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Revision as of 17:30, 10 January 2014

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Is Astrodatabank reliable?

In 2011, there was a discussion whether Astro-Databank (ADB) was a reliable source, see here. I want to clarify (as an editor of ADB), that the project claims reliability for the birth data section, i.e. birth date, birth time and location. Each entry is rated with the Rodden Rating system, and each entry contains precise source notes naming the source of the birth data information. Many entries carry the AA rating, which means that an original birth record or birth certificate was either in the hands of the editor, or quoted by another data collector of high reputation.

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Sources about the Pantheism and Shintoism

Main topic: Pantheism and Shintoism, Dispute:- Talk:Pantheism#Shinto Considering that there are many sources, regarding the known connection of Pantheism and Shinto. I want to know, if any of these sources are reliable, or legible, and should be used for pushing the information that Shintoism is pantheism.

• Shelton, Barrie. Learning from the Japanese City: Looking East in Urban Design. p. 112.- "very much on the plural for it is a polytheistic and pantheistic belief".."Shinto refers to an assortment of beliefs and practices that are pantheistic in nature"..
• The Ethnic Dimension in American History. p. 168. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)-"Shintoism combined a pantheistic worship of nature with deification of the emperor, who was the living kami",
• Stuart Picken. Sourcebook in Shinto: Selected Documents. p. 302.-"It stands to reason that pantheism should have a more powerful attraction for the Shinto of the future than monotheism",
• Genchi Katu. A Study of Shinto: The Religion of the Japanese Nation. p. 64.-"As we have just seen, although the animistic polytheism of original Shintō evolves into naturalistic pantheism..",
• Spirit of the Environment: Religion, Value and Environmental Concern. p. 52. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help)-"I conclude that the religion we need to embrace now is pantheism, as exemplified in Shinto,...",
• Paul Carden. Christianity, Cults and Religions. p. 52. {{cite book}}: Check |url= value (help)-"All of nature is animated by the kami—including things such as rocks, trees, or streams—making Shinto a combination of polytheism and pantheism..."

Bladesmulti (talk) 16:05, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Picken, Katu and Clark (in Cooper and Palme) are appropriate sources for the Pantheism article. Picken and Katu are reliable for Shintoism. What they are not reliable for is a bland statement "Shintoism is pantheism". The sources have to be summarised properly with regard for the many nuances they insist upon. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:11, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

This has been discussed at length, and this editor is fishing for sources to justify what he already "knows". I have presented various other sources which say just the opposite, e.g. : "Nor is Shinto pantheistic for Shinto does not regard an omnipotent logical principle as identifying itself with the universe, but sees divine spirit as living reality self-creating itself as the universe." Mason, J.W.T. (2006). The Meaning of Shinto. Trafford Publishing. p. 78. Retrieved 2014-01-01. Mason is one of the classic western analysts of Shinto (his papers are collected at Columbia) so this a very authoritative source.

Part of the problem (besides the willy-nilly search for anything that juxtaposes "Shinto" and "pantheism") is that a lot of these sources don't seem to understand the latter term and use it as a synonym for nature worship (which isn't a great explanation of Shinto either) or confuse it with animism (which all good sources agree is found to some degree in Shinto). This is a field where there is no substitute for knowledge of the material, because there are so many superficial analyses of what is really a very difficult anthropological and ethnographic puzzle; Shinto doesn't fit western religious categories very well and a lot of authorities would object to it being called "a religion" at all. I have tried at length to get this editor to understand this, but I've had to address the same small set of sources (most of which are patently unsuitable) over and over. I've also had to address the much more blatantly false assertion that Zoroastrianism is pantheistic when any even vaguely competent source says exactly the opposite. This article is plagued by editors who want to see pantheism in every religion, when really it appears only as an element in some of the Indian religions (and yes, we're having a big fight over sourcing that too). Mangoe

This is Reliable source noticeboard, not content dispute, your comment is largely unrelated here. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:53, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you, Mangoe, that we see research being done in the wrong way, by trawling through Google Books. The sources that I have said are reliable are difficult philosophical texts and you can't cherry-pick from them. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:00, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Would be much better if you give a try too. Bladesmulti (talk) 09:33, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Interesting that Mason is self-published, I wonder why? Dougweller (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Doug, that's a reprint of a collection of older materials. I'm not sure why I don't find older editions but Mason was mostly active before the early 1940s. Mangoe (talk) 22:04, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I see an original date of 1935. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Nearly every RS discussion has a content dispute behind it, and this is no exception. Mangoe (talk) 22:28, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. When this board works well we can move content disputes forward by concentrating on the sourcing aspect of encyclopaedic quality. In this particular case I think the page could also benefit from some input from experts in comparative religion, theology or philosophy. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyways, how many were reliable of these. Bladesmulti (talk) 03:31, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Of those listed above, the first is a book on urban design and the second is a book on the immigrant experience, as I have said at least three times now. They are obviously out of their field of expertise. The third is quoting another work we have discussed on the talk page, and that work proposes a modern reinterpretation of Shinto, and the passage lays out a path of how the author thinks Shinto should develop; it's not useful as a description of Shinto now. The source work has also been discussed on the talk page. The fifth and sixth are newly introduced to the discussion, but works on Christianity and environmentalist spirituality are also works of inferior authority.

That leaves the fourth work, which is specifically on Shinto. Its problem, as we've also frequently seen in other sources which have been proffered, is that it doesn't understand the distinctions well. Further down the same page Genchi writes, "The theme of the last quoted stanza at once reminds us of the striking expression of St. Paul, 'We live and move, and have our being in Him' (Acts, XVII, 28), in which we can see a germ of pantheism in the Pauline Christianity." Well, this is incorrect: the doctrine expressed is panentheism. We also have been over a lot of other sources which confuse animism and pantheism or which equate the latter with "nature worship" as a whole. As a final note on Genchi's text it's extremely important that it was published in 1926, when Shinto's political meaning was paramount; Genchi starts right off by making the key distinction between sect Shinto and state Shinto. I haven't read the whole work but it is very possibly an apologia for what westerners saw as the co-option of religion by the state in the pre-war period.

We are still at the other problem here that we have other references which specifically deny that it is pantheistic. I'm getting a bit fed up now, first that we are having to address works which are patently inadequate, but more so that we've had to address these same bad sources over and over. I'm going through some of the sources I have at home, and it's evident to me at least that this whole question of pantheism in Shinto is complicated. Mangoe (talk) 14:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Only scholarly sources should be used for this topic. Some of the books on the list don't meet that criteria, but neither does John Warren Teets Mason (1879 to 1941) was an American journalist who published several works on eastern spiritual traditions.

Like the religion of Ancient Greece, Shinto would definitely be "polytheistic" in a comparative religions sense, but the term "kami" in Japanese is not equivalent to deity. Accordingly, I agree that it is necessary to attribute statements from RS that make one characterization or another. Shinto has evolved since prehistoric times (before it was called "Shinto", which is a Chinese term found in the I'Ching as one class of religion), and State Shinto was influenced by the need to further institutionalize religions in building a modern nation state as a result of the opening to the West. It has strong Confucian influences, and assumed the role of the Buddhist temples in the Edo period of acting as local registries for citizens--like a parish system, etc. The editors of this book Shinto in History: Ways of the Kami are a couple of academics with some prominence in the field at present.--Ubikwit_{見学/迷惑} 16:02, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of the Daily Mail

I'm sure long-time RSN editors will be aware of the unreliability of the Daily Mail, but the following might nevertheless be a useful resource for disputes about the reliability of its stories: Lies of the Daily Mail. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

DM is not great for celebrity gossip -- nor is the Guardian so great either. Vote totals in elections, and actually most medical reporting is actually reasonably good, along with most other "hard news" stories. Note that almost all the "lies" were, in fact, "celebrity gossip" for which the NYPost and a lot of other papers have quite similar records. Collect (talk) 19:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

If you think that the Daily Mail is a good source for medical reporting, then I am utterly speechless. MastCell  19:59, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

the stories identified in the source as false are NOT celebrity gossip " disabled people are exempt from the bedroom tax; that asylum-seekers had “targeted” Scotland; that disabled babies were being euthanised under the Liverpool Care Pathway; that a Kenyan asylum-seeker had committed murders in his home country; that 878,000 recipients of Employment Support Allowance had stopped claiming “rather than face a fresh medical”; that a Portsmouth primary school had denied pupils water on the hottest day of the year because it was Ramadan; that wolves would soon return to Britain; that nearly half the electricity produced by windfarms was discarded. " - not a "celebrity gossip" story in the bunch of identified falsehoods from 2013. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 20:02, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, there's that, too. Collect must have been looking elsewhere, because as you point out, most of the lies listed on the website seem calculated to stoke xenophobia, irrational fears of government euthanasia, resentment against the poor and disabled, disdain for renewable energy, and religious hatred. I'm sure they also published a lot of false celebrity gossip, though. MastCell  20:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

The comparison with the Guardian is pointless because we don't cover gossip anyway. I've always argued that the Mail is sometimes to be treated as reliable, but never for science. However, I see few cases where it is reliable, except for stories that are covered in other papers anyway. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:19, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I echo Itsmejudith - a good chunk of time it is not reliable. in the cases where it would be considered "reliable enough" a more reliable source is almost always available. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 23:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Your use of "we" is interesting -- are you affiliated with any newspaper perchance? IIRC, The Guardian was just recently strongly chastised by the PCC? Collect (talk) 21:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

The Guardian does cover celebrity gossip, though not with the same enthusiasm of some other papers. "We" clearly means Misplaced Pages. However, it's fair to add that the linked article does include examples of celebrity gossip (about Sharon Stone, Rowan Atkinson etc) Paul B (talk) 21:25, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Paul, my point was that whether a paper is "good" for gossip or not is irrelevant to us, as we don't cover gossip. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:38, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, yes, that's what I said. Paul B (talk) 21:43, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Collect, you make me want write ] Really, the quality of the Guardian, for good or ill, does not ameliorate the lack of reliability of the Daily Mail. I'd suggest blacklisting it except that we need to link to it for all the nonsense it instigates and which we need to document as subjects for our articles.The sly ad hominem is also unwelcome. Mangoe (talk) 21:32, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

No "ad hominem" was intended, and, I trust, was not inferred by Itsme. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:41, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

(ec)Not affiliated with any newspaper. By we I mean we at WP. The UK newspapers we (on WP) treat as generally reliable are, in alphabetical order, The Daily Telegraph, The Evening Standard, The Guardian, The Independent, The Scotsman and The Times, as well as their Sunday equivalents ("the broadsheets"). Regarded as less reliable are, in alphabetical order, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Record, The People, The Daily Star and The Sun ("the red-top tabloids"). Hope this helps. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I fear you conflate WP:RS meaning "published with editors who do some fact checking and corrections as needed" with reliable as in "always correct." The NYT does corrections on a regular basis -- the Guardian was caught in an error which got the ire of the PCC. Nonetheless, the three items had contained "serious overstatements, presented as fact" on the nature of the complainant's role. Noting that this was a "particularly concerning case the inaccuracies were central to the reporting; they appeared across all three items; and they directly contributed to the newspaper's criticisms of the nature of the complainant's role and his personal suitability to fill it", the Commission upheld the complaint. Cheers. Collect (talk) 21:41, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

So what is your point? There is scarcely any newspaper that has not sometimes made mistakes. What matters is the overall reputation for accuracy. It remains utterly unclear what you meant when you wrote "DM is not great for celebrity gossip -- nor is the Guardian so great either." The Guardian is not "great" for celebrity gossip because it generally isn't interested in it much, not because it has a reputation for printing falsehoods. The juxtaposition is case of apples and oranges. Paul B (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

No, of course I would not waste the time of this board with a suggestion that "reliable" means "always correct". Itsmejudith (talk) 00:00, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

• Thank you for posting this resource. The Daily Mail is a worthless tabloid which is close to useless for our purposes. We can never use it to support anything to do with BLP for example, and the suggestion that we could use it to source medical matters is frankly a ludicrous one; at one time it could perhaps have been used as an emergency substitute for toilet paper or as a resource in producing papier-mâché, but in the digital age even these uses are closed off. I would move to fully blacklist it, except for the possibility it might occasionally be a good source for its own lies or (let's be charitable) unreliable vapourings. The contention that because another more reliable source has sometimes been criticised, the Mail is therefore reliable is one that fails the most elementary logic test. --John (talk) 22:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

• Yup. WP:RS asks for sources with "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The Daily Mail has neither. It does however have a reputation for printing tendentious bollocks for the purpose of denigrating whatever minority/disadvantaged group it feels is the flavour of the day. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:32, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, thanks to Collect for a useful original post. The list of UK newspapers added by Itsmejudith is also valuable, thank you. The late and not-in-the-least-lamented "News of the World" can be added to the second category there. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 23:34, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

You mean David Eppstein? If Collect added anything useful to this thread it was in the Socratic sense of illustrating something by stating the opposite. I think all of his claims have been thoroughly debunked at this stage. I agree with you about the list and about the NoW. We could also add Metro to the shit list. --John (talk) 10:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I most certainly meant to thank David Eppstein, as you correctly surmise. Sorry about that. Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 18:40, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's not get carried away. Don't get me wrong - on a scale of one to shit, the Daily Mail is very shit. It has a poor reputation for fact-checking on anything to do with science, including social science. However, it does have a reputation for fact-checking to the extent that if you want to know what was on BBC2 at 7 pm yesterday, its TV listings are generally as reliable as those in any UK newspaper. And the contents of its news reports, to the extent that they are factual and non-contentious, can usually be relied upon, albeit fairly weakly.

We ought to pay attention to the commonsense bottom line of "how likely is it that this is true?" more than on poisoning the well, which can all too often be a devious wiki-tactic. The Daily Mail can actually be a useful source in many cases. Formerip (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's not use the accuracy of TV listings as supporting a "fact-checking" reputation, please. All newspapers (at least UK) will get their listings information from the relevant media directly without any "fact-checking". It's a form of PR "churnalism" which just happens to be useful. Podiaebba (talk) 12:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The Daily Mail is rs and a member of the Press Complaints Commission. That does not mean of course that everything printed is accurate. Here btw is an article about their baby euthanasia story. However, we are supposed to use the best sources, which tabloids rarely are. We are not supposed to use stories when rs have said they are wrong. When they are reporting what is in another source, in this case the BMJ, we should not report their version when it obviously inaccurately reports what another source says. For medical information, we should not use them at all, per WP:MEDRS. If no other source reports the same story then WP:WEIGHT usually means we should not include it. And of course we should only use it report facts, and ignore any opinions that their reporters add. TFD (talk) 00:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure about your first statement? The entire rest of what you say contradicts it. I am seriously struggling to come up with an example where a Daily Mail source would be a positive addition to an article, other than an article about the Mail. Can you help me? --John (talk) 10:32, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

• Comment In my personal opinion, the daily mail is for the most part unreliable for several reasons; it is among the most sensationalist media out there, it does not do a lot of fact-checking, plus it sometimes permits some of its columnists to write racist columns. We can surely do much better than that? Pass a Method talk 12:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
  • it does not do a lot of fact-checking - I think editors tend to be vastly overoptimistic in terms of how much fact-checking any media sources do, in the sense of systematic independent checking of journalists' work by another employee. Exceptions would tend to be major investigative stories where legal liability is likely to be an issue. Beyond that, it's basically a form of the "smell test" with editors reading stories and looking for things that sound dubious, and asking the journalist to confirm, and maybe leaving it out. The idea that media sources, even at the top end, routinely have a "fact-checking" process something akin to academic peer review was always a myth, but in the 21st century, commercial imperatives have reduced this even further (eg by removing experienced specialist sub-editors from the process, who provided an extra layer of smell-testing in the past). (Also, let's not forget that fact-checking sometimes fails when it is done - vide the Sunday Times' infamous Hitler Diaries episode.) Podiaebba (talk) 12:54, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
• Comment. Has become a cause celebre for some erstwhile editors, and rightly so, I think. However, it does sometimes publish excellent photographs, as I noted when Ravi Shankar died back in 2012: - don't see any problem with using that as an excellent source. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I fear some editors label a source as "not RS" on the basis that they disagree with it socially or politically. WP:RS does not state that "I disagree with it" is actually involved in the determination of usability of any source - we use many sources which a great many people disagree with. Calling any source a "piece of shit" is not actually relevant, it shows the POV of the person using the term far more than anything else. And, as was shown, even the vaunted Guardian can end up with very bad articles per the PCC. And, of course, there are editors who course around Misplaced Pages removing every usage of material from disfavoured sources -- but miraculously never removing material from sources they agree with politically. Cheers. Collect (talk) 12:55, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I fear editors forget that the reliability of sources is contextual. Arguing whether a source is reliable or not in the abstract is a bit like arguing whether surgery is a reliable form of treatment in the abstract. Podiaebba (talk) 13:11, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

And what is the context in which we would report a story that appeared only in the Daily Mail, and no other major media outlet? Mangoe (talk) 13:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

That would be the million dollar question here, all paranoid claims aside. --John (talk) 13:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Two or three kinds of case. The most obvious is a cultural review; the Mail's opinion of a Hollywood blockbuster is as notable as the Independent's opinion. Another is where they have a detail that isn't in other papers, although that should ring alarm bells about notability. And the third is if the paper has done investigative journalism, which they have done on a few occasions in the past, especially in relation to exposing fascism (which is of course ironical...). We shouldn't rule sources out or in, especially not in the abstract. Having said that, it may well be that the Mail is overused. We could do a mass cleanup, although we still haven't completed any of the mass cleanups we have started. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:10, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

As far as reviews are concerned, I do not know if the DM's reviewers are taken seriously in the critical community (unlike say the NYT, which is considered a taste-setter). In the other two cases, I would still say no. A detail reported only in the DM I would not trust, and investigative reporting which no other media outlet picked up I would not repeat. Mangoe (talk) 14:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The Mail's arts critics are not completely without credibility, for example Christopher Tookey and Robin Simon (critic). Certainly a Mail review of a London West End theatre production, for instance, can be taken far more seriously than its latest updates on the causes and treatments of cancer...

It may also be a reliable source for some sports coverage, something I don't think we've mentioned here, though I don't know enough about that to have an opinion either way. Barnabypage (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not saying we would recommend using the Mail in those cases. But we might. And the Mail is a good-enough source for when a TV series airs, on what channel, etc. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I would aim for a higher standard of sourcing though. It isn't that often we would need to source what time a show broadcasts; we'd likely be more interested in the critical response and I take the point above about arts critics. I like the idea of having a cleanup of overused Mail sources; I've been removing them from BLP articles for a good while now and it'd be good to have some help, and to widen the scope. --John (talk) 23:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

To see what a cleanup would involve, I searched for the string dailymail and have gone through the first twenty results. These seem to be the articles that use the phrase "dailymail" (one word, which corresponds to the website) most often. The results fall into different groups. Daily Mail is one obviously OK one, as well as the article about its website, one about the Charleston Daily Mail, and Liz Jones, a journalist at the Mail. Then there are a number of football articles and a tennis one. It would be useful to talk to WikiProject Football about that. In the case of Mario Balotelli some of it looks very like gossip and may have to be removed as a BLP violation. Another group of articles is about X Factor and in one case Big Brother. A lot of that looks to me like tat, but then again I don't have much to do with that area. Then there are some more serious cases. 2010s in fashion was the worst, and a dreadful article anyway. It extrapolated from Mail articles to imply that named celebs dress like chavs or Essex girls. (Of course the insult could go in either direction, unacceptable, anyway.) Then there are the articles on Heather Mills and Victoria Beckham. I took out a load of stuff about Heather Mills' houses, with purchase and sales prices. It looks like we really do need to pay a lot of attention to the use of the DM in BLPs. A lot of work, difficult to use automated tools. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:34, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It looks to me like you've found some good examples of generally bad Misplaced Pages content, but that doesn't really have much to with the reliability of the DM. The DM probably is a reliable source for the prices of Heather Mills' homes - it's just that the information probably doesn't belong in her article. I'd be willing to believe that the DM is frequently misused on WP, but that's really a separate issue to its reliability. Formerip (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I've opined enough about the DM's reliability in the abstract. I wanted to see whether it really is overused, and how. The sampling showed that it is used a lot in sports and TV articles, so that's where further examination could be useful. It's usually political questions that are brought here. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:01, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Gosh, that Heather Mills article was a mess. I went a bit further than Itsmejudith. We already have a blanket prohibition for tabloid journalism on BLPs and I encourage people to take out these bad sources and material sourced to them on sight. --John (talk) 12:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I would happily see a blanket ban on all DM stories being used as sources, it simply cannot be trusted. GiantSnowman 10:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I am tending in that direction. --John (talk) 12:32, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I strongly object to a blanket ban... for any media source. Reliability is always contextual (we must ask whether the source is reliable for a specific statement, presented in a specific article). A source can be reliable in one context, and unreliable in another. There is no such thing as a source that is "always reliable"... nor is there such a thing as a source that is "always unreliable". It is fine to consider some media sources to be more reliable than others (and we would prefer these more reliable sources over the less reliable ones)... but there is a huge difference between "less reliable" and "unreliable". Blueboar (talk) 14:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

while "reliability" is contextual, a more reliable source than the Daily Mail is almost always available for anything we would want to include in an encyclopedia I do not see how a de facto ban with WP:IAR for the few occasions when it might be appropriate would not itself be an improvement to the encyclopedia. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 14:36, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

IAR can not be used as a means of erasing a policy -- and we use a great many sources with far worse records overall (including not a few sources from very-POV publishers which make quite astounding claims). Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:50, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

i am not certain what you mean about "erasing a policy". Misplaced Pages:NPOV#Good_research is a policy. Applying policy through the "banning" of Daily Mail because it is almost never even close to the best source is not "erasing a policy". In the few potential occasions where DM would be the best reliable source for particular content in a particular article we can certainly use it- ignoring the ban based on WP:IAR. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:04, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I am with TheRedPenOfDoom on this. I would challenge Blueboar or anyone else opposing the proposed ban to think of a real example of where we would want to use a source from the Mail (or the Sun) in a way which would actually improve an article. Arts reviews have been mentioned as a possible area, but no concrete examples have been given. Sports coverage I am even more dubious about. Nonetheless, bring out your positive examples and we can discuss them, as we have seen two recent awful examples (Heather Mills and Victoria Beckham) where the Mail and other poor sources were being used in a way which was not only unethical and counter to policy, but also probably illegal. --John (talk) 14:55, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's say that we want to cite the fact that Great Britain won 29 gold medals in the last Olympic games... It happens that the DM supports this information. It is a reliable source for this information.

Now, let's say that the Times also reported that England won 29 gold medals in the last Olympics (likely), then I have no problem with saying "the Times is a better source" and citing the Times instead (we have no rule that prevents us from choosing between sources, or replacing one source with another source we consider better).

My point is this... the fact that the Times might be considered more reliable than the DM does not mean the DM is unreliable for this information. When it comes to reporting how many gold medals GB won, The DM is acceptable... even if it is not the best. Blueboar (talk) 15:45, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, this is exactly right. If anyone wants to go through Misplaced Pages replacing cites to the Daily Mail with cites to the Guardian, please knock yourself out. But I don't think it will be time well spent. Formerip (talk) 15:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

England does not compete in the Olympics and never has! Apart from that minor confusion, I don't understand the point you are making here. Are you arguing that it is ok to use the DM to support material, so long as a better source is also available? I wouldn't see the point in that. I repeat my challenge; find me one decent instance of the DM being used to support something that is not available in a better source, and where the existence of that info so sourced is of benefit to Misplaced Pages. I suspect you can't do it and I will be impressed if you can. --John (talk) 15:59, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the Mail is a great source for match reports, but when it comes to sports broadcasting their reporting as good, if not better than most. Charlie Sale is arguably the best in the business. Lemonade51 (talk) 16:03, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

• The Daily Mail is a high-budget British newspaper, subject to British libel law - some of the most onerous in the world. As such, nearly every "fact" it reports will be legally defensible for accuracy and defensibility from libel. That said, it's relentlessly trivial and obsessed with fatuous celebrity trivia. Nearly anything in the DM is simply irrelevant for an encyclopedia. Worst of all though, the DM's editorial standpoint is probably the most partisan of any UK mass circulation newspaper.

We can trust the DM, as far as any other UK paper, for basic reporting of established facts. No more. We can't touch it for anything involving interpretation or editorial comment. We might sometimes use it as a primary source (where permissible) for examples of the DM itself or the political position of the UK right wing media. If we wished to know Heather Mills' house price it might even be adequate for that sort of tittle-tattle (the DM does only prints things that it sees a no more than acceptable risk of court action, which is better than many of our RS achieve), but then we're supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a gossip column, so how often would we care?

Overall though, I see no real reason to change policy re the DM. These issues are no worse than for Fox News or for a variety of major, but agendaed, sources. We should be generally conscientious and observant in our editing, not specifically policy-bound. Andy Dingley (talk) 15:02, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's helpful to set a general rule that we must never cite the Daily Mail. I agree that it's not a good source in many cases - many editors seem to agree on that - but that's all we need. Instead of hunting for exceptions to the rule in advance, we can deal with exceptions when we find them. bobrayner (talk) 15:06, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

It also has one of the worst records on press complaints and libel settlements of any british newspaper so it should be used with extreme caution ----Snowded 16:00, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Andy, I wouldn't trust Fox News for a political report which didn't appear elsewhere either. OTHERCRAPEXISTS simply means we have other bad sources to deal with as well. Mangoe (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Is this discussion going anywhere? Is there a serious idea to either blacklist (surely not) or "brownlist" the DM? "Brownlisting" a source would be some sort of "OK uses are (i) articles about or related to the source itself (ii) named topics X, Y, Z. Use with caution otherwise: check if better sources are available and whether information only available here really merits inclusion.". Podiaebba (talk) 17:42, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

• I'm not familiar with WP:RSMED, but in response to one of the early comments, surely it will have something recommending that an extraordinary medical claim should never be backed up by any newspaper article? The problem with the Daily Mail is not its fact checking (which is no worse than several other media sources that we don't bat an eyelid at using), but the sheer extent to which it manipulates those facts to tie into the editorial line. So extreme caution yes, and by all means spell out what "extreme caution" means if you must. But a blanket ban would be absurd, and would only lend credibility to the perception that Misplaced Pages is not neutral. —WFC— _{FL wishlist} 18:49, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I could compromise on blacklisting and "brownlist" instead. Something like "The Daily Mail is an unreliable source and should be used with great caution. It can never be used on BLPs, and should generally be avoided except when sourcing its own opinions or for exception 1 or exception 2, where discussion page consensus supports it." In fact I think that's where we have got to so far with this discussion, and we now merely need to find what the exceptions are, if any. The two suggestions I am aware of where we could take the Mail seriously as a source, would be sports and arts coverage. I remain to be convinced on both, but probably could be if the right examples were forthcoming. I am still waiting for specific positive examples of where the Mail is used as a source to the project's benefit. I am not saying such examples do not exist, but there comes a time in any discussion when, the proponents having failed to come up with examples, the force of their argument silently evaporates. I fear we are close to that point now. --John (talk) 19:39, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

I dont agree we need a reliability statement that mentions the "Daily Mail" in particularly, sure a general warning about tabloids but I cant see any reason to be specific. To be neutral we would have to list what can and cant be used from every newspaper which is clearly a daft idea. As has been said like all such newspapers sources they can be dealt with as they come up and any specific statement doesnt really help. MilborneOne (talk) 19:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

If we were going to start blacklisting sources, I'd start with others that are much nastier than the Daily Mail. bobrayner (talk) 21:03, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

A lot of editors are using feelings without much fact. Blanket banning the Daily Mail as a source is as WFC says absurd, we could go after The Guardian and the BBC equally both have had complaints upheld against them doesn't mean they are not a generally reliable source. A site RFC would be needed to show clear consensus to do so as banning a big newspaper as a source is certainly not neutral, when weighed up against other national UK newspapers. Also comments such as i don't see the Daily Mail being beneficial to the encyclopaedia is in my opinion unhelpful without damm good evidence to back that up. Users need to start citing evidence to back up statements, as so far there has been very little provided that would justify any type of ban.Blethering Scot 23:59, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Did you read the story that started this thread off? Are there similar stories about the Guardian or the BBC? Would it be possible to compile a list like this one on the Guardian or the BBC? I'd in turn ask for evidence if you said yes to that. No, the Mail is uniquely bad; not really a newspaper at all but more of a scandal sheet a la The Sun, but even the real knuckle draggers are generally aware that we can't use The Sun to source our articles here. Though you might be surprised; I took Sun sources off a high-profile BLP just the other day. But the Mail is worse for our purposes because I suppose to some people it is ambiguous and might appear to be a decent source. As a tabloid, it is already beyond the pale for BLPs; I would love to see a clear consensus here that it should also generally be avoided for all articles. If you disagree, I would once again challenge you to come up with an example of a case where a Mail source benefits a Misplaced Pages article. Just one. Failing that, we can almost default to the common sense position that the Mail is generally a poor source, as most people here agree. --John (talk) 07:17, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

So is this discussion going anywhere? Andrew Dalby 09:41, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, a large-scale cleanup would help to ensure that BLPs are free of gossip. Our existing large-scale cleanups have been abandoned, though, because the sheer scale seems so daunting (to me, at least). Itsmejudith (talk) 11:13, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Generally if one is editing an article about a story in the news, which is the major reason for using newspapers, one may google the topic and choose a relevant article in any major newspaper. The trend toward paywalls may be one reason to use it. TFD (talk) 11:32, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, maybe that should be the major reason for using newspapers, but my quick trawl shows that it probably isn't. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:57, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

A request for opinion as to the Mail's football-related reliability was made at the football WikiProject. My personal view is that I'd be happy to rely on broadsheets to source factual content relating to what happened in matches, whether players have scored or set up a goal and how they did it, whether they've served a suspension or broken a leg. If there's a more generally reliable alternative for sourcing a particular item, I wouldn't use the Mail or any other tabloid. But the broadsheets cover football below the Premier League only sporadically. If Misplaced Pages is to write about lower-level football and its players, and the notability criteria suggest that it should, we need non-broadsheet sources. In context of factual football-related content, I haven't found the Mail any less reliable than other sources. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 13:34, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for coming over to give your opinion. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:55, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

It seems reasonable then to say that "the DM may be used as a reliable source for sports results and the like, but should be avoided for other purposes and especially for (a) material only it reports, and (b) BLP claims." Mangoe (talk) 13:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with that. --John (talk) 21:30, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Reliability of possibly partisan sources about Muhammad Ilyas Qadri

Article: Muhammad Ilyas Qadri

Content: Summations wants to add the statement

"Many Great Sunni Muslim Ulma E Kiraam of the world like Kaukab Noorani Okarvi , Allama Hashmi Miyan , Mufti Faiz Ahmed Owaisi , Arshadul Qaudri , Muhammad Muneeb ur Rehman , Allamah Syed Irfan Shah Mashhadi ETC consider Ilyas Qadri is great Leader of Muslim Ummah"

Sources: For this statement the user initally cited:

• http://www.dawateislami.net/books/bookslibrary.do#!section:onlineRead_366.2.64 and
• http://www.scribd.com/doc/147949604/dawat-e-islami-ulma-e-ahle-sunnat-ki-nzr-main-mufti-faiz-ahmmad-owasi

and on being challanged, added

• http://www.dawateislami.net/books/bookslibrary.do#!section:onlineRead_366.2.2 and
• http://www.dawateislami.net/books/bookslibrary.do#!section:onlineRead_366.2.102

Other editors have argued that these sources are not indiependant of the indvidual Muhammad Ilyas Qadri and are from small publishers with no apparent editorial control.

Discussion: see Talk:Muhammad Ilyas Qadri#Views of Ulma E Ahlesunnat about Muhammad Ilyas Qadri for previous discussion of this matter. DES 21:56, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your attention , I have commented following in that discussion :- what are you saying and why are you not understanding and answering my questions? this is not only matter of sources my dear please read my previous comment... yes one book are from "Maktaba Tul Madina - Official Publishers of Dawat e Islami" but what written in that book? do you read? and what written in that book have video proof too in many videos website which I already given too... just for example in book suppose there in written that scholar Kaukab Noorani Okarvi said ilyas qadri is great leader , in book there is written proof but same u can see Kaukab Noorani Okarvi saying same in videos too that, then how and why this information not added? and I have mention other book too which are not from Official Publishers of Dawat e Islami , and please read that book because there not only written but there are mentioned original sources too , sources of old news papers , interviews etc... so please don't take it as personal/ego it is just information which people should knw. thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Summations (talk • contribs) 00:09, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Summations, I am saying that I am not sure those sources are reliable sources to support that statement in a Misplaced Pages article (in line with the verifiability policy), and so I am asking here for other opinions. I have not commented further on the talk page because until I get a response from an uninvolved and knowledgeable editor her I have no further useful comment to make. (By the way, while I am sure it is intended as a gesture of friendship, some editors would prefer not to be addressed as "my dear" by a person that they do not know well.) DES 16:04, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"Many Great Sunni Muslim Ulma E Kiraam of the world like" is a quick fail of WP:PEACOCK regardless of sources.-- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

DESiegel, Okay if you are not sure thn plz refer some knowledgeable editors to solve this matter... and about my dear , yes you are right agree with your though will be care in future...

And " Great Sunni Muslim Ulma E Kiraam " , yes agreed and got your point , but this should be edit mean word "great" can be removed but whole adding/editing should be mention for public information... I am waiting for u guys response . thanks --Summations (talk) 05:23, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Demographia: World Urban Areas

Note - Previous discussion can be found at Misplaced Pages:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_161#demographia.com TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

After consultation with users TheOriginalSoni and Anna Frodesiak, I restart discussion about the source Demographia: World Urban Areas, because previously noticed irregularities. Previous discussion is here. Source of Demographia: World Urban Areas is currently used in >250 pages in Misplaced Pages, few articles based on the source (as primary/main source). Demographia: World Urban Areas is the main source on Misplaced Pages concerning urban areas. Must to be strong consensus to exclude this source from Misplaced Pages. The previous discussion has not given any serious arguments against this source (according to me); also some posts were nonsensical, confusing administrative city limits, urban area, metropolitan area and urban agglomeration and users who know the topic has not been informed of the discussions. The (currently) discussion is particularly important because the outcome of this discussion may result in the removal of few articles based on this source and verification other similarly sources, including UN, OECD, WorldGazetteer, CityPopulation etc; which have exactly the same disadvantages as Demographia: World Urban Areas. So, what we do in this case? Subtropical-man (talk) 15:14, 7 January 2014 (UTC) (en-2)

Not reliable. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:27, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Why exactly according to you is not reliable? Also please give an example of source about urban areas that you think is reliable. Subtropical-man (talk) 17:40, 7 January 2014 (UTC) (en-2)

It's not a reliable source. However, I'm more concerned about the addition of large volumes of listcruft which has no source at all. bobrayner (talk) 19:41, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Generally, RS/N is not page for votes, this is page for discussions and consensuses. If anyone thinks that this source is not reliable, please proof or/and explain why. Subtropical-man (talk) 20:13, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not reliable because there is no reputation for fact-checking. There are better sources available such as the UN and the OECD. I am aware that they do not use the methodology that you would prefer, but sorry, that is the state of knowledge at the moment. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:53, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

• (ec) Hi Subtropical-man,

Sources will be presumed unreliable unless there is definite reason to show that it's not. In this case, we even had editors discussing why it was not reliable during the previous discussion.

• The first one from TFD said "It is run by Wendell Cox's company, and its objective is to promote automobile use and road construction."
• Yet another statement from Qwyrxian said - "I pointed to a number of reasons on User Talk: Jl2047a, foremost among them being there is clearly no editorial oversight with a history of fact-checking. The grammatical quality of the document indicates a non-professional production. And it is known that the author is an advocate for a very specific form on city planning which presumably would/could be affected by population statistics. Finally, there is no reason to believe that Cox's definition of the urban area is equivalent to Misplaced Pages definition, especially since he explicitly states that he's making his own decisions based on satellite imagery."

I could go about listing all of them, but as the editor re-opening a discussion that went in favour of removing the source, YOU are expected to provide proof that the source is reliable and address issues raised in the previous discussion.

TheOriginalSoni (talk) 20:57, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Itsmejudith, So you did not give any serious arguments against this source. Also, UN and the OECD is not sources about urban areas. I asked earlier: "please give an example of source about urban areas that you think is reliable" (if there).

TheOriginalSoni, maybe Wendell Cox's have activities in road constructions etc, but United Nations (UN) is intergovernmental organisation to promote international cooperation (per Misplaced Pages), OECD is Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and have own range of activities and the same - other sources about urban areas, metropolitan areas and urban agglomerations. Your second argument is only Qwyrxian's susceptive private opinion (with words type "presumably would/could be"). These are only his private thoughts/reflections, I have a different. Everyone has the right to a subjective opinion. Subtropical-man (talk) 21:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Sure you have a right to your own opinion. You came here to get opinions from editors who are interested in sourcing. I gave you my opinion and you also had one from TFD. You may not get any further ones, I'm afraid. On the specific question about how we source a figure for an urban area, we can often get that from a national government source. I am aware that then we don't have consistency from one country to another. Itsmejudith (talk) 21:19, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Are police reports reliable sources?

This is related to a discussion on Talk:Zwarte Piet. I contend that if the report is not vetted via a trial it is essentially a self-published, primary source and should not have any weight in a discussion. There are other editors who feel otherwise. I look to both the police report and testimony involved in the Robert Dziekański Taser incident as an example why police reports should not be used as RSes. Walter Görlitz (talk) 20:06, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

A police report is about as primary as it gets and therefore would not be an acceptable source. Mangoe (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree with your conclusion, but not with the way it is reached. WP:PRIMARY says "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Misplaced Pages; but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them." and WP:BLPPRIMARY says "Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person. Do not use public records that include personal details, such as date of birth, home value, traffic citations, vehicle registrations, and home or business addresses." So primary sources are not automatically unacceptable, but police reports generally are, and pretty much always in BLP situations. DES 20:32, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

"That has been reliably published" implies "only as quoted in reliable secondary sources." Using them to report details that secondary sources do not ratify, for instance, isn't acceptable. Mangoe (talk) 10:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

If something has not been reported in a reliable secondary source, then it normally fails "Weight". TFD (talk) 02:38, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Chinese Source sino.com + Google translate

I'm looking at this as a source for local/regional Chinese technology-related information.

Mission: http://corp.sina.com.cn/eng/sina_prod_eng.htm (They plan to make money by inserting ads into a variety of media channels which they run ... As do aol, cnn, yahoo ...) "SINA’s portal network consists of four destination websites dedicated to the Chinese communities across the globe: Mainland China (www.sina.com.cn), Taiwan (www.sina.com.tw), Hong Kong (www.sina.com.hk), and overseas Chinese in North America (www.sina.com). "

English version : http://english.sina.com/index.html

and an example of local content, in Chinese : http://hebei.sina.com.cn/bd/focus/2013-09-27/08011242.html -- with a google-translate of the first paragraph :

Baoding Sino-US Science and Technology Innovation Park project held a signing ceremony

September 17, Sino-US Science and Technology Innovation Park project signing ceremony was held in Baoding, Hebei Province Vice Governor Xu Ning, Provincial Science and Technology Department Director Jia Hongxing, Nierui Ping Baoding Municipal Committee, Mayor Ma Yufeng, U.S. representative Tom Darden Cherokee Fund The Chairman and the Ministry of Science and the responsible personnel attended the ceremony. Provincial Science and Technology Department and Baoding relevant departments attended the signing ceremony. Before the signing ceremony, Xu Ning, vice governor cordially met with U.S. representatives.

Obviously a human-translation would be better, but the basic information is clear enough. Alanf777 (talk) 23:25, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

Saharareporters.com

I've recently reverted a negative BLP edit made to Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi that referred back to SaharaReporters.com as its source. Sahara Reporters describes itself as "an online community of international reporters and social advocates dedicated to bringing you commentaries, features, news reports from a Nigerian-African perspective" whose "core members are unapologetic practitioners of advocacy journalism", which makes it sound closer to a forum or blog. On the other hand, their description of their editorial policy is more promising: "Although most of our stories are sourced through ordinary citizens, we adhere to strict standards of verification in order to present authentic and evidence-based reports to our readers." The contradiction of the two ideas was enough to put me on the fence about the reliability of the source, and thus to make me revert pending discussion, but now that I have, I'd like to get more informed input about whether the source is reliable for Misplaced Pages's purposes. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Not good for the claim made in that BLP. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Referencing "There's a named after "

We are discussing either a passage like

• In Ponce, there is public housing complex named in his memory.

needs a reference. While I think it does, a fellow editor argued that, since it can be checked on a PC with google maps, it does not.

I'm open to be enlightened about what's the common practice on such cases. Thanks, --damiens.rf 16:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

It really should have a reference, because we have no idea if the name of that place was specifically picked after the person of interest or another one with the same name (even with a obscure name like the one here) The reference would make it clear which person was the intended honoree of the naming. --MASEM (t) 16:23, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Maps can be sources too; why not? A map is a published collection of information about a specific topic. It might not be a particularly strong source though. Is there anything controversial or unusual about this claim, or does it affect a BLP in some way, or is there any reason to disbelieve it? If so, I would seek stronger sourcing. bobrayner (talk) 17:05, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

A map is only going to say "A building named X is located here." It says nothing why it was named X, and that's the issue. Even if X is a very uncommon name, we cannot presume that a building named "The X building" was named for that specific person named X. --MASEM (t) 17:09, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Agreed, maps are hardly ever sources on the history of buildings or places. (Not that they are unreliable as such, they simply don't provide that kind of information.) Local histories and local newspaper archives are more likely to be fruitful. If there is a plaque or similar on the building itself then I think that, unless there is actual disagreement, that could be an adequate source too. And then there are a few sites, such as John F. Kennedy International Airport, where the origin of the naming is so patently obvious that though - yes - it should be sourced at some point, that really needn't be a top priority. Barnabypage (talk) 17:46, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

The issue is not whether Maps are or are not RS. The issue is whether the statement requries a citation and I argue it does not. Not everything in Misplaced Pages requires a citation. Mercy11 (talk) 18:32, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, all content challenged or likely to be challenged DOES require a source, and this content HAS been challenged and therefore DOES require a source. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 04:09, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but always within reason. For example, if I go to sky, is it reasonable to expect to put to work (read: disrupt) every editor there by demanding a citation for "The sky is blue"? No. You consider the request, and in this case you consider the requester and his motive, who in this case (as explained below) likely comes with a hidden agenda. Mercy11 (talk) 00:58, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Given that you have been told at ANI that you aren't assuming good faith, you need to ignore whatever motive you think Damien has, and you need to address the base issue. The reason we don't need to source "the sky is blue" is that it is a plainly obvious fact to everyone. The fact that a single building in a single location is named after a local notable person is not plainly obvious to everyone and requires a source. --MASEM (t) 01:05, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• I am the fellow editor Damiens refers to, and I am not arguing that "it needs a reference it can be checked on a PC with google maps" as he states.

To begin with, no editor should come to this section unaware of the background, so they can make intelligent statements rather than in a vacuum and play into Damiens hands. Damines has been, Of Recent, targeting Puerto Rico articles with what can be called malice. Just like you can discriminate against an ethnic group, you can discriminate by purposely targeting a certain group, and only a certain group of articles. And this is what he is doing.

With that said, now Damiens is targeting every minor thing he can think of in various PR articles - Particularly biographies and the like. He is, BTW, under investigation HERE right now.

This controversy rises in this light. He started tagging PR articles in retaliation for someone reporting him there (WP:ANI), a reporting that, BTW, he hasn't cared to respond to.

Mercy11 (talk) 18:11, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Irregardless of the larger conflict (and whomever is right or wrong), the point is that maps can't be used to verify things that would be of historical note, such as why a building was named a certain way. --MASEM (t) 18:17, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

You are missing the point, I am afraid. I suggested he can look at a map because he is obviously not familiar with Ponce, so he can get his "thirst" satisfied, and bring an end to his objection. The issue is not whether Maps are or are not RS. The issue is whether the statement requries a citation and I argue it does not. Not everything in Misplaced Pages requires a citation. Mercy11 (talk) 18:31, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

If it requires a reference, then obviously it would require a RS, so the point re maps is not altogether irrelevant. But I agree with you that unless there is something that throws the naming of this particular building into question, and there is real doubt that it is named after the Raúl_Gándara_Cartagena of the article, a citation for it is hardly a high priority. Barnabypage (talk) 18:40, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

In my position, I was coming more or less from the direction that User:Bobrayner above states. If Damiens, non-maliciously, was asking for a CN becuase he has reason to know that there is no hosuing project by that name there, then that's OK. But to come with unclean hands (see above) and tag something that he has not investigated first, that is not dubious, that is not known to him to be -for a fact- different than stated, and tag it with a CN tag, that's a problem because he is basically pitting WP:OR against the fact that he can go to any PR housing government site, verify the information and move on becasue it is not controversial. Again, his goal is not the WP:V, but he comes in with unclean hands and a more ulterior motive. IAE, there nothing controversial or unusual about this claim, it does it affect a BLP in any way, nor is there any reason to disbelieve it is as stated. Mercy11 (talk) 18:47, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Do you know some PR housing government site? That would work as a reference. --damiens.rf 20:00, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Unfortunately for you, Damiens, this is not about what I know, but about your behavior. Together with other editors I have become quite familiar with your style to Disrupt without getting caught. It includes starting up issues in noticeboards and then not showing up to comment until you are, well, cornered. It involves tagging a multitude of articles --and even scores (yes, 20 times some factor) of images-- at a time and then leaving the dirty work to others. It includes targeting others when they happen to cross paths with you. In general, rather than contributing to the development of the encyclopedia, your goal is indicative of someone who wants to make Misplaced Pages look bad with giant flashy tags at the top of articles and CN and other tags all over - in particular when the articles are Puerto Rico related.

Feel free, however, to ask for proof of all of my accusations about you above which I will gladly provide everyone here. Mercy11 (talk) 20:21, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Yeah, the Department of Housing of Puerto Rico, through the Puerto Rico Public Housing Administration, has a list of all public housing complexes in Puerto Rico. See for the ones in Ponce. According to that list the one in Ponce is named after José N. Gándara, but Mercy11 is our WP:PUR expert on Ponce-related matters so maybe there is another complex not on that list named after Raúl? —Ahnoneemoos (talk) 01:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks User:Ahnoneemoos, it is named after his brother, José N. Gándara, and I have already added your cite to the other article(José N. Gándara). This resolves this matter as far as I am concerned. Mercy11 (talk) 01:50, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Ahnoneemoos! Great work. And thanks to everyone that took part on this discussion.

In regard to the general question, is it a consensus that: (1) Maps themselves can't base a claim that an existing place was named after someone, and (2) whenever challenged, statements like "there's a street named after Jimbo Wales" must provide a reference.? --damiens.rf 11:35, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, a reference is needed. It's pretty common that streets etc. are named after someone else of the same name. Mangoe (talk) 13:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Disagree. You cannot compare requiring a citation for a plain "street" named after someone (unless happens to be a major thorougfare, like the FDR Drive, and most streets are not) with requiring a citation for a US federal government housing development. A street may simply need to be defined in a "legacy" section of a biography as being situated in a certain X neighborhood and crossed by certain Y and Z (better-known) thoroughfares, and then leave it to someone FAMILIAR with the local geographic area to challenge that fact. Housing developments, schools, hospitals are different because a much larger number of LOCALS will be familiar with the truth of falsity of such claim. So, IMO, neither requires a citation, but for diferent reasons (I am not saying don't put a citation if you have it; I am ttalking about it being requried). In addition, when someone unfamiliar with the area, like Damiens, challenges that type of Legacy section claim, and only for Puerto Rico-related biographies and only while under the threat of the ongoing discussion about him as I linked to above, you can't help by consider his true ulterior motives in bringing the matter to this discussion. Mercy11 (talk) 15:12, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• If it is only something that is readily known in local lore, then absolutely a citation is needed for a worldwide encyclopedia, even though this can easily come from a local reliable source to validate the fact. --MASEM (t) 16:23, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Disagree. Would any other worldwide encyclopedia cite to that level? And Misplaced Pages is no exception. That's why we don't require everything to be cited. IAE, I invite you to check my edit history, if there is anyone that provides citations here, at Misplaced Pages, and for this worldwide encyclopedia, it is I. But citing to the core as you are implying is not warranted. Especially when the motivation is dubious. Mercy11 (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Until shown otherwise, you must assume good faith that this is a proper question to ask. And yes, local lore is highly suspect, particularly if it is not documented anywhere. Word-of-mouth - which is what you are saying exists - that only extends in a small local area is not sufficient sourcing for our encyclopedia, and likely wouldn't be sufficient for the other ones either if they covered topics to the level of detail we do. From what you've said, it should not be hard to find a source here, even if it is one documented in a city registar or an old newspaper, we just need that to make that claim. --MASEM (t) 21:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Where did I ever say that, as far as the Dr. Gandara housing complex word-of-mouth is what I am saying exists? I never said that. In fact, not only is there the Documented cited source Abnoneemoos provided above, but there are also these other rock solid sources: (1)SENADO DE PUERTO RICO, RESOLUCION CONJUNTA R. C. del S. 898. Senator Seilhamer Rodríguez. Gobierno de Puerto Rico. 16ta Asamblea, 6ta Sesión Legislativa Ordinaria. Senado de Puerto Rico. R. C. del S. 898. 5 October 2011. and (2) Sunny A. Cabrera Salcedo. Hacia un Estudio Integral de la Toponimia del Municipio de Ponce, Puerto Rico. Ph. D. dissertation. May 1999. University of Massachusetts Amherst. Graduate School. Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Page 165.

But this discussion is not just about the specific case of the houuing development named after Dr. Gandara, but about the greater question of whether a cite is mandatory or else for Legacy sections in biographies that say things like "There is a X building in the town of Y named after person Z" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mercy11 (talk • contribs)

• We require a source for information that is likely going to be challenged. I would be complete amiss to state that a local building was named for a local celebrity and not expect someone on the opposite of the world to question that, so I would supply a source for that. It's common sense with respect to our verification policy. --MASEM (t) 01:51, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

• Local lore is well-known as a source for spurious naming legends. Really, if I were being sufficiently hard-nosed I would insist upon a trail of sources back to a primary source at the time of naming. But some source of decent repute is required. Mangoe (talk) 21:39, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Example: There is a Roberto Clemente street in Holyoke, Massachusetts. I happen to know that; and both of you probably didn't. Does that make it local lore? IAE, how do you differentiate between local lore and WP:OR? That's really where we need to be spending our energies, seems to me... Mercy11 (talk) 00:49, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Does it matter? If you are asking is to trust you, rather than a published source, I don't care what you call it - I will ask for a proper citation. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:53, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Have you read this entire thread? I am not against citations and there is probably no one in Misplaced Pages that provides them for every single fact more than I do. Check my edit history.

So, no, I am not asking anyone to trust me. You are missing the point. The issue here is that the enormous majority of editors at Misplaced Pages would not ask for a cite unless they had a reason to. Right? For example, would you ask for a citation for everything and anything that's not cite, including for "the sky is blue" and for "there is a park in Jakarta, Indonesia named Pin Jun Xant" and for "there is street in Malboro, Massachusetts, named Someguy1221 "? Get it? My point is we normally ask for citations about stuff we didn't know, we find curious, or we find dubious - not the rest if it seems to make sense. Now, how would a "There is residentail complex in Ponce, Puerto Rico, named after some-famous-doctor-that worked there" not make sense and, thus, require a citation, unless you either were familiar with Ponce, Puerto Rico, or had some other ulterior motive --hidden agenda-- to ask for such cite. Disagree? Mercy11 (talk) 01:12, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I did not miss the point. I chose to address the policy issue, rather than your complete inability to assume good faith. I would challenge that myself, since in my own experience on Misplaced Pages (nay, Earth) people will lie about anything for any reason (or simply be wrong and refuse to admit it). If you want to cast aspersions on another editor, you should come up with a better reason than "I can't believe anyone would doubt this!" Someguy1221 (talk) 01:17, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

(←)You did say above that you, too, wouldn't just "trust me over a published source". So no matter how we slice it, fact is when we don't know someone we throw AGF aside and we demand "OK, show me the 'money'". On the other hand, I never said we should not -ever- ask for a citation. In certain cases it's not needed ("the sky is blue"), in others it's mandatory ("The US has 317 million inhabitants"). I was simply observing that the majority of editors do not ask for a citation except under very specific certain circumstances. Case in point, you seem to be accusing me of a "complete inability to assume good faith" and yet you also stated "I would challenge myself, since in my own experience on Misplaced Pages (nay, Earth) people will lie about anything for any reason", which gives evidence of your own lack of AGF. However, we don't need to reconcile those two seemingly contradictory statements. The fact is that, in the end, we are all guilty of lacking AGF (even if we refuse to admit it) - but we lack AGF because there is reason: namely, our prior experiences about others lying, etc. So, no, policy issues (the question about whether or not a citation in the Dr. Gandara case should be deemed mandatory) cannot be dealt with in a void; there is always an element of personal perspective involved when someone's character is under question as you have shown above. Mercy11 (talk) 04:16, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I usually assume good faith. I do not assume either accuracy or intelligence. There is quite a difference. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:01, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm uh, not going to try again to explain this to you. If you really take it this personally whenever someone challenges an addition you make, that's just something you'll have to find a way to deal with. Someguy1221 (talk) 05:07, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Car racing websites

I'm performing the DYK review for Lavaggi LS1. The article cites Racingsportscars.com, Planetlemans.com, and Ultimatecarpage.com. The Racingsportcars.com citations are to pages describing the results of races. The site solicits this information from anonymous volunteers (see the "Contributions" section of the site's About page). This puts it somewhere between questionable (for lack of editorial oversight) and user-generated, unless I'm missing something. The other two sites don't say a lot about their editorial policies, so I thought I'd come here for guidance. Thanks. Lagrange613 19:14, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

• Since this is a reasonably specialized field with few active editors in, I guess I'll have to duck out of my break once again to state my case here. Racingsportscars.com clearly states that the contributions are for the photographs, and the race programmes. As a result, it's a reliable source; if they're pulling things straight from a race programme, then it will be accurate. There are plenty of results for races on this website that are almost impossible to find anywhere else. In my experience, it's always been accurate; in fact, on occasion, more so than an official source (some of the British GT championship archives are incorrect, as they are inexplicably missing cars out altogether from some races, even when they ran.) It is also a source that has been used for years on Misplaced Pages, and in GAs although I know how little the former means.
• Planetlemans is the one that I'm really surprised is being questioned. It's a source with a wide amount of uses here, and one with a fairly good reputation; again, everything checks out against other sources that are definitely reliable, and it has been used in GAs.
• Ultimatecarpage is the only one that could be considered questionable, in my eyes. I use it predominantly for car specifications, but it could justifiably be seen to be a "case-by-case" thing. For example, if the article clearly cites its source as a company press release, then it is going to be reliable. The potentially questionable thing would be anything done by Wouter Melissen, although I would say he is reliable, just given what I've seen and have verified myself. One thing to back that up is , which is a piece he wrote for a reliable source, and the fact that High Gear Media list him as one of their writers, although I don't know if that means much.
• I realize that a lot of this is talking from my own personal experiences, and that this may not wash with some people; all I can give beyond this is my word that if I thought a source personally to be unreliable (and unless this RSN finds massive factual errors being abundant in any of these websites, it won't change my opinion; I'm sure anyone who has encountered me before knows how stubborn I can be about some things), I would not use it. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 00:49, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

For both Racingsportscars.com and Ultimatecarpage.com you seem to be asserting that reliability is somehow inherited from one's sources, and that's simply not the case. Suspecting a source's information to be true is necessary but not sufficient; we also need some indication that the source has a process for weeding out false information. The requirement in WP:SOURCES of "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" sums it up nicely. You're asserting accuracy; what I'm looking for is an indication of fact-checking. Lagrange613 15:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Oh come on. If something is coming straight out of a race programme, or an official results list, then it is going to be reliable and accurate, and no further checking is going to be required; this is not "suspecting a source's information to be true", this is common sense - and if you're not seeing that, then I'm afraid your knowledge in this area is too limited for you to be participating in properly (wrt analysing a source's reliability/verifiability/accuracy/whatever). And I'm not doing anything of the sort with Ultimatecarpage.com; they either requote a press release (in which case it is as reliable as the press release is), or they use the writings of someone who can verifiably be seen to have written for reliable sources. As I've said, when I've verified these sources against other ones, they've been found to be accurate, and in some cases, more so than official sources, which contained errors. If a source is accurate, then the facts are fine, and the source is reliable. Lukeno94 (tell Luke off here) 16:25, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Please also include mulsannescorner.com in your considerations here. It is also cited in the Lavaggi LS1 article, and in many other car racing related articles, and has been added to many racing car articles by User:Mulsannescorner who states on his user page that he is "the Editor of the website Mulsanne's Corner, http://www.mulsannescorner.com." - start at the bottom of this list, and work up to see them. Jaggee (talk) 22:27, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Removal of material with Ludwig von Mises Institute connections

• Here removal of material from Prof. Leland B. Yeager re: Jesus Huerta de Soto with relevant edit summary this reference, published by Mises Inst, where both are affiliated is not RS for noteworthiness (Huerta de Soto, a professor in Spain, also is a fellow; Yeager an author "Associated Scholar"- (later correction))
• Here removal of quotes from Yeager, Jörg Guido Hülsman and Ron Paul with edit summary: Delete praise from affiliates and colleagues at Mises Institute -- undue.) (Hulsman has spoken and written for the Institute; Ron Paul is a "Distinguished Counselor")
• Here delete material from Huerta de Soto with commentary on it by Gary North (economist) with edit summary: Delete material relating solely to intramural discussion within Mises Institute and its "fellows" and with no indication of public noteworthiness from independent RS unaffiliated parties (North is an Associated Scholar.)
• I reverted the material removed by User:SPECIFICO back writing revert back material; there is no general wikipedia consensus this material is not notable and some of this has already gone through long discussions and 12/29/13 User:MilesMoney reverted it back again here, pointing to his talk page entry which is called: "Removal of incestuous shoulder-patting/LvMI-related sources". Despite my reply, neither editor bothered to further defend their removal of the material.
  

So are they right and nothing from professors or notable figures who have some loose tie to the Ludwig von Mises Institute is ever allowed on Misplaced Pages? (Note that they did leave in criticism from another author published by the Institute, Larry J. Sechrest, whose criticism they evidently liked.) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 02:08, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Since all the authors are "fellows" of the Mises Institute, the reference to "loose ties" does not apply to these individuals. The former Hulsmann article was deleted from English WP. There's no requirement for consensus prior to revert of BLP material. SPECIFICO talk 02:28, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

This is all in relation to he BLP of an Austrian School economist, Jesus Huerta de Soto. The article doesn't currently say anything in the lead about why he is notable. It seems to me that editing the Spanish translation of Hayek does meet the notability requirement for an economist, so that needs to go into the lead. The source can be the Hayek books themselves. Then in the body of the article, when it discusses his other work, the emphasis should be on reviews of his books in academic journals, so that we can see how they have been received in the economics community. Spats on blogs with other Austrian School economists are unlikely to be of interest. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to Itsmejudith for noting that the Hayek book connection is notable; we had a heck of a time keeping that in at all. I'm have a feeling there are a raft of academic journals that I can't find on the web and those who deal with the article and may have access haven't provided any info. But maybe it's time for me to learn how to use WP:The Misplaced Pages Library! :-)

Note that only Gary North was a blog, so I guess that can go (it was added originally by SPECIFICO anyway). The other two are from Journals or books. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:13, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith -Hello. In an earlier version of the article, there was additional detail about de Soto's contribution to the apparently aborted Spanish Hayek edition, of which only seven volumes were actually published. De Soto was responsible for footnotes, bibliographies and introductions. These are not chores of an economist but of an editor. De Soto is not credited with the translations. If editorial prep work is a mark of WP Notability, then tens of thousands of clerical workers at publishers around the world would be WP Notable. Moreover, the article currently presents De Soto as an economist, not an editor. The sources for this are primary source. Nothing to indicate it's been noted in independent WP:RS. However, the notability issue is peripheral to the question raised here by @Carolmooredc:. The deleted material referenced by Carolmooredc is all internecine praise from the walls of the Mises Insitute, not independent, and not noteworthy stuff to boot. Carolmooredc, it would be great if you could dig up some independent, peer reviewed journals -- independent of the Mises Institute -- or other independent RS about de Soto the economist. I encourage you to ply your efforts, but we can't use "editors' intuition" to support WP article text. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 14:42, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

SPECIFICO may want to downgrade through his own comments and interpretation the importance of Huerta de Soto being chosen for the role of editor by the U of Chicago Press, but he still was and that is a fact. Actually, I just looked at my "add file" on Huerta de Soto and I see there are several items I'd found and hadn't gotten around to adding before I had to run off to deal with some new Austrian economics BLP where dubious, inflammatory or worse material was being added or perfectly good RS removed. Sigh. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 14:48, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Let's all stick to the subject of this thread??? Ron Paul, et al. Thx. SPECIFICO talk

Excuse me, you said it would be great if I added material and I merely replied I found some I forgot about and why I'd failed to add it (i.e., not just laziness; only so many hours budgeted for editing). No badgering, please. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 15:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Can videos be RS in a BLP?

YouTube as dominant Ref in BLP Marques Brownlee I could be wrong. But I do not believe any notable person needs to substantiate anything about themselves using a YouTube video that they posted. The article mention depends on YouTube videos posted by the very same person the page is about. One editor is saying they are allowed. I have searched and a. Not seen anyone notable using them as RS. 2. Not seen any documentation that a BLP can have YouTube links. I accept that if the statement is "He has a YouTube page" then obviously a link to that page makes sense. But beyond that...--Inayity (talk) 08:25, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The subject of this BLP is notable for … his hundreds of YouTube videos on his YouTube channel. I had already agreed to detail each source on the talk page but the other user really wants to be here so …

Disputed sources, removed here and replaced with "citation needed" flags

1. Interview with Marques Brownlee!. As the title suggests this is an interview with Brownlee conducted by Martin Shervington, and posted to Shervington channel. This 30-minute interview unsurprisingly covers a lot of ground, and is used as a general source as they do confirm many basic points that article raises, and they also noted about Browlee that Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President of Google Social, calls him the "best technology reviewer on the planet right now." This source, among others was removed and a "citation needed" flag was added in its place.

The source also confirms the statements; He currently is a marketing student at Stevens Institute of Technology. He is majoring in business and technology, while minoring in Information systems, and marketing. And Other than producing content and school, he plays golf, and is a former professional ultimate frisbee player with the New Jersey Hammerheads. And His first several hundred videos were primarily hardware tutorials, and freeware. And He was later approached by companies to demonstrate their paid software and hardware, but only reviews products that would be of interest to his audience of technology enthusiasts.

2. The statement "The channel is said to be one of the fastest growing channels and one of the most subscribed-to in the technology industry." was also removed, this too can be attributed to the first source and I will accept it was an error not to have it with a source. The same user who deleted several sources then added a "citation needed" flag, didn't flag this statement but just removed it.

3. Management team – Company – Google. Is the website of Google management confirming that Vic Gundotra is indeed who we say he is, the Senior Vice President of Google Social. This was the second of three sources removed and replaced with one "citation needed" flag.

4. Vic Gundotra - Google+ - New MKBHD Video is live! I spend a lot of time in thought…. Is Vic Gundotra's own post confirming that what we said he said is accurate and verifiable. This was the third of three sources removed and replaced with one "citation needed" flag.

5. Pocketnow VIP, episode 3: meet Marques Brownlee from MKBHD! | Pocketnow. This is another online interview with Browlee that confirms a lot of basic, non-exceptional information in the article. It was removed as a source for the statement: He is majoring in business and technology, while minoring in Information systems, and marketing.

6. G Flex Self Healing Demo. This is one of Browlee's hundreds of videos, and the only one that is presently mentioned in the article, about someone who is notable for making YouTube videos. It is a demo of a particular product and is used to source " As of Dec 2013, the video has over 3,032,947 views." This source was also removed and replaced by a "citation needed" flag.

All in all these are not questionable sources and I think they fairly support the claims they are referencing. I think it would be nice to have more sources but this is also a new article, a short article, and until these sources were removed, most of the exceptional statements were easily verifiable. I think it can all be restored and I don't see any BLP violations as has been suggested but maybe someone can make it more clear what they are. Sportfan5000 (talk) 08:43, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I also just saw WP:YOUTUBE, and WP:VIDEOLINK. Sportfan5000 (talk) 08:45, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Failing to understand the issue is YouTube is Not Marques. Makes no difference how you verify anything. Because the issue is Notable people should not need a YouTube CHannel to confirm why they are notable on Misplaced Pages. to verify the BLP. --Inayity (talk) 08:50, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:YOUTUBE is for external Links. We are talking about RS for a BLP!--Inayity (talk) 08:58, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I think you're not seeing that even online videos can be reliable sources, and even for a BLP. I've just found about a dozen more sources, and I'll post them below for others to see. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:31, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

First, there is no blanket rule that states that all YouTube videos are reliable or that all YouTube videos are unreliable. It depends on the situation. BBC News, for example, has an official YouTube channel. These videos should be treated no different than news reports on their website. IOW, generally speaking, YouTube videos uploaded by the BBC to their official YouTube channel are reliable sources. On the other hand, if somebody records a BBC newscast and uploads the video to YouTube, it is not considered reliable because there's no guarantee that the video hasn't been altered (not to mention it's probably a copyright violation).

Second, self-published YouTube videos may be considered reliable in articles about or related to the subject. So, with this particular article, YouTube videos that Marques Brownlee uploads themselves may be reliable when used in the Marques Brownlee article. See WP:SPS for more information.

Third, notability and reliability are two different things. In order to be notable, there needs to be significant coverage by third-party reliable sources which are independent of the subject. So while self-published sources might be reliable for this article, but they do not establish notability.

Fourth, while self-published sources can be acceptable for an article, articles should not be based primarily on self-published sources.

A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 09:00, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I do think this might be an exceptional situation as this person is notable for his YouTube career, and has seemingly not sought out print publications to bolster himself. He does interviews with other YouTube channel producers also on the frontier of technology, and social media. The vast majority of sourcing will also be online, and likely focussing on video. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:06, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Motorola CEO talks about Project Ara, wearable devices, and Moto X. Here's one that helps demonstrate his prominence in this field. I'm not how it can be used in the article but it does show his real world influence. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:10, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Primary sources used by a subject may be used for non-controversial information about them or as a source for their views. Mostly they are helpful for death of birth, address, etc. But generally articles should use secondary sources. If someone is notable because they have a lot of youtube postings, we can say that. But that does not justify our adding content from those videos. If no secondary source has found their contents significant enough to report, then neither should we. TFD (talk) 09:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

That's the point, except for Brownlee's own video used only to cite how many views his most watched video has, they are media that he does not control, they are interviews with him, or do we dismiss everything out of hand when someone is interviewed? Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:29, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I found a couple more

• MKBHD Goes Hands-on With LG G Flex Self Healing Back, Even Takes a Knife to it
• The Tato Show is Happening Tonight, Kicks off at 6PM PST With Special Guest MKBHD (1.5 hours video)
• The Tato Show: After Hours – Episode 2 Starts Tonight at 7PM PST (1 hour video)

I'll keep looking. Sportfan5000 (talk) 09:29, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Can you provide a ref from a Place like one of the major tech mags, like Engadget, or CNET, or CNN technology, PC Mag, Wired. B/c the links you provided are tiny blogs. Hardly RS. What this means to quality control is anyone with a YouTube channel can now start a Misplaced Pages page and use their own (and their mates) videos to establish their notability. And that is quiet frankly a problem. --Inayity (talk) 09:37, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I will look. These are his direct competition I'm not sure how likely it is they will give him free exposure. Sportfan5000 (talk) 10:02, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Engadget.com has a few reports that it ran because of tweets MKBHD sent out, but that just confirms they site him as a source; There is this, this, this, and several in other languages which are likely translations of these listed. The others only have trivial mention, but again, they are his direct competition. So just to clarify you think Brownlee, when asked a question about himself in an interview, is not a reliable source for his own article? Sportfan5000 (talk) 10:20, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

• Motorola’s modular phone prototype is almost ready, final product might be sold on Moto Maker
• DIII INTERVIEWS 2012: STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Archeoastronomy and the "Double Project Proposal" of Giulio Magli

• Giza Necropolis (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)
• Pyramid of Khafre (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

There was a new section added here and also here regarding a pyramid-building theory by Giulio Magli.

The whole thing seems sourced to this document, which looks academic on first blush, but then it looks like it's just the proposal, no obvious peer review., submitted by the author himself. Am I right to think that no academic process has actually taken place with this proposal?

And is this person a reliable source by himself for theories about building the pyramids? (The book he has written seems to be from an academic self-publisher.)

Arxiv is a preprint service. While it tries to filter out obvious crank papers, papers there are not peer-reviewed. This source should be treated as an unpublished paper and is thus unreliable because there has been no independent review. --Mark viking (talk) 19:47, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I looked a little more and this author has a newer book on the pyramids published with Cambridge University Press here, but there are also published articles in places like this from the Journal of Cosmology. This seemed like rehashed pyramidology and "supposedly-science" but the Cambridge source confuses me. Maybe other editors with a stronger background in this than me will notice it all. Thanks!__ E L A Q U E A T E 20:23, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we can use the Arxiv source, although we probably could use, attributed, his books. See this review of one of his books - not from a RS but from someone who had Magli as an examiner for his PhD and whose opinions I respect. But I am struggling with this I admit. Dougweller (talk) 14:38, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Helmuth Von Glasenapp

Is the following source reliable?

Source: Glasenapp, Helmuth von (1999). Jainism: An Indian Religion of Salvation. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 494. ISBN 978-81-208-1376-2.

Article: Jainism and Hinduism

Content:

Helmuth Von Glasenapp writes that the difference in the rituals of practitioners of the two religions would be that the Jains do not give any importance to bathing in holy water, cremating or burying ascetics, offering sacrifices to the dead and burning widows.

--Rahul (talk) 07:30, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Certainly not an optimal source, since the book was written in 1925. You should use more recent scholarship. The author is the subject of an article on the German Misplaced Pages, if you want more information about him. TFD (talk) 07:55, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Also his information is wrong. Bladesmulti (talk) 08:00, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The de.wiki article says that some of his works are still considered standard. Does this have any bearing on the case? Itsmejudith (talk) 11:14, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

It explains why Motilal Banarsidass reprinted his book: unlike some, they don't reprint just anything :) I'd agree with TFD, though, that we ought to look for reliable sources more recent than 1925. Andrew Dalby 12:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I think the work is still considered as one of the standards. This might be of interest: In this review (of another book), peter flugel mentions Glasenapp as one of the only four authoritative textbooks on Jainism. --Rahul (talk) 13:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Unpublished/non-peer Reviewed Study

This study by Media Matters for America is self-published, not peer-reviewed, and not in any journal. It is presented as a study reporting media bias in a manner which implies that it has some scientific validity. There is simply no way this can be considered a reliable source. Arzel (talk) 15:46, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Arzel, if you were on the side of the 97% of published climate scientists who confirm that anthropogenic global warming were a reality, you would certainly see this differently, but as a climate change denialist, you really can't stand the inclusion of anything which challenges your 3% POV. That the source is biased is irrelevant. It's a notable RS which presents a POV you don't like. That's not a reason for not using it.

BTW, it's a basic survey of the news coverage, not a scientific study of the type one sees in peer reviewed scientific literature about disease, treatment, atomic structures, etc.. You need to learn the difference. Don't let the word "study" confuse you. Peer review is not expected for this type of thing. If you would spend less time objecting to everything which is against your POV, and actually study the RS presented here, like this study, you might learn and change your real world POV. Since you seem incapable of doing that, I really question your objectivity and competence to work here as an editor. We are expected to learn and change our real world POV according to what RS inform us. That's what reasonable people do. POV warriors don't do that, and we don't need them obstructing progress here. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

I would remind BullRangifer to stick to the point. This study is un-published and not peer reviewed. I would also remind BullRangifer to avoid the personal attacks. Arzel (talk) 16:18, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Try reading what I wrote. This is content from a RS. It is not scientific research in the usual sense. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:20, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Try reading the section I linked to. All of the studies, except this one, are actual studies. It is quite apparent that you have done no actual analysis of the article and simply followed me there in order to WP:BAIT me like you did on my talk page. Arzel (talk) 16:26, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Arzel, you state that "There is simply no way this can be considered a reliable source". Why "no way"? AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:31, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict):::::Since Bullrangifer has been part of the discussion at ANI where you accused him of stalking at ANI over this, I'm not surprised he's come here. I believe calling someone a stalker as you did is a personal attack so you really shouldn't be complaining when he comments on your editing. Back to the issue. It is called a study. Your comment on my talk page about WP:Scholarship is irrelevant as no one is suggesting it is an academic study. It doesn't need to be peer-reviewed to be used so long as it's attributed. It was published on their website. If you read WP:SPS you will see it's not meant to cover organisations such as this - or Fox News itself for that matter. We've discussed MMfA over and over here, it gets tiresome and clearly political, which shouldn't enter into these discussions. Dougweller (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

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