune City ,N.J. to Neptune Township ,N.J. He was born at Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune New Jersey. Parts of Neptune City is across the street from that hospital. There are too many people confusing Neptune City Borough with Neptune Township ] (]) 00:31, 18 November 2024 (UTC)


:Is this about the ] article? You should ask at ] instead. (Also, not every baby gets born in a hospital, or in the place where their parents live.) ] (]) 00:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
== Proposal - sources in english on ENWP ==


== Are articles written by a publication owner/publisher reliable secondary sources, or are they self-published sources? ==
Time to time discover english readers the sources of the articles in languages ​​other than English. What is the point of these? You read articles on ENWP and would love to have sources written in English, it is natural. Many times I have come across articles where most sources, written in a language other than English. If English readers do not understand what is written in the source then the source is meaningless. All parties would benefit if all sources on ENWP were in English. ] (]) 17:46, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


I think I asked this question over a decade ago somewhere and it's been lost in the recesses of Misplaced Pages talk archives. If the owner/publisher of a reliable source writes pieces for their publication, are they a self-published source? Like, for example, if Ian Danzig writes an article for '']'' (which he owns and publishes), or '']'''s founder and publisher Doug Van Pelt or Jesus Freak Hideout's owner and publisher John DiBiase write articles for their respective websites, or ] writes a story for '']'', are those articles self-published sources only or are they considered reliable, independent published sources?--] (] &#124; ]) 22:00, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
:No. ] (]) 17:47, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:That may be the ideal, but should not be a rule that would exclude sources. There are many things that would make a source more difficult to "access" (off line, behind a paywall, obscure, a different language) but they should not be grounds for excluding them. <font color ="#0000cc">''North8000''</font> (]) 17:52, 28 August 2013 (UTC)


:… depends on the publication, publisher’s relationships with paper, and more. The discussions above as well as ongoing ] all suggest divergent opinions in community. ] (]) 22:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
::On the other hand, since English is one of the major world languages, the English language Misplaced Pages opens up the subject to readers whose home language is neither English nor the language of the original source. For example, assume that most of the sources regarding a particular subject that is related to country A are written in the language A. A reader from country B wishes to know about the subject, but can only read his own language, language B and English. In this case the English Misplaced Pages will open up the subject to him. Of course, Wikipedians who read both English and language A will ensure that the article accurately represents the sources. ] (]) 23:17, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
:Your use of "secondary" in the heading is out of place. An article can be published by a reliable publisher but be primary. A paper in a journal published by a learned society reporting new experimental results is an example of that. And there is nothing stopping a self-published article or book from being based mostly, or entirely, on other sources, which makes it secondary. ] (]) 22:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
:] concluded that articles written by the owner/publisher of ] were self-published. ] (]) 05:37, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::@] I'm now also trying to figure out if the commentary and factual statements accompanying the premiere of an artist's work is essentially a primary source. For instance, on my sandbox I'm working on an article, and I cite some BLP claims (a musician converted to Christianity and his band released to Christian metal albums) to a premiere of new music by that band. The author of the magazine post premiering the material is the owner of the magazine (thus it's self-published), but in this case I'm assuming that the commentary of that author could essentially be considered closely affiliated with the band, that is, essentially a press release. I'll note that the faith of the musician is not in question, that's been stated by the artist himself, but the timing of his conversion (mid-1990s) and that two albums were released afterwards I haven't seen expressly stated in interviews or other press releases.--] (] &#124; ]) 16:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:::Of course it is a primary source. It is also non-independent ("Alice Artist tells you what Alice Artist thinks").
:::But depending on the structure, it might not be self-published; the most I could tell you is that the post could be argued to be self-published, and that it could be argued to ''not'' be self-published. The latter is because anyone who puts out a magazine is an established, traditional publisher, and some definitions exempt all traditional publishers. I would not worry overmuch about this one.
:::Remember that ]. ] (]) 17:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::::@] oh, primary is fine, my concern is that if it isn't primary. Because then it's a secondary source (the publisher) making a statement that's essentially self-published but used to support BLP claims.--] (] &#124; ]) 17:43, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::An ] (which is a case of "commentary and factual statements accompanying the premiere of an artist's work") is primary, non-independent, and often self-published (but not always, e.g., self-published on the author's website or a commercial gallery wall, but non-self-published if it is quoted in a scholarly article). It is also an excellent type of source to use (usually with ] attribution) for information about the art and the artist.
:::::A magazine article that contains similar information is often primary (but not always, e.g., if it takes the form of a compare-and-contrast analysis). It is assumed independent unless there is some COI-type relationship between the artist/band/album and the author/magazine/magazine owner. It is usually not considered self-published. ] (]) 22:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::@] Right. My concern is that as the magazine is independent of the artist, and the content is a summary put together by the magazine's publisher, it's technically an independent source but a self-published one given that the publisher is the author and thus not under normal editorial review. In terms of the spirit of what not using SPS for BLPs is about (defamation), it's fine, as the subject states his faith elsewhere, but technically if the source is an independent SPS it's a violation of the stated consensus to never use such sources for BLP statements.--] (] &#124; ]) 12:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I think that "thus not under normal editorial review" is an assumption, and possibly a false one.
:::::::The usual practice seems to be to start off with "Well, is it obviously an ordinary newspaper/magazine/academic journal?" If so, then we're done: It's not self-published. ] (]) 20:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::@] well, that's why I brought up this issue. And as you point out, Quackwatch, for example, is considered to be self-published if the content is from the website publisher. With the example I'm working with, we're talking about something that was a print magazine but now is fully online only.--] (] &#124; ]) 20:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::There are two ways to address this concern. I'll give you both:
:::::::::# If this magazine were still in print, would you still be worrying about whether this article is self-published? If not, then you shouldn't now. Being self-published has nothing to do with whether the publication is on paper or on a website.
:::::::::# What do you think is best for the article? If, using your own judgement as an editor, you think that citing this source makes that article better, then do it. If you think it makes the article worse – well, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, right? Because if you actually thought that, you'd have already rejected the source.
:::::::::] (]) 21:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::@] on point 1, yes, I've treated them the same in the past, and if I'm going to presume one form is reliable or unreliable, I'm going to presume the other.--] (] &#124; ]) 04:16, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
:Thank you for these replies, this was helpful and I'm already implementing some changes on pages I've created/worked on.--] (] &#124; ]) 12:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::@], you have made 26,000+ edits over the last 16 years, including about 150 articles. At this point, the only rule I really want to see you closely following is this one: ]
::As you have noticed, I'm happy to blather on about the technical distinctions between these things and the awkward gray areas, but when you're working on articles, you need to do what's right by the article, even if "the rules" suggest hurting the article. Total compliance with the rules is not the goal. Let me trust you to do the right thing. If you give me decent articles, I can figure out ways to make the rules align with community practices. Articles first. ] (]) 23:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:::@] Wow, I really appreciate that comment, that is very kind. I guess my concern is your last part about community practices. I want to make sure that I'm actually going by community practice and not just unilaterally making content decisions. I was cleaning up one of my articles yesterday where I had include a source once way back that was not reliable. In general I think it's good for me to reflect on whether some of my editing practices are actually the best practice and actually improving the encyclopedia, or if they're bad habits that I fell into. I also just wanted to get some clarification on these gray areas not just for myself but for others. So there's a discussion I can point to.--] (] &#124; ]) 12:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
::::Years ago, an editor used to say that if you haven't made 50 mistakes yet, you aren't a real Wikipedian. Mistakes are okay. Fixing them is great.
::::In general, I think it's important and valuable to conform to community practices, but sometimes the best practice isn't the popular one. The community needs some editors to be able to see and speak to best practices, instead of simply following rules, as if our policies and guidelines were holy writ. So I need – we need – you and editors like you to be thinking about what's best, rather than what's officially endorsed by The Rules™. ] (]) 21:30, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
:My take on the question is that most self-published sources are not reliable sources because we have no way of judging their reliability. We do make some exception; we accept blogs written by acknowledged experts when they are writing about the area of their expertise. In general, we accept sources as reliable when they (or their publishers) have a history of publication that has shown them to be generally reliable. It is not true that a self-published source can never be used. The point is that we should not use sources for which we cannot determine reliabilty, and we cannot make that determination for most self-published sources. If a self-published periodical (whatever that means) has enough history, however, we can make judgements about the reliability of that publication for topics it has published on. ] 22:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
::@] Right. I would presume that music reviews, if nothing else, could be considered editorials, if not more. Where it matters would be BLP statements.--] (] &#124; ]) 04:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)


== Should there be a statement that accessible sources are nevertheless preferred? ==
:::When there are quality English language sources to support the information in our articles, our policy favors using them over non-english sources. However, many of topic don't ''have'' quality sources in English. We still want the articles, and we still want the articles to be well sourced... even if the sources aren't in English. ] (]) 01:16, 29 August 2013 (UTC)


Because I think there ought to be one. The present policy defends less accessible sources entirely but there ought to be a balance. If there is a more accessible source and a less accessible source for a given bit of information, and it's not desirable to cite both, the more accessible source should be preferred. If a piece of information with a citation from an inaccessible source is contradicted by a more accessible, equally reliable source, there should be a preference towards the verified piece of information unless the first source can be located. If I own the latest edition of a book on a topic and the text in question is the same as an older edition that is on archive.org, I should cite the older edition because editors can go look at the book themselves more easily. Doing otherwise might not be a problem in itself but might lead to issues down the line. ] (]) 08:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
*'''Absolutely oppose'''. If I'm writing about Germany or a German person, it's utterly insane to use out-of-date English sources when there are quality, up-to-date German-language sources that are easily accessible and, usually, more comprehensive.—] <small>]/]</small> 10:00, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
*: I agree with S Marhsall. In the other direction, I've cited English-language sources on de.wikipedia, when writing articles about North American plants. Of course, I think it's helpful to both quote and translate the relevant excerpts of the sources. ] (]) 17:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


:When Misplaced Pages was young the better sources were almost exclusively off-line. While it is true that more reliable sources are now available on-line (almost all scholarly journals and many books), I would say that more than 95% percent of what is available on-line is still not usable as sources in Misplaced Pages. Most of the best sources on-line are still those that have been published on paper before or simultaneously with the on-line version. Unfortunately, many of the on-line sources are behind paywalls, but that does not mean that we should accept poor sources simply because they are free. The WikipediaLibrary has helped with that, providing access to paywall protected sources to editors who meet the requirements. Indeed, it has allowed me to drop my private subscription to JSTOR. We should always strive to use the best reliable sources to support content in articles. I would say that more of the highest quality sourcing is available on-line now than was the case 15 to 20 years ago, and so there is even less reason today to ease our sourcing standards than there was then. ] 16:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
:Agree with S Marshall. One option, which I don't think is currently sufficiently utilized, is to translate articles into English on ], which would make it easier for editors in any language to use sources which are primarily if not exclusively non-English. I think that this would apply most strongly to material in foreign language reference books, particularly on topics which seem to more directly relate to that language than English. Here I'm thinking of, for instance, encyclopedias in the Russian language which give wonderful articles about significant Russian historical developments or culture, but which aren't as regularly discussed in foreign language sources. If anyone knows of any way to stimulate development of such translations, I and I think others would love to see them. ] (]) 16:57, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
::: The nightmare case is editors misrepresenting sources, and doing it with obscure sources that are hard to check. I expect you can think of the particular editor I have in mind (I'll name them if requested but I don't know that it adds much). I don't have a real solution to this; such an editor would not really be stopped by a statement that high-availability sources are preferred. But it's something to keep in mind. --] (]) 00:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:In many cases it is a good idea to cite an off-line or subscription source with lots of detail, or especially authoritative, also citing one accessible online, perhaps with less detail or authority. Remembering also that google books previews are only available in different countries or times entirely as the publisher chooses. ] (]) 16:24, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
::I'm also seeing publishers or authors putting fairly recent but out-of-print books on-line for free, or as a free e-book. Not very common, yet, but I hope it is a growing trend. ] 17:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)


:All else being equal, where there are multiple high-quality reliable sources available for a claim, we can lean towards more accessible sources. But often all else is not equal. For example, citing an older source over a newer one can give the impression that the claim may be dated and no longer reflective of the literature. And where equally reliable sources disagree, we definitely shouldn't disregard one perspective based solely on how accessible it is. ] (]) 00:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
:While that may not be wildly known, even native English speakers are neither structurally unable to nor legally forbidden from learning other languages. Or from commissioning a translation. Restricting ourselves to English sources would increase systemic bias, decrease quality, and leave us overall much poorer. Also, arguably it's easier to learn (say) Persian as a language than to learn enough math or physics or computer science to understand many academic sources in English. Just because one can read the words does not mean one understands the source. --] (]) 17:15, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


== editing the text of WP:SPS ==
:Je suis très opposé à cette proposition. ] (]) 18:11, 6 September 2013 (UTC)


The text of WP:SPS currently says (1) {{tq|Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources}}, and (2) {{tq|'''Never''' use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer.}}
* '''Absolutely oppose'''. That material must be verifiable does not mean that it must be verifiable by any given reader no matter how limited his or her competency. ~ ] (]) 22:42, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
Sentence (1) does not exist in the corresponding ] text. Moreover, it implies that expert SPS cannot themselves be independent reliable sources, and it's not clear to me that the claim about probability is true. I propose deleting this sentence, or at least the portion of it that comes after the colon.
Sentence (2) is a bit inconsistent with the corresponding text of ], which now includes the following exception: {{tq|It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example.}} ] has similar exceptions in various places on that page; I'm not sure about other subject-specific notability guidelines for people. Should a corresponding sentence be added to WP:SPS? (FWIW, since editors disagree about what SPS does/doesn't encompass, I will likely start an RfC about that after the closure of the RfC on grey literature mentioned above. We could wait til that's over, as it may have broader implications for the wording of WP:SPS.) ] (]) 22:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)


:In regard to BLP, it seems like "It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example" is not saying that it is ok to use an SPS on a BLP, just that this does not count as an SPS. If that is the case does it provide a counter example to "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer"? - ] (]) 23:22, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
== ] and retroactive use of new names ==
::No, the recent clarification at ] is saying that your employer is not a "third-party" to you. A press release is always self-published. A press release or a social media post saying "Bob's Big Business, Inc. is delighted to announce that they have hired Sam Sales as the new Vice President of Global Sales" is:
::* non-independent (of the business; of the new VP of sales),
::* self-published (written by the business, published by the business),
::* primary (very close to the event, based on no prior publications),
::* reliable (for sentences such as "Sam Sales was hired as Vice President of Global Sales in 2024"), and
::* acceptable under BLPSPS.
::] (]) 23:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
:::], people have varied views on what is/isn't self-published (see the ''SPS definition'' discussion above). AFAICT, everyone agrees that (a) things like personal blogs, wikis, and social media are SPS and (b) things like traditional newspapers and book publishers are not self-published, but people disagree about (c) whether <small></small> publications from advocacy organizations, universities, companies, think tanks, museums, learned societies, governments, etc. are SPS. The community needs to come to some consensus about (c), and that's why I'm thinking of creating an RfC about it. Depending on one's view about what is/isn't self-published, the BLPSPS sentence might mean that those publications are not self-published (and so don't fall under BLPSPS) or that they're self-published but are exempt from BLPSPS. ] (]) 00:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::No, "a press release is always self-published" is only true if the press release is published by a natural person, not an organization. It is, however, a primary source. ] (]) 03:03, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::::You made the argument above that a natural person (e.g., me) can self-publish something, but that when an organization (e.g., "WhatamIdoing, Inc.") does exactly the same thing, it's magically not self-published. I'm still not buying it. ] (]) 07:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:], rather than trying to keep everything perfectly in sync across multiple pages, maybe we should point to BLPSPS. That might involve adding works like "Per WP:BLPSPS," but would not necessarily involve removing any existing text.
:About your (1): ''"Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources"''.
:The change I'd suggest here is to change "published it in independent, reliable sources" to "published it in a non-self-published reliable source". The non-self-published part is the part that matters. That source will be independent 99% of the time, but it's technically not the problem we're talking about here.
:About your (2): ''"Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer."''
:What we're trying to say is that even if the author is amazing, and even if the author has written a dozen non-self-published books on this exact subject, it's still 100% not okay to use their self-published works for BLPSPS purposes.
:Imagine, e.g., that Gene Genealogist has written hundreds of articles and several books on genealogy. Gene has even written a whole book (], 2021, good reviews, decent sales) specifically on the subject of birthdates and is considered an expert in the field. Gene self-publishes this on social media: "Here's a fun fact: Paul Politician, Joe Film, and I all share exactly the same birthday. We were all born on the 32nd of Octember in 1960, making us all Baby Boomers. We are all 64 years old right now."
:Using the list above, this post is:
:* non-independent of self, but independent of the others,
:* self-published,
:* primary,
:* reliable, and
:* acceptable only for statements about Gene's own birthday/age/generation. It is unacceptable for statements about Paul or Joe.
:The problem isn't that Gene isn't independent or reliable. The problem is that there was nobody to stop Gene if publishing this were a bad idea for some reason. And rather than say "Oh, it's never a bad idea" or "Do this only if it's a good idea" – and then have fights over whether this is a good or bad idea, then editors voluntarily placed a blanket restriction on ourselves: Don't use even independent expert SPS sources about other people. ] (]) 00:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::Re: (1), why do you believe that "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source" is true? How would one even go about testing that?
::Re: (2), you quoted a different sentence, one that I'm not questioning. I understand the BLPSPS condition. I also understand that there's significant disagreement about what is/isn't considered self-published. But my question was whether something like {{tq|It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example}}, which is currently in the text of WP:BLPSPS, should be added to the text of WP:SPS. Instead of your Gene Genealogist example, it's instead something like Notable Academic got a Notable Award from Learned Society, as published in Learned Society's newsletter. If one considers a newsletter to be self-published (and you do, though some others might not), then that sentence is saying that it's still OK to cite the newsletter for text on the academic's BLP re: the academic having gotten the award. And the BLPSPS text makes that clear, but the SPS text doesn't. ] (]) 01:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::(1) I don't think it's universally true, because "the information in question" could be basic information about the subject (e.g., all biographies should identify when and where the person lived; all articles about books should say what the book was about; all articles about species should say what kind of an organism it is), and sometimes part of that information might not be available anywhere else (e.g., a birthdate or birthplace; the author's explanation of what the book is "really" about; a scientific monograph from previous centuries).
:::However, outside of such basic information, if it isn't available in a non-self-published reliable source, it's unlikely to be ] for inclusion. Remember that this is an information statement rather than a rule (i.e., it does not tell you what to do), and it is not absolute, since it says this is only {{xt|"probably"}} the case.
:::(2) My suggestion is that we solve the mismatch by having a single copy of the full BLP rules at BLPSPS (=''not here'') and that we indicate that WP:V does not have a complete copy of the full BLP rules. The alternative is that we have duplicated text, which will inevitably diverge over time. The available choices are:
:::* a single "official" text, and everything else points to it, or
:::* the maintenance hassle of resolving contradictions that arise between multiple copies.
:::The first approach is recommended in ] ("minimize redundancy"), but if you prefer ongoing maintenance hassles and the periodic need to de-conflict policies, then we could do that. ] (]) 07:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I forgot to address your Learned Society example before I posted this. It's the same as the employer press release:
::::The Learned Society publishes a newsletter. The things we call newsletters are usually self-published, because they are usually being written and published by the organization; however, in some cases, the organization only sponsors the publication, and the publication's staff has editorial independence similar to a magazine (e.g., ]). For simplicity, I'm going to ] that this is a self-published newsletter.
::::One of their self-published newsletters says that Prof. Notable Academic got a Notable Award from the Learned Society. This newsletter item is:
::::* non-independent (of Learned Society; of Notable Award; of Prof. Notable Academic ),
::::* self-published (written by the org, published by the org),
::::* primary (very close to the event, based on no prior publications),
::::* reliable (for sentences such as "Learned Society awarded the Notable Award to Notable Academic in 2024"), and
::::* acceptable under BLPSPS.
::::] (]) 07:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Re: (1), I still don't understand where you're getting the data from that allow you to conclude that "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source." To me, it seems like a case where some editors believe this but don't have data to back it up and where it's unclear how one could gather such data. (Arguably, the vast majority of RS information isn't DUE, but that's a different issue, and is the case regardless of whether the source is SPS or non-SPS.)
:::::Re: (2), your comment reminded me that there has been a ] about the parallel texts in WP:SELFSOURCE, WP:ABOUTSELF, and WP:BLPSELFBUB. The people involved in that conversation decided that the best solution was "Remove the SELFSOURCE material in RS ; retarget that shortcut to ABOUTSELF's location in V, and "advertise" the shortcut at that place instead; in RS , summarize ABOUTSELF in a sentence and cross-reference it, without an unnecessary and potentially confusing devoted section."
:::::Re: the Learned Society example, the only reason that it's acceptable under BLPSPS is because the exception is specified. It would not be acceptable under the current text of SPS. ] (]) 17:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::For (1), this is not a statement about collected data. This is a statement about editors' collective experience.
::::::For (1), there are two classes of information that are suitable for inclusion. Those two kinds are:
::::::# Basic information about a subject, which belongs in an encyclopedia article because of the requirements of the genre. This includes, for example, writing boring information like "'''George IV''' (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was ] and ] from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830" instead of jumping straight into the subjectively attention-catching content, e.g., "King '''George IV''', nicknamed '''Prinny''', was known for being obese, profligate, prodigal, and promiscuous."
::::::# Non-basic information about a subject, which belongs in an encyclopedia article ''because'' it is in desirable sources.
::::::For the second category, the existence of suitable sources is definitional.
::::::For the first category, the "probable" existence of suitable sources is the collective experience of editors. You might not be able to find every common detail (e.g., a complete birthdate may be unknown, or it may only be available in a self-published source) but if the subject actually qualifies for a ], you will be able to find enough non-self-published sources to meet the requirements of the encyclopedic genre, e.g., to place the subject in the encyclopedic context of time and place.
::::::In re the Learned Society example, it was accept''ed'' in many thousands of articles before the exception was specified. The exception was written down to make the written rules more accurately reflect the community's actual practices. Per ], {{xt|the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected}}. The accepted practice was set by the community for more than a decade. Recently, we updated the written rules to document the already-existing community consensus that an employer is not a True™ third-party from its employees (for the purposes of this policy) and that an award giver is not a True™ third-party from its awardees (for the purposes of this policy) and that therefore self-published statements from these sources are not excluded by BLPSPS.
::::::Perhaps this is the fundamental misconception. The written rules ''follow'' the community practice. The written rules ''document'' the community practice. The written rules are not supreme. The community is supreme. ] (]) 18:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Thank you for having pointed out WP:NOTLAW. As much as I try to be familiar with (and abide by) the PAGs, I don't know that I've read all of them in their entirety, and I don't remember all that I've read.
:::::::Re: (1), I'd say that editors' experiences are a form of data, but it's unclear to me how the community determines what the collective experience is. There are ways to determine the consensus of a small number of editors (e.g., in an RfC), where those editors may make arguments based on what they believe about the behavior of editors not involved in the RfC, but that's still a tiny fraction of editors. I don't know how anyone could confirm in any reasonable timeframe that "In re the Learned Society example, it was accepted in many thousands of articles before the exception was specified." (You can't confirm it with any kind of straightforward search; instead, you'd have to individually look at the sources for that kind of info on many thousands of articles, and you also have no way of knowing how many editors left that kind of info out of yet other articles because they thought that the employer, awarder, ..., wasn't an acceptable source.)
:::::::It seems to me that in discussions, there's sometimes a tension between what PAGs say and what collective experience might be ("might" because I'm not sure how to determine "is"); that arose in the discussion about whether learned societies that are highly regarded within an academic field are wiki-notable, and is in play in the dispute about what is/isn't an SPS.
:::::::Re: your 1. and 2., I'd interpreted "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source" as addressing both. And I've probably worked more on academic BLPs than other BLPs, which likely affects how I view all of this. ] (]) 20:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Widely advertised discussions, including but not limited to RFCs, are assumed to represent the view of the whole community unless and until disproven, or at least seriously challenged.
::::::::Every decision is made by a tiny percentage of editors. Even if we had a thousand editors respond to a question, which almost never happens, that's still only 0.12% of last year's registered editors. But it's enough; ] of editors to make the right decision. If the first decision is wrong, we'll discover that over time and adjust.
::::::::In many cases, editors are learning by watching. They see that he cited the Oscars website, and didn't get reverted; she cited the Emmys website and didn't get reverted; they cited the Nobel website and didn't get reverted; and then rationally conclude that award websites must be okay. They will also see the Oscars website sometimes get replaced by a book, the Emmys website sometimes get replaced by a music magazine, and the Nobel website sometimes get replaced by a newspaper article. This means that when a single experienced editor shows up for a discussion, they're describing what they have seen get accepted (or rejected) by dozens or hundreds of editors across many articles.
::::::::Academic BLPs are challenging, because the accepted criteria give little consideration to ] in the first place. I would expect it to be difficult to much past the stub stage for many academic BLPs without veering into OR territory. ] (]) 21:07, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::], thank you for your responses. You are helpful and extremely patient with all of my questions. ] (]) 19:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)


== Proposal to adjust policy on self-published sources ==
On several occasions in the past, and in ], some people have made the argument that using a person's new name when discussing periods of their life during which they were known by another name ''violates ], ] and/or ]''. (If need be, I can dig up examples of people making this argument.) I'd like to start a discussion of whether or not that is the case. ''I appreciate your help in ensuring that this remains a discussion of that specific question and does not become a discussion of whether or not retroactive use of a new name violates any other policy and/or is a good idea. I would also appreciate your suggestions of a better forum for this discussion, if you can think of one.''


Hi folks, I just wanted to discuss ] as I think it needs to be tweaked.
Say we're writing an article about someone who was born 'Pat Xyz', discovered foobarium as 'Pat Xyz', then started going by 'Lou Zyx'. Say we have reliable sources confirming each of those things. Say, for purposes of this discussion, that our article on this person is at ]]]. If we have sources saying "Xyz discovered foobarium", is it a violation of VERIFY, NOR and/or SYNTH for us to write "Zyx discovered foobarium"?


'''The proposed change'''
For my part, I contend that it is not, because we have sources verifying that Pat Xyz = Lou Zyx. I don't think anyone would ever argue that it was a violation of any of those policies to write "foobarium is <u>water</u>-soluble" in our article on foobarium, even if the only available references said "foobarium is soluble in <u>H2O</u>", so I admit that I can't even discern what the argument to the contrary ''is''.
I propose that the current wording: {{tq|Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.}} be changed to:{{quote|Self-published sources may be considered reliable when they are either:
*Produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.
*When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication.
*When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable.}}


'''Why make this change?'''
I've posted notices of this discussion to ] and ]; if this discussion is moved, those notices should be updated. ] (]) 17:34, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Currently we allow a wide range of sources without decent review standards. I'd be surprised if we've not all come across books containing claims that make us wonder if an editor ever held the book, seen podcasts given as sources, etc. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be highly suspicious of self-published sources, that I do not question, but there are other ways of determining a book's reliability than just checking if it was published by a third party.


As the policy currently stands, it does not matter how reliable a self-published book is. This is an issue as not only is this standard far above what we expect from other forms of media, it ignores the reality that book-editors often don't fact-check, and (most importantly) it limits us from using potential sources that can be demonstrated to be otherwise very reliable (even more reliable than other books published by a third-party, as I hope to demonstrate).
: None of ], ] or ] apply to a case where the change of name is documented by reliable sources and not challenged by any. It is only a matter of writing style. If someone is very well known under one name, the "principle of least surprise" may mean using that name for a longer period (together with a brief explanation). For example, former Israeli prime-minister ] was called Icchak Jeziernicky for his first 35 years at least, yet the article uses "Shamir" throughout. That is fairly typical. Perhaps the correct place for this discussion is some talk page associated with ]. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 00:04, 31 August 2013 (UTC)


'''Why would this policy change lead to an improvement in Misplaced Pages?'''
:: Could you clarify what you mean by "the change of name is not challenged by any "? If one source says Pat started using the name Lou, but another source calls that "a persistent myth", then it's clearly necessary to verify whether or not the name change occurred. But say all sources acknowledge that Pat started going by Lou (and thus acknowledge that references to "Lou" are references to Pat), but some sources dispute that it was (legally/morally/etc) ''appropriate''/''valid'' for Pat/Lou to change names. (This is the scenario in which people typically make the arguments I'm asking about the validity of.) If enough reliable sources accept the name change as valid that Misplaced Pages has decided to use "Lou" in reference to the person's post-name-change actions, does there need to be a separate, additional discussion of whether or not using "Lou" in reference to the person's pre-name-change actions is verifiable? ] (]) 07:58, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
I raise this is as I've been working on ] and I've found that two of the recent biographies,{{efn| Susanna de Vries's "Desert Queen: The many lives and loves of Daisy Bates" (2008) and Bob Reece's "Daisy Bates: Grand dame of the desert"}} often disagree with one another on very simple facts about Daisy Bates's life. My suspicion is that they both read autobiographical work written by Bates ("The passing of the Aborigines{{sic}}" (1936)), as well as a biography by Elizabeth Salter (titled "Daisy Bates: Queen of the Never Never" (1972)), and that they didn't do their due diligence in checking other primary sources. I'll give some examples in the collapsible table below:
::: To me, the WP:V question is, "can we verify they changed their name," not "can we verify everyone else follows our style about the retroactive use of names" or whatever, for the reason that as you said the two names mean the same thing. Really, you could ask the same thing about anything in the MOS. For instance, we had a whole super duper long discussion about whether changing a hyphen to a dash, per MOS dash rules, in the comet hale&ndash;bopp article raised verifiability or OR concerns because seemingly all astronomers use a hyphen, but then really the outcome was that we follow the MOS over styling even if on a particular matter our styling is out of synch with RSs. I don't think it's that different here, really. There is no substantive change being made in this situation because the two names refer to the same person, so it's a styling matter not a substance matter. Ymmv. ''']''' ] 14:37, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
{{Collapse|2=Fact checking claims of de Vries and Reece
:To give an example of when we use a person's old name (and all but ignore a name change)... we have ]... in this article we consistently refer to the subject as "Pitt" (and down play "Chatham") throughout the text. It really does depend on the specific person and what name readers will ''expect'' to see presented. ] (]) 15:31, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
| 1=Some examples below:
::I agree that whether to make retroactive use of a later name, continue using an earlier name, or use both names is something to be decided on a case-by-case basis. It occurred to me earlier that I hadn't noted (so I will now note) that if Misplaced Pages decided to use "Pat" throughout the article on my hypothetical "Pat Xyz"/"Lou Zyx", even when discussing periods of their life after which they'd come to be known as "Lou", that would also not violate ], IMO. (And one would logically expect that the people who ''do'' think using "Lou" when discussing "Pat"'s childhood violates ] must also think that using "Pat" when discussing "Lou"'s adulthood violates ]. But what I'm suggesting is that any anachronistic use of a personal name, while it might be good or bad for other reasons, does not violate '']''. And everyone here seems to agree on that point.) ] (]) 22:49, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
*Bob Reece claims on page 37 that Bates camped at Ma'amba reserve in 1901 and was invited to meet a duke and duchess in that same year because she organised a corroboree to welcome them on their arrival in Perth. When I was trying to understand the situation and the reason for the conflicting account I found a journal article and a government report which contradicts Reece; they describe that what was organised in 1901 was not a corroborree and that it was not organised by Bates.{{rp|9}}{{rp|57}} According Elizabeth Salter, Lomas and de Vries, Bates only went to Ma'amba after being hired by the government in 1904, this is backed up by correspondence we have between Bates and government officials (which is quoted by Lomas in his book). You only get the date of 1901 if you take Bates at her word in her autobiographical work.
*It appears that neither de Vries nor Reece actually read many of Bates's first articles. For example:
**They both disagree on what one of Daisy's first papers (published in Western Australia's journal of agriculture), "From Port Hedland to Carnarvon by Buggy" (1901), was about. de Vries thinks that it "covered her observations of the Indigenous people she had encountered" but this is plainly false if you read the journal article (as I have, at the ]). Reece says that it was more a travel account.
*Both de Vries and Reece state that Bates started her enthographic work shortly after arriving in Perth, but there's no evidence of this. They both just trust Bates on this, but if you actually read her papers you see that they have nothing to do with anthropology. Again, Lomas was the only one (of the three) to actually read the original papers himself and point this out.
}}
To summarise the reliability of de Vries and Reece, who are both published by a third party and have gone through some kind of review process:
*They both are often lacking in giving citations, this makes their reliability hard to judge.
*They both contain the errors that could have been avoided if they (or an editor) had read other primary sources.
This is not to say that they should not be used; I note all of this to contrast them with Lomas's book, which is self-published.


Coming to Brain D Lomas's "Queen of Deception" (2015):
:This reminds me of the movie ]. "My name is Francis but everyone calls me Psycho. Call me Francis and I'll kill you." There are two issues that conflate this. One is a simple name change and discerning its scope, notability, verifiability, etc. For example, if someone has a nickname and it becomes well-known, it may be appropriate to use it in the lead along with the proper legal name. Other organizations where names are part of a uniform, they require legal name changes (i.e. ] was Ron Artest and had to legally change his name, Chad Johnson wanted his uniform to reflect "Ochocinco" and it was denied by the NFL until he legally changed his name.) I think it serves the encyclopedia to use the legal name, then common name and nickname as part of the name. It is still a case by case basis though because some pet names like "sweetypie" might not be appropriate whereas ] is an example of the pet name becoming the common name, article title and lede. Case by case is appropriate in less contentious articles. But the 2nd issue which is Wikidrama of the week is a name and gender change when neither has legally or anatomically been changed and all the notability came under the previous identity. Even if we accept they are the same person and there is no confusion (H2O and water analogy), there are very real differences in pronouns and the equivalence breaks down. The use of one name or the other is perceived as the declaration of gender, rather than the person. Misplaced Pages has to balance the preference of the person with the legal status of that person (both name and gender) in regard to past, present and future. Our sources generally don't redact their articles to reflect a change. Even if they are all electronic (i.e. Slate), the article doesn't search/replace every reference and neither should WP especially if the change isn't particularly relevant to the notability of the subject and the change has not been recognized legally or anatomically. In the present drama, Manning is the topic of debate. His notability was for an illegal act (personally, I don't even know why he has an article as his life is not particularly notable outside the single event). Manning recently said he was female and his name was now "Chelsea" instead of "Bradley." All fine and dandy except no body of authority recognizes it. Nor will he use his new name and gender in future litigation or incarceration. The court is the authority over his name, the Army is the authority of his rank and the examining doctor will determine his gender. It is acceptable to note Manning's preference or declaration but the wholesale change of every reference to Manning to reflect his preference is not supported by reliable sources. If ] came out and said he was female, the Olympic committee would not suddenly acquiesce and allow him to compete as a woman nor would the record book redact all references to his accomplishments in Men's swimming and change it to Women's swimming. There is an authoritative physical exam to determine gender (and yes, there have been intersexual athletes that have been barred from participating as the gender they identify with) and the name engraved on the trophies is the name at the time. In the case of Manning, all of his notable acts occurred when he was "Bradley." That may be very relevant to his username for the systems he compromised, it's certainly on all the charging documents and his enlistment in the Army. He was certainly notable under the name "Bradley." The next phase of his life will be prison. A doctor will examine him and determine his gender to assign him to the appropriate barracks including whether he should start a gender reassignment medical regimen. That is the authoritative source of his gender. Manning's self-identity as female is currently not supported by any medical exam and is simply his own belief. There is a difference in recognizing his personal identity while also recognizing it is not presently supported by professionals that would be considered reliable sources. We have seen many people claim an identity (i.e. Native American, African American, Hispanic) that is challenged by reliable sources (or not proven by outside sources). Only a doctor with transgender training would be able to prescribe or perform any reassignment surgeries and I personally doubt that doctor would make that determination while Manning is under a tremendous amount of stress. Gay, transsexual and transvestite are not the same and only one would be a condition diagnosed and treated by a physician. Therefore, self-identification as gay, bisexual or transvestite has a much lower threshold than transsexual where a medical diagnosis would be required to start a gender reassignment regimen. Manning may very well be female and eligible for gender reassignment treatment but he isn't going to attain that until a doctor says so. That's the reliable source standard. When that happens, the gender of the sourced reference should be maintained either chronologically or for notability. If the real world operated solely on the basis of self-identification of gender, there would be no male criminals. They would just declare themselves female and expect society to accept it and house them in female prisons. If they declared they were gay, transvestite or bisexual, no one would care and they would still go to a male prison. The bar for claiming a medical condition has a necessarily higher standard for sources. --] (]) 23:56, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
{{Collapse|2=Indicators that Lomas is reliable
|1=Indicators of Lomas's reliability:
*Lomas's book is used as a source in Eleanor Hogan's "Into the Loneliness: The unholy alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates". "Dr Eleanor Hogan is a 2023 National Library of Australia Fellow" and her book was published by ] at the University of New South Wales Press Ltd. This book won the "The 2019 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship".
*Lomas has done a lot of original research on the topic:
**He has combed through old newspapers and government records to corroborate Bates's whereabouts; Old newspapers contained the names of folks who arrived at a port, Bates also developed a level of fame where people would report on her whereabouts in letters to papers, he also went through government records for her travel expense receipts she had sent to the government for reimbursement, etc.
**Reading through a ton of archived material spread between Perth and Canberra. This includes the just mentioned receipts for travel expenses, but also personal and government correspondence (who for a while was her employer). I haven't seen indication that the other biographers went through so much archived material.
*He regularly lets the source material speak for itself by giving quotations from primary sources.
*He is quite consistent in giving citations, making it very easy to verify his claims. As a result it has been far easier to fact-check Lomas than it has been to fact check de Vries and Reece.


All of this indicates to me that Lomas is reliable.
::I apologise if my original post wasn't clear... if you re-read it, I think you'll see that you haven't addressed it. Your argument for why Manning's name and gender change isn't 'valid' is well thought-out (though I disagree with it); you clearly think that Manning shouldn't be referred to as Chelsea at all. However, this is a discussion of something different, something specific: several people, including you, suggested that using a name or pronoun retroactively — or using a source that said "(name A) did X" or "he did X" to support a sentence in an article that "(name B) did X" or "she did X" — raised ''verifiability'' concerns; other people suggested it raised ''synthesis'' concerns. Those are the concerns I'm addressing at the moment. ] (]) 06:38, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
}}
'''Conclusion''' To summarise: Lomas is used as a source by an award winning non-fiction biographer, has done a ton of original research that involved reading through archived material, provides quotations from primary sources, and gives consistent and reliable citations. This results in Lomas being an arguably more reliable source on the topic than both de Vries and Reece. However, according to current policy, he cannot be used as a source alongside de Vries and Reece. I argue that current policy should be amended in the given or similar form. I am ''not'' arguing that self-published sources be allowed to be used without their reliability being demonstrated.


Happy to answer any questions, clarify any statements, provide quotations, etc. if people wish.
::::I understood it, and for the record my preferred name in the lede is '''Bradley Edward "Chelsea Elizabeth" Manning'''. I also note he used "Breanna" previously as well. My concern is that editors believe that the pronouns used in an article become hostile when someone self-adopts a gender change but apparently only hostile when Misplaced Pages uses them. No one has "Slate" redo all their articles to reflect the latest incarnation. We didn't do it when Manning used his "Breanna" persona, nor did our sources. I don't consider the pronouns hostile, however, as they accurately reflect his identity when it was sourced. To avoid battleground issues, it would be best to leave the pronouns and gender as they are found in sources. WP isn't in the gender identity business so pronouns should generally reflect the sources unless there is high bar (i.e. reliable source other than just the persons wishes). Manning, so far, doesn't appear to have done anything notable as "Chelsea". There is a stronger argument that s/he became notable when s/he was using the name "Breanna." If we look at Manning through his Gender Identity Disorder defense arguments for mitigation, he blamed GID for emotional instability, assaulting a female superior officer and leaking classified documents. The wholesale acceptance of that, without 3rd party reliable sources, stigmatizes people that have GID as being emotionally unstable, potentially violent and untrustworthy for a security clearance. I don't have a particular problem with revising an article that reflects a reliably sourced gender change (i.e. medical, legal, etc). But prior to that, I am inclined to mention the gender claim while still reflecting the gender status in the sources because otherwise it implies we accept GID on the claim by the person at face value. I don't think that is fair to people that have been diagnosed, treated, and taken medical and legal steps to become who they are. Transexual issues have a higher bar than other LGBT issues simply because it is classified as a medical condition. No one blinks an eye at pronouns like "His husband" for two males that marry. Gay is not a medical condition. Manning however said a DSM psychological disorder (GID) caused him to do illegal things. Understandably, for those that also have GID, the bar should be pretty high for that claim. Imagine a hypothetical case 40 years ago, a married man was caught molesting children and used a DSM classification of homosexuality as a medical disorder that caused him to commit those acts. Would we rush to make sure that every reference to him reflected his sexual preference? It would not be tolerated to replace "The married father molested three children..." with "The gay father molested three children..." if he tried to mitigate his crime with the now outdated DSM disorder. Today, I hope we would see that it's not particularly relevant to the bio or the crime. Manning mitigated his crime with the GID defense and we should be very reluctant to simply accept it. It's worth mentioning what he wishes to be called and what he considers himself to be, but a wholesale retroactive change based on his press release, seems premature and unenlightened until/unless he takes steps that others take (including diagnoses, medication, surgery, name change, etc). If the Army doctor for Leavenworth, for example, said he can't be housed there because Manning is female, I'd have no problem with changing pronoun references. --] (]) 22:25, 1 September 2013 (UTC)


{{Collapse|2= Criticism of Lomas and response to potential questions|1=
::: The name issue cannot possibly be a problem. Take, for example ]. He lived most of his life as "Ron Artest" and most of the sources for information on his page are to publications that pre-date his name change, and thus refer to him as "Ron" and "Artest" with no mention of his current name. The section on the Pacers–Pistons brawl, for example, uses sources from 2004, 7 years before the name change. But if we are going to take seriously the worry about name changes and verifiability, then we have to ask why is information about a brawl that a source says involved "Ron Artest" on a page for a person whose name is "Metta World Peace". The answer is because we have some reliable sources that Artest was involved in the brawl and other reliable sources that Ron Artest is the same person as Metta World Peace. We do not need to find some new source that says "Metta World Peace was involved in a brawl in 2004". The idea that there is a verifiability issue here is absurd.
A failing of Lomas fails is a lack of polish in terms of his grammar, typos and some of his citations' page numbers being off by a couple pages (which, while sloppy, is again better than the other biographers). This is where most an editor's attention would have gone to, and have been most useful.


{{tq|Why not use the other published secondary sources?}} They are being used, but in the interest of using as many reliable sources as possible, and giving a balanced article that avoids giving undue weight to misinformation, Lomas's book should not be barred from being used as a reliable source.
::: For gender, take the following real example: 11 year old future singer ] was being babysat by hockey legend ] on the day that Gretzky was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles. This quirky fact has been deemed interesting enough to be included on Thicke's page. The source that is cited for the information uses a male pronoun when mentioning Robin Thicke twice in a throwaway comment. The only other indication in that source that the source believes that Thicke is male are two uses of the word "son" (to define his relationship to ]). But it is easy to imagine the same article without these mentions of gender. If it had been written with no male pronouns and no uses of the word "son" for Robin Thicke, someone who took the gender verifiability question as seriously as some have would be forced to say that we cannot conclude that the source believed that Robin Thicke was male and so the Misplaced Pages page cannot say, as it does right now, "Wayne Gretzky had been babysitting '''him''' while '''his''' father was on vacation...." That's also absurd. ] (]) 15:59, 1 September 2013 (UTC) (99.192....)


{{tq|Why is it self-published?}} If I had to guess I'd say that it is because he is retired and didn't want to go through the headache that is publishing. If you have experience with this you know that it can be difficult. This is only conjecture though.
:I've seen two comments made elsewhere which I think inform discussion of this issue: , and . I have asked the author of the latter post to copy the post over here, so it can be better discussed in this central place. ] (]) 20:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
}}
{{notelist}} ] (]) 07:32, 21 December 2024 (UTC)


:@] to clarify, Lomas has never had any work published elsewhere?--] (] &#124; ]) 12:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
== Proposal - Valuing some sources over others ==
::As far as I'm aware, no. The author never states it explicitly but my judgment is that it was a retirement project. However, he does also speak French (and maybe dutch?) so he could have published somewhere that I haven't found.
::] (]) 01:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
* I haven't heard the other side of this argument (if there is one other than ]) but, so far, I find FropFrop's presentation well-written and convincing. - ] (]) 16:26, 21 December 2024 (UTC)


:* I'm a bit confused by "When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable." If the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable, then why wouldn't you instead use the sources that reliably verify the information? ] (]) 17:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
Right now, ] holds that
:*:In practice, that line amounts to "whenever we want to". ] (]) 17:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:"Do not reject sources just because they are hard or costly to access."
:*::I think that we're capable of taking due diligence when it comes to these things, but would a narrower wording help? Perhaps changing that line to "When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable. This is to be done by the editor/s providing quotations and the source's citations so that other editors can discuss the content and form consensus on its reliability." or something to that effect? ] (]) 01:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
However, since the ] holds that Misplaced Pages Encyclopedia is an 'online community of individuals,' suggest that a priority should be given to sources that are more easily accessible to the majority of editors; e.g. online articles, famous journals, instead of obscure books. This will solve any problems that are caused by subjective interpretations of such sources.
:*:::Sources aren't required to include citations, and most of them don't. If the source does have (good) citations, then why not find, read, and cite those sources instead? ] (]) 03:20, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:*::::I could do that, but then I'd be relying on primary material (which I want to avoid) and it would require a lot more work on my part. A lot of this archived material only has physical copies available. I've verified some of it, particularly at the beginning when I was judging how reliable Lomas was but this was quite time consuming.
:*::::] (]) 01:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:I could do that, but then I'd be relying on primary material (which I want to avoid) and it would require a lot more work on my part. A lot of this archived material only has physical copies available. I've verified some of it, particularly at the beginning when I was judging how reliable Lomas was. ] (]) 01:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:I too think this would be a bad proposal since it would effectively open the door wide for ]. What {{u|FropFrop}} seems to argue for here (and as they are constantly arguing on ]) is essentially: "''I'' did the OR, following up those sources and so I consider this credible." But for good reasons we don't allow OR here, because such judgements are better left to the subject-matter experts at hand. Without OR, "clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable" simply means: There's another reliable source that says so. But if that's the case, then we can just cite that source and no change to SELFPUB is needed. ] (]) 10:02, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:*::That's not OR. If a source has ] something, and an editor checks the source's footnotes just to be sure, then that's ''not'' an editor making up stuff that isn't in any published source. ] (]) 01:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:::But if the editor decided based on this check that a self-published source is reliable and should be admitted, then surely it is OR – what else could it be? It's not something that could be decided on the base of the source alone. ] (]) 10:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:*::::@], the definition of OR, from the first sentence of that policy, is:
:*::::On ], ''original research'' means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no ] exists.
:*::::So:
:*::::* The word ''material'' means "stuff we put in articles". If it's not going in the article, then it's not OR.
:*::::* If a published source says ____, and editors deem that published source reliable for saying ____, then saying ____ in the Misplaced Pages article is not OR.
:*::::* Checking whether a source (self-published or otherwise) {{xt|is reliable and should be admitted}} is required of all editors, every single time they cite a source. Sometimes this is quite easy (e.g., a newspaper you know is widely cited, a book you happen to know is reputable), and sometimes it requires effort or a trip to RSN, but determining for yourself whether the source is reliable is normal, expected, and desirable behavior.
:*::::On a separate, related note, you might be interested in the old concept of ], about which the NOR policy used to say {{xt|Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is encouraged: this is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.}}
:*::::Source-based research is not about determining whether a source is reliable, but it does involve determining the strengths and weaknesses of sources, and sorting out contradictions, such as why some sources give −1.592 × 10<sup>−19</sup> ] as the charge of an electron and others give −1.602 x 10<sup>−19</sup> coulomb instead (e.g., different POVs? Different time periods? Different circumstances? One of them's just wrong?). If an editor decides that the best way to settle the question is to find and read the published+reliable+primary sources that the cited source names, then that's okay. We don't ban editors from reading the sources cited by our sources. Sometimes it even helps us get article content right (e.g., by figuring out whether our source's claim about "the average" should be linked to ] or ]). ] (]) 20:32, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:::::Sure, but can an editor's own research promote a non-reliable (e.g. self-published by an unknown person) work into a reliable one? That's what we're discussing here, right? ] (]) 21:43, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:*::::::A source is reliable if there's a consensus among editors that it's reliable. I've told this joke many times, but here it is again:
:*::::::* Three ] are talking about their profession and the difficulty of making accurate calls in borderline cases. One says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as they are." The next feels a little professional humility is in order and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as I see them." The third thinks for a moment and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, but ''they ain't nothing until I call them''."
:*::::::This is how Misplaced Pages works: A source isn't "non-reliable" ''until editors make the call''. Editors might well decide that Lomas is reliable for a given bit of article content. They also might decide that it's not. But nobody's "promoting a non-reliable source into a reliable one", either through their own hard work to establish whether the source is one that we should rely upon or through any other means, because it's the community that ultimately makes the call, not just one editor. ] (]) 02:27, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:::::::Agree. All of the criteria in ] are based on characteristics commonly found in sources the community has deemed reliable, and therefore help in predicting whether a given source will be deemed reliable. Editors may differ on the details of what makes a source reliable, but the arbitor of reliability is a consensus of whatever part of the community is paying attention at the moment. And, as always, a consensus of a wider part of the community will trump a local consensus or individual opinion. ] 15:03, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
:*:::It's also essentially impossible for other editors to verify, without repeating all the research by themselves. ] (]) 10:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:*::::So? See ].
:*::::But: It doesn't matter. If one editor decides that they want to make sure that a source is really, truly, absolutely backed up by the sources that it cites, then they're allowed to do that. You can decide whether you trust them; you can decide for yourself whether you think they're lying; you can decide whether you think their evaluation is incompetent. But you can't say "You did a lot of work, but I'm unwilling/unable to replicate it, so we have to ignore that". Some people spent a lot of time learning other languages or studying advanced math or obsessing about the reputation of academic journals. I can't verify their conclusions without repeating all that work myself, but that's okay. I don't have to. They are not limited or restricted to the level of work that I choose to do. ] (]) 20:36, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{tq|if there is one other than Misplaced Pages:Status quo stonewalling}} Thank you for that! Another editor has been quite frustrating and has been citing ] and has not engaged with any of my requests or offers of broader discussion. Going so far as to remove all citations of Lomas (white not editing the content to remove information I gathered from him, saying that it'll be done later).
::] (]) 01:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::Same here. In particular, I find the “Indicators that Lomas is reliable” convincing. &mdash; ] <small>]</small> 05:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:@], I don't think your second point ("When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication") will work.
:Imagine that someone self-publishes (e.g., posts on social media) a manifesto for some obviously wrong view (e.g., Flat Earth, tinfoil hats, coffee tastes good, whatever you want). Alice Expert cites this manifesto in a high-quality reliable source as evidence that this view exists (e.g., "These views appear to be genuinely held by some people. The 'None of This Nonsense' Manifesto, which went viral in 2023, lays out four primary reasons for believing in magical dragons, including...").
:That would be an instance of an expert who "uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication", and we still don't want editors to use the self-published manifesto directly themselves. ] (]) 17:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::Speaking of manifestos, imagine this being applied to murder/suicide notes. The UK news yesterday had a story about someone sending a scheduled social media post announcing his suicide. So: the self-published announcement got "used" as "a reliable source in a publication" (several, actually), and this would therefore make the self-published announcement 100% okay to use in articles (except that to the extent that it would violate ]). That's what we ''don't'' want. ] (]) 18:01, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::This is a very fair point.
:::To avoid such potential scenarios, what do you think of the following:
:::*When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published ''secondary'' source as a reliable source in a publication.
:::Would the addition of "secondary" and the (already included) "as a reliable source" be sufficient? Or would the latter need greater specificity?
:::] (]) 01:25, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The problem I have with this proposal it that it would mean that ''a single mention'' in a reliable source would be enough to promote ''all'' of a self-published work as "reliable/useable" for us, including (and especially) the parts what ''weren't'' mentioned in the reliable source. Specifically, in this case: the only real argument (besides ]) I have read from you re Lomas's reliability is that he's cited in Eleanor Hogan, ''Into the Loneliness'' (NewSouth, 2021) which is indeed a reliable source. But in that whole book Lomas is cited just once, with ''two sentences'' sourced to him (for a full quote, see ], my comment from 09:35, 23 December 2024). Based on that his work is mentioned just this single time in her whole book on Bates I'd rather conclude that she doesn't consider him particularly credible, otherwise she would certainly have cited him more often. By contrast, de Vries and Reece are both cited more than a dozen times – clearly they are more reliable sources for her. In our article on Bates, largely rewritten by you, Lomas is cited about 35 times, and you want to keep ''all'' those references based on this single mention by Hogan. However, if we want to cite the single fact which Hogan attributes to Lomas, we can just cite her book without having to mention him at all. As for the other 35 facts you would like to cite, there's no evidence that Hogan considers ''any'' of them credible, and so I don't see how this single mention by her could be a basis for the extensive use of his book which our article currently makes (in clear violation of SELFPUB as it currently stands). ] (]) 10:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Yes, it is only once. I made this point as part of a larger argument. If this were the only point that support's Lomas's reliability, then I wouldn't make the larger argument.
:::::Perhaps then the amendment could be worded like so (taking some of the adjustments made by @]):
:::::{{quote|When assessing reliability, be especially wary when the source is self-published, and doubly so if it's being used as a source about a living person. Self-published sources are more likely than non-self-published sources to be unreliable sources for WP content, though there may be mitigating considerations, for example:
:::::*If the content comes from a reputable organization and involves information such as who works for them or who they gave an award to.
:::::*The content falls under ABOUTSELF.
:::::*The content is produced by a subject-matter expert whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.
:::::*When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable. Editors should provide sources' quotations and sources citations so that other editors can discuss the content and form consensus on its verifiability.
:::::*When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published secondary source as a reliable source in a publication.}}
:::::{{quote|If a self-published source meets one or more of the above examples, that does not automatically warrant its use as a reliable source; careful consideration of its reliability should still be made. Keep in mind that if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source.
:::::}}
:::::] (]) 02:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Your points 1+2 essentially seem to describe or refer to ], since that already exists as an independent section, there's no reason to repeat it here. About your points 4+5 I have already explained in other comments here why I think they would be unworkable and weaken the basis of reliability at which the aim. Nothing has changed in that regard. ] (]) 10:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|When the source's claims can be clearly and ...}} If a self-published claims can be verified using other reliable sources, use those sources instead.
::::::{{tq|...uses the self-published secondary source as a reliable source in a publication}} This is treading on the toes of ]. If a source is ''widely'' cited in other high quality sources it could be considered reliable. -- <small>LCU</small> ''']''' <small>''«]» °]°''</small> 11:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:Overall, looking at the specific situation, I wonder whether ] might be a better solution. We generally try to avoid changing overall rules just to deal with a situation at a single article. Perhaps an RFC explaining the situation? Or just asking "Is Lomas' book reliable for <this exact sentence>?" ] (]) 18:07, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::Most of what I posted originally I took from an ongoing discussion on the article's talk page. An editor has been very firm on this being a gross violation of ] and does not take ] or ] seriously. Neither have they engaged with my arguments for why Lomas should be an exception to ]. They've been editing the article to remove all citations of Lomas (white not editing the content to remove information I gathered from him, saying that it'll be done later). ] (]) 01:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::It sounds like it's time for ] procedures. Maybe an RFC? I think I'd pick something small, like "Can we cite this book for this one sentence?" If you get agreement for the simplest/strongest single instance, then it will be easier to expand from there.
:::There have been several questions about self-published sources recently, including the one from ] at ] and from ] at ] and from ] at ]. The volume of questions, plus the rise of more "respectable" self-published works (this one, but also things like established fiction authors self-publishing books they like but their publisher didn't want to bother with) makes me wonder whether we need to re-think this concept entirely. ] (]) 03:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::], FWIW, I've been trying to come up with wording for an RfC on the definition of SPS (checking the consensus on what people consider self-published, and whether the current definition and examples communicate that well). I think I understand the main views (I'm in the midst of rereading the discussions to check), but so far, I haven't been able to come up with something short; maybe there's just no way to make a short RfC about what I think is important to get at, or maybe it's a problem with how I'm thinking about it. I've also been waiting to see what the closer of the grey literature RfC says, though I gather that the timeline for that is open.
::::A couple of questions that came up for me vis-a-vis your view (I feel like I'm a font of never-ending questions; feel free to ignore them):
::::* You've said that you sometimes put governments in the traditional publishers category. For example, you've called the Census Bureau a traditional publisher and wrote "little-g government(s) ... are, in some respect, traditional publishers (e.g., of laws and reports)." I'm curious what guides your view about when the government is a traditional publisher vs. when it isn't.
::::* Both you and ] have said that you think of traditional publishers in terms of the business model. Void if removed elaborated one traditional model: "an arrangement with a separate publisher is a business setup where both parties bring something (marketable content vs marketing infrastructure, connections, brand recognition etc)," where the publisher pays the author (content creator) and "If the publisher rejects the , then the author is free to sell it to a different publisher." That more or less works for books, freelance journalism, peer-reviewed journals, and probably movie documentaries. But it doesn't capture the structure of most print, electronic, radio, and TV journalism publishers, and probably not TV documentaries (assuming that you consider radio and TV journalism to fall in the traditional publisher category). How would you describe their business model(s)? And would you say that a business model is simply irrelevant to governments as traditional publishers?
::::As for FropFrop's proposal, it strikes me as more about who counts as an expert than about what counts as self-published. ] (]) 15:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I don't think "free to sell it to a different publisher" is a given. 3rd party publishing can still prevent the author from self-publishing or selling it on to another publisher. This is pretty much standard practice in music publishing, with all sorts of high profile cases of artists contractually unable to release their own material, while the publisher refuses to publish finished work.
:::::The thing about traditional publishing is that it encompasses more than just "making material available", but for sourcing purposes, we consider "making material available" to be all that really matters to be "published". So the distinction is sometimes unclear - its on a website either way, so what's the difference? But a publisher will invariably be responsible for matters like advertising, promotion, legal due diligence, complaints, distribution in physical media, and so on.
:::::And really, the only reason it matters is because of ].
:::::So after all this I think the real question is: what level of sourcing do we need for contentious claims about 3rd party BLPs?
:::::Much of this debate around the edges of what is or is not an SPS has that goal in mind. Being traditionally published (ie a book, newspaper, magazine or journal) is to my mind a reasonable proxy for "you can use this to make a contentious claim about a 3rd party BLP, if its due", because a publisher is on the hook for defamation as much as the author. And that is probably the extent to which I care about whether a source is SPS or not. ] (]) 15:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Thanks for your "free to sell it to a different publisher" point, agreed, though I don't think the SPS restriction matters much for something like music, since I don't see that being used for fact or opinion content, only for content that falls under ABOUTSELF. Ditto for things like TV dramas/comedies and non-documentary movies, though I'm still unclear about whether you'd say those are published by traditional publishers. Although you and What am I doing have highlighted business models, I don't recall others doing so, so that's why I'm trying to understand how you describe traditional publisher business models. Re: the other things that a publisher is responsible for, don't they also apply to publishers that you consider non-traditional (e.g., if GLAAD publishes something defamatory, isn't it on the hook too)?
::::::I think your description of the "real question" is a significant part of the real question, but not all of it, as FropFrop's proposed change shows. (And I've encountered ] on RSN.) Also, right now, SPSs can't be used as BLP sources even if the claim is non-contentious.
::::::As best I can tell, SPSs are singled out because editors think SPSs are much less likely to be RSs. For example, the WP:SPS section appears in a larger section titled "Sources that are usually ''not reliable''," the current definition refers to the lack of an independent editor "validating the ''reliability'' of the content," and an early ArbCom conclusion (referred to by What am I doing ]) said "A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of ''independent fact-checking'' ..." (That text was introduced into WP:RS in , and although there was about self-published sources at that point, there was no attempt to define self-published, and the examples were totally limited to situations where one or a few individual persons had total control over whether their own work was published.) I assume that this is why the expert source and ABOUTSELF exceptions exist: self-published content written by experts in their area of expertise is much more likely to be reliable than other SPS content, and SPSs are often reliable sources about the author (but not about others or if the content is too self-serving; for that matter, we also have to beware of non-self-published sources producing self-serving content, as might occur in their marketing material, though as best I understand, you and What am I doing always consider marketing material to be self-published).
::::::So I think the underlying issue is assessing whether a SPS is reliable for the content in question. When it comes to the SPS policy, it may be sufficient to say something like {{tq2|When assessing reliability, be especially wary when the source is self-published, and doubly so if it's being used as a source about a living person. Self-published sources are more likely than non-self-published sources to be ''unreliable'' sources for WP content, though there may be mitigating considerations, for example, if the content comes from a reputable organization and involves information such as who works for them or who they gave an award to, or the content falls under ABOUTSELF, or the content is produced by a subject-matter expert whose "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" or falls into the situation that FropFrop introduced. Keep in mind that if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source.}}However, that still means that we need to be clearer about what does/doesn't constitute self-published material. ] (]) 19:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::This all sounds good to me (with the amendments added after WhatamIdoing pointed out some potential issues).
:::::::] (]) 02:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::], if you don't mind a couple more questions ...
:::::::In the RSN discussion of SBM, you said "We have multiple highly debatable and contested terms, at the heart of a core policy, and radically different interpretation of them."
:::::::* I'm guessing that in addition to "self-published," you're thinking of "author" and "publisher." Are there any other terms (besides "self-published," "author," and "publisher") you think are contested?
:::::::* For each of these terms, if you have a sense of the different meanings attributed to them, would you say what they are? (For ex., I know that you've distinguished between a publisher as "the person who publishes" vs. as "a business whose business is publishing.")
:::::::Thanks! ] (]) 15:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::So, some examples gleaned from the various debates:
::::::::* Author could mean anything from a single individual who wrote a blogpost, to the company whose unnamed employees were instructed to write content.
::::::::* Publishing could mean the trivial act of placing some content online, or a business arrangement whereby a publishing company takes responsibility for the distribution of content, along with marketing and various other concerns.
::::::::And as I mentioned in the previous debates, in English "publisher" (a publishing company) and "publisher" (a person who did the act of publishing) are the same word, and this leads to confusion. Depending on how you interpret all the above, self-published can mean anything.
::::::::By the narrowest definition of self-published, only something like a single-author blog where one identifiable person both wholly wrote and trivially placed content online is "self-published".
::::::::By a broader definition, a corporate website where company employees write content at the behest of the company and it is placed online at the sole discretion of that company, is also self-published, because the author (the company) is the publisher.
::::::::By a maximal definition, anything where there is not a traditional, commercial publishing structure, ie a book publisher, a journal, or traditional news media, is self-published.
::::::::Many of these debates get derailed by discussions about ''why we should care'', and because many of us are laser focused on "published" as meaning "I can read it online", the commercial aspects of traditional publishing arrangements seem like a total irrelevance.
::::::::So, with that aspect usually ignored, most seem to argue that we care something is self-published because we hope for some level of independent oversight, and so editors might point to "editorial oversight" as proof something is not self-published. This is the case for SBM, where a group blog set up and run by individuals who are also presently its sole editors somehow has been decided to be "not self published".
::::::::But that, to me, seems like a hack. Editorial approval is not what defines "self-published", its just one component of how we assess a source's reliability and accountability. I think this is part of the incorrect conflation of SPS with "unreliable", when SPS and RS are really parallel concerns, just as PRIMARY and SECONDARY are. Trivial approval steps between someone writing copy and another person ticking a box or pressing "approve" on a blog are not sufficient to make something not self-published. As I've given as an example previously, by this minimal definition, a celebrity social media account run by a PR agency is therefore not "self-published", which seems to be a nonsensical interpretation.
::::::::Another common issue is publishing uncontentious information (like scientist X won Y award), and so different interpretations of "self-published" emerging to get round the BLPSPS restriction.
::::::::By my reading of past discussions we care very specifically about third-party BLPs because of the interplay between a) the low threshold for anyone to put any nonsense they like online and b) the possibility of that being defamatory.
::::::::And my interpretation then is a traditional, commercial publishing arrangement is the thing that provides some level of confidence that Misplaced Pages is not going to be on the hook for defamation, where "a blog owner approved their mate's guest post before pressing submit" does not.
::::::::So if I were to propose something it would be something straightforwardly restrictive like:
::::::::* Any non-trivial, negative or otherwise opinionated claim about a 3rd party BLP must be sourced to something traditionally published (presumably with lawyers who checked this claim before going to press), ie a book, magazine, journal or newspaper.
::::::::When it comes down to it, I think this is what BLPSPS is all about, and I think if you settle it that way all the argument about what is or is not self-published ceases to be quite such a concern. ] (]) 16:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Lawyers don't normally check any claims during the publication process. A large publisher will have some on staff, and a medium-sized one will have some on call, but (a) there is no routine legal review of content and (b) even when something gets flagged to their attention by other employees, they're not actually engaged in fact checking. They're only evaluating the information that's handed to them, to determine how much risk the company will be exposed to.
:::::::::This should be obvious if you think about it. Imagine the ordinary working of an ordinary daily newspaper: The city had a meeting, and the newspaper sent a reporter to it. The reporter comes back with notes and writes an article. The editor looks it over. The editor might ask some questions or make suggestions. After any agreed-upon changes, the article appears in the next morning's paper. There is no "get approval from a lawyer" step in the editing process (unless the editor deems it necessary, and that's going to be an unusual circumstance). There's not even an independent, pre-publication fact checking step. ] (]) 01:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::FropFrop, the RFC I have in mind would be posted at ] and would say something like this (pick any sentence you think is appropriate):
:::::{{xt|Can we cite this book:}}
:::::{{xt|{{Cite book |last=Lomas |first=Brian |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/Queen_of_Deception/ZAa2jgEACAAJ?hl=en |title=Queen of Deception: The True Story of Daisy Bates |date=2015-10-29 |publisher=CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform |isbn=978-1-5170-5385-7 |language=en|page=38}}}}
:::::{{xt|to support this (currently uncited) sentence in the article: "Eventually arriving in Broome, she boarded the Sultan with Father Martelli and arrived in Perth on 21 November 1902"? The relevant page says "<insert direct quotation here>" and cites a letter in the archives at Big University. This might seem like overkill, but while I was at the archives last month, I found the letter Lomas cites and verified that the letter supports Lomas' claim.}}
:::::When you are in the middle of a content dispute, changing the policy so that you can win the dispute is not usually the best approach. Settle the local dispute first. ] (]) 23:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::{{tq|When you are in the middle of a content dispute, changing the policy so that you can win the dispute is not usually the best approach. Settle the local dispute first.}} That's what I tried to do prior to writing this up, as I imagined that my post here wouldn't be taken well due to it being an active dispute. However the other editor said that I should try and change policy before trying to make the argument for inclusion. Because the conversation seemed to be going nowhere, I followed through with that suggestion.
::::::Regardless, I'm happy that my post seems to be going well and has sparked some genuine conversation on the broader issue. I'll try and see the dispute through.
::::::] (]) 01:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::], I don't think that we should focus on {{xt|wording for an RfC on the definition of SPS}}. Specifically, I think it's a bad idea for Misplaced Pages's definition to diverge from the ordinary definitions. I encourage you to think more about clarifying "Misplaced Pages's rules about when it's acceptable to cite self-published sources" instead of "creating a Misplaced Pages-specific definition of the word ''self-published''".
:::::For your specific questions:
:::::* I think that it is not unreasonable to consider a government agency to be a traditional publisher if its main duties revolve around publishing information. This means, e.g., that the US Census would be considered traditionally published, but an announcement from that same government agency that they're having a public meeting, or that they have job openings, would not count as traditionally published. Compare:
:::::** The book publisher ] traditionally published '']'' and self-publishes current job openings on their corporate website.
:::::** The government agency ] traditionally published ] and self-publishes current job openings on their government website.
:::::** An elementary school does not traditionally publish anything, and self-publishes current job openings on its government website.
:::::* It's true that {{xt|the structure of most print, electronic, radio, and TV journalism publishers}} does not always allow for selling rejected works to others. Journalists (and musicians, as mentioned above) are allowed to negotiate contracts that allow a publication exclusive control over whether their work gets published. In the case of ordinary journalists, they get paid the same salary whether the article runs or not. I'm not sure why this question has arisen. The inability to take a document elsewhere for publication isn't necessarily proof of anything, but it's associated with traditional publishing.
:::::] (]) 00:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Thank you for your answers to my questions. Re: "I'm not sure why this question has arisen," it's because you've said things like "Being a traditional publisher is about the business model," and it seems to me that traditional publishers have more than one business model, and I'm trying to understand which business models count as traditional publishing. For ex., when it comes to the government as a traditional publisher, arguably the idea of a business model doesn't even apply.
::::::I do understand that you think it's a bad idea for Misplaced Pages's definition to diverge from the ordinary definitions. You'd already said as much earlier (e.g., "Yes, it's true that our terms sometimes diverge from ordinary words, but ''self-published'' in this policy is supposed to be the ordinary dictionary definition. It is not supposed to be some kind of wikijargon").
::::::Some problems with that approach:
::::::* Dictionaries don't all define "self-published" in the same way. Looking across a number of different dictionary definitions, I've seen two main features highlighted: (1) whether the author pays for the work's publication, and (2) whether the author uses a publisher (with variations such as "publishing company" and "established publishing house"). Some definitions highlight (1), some highlight (2), and some highlight both. Although (1) and (2) intersect, they're definitely not the same (e.g., material written by an employee is not self-published according to the first, but may be self-published according to the second). Also, some definitions refer to an "author," which may be ambiguous (e.g., by ''author'', do they only mean the specific person(s) who wrote/created something, or are they also including corporate authorship?).
::::::* A number of editors clearly don't agree with your preferred definition / don't think it represents practice.
::::::* You've said things like "most traditional publishers have ... self-published content (e.g., marketing materials, investor relations reports, advertising rate sheets)," but I don't see that carve-out in any dictionary definitions. (Maybe I've missed it.)
::::::* To the extent that WP:SPS defines self-published (in a Reference note at the bottom of the WP:V that says "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content"), that definition ''already'' diverges from dictionary definitions. So if your goal is to get people to use a dictionary definition, and especially to choose your preferred dictionary definitions over other dictionary definitions, you'd need an RfC to align policy with your preference.
::::::] (]) 02:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I believe that there are some government agencies that sell documents they publish. The US federal government has ] on exclusivity, so the costs are usually limited to reimbursing the cost of printing and distributing, but there's nothing inherent in a government publishing office that would prevent them from using the same business model as other traditional publishers. ] (]) 06:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Point taken. But it seems to me that traditional publishers do not all use the same business model. One model is the one I originally quoted from Void if removed, where there are a couple of variations (the person can take their work elsewhere if a given publisher rejects it, or they sign a longer term contract giving one publisher exclusive rights to future work even if the publisher decides not to publish it). Another business model is the one used with non-freelance journalists, and if a government sells documents created by employees, perhaps that falls under the same model. I'm not sure if you'd say that those are the only two business models that a traditional publisher might use. ] (]) 14:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::The business model is mainly: I publish this (book, news article, whatever) because I think people will pay me for it. ] (]) 01:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::That seems to apply to some self-published material too (e.g., some self-published books, an individual's Substack with subscribers), though it clearly doesn't apply to other SPS. ] (]) 01:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::Yes, but the theory is that authors are less likely to judge the market correctly. Everyone believes their first novel to be a masterpiece, until they've written ten more. ] (]) 07:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::"We generally try to avoid changing overall rules just to deal with a situation at a single article." This doesn't strike me as a single article issue. If it was, we'd just cite ] and be done with the discussion.
::Instead, it appears to be an example of a fundamental change in the publishing industry issue.
::Or maybe not a change. FropFrop's example shows that publishers are not the same as fact checkers, which may have been true all along. In that case Fact or Opinion's "more about who counts as an expert" is a better way to look at it. - ] (]) 15:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::To my mind, the “fact vs opinion” question has always been the key here. I have long thought that SPS material should always be presented as the author’s opinion (ie with in-text attribution). This shifts the debate from WP:V to WP:DUE. The citation reliably verifies that the author said what we say he/she said… the more important question is whether it is appropriate for us to note this author’s opinion in X specific article. ] (]) 22:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:{{u|FropFrop}}, I must admit I'm somewhat annoyed you started this discussion behind my back. It's true I had suggested you might try getting SELFPUBLISH changed, but I wasn't monitoring this page and had no idea you had actually decided to do so. Discussions shouldn't silently be forked and continued elsewhere without the involved editors being informed, so I don't think it was fair what you did here. ] (]) 09:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::Now that you know about this discussion, what is your opinion regarding the substance of FropFrop's proposal? - ] (]) 17:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::See the two comments I wrote above regarding specific details of the proposal. In a nutshell: I think the suggested changes are unworkable and would make SELFPUB considerably worse. And, thought that discussion rather belongs on ], Lomas seems to be a doubtful and considerably biased author, hence I'd say that his is just the kind of book SELFPUB is meant to protect us against – and that's how it should remain. ] (]) 19:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::SELFPUB isn't really meant to protect us from bias (and ]). It's meant to protect us from things like authors being reckless with the facts, and to focus due weight considerations on content that's newsworthy/non-self-published. ] (]) 01:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I agree to some degree, which is why I meant that discussion belongs on the article talk page rather than here. Still I think some overlap is likely – biased authors are more likely to distort the facts in order to get their point across, and I'm pretty sure that that sometimes happens in Lomas. Indeed {{u|FropFrop}}, in an earlier comment on ], already admitted that his bias sometimes leads him to problematic conclusions ("He does get overly critical at times (often assuming that Bates outright lied when it could have been an honest mistake)"). Academic peer review should normally help to reduce such issues, forcing authors to be more honest with themselves and their audiences; and the editorial process though which nonfiction books go with non-academic publishers should have the same effect, at least to some degree. I know very well that these processes will never work perfectly, but I see them as good "filters" that should make our work better, and hence I'm weary of self-published sources, which didn't make it through these filters. ] (]) 11:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Non-academic book publishing often encourages overblown claims, because controversy results in free publicity, and publicity improves sales.
::::::I agree that traditional publishing is a good filter for us. If we say that 50% of traditionally published books are bad for us, then I'd start with an assumption that 95% of self-published sources are bad for us. But it's also ''possible'' that sometimes, probably rarely, a self-published book will be an okay source for us. ] (]) 20:47, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I agree, and there's already an exception in SELFPUB for some such works. I doubt, however, that the additional exceptions discussed here would be great at finding additional okay sources, and rather fear that they would allow slipping a lot of not-okay sources. ] (]) 21:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::For the general case, I agree with you. For this specific case, however, it's possible that Lomas is one of the few "okay" sources instead of the many "not-okay" sources.
::::::::What I'd suggest to you is that you try to disentangle your worries about bias (How dare he call her "the queen of deception", just because she told so many lies about herself!) from your worries about reliability. What matters for that article is not whether this long-dead person told lies, or whether the recent sources called it what it was. What matters for that article is much more mundane: Is Lomas correct when saying that she arrived in Place A on Date B? ] (]) 02:34, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
::Ah, apologies. As you suggested that I try and amend the policy I didn't think this would be an issue.
::] (]) 02:14, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== New Shortcut re “ONUS” section? ==
In the same way, while ] prefers English-language sources more than non-English ones
: "English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones"
It is not too explicit and there are instances of non-English sources being used when English ones could be used instead. With such sources, English-only editors have trouble editing materials based on such sources, even if they can contribute to the topic in question.


I see that the shortcut “]” has been removed from visibility as a link at the '''“Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion”''' section (justification being that no one has linked to that shortcut in a long time).
So, in short - propose that "Sources more easily accessible and written in English should be valued over their counterparts, and editors are encouraged to replace inaccessible and non-English sources if they can, with more accessible ones." ] (]) 03:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
I am fine with that… '''however''', this removal leaves the only visible shortcut for the section as “]”… a word that was recently ''edited out of the section'' and no longer is appropriate.
So… I think we should also remove the “]” shortcut, and come up with a new, more appropriate shortcut for people to use in the future. Please discuss. ] (]) 23:25, 26 December 2024 (UTC)


:That would privilege bad sources over good ones. The policy already says that English sources should be preferred when "of equal quality and relevance". Your suggestion would give preference to an article in The Daily Mail over an article in a highly-respected German history journal. --] (]) 16:13, 31 August 2013 (UTC) :There has been talk, off and on for a couple of years, about moving the onus-related sentence to a different policy altogether. I'm not sure that it makes sense to worry about which shortcut points to it until that question gets settled. ] (]) 00:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
::I don’t really care about that final sentence. Keep it, amend it, move it, whatever… thing is, despite how much we have discussed it, it’s not actually the important part of the section. The ''important'' part is what comes before it - the reminder that there is more to “inclusion” than just Verifiability.
::And I think it would be helpful to have a shortcut that focuses on the important part of the section rather than on what is really just an afterthought. ] (]) 01:55, 27 December 2024 (UTC)


The sentence "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." is still there, and out there on the coal face it is the thing that people have used the ONUS link for countless times. So I don't see why it is redundant. ]<sup><small>]</small></sup> 02:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
*Other editors' ignorance of foreign languages is not, and has never been, the article writer's problem. If you can't check a source because it's in a language you never learned, ask an editor who can for help.—] <small>]/]</small> 18:48, 31 August 2013 (UTC)


:I'm not a fan of stripping down the link boxes on this policy page to each list only one shortcut. ] states that link boxes {{xt|"generally should list only the most common and easily remembered redirects"}}, and uses the plural word ''redirects'' to indicate that multiple shortcuts should be listed in link boxes when appropriate. When there is only one shortcut listed in a link box, that shortcut will almost certainly remain the shortcut with the greatest number of pageviews due to its prominent placement. Most editors will use the shortcut displayed on the link box instead of going to ] (and checking "Hide transclusions" and "Hide lists", then resubmitting and browsing the list) to find other ones, even if the unlisted ones may be more concise or more appropriate.{{pb}}Personally, I will continue using the ] shortcut to refer to {{slink|Misplaced Pages:Verifiability#Questionable sources}}, and I do find it strange that the more concise shortcut is omitted in favor of only listing ], regardless of the pageview counts. —&nbsp;''''']'''&nbsp;<small>]</small>'' 02:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
*I would definitely oppose favoring on-line sources over hard copy "dead tree" sources. ''Quality'' is more important than ease of access when it comes to sources. ] (]) 22:13, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
::The most common practice for section links is to have only one shortcut. We're more likely to see two at the top of the page (e.g., WP:NOR and WP:OR). ONUS gets clicked on about five times as often as VNOT, so I can understand someone wanting to choose the more common. My concern is that if the last sentence gets moved (e.g., to ]), then the shortcut should get moved with the sentence, in which case VNOT should presumably reappear here. ] (]) 04:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I generally agree with that. ONUS gets referenced quite a bit so we need to make sure that those previous references don't get lost. There is also a bit of an issue that editors may have something like "the ONUS part of WP:V" only to later have the links changed. It might be good to have some type of indication in the new location that it used to be part of WP:V just so those older discussions still continue to make sense. ] (]) 14:43, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
::::We could split the 'ONUS sentence' into a different paragraph, and then put a shortcut for WP:VNOT at the top of the section and a separate one for WP:ONUS on the new, single-sentence 'paragraph'. ] (]) 19:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I would support that. The final sentence really is a separate concept from the rest of the section, so it probably should be on its own. ] (]) 19:12, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
Calling something the "common practice' doesn't prohibit other practices in appropriate circumstances. I think we all agree that this section says two distinct things: (1) Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. (2) If challenged, consensus is required for inclusion. In this case it is appropriate to show two distinct links (VNOT and ONUS). - ] (]) 16:45, 27 December 2024 (UTC)


It conflicts with the WP:Consensus policy, doesn't really describe its original (good) intent, puts an arbitrary finger on the scale towards exclusion, and it's current wording says something that has nothing to do with wp:verifiability. We could do a lot of good, accomplish the original intent, and fix all of those problems by changing it to: "verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion". Sincerely, <b style="color: #0000cc;">''North8000''</b> (]) 19:59, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:Like Blueboard says: quality (and reliability?) should be the paramount consideration. This should not be weakened simply for convenience. ~ ] (]) 22:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
::I agree entirely, a weak easily accessible English source should not be preferred over a high quality foreign language source that is harder to access simply because the English source is ease of access.--] (]) 23:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)


:The subject of this topic is the content of the shortcut box. Do you mean to start a new conversation regarding the substance of the ONUS portion of the section? - ] (]) 20:18, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
*Nope, I oppose, too. While this would make our lives easier in some ways, we're not trying to be the easiest encyclopedia to write for in the world, but the best. Regards, ] (]) 13:21, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
::North alway reminds us of his favorite wording, whenever we discuss the section.
::Now… if he could turn it into a good '''shortcut''', I might be persuaded to give it a try. ] (]) 20:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
:North, does the ONUS sentence conflict with any part of the Consensus policy except the ] section, which says it "does not make any new rules. If this page and the more specific policy or guideline disagree, then this one is wrong"? ] (]) 21:11, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 21:11, 27 December 2024

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    ? view · edit Frequently asked questions Questions
    Where should I ask whether this source supports this statement in an article?
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    Reliability of sources

    I've noticed that many right-wing sources on this site are considered unreliable; my question is: why? I'm politically neutral and, considering that the politics of Italy and the United States are different, I have asked myself this question. Thanks in advance. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:48, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

    That's not a question with a simple answer, but whether a source is perceived as right wing or left wing shouldn't be a consideration in questions of reliability. If you look into discussions about sources the issue are rarely ideological. Instead the cause is that media organisation have diverged since the days of print media, and that divergence has impacted media on different parts of the political spectrum differently. That change in the real world has then had an impact on Misplaced Pages. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
    @ActivelyDisinterested: the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are.
    I repeat: I don't know the political situation in the United States in detail. In Italy we have a right-wing government; it's a government that many Italians support, because Italy is quite conservative, which for the Italian context is a very good thing; for the US context, however, it seems not, since the American right has, for example, denied climate change, which unfortunately exists.
    Returning to the main topic: the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
    extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong) yes you age +are+ wrong. Take for example in British news media The Canary and Skwarkbox are both considered unreliable, and are on the far left of politics. Also to be clear sources aren't banned so much as actively discouraged if the consensus is that they are unreliable.
    Whether governments or voters are of a particular part of the political spectrum is also not a consideration in judging the reliability of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
    @ActivelyDisinterested: thank you very much for this detailed and very useful explanation. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:23, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
    The primary reason media sources get Deprecated (which is not quite a “ban”), is that they have repeatedly been shown to not fact check (or, in some cases, shown to completely invent “facts” which they report).
    As to why right leaning sources seem to be more likely to be deprecated than left leaning ones… this is due to the fact that right wing sources tend to get more scrutiny. It’s no secret that Misplaced Pages attracts academics, who tend to be a somewhat left leaning group. They notice (and complain) when right-wing sources don’t fact check… and they tend to be a bit more forgiving when left-wing sources do the same.
    That being said, we have deprecated a few left-wing sources when enough evidence has been presented to show they are not properly fact checking. It’s difficult, but possible. Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 29 September 2024 (UTC)
    @Blueboar: Recognizing and admitting this problem is certainly a big step forward, but actions are more important than words; I would like neutrality not to be compromised in the encyclopedia. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:12, 12 October 2024 (UTC)
    With respect, Blueboar’s comment is not an admission of any problem, it’s an example of the long debunked myth of the liberal media, which Blueboar evidently believes is true. Virtually every aspect of their comment is untrue, IMO. For example, the vast majority of US sources are center to center right, not "left", and the leading opposition party in the US (D) takes policy positions that are considered center to center right in the rest of the world. What I’ve found most interesting about this is to look closely at the history of CNN and MSNBC, two of the so-called "leftist" bugbears attacked by the right as communists. As it turns out, both networks take center to center right positions on most issues and are run by pro-corporate, pro-big business leaders. The idea that reality has a liberal bias began in the early 1970s as a right-wing libertarian call to arms, which has created an alternate reality where right is center and center is left. This was intentional. It began as a way to limit government regulation and undermine democracy. This is a good example of what happens when people lose touch with things like facts and become a post-truth society. And this is the true reason right wing sources tend to be highly deprecated. They don’t believe in things like facts. And when facts no longer matter, democracy ceases to function. Apologies if this offends anyone. Viriditas (talk) 01:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    User:JacktheBrown - Outside of politics the banning also happens. I think it is just the mechanics or effect of WP:RSP. For the UK it seems more an elitism thing than a political leaning -- for example it seems most British press by volume is excluded as low class. RSP seems to interpret 'reliable' to mean 'respected' or 'truth' to that WP editor, excluding consideration of 'available' or 'accurate' from 'verifiability'. (You can elsewhere see discussions on a paywalled source or remote paper being preferred despite readers generally not having access to such or WP:VNT) The terms RSP uses are "Blacklisted" meaning mechanically edits including that site are blocked, or "Deprecated" meaning the guidance includes "generally prohibited" by automatic warning of such an editor and removal of such edits by third parties, or "Generally unreliable" meaning outside "exceptional circumstances" not to be used with removal by third parties and pings in TALK. If you want to see what discussions on what to ban are like, they are mixed in at WP:RSN. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:22, 13 October 2024 (UTC)
    @Markbassett: I'm not convinced that this isn't political. What's the percentage between left-wing and right-wing sources that can be used? Perhaps an 80/20? JacktheBrown (talk) 18:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
    I'm saying that banning sources via blacklisting and deprecated designations seems basically an elitism act, and that it exists in all venues or topics - so it's in effect at articles for sports or music or basically anything. I'm not talking politics, or whether some parties might exploit it for financial or personal reasons -- I'm saying it simply is always a direct issue to the policies for V and WEIGHT. You cannot have WEIGHT properly measured if you exclude considering any significant circulation because editors think those are labelled as lesser venues, and if you are selecting paywalled or tiny elite items as the one to cite, then it's preferring the not accessible ones which is contrary to it being V verifiable. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 22:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
    @Markbassett: very interesting discussion. So is Misplaced Pages making a mistake in rejecting certain sources or is it doing so in good faith? In my opinion the second option is correct, but I would like to read yours. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:40, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
    Well I tend to view RSP usage here as problematic, but my wider view is Misplaced Pages content is from editors that are just people - good people and bad people, informed one way among many, obsessive or ditzy, with good days and bad days, days they have time to be careful and days that are rushed. You can look over RS debates and RSP debates or just filter recent changes to the ones possibly vandalism and judge for yourself.
    For RSP in particular, I was not a fan of the idea back when it started and events have not improved my views of it and the way mechanics of it work. It supposedly was meant to capture the RS conclusions from earlier "Perennial" RS questions, so it could help the RS consideration. But folks just propose and argue from whatever stance for banning - there is not necessarily prior RS considerations or policy criteria in play. And instead of informing a RS consideration it seems mainly a blanket forever judgement - or at least I have not seen any reversals up or down. My revision of your 80/20 question back to you would be more along the lines of if WP bans 80% of the UK press, then is it a 20% valid portrayal of views ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:25, 12 November 2024 (UTC)
    @Markbassett: is it possible to have an accurate statistic of how many left-wing and right-wing sources are deprecated? JacktheBrown (talk) 00:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
    I think one can only get a statistic of the simple sort and count by their status like 20 banned, 44 deprecated, 133 generally unreliable, 100 no consensus, 119 generally reliable. Anything else would need a chosen filtering and categorizing. But I think RSP counts is less a concern than percentage of external, or individual articles being totally dependent on limited source.
    The first concern is more how large a percentage of the total WP:WEIGHT of coverage for a POV is being excluded by RSP, because it seems the largest or most known sources are the ones to get excluded, so a simple count such as '5' banned needs the context of is that 5 of only 6 or is it 5 of 100, and does the 5 constitute 95% of the WEIGHT or what ? For example again, almost all of major circulation UK newspapers are banned, and the banning for reason for banning for being 'sensationalist' or 'just sports' then means not having the best available data or best known portrayals on topics that were UK scandals or UK sports events.
    The second concern is that at some articles the cites are too limited by selections which perhaps excludes what the most common view is outside of WP, or at least will not show all the common views so be a failure of NPOV. Again, this is all categories -- for example one cannot have a music article that only shows the academic views and think that reflects the world opinions and complete story. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 21:53, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
    @Markbassett: Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources shouldn't have been created, perhaps Misplaced Pages is unnecessarily self-complicating. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think it's possible to get such a count, because you'd have to first agree on where to draw the line between left and right. For example, CNN is most commonly described as centrist, but some editors think it's leftist. The New York Times seems to be considered center-left, except that there are complaints that it's right-wing on trans issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:33, 14 November 2024 (UTC)
    I haven’t heard the NYT described as center left in polite company. I think that’s a talking point on the right. If you followed the last presidential election, it appeared that the NYT was rooting for Trump on the regular and frequently pushes center to center right policy proposals. I think there’s this misunderstanding about the NYT that has persisted for decades, that because they cover a wide variety of topics that somehow makes them leftist. It doesn’t. If you recall, the NYT has been the subject of critiques from the left in the US since at least WWII, when they pretended Hitler wasn’t a problem and the Holocaust wasn’t newsworthy. Many controversies surrounding their conservative to right wing coverage in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s and 1990s, the NYT was frequently referred to by the left as Lies of our Times. In the 2000s, they were taken down a notch for supporting and promoting the Iraq War and for government stenography, failing to investigate the false claims of WMD. During the Trump, post-truth era, the NYT was described as giving Trump a free pass while also attacking Democrats who might have paid a parking ticket late, etc. One of the NYT’s lead reporters has been repeatedly accused of engaging in access journalism, replacing critical analysis with softball questions and empty analysis. I could go on. Viriditas (talk) 02:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    When I've seen people (usually inexperienced editors) complain about the New York Times (example), it's almost always because they think it's liberal/leftist. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    Semi-protected edit request on 18 November 2024

    This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

    The birth place of Sam Mills is not Neptune City New Jersey because there is not a hospital with maternity facilities in Neptune City and his parents never lived there. Therefore change Neptune City ,N.J. to Neptune Township ,N.J. He was born at Jersey Shore Medical Center in Neptune New Jersey. Parts of Neptune City is across the street from that hospital. There are too many people confusing Neptune City Borough with Neptune Township 2601:45:400:2CC0:8818:726B:923B:C7C9 (talk) 00:31, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

    Is this about the Sam Mills article? You should ask at Talk:Sam Mills instead. (Also, not every baby gets born in a hospital, or in the place where their parents live.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

    Are articles written by a publication owner/publisher reliable secondary sources, or are they self-published sources?

    I think I asked this question over a decade ago somewhere and it's been lost in the recesses of Misplaced Pages talk archives. If the owner/publisher of a reliable source writes pieces for their publication, are they a self-published source? Like, for example, if Ian Danzig writes an article for Exclaim! (which he owns and publishes), or HM's founder and publisher Doug Van Pelt or Jesus Freak Hideout's owner and publisher John DiBiase write articles for their respective websites, or A. G. Sulzberger writes a story for The New York Times, are those articles self-published sources only or are they considered reliable, independent published sources?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 22:00, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

    … depends on the publication, publisher’s relationships with paper, and more. The discussions above as well as ongoing Misplaced Pages:Requests for comment/Grey Literature all suggest divergent opinions in community. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
    Your use of "secondary" in the heading is out of place. An article can be published by a reliable publisher but be primary. A paper in a journal published by a learned society reporting new experimental results is an example of that. And there is nothing stopping a self-published article or book from being based mostly, or entirely, on other sources, which makes it secondary. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 282#RfC: Quackwatch concluded that articles written by the owner/publisher of Quackwatch were self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:37, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing I'm now also trying to figure out if the commentary and factual statements accompanying the premiere of an artist's work is essentially a primary source. For instance, on my sandbox I'm working on an article, and I cite some BLP claims (a musician converted to Christianity and his band released to Christian metal albums) to a premiere of new music by that band. The author of the magazine post premiering the material is the owner of the magazine (thus it's self-published), but in this case I'm assuming that the commentary of that author could essentially be considered closely affiliated with the band, that is, essentially a press release. I'll note that the faith of the musician is not in question, that's been stated by the artist himself, but the timing of his conversion (mid-1990s) and that two albums were released afterwards I haven't seen expressly stated in interviews or other press releases.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 16:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    Of course it is a primary source. It is also non-independent ("Alice Artist tells you what Alice Artist thinks").
    But depending on the structure, it might not be self-published; the most I could tell you is that the post could be argued to be self-published, and that it could be argued to not be self-published. The latter is because anyone who puts out a magazine is an established, traditional publisher, and some definitions exempt all traditional publishers. I would not worry overmuch about this one.
    Remember that Misplaced Pages:Primary does not mean bad. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing oh, primary is fine, my concern is that if it isn't primary. Because then it's a secondary source (the publisher) making a statement that's essentially self-published but used to support BLP claims.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 17:43, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    An Artist's statement (which is a case of "commentary and factual statements accompanying the premiere of an artist's work") is primary, non-independent, and often self-published (but not always, e.g., self-published on the author's website or a commercial gallery wall, but non-self-published if it is quoted in a scholarly article). It is also an excellent type of source to use (usually with WP:INTEXT attribution) for information about the art and the artist.
    A magazine article that contains similar information is often primary (but not always, e.g., if it takes the form of a compare-and-contrast analysis). It is assumed independent unless there is some COI-type relationship between the artist/band/album and the author/magazine/magazine owner. It is usually not considered self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing Right. My concern is that as the magazine is independent of the artist, and the content is a summary put together by the magazine's publisher, it's technically an independent source but a self-published one given that the publisher is the author and thus not under normal editorial review. In terms of the spirit of what not using SPS for BLPs is about (defamation), it's fine, as the subject states his faith elsewhere, but technically if the source is an independent SPS it's a violation of the stated consensus to never use such sources for BLP statements.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:27, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    I think that "thus not under normal editorial review" is an assumption, and possibly a false one.
    The usual practice seems to be to start off with "Well, is it obviously an ordinary newspaper/magazine/academic journal?" If so, then we're done: It's not self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:13, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing well, that's why I brought up this issue. And as you point out, Quackwatch, for example, is considered to be self-published if the content is from the website publisher. With the example I'm working with, we're talking about something that was a print magazine but now is fully online only.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 20:26, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    There are two ways to address this concern. I'll give you both:
    1. If this magazine were still in print, would you still be worrying about whether this article is self-published? If not, then you shouldn't now. Being self-published has nothing to do with whether the publication is on paper or on a website.
    2. What do you think is best for the article? If, using your own judgement as an editor, you think that citing this source makes that article better, then do it. If you think it makes the article worse – well, we wouldn't be having this conversation now, right? Because if you actually thought that, you'd have already rejected the source.
    WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing on point 1, yes, I've treated them the same in the past, and if I'm going to presume one form is reliable or unreliable, I'm going to presume the other.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:16, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you for these replies, this was helpful and I'm already implementing some changes on pages I've created/worked on.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    @3family6, you have made 26,000+ edits over the last 16 years, including about 150 articles. At this point, the only rule I really want to see you closely following is this one: Misplaced Pages:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Misplaced Pages, ignore it.
    As you have noticed, I'm happy to blather on about the technical distinctions between these things and the awkward gray areas, but when you're working on articles, you need to do what's right by the article, even if "the rules" suggest hurting the article. Total compliance with the rules is not the goal. Let me trust you to do the right thing. If you give me decent articles, I can figure out ways to make the rules align with community practices. Articles first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:05, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    @WhatamIdoing Wow, I really appreciate that comment, that is very kind. I guess my concern is your last part about community practices. I want to make sure that I'm actually going by community practice and not just unilaterally making content decisions. I was cleaning up one of my articles yesterday where I had include a source once way back that was not reliable. In general I think it's good for me to reflect on whether some of my editing practices are actually the best practice and actually improving the encyclopedia, or if they're bad habits that I fell into. I also just wanted to get some clarification on these gray areas not just for myself but for others. So there's a discussion I can point to.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:31, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    Years ago, an editor used to say that if you haven't made 50 mistakes yet, you aren't a real Wikipedian. Mistakes are okay. Fixing them is great.
    In general, I think it's important and valuable to conform to community practices, but sometimes the best practice isn't the popular one. The community needs some editors to be able to see and speak to best practices, instead of simply following rules, as if our policies and guidelines were holy writ. So I need – we need – you and editors like you to be thinking about what's best, rather than what's officially endorsed by The Rules™. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    My take on the question is that most self-published sources are not reliable sources because we have no way of judging their reliability. We do make some exception; we accept blogs written by acknowledged experts when they are writing about the area of their expertise. In general, we accept sources as reliable when they (or their publishers) have a history of publication that has shown them to be generally reliable. It is not true that a self-published source can never be used. The point is that we should not use sources for which we cannot determine reliabilty, and we cannot make that determination for most self-published sources. If a self-published periodical (whatever that means) has enough history, however, we can make judgements about the reliability of that publication for topics it has published on. Donald Albury 22:20, 27 November 2024 (UTC)
    @Donald Albury Right. I would presume that music reviews, if nothing else, could be considered editorials, if not more. Where it matters would be BLP statements.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 04:19, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

    Should there be a statement that accessible sources are nevertheless preferred?

    Because I think there ought to be one. The present policy defends less accessible sources entirely but there ought to be a balance. If there is a more accessible source and a less accessible source for a given bit of information, and it's not desirable to cite both, the more accessible source should be preferred. If a piece of information with a citation from an inaccessible source is contradicted by a more accessible, equally reliable source, there should be a preference towards the verified piece of information unless the first source can be located. If I own the latest edition of a book on a topic and the text in question is the same as an older edition that is on archive.org, I should cite the older edition because editors can go look at the book themselves more easily. Doing otherwise might not be a problem in itself but might lead to issues down the line. Fangz (talk) 08:35, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

    When Misplaced Pages was young the better sources were almost exclusively off-line. While it is true that more reliable sources are now available on-line (almost all scholarly journals and many books), I would say that more than 95% percent of what is available on-line is still not usable as sources in Misplaced Pages. Most of the best sources on-line are still those that have been published on paper before or simultaneously with the on-line version. Unfortunately, many of the on-line sources are behind paywalls, but that does not mean that we should accept poor sources simply because they are free. The WikipediaLibrary has helped with that, providing access to paywall protected sources to editors who meet the requirements. Indeed, it has allowed me to drop my private subscription to JSTOR. We should always strive to use the best reliable sources to support content in articles. I would say that more of the highest quality sourcing is available on-line now than was the case 15 to 20 years ago, and so there is even less reason today to ease our sourcing standards than there was then. Donald Albury 16:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    The nightmare case is editors misrepresenting sources, and doing it with obscure sources that are hard to check. I expect you can think of the particular editor I have in mind (I'll name them if requested but I don't know that it adds much). I don't have a real solution to this; such an editor would not really be stopped by a statement that high-availability sources are preferred. But it's something to keep in mind. --Trovatore (talk) 00:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)
    In many cases it is a good idea to cite an off-line or subscription source with lots of detail, or especially authoritative, also citing one accessible online, perhaps with less detail or authority. Remembering also that google books previews are only available in different countries or times entirely as the publisher chooses. Johnbod (talk) 16:24, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm also seeing publishers or authors putting fairly recent but out-of-print books on-line for free, or as a free e-book. Not very common, yet, but I hope it is a growing trend. Donald Albury 17:55, 4 December 2024 (UTC)
    All else being equal, where there are multiple high-quality reliable sources available for a claim, we can lean towards more accessible sources. But often all else is not equal. For example, citing an older source over a newer one can give the impression that the claim may be dated and no longer reflective of the literature. And where equally reliable sources disagree, we definitely shouldn't disregard one perspective based solely on how accessible it is. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

    editing the text of WP:SPS

    The text of WP:SPS currently says (1) Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources, and (2) Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. Sentence (1) does not exist in the corresponding WP:RS/SPS text. Moreover, it implies that expert SPS cannot themselves be independent reliable sources, and it's not clear to me that the claim about probability is true. I propose deleting this sentence, or at least the portion of it that comes after the colon. Sentence (2) is a bit inconsistent with the corresponding text of WP:BLPSPS, which now includes the following exception: It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example. WP:NPROF has similar exceptions in various places on that page; I'm not sure about other subject-specific notability guidelines for people. Should a corresponding sentence be added to WP:SPS? (FWIW, since editors disagree about what SPS does/doesn't encompass, I will likely start an RfC about that after the closure of the RfC on grey literature mentioned above. We could wait til that's over, as it may have broader implications for the wording of WP:SPS.) FactOrOpinion (talk) 22:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

    In regard to BLP, it seems like "It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example" is not saying that it is ok to use an SPS on a BLP, just that this does not count as an SPS. If that is the case does it provide a counter example to "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer"? - Bilby (talk) 23:22, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    No, the recent clarification at WP:BLPSPS is saying that your employer is not a "third-party" to you. A press release is always self-published. A press release or a social media post saying "Bob's Big Business, Inc. is delighted to announce that they have hired Sam Sales as the new Vice President of Global Sales" is:
    • non-independent (of the business; of the new VP of sales),
    • self-published (written by the business, published by the business),
    • primary (very close to the event, based on no prior publications),
    • reliable (for sentences such as "Sam Sales was hired as Vice President of Global Sales in 2024"), and
    • acceptable under BLPSPS.
    WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)
    Bilby, people have varied views on what is/isn't self-published (see the SPS definition discussion above). AFAICT, everyone agrees that (a) things like personal blogs, wikis, and social media are SPS and (b) things like traditional newspapers and book publishers are not self-published, but people disagree about (c) whether publications from advocacy organizations, universities, companies, think tanks, museums, learned societies, governments, etc. are SPS. The community needs to come to some consensus about (c), and that's why I'm thinking of creating an RfC about it. Depending on one's view about what is/isn't self-published, the BLPSPS sentence might mean that those publications are not self-published (and so don't fall under BLPSPS) or that they're self-published but are exempt from BLPSPS. FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    No, "a press release is always self-published" is only true if the press release is published by a natural person, not an organization. It is, however, a primary source. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:03, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    You made the argument above that a natural person (e.g., me) can self-publish something, but that when an organization (e.g., "WhatamIdoing, Inc.") does exactly the same thing, it's magically not self-published. I'm still not buying it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    FactOrOpinion, rather than trying to keep everything perfectly in sync across multiple pages, maybe we should point to BLPSPS. That might involve adding works like "Per WP:BLPSPS," but would not necessarily involve removing any existing text.
    About your (1): "Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources".
    The change I'd suggest here is to change "published it in independent, reliable sources" to "published it in a non-self-published reliable source". The non-self-published part is the part that matters. That source will be independent 99% of the time, but it's technically not the problem we're talking about here.
    About your (2): "Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer."
    What we're trying to say is that even if the author is amazing, and even if the author has written a dozen non-self-published books on this exact subject, it's still 100% not okay to use their self-published works for BLPSPS purposes.
    Imagine, e.g., that Gene Genealogist has written hundreds of articles and several books on genealogy. Gene has even written a whole book (HarperCollins, 2021, good reviews, decent sales) specifically on the subject of birthdates and is considered an expert in the field. Gene self-publishes this on social media: "Here's a fun fact: Paul Politician, Joe Film, and I all share exactly the same birthday. We were all born on the 32nd of Octember in 1960, making us all Baby Boomers. We are all 64 years old right now."
    Using the list above, this post is:
    • non-independent of self, but independent of the others,
    • self-published,
    • primary,
    • reliable, and
    • acceptable only for statements about Gene's own birthday/age/generation. It is unacceptable for statements about Paul or Joe.
    The problem isn't that Gene isn't independent or reliable. The problem is that there was nobody to stop Gene if publishing this were a bad idea for some reason. And rather than say "Oh, it's never a bad idea" or "Do this only if it's a good idea" – and then have fights over whether this is a good or bad idea, then editors voluntarily placed a blanket restriction on ourselves: Don't use even independent expert SPS sources about other people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:01, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    Re: (1), why do you believe that "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source" is true? How would one even go about testing that?
    Re: (2), you quoted a different sentence, one that I'm not questioning. I understand the BLPSPS condition. I also understand that there's significant disagreement about what is/isn't considered self-published. But my question was whether something like It does not refer to a reputable organisation publishing material about who it employs or to whom and why it grants awards, for example, which is currently in the text of WP:BLPSPS, should be added to the text of WP:SPS. Instead of your Gene Genealogist example, it's instead something like Notable Academic got a Notable Award from Learned Society, as published in Learned Society's newsletter. If one considers a newsletter to be self-published (and you do, though some others might not), then that sentence is saying that it's still OK to cite the newsletter for text on the academic's BLP re: the academic having gotten the award. And the BLPSPS text makes that clear, but the SPS text doesn't. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:18, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    (1) I don't think it's universally true, because "the information in question" could be basic information about the subject (e.g., all biographies should identify when and where the person lived; all articles about books should say what the book was about; all articles about species should say what kind of an organism it is), and sometimes part of that information might not be available anywhere else (e.g., a birthdate or birthplace; the author's explanation of what the book is "really" about; a scientific monograph from previous centuries).
    However, outside of such basic information, if it isn't available in a non-self-published reliable source, it's unlikely to be WP:DUE for inclusion. Remember that this is an information statement rather than a rule (i.e., it does not tell you what to do), and it is not absolute, since it says this is only "probably" the case.
    (2) My suggestion is that we solve the mismatch by having a single copy of the full BLP rules at BLPSPS (=not here) and that we indicate that WP:V does not have a complete copy of the full BLP rules. The alternative is that we have duplicated text, which will inevitably diverge over time. The available choices are:
    • a single "official" text, and everything else points to it, or
    • the maintenance hassle of resolving contradictions that arise between multiple copies.
    The first approach is recommended in Misplaced Pages:Policies and guidelines#Content ("minimize redundancy"), but if you prefer ongoing maintenance hassles and the periodic need to de-conflict policies, then we could do that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:15, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    I forgot to address your Learned Society example before I posted this. It's the same as the employer press release:
    The Learned Society publishes a newsletter. The things we call newsletters are usually self-published, because they are usually being written and published by the organization; however, in some cases, the organization only sponsors the publication, and the publication's staff has editorial independence similar to a magazine (e.g., Newsletters on Stratigraphy). For simplicity, I'm going to stipulate that this is a self-published newsletter.
    One of their self-published newsletters says that Prof. Notable Academic got a Notable Award from the Learned Society. This newsletter item is:
    • non-independent (of Learned Society; of Notable Award; of Prof. Notable Academic ),
    • self-published (written by the org, published by the org),
    • primary (very close to the event, based on no prior publications),
    • reliable (for sentences such as "Learned Society awarded the Notable Award to Notable Academic in 2024"), and
    • acceptable under BLPSPS.
    WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:29, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    Re: (1), I still don't understand where you're getting the data from that allow you to conclude that "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source." To me, it seems like a case where some editors believe this but don't have data to back it up and where it's unclear how one could gather such data. (Arguably, the vast majority of RS information isn't DUE, but that's a different issue, and is the case regardless of whether the source is SPS or non-SPS.)
    Re: (2), your comment reminded me that there has been a similar conversation about the parallel texts in WP:SELFSOURCE, WP:ABOUTSELF, and WP:BLPSELFBUB. The people involved in that conversation decided that the best solution was "Remove the SELFSOURCE material in RS ; retarget that shortcut to ABOUTSELF's location in V, and "advertise" the shortcut at that place instead; in RS , summarize ABOUTSELF in a sentence and cross-reference it, without an unnecessary and potentially confusing devoted section."
    Re: the Learned Society example, the only reason that it's acceptable under BLPSPS is because the exception is specified. It would not be acceptable under the current text of SPS. FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    For (1), this is not a statement about collected data. This is a statement about editors' collective experience.
    For (1), there are two classes of information that are suitable for inclusion. Those two kinds are:
    1. Basic information about a subject, which belongs in an encyclopedia article because of the requirements of the genre. This includes, for example, writing boring information like "George IV (George Augustus Frederick; 12 August 1762 – 26 June 1830) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 29 January 1820 until his death in 1830" instead of jumping straight into the subjectively attention-catching content, e.g., "King George IV, nicknamed Prinny, was known for being obese, profligate, prodigal, and promiscuous."
    2. Non-basic information about a subject, which belongs in an encyclopedia article because it is in desirable sources.
    For the second category, the existence of suitable sources is definitional.
    For the first category, the "probable" existence of suitable sources is the collective experience of editors. You might not be able to find every common detail (e.g., a complete birthdate may be unknown, or it may only be available in a self-published source) but if the subject actually qualifies for a Misplaced Pages:Separate, stand-alone article, you will be able to find enough non-self-published sources to meet the requirements of the encyclopedic genre, e.g., to place the subject in the encyclopedic context of time and place.
    In re the Learned Society example, it was accepted in many thousands of articles before the exception was specified. The exception was written down to make the written rules more accurately reflect the community's actual practices. Per WP:NOTLAW, the written rules themselves do not set accepted practice. Rather, they document already-existing community consensus regarding what should be accepted and what should be rejected. The accepted practice was set by the community for more than a decade. Recently, we updated the written rules to document the already-existing community consensus that an employer is not a True™ third-party from its employees (for the purposes of this policy) and that an award giver is not a True™ third-party from its awardees (for the purposes of this policy) and that therefore self-published statements from these sources are not excluded by BLPSPS.
    Perhaps this is the fundamental misconception. The written rules follow the community practice. The written rules document the community practice. The written rules are not supreme. The community is supreme. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you for having pointed out WP:NOTLAW. As much as I try to be familiar with (and abide by) the PAGs, I don't know that I've read all of them in their entirety, and I don't remember all that I've read.
    Re: (1), I'd say that editors' experiences are a form of data, but it's unclear to me how the community determines what the collective experience is. There are ways to determine the consensus of a small number of editors (e.g., in an RfC), where those editors may make arguments based on what they believe about the behavior of editors not involved in the RfC, but that's still a tiny fraction of editors. I don't know how anyone could confirm in any reasonable timeframe that "In re the Learned Society example, it was accepted in many thousands of articles before the exception was specified." (You can't confirm it with any kind of straightforward search; instead, you'd have to individually look at the sources for that kind of info on many thousands of articles, and you also have no way of knowing how many editors left that kind of info out of yet other articles because they thought that the employer, awarder, ..., wasn't an acceptable source.)
    It seems to me that in discussions, there's sometimes a tension between what PAGs say and what collective experience might be ("might" because I'm not sure how to determine "is"); that arose in the discussion about whether learned societies that are highly regarded within an academic field are wiki-notable, and is in play in the dispute about what is/isn't an SPS.
    Re: your 1. and 2., I'd interpreted "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source" as addressing both. And I've probably worked more on academic BLPs than other BLPs, which likely affects how I view all of this. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:21, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    Widely advertised discussions, including but not limited to RFCs, are assumed to represent the view of the whole community unless and until disproven, or at least seriously challenged.
    Every decision is made by a tiny percentage of editors. Even if we had a thousand editors respond to a question, which almost never happens, that's still only 0.12% of last year's registered editors. But it's enough; we don't need large numbers of editors to make the right decision. If the first decision is wrong, we'll discover that over time and adjust.
    In many cases, editors are learning by watching. They see that he cited the Oscars website, and didn't get reverted; she cited the Emmys website and didn't get reverted; they cited the Nobel website and didn't get reverted; and then rationally conclude that award websites must be okay. They will also see the Oscars website sometimes get replaced by a book, the Emmys website sometimes get replaced by a music magazine, and the Nobel website sometimes get replaced by a newspaper article. This means that when a single experienced editor shows up for a discussion, they're describing what they have seen get accepted (or rejected) by dozens or hundreds of editors across many articles.
    Academic BLPs are challenging, because the accepted criteria give little consideration to why we require significant coverage in independent sources in the first place. I would expect it to be difficult to much past the stub stage for many academic BLPs without veering into OR territory. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2024 (UTC)
    WhatamIdoing, thank you for your responses. You are helpful and extremely patient with all of my questions. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

    Proposal to adjust policy on self-published sources

    Hi folks, I just wanted to discuss WP:SELFPUBLISH as I think it needs to be tweaked.

    The proposed change

    I propose that the current wording: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. be changed to:

    Self-published sources may be considered reliable when they are either:

    • Produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.
    • When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication.
    • When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable.

    Why make this change? Currently we allow a wide range of sources without decent review standards. I'd be surprised if we've not all come across books containing claims that make us wonder if an editor ever held the book, seen podcasts given as sources, etc. This isn't to say that we shouldn't be highly suspicious of self-published sources, that I do not question, but there are other ways of determining a book's reliability than just checking if it was published by a third party.

    As the policy currently stands, it does not matter how reliable a self-published book is. This is an issue as not only is this standard far above what we expect from other forms of media, it ignores the reality that book-editors often don't fact-check, and (most importantly) it limits us from using potential sources that can be demonstrated to be otherwise very reliable (even more reliable than other books published by a third-party, as I hope to demonstrate).

    Why would this policy change lead to an improvement in Misplaced Pages? I raise this is as I've been working on Daisy Bates (author) and I've found that two of the recent biographies, often disagree with one another on very simple facts about Daisy Bates's life. My suspicion is that they both read autobiographical work written by Bates ("The passing of the Aborigines " (1936)), as well as a biography by Elizabeth Salter (titled "Daisy Bates: Queen of the Never Never" (1972)), and that they didn't do their due diligence in checking other primary sources. I'll give some examples in the collapsible table below:

    Fact checking claims of de Vries and Reece
    Some examples below:
    • Bob Reece claims on page 37 that Bates camped at Ma'amba reserve in 1901 and was invited to meet a duke and duchess in that same year because she organised a corroboree to welcome them on their arrival in Perth. When I was trying to understand the situation and the reason for the conflicting account I found a journal article and a government report which contradicts Reece; they describe that what was organised in 1901 was not a corroborree and that it was not organised by Bates. According Elizabeth Salter, Lomas and de Vries, Bates only went to Ma'amba after being hired by the government in 1904, this is backed up by correspondence we have between Bates and government officials (which is quoted by Lomas in his book). You only get the date of 1901 if you take Bates at her word in her autobiographical work.
    • It appears that neither de Vries nor Reece actually read many of Bates's first articles. For example:
      • They both disagree on what one of Daisy's first papers (published in Western Australia's journal of agriculture), "From Port Hedland to Carnarvon by Buggy" (1901), was about. de Vries thinks that it "covered her observations of the Indigenous people she had encountered" but this is plainly false if you read the journal article (as I have, at the J S Battye Library). Reece says that it was more a travel account.
    • Both de Vries and Reece state that Bates started her enthographic work shortly after arriving in Perth, but there's no evidence of this. They both just trust Bates on this, but if you actually read her papers you see that they have nothing to do with anthropology. Again, Lomas was the only one (of the three) to actually read the original papers himself and point this out.

    To summarise the reliability of de Vries and Reece, who are both published by a third party and have gone through some kind of review process:

    • They both are often lacking in giving citations, this makes their reliability hard to judge.
    • They both contain the errors that could have been avoided if they (or an editor) had read other primary sources.

    This is not to say that they should not be used; I note all of this to contrast them with Lomas's book, which is self-published.

    Coming to Brain D Lomas's "Queen of Deception" (2015):

    Indicators that Lomas is reliable
    Indicators of Lomas's reliability:
    • Lomas's book is used as a source in Eleanor Hogan's "Into the Loneliness: The unholy alliance of Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates". "Dr Eleanor Hogan is a 2023 National Library of Australia Fellow" and her book was published by NewSouth Publishing at the University of New South Wales Press Ltd. This book won the "The 2019 Hazel Rowley Literary Fellowship".
    • Lomas has done a lot of original research on the topic:
      • He has combed through old newspapers and government records to corroborate Bates's whereabouts; Old newspapers contained the names of folks who arrived at a port, Bates also developed a level of fame where people would report on her whereabouts in letters to papers, he also went through government records for her travel expense receipts she had sent to the government for reimbursement, etc.
      • Reading through a ton of archived material spread between Perth and Canberra. This includes the just mentioned receipts for travel expenses, but also personal and government correspondence (who for a while was her employer). I haven't seen indication that the other biographers went through so much archived material.
    • He regularly lets the source material speak for itself by giving quotations from primary sources.
    • He is quite consistent in giving citations, making it very easy to verify his claims. As a result it has been far easier to fact-check Lomas than it has been to fact check de Vries and Reece.
    All of this indicates to me that Lomas is reliable.

    Conclusion To summarise: Lomas is used as a source by an award winning non-fiction biographer, has done a ton of original research that involved reading through archived material, provides quotations from primary sources, and gives consistent and reliable citations. This results in Lomas being an arguably more reliable source on the topic than both de Vries and Reece. However, according to current policy, he cannot be used as a source alongside de Vries and Reece. I argue that current policy should be amended in the given or similar form. I am not arguing that self-published sources be allowed to be used without their reliability being demonstrated.

    Happy to answer any questions, clarify any statements, provide quotations, etc. if people wish.

    Criticism of Lomas and response to potential questions
    A failing of Lomas fails is a lack of polish in terms of his grammar, typos and some of his citations' page numbers being off by a couple pages (which, while sloppy, is again better than the other biographers). This is where most an editor's attention would have gone to, and have been most useful.

    Why not use the other published secondary sources? They are being used, but in the interest of using as many reliable sources as possible, and giving a balanced article that avoids giving undue weight to misinformation, Lomas's book should not be barred from being used as a reliable source.

    Why is it self-published? If I had to guess I'd say that it is because he is retired and didn't want to go through the headache that is publishing. If you have experience with this you know that it can be difficult. This is only conjecture though.
    1. Susanna de Vries's "Desert Queen: The many lives and loves of Daisy Bates" (2008) and Bob Reece's "Daisy Bates: Grand dame of the desert"

    FropFrop (talk) 07:32, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

    @FropFrop to clarify, Lomas has never had any work published elsewhere?--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 12:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    As far as I'm aware, no. The author never states it explicitly but my judgment is that it was a retirement project. However, he does also speak French (and maybe dutch?) so he could have published somewhere that I haven't found.
    FropFrop (talk) 01:05, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    • I'm a bit confused by "When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable." If the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable, then why wouldn't you instead use the sources that reliably verify the information? FactOrOpinion (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
      In practice, that line amounts to "whenever we want to". WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
      I think that we're capable of taking due diligence when it comes to these things, but would a narrower wording help? Perhaps changing that line to "When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable. This is to be done by the editor/s providing quotations and the source's citations so that other editors can discuss the content and form consensus on its reliability." or something to that effect? FropFrop (talk) 01:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
      Sources aren't required to include citations, and most of them don't. If the source does have (good) citations, then why not find, read, and cite those sources instead? WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:20, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
      I could do that, but then I'd be relying on primary material (which I want to avoid) and it would require a lot more work on my part. A lot of this archived material only has physical copies available. I've verified some of it, particularly at the beginning when I was judging how reliable Lomas was but this was quite time consuming.
      FropFrop (talk) 01:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
      I could do that, but then I'd be relying on primary material (which I want to avoid) and it would require a lot more work on my part. A lot of this archived material only has physical copies available. I've verified some of it, particularly at the beginning when I was judging how reliable Lomas was. FropFrop (talk) 01:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
      I too think this would be a bad proposal since it would effectively open the door wide for OR. What FropFrop seems to argue for here (and as they are constantly arguing on Talk:Daisy Bates (author)) is essentially: "I did the OR, following up those sources and so I consider this credible." But for good reasons we don't allow OR here, because such judgements are better left to the subject-matter experts at hand. Without OR, "clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable" simply means: There's another reliable source that says so. But if that's the case, then we can just cite that source and no change to SELFPUB is needed. Gawaon (talk) 10:02, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
      That's not OR. If a source has WP:Published something, and an editor checks the source's footnotes just to be sure, then that's not an editor making up stuff that isn't in any published source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:17, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
      But if the editor decided based on this check that a self-published source is reliable and should be admitted, then surely it is OR – what else could it be? It's not something that could be decided on the base of the source alone. Gawaon (talk) 10:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
      @Gawaon, the definition of OR, from the first sentence of that policy, is:
      On Misplaced Pages, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists.
      So:
      • The word material means "stuff we put in articles". If it's not going in the article, then it's not OR.
      • If a published source says ____, and editors deem that published source reliable for saying ____, then saying ____ in the Misplaced Pages article is not OR.
      • Checking whether a source (self-published or otherwise) is reliable and should be admitted is required of all editors, every single time they cite a source. Sometimes this is quite easy (e.g., a newspaper you know is widely cited, a book you happen to know is reputable), and sometimes it requires effort or a trip to RSN, but determining for yourself whether the source is reliable is normal, expected, and desirable behavior.
      On a separate, related note, you might be interested in the old concept of source-based research, about which the NOR policy used to say Research that consists of collecting and organizing material from existing sources within the provisions of this and other content policies is encouraged: this is "source-based research", and it is fundamental to writing an encyclopedia.
      Source-based research is not about determining whether a source is reliable, but it does involve determining the strengths and weaknesses of sources, and sorting out contradictions, such as why some sources give −1.592 × 10 coulomb as the charge of an electron and others give −1.602 x 10 coulomb instead (e.g., different POVs? Different time periods? Different circumstances? One of them's just wrong?). If an editor decides that the best way to settle the question is to find and read the published+reliable+primary sources that the cited source names, then that's okay. We don't ban editors from reading the sources cited by our sources. Sometimes it even helps us get article content right (e.g., by figuring out whether our source's claim about "the average" should be linked to Mean or Median). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:32, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
      Sure, but can an editor's own research promote a non-reliable (e.g. self-published by an unknown person) work into a reliable one? That's what we're discussing here, right? Gawaon (talk) 21:43, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
      A source is reliable if there's a consensus among editors that it's reliable. I've told this joke many times, but here it is again:
      • Three baseball umpires are talking about their profession and the difficulty of making accurate calls in borderline cases. One says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as they are." The next feels a little professional humility is in order and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, and I call them as I see them." The third thinks for a moment and says: "Some are strikes, and some are balls, but they ain't nothing until I call them."
      This is how Misplaced Pages works: A source isn't "non-reliable" until editors make the call. Editors might well decide that Lomas is reliable for a given bit of article content. They also might decide that it's not. But nobody's "promoting a non-reliable source into a reliable one", either through their own hard work to establish whether the source is one that we should rely upon or through any other means, because it's the community that ultimately makes the call, not just one editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:27, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
      Agree. All of the criteria in Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources are based on characteristics commonly found in sources the community has deemed reliable, and therefore help in predicting whether a given source will be deemed reliable. Editors may differ on the details of what makes a source reliable, but the arbitor of reliability is a consensus of whatever part of the community is paying attention at the moment. And, as always, a consensus of a wider part of the community will trump a local consensus or individual opinion. Donald Albury 15:03, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
      It's also essentially impossible for other editors to verify, without repeating all the research by themselves. Gawaon (talk) 10:54, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
      So? See Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Cost.
      But: It doesn't matter. If one editor decides that they want to make sure that a source is really, truly, absolutely backed up by the sources that it cites, then they're allowed to do that. You can decide whether you trust them; you can decide for yourself whether you think they're lying; you can decide whether you think their evaluation is incompetent. But you can't say "You did a lot of work, but I'm unwilling/unable to replicate it, so we have to ignore that". Some people spent a lot of time learning other languages or studying advanced math or obsessing about the reputation of academic journals. I can't verify their conclusions without repeating all that work myself, but that's okay. I don't have to. They are not limited or restricted to the level of work that I choose to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:36, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    if there is one other than Misplaced Pages:Status quo stonewalling Thank you for that! Another editor has been quite frustrating and has been citing WP:SELFPUB and has not engaged with any of my requests or offers of broader discussion. Going so far as to remove all citations of Lomas (white not editing the content to remove information I gathered from him, saying that it'll be done later).
    FropFrop (talk) 01:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Same here. In particular, I find the “Indicators that Lomas is reliable” convincing. — Charles Stewart (talk) 05:36, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    @FropFrop, I don't think your second point ("When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication") will work.
    Imagine that someone self-publishes (e.g., posts on social media) a manifesto for some obviously wrong view (e.g., Flat Earth, tinfoil hats, coffee tastes good, whatever you want). Alice Expert cites this manifesto in a high-quality reliable source as evidence that this view exists (e.g., "These views appear to be genuinely held by some people. The 'None of This Nonsense' Manifesto, which went viral in 2023, lays out four primary reasons for believing in magical dragons, including...").
    That would be an instance of an expert who "uses the self-published source as a reliable source in a publication", and we still don't want editors to use the self-published manifesto directly themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    Speaking of manifestos, imagine this being applied to murder/suicide notes. The UK news yesterday had a story about someone sending a scheduled social media post announcing his suicide. So: the self-published announcement got "used" as "a reliable source in a publication" (several, actually), and this would therefore make the self-published announcement 100% okay to use in articles (except that to the extent that it would violate MOS:SUICIDE). That's what we don't want. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    This is a very fair point.
    To avoid such potential scenarios, what do you think of the following:
    • When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published secondary source as a reliable source in a publication.
    Would the addition of "secondary" and the (already included) "as a reliable source" be sufficient? Or would the latter need greater specificity?
    FropFrop (talk) 01:25, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    The problem I have with this proposal it that it would mean that a single mention in a reliable source would be enough to promote all of a self-published work as "reliable/useable" for us, including (and especially) the parts what weren't mentioned in the reliable source. Specifically, in this case: the only real argument (besides OR) I have read from you re Lomas's reliability is that he's cited in Eleanor Hogan, Into the Loneliness (NewSouth, 2021) which is indeed a reliable source. But in that whole book Lomas is cited just once, with two sentences sourced to him (for a full quote, see Talk:Daisy Bates (author), my comment from 09:35, 23 December 2024). Based on that his work is mentioned just this single time in her whole book on Bates I'd rather conclude that she doesn't consider him particularly credible, otherwise she would certainly have cited him more often. By contrast, de Vries and Reece are both cited more than a dozen times – clearly they are more reliable sources for her. In our article on Bates, largely rewritten by you, Lomas is cited about 35 times, and you want to keep all those references based on this single mention by Hogan. However, if we want to cite the single fact which Hogan attributes to Lomas, we can just cite her book without having to mention him at all. As for the other 35 facts you would like to cite, there's no evidence that Hogan considers any of them credible, and so I don't see how this single mention by her could be a basis for the extensive use of his book which our article currently makes (in clear violation of SELFPUB as it currently stands). Gawaon (talk) 10:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, it is only once. I made this point as part of a larger argument. If this were the only point that support's Lomas's reliability, then I wouldn't make the larger argument.
    Perhaps then the amendment could be worded like so (taking some of the adjustments made by @FactOrOpinion):

    When assessing reliability, be especially wary when the source is self-published, and doubly so if it's being used as a source about a living person. Self-published sources are more likely than non-self-published sources to be unreliable sources for WP content, though there may be mitigating considerations, for example:

    • If the content comes from a reputable organization and involves information such as who works for them or who they gave an award to.
    • The content falls under ABOUTSELF.
    • The content is produced by a subject-matter expert whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.
    • When the source's claims can be clearly and non-controversially verified and deemed as reliable. Editors should provide sources' quotations and sources citations so that other editors can discuss the content and form consensus on its verifiability.
    • When an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, uses the self-published secondary source as a reliable source in a publication.

    If a self-published source meets one or more of the above examples, that does not automatically warrant its use as a reliable source; careful consideration of its reliability should still be made. Keep in mind that if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source.

    FropFrop (talk) 02:11, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    Your points 1+2 essentially seem to describe or refer to WP:ABOUTSELF, since that already exists as an independent section, there's no reason to repeat it here. About your points 4+5 I have already explained in other comments here why I think they would be unworkable and weaken the basis of reliability at which the aim. Nothing has changed in that regard. Gawaon (talk) 10:59, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    When the source's claims can be clearly and ... If a self-published claims can be verified using other reliable sources, use those sources instead.
    ...uses the self-published secondary source as a reliable source in a publication This is treading on the toes of WP:USEBYOTHERS. If a source is widely cited in other high quality sources it could be considered reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:20, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    Overall, looking at the specific situation, I wonder whether WP:IAR might be a better solution. We generally try to avoid changing overall rules just to deal with a situation at a single article. Perhaps an RFC explaining the situation? Or just asking "Is Lomas' book reliable for <this exact sentence>?" WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    Most of what I posted originally I took from an ongoing discussion on the article's talk page. An editor has been very firm on this being a gross violation of WP:SELFPUB and does not take WP:IAR or WP:ADHERENCE seriously. Neither have they engaged with my arguments for why Lomas should be an exception to WP:SELFPUB. They've been editing the article to remove all citations of Lomas (white not editing the content to remove information I gathered from him, saying that it'll be done later). FropFrop (talk) 01:18, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    It sounds like it's time for Misplaced Pages:Dispute resolution procedures. Maybe an RFC? I think I'd pick something small, like "Can we cite this book for this one sentence?" If you get agreement for the simplest/strongest single instance, then it will be easier to expand from there.
    There have been several questions about self-published sources recently, including the one from Void if removed at #SPS definition and from 3family6 at #Are articles written by a publication owner/publisher reliable secondary sources, or are they self-published sources? and from FactOrOpinion at #editing the text of WP:SPS. The volume of questions, plus the rise of more "respectable" self-published works (this one, but also things like established fiction authors self-publishing books they like but their publisher didn't want to bother with) makes me wonder whether we need to re-think this concept entirely. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:29, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    WhatamIdoing, FWIW, I've been trying to come up with wording for an RfC on the definition of SPS (checking the consensus on what people consider self-published, and whether the current definition and examples communicate that well). I think I understand the main views (I'm in the midst of rereading the discussions to check), but so far, I haven't been able to come up with something short; maybe there's just no way to make a short RfC about what I think is important to get at, or maybe it's a problem with how I'm thinking about it. I've also been waiting to see what the closer of the grey literature RfC says, though I gather that the timeline for that is open.
    A couple of questions that came up for me vis-a-vis your view (I feel like I'm a font of never-ending questions; feel free to ignore them):
    • You've said that you sometimes put governments in the traditional publishers category. For example, you've called the Census Bureau a traditional publisher and wrote "little-g government(s) ... are, in some respect, traditional publishers (e.g., of laws and reports)." I'm curious what guides your view about when the government is a traditional publisher vs. when it isn't.
    • Both you and Void if removed have said that you think of traditional publishers in terms of the business model. Void if removed elaborated one traditional model: "an arrangement with a separate publisher is a business setup where both parties bring something (marketable content vs marketing infrastructure, connections, brand recognition etc)," where the publisher pays the author (content creator) and "If the publisher rejects the , then the author is free to sell it to a different publisher." That more or less works for books, freelance journalism, peer-reviewed journals, and probably movie documentaries. But it doesn't capture the structure of most print, electronic, radio, and TV journalism publishers, and probably not TV documentaries (assuming that you consider radio and TV journalism to fall in the traditional publisher category). How would you describe their business model(s)? And would you say that a business model is simply irrelevant to governments as traditional publishers?
    As for FropFrop's proposal, it strikes me as more about who counts as an expert than about what counts as self-published. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:07, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think "free to sell it to a different publisher" is a given. 3rd party publishing can still prevent the author from self-publishing or selling it on to another publisher. This is pretty much standard practice in music publishing, with all sorts of high profile cases of artists contractually unable to release their own material, while the publisher refuses to publish finished work.
    The thing about traditional publishing is that it encompasses more than just "making material available", but for sourcing purposes, we consider "making material available" to be all that really matters to be "published". So the distinction is sometimes unclear - its on a website either way, so what's the difference? But a publisher will invariably be responsible for matters like advertising, promotion, legal due diligence, complaints, distribution in physical media, and so on.
    And really, the only reason it matters is because of WP:BLPSPS.
    So after all this I think the real question is: what level of sourcing do we need for contentious claims about 3rd party BLPs?
    Much of this debate around the edges of what is or is not an SPS has that goal in mind. Being traditionally published (ie a book, newspaper, magazine or journal) is to my mind a reasonable proxy for "you can use this to make a contentious claim about a 3rd party BLP, if its due", because a publisher is on the hook for defamation as much as the author. And that is probably the extent to which I care about whether a source is SPS or not. Void if removed (talk) 15:37, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks for your "free to sell it to a different publisher" point, agreed, though I don't think the SPS restriction matters much for something like music, since I don't see that being used for fact or opinion content, only for content that falls under ABOUTSELF. Ditto for things like TV dramas/comedies and non-documentary movies, though I'm still unclear about whether you'd say those are published by traditional publishers. Although you and What am I doing have highlighted business models, I don't recall others doing so, so that's why I'm trying to understand how you describe traditional publisher business models. Re: the other things that a publisher is responsible for, don't they also apply to publishers that you consider non-traditional (e.g., if GLAAD publishes something defamatory, isn't it on the hook too)?
    I think your description of the "real question" is a significant part of the real question, but not all of it, as FropFrop's proposed change shows. (And I've encountered similar questions on RSN.) Also, right now, SPSs can't be used as BLP sources even if the claim is non-contentious.
    As best I can tell, SPSs are singled out because editors think SPSs are much less likely to be RSs. For example, the WP:SPS section appears in a larger section titled "Sources that are usually not reliable," the current definition refers to the lack of an independent editor "validating the reliability of the content," and an early ArbCom conclusion (referred to by What am I doing above) said "A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking ..." (That text was introduced into WP:RS in 2006, and although there was text in WP:V about self-published sources at that point, there was no attempt to define self-published, and the examples were totally limited to situations where one or a few individual persons had total control over whether their own work was published.) I assume that this is why the expert source and ABOUTSELF exceptions exist: self-published content written by experts in their area of expertise is much more likely to be reliable than other SPS content, and SPSs are often reliable sources about the author (but not about others or if the content is too self-serving; for that matter, we also have to beware of non-self-published sources producing self-serving content, as might occur in their marketing material, though as best I understand, you and What am I doing always consider marketing material to be self-published).
    So I think the underlying issue is assessing whether a SPS is reliable for the content in question. When it comes to the SPS policy, it may be sufficient to say something like

    When assessing reliability, be especially wary when the source is self-published, and doubly so if it's being used as a source about a living person. Self-published sources are more likely than non-self-published sources to be unreliable sources for WP content, though there may be mitigating considerations, for example, if the content comes from a reputable organization and involves information such as who works for them or who they gave an award to, or the content falls under ABOUTSELF, or the content is produced by a subject-matter expert whose "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" or falls into the situation that FropFrop introduced. Keep in mind that if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in a non-self-published reliable source.

    However, that still means that we need to be clearer about what does/doesn't constitute self-published material. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:43, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    This all sounds good to me (with the amendments added after WhatamIdoing pointed out some potential issues).
    FropFrop (talk) 02:30, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Void if removed, if you don't mind a couple more questions ...
    In the RSN discussion of SBM, you said "We have multiple highly debatable and contested terms, at the heart of a core policy, and radically different interpretation of them."
    • I'm guessing that in addition to "self-published," you're thinking of "author" and "publisher." Are there any other terms (besides "self-published," "author," and "publisher") you think are contested?
    • For each of these terms, if you have a sense of the different meanings attributed to them, would you say what they are? (For ex., I know that you've distinguished between a publisher as "the person who publishes" vs. as "a business whose business is publishing.")
    Thanks! FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    So, some examples gleaned from the various debates:
    • Author could mean anything from a single individual who wrote a blogpost, to the company whose unnamed employees were instructed to write content.
    • Publishing could mean the trivial act of placing some content online, or a business arrangement whereby a publishing company takes responsibility for the distribution of content, along with marketing and various other concerns.
    And as I mentioned in the previous debates, in English "publisher" (a publishing company) and "publisher" (a person who did the act of publishing) are the same word, and this leads to confusion. Depending on how you interpret all the above, self-published can mean anything.
    By the narrowest definition of self-published, only something like a single-author blog where one identifiable person both wholly wrote and trivially placed content online is "self-published".
    By a broader definition, a corporate website where company employees write content at the behest of the company and it is placed online at the sole discretion of that company, is also self-published, because the author (the company) is the publisher.
    By a maximal definition, anything where there is not a traditional, commercial publishing structure, ie a book publisher, a journal, or traditional news media, is self-published.
    Many of these debates get derailed by discussions about why we should care, and because many of us are laser focused on "published" as meaning "I can read it online", the commercial aspects of traditional publishing arrangements seem like a total irrelevance.
    So, with that aspect usually ignored, most seem to argue that we care something is self-published because we hope for some level of independent oversight, and so editors might point to "editorial oversight" as proof something is not self-published. This is the case for SBM, where a group blog set up and run by individuals who are also presently its sole editors somehow has been decided to be "not self published".
    But that, to me, seems like a hack. Editorial approval is not what defines "self-published", its just one component of how we assess a source's reliability and accountability. I think this is part of the incorrect conflation of SPS with "unreliable", when SPS and RS are really parallel concerns, just as PRIMARY and SECONDARY are. Trivial approval steps between someone writing copy and another person ticking a box or pressing "approve" on a blog are not sufficient to make something not self-published. As I've given as an example previously, by this minimal definition, a celebrity social media account run by a PR agency is therefore not "self-published", which seems to be a nonsensical interpretation.
    Another common issue is publishing uncontentious information (like scientist X won Y award), and so different interpretations of "self-published" emerging to get round the BLPSPS restriction.
    By my reading of past discussions we care very specifically about third-party BLPs because of the interplay between a) the low threshold for anyone to put any nonsense they like online and b) the possibility of that being defamatory.
    And my interpretation then is a traditional, commercial publishing arrangement is the thing that provides some level of confidence that Misplaced Pages is not going to be on the hook for defamation, where "a blog owner approved their mate's guest post before pressing submit" does not.
    So if I were to propose something it would be something straightforwardly restrictive like:
    • Any non-trivial, negative or otherwise opinionated claim about a 3rd party BLP must be sourced to something traditionally published (presumably with lawyers who checked this claim before going to press), ie a book, magazine, journal or newspaper.
    When it comes down to it, I think this is what BLPSPS is all about, and I think if you settle it that way all the argument about what is or is not self-published ceases to be quite such a concern. Void if removed (talk) 16:27, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Lawyers don't normally check any claims during the publication process. A large publisher will have some on staff, and a medium-sized one will have some on call, but (a) there is no routine legal review of content and (b) even when something gets flagged to their attention by other employees, they're not actually engaged in fact checking. They're only evaluating the information that's handed to them, to determine how much risk the company will be exposed to.
    This should be obvious if you think about it. Imagine the ordinary working of an ordinary daily newspaper: The city had a meeting, and the newspaper sent a reporter to it. The reporter comes back with notes and writes an article. The editor looks it over. The editor might ask some questions or make suggestions. After any agreed-upon changes, the article appears in the next morning's paper. There is no "get approval from a lawyer" step in the editing process (unless the editor deems it necessary, and that's going to be an unusual circumstance). There's not even an independent, pre-publication fact checking step. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:31, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    FropFrop, the RFC I have in mind would be posted at Talk:Daisy Bates (author) and would say something like this (pick any sentence you think is appropriate):
    Can we cite this book:
    Lomas, Brian (2015-10-29). Queen of Deception: The True Story of Daisy Bates. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. p. 38. ISBN 978-1-5170-5385-7.
    to support this (currently uncited) sentence in the article: "Eventually arriving in Broome, she boarded the Sultan with Father Martelli and arrived in Perth on 21 November 1902"? The relevant page says "<insert direct quotation here>" and cites a letter in the archives at Big University. This might seem like overkill, but while I was at the archives last month, I found the letter Lomas cites and verified that the letter supports Lomas' claim.
    When you are in the middle of a content dispute, changing the policy so that you can win the dispute is not usually the best approach. Settle the local dispute first. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:14, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    When you are in the middle of a content dispute, changing the policy so that you can win the dispute is not usually the best approach. Settle the local dispute first. That's what I tried to do prior to writing this up, as I imagined that my post here wouldn't be taken well due to it being an active dispute. However the other editor said that I should try and change policy before trying to make the argument for inclusion. Because the conversation seemed to be going nowhere, I followed through with that suggestion.
    Regardless, I'm happy that my post seems to be going well and has sparked some genuine conversation on the broader issue. I'll try and see the dispute through.
    FropFrop (talk) 01:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    FactOrOpinion, I don't think that we should focus on wording for an RfC on the definition of SPS. Specifically, I think it's a bad idea for Misplaced Pages's definition to diverge from the ordinary definitions. I encourage you to think more about clarifying "Misplaced Pages's rules about when it's acceptable to cite self-published sources" instead of "creating a Misplaced Pages-specific definition of the word self-published".
    For your specific questions:
    • I think that it is not unreasonable to consider a government agency to be a traditional publisher if its main duties revolve around publishing information. This means, e.g., that the US Census would be considered traditionally published, but an announcement from that same government agency that they're having a public meeting, or that they have job openings, would not count as traditionally published. Compare:
      • The book publisher Bloomsbury traditionally published Harry Potter and self-publishes current job openings on their corporate website.
      • The government agency United States Census Bureau traditionally published 2020 United States census and self-publishes current job openings on their government website.
      • An elementary school does not traditionally publish anything, and self-publishes current job openings on its government website.
    • It's true that the structure of most print, electronic, radio, and TV journalism publishers does not always allow for selling rejected works to others. Journalists (and musicians, as mentioned above) are allowed to negotiate contracts that allow a publication exclusive control over whether their work gets published. In the case of ordinary journalists, they get paid the same salary whether the article runs or not. I'm not sure why this question has arisen. The inability to take a document elsewhere for publication isn't necessarily proof of anything, but it's associated with traditional publishing.
    WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thank you for your answers to my questions. Re: "I'm not sure why this question has arisen," it's because you've said things like "Being a traditional publisher is about the business model," and it seems to me that traditional publishers have more than one business model, and I'm trying to understand which business models count as traditional publishing. For ex., when it comes to the government as a traditional publisher, arguably the idea of a business model doesn't even apply.
    I do understand that you think it's a bad idea for Misplaced Pages's definition to diverge from the ordinary definitions. You'd already said as much earlier (e.g., "Yes, it's true that our terms sometimes diverge from ordinary words, but self-published in this policy is supposed to be the ordinary dictionary definition. It is not supposed to be some kind of wikijargon").
    Some problems with that approach:
    • Dictionaries don't all define "self-published" in the same way. Looking across a number of different dictionary definitions, I've seen two main features highlighted: (1) whether the author pays for the work's publication, and (2) whether the author uses a publisher (with variations such as "publishing company" and "established publishing house"). Some definitions highlight (1), some highlight (2), and some highlight both. Although (1) and (2) intersect, they're definitely not the same (e.g., material written by an employee is not self-published according to the first, but may be self-published according to the second). Also, some definitions refer to an "author," which may be ambiguous (e.g., by author, do they only mean the specific person(s) who wrote/created something, or are they also including corporate authorship?).
    • A number of editors clearly don't agree with your preferred definition / don't think it represents practice.
    • You've said things like "most traditional publishers have ... self-published content (e.g., marketing materials, investor relations reports, advertising rate sheets)," but I don't see that carve-out in any dictionary definitions. (Maybe I've missed it.)
    • To the extent that WP:SPS defines self-published (in a Reference note at the bottom of the WP:V that says "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content"), that definition already diverges from dictionary definitions. So if your goal is to get people to use a dictionary definition, and especially to choose your preferred dictionary definitions over other dictionary definitions, you'd need an RfC to align policy with your preference.
    FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I believe that there are some government agencies that sell documents they publish. The US federal government has some limitations on exclusivity, so the costs are usually limited to reimbursing the cost of printing and distributing, but there's nothing inherent in a government publishing office that would prevent them from using the same business model as other traditional publishers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Point taken. But it seems to me that traditional publishers do not all use the same business model. One model is the one I originally quoted from Void if removed, where there are a couple of variations (the person can take their work elsewhere if a given publisher rejects it, or they sign a longer term contract giving one publisher exclusive rights to future work even if the publisher decides not to publish it). Another business model is the one used with non-freelance journalists, and if a government sells documents created by employees, perhaps that falls under the same model. I'm not sure if you'd say that those are the only two business models that a traditional publisher might use. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    The business model is mainly: I publish this (book, news article, whatever) because I think people will pay me for it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:33, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    That seems to apply to some self-published material too (e.g., some self-published books, an individual's Substack with subscribers), though it clearly doesn't apply to other SPS. FactOrOpinion (talk) 01:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, but the theory is that authors are less likely to judge the market correctly. Everyone believes their first novel to be a masterpiece, until they've written ten more. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:57, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    "We generally try to avoid changing overall rules just to deal with a situation at a single article." This doesn't strike me as a single article issue. If it was, we'd just cite wp:KUDZU and be done with the discussion.
    Instead, it appears to be an example of a fundamental change in the publishing industry issue.
    Or maybe not a change. FropFrop's example shows that publishers are not the same as fact checkers, which may have been true all along. In that case Fact or Opinion's "more about who counts as an expert" is a better way to look at it. - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 15:39, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    To my mind, the “fact vs opinion” question has always been the key here. I have long thought that SPS material should always be presented as the author’s opinion (ie with in-text attribution). This shifts the debate from WP:V to WP:DUE. The citation reliably verifies that the author said what we say he/she said… the more important question is whether it is appropriate for us to note this author’s opinion in X specific article. Blueboar (talk) 22:46, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    FropFrop, I must admit I'm somewhat annoyed you started this discussion behind my back. It's true I had suggested you might try getting SELFPUBLISH changed, but I wasn't monitoring this page and had no idea you had actually decided to do so. Discussions shouldn't silently be forked and continued elsewhere without the involved editors being informed, so I don't think it was fair what you did here. Gawaon (talk) 09:53, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Now that you know about this discussion, what is your opinion regarding the substance of FropFrop's proposal? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    See the two comments I wrote above regarding specific details of the proposal. In a nutshell: I think the suggested changes are unworkable and would make SELFPUB considerably worse. And, thought that discussion rather belongs on Talk:Daisy Bates (author), Lomas seems to be a doubtful and considerably biased author, hence I'd say that his is just the kind of book SELFPUB is meant to protect us against – and that's how it should remain. Gawaon (talk) 19:13, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    SELFPUB isn't really meant to protect us from bias (and biased sources can be reliable anyway). It's meant to protect us from things like authors being reckless with the facts, and to focus due weight considerations on content that's newsworthy/non-self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I agree to some degree, which is why I meant that discussion belongs on the article talk page rather than here. Still I think some overlap is likely – biased authors are more likely to distort the facts in order to get their point across, and I'm pretty sure that that sometimes happens in Lomas. Indeed FropFrop, in an earlier comment on Talk:Daisy Bates (author), already admitted that his bias sometimes leads him to problematic conclusions ("He does get overly critical at times (often assuming that Bates outright lied when it could have been an honest mistake)"). Academic peer review should normally help to reduce such issues, forcing authors to be more honest with themselves and their audiences; and the editorial process though which nonfiction books go with non-academic publishers should have the same effect, at least to some degree. I know very well that these processes will never work perfectly, but I see them as good "filters" that should make our work better, and hence I'm weary of self-published sources, which didn't make it through these filters. Gawaon (talk) 11:09, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    Non-academic book publishing often encourages overblown claims, because controversy results in free publicity, and publicity improves sales.
    I agree that traditional publishing is a good filter for us. If we say that 50% of traditionally published books are bad for us, then I'd start with an assumption that 95% of self-published sources are bad for us. But it's also possible that sometimes, probably rarely, a self-published book will be an okay source for us. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    I agree, and there's already an exception in SELFPUB for some such works. I doubt, however, that the additional exceptions discussed here would be great at finding additional okay sources, and rather fear that they would allow slipping a lot of not-okay sources. Gawaon (talk) 21:41, 24 December 2024 (UTC)
    For the general case, I agree with you. For this specific case, however, it's possible that Lomas is one of the few "okay" sources instead of the many "not-okay" sources.
    What I'd suggest to you is that you try to disentangle your worries about bias (How dare he call her "the queen of deception", just because she told so many lies about herself!) from your worries about reliability. What matters for that article is not whether this long-dead person told lies, or whether the recent sources called it what it was. What matters for that article is much more mundane: Is Lomas correct when saying that she arrived in Place A on Date B? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:34, 25 December 2024 (UTC)
    Ah, apologies. As you suggested that I try and amend the policy I didn't think this would be an issue.
    FropFrop (talk) 02:14, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    New Shortcut re “ONUS” section?

    I see that the shortcut “WP:VNOT” has been removed from visibility as a link at the “Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion” section (justification being that no one has linked to that shortcut in a long time). I am fine with that… however, this removal leaves the only visible shortcut for the section as “WP:ONUS”… a word that was recently edited out of the section and no longer is appropriate. So… I think we should also remove the “WP:ONUS” shortcut, and come up with a new, more appropriate shortcut for people to use in the future. Please discuss. Blueboar (talk) 23:25, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

    There has been talk, off and on for a couple of years, about moving the onus-related sentence to a different policy altogether. I'm not sure that it makes sense to worry about which shortcut points to it until that question gets settled. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:37, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don’t really care about that final sentence. Keep it, amend it, move it, whatever… thing is, despite how much we have discussed it, it’s not actually the important part of the section. The important part is what comes before it - the reminder that there is more to “inclusion” than just Verifiability.
    And I think it would be helpful to have a shortcut that focuses on the important part of the section rather than on what is really just an afterthought. Blueboar (talk) 01:55, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    The sentence "The responsibility for achieving consensus for inclusion is on those seeking to include disputed content." is still there, and out there on the coal face it is the thing that people have used the ONUS link for countless times. So I don't see why it is redundant. Zero 02:24, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    I'm not a fan of stripping down the link boxes on this policy page to each list only one shortcut. WP:LINKBOXES states that link boxes "generally should list only the most common and easily remembered redirects", and uses the plural word redirects to indicate that multiple shortcuts should be listed in link boxes when appropriate. When there is only one shortcut listed in a link box, that shortcut will almost certainly remain the shortcut with the greatest number of pageviews due to its prominent placement. Most editors will use the shortcut displayed on the link box instead of going to Special:WhatLinksHere/Wikipedia:Verifiability (and checking "Hide transclusions" and "Hide lists", then resubmitting and browsing the list) to find other ones, even if the unlisted ones may be more concise or more appropriate.Personally, I will continue using the WP:QS shortcut to refer to Misplaced Pages:Verifiability § Questionable sources, and I do find it strange that the more concise shortcut is omitted in favor of only listing WP:NOTRS, regardless of the pageview counts. — Newslinger talk 02:46, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    The most common practice for section links is to have only one shortcut. We're more likely to see two at the top of the page (e.g., WP:NOR and WP:OR). ONUS gets clicked on about five times as often as VNOT, so I can understand someone wanting to choose the more common. My concern is that if the last sentence gets moved (e.g., to WP:Consensus), then the shortcut should get moved with the sentence, in which case VNOT should presumably reappear here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    I generally agree with that. ONUS gets referenced quite a bit so we need to make sure that those previous references don't get lost. There is also a bit of an issue that editors may have something like "the ONUS part of WP:V" only to later have the links changed. It might be good to have some type of indication in the new location that it used to be part of WP:V just so those older discussions still continue to make sense. Springee (talk) 14:43, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    We could split the 'ONUS sentence' into a different paragraph, and then put a shortcut for WP:VNOT at the top of the section and a separate one for WP:ONUS on the new, single-sentence 'paragraph'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:01, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    I would support that. The final sentence really is a separate concept from the rest of the section, so it probably should be on its own. Blueboar (talk) 19:12, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    Calling something the "common practice' doesn't prohibit other practices in appropriate circumstances. I think we all agree that this section says two distinct things: (1) Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion. (2) If challenged, consensus is required for inclusion. In this case it is appropriate to show two distinct links (VNOT and ONUS). - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 16:45, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    It conflicts with the WP:Consensus policy, doesn't really describe its original (good) intent, puts an arbitrary finger on the scale towards exclusion, and it's current wording says something that has nothing to do with wp:verifiability. We could do a lot of good, accomplish the original intent, and fix all of those problems by changing it to: "verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 19:59, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

    The subject of this topic is the content of the shortcut box. Do you mean to start a new conversation regarding the substance of the ONUS portion of the section? - Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 20:18, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    North alway reminds us of his favorite wording, whenever we discuss the section.
    Now… if he could turn it into a good shortcut, I might be persuaded to give it a try. Blueboar (talk) 20:36, 27 December 2024 (UTC)
    North, does the ONUS sentence conflict with any part of the Consensus policy except the WP:NOCON section, which says it "does not make any new rules. If this page and the more specific policy or guideline disagree, then this one is wrong"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 27 December 2024 (UTC)