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Is an introduction to the Black Book of Communism a reliable source for the estimates of Communist mass killings?

In his introduction to the Black Book of Communism, Courtous presents the following "rough approximation" of the toll of Communism:

U. S. S. R.: 20 million deaths

China: 65 million deaths

Vietnam: 1 million deaths

North Korea: 2 million deaths

Cambodia: 2 million deaths

Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths

Latin America: 150,000 deaths

Africa: 1.7 million deaths

Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths

The international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power:

about 10,000 deaths.

Ronald Aronson it his article "Communism's Posthumous Trial. The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stéphane Courtois; The Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century by François Furet; The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century by Tony Judt; Le Siècle des communismes by Michel Dreyfus" (History and Theory, Vol. 42, No. 2 (May, 2003), pp. 222-245.) expresses the following opinion on that:

"But most of these problems (problems with the BB proper -PS) pale in significance compared with the book's opening and closing chapters, which caused enormous controversy and even occasioned a break among The Black Book's authors.

Commenting on the above figures, Aronson continues:

Courtois's figures for the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Latin America go far beyond the estimates of the authors themselves, as does Courtois's final body count."

In connection to that, my question is:

Can the introduction to the Black Book be used as the source for facts about the death toll of Communism?

Concretely, is the introduction to the BB a reliable source for this general claim:

"Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million."

--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:34, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• No, Courtois' introduction is not reliable since the authors of the book condemned him for misrepresenting the numbers in the book. This is succinctly summarized in Jon Wiener's How We Forgot the Cold War, published this month:

  Of course the book received both praise and criticism. Notable among the critics were two important contributors to the volume who publicly rejected its thesis: Nicolas Werth, who wrote the key chapter on the Soviet Union, and Jean-Louis Margolin, who wrote the other key chapter, on China, Vietnam, and Cambodia. After seeing the introduction, the two "consulted a lawyer to see if they could withdraw their respective contributions from the book. They were advised they could not."

  So Werth and Margolin took their criticism to Le Monde, writing that Courtois was obsessed with reaching a total of one hundred million victims despite the best evidence showing a lower total. Werth also insisted Nazism and communism were qualitatively different. . . . The book was especially controversial in France because it was published during the 1997 trial of Nazi collaborator Maurice Papon for crimes against humanity for his role in the deportation of Jews from Bourdeaux to Hitler's death camps. Papon's lawyers introduced the book as evidence for the defense. (Wiener, Jon. How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America. University of California Press. pp. 37-38)

  Wiener also notes that J. Arch Getty rejected the attribution of famine deaths to mass killing, and still other reviewers "objected to the way The Black Book lumped together vastly different societies on the grounds that their leaders claimed to be Marxists-Leninists" (p. 38). On p. 39, Wiener says that "Courtois, in his argument for the hundred million figure, was explicitly attacking what he called 'the international Jewish community' for emphasizing the crimes of Hitler in a way that displaced the much greater crimes of communism. Blame the Jews: that argument leaves The Black Book tainted (p. 39; see also p. 37). Wiener's next paragraph mentions that the book "nonetheless received an enthusiastic reception in the United States," but the fact that at least two of the co-authors publicly denounced Courtois and his introduction, and sought to legally distance themselves from the book is most salient feature of the uproar. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 20:28, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

The BBoC has been discussed here before - it is published by a major university press, and has been used in many other references as a source itself. The query really at hand is whether the estimates given as a range, and which are curently inthe body of an article appropriately referenced, should be presented as estimates in the lede of the article, or whether the estimate should be described as "tens of millions" or just as "millions" per some editors prior edits. A fair reading of multiple sources indicates that the numbers do, indeed, range as estimates from a low of about 60 million to a high of well over 100 million. Consensus in the past reached the "65 to 100 million" as a valid compromise, and the validity of the BBoC was not the issue, just the validity of individual numbers. Aronson's book review, is, moreover a book review. Not an article on death tolls. The "Holocaust denial" subtext injected above is not valid in discussions on this noticeboard IMO, and at best muddies the waters utterly. See reviews from Canadian Journal of History , other reviews at , , . All strikingly positive in their reviews. The BBoC was written by former Communists and left-wing intellectuals, who would not be expected to over criticise the communist regimes mentioned, but who still came up with large numbers of deaths. Try on the order of a hundred positive references per Highbeam. Of course we could use The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective By: Robert Gellately; Ben Kieman; Cambridge University Press 2003. The Soviet persecutionof kulaks inthe 1930s took millions of lives etc. the exceptional and paroxysmal nature of Ezhovshina: executed during these two years (1937–38) were more than 85 percent of all people sentenced to the “supreme measure of punishment” by extrajudicial organs between the end of the civil war (1921) and Stalin's death (1953)–at least 682,000 out of a total of 800,000. which is just a small fraction of the deaths noted in the 2003 book. China Under Communism by Alan Lawrance, Routledge, 1998: Less publicized at the time was the fact that in certain regions there was famine, now reckoned to have accounted for 20 million deaths, leading to sporadic outbursts of cannibalism during a single 3 year period (the "Great Leap Forward" etc. Others, for example Jacques Guillermaz, diplomat and historian, suggest five million in 1949 a single year. The Lesser Evil: Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices By: Helmut Dubiel; Gabriel Motzkin, publisher Frank Cass, 2003, has The phenomenon is partly connected to China's huge population (around 700 million at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution in 1966). Taking 58 million unnatural deaths as an average estimate would put the death toll over three decades, from 1946 to 1978, at 8 per cent of the total Chinese population. This figure is not much different from the one recently established for the three decades of the Lenin-Stalin period. (Margolin). So the real issue is not the BBoC as a reliable source - it is. It is whether we ought to minimize estimates below the lowest reliably sourced estimates of deaths. I fear that is not the topic for this noticeboard, however. Collect (talk) 20:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't know why you provide sources for things like "supreme measure of punishment" by extrajudicial organs between the end of the civil war (1921) and Stalin's death (1953)–at least 682,000 out of a total of 800,000" – we're dealing with the question of whether the introduction by Courtois is a reliable source for 100 million victims. Zloyvolsheb (talk) 21:29, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• The number isn't used as a fact but as an upper estimate. While Courtois may have his critics, he is not alone. Benjamin Valentino cites other authors like Matthew White estimating 81 million and Todd Culberston estimating 100 million. Valentino concludes that these estimates be considered at the high end of the plausible range of deaths attributable to communist regimes, and that is the way it is used in the article. --Nug (talk) 20:32, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• We should not use the estimate of one author and claim that that is the generally accepted range. We need a secondary source that explains the ranges used by various authors and how widely accepted the various ranges are. Adding up Courtois' numbers btw I get 95,360,000, not 100 million (20+65+1+2+2+1+0.15+1.7+1.5+0.01=95.36). TFD (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

A reason to say "65 to 95 million" then. Collect (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

• Yes, this book certainly qualify as RS. According to WP:RS, there are three components to consider: (a) the creator of the work, (b) the publisher, and (c) the piece of work itself. Speaking about (a), this is written by mainstream researchers. For example, Stéphane Courtois, who contributed a couple of chapters of the book and introduction, is a French historian, expert in communism history and research director at French National Centre for Scientific Research, (according to page about him), not a fringe writer. Speaking about (b), it was published by Harvard University Press. Speaking about (c), I suggest to actually read the book, and not only the introduction, but at least some chapters from the book. After reading the book and being familiar with the subject, I think this is actually the best secondary source on the general subject of communist repression. There are better sources on specific countries like Russia, but not on the communist repression in general. If there are better books on this general subject, please tell what they are, and I would like to look at them. Every notable book on political subjects has a lot of critics and supporters, but this does not invalidate the source.

As about the numbers of victims, no one knows them exactly for many reasons, as explained in this and other books. There are only rough estimates, such as this one. But discussion about the numbers belongs to talk page of the article, not here. P.S. Speaking about numbers for the Soviet Union, 20-25 million of "killed" (including people killed by man-made hunger) is an estimate provided, for example, by the Soviet Politburo member Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev in his book "Sumerki" ("Twilight"), and I saw much higher numbers in other books. My very best wishes (talk) 21:22, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, following your logic, Courtois' introduction is reliable because it was published in Harvard. However, the major contributor of this book is Nicolas Werth, whose chapter on the USSR was highly commended. This chapter is arguably the major factor that forced us to treat the BB with due respect (and, probably, the main reason for re-publishing the BB by Harvard). And this author publicly disagreed with Courtois' dishonest play with figures, and with his attempt to equate Communism and Nazism. In connection to that, I do not understand why did you decide that the opinion of Courtois has greater weight than that of Werth. By the way, Aronson's opinion was published by Wesleyan University, and it by no means has lower weight.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:04, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Werth's review is specifically titled Review Article and cpvers four separate and distinct books. Thus it is a "book review" as the term is generally used. Book reviews are not "peer reviewed" and generally are, indeed, given "lower weight" as a result of them being "book reviews." Werth, in fact, devotes only a very small part to criticising Courtois, and that only for the numbers (specifically Werth has no problem with 65 million Chinese deaths) - he mainly has praise for the BBoC, even though Werth says that, as a devoted Communist himself, hoping for a "Soviet Solidarity movement" as late as 1987. If we were to use Werth as the "source", we would still have a "lower bound" of 65 million! His major criticism is on Le Siecle des Communismes actually being the exact opposite of the BBoC - to the extent that it sought to excuse the problems rather than admitting them. Weth ens by questioning whether the vast number of deaths under Stalin and Mao were related to communism or to the "brutal tyrant"s in his words. The WP article at hand simply ascribes the killings to the time of the regimes in power, avoiding that issue. Collect (talk) 22:31, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding "Review Articles" in history, they are normally peer reviewed. "Reviews" or "Notes" or "Short Reviews" are normally not peer reviewed. The things to check are if it is a multiple work or field review with citation of its claims and of a similar length to articles in that journal. Review Articles are normally highly esteemed for analysing the current (or then current) state of research in a field. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:18, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, you probably meant Aronson, not Werth.

Secondly, as an author of many peer-reviewed articles, including reviews, let me assure you that the reviews are peer-reviewed. Moreover, as a rule, an invitation to write a review is being usually send to highly reputable authors. In addition, in contrast to research articles, which may be sometimes seen as primary sources, the reviews are pure secondary sources. In any event, since the BB didn't pass peer-reviewing procedure, your argument is totally insatisfactory.

Re "Werth, in fact, devotes only a very small part to criticising Courtois, and that only for the numbers (specifically Werth has no problem with 65 million Chinese deaths) - he mainly has praise for the BBoC" What do you mean? Werth is a major contributor of the BB. How can he praise his own work?! Re China, Werth is a specialist in Russian history, and he simply leave China beyond the scope.

Regarding the rest, I simply do not understand you. Which source are you talking about?--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:05, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Paul says "as an author of many peer-reviewed articles, including reviews, let me assure you that the reviews are peer-reviewed.", while various libraries state:"Peer-reviewed journals also contain items such as editorials and book reviews, and these are not subjected to the same level of critique". "book reviews are usually not peer-reviewed even when they appear in peer-reviewed journals.". --Nug (talk) 08:34, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Look at the Fifelfoo's responce. Aronson's review is not a page-long book review, but a full-length article, which, obviously, was peer-reviewed (in contrast to the BB).--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:34, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

• I just would like to notice that "Black Book" is not a collection of unrelated chapters. The chapters are related and book includes "Introduction" and "Conclusion" by Courtois, which summarize content of the book, after an explicit approval by all other authors of the book including Werth. The publisher always make sure that all authors read and approved the book prior to the publication (an they usually even sign a form about it). There was no disagreement at the time of publication. Of course, there could be disagreements later. My very best wishes (talk) 14:43, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Probably. However, Hiroaki Kuromiya (Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) called it a "collection of research essays" and noted that two major contributors "'publicly dissociated themselves' from the conclusions drawn in the book by Stephane Courtois,". Later disagreements simply reflected the fact that the introduction directly contradicted to Werth's and Margolin's chapters.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:18, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

The estimates in The Black Book of Communism are more or less accurate under some sort of "You broke it; you bought it" theory which ascribes responsibility for all disasters which befall a communist state to its rulers. User:Fred Bauder Talk 22:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

You missed the point. Which estimates? Courtois or Werths?

In addition, "You broke - you bought" does not work for Civil war and devastation it caused, or for the WWII and its consequences. Moreover, "to be responsible for mass death" and "to be engaged in mass killings" are two different things. For example, what do you think about situation when all victims of Angolian civil war of war in Vietnam?

Application of your logic would mean that we must attribute all WWII deaths to Nazism (btw, this argument was used by Werth of some other author).

It's not my logic, it's simply the logic of that method which is to ascribe the consequences of whatever happens to the ruling ideology rather than to actual causes. For example in China, there would have been disasters regardless of who ruled. Frantic struggles to escape traps produce their own casualties, as they did in the Soviet Union. As to the Nazis, well, yes tens of millions of deaths resulted from the decision to attempt conquest of Europe; without German nationalism 20th century history would have been a dull thing; Czarist Russia would still be stumbling along in endless squalor. User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding China, it is a long story (I recently started to read about the GLF famine, and, to my big surprise, I realised that Mao's responsibility is not as obvious as Stalin's responsibility for Soviet famine of 1932-33. I can respond more in more details eslewhere if you want). Regarding Hitler, I fully agree. However, the problem is, as Ronald Grigor Suny correctly noted, that Courtois does not attribute all WWII deaths to Nazi, despite the fact that Nazi started the WWII. He accuses Hitler in killing of only 25 million people, whereas, as Suny argued, the real death toll of Nazism, if calculated according to the same approach, would be 40–60,000,000. Moreover, about a million prisoners died in Gulag during the WWII famine (when the food shortage was desperate in the USSR as whole). Was this famine organized by Communists, or that was a result of German invasion? Were all the victims of the Civil war in Angola the victims of Communist mass killings? Aronson argues they weren't: it would be totally incorrect to blame Communists for resistance against foreign invasion. However, the BB attribute all of them to Communism. And so on and so forth.

Again, a situation is too complex to allow simplistic and superficial approaches.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

One more quote on the BB:

"Yet one should not assume, at least in the case of the Soviet Union, and probably in other cases, that the figures represent actual executions."

"At least in the Soviet case, the scale of terror presented in The Black Book seems to be deliberately inflated. 'Indirect' deaths are indiscriminately lumped together with deliberate political killings."(Hiroaki Kuromiya. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201)

Therefore, we must choose, either we speak about the victims of political repressions, and call it "mass killings", or we discuss the total death toll (which usually includes, for example, tens of millions of unborn infants), and use different terminology.--Paul Siebert (talk) 04:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• As someone who actually read the book, I did not see any serious contradictions between Werth and Courtois. In particular, Werth counted in his chapter ~8-9 million killed civilians (including by man-made hunger) in the Soviet Union only between 1933 and 1941. Obviously a lot more civilians were persecuted before (Civil War, Red Terror, rebellions, "Great Break") and after (repression during in the aftermath of WWII including Victims of Yalta, "Doctor's Plot", and so on). Now, speaking about the Introduction, it was intention of Courtois to count the number of victims in exactly same manner as would be counted Holocaust victims. Hence the numbers only include direct executions, deaths in labor/concentration camps, and man-made hunger. The latter is different from Holocaust, but it was included because what had happen was forcefully taking all resources of food from the people and then preventing their movement from the affected areas by NKVD troops. My very best wishes (talk) 15:51, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• I too have read the book; in fact, I own a copy. It can be used, but only with great care. It's an overtly biased political polemic, wholly unreliable for interpretations, and in factual matters prone to exaggeration, using every possible negative evidence, resolving all doubts in favor of worst possible view of the Soviets, and amassing figures to give the most damaging possible final statistic. None the less, all or what it reports did take place, though not necessarily for the reasons or in the context specified, and by any estimate the actual numbers are horrific. All statistics for the USSR are subject to great uncertainties, especially population figures. Quite apart from the numbers, there is difficulty in assigning the motives for any one individual or group murder. Whether the deaths in a particular famine were deliberately in order to destroy a particular population, or the willingly accepted consequence of more general problems, or the careless treatment of undesirables, or the inevitable results of a struggling social system is not something to be very precise about--the available sources indicate a variable combination. (it's the difference between We must destroy the economic power of the kulaks, and if this inevitably will result in killing many of them it will unfortunately be worth it; and The best way to reduce the economic power of the kulaks will be to kill as many as possible; or even We hate the kulaks & they hate us so let's kill them--it will also remove them as an economic obstacle.) The numbers given tin the BB are not outside the range of possibility, and can be included as one of several estimates--and indeed should be, to show the range of variation. Or to take Fred Bauder's example, deaths in the USSR during WWII can be assigned at will to either party to the conflict: the Soviets did adopt a policy involving the sacrifice of enormous numbers of soldiers, but at the beginning, it was all they had. Or while most of Stalin's purge victims were innocent of even doubts about the regime, some did want to if not destroy Communism, at least replace Stalin--I am inclined to see them as martyrs, but it is reasonable that Stalin thought otherwise. And whether the Lithuanian and Ukrainian resistance against the Soviets during & after WWII was patriotism of fascist-inspired terrorism (or both) depends very much on one's point of view. Modern scholarly studies are of course preferable. DGG ( talk ) 02:11, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
• MVBW, you write: "it was intention of Courtois to count the number of victims in exactly same manner as would be counted Holocaust victims". You simply didn't read the literature you comment on. The quote has been provided on this talk page that confirms that Courtois' figures seem to be "deliberately inflated. 'Indirect' deaths are indiscriminately lumped together with deliberate political killings."(Hiroaki Kuromiya. Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 191-201) That directly contradicts to what you say.

Moreover, Suny argues that Courois' approach, if applied to Nazi killings would give 40-60 millions (all WWII) death, which again directly contradicts to your unsubstantiated claim that there was a direct analogy between 6 miooin Holocaust victims and 100 million Communist victims. You seem to be unfamiliar with the subject you are writing about.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

• I think you are missing the point. The book is not about Nazi. But this book qualify as a secondary scholarly RS per policy, the numbers are consistent with official Soviet sources, the book is not a collection of unrelated chapters, and I did not see any disagreements between authors in the book. This is all. Yes, I have the book at home for a few years. This is 800+ pages of a highly condensed text reviewing and summarizing a lot of other published sources, a serious work by professional historians... But once again, if you know any better books on the general subject of Communist represiions, please tell what they are, and let's use them. But if you can not find other good books on the subject, it means this is the best available academic book on the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 00:07, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
  • I think that is you who is missing the point. We are discussing not the book, but the introduction, and I asked quite clearly about that in the very beginning. Each part of this book should be judged based on its own merit, and, e.g., Werth's "State against its citizens" neither adds not diminishes credibility of the introduction. Therefore, your arguments are totally fallacious: that is as if you argued that X is good because his colleague is a decent man. In that concrete case, the situation is even more clear: the co-authors of Courtois themselves disagreed with the statement, so your references to 800 pages are totally misleading: how can it serve as an argument if we have a solid evidence (see Aronson) that Courtois did not summarise the volume adequately?
  • Secondly, and more importantly. If we have no better sources, but the existing source has been seriously challenged, the information from that source should be presented as an opinion, not as the fact. In other words, even if this source meets WP:V, it fails WP:NPOV, and you, being an experienced editor, should have to know that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

So, you do agree that the book as a whole qualify as a secondary RS? No one, including authors of the book, describes these numbers as "the fact", but rather as an approximate estimate. Sure. My very best wishes (talk) 01:24, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Int. J. of Design & Nature and Ecodynamics

The aim of the journal is to be a channel of communication for researchers from around the world working on biomimetics and a variety of studies involving nature and its significance to design in engineering. The editorial board consists of respectable scientists and engineers (including a noble prize winner) from over 15 nations and 40 institutions including world leading Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Duke University and The University of Bristol etc...

I came across a problem with editing this article on a wiki-page about the bombardier beetle. Whilst the editor agreed with the inclusion of the link, he felt we could not refer to it as a "scientific journal" or even a "journal" because he considered it unreliable. However, I bring this up here with a view that other might want to reference articles for other pages.

The following claims are made against journal’s reliability:

1. An article on the web which provides evidence that the review process for one of WIT's conferences in 1995 was not good. (WIT is the publisher of the journal)
2. The journal has published a couple of papers which are sympathetic towards (intelligent design)

I agree that the review process for this conference, which WIT was directly responsible for, was unsatisfactory. WIT ran the conference and chose the reviewers. This shouldn’t affect the reliability of the journal, however, as the content of a journal is decided by its editorial board and not its publishers. It is the editorial board who decide what content gets published, who reviewers are and the addition of any further editors to the board. The publisher takes care of the printing and distribution not the content. As the editors (see above) are respected scientists, I have no issue for including this journal as .

The ID argument isn't by itself a good argument because there is no direct evidence that these journal editors themselves are friendly to ID. The journal itself actually carries an editorial comment before these papers saying that the editorial board does not agree with *all* the conclusions of these papers. However, it has published them because the editors believe they present scientific problems of our current understanding of some aspects of evolution.

In fact, the scientific community takes the publications in this journal seriously. For example, Bejan, who is no friend of ID, publishes in this journal and refers to it on his webpage

See contents page of journal for more examples.

Refs:

1. "Journal Author List". Retrieved 17 October 2012.
2. "Critism of VIDEO Conference (1995)". Retrieved 17 October 2012.
3. "Notice msg on paper which could be seen as sympathetic to ID" (PDF). Retrieved 17 October 2012.
4. "Bejan page". Retrieved 17 October 2012.

WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 13:17, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The journal is carried by the institutional subscription of a major university, so it is not total junk. However if you go to this site, you can see a bunch of citation metrics for the journal. If you combine that with the rankings for journals in the environmental sciences here, you can see this one is ranked 200th or so. With other metrics it may rank better, but clearly it is low quality. Note that, at least in psychology, credible journals do publish papers on things like parapsychology (supporting, not opposing). The problem is credible researchers at times find statistical flukes supporting such stuff and journals then accept the paper, sticking to the letter of their criterion for acceptance. Churn and change (talk) 17:12, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

• First, you're being a bit disingenuous about what brought you here. Although there's plenty of editor conflict over at bombardier beetle regarding the creationists' stance, this reference hasn't been inserted there, and you haven't edited that article. Rather, what's going on is a sort of slow-motion edit war over the section title of a list of articles published by intelligent design advocate Andrew McIntosh. Are they "journal articles"? "Scientific articles"? Just plain "articles"? I note that IRWolfie- has already attempted to solve this problem by formatting the publication listings somewhat differently. An alternative, and what I would recommend, is to simply strike the list of papers and patents entirely; while consensus tends to include lists of published books for academics, there is rarely an onus to include full lists of articles ("journal" or otherwise). Misplaced Pages is not, after all, an full index of published research. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 18:04, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Citation score comparison at this stage isn't completely fair as the journal is relatively new (5 years old). It takes time for articles to be referenced. Remember, the peer-review process can take from months to even years. The fact of the matter is that the journal is a peer-reviewed journal by a high quality scientific community. Squeamish Ossifrage, your comments are unfair - I stated above that the reasons for bringing it here wasn't about the article you mentioned but because of references and possible future references elsewhere. I'm not asking for a recommendation on the paged entiled Andrew McIntosh, I'm asking whether we can regard the journal as WP:R. As the scientific community do, I struggle to see why we can't. Please provide evidence. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 09:03, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

See page header. We need to know the precise source you are thinking of using, and the statement you want to source from it. We don't do the kind of general yes/no you seem to be looking for. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The issue at stake here isn't whether the content of the article or the journal is accurate. The issue isn't even whether the journal can be regarded as 'scientific'. The issue is whether or not it can be regarded as a 'journal'. If it's carried by a major university then surely it has that right? Whether or not I agree with the premises and conclusions of the papers published in it is irrelevant. Saying that, the way that the page is laid out currently looks like a reasonable compromise to me. --PalavaNet (talk) 09:42, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I notice that the subject of the article tried to add a referenced statement regarding another paper from the same journal (see discussion page of article). Was that really unacceptable? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 10:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

To add clarity. The following comment was added under the dawkins statement: "The issue at stake is that the second law of thermodynamics concerns entropy increasing in an isolated system. The proponents of evolution insist that because the earth is in an open system (where heat and mass transfer are allowed through the boundary) that entropy could readily decrease in such a system since outside there will be a compensatory overall increase, and that this could lead to the development of the necessary sophistication for living systems. Those scientists arguing against this hypothesis maintain that even in an open system, random energy input will not produce complex and mutually dependent systems required for life without there being an existing or embryonic system there to begin with. A full discussion is in the paper Information And Entropy – Top-down Or Bottom-up Development In Living Systems?".

The comment was reverted because this journal was considered unreliable. Is this really reasonable? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 10:46, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

When and where was this? Diff please, as your contributions going back to April 2007 don't appear to include Bombardier beetle. . dave souza, talk 11:19, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It was another users contribution. This is a separate issue from the Bombardier beetle. Diff Here WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 11:30, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

The article is reliable for describing what stances McIntosh has taken. It's a primary source, but this is a valid use of a primary source. On no account must we endorse any of the article's arguments in Misplaced Pages's voice. This particular article is fringe science although other articles in the journal might not be. Write it up as "In an article of (date) McIntosh wrote that...". By the way, the section headed Biography contains little biography. Most of the material should be in a section Views. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this a way forward and will edit article accordingly. Have you read the paper and come to the conclusion that the individual paper is a fringe science? I've personally read the paper and its a bit more tricky than to simply state its a fringe science. The majority would disagree with the conclusion of the paper but the main article itself presents a very valid problem with the current understanding of evolution. I think it is a valuable contribution to the field and so do the editors of the journal. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:01, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

"The majority would disagree with the conclusion" = fringe science of some kind. It doesn't really matter what kind. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:26, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should restate that. "The majority would disagree with some conclusions". Yes a sentence or two in the conclusion could be considered as "fringe science". However, the rest of the article isn't fringe science and would be acceptable to most scientists. Indeed, this is the reason for the notice on the paper but at the same time, letting the article be published. I hope my edits are acceptable. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:29, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Tweaked the edit to avoid giving undue weight to McIntosh's fringe view equating thermal physics with "the necessary sophistication for living systems", a common creationist misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics. Ok as a primary source, but not to be given undue weight. . dave souza, talk 12:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, I think we can close this discussion. Thank you for everyones contributions. Will copy this over to the talk page of the article in due course WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 13:22, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the RS aspect seems handled, but please do keep in mind that there might be other very valid editor concerns with using this source. Consider WP:NOTE, and WP:DUE. WP does not aim to include summaries of every paper ever published of course.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. I do resent the fact that the article was orginally written with the intent to discredit the professor i.e. a personal attack. It's also very bad that the two editors dealing with the original discussion did what the could do belittle the prof in their discussion with rather than dealing with it as it was done here (see article talk page). What's wikipedia's policy on dealing with people writing/editing articles for this kind of reasons? WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 12:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Relevant articles can be found at WP:BLP and WP:AGF. In general, of course, WP:NPOV applies. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:06, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I think I am saying the same thing, but edits which belittle a theory, should not be deleted just because such edits can be construed as insults to living people who agree with that theory. Some theories are controversial, and we must report controversial ideas as controversial ideas (if we report them). In such cases, WP:BLP should not be abused so as to protect controversial theories.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Belittle a theory - absolutely fine. Belittle a person - that's got to be wrong. WikiJonathanpeter (talk) 20:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, right and wrong are things people disagree about in this type of situation. For WP, it depends on how well sourced and notable the belittling is. We just report it. For controversial ideas we have a responsibility to make it clear that they are controversial. If that can be argued as belittling someone who associates with such theories, then for better or worse that is just part of being involved in controversy. WP itself tries to avoid creating controversies, but we do report them.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:13, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

The History Files

Hey Does Misplaced Pages considers The History Files (http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/) as a Scholar work; of-course on history? 117.211.84.74 (talk) 12:16, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be tertiary. You could probably drill down to the sources using this. - Sitush (talk) 12:21, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

InddedIndeed, it is? From the very first swift look, the main sources mentioned by The History Files are worthy. Allow me to say that your comments under-explain what your're looking to highlight?

Thanks to you, I've just had a good look at WP:TERTIARY, and I end up concluding that Misplaced Pages encourage the use of scholarly tertiary sources.

Again, we're struck over the same -- Does Misplaced Pages considers The History Files (http://www.historyfiles.co.uk/) as a Scholar work; of-course on history? 117.211.84.74 (talk) 12:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Can you be more specific regarding how you would like to use the source? Which article? For what statements? Etc. My point was that although tertiary sources are ok, if we can provide a secondary source then that could be better. - Sitush (talk) 12:45, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Not reliable for history. The articles are introductory overviews, and there is no indication that they are all scholars. That's the general principle; if per Sitush you want to make a more specific enquiry we will consider it. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:50, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

It's about page also notes that it accepts contributions from anyone.--Brianann MacAmhlaidh (talk) 12:52, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, tertiary sources are acceptable; obituaries are commonly used in GA articles (and probably FA ones; didn't check). Whether they can be used depends on author, publisher and content cited. In this case the publisher is not an RS (seems pretty much close to user-generated content based on strong sources). I think we should directly use the sources they mention; the site is useful for research purposes, and looks good enough to be used in the external links section. Churn and change (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Easy guyz, easy! Sitush, thanks for the clarification; but, when content broadcasting is involved encyclopedia-wise, it has to be either way -- definitely not MUST but SHOULD (because the website is focused on a very single subject, History; unlike Misplaced Pages, which has a wider scope); at-least, I'm asking you to be specific.... let me explain, it's like whether the work is scholarly or not? We cannot apply dichotomy with subsets:- scholarly and fringe. The website is a single entity, and what I've asked is quite an easy one!

Itsmejudith, thanks for commenting; but when was the last time you read WP:TERTIARY? The article says, "Tertiary sources are publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources.... (contd).... Reliably published tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics...." 117.212.43.201 (talk) 05:33, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, the content seems quite updated! The job appears to be worthy, and the sources aren't unworthy; as Churn and change also end up observing. 117.212.43.201 (talk) 05:43, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

The questions of whether it is tertiary or not, or academic or not, areless important than the question of whether the source can be shown to have a reputation for fact checking, concerning the subject matter it is being cited for, therefore (1) the context IS important and (b) the most important point made so far is that this source seems to allow anyone to contribute. Is there any sign that controbutions are vetted in any way, and/or that the source is respected and cited by people who can be reasonably expected to know something about history?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 10:59, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes, needs a bit exercise! Just a little disagreement Andrew, whether it's scholarly or fringe does matters; but so does the reputation for fact checking! Their about page mentions three points:- 1. "First, and least, many are drawn from news media and contain archaeology or science-based news on historical or prehistoric topics."....(contd).... 2. "Secondly, a few are reproductions of previously published material.".... (contd).... 3. "Thirdly, and most importantly, many features are contributions from individuals with an interest in, and some knowledge of, history. Anyone is welcome to submit material. Submitted material will be highlighted on the front page as a banner feature for at least seven days, and the author will be fully credited for their work, with their name appearing on the appropriate features index page, something that only happens for original material. The work must be your own, and not a direct copy of something that already exists." Now, it's very much evident from point 1 and 2 that the reputation of the sources does matters to them, and they take the job seriously by keeping things updated; so fact checking should be fine. But, point 3 is a bit tricky to resolve here? I think they does expect the chap to be familiar with the subject if he/she looks forward to ask for kind of an an edit request. Point 2 backs up that the work is definitely reviewed; so yes, there is sign that the contribution are vetted. 117.212.46.75 (talk) 12:50, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Concerning your second sentence, I did not say that being fringe does not matter. Being reliable matters more. We report fringe theories under some circumstances. Concerning your bigger point this situation can approached by asking whether any other sources treat this source seriously. That a source sees itself as serious is not enough.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:08, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, a number of the the sources used by them are good (as WP:PROF + WP:BIO may not be equal to WP:RS), and rest of the sources used by them are very good (WP:RS); though, not all the sources used by them are WP:RS, but no any such fringe theorists are cited.

The content remains updated, and the contributions are vetted if in case kind of an edit request is made.

BUT as Andrew asked, "whether any other sources treat this source seriously", I admit that I'm kind of struck here!

And, it would be real nice if we may some more participators, or else the good source may be derailed here? 117.212.42.125 (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

iFixit

Is iFixit as a source for components in a phone such as the iPhone 5 a reliable, from what I read, they have a history of being mentioned by other known reliable sources such as Reuters and Engadget. Also, if anyone has any light on this, would you consider the scale used by iFixit in their teardowns as "arbitrary"? YuMaNuMa 00:10, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

In the example I said the author provided his opinion as "7 out 10" which is an arbitrary scale. iFixit sells tools used for working on product repairs. What is the community's thought on including it as a source to reference something like "battery capacity is xxx mAh" where there's more commercially neutral and credible source available? The site has commercial interest to pull traffic from links it generates and the traffic that turn into leads. While Wiki is no follow, it is traffic for them no less. If the author is making commission on products purchased(if..) then permitting these kind of sources further encourage these authors to insert them for their gain, sometimes through addition of extraneous information that's not exactly informative rather than to improve encyclopedia. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:46, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The source that you provided to replace iFixit could well be basing their claims on iFixit's teardown as it didn't disclose where it located its source on the capacity of the battery from. By the way, if you haven't notice the teardown was conducted by a team not an individual. As stated before on the talk page, most websites are commercially motivated and pure neutrality generally doesn't exist. We cannot simply assume an ulterior motive is present when it hasn't been proven, for all we know iFixit may have a sponsorship contract with Apple. Similarly since most news website host Google Ads, do we assume that any content regarding Google is biased due to their reliance on their ad system to generate revenue? When I first added that scale I didn't remotely mention the score that the reviewer gave, I simply stated that it received a higher score than its predecessor which is valid and the reasons for such a conclusion is stated throughout the review. The process of teardown is also very transparent and would shed light on why such a score was given. Reviews and reception of a device are subjective by its very nature but that doesn't mean it has no place on Misplaced Pages, we are not here to run hundreds of test to prove a point as done in laboratories. We try to do what we can to make the article appear as neutral as possible and one way of doing so is removing the scores and only including reasons for the score, if necessary reasons for why the repair-ability score was higher than its predecessor can be included in the prose. I honestly don't see why it should be seen as a less reputable source due to the website marketing other goods. I don't want to be offensive here, but your last statement is quite cynical and clearly doesn't show your will to assume good faith in other editors. I've been frequently editing technology articles for about 2 years and iFixit has always been seen as a reliable source for component information on Misplaced Pages and elsewhere. YuMaNuMa 03:13, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I consider them reliable for information about products, as much so as any other review site except a major magazine. They don't sell the products. The suppliers of tools and infrastructure of various sorts have every interest in providing reliable material about the products for which their products are relevant, and in printed form too, have a long history of reliability. I wouldn't trust them for a comparative review of small tool-kits, or of apple replacement parts, but as for apple products, certainly. Every site in the world has a purpose to pull traffic--even we at WP consider it a sign of our own importance, and use it to advertise to raise money from donors. That's too indirect. Technical sites aiming for a technical audience have every reason to be accurate, or nobody would use them. DGG ( talk ) 04:20, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I replaced the source for battery info to . Someone reverted back to iFixit. How does it get determined which source is more credible? Also wuould you respond to my general question your talk page? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:33, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

• If that's settled, I'll restore the iFixit source for information on the capacity of the battery. Can't reasonably see a conflict of interest existing in such a simple non-subjective claim. In addition, clear indisputable images of the battery have also been provided. 1YuMaNuMa 04:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Settled? Not just yet. I asked if iFixit constitutes higher credibility source than TechdigestTV. That question has not been answered. Don't jump the gun. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Jump the gun? What more do you want, they provided visual images and TechDigest provided absolutely nothing on where they got their source from in regards to iphone 5 battery info. YuMaNuMa 04:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

"as much so as any other review site except a major magazine" in DGG's view. So now, we need to wait a bit before you just determine that iFixit's in-house research trumps that of other review site's information. Also, as a general practice, you saying "if no reply, I'll revert", doing so six minutes later is unreasonable. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Read the reply on my talk page, I explained very clearly why I made the changes - it wasn't a revert. I'm being as patient as possible here, from what I can make of your conversions with them not one out the 2 other editors in the iPhone 5 article agree with your interpretation of what constitutes a reliable source and whether the sources inserted are considered reliable. We have already substantiated that ExtremeTech and iFixit are reliable sources for the statements and claim they support in the article. Correct? YuMaNuMa 04:52, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

RN hasn't commented on ET. RfC on ET and other sources are still in progress. It has not been concluded. Why couldn't you just wait a few days before doing anything else? Cantaloupe2 (talk) 04:55, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Simply put, I didn't think it would still be a problem after the changes for a reasonable person. I also never said our dispute was settled, I said this dispute was settled because photographic evidence in most if not all reasonable situations overrides textual evidence by a secondary source with no further reliance on another primary/secondary source. YuMaNuMa 05:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

It became an issue when it was contested by someone that another source said 1400mAh. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 05:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This conflict of sources and content was never put forth before and it's the first that I'm hearing of it in our debate. The information that you're relying on is an assumption predicted by a firm that conducted a survey on the cost of the iPhone 5 components. That information was published before the actual release of the phone and this source which is relying on information from eeTimes also clearly reports that the estimate is an assumption of the components. YuMaNuMa 05:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

• I'm going to post this comment as often as I can - stop editing content that is in question. The summarising of similar ideas such as "The iPhone 5 received mainly positive/favorable reviews from commentators and reviewers" is not considered WP:Synthesis from I can conclude from reading DGG's comment on the iPhone 5 talk page. YuMaNuMa 05:35, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I would say that so far this discussion is going nowhere. Neither of you are following the guidelines at the top of the page. Please slow down and have a look.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:45, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary means that its a subjective scale. "comparitively, it has taken 25minutes to repair the iPhone4 while the iPhone5 took 10 minutes under all else being equal" is simple reporting. If the editor "gives" it "7 out of 10" that's arbitrary scale which is more or less pulled out of his butt based on his personal experience. Your statement that "photographic evidence trumps it" has a problem in that its only representative of the sample they tore apart. Electronics have variation between production lot. For example, someone can take a picture of a component on the car and say "the MY2006 make model uses this clutch plate, as shown in photo", therefore the MY2006 car uses that part." the clutch plate used can vary depending on build date. So, its only accurate if it was attributed "the unit disassembled by reviewer contained 1440mAh" as opposed to "the model uses 1440mAh" which paints a generalized assumption that it holds true for all revisions. You'll also see that official specs often reads "specifications subject to change". It's a speculation to assume that review sample's component specs represents all. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

We've been over this already... A lengthy debate that covers most if not all possible points has been provided to responders, let them decide. Move what you just said to the section above and I'll reply to it as I don't want to turn this section into another seemingly purposeless debate that moves in some circular flow. Add your own view below mine if you wish. YuMaNuMa 02:19, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Reply If it's properly attributed and said "iFixit found its product sample to contain 1440mAh battery" as opposed to quoting it in info-box as if its form the official specification, I have no issue with it. Variation from one revision to another is common in electronic products. These two Philips shavers I've got laying around contains NiMH in one, Li-Ion in the other. Different production codes.It would be incorrect to Assume and say "the xx model contains xx type", but if it read "the sample that was torn apart contained" it is clearer. Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:25, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Find me a source that differs from iFixit's claim and is not an assumption and we'll start from there. What you're saying now is absolutely absurd and I don't want to entertain such nonsense. This is simply another example of your ridiculous assumptions that have absolutely no basis whatsoever. It's clear indication of wanting to win an argument for the sake of it. YuMaNuMa 02:30, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

You're making a personal attack. I replaced it with Apple's official spec, which makes no claim of specs, which should be uncontroversial, but you claim that "its disruptive". There's no rule that says "If source B says the same thing as source A, source A prevails." Cantaloupe2 (talk) 02:41, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

No, I'm attacking your absurd assertions, there's a difference. It's controversial because I have an issue with it that was made known to you half an hour ago and ultimately an issue with how you view Misplaced Pages's policy and your interpretation of it. iFixit has clear evidence that allows editors to add information, you're claiming it's incorrect - prove it, "the onus is on you" or whatever. As DGG previously said, common sense and good judgement is needed, the situation here is pretty self explanatory. YuMaNuMa 02:45, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Let's start over

Given the information provided above and on Talk:iPhone 5#Do not revert removal of synthesis and Talk:iPhone 5#Bias in wording, is iFixit a reliable source for information on the components of the iPhone 5 such as the battery capacity AND are repair-ability review scores given by iFixit considered arbitrary? Also since iFixit has provided photographic evidence of their claim of the iPhone 5 battery having a capacity of 1440mah, is iFixit more reliable than TechDigest in this situation? YuMaNuMa 01:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

• My view - iFixit is a reputable that has been quoted and referred to by many other known reliable sources. Despite us not knowing their rating scale, it cannot be assumed as arbitrary. In addition, reasons for why the rating was given has also been mentioned throughout the review and the process of teardown is transparent. In the iPhone 5 article, I simply stated that the iPhone 5 is easier to disassemble and repair than its predecessor based on what the source says. YuMaNuMa 01:58, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

I still think that the way this discussion is being presented makes it very difficult to locate any clear point for anyone else to discuss as an RSN question.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Scientific Research Publishing

I'm finding quite a few articles in journals published by Scientific Research Publishing used as references within Misplaced Pages (search for "10.4236" or for links to scirp.org). Given their recent history of publishing scandals (see our article on them) should they count as reliable? And if not what should be done about these references? —David Eppstein (talk) 00:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is tricky and thanks for bringing it up here. I think that we should not throw out the "journals" from this publisher altogether, but rather apply whatever standard relates to retracted sources or sources which have been reliably documented to be unreliable. I've actually not seen a discussion about this topic, and I think it is relevant across the gamut of sources; for instance, manufactured facts have appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, journal articles, etc. In short, I suggest that we presume reliable source status unless or until at the individual publication level it is documented to the contrary. How to make sure that the sources are not re-inserted by someone who is unaware of the un-reliable status of a source is another matter altogether. This would be less of an issue for manuscript retractions as it would for significant errata which often go unnoticed by readers (in particular in newspapers). --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Their journals aren't particularly reliable. They have been around for just 3 years, and the Nature article on them is damning. Just one journal is mentioned as possibly legit. But we accept self-published information from experts in the field, under certain restrictions. A paper published in their journals can't be worse than a self-published paper; so if the author is a certified expert, and if the restrictions are not a bar, then that author's paper can be cited. But I don't think we should go beyond that. These aren't isolated retractions we are talking of. And I guess they don't even have an impact factor we could look at. Churn and change (talk) 01:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is really tricky. I examined a sample of their longer-published journals for a few hours today, and I examined also many of the WP articles using them. The negative comments about them are correct: they will pretty much print anything that appears respectable, which of course means that they have published more than their share of bad material. But other journals of the highest respectability have published plausibly sounding false work also; I consider myself a skeptic about the general level of quality control in scientific publishing, but even I would not have expected such a deluge of retractions as has appeared in the last year or two of papers published in excellent journals. At this point, there is no journal whose imprimatur I consider altogether reliable--we should probably go also by the institutional affiliations of the authors--not that that is necessarily any better--& there is of course a strong correlation-- but it gives us a second parameter. The general level of acceptance at WP of "peer-reviewed" material as being of automatically reliable quality is naive. The reliability of sourcing at WP is affected detrimentally by two opposite tendencies: the tendency of amateurs to put in what they happen to find in Google Scholar, and the tendency of professionals to do a complete bibliography without sifting out the unimportant. Looking today, I've found some borderline papers from these journals in both those sort of WP articles, just as would be expected.

But there's a good side. The authors here are divided into several categories. The first group are respectable main-stream scientists from major US and European universities, such as Irvine, publishing here because it is cheap and convenient--this seems to be particularly the case for at least some of the neuroscience journals. The second group are main-stream scientists from good third world universities, publishing important well-done work, often local examples of general phenomena; some of it in the social sciences I think very good, but the sort that would generally have been directed to a national audience. The third and largest group is people from all countries publishing minor work, at the competent graduate student level, or the sort of work which people good people can do at a college lacking full research capabilities, which has nothing wrong with it but unimportance. The fourth group, which is the problem, is people publishing unduly speculative of just off-mainstream material.

As for the WP articles using them, some of them seem to be articles on borderline notable scientists, who have published mainly or significantly there. These will all repay re-exmination. Others are the sorts I mentioned above--people taking the first specific reference they find on whatever subject, or people adding some very minor work to extensively referenced journals. There is probably no need to re-examine them. (Myself, I think most biomedical articles here are over-referenced considering the audience, but my view is not shared by most the academically qualified people writing here.)

The problem will get worse. This is just the beginning. This is the general problem that first became evident when indexes and package-journal deals started making the low quality work as available as the better: the uninformed will not be able to tell the difference. It used to be that only the most comprehensive universities had the really minor journals, but these were where people could and did tell the difference. (This may just be my Berkeley/Princeton snootiness, of course)

But at any rate these journals are not bad enough to be blacklisted; one must go article by article. Only the experts can tell, and we all know how little we can trust the experts. DGG ( talk ) 04:03, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

The problem with relying just on the credibility of the author is that even Nobel laureates have their biases, need their funding, and hence push their own agendas. A strong peer review process puts a brake to the more ambitious efforts to appropriate the entire field. One could look at citation metrics to gauge quality of a paper (though at times people cite papers to refute them), but for these new publications that doesn't work either. Also, fields like neuroscience and genetics are especially prone to one-off results, even in publications like Nature, so this idea of bending the rules to use primary sources is even worse for those fields. I am not sure why I would want to use a Science Research journal as a secondary source. Churn and change (talk) 06:31, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

I very much agree with DGG's assessment. Being very much involved in science and editing myself, I can but confirm his analysis: a lot is wrong with science at the moment. There's a huge pressure on scientists to publish in the highest impact journals, leading people to make all kinds of unfortunate shortcuts. Apart from outright data fabrication, the most frequent problem is selective publication: people only report those experiments that "worked" (or, as I have heard it described by one high-profile researcher, the "most important" ones), i.e., that gave the desired result. It is easy to see how that would lead to reporting incorrect results and explains why nowadays pharmaceutical industry basically has lost its trust in results from academic labs because, more often than not, it turns out that they cannot reproduce effects reported in the literature. A large proportion of this kind of studies never get retracted... Much of the problem would be avoided if we kept very strictly to WP's requirement for secondary resources: very few review articles get retracted and a good review is, o course, basically a second tier of peer review. Unfortunately, good reviews are not available for every subject, so we sometimes have to cite primary sources (especially in biographies of scientists). --Guillaume2303 (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Photograph?? Does it depend if it appears in an "RS"?

I was looking for photos of Jack Yates when I found this:

• http://www.blackpast.org/?q=aaw/yates-john-henry-jack-1828-1897 - It seems to be on a personal webpage. Since he died in 1897 it's 100% certain to be PD. But it's a personal webpage.
• DeVoine, Reggie. "Recognizing the 32nd anniversary of Black Music Month." San Francisco Bay View. June 8, 2011. shows another photo, so it seems to be the same one, but with a different shade.
• http://www.flickr.com/photos/thirdwardhouston/7280234440/ is a color photo
• http://www.examiner.com/article/the-rev-john-henry-jack-yates-1828-1897 seems to have another photo, but credits "Flickr"

Which photo of Yates should I use? Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 03:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, first, you can't be sure the photo is PD just because Yates died in 1897. It is the year of first publication that matters, not the year the photo was taken. If one of those publications is before 1923, that is the one you should use (assuming reasonable people can agree the photo is the same as one found in an RS published after 1923). If no such exists, look for one between 1923 and 1964, check if that pub. has extended its copyright (www.copyright.gov); in most cases it wouldn't have, and then the photo is again PD. If even that doesn't hold, try fair use. This is a case where copyright and RS issues intersect, leading to difficult solutions. But for a photo probably not a big deal since reliability is easy to verify. Churn and change (talk) 06:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Ah, ok. http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ23.pdf says that the copyright card catalog is non-electronic until 1978. For records in 1978 and later, it is electronic and is searchable online. It also says "Alternatively, Copyright Office staff can search copyright records for you. Upon payment of an hourly fee, the Office will conduct a search and provide a factual, noninterpretive report." http://www.copyright.gov/forms/search_estimate.html is asking for things like approximate year of creation, author, copyright claimant (name in "C" notice), registration number (if known) and other identifyinf information, and for this picture I do not know all of the details WhisperToMe (talk) 11:12, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Concerning what this noticeboard is supposed to be for I think the only thing to say is that a photo source is reliable if it is sure that the photo is really what it claims to be. If that criteria is met, then I think that your concern involves other policies and norms?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 19:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This discussion belongs on WikiCommons (http://www.wikipedia.org and "Commons" and then go to "Commons:Village pump/Copyright"). Things are somewhat more complicated than published before 1978/after 1978 (it is renewal date that matters for whether record is online), but that needs to be thrashed out at the Commons site. Churn and change (talk) 19:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Sanskrit and Science - Edit request - Verifying source

Hello, I recently requested the page owner to include an article on SANSKRIT AND Science. For which the author claimed it to be Bullshit. Hence, I would like to prove the authenticity . Please authenticate this :

Source: Title: Physiological patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique compared with patterns while reading Sanskrit and a modern language.
Travis F; Olson T; Egenes T; Gupta HK; The International Journal Of Neuroscience, 2001, vol. 109, issue 1-2, p 71, ISSN 00207454. ISBN 00207454

Article: Sanskrit

Content :

Sanskrit and Science

. The physiological effects of reading Sanskrit are similar to those experienced during the Transcendental Meditation® technique, according to research recently completed by Dr. Fred Travis, director of the ERG/Psychophysiology lab of Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, USA. Dr. Travis asked his test subjects to read passages from the Bhagavad-Gita in Sanskrit and in modern foreign languages (Spanish, French, or German). In each case they could pronounce the sounds but did not know the meaning. He measured brain wave patterns (ERG), heart and breath rate, and galvanic skin resistance during two reading sessions and during a 15-minute session of the Transcendental Meditation technique. He found that while they read Sanskrit their physiology was similar to those measured during the Transcendental Meditation technique, but significantly different from reading a modern language. Their skin resistance steadily increased during reading Sanskrit and during practice of the Transcendental editation technique (showing greater stability in their physiology) but remained the same during the reading of a modern language.

Their ERG alpha power and coherence during reading Sanskrit were also similar to that during the practice of the Transcendental Meditation technique, and both of these were higher than when the subjects read a modern language. Travis, F.T., Olsen, T., Egenes, T., & Gupta, H.K. (2001). Physiological patterns during practice of the Transcendental Meditation Technique compared with patterns while reading Sanskrit and a modern language. International Journal of Neuroscience, 109, 71-80. Rockthemind (talk) 04:58, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Rockthemind (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)--Rockthemind (talk) 19:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Several problems. First, this is a primary source and we look for WP:SECONDARY sources. The study could be a statistical fluke. The source itself is a journal with an impact factor of 0.84, which as you can see from this Elsevier ranking is too low to be on the chart for neuroscience. The authors are from the Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa (one from the psychology department), and that is not a highly regarded institution, even more so for neuroscience. Churn and change (talk) 20:08, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Encyclopedia Titanica

Encyclopedia Titanica is being used as a source on Edward Smith (sea captain) as seen in this edit] by 92.15.171.215, which moved the previously existing statement & reference to another location. The Titanica reference appears to be supporting the initial claim that appeared in two newspapers from the Titanic survivors Gretchen Longley and Mrs. Washington Dodge that Captain Smith committed suicide. I actually don't doubt that these survivors' statements appeared in the two newspapers following the sinking, I want other editors opinions as to whether or not the Encyclopedia Titanica is a reliable source for this assertion of fact and other possible assertions about the Titanic. Shearonink (talk) 15:34, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

No almost certainly not reliable per WP:USERGENERATED. If these claims appeared in those papers, then there must be reliable books over the years that have repeated the claim and identified who made them and where and these should be used instead. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Brighton Magazine usable as a RS?

I'm trying to find sources for the article 4 a.m. (novel) and I'm really running across a big shortage of sources. I have one from Brighton Magazine, but it just doesn't seem all that reliable. Can anyone say if it's usable as a RS? If it isn't then that'd make a decision of whether or not to bring it to AfD a lot easier. As it is, the three sources on the article have me thinking I might AfD it but knowing if this is usable would help out a lot.Tokyogirl79 (talk) 05:51, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Currently it's used to source the fact that, it reviewed the book - it's a reliable source for that fact. However as a source to confirm the book as notable, I would say not - it's a magazine with local scope and like reviews of restaurants, entertainment, shops and services within the local area it does show that it has significant notability out with that small geographical area. An AfD would not be unreasonable with the sources given. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 08:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm guessing that you're thinking about notability, and not reliability per se. It's a local newsletter, and does little to establish notability outside of the local community, at best. The Guardian source is slightly better, but also does little to establish notability. If these are the best sources you can find, an AfD does seem in order. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 08:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Notability isn't our field here, but I notice that the publisher's page quotes a review in the Glasgow Herald: that, the Scottish Review of Books and The Guardian are all highbrow titles and I'd consider the three together a strong indication of notability.

About reliability, I'd agree with others that Brighton Magazine is only borderline reliable: it serves to some extent as a vehicle for press releases. Andrew Dalby 12:04, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Edward de Vere

Source: Nelson, Alan H. (2003), Monstrous Adversary: the life of Edward de Vere,17th Earl of Oxford, Liverpool University Press, ISBN 978-0-85323-678-8

Article: Edward_de_vere

Content: (1) "In November he matriculated as an impubes, or immature fellow-commoner, in Queens' College, Cambridge, and in January 1559 he was admitted as a fellow commoner in St John's, while still remaining resident at Queens'. In March 1559 his name disappeared from the Queens' college registers; he did not graduate with his classmates in the Lent term of 1562."

Cambridge University Archives Matriculation Book 1:169 -- please verify Edward Bulbeck(e) and H. Crane are listed an impubes per Nelson's book. Also verify John Jobsonne is not listed as impubes on same list (Queens' Michaelmas 1558). John Venn et al per both *Book of Matriculations* (1913) and *Alumni Cantabrigienses* (1922) neither lists Bulbeck(e) nor Crane as impubes but both books list Jobsonne as impubes whom Nelson omits from his book.

(2) "In May 1565 she wrote to Cecil, urging that the money from family properties set aside for Oxford's use during his minority by his father's will should be entrusted to herself and other family friends to protect it and ensure that he would be able to meet the expenses of furnishing his household and suing his livery when he reached his majority; this last would end his wardship though cancelling his debt with that Court, and convey the powers attached to his title."

The National Archives SP 12/36/47, ff. 110-111: In May 1565, Oxford's mother wrote to Cecil, etc. Please verify date of letter as "some time before October 1563" Oxford's mother married Charles Tyrrell. The letter in question is signed "Margery Oxenford" and endorsed "The Countess of Oxford".

Am challenging Nelson's ability to accurately intrepret Elizabethan documents and am also asking why Misplaced Pages would consider a book written by a non-expert to be . Thank you! Knitwitted (talk) 18:43, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Have you looked at Professor Nelson's profile at UC Berkeley: ? And if you have, what grounds do you have for describing him as a 'non-expert'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

I have. The discrepencies between his and Venn's assessment of the matriculation record and the fact that Mrs. Tyrrell shouldn't be signing her name as The Countess of Oxford should start an inquiry. I suggest Venn would be the expert regarding Cambridge matriculation records. But at the very least, let's please have an independent examiner review these 2 documents before further discussions. Perhaps Venn is wrong. Perhaps Mrs. Tyrrell had a brain fart. Until proof is provided that Nelson's interpretations are correct, I would like his book tagged as a possible non-RS. Knitwitted (talk) 19:21, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Re Lady Ox/Mrs Ty. The Lady/Mrs is writing to make requests to Cecil, so there is no question of having 'authority'. Are you saying that mother should express no opinions about the welfare of her son? I look forward to your book on absentee child rearing. As for whether she "shouldn't" be signing her name as The Countess of Oxford, well, maybe she shouldn't have, but still used her title as it sounded better than Mrs Tyrell; maybe she was entitled, as a courtesy, to still use her title; maybe she hadn't married Tyrell by then (the first reference to the marriage is in '66); maybe the letter was misdated by someone in the last 400 years; and yes, maybe there was a transcription error on someone's part, maybe even Nelson, or a typeseeting error that wasn't spotted, or.... Paul B (talk) 20:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The book is clearly a reliable source, by our standards. It is published by an established expert in this area (tenured at a major research university in the subject the book is on), published by a reliable publisher, etc. This is not to say that it is perfectly accurate, only that it meets the standards here for what a reliable source is. To counter any flawed analysis that might be sourced to it, you need to find other similarly reliable sources, and in that case the article should neutrally describe the differences between the sources rather than using one of them as an excuse to ignore the other. Your own speculations about what certain historical people should or should not have signed themselves are not particularly relevant, unless they are reliably published. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

The book includes a huge amount of detailed material based on archival sources. In any undertaking as vast as that the odd slip-up will inevitably occur (not that I am accepting that these specific assertions are slip ups. I wouldn't know). Individual mistakes in obscure matters of detail do not make a source unreliable in Misplaced Pages's sense. That's not to say we should slavishly repeat factual errors if we know them to be so. We can prefer other sources for specific points if they are more authoritative, or simply omit information if we have good reason to believe it to be erroneous. Frankly the points that you, apparently chanelling the spirit of Nina Green, are making are so utterly obscure they are are barely intelligible. How is it remotely relevant whether or not Bulbeck(e), Crane or Jobsonne were "impubes", a topic in which the article, along with every sane person in the world, has no interest? Paul B (talk) 21:52, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Nelson is *not* a credentialed historian. It is not just about transcribing documents and giving your interpretation per document; it is about reviewing prior research and documenting any discrepencies found. It is also about reviewing *all* documents as a whole... meaning finding and pointing out any inconsistencies between 2 or more documents. Nelson fails to do any of the above. Furthermore, is Nelson an expert Latin translator? As to Mrs. Tyrrell's letter, since she resigned her executrixship on 22 Jul 1563 , she hardly had the authority to write such a letter on May 1565 regarding his will. Knitwitted (talk) 14:26, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

This is frankly idiotic. For how much longer do we have to put up with absurd arguments that bear no relation whatever to either Misplaced Pages policy or the realities of academic research? The article on De Vere nowhere mentions the issue of whether or not Messrs Bulbeck(e), Crane or Jobsonne were "impubes", for the simple reason that it is a matter of no importance whatever. All that Knittwitted is doing is latching onto utterly obscure slip-ups in matters of detail that have no relevance to the overall reliability of the book, as if a single error in hundreds of pages of text somehow invalidates everything written in a whole book. Has Knitwitted even looked at the policies and guidelines on reliability and original research? I see no evidence it, given her bizarre claim that we should find an "independent examiner review these 2 documents". So, she wants us to send for someone to compare historical documents and reach a decision? I'm fairly sure I know who's the one having the "brain fart". Paul B (talk) 18:21, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Ditto. This is just more example of her disruptive tactics. Her entire talk page is full of warnings about it, yet she seems unaffected to the point where she spends her time making spurious categories and bringing up specious bullshit like this. You can count the useful edits she's made on one hand. She's a minor nuisance, but if she's allowed to stick around you can expect nothing but more of the same from her. (I'm constantly amazed at why Oxfordians consider these kinds of tactics to be useful in promoting their candidate, but I suppose when starting out with an illogical argument further logical deviations should be expected.) Tom Reedy (talk) 19:22, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I think it is a clear consensus on WP that we do not try to second guess experts in their debates. Consider WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. We summarize what is published in "reliable sources" by which we pretty much mean sources that would be expected to be correct. Undoubtedly many such sources are wrong, and undoubtedly Wikipedians are often smart people who might be smart enough to publish things themselves in public debates, but neither of these points is relevant to this project. Concerning the question of what to do when we find an apparent error, such as a typo or obvious problem like that, is that we should use common sense. As far as policies which we can write in a general way, the only RS-relevant one is that we simply do not have to use all reliable sources. Most difficult to judge in such cases is generally the question of whether removal of a source might make our coverage un-balanced, but that is not the subject of this noticeboard. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:59, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Iowa Source

I question whether a free weekly called the Iowa Source is a reliable source. It is used extensively, almost to the point of plagiarism, in the WP:BLP John Hagelin, and is relied upon pretty much exclusively, without corroboration, for much of the biographical information. According to its website, Iowa Source is a free arts and entertainment weekly in Fairfield Iowa, with no full time staff writers, and publishes reader submissions as articles. The particular article being used as a source, was written by one Neil Dickie, was employed in PR office of the Maharishi University of Management where the BLP subject is a department chairman (to say nothing of being head of the TM Organization in the US), and the article appears to be a transparent PR flak piece placed with a sympathetic local tabloid with no editorial oversight. This publication in general, and the cited article in particular appear to have none of the indicia of a reliable source and wildly inappropriate as a source for a BLP. Thoughts? Fladrif (talk) 20:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

The editor and publisher seems to be a serious person: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/claudia-mueller/54/b55/a43. If anybody has questions about the content, I guess she can answer them directly. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 20:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

You can tell that by a LinkedIn page which has no content whatsoever except a photograph and this: "I founded The Source in 1984 as a means to publicize all the great things going on that weren't being covered by other media."? Really? That the editor and publisher seems from a LinkedIn profile to be a "serious person" is hardly sufficient to meet WP:NEWSORG.

Fladrif (talk) 20:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Added information:

• Some of Fladrif's information seems to be inaccurate. For starters the website indicates this is a monthly publication. I think its clear who Hagelin is in the Misplaced Pages article, and the Source as a source :) is being used for the most part for biographical information as Fladrif says, so I'm not sure there's a problem, however I am cleaning up that article right now so will be happy to go with uninvolved editor's views on this issue.(olive (talk) 22:10, 24 October 2012 (UTC))
• Unfortunately, Faldrif did not suggest he saw problems with this source on the John Hagelin article talk page where editors could have probably come to some agreement, nor did he notify editors he'd brought this concern to a Notice Board.
• The Source is 28 years old.
• As well, the Source says they accept submissions, which is of course different from publishing submissions verbatim, and also invites people to submit articles to the editor. This clearly implies editorial control.

With this added information I'll leave this now to uninvolved editors. If Fladrif would like to take this back to the article talk page that would be fine by me, too. And thanks for the comments, all. (olive (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC))

Reliable sources in other languages

Hey, I want to contribute to ENWIKI writing good historical articles, but I just wanted to know if reliable and academic sources and Encyclopedia in other languages are allowed in here or no? e.g. Encyclopædia Islamica is one of them. I don't want to put efforts which may be nullified later. --Scholarphil (talk) 20:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Generally, see WP:NONENG concerning use of non-English language sources on the English-language Misplaced Pages. Fladrif (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

If the content can be sourced to reliable English language sources, that is prefered. But yes, it is acceptable to use sources that are not in English, IF they meet the same requirements of having a reputation for fact checking and accuracy and providing content from a neutral point of view. See WP:NONENG and WP:RS. About that specific website, I am unfamiliar and will not comment if it meets the criteria. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 21:08, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Foreign language sources are acceptable but bear in mind that we are supposed to use the best sources for the topics covered. Typically the best non-English sources for major topics will be translated into English and in this case The Institute of Ismaeli Studies is translating the encyclopedia. I would use the translation if available because readers may want to look at the sources for additional information. For lesser known topics, for example local history, foreign language texts may be the only available sources. TFD (talk) 21:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding this source, it might be ok for some descriptive factual information, but I'd be dubious about it in general. It is too much of a religious rather than scholarly work (they would deny the distinction, which illustrates the problem). I'd be especially cautious about citing them on anything controversial regarding Sunni Islam. Where there is overlap, Encyclopedia Iranica is more scholarly. Zero 21:32, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Actually this is not only about religious things but also about islamic world and is written by scholars. But in general I try to be careful using it. Scholarphil (talk) 21:56, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Non-scholarly encyclopaedias are generally not acceptable for historical articles. Please read WP:HISTRS regarding the source quality expected in historical articles. (Note that there are such things as _scholarly_ encyclopaedia, written by and for scholars, these are usually acceptable). General reliability questions should go to Misplaced Pages talk:Identifying reliable sources. (The language of publication doesn't matter. However, please note, that some languages of scholarly publication have poor scholarly publication cultures, and this does matter. But this isn't to do with the language they publish in. I carefully check Indian or Pakistani sources from small presses when they're publishing in English). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:47, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks all. Scholarphil (talk) 23:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

YouTube reference in Good Neighbor policy (LDS Church) article

1. Source:

2. Article: Good Neighbor policy (LDS Church)

3. Content:

In 2012, hidden camera footage revealed, that the Oath of vengeance against the US is still taken during the traditionally secret Mormon marriage ceremony.

–– Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 05:44, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That appears to be a video posted by some random YouTube user claiming to depict the secret practices of Mormons. It's obviously not even close to being a reliable source. Nick-D (talk) 07:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

That's what I thought, and there has been an edit war on the page about it. I guess I will delete it again... –– Anonymouse321 (talk • contribs) 07:33, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

David Hicks claims of torture

In Guantanamo Bay detention camp, editor User:NinaDownstreet insists that our article contain the words David Hicks also made allegations of torture… and uses three articles in support:

• www.theage.com.au/news/War-on-Terror/Hicks-torture-allegations-corroborated
• news.bbc.co.uk
• www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/hicks-in-fresh-torture-claims

However, the source used by all three articles is an affidavit by Hicks:

• www.smh.com.au/news/World/David-Hicks-affidavit

Hicks does not actually claim that he was tortured. His exact words (repeated several times throughout the affidavit) are: This Affidavit provides an outline of the abuse and mistreatment I have received… I maintain that if Hicks does not say that he was tortured, our article cannot claim that he said so. It is simply not true. User:NinaDownstreet here removes the affidavit as a source and reinserts the torture claim. My question is whether we must stand by what Hicks actually said by relying on his exact statement, or whether we should accept the reinterpretation offered by the newspaper articles, all of which use the affidavit as their only source for Hicks' claims. --Pete (talk) 06:29, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

These mainstream news sources are reliable for the fact that Hicks has claimed he was tortured. Even if he doesn't use the word himself, they have applied judgement and the normal definition of the term. Itsmejudith (talk) 07:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Here are the relevant quotes from each of the secondary sources (words and interpretations from secondary sources) :

1) "Australia's Hicks alleges torture"

2) "Allegations by Australian terrorist suspect David Hicks of torture at Guantanamo Bay..."

3) "David Hicks has renewed allegations of torture at Guantanamo Bay,..."

We can not evaluate and interpret primary source material this is against WP:PRIMARY and WP:OR. All three secondary sources that i have provided say and verify "David Hicks made allegations of torture"' NinaDownstreet (talk) 07:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Points 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 15 from the affidavit are obviously claims of having been tortured, and as Nina notes reliable sources interpreted them as such at the time, so there's no problem here. Nick-D (talk) 07:25, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Of course it's an interpretation, and we can state it as such, but it isn't "obvious" that Hicks was claiming torture, because obviously he would have said as much. Obviously he did not, instead selecting a more specific - and entirely reasonable - claim of abuse and mistreatment. There is a difference between Misplaced Pages stating that Hicks was tortured, using media articles as sources, and Misplaced Pages stating that Hicks claimed he was tortured, which in point of fact he did not. I don't think it's too fine a distinction to miss - if we know that Lincoln said, government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth, we can certainly summarise it as "democratic governance shall endure", but we cannot honestly state as fact that Lincoln said those exact words. It would be untrue. As with Lincoln so with Hicks, at least to my feeble grasp of truth and logic. --Pete (talk) 11:35, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pete, Misplaced Pages is a mirror of what secondary sources say. There are good reasons for this. A rigorous treatment of this issue, which it's possible editors might agree on, would be for the article to footnote Hick's actual words. But that's a matter for the article talk page, not here. --Dweller (talk) 12:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

There is fairly widespread acceptance that we can sometimes use primary sources to argue that secondary sources should not be used, because they made some obvious error such as a typo. However, in this case you essentially have a good representation of the most important newspapers in Australia making the same interpretation. Such journalists should have been familiar with the context in ways which we can not be. That is what we would generally expect them to have a good reputation for checking. So I see no reason to propose not using their interpretation as the preferred one, because it is the mainstream interpretation amongst people who write about such things. To tweak away from that mainstream would not be in the spirit of WP:DUE or WP:OR.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:32, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Ancient historians - do we treat their accounts of events as primary or secondary sources?

I'd be grateful for some guidance, thanks. --Dweller (talk) 10:16, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Do you have any specific examples in mind? If you search the archives of this page the topic appears to have been discussed in the past; my suggestion is to treat them as primary sources (most of them have been picked clean by secondary sources which place the original publication in context and critically discuss its contents). Nick-D (talk) 10:34, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

As primary. I can't think of any cases where it would be otherwise. But please do bring any particular examples here. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps I shouldn't have been so obscure. I'm currently auditing "old" FAs that have yet to appear on Main Page to see if they're good enough quality for Main Page. (The audit can be seen here - help from other reviewers welcomed!) The specific article that made me raise this question is Cretan War which is largely sourced from ancient texts - Polybius and Livy. If consensus is that these sources are primary, not secondary, the article in my view is definitely not of sufficient quality because our core policy WP:V says "Base articles largely on reliable secondary sources." I note that the article itself calls those sources "primary". --Dweller (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

I doubt the usefulness of the term, but in cases like this, ancient sources tend to be considered as "primary sources" in the sense of being raw data and not commented upon by any modern reliable source, which is what we prefer. Of course such classical sourcing for basic classical events is widespread in WP, and not considered wrong, even if it is not considered best practice. A simple way to improve such cases (but time consuming and of debateable value for many types of classical information) is to find a good modern edition of commentary and cite it as well as the original classical source, with of course reference to any modern doubts or hypotheses when they are relevant, that being the whole point of trying to make sure modern secondary sources are checked. But I would argue that removing good quality classical sources, even if you have nice modern ones to add, is not to be encouraged.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Andrew. I'm not considering removing the content, just whether it'd still be regarded by the community as Featured quality, given the higher standards we apply today. --Dweller (talk) 12:27, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Just for clarity, I know that people look to this noticeboard for precedents, so I wanted to try to help define the limits of applicability a little. Two misunderstandings to avoid: using classical sources is acceptable even if not best (questions about what is best for an FA sometimes create confusion here), and secondly, deleting mention of classical sources is not normally going to be a good idea at all, even if good modern sources can be found in order to improve our article.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 12:38, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

1. Anonymous, "Behind the Veil", @4:00

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