Wikipedia talk:Guidelines for Citing Self-published Blogs

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Contents 1 Templates 2 WP:V Bypass 3 a blog is a blog is a blog 4 Concensus on Verifiability of identity 5 Blogs as op-eds 6 blogs need not be personal 7 Status 8 Example for Discussion

[edit] Templates

Any other templates that people would feel would be appropriate on this page, or catagories, etc are happily welcomed.--Crossmr 21:03, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] WP:V Bypass

Yes, and I regularly argue that WP:V cannot be bypassed. However I've run in to many people who disagree and would like to see it reworded. As such its likely as this page grows and the proposals are made, I will attempt to lobby for a rewording on WP:V to accomodate for credible blogger's who's opinions may be encyclopedic.--Crossmr 21:30, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] a blog is a blog is a blog

This appears on the project page: A website that calls itself a blog but is written by a newspaper journalist, is hosted by a famous newpaper, and the webpage states that the website is edited in the same manner as news stories, would be an on-line newspaper for purposes of this guideline, not a blog. Instead of redefining words for the purposes of this page, it may be better to use adjectival constructions: newspaper blog, magazine blog, personal blog, etc. In my opinion, "Comment is Free" (Guardian newspaper online blog) and "Washington Babylon" (Harper's Magazine online blog) might be considered acceptable blogs, whereas I find personal blogs generally unacceptable. A famous scientist might write in his blog that he has perfected cold fusion, but WP should wait for the peer reviews. True, many personal blogs are reliable, but I think all personal blogs should be interdicted so as not to open the door for a flood of unreliable ones. Are there any current examples of personal blogs that without doubt should be deemed reliable sources for WP? Precis 22:42, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a good question. I'm sure there are. I personally don't frequent a lot of blogs myself (outside of my livejournal friends). I know many professionals do keep blogs. Here is an example from our own article on Livejournal, Bram Cohen the creator of bittorrent maintains (a slightly out of date) journal here [1]. In the context of all things bittorrent and filesharing, I would say his would be a sourcable opinion so long as the identity could be established, I don't see anything obvious in his profile, but I'm hoping they made the connection in a credible way. For example, if someone was writing an article on a notable bittorrent client and Bram had written about it on his blog, his opinion if it was deemed interesting or necessary to the article, could be expressed from there. I think blogs are fluid sources. They may be appropriate in one instance and not another. While we could source his for that, if he expressed an opinion about the latest stock market trend, I do not think that his opinion could be used as a source--Crossmr 22:50, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think his opinion is WP-sourceable on anything. The blog may well be extremely reliable, but one has no independent check on the extent of its reliability. Here is where we perhaps disagree. You feel that the opinion of a personal blogger about subject X is WP-sourceable if she is a well-known expert on X. The problem is, that opens the door for a host of undesireable blogs as well. For example, there are scores of partisan bloggers who are political scientists specializing in the Middle East. We don't want WP flooded with their opinions on the Middle East. Anyway, it may we wiser to get a consensus on nonpersonal blogs first before tackling the thornier issue of personal ones. Precis 23:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

all blogs are personal. That is their nature. Any blog in which there is fact checking and editorial over-sight is no different than a newspaper column or magazine and isn't really a blog. We're only putting forth this person's opinion, not any facts based on what they've written and it would be attributed as such. As for partisan political scientists and their opinions on the Middle East, they would have to be weighed on the individual article and how their inclusion would benefit the article. NPOV would require a proper balance to the writing. I'm not sure what you actually have in mind as a blog, could you give me an example?--Crossmr 00:55, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

An example that has caused much discussion on other pages is the personal blog of Jeff Weintraub [2]. No consensus was reached, but I felt that as sharp as his political analysis may be, it should not be WP-sourceable, lest it open the door for dozens of more dubious partisan blogs from other political scientists. As for your statement that all blogs are personal, the fact that newspapers and magazines use the word "blog" in a different sense than yours should cause you to reassess your definition. You are not suggesting that the Guardian and Harper's are mistaken in their terminology, are you? As for weighing each individual case, that is certainly important, but we need guidelines to do so. That's one of the reasons for this project. I think your guidelines for personal blogs are too lax and will result in an outpour of references of questionable reliability. Precis 01:36, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Just because a media source has taken the word blog because its trendy and applied it to something its not doesn't require us to rethink the word blog. Blog was originally coined as someone who self-published an online journal. Its what the American media can do to trendy words, but thats another discussion. Thats why one of the proposed points is a definition of the term. If that helps you to see what guidelines are being proposed here, this is referencing self-published blogs only. If there is editorial oversight then it ceases to be a self-published source and would no longer be covered by these things. If the blog is not self-published then there are other rules for its use regarding credibility and such things. I suppose if necessary we can change the title of the article to read "Guidelines for Citing Self-published Blogs". I don't see there being any editorial oversight on the blog you posted me. Just seems like his personal blog. You jump back and forth here and its hard to follow what you're getting at. Personally I see no problem with referencing his opinion. He's a credible professional in a field (I'm assuming) related to whatever article it is that this guy has come up on. The opinion has to be referenced properly, "According to Jeff Weintraub .....". His blog and no other blog can be used to reference facts, unless they're about the blogger themselves. If he announced on his blog that he'd been diagnosed with cancer a wikipedia page could cite that as a statement of fact. If he made a claim that Bill Gates was diagnosed with cancer it couldn't. As for the guidelines here, absolutely nothing is in a finished state for proposal. As for its purpose, the purpose is to create guidelines that will establish criteria on which a self-published personal blog can be used. Other than the fact that most of us have agreed that the person be a professional related to the subject in some way, we've agreed on nothing else at this point.--Crossmr 02:00, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Concensus on Verifiability of identity

This section will be for discussion surrounding verifiability of identity and reaching a concensus to its definition and inclusion. I think that this will be an easy one with which to get our feet wet, but it wouldn't be the first time I was proven wrong. I think its tantamount that we are able to establish who the person is to cite them. Citing anonymous blogger x doesn't seem like proper form to me and doens't lend credibility to the statement. If they use a professional screen name (for example like Desslock from PC Gamer, who writes his columns under that name) we don't have to know their real name, just that the blog does in fact belong to him. I've put down 3 rough guideliness on how I feel we should establish identity, if anyone can think of other appropriate ways to verify a blog belongs to someone feel free to add them and hack up the existing ones. What I'd like to hear back from people right here is:

1. . Do you think verifiability of identity is necessary for using someone's blog as a citation? Why or why not?
2. . If you agree with its inclusion as a criterion, do you agree with the way its written? If not, what would you change/add/remove?

I'm hoping this initial discussion will help us establish a process for going though all the other guidelines I'm sure we'll have.--Crossmr 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I for one don't agree with the way it was written, but I've complained enough today, so I'll shut up and let someone else talk. Precis 01:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well I asked why. Saying you don't agree with the way its written doesn't much help it be improved. I've again clarified the intended purpose of these guidelines in only addressing self-published personal blogs. Does that help you see how you'd like it worded? We're not interested in blogs that have editorial oversight (they're treated no different then a newspaper column) and we're not interested in blogs consisting entirely of 3rd party content, as you just ignore them and goto the third party content directly.--Crossmr 15:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, let's start with statements such as The blog is clearly identified on a credible site as belonging to that person. When you use the word "person", you let slip through the cracks the many blogs that are collaborative efforts of organizations such as "Scientists against Bush". Precis 21:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Could we start with a link so I could get a look at it to see how its set up? A google search reveals a lot of things that may be what you're referencing.--Crossmr 22:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Do you still maintain that "all blogs are personal"? If so, I guess you wouldn't call the following a blog: [3] . Precis 02:22, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Parts of it are a blog. Anything with a byline is certainly a blog. For example this [4] posting is attributed to Naomi Rothstein. As such that is her own personl work. This one [5] is written by Susan Perlman. That is her personal opinion or take on the matter. Unless there is any editorial over-sight the postings that had by-lines could certainly be addressed by these guidelines.--Crossmr 03:28, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blogs as op-eds

Should be only relevant to journalists. A professional researcher or an employee of a company wouldn't fall under that section. I'd like to sectionize it better to make the categories clearer. Wjhonson 02:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I mean something like A) journalists; B) employees; C) professional researchers. Each having their own criteria for inclusion and exclusion and own area of expertise. Wjhonson 02:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

feel free to do so. I think journalists and researchers are covered at least somewhat by WP:V. Though op-eds can be written by anyone. An employee writing about his company for example could be considered an op-ed even thoughe he's not a professional journalist.--Crossmr 03:08, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

But typically journalists are seperated from employees by the fact that journalists don't really have an exact sphere of expertise. They are reporting the news. So if there's a news story about "Woman flees elephant in Chicago", and an associated blog and after the print story, the reporter blogs, "I just learned that the woman just had a heart-attack". Then is that blog an RS for adding "and she had a heart-attack" to the wikipedia story about her escape ? That's the real issue. Journalists tend to be all over the place in terms of reporting. Employees typically would be an expert in their field of expertise, being the company they work for and maybe the department they work for, but not general information. Wjhonson 03:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

And then I guess you'd have to ask the question, Does this blog have editorial oversight or not? If it does it's an RS by any definition, right? But if not, then what? Wjhonson 03:52, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

That's what I started this page for. To discuss blogs that don't have editorial oversight. I suppose the name was a bit misleading and I think I'll move it to clarify exactly what the goal here is. Any blog that has editorial oversight is just another column, and is yes an RS for whatever purpose it wants to be used. Whether to source a columnists opinion, or facts presented in the column, which I've now done to hopefully make things clearer--Crossmr 03:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the belief that associated blogs don't have some oversight. For instance, right now, our blog policy is that, while National Review, The New Republic, and ESPN are reliable sources, the blog at National Review Online, The New Republic's blog "The Plank," and Buster Olney's baseball blog at ESPN are not. It doesn't matter to the policy currently whether those blogs have editorial oversight or are written by otherwise credible reporters, it simply says blog = bad. Someone referred to the Billboard "Ask Billboard" blog in this AfD, even though it's not technically a blog - do we really think that something hosted on the Billboard server would have no oversight? My approach to this guideline was that it would demonstrate exactly how a blog can be considered a reliable source, one of which should be its association with credible, reliable publications. I'd like to think that it's very uncontroversial, but who knows. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:57, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

These are my sentiments exactly! Precis 21:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

And I think that is where you have to address what a blog is, and what is simply a company using the word because its trendy. Anything called a blog that has editorial oversight, isn't really a blog. Its no different than a columnist writing in a newspaper (and I'm sure there must be guidelines for citing that, I just haven't seen or read them). If Buster writes the blog without editorial oversight I see no reason the blog coudln't be a source for anything factual surrounding him, like the cancer example I'd given before, or sourcable as an opinion on anything baseball. I.e say MLB puts in a new rule saying the Designated hitter has to wear a pink helmet. Instead of simply saying "Some don't like the rule". WP:WEASEL wants us to put a name to that "some" at the least. We change that to "Buster Olney has spoken out against the new rule calling it ridiculous and is organizing a campaign against it." At the same time if he wrote "Jose Conseco told me yesterday he was buying the Yankees" we couldn't use that as a source of fact for Jose Conseco's article.--Crossmr 18:46, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

This leaves the door open for WP articles to be inundated with statements like "Blogger X has spoken out against Bush, calling his policies ridiculous." There is no shortage of respected political scientist professors X who write such things in their blogs. Should WP lower the bar by quoting such bloggers' opinions willy nilly? Precis 21:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

and opposing viewpoints can also be included. Every opinion is not relevant or necessary to every article. This project simply aims to set guidelines for which a blog may even be considered for inclusion in an article. There are hundreds of books out there on both sides of the fence regarding Bush, all opinionated. I don't see the articles in shambles because of that.--Crossmr 21:30, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at The Israel Lobby. There is a lengthy section of quotes supporting M&W, and a lengthy section of quotes criticizing M&W. If all of a sudden it was fair game to include opinions of the dozens of respected political scientist bloggers weighing in on the issue, I think it would dilute the impact of the more reliable quotes already there. Precis 22:04, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

And that is something that would have to be addressed in the individual article. If an opinion section is long, then it has to be reigned in. Setting a limit of 5 quotes per side may be necessary, many articles do this. Like I said you could sit there and copy quotes about Bush all day just from books, but his article isn't 8 miles long. Just because you can use them, doesn't mean they should be used in any given article. You've got concerns about one article, there are a million other articles on wikipedia. Which is why its only being proposed as a guideline, not a policy, and certainly common sense for article length and content will have sway here. Simply say we're having 5 quotes per side and the criticism side can pick out the 5 it likes best. These will likely be the more credible ones.--Crossmr 22:09, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Agreed; that's an editorial issue that should be determined on an article-by-article basis, not for all articles in one broad stroke. Perhaps there should be a suggestion that traditionally-published sources should be used in preference to blogs when they are available. Blog sources may not be relevant to these articles, but there may be other articles where they are more relevant. I've worked at length on Disemvoweling, an article which is about a technique used by bloggers. Nobody's talking about it other than bloggers, because non-blogged literature about blogging is very thin on the ground, and this is a minority technique that isn't well known. Sources are problematic for that article. See, for instance, this edit. The information removed in there isn't really disputed, but there aren't any reliable sources for it under the current rules. A relaxation of the rules to allow more sources would allow for the inclusion of this information. JulesH 22:20, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Which is why I want to set up guidelines to help sort out those blogging issues. All blogs are not equal, and even before their considered for inclusion in an article they should have to meet certain standards. Like the example I gave above about the creator of Bittorrent. If someone wrote a new client and he wrote a blog article on it praising it or critiquing it, I think that might be worth a couple of sentences or two in the article. While certain notable topics are well covered in every kind of media you can think of that that you shouldn't even have to consider going to a blog to look for opinions, or additional information, etc. Not all topics are such. These guidelines will not be intended as "Just because the blog you found meets the criteria here its guarenteed inclusion in whatever article you think its relevant to".--Crossmr 22:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] blogs need not be personal

Verifiability: Being able to reasonable verify who wrote the blog is necessary to being able to source it as a primary source. Criteria for establishing identity: Blog is part of a credible site, like a news agency, magazine, or other company and the blog is clearly identified as belonging to the named individual. The blog is part of a site owned by the person in question, and is established as their own words. The blog is clearly identified on a credible site as belonging to that person. For example John Smith's biography on www.examplenewscompany.com identifies that he keeps a blog at livejournal and provides a link or other identifying mesaure.

The paragraph above (taken from the project page) was written by someone who mistakenly claims that "all blogs are personal". In fact, many blogs are maintained by organizations. Here is an example: [6] Precis 07:49, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I think you're mistaking anyone who uses a blog format for publishing content to be running a blog. Using a blogging software to push 3rd party news stories is again not blogging per the definition here. The sole content of that "blog" is the writer saying "Here's a story on this, here is a story on that". There is no content being created by him other than a sentence saying "here is a story". For our purpose here the blogs were referring to are the original blogs. Online personal journals of people. We're not referring to the several ways the media have tried to corrupt the term to mean something else. Any "blog" built off credible third party content in this case would again be covered by other guidelines. This person doesn't express any opinions and simply links to other content. You ignore his website entirely and go source the other content, like the Op-Ed piece from the Calgary Sun.--Crossmr 15:54, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Several here are still confused on what you are defining as a blog. The following common example illustrates the confusion. Two people get together and decide to start a website in which they place their own political opinions on daily news. That is a blog, yet you write the project as if all blogs have unique owners. If you will admit that this is a blog, will you also admit it's a blog if there are three people contributing instead of two? And if so, what about when an organization runs the blog? Let's say that half of the University of San Francisco political science department starts a website called "Scientists against Bush", to which various members of the department freely contribute their opinions on a daily basis. That is still a blog, although this flies in the face of your pronouncement that "all blogs are personal". Precis 21:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Not at all. If several people got together and started a site and each was posting their opinions, each individual opinion would be their personal opinion. It would be no different than for example Livejournal. Multiple people use the site and each has their own personal part to which they contribute. If CBS set up a section of their webstie for workers to blog from and gave no editorial oversight its still a personal blog even if its on a commercial website.--Crossmr 21:27, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

A website calling it "Scientists against Bush Blog" that had several individual users contributing postings to the website is no different than 1 website that has 1 person blogging to it. If you have 10 people blogging, and you can verifiably identify 6 of them per whatever guidelines are created here, then any posts by those 6 could potentially be citable. The other 4 would fail, if perhaps they posted under a pseudonym and you were unable to verify their identity. I'm not sure why you see those as two different things.--Crossmr 21:32, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether you blog individually or in a common stream (i.e. your example of everyone's post being on the news section) its still their personal opinions. The work isn't fact checked, edited, or otherwise approved for publication on the site. Now if you have more than one person involved in writing a post thats a whole different ball of wax. Because it ceases to be your personal work. Its a collabrative effort that has been self-published. You could argue at that point that the post was edited (each person edited the others work) and that there was approval (someone wouldn't agree to keep their name on the piece if they didn't approve what was in it) and as such would fall outside the scope of what we're addressing here. Would a word that meant the same thing, but was different from personal work for you here? I'm not sure what the word would be, I'll dig ouout the thesaurus, but it should indicate the work is that person's opinion and its unedited, approved, fact-checked, etc--Crossmr 21:45, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

I do not agree that collaborative blogging falls into the domain of blogs with "editorial oversight". Precis 22:10, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

do you mean collaborative in which you have several people using a site, or collaborative in which you have more than one person working on a single post?--Crossmr 22:13, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Let's say a husband and wife team up to construct a website diary. They critically discuss all entries that they make, both their individual entries and their joint entries. Neither their individual nor their joint (collaborative) contributions can be said to have "editorial oversight", in my opinion. Precis 02:09, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between critically discussion what one is going to write and actually co-authoring a piece of work. Any piece that is co-authored is not a diary. Any definitions I've found of diaries always involve the fact that its a personal record. If the husband and wife maintained a joint site where they each wrote their own essays, regardless of any discussion that took place it would indeed qualify as such. The Jews for Jesus blog qualifies as such as the by-lined posts I found all seem to be attributed to only one person at a time. That's really semantics though and should the husband and wife team be held to the same standards? As something written by Joe Blow. Yes, and likely higher ones. If the husband was a political scientist and the wife was a computer scientist and they co-authored a blog entry on Bush's latest political snafu, if it didn't involve computers, then regardless of the husbands involvement, she wouldn't be an appropriately relevant person to comment on it. If this expands to the point where you have large groups, say 10 people all co-authoring a single article (why you would do that I have no idea, most authors I think would only want to work at most with 1 or maybe 2 other people on a single piece) Then I think you would have to address that on a case by case basis. I'd be interested to see if you had any actual evidence this has taken place (especially on a regular basis) or if this is just theorizing on your part. If they do something like say "All x of use write on this site, and the works you see here are our works, we sometimes collaborate with each other, and we sometimes write individually" any article that appeared without a by-line would be unsourcable in my opinion because you can't identify it at all. For example one of the front page links on the Jews for Jesus blog linked to an article that had no by-line. While the by-lined posts are sourcable in my opinion, the one without is not. Back to being personal, as I said above on each of those sites, whoever wrote that post, that is there personal post. Whether they have the site to themselves, or whether they share a common blogging space with others, the post is still theirs. In regards to a husband wife team posting together if they're actually co-authoring posts and sharing posting credit its two personal opinions together. Is it still a personal blog? Arguing semantics, no its not. Should it still be address by these guidelines? Yes. Do we need to change the reference to a personal blog, probably not because thats the spirit of what we're addressing here. In the terms of a marriage they probably still consider it a personal thing they share. Now what if they weren't married and they were co-authoring posts? Well I'd be interested to see such a place so that I could have a look at it.--Crossmr 03:44, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Any piece that is co-authored is not a diary. Any definitions I've found of diaries always involve the fact that its a personal record. Wrong. A diary is a journal which is usually personal, but it need not be so. Here is the definition of "diary" at www.dictionary.com : "a daily written record of (usually personal) experiences and observations" . An example of a non-personal journal would be daily commentary by a Palestinian solidarity group on atrocities suffered by the Palestinian people. I can give specific links as examples, but the point is moot, really, since the Jews for Jesus example clarified for me what you mean by blogs. You say their site is only partly a blog, because the items written by individuals count but the items contributed by groups do not. You might want to make your definition clearer on the main page, otherwise you could end up spinning your wheels continually explaining to others that sites that call themselves blogs (like the Jews for Jesus site) are not really blogs. Good luck. Precis 07:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC) P.S. Some "blogs" with no real editorial oversight fall outside the kind of blogs you restrict yourself to dealing with on this page. For example, look at [7]. This page contains blog items contributed by the UCSFL Task Force. Well, at least I'd call them blog items--you evidently would not, unless the task force happens to consist of a single identifiable person. Another example is [8]. This journal records events with both words and photos. I'd still call it a blog, but since the commentary is not signed by a named individual, I guess you would not. Thus anyone looking for guidelines as to whether this commentary is WP-sourceable better look elsewhere--there will be no help here.

I said any individual post should be written by a single individual. I didn't say the entire site had to be written by a single individual. Though on the Free Lebanon site most of the main page content seems to be external links, as such you go directly to the external link and cite from there. You wouldn't say, "Free Lebanon has linked to Jack Smith who thinks that...", I can't comment on standwithus as their blog is 404 [9]. Back to Free Lebanon. The vast majority of that site is non-blogging in nature. Only when you scroll way down do you find any opinion written by someone on the site, or what I take to be such. There are some dated commentary there however its unsigned. Blog or not, it instantly would fail verifiability as we cannot determine who wrote it. Unless somewhere on the site it indicates all commentary is written by a single individual, so we could say that that person wrote it. Trying to source that appropriately would be impossible say "According to Free Lebanon, they think that...." maybe not everyone thinks that and it would be innaccurate. You can't say "According to some writer at Free Lebanon who thinks ..." as its too ambiguous and you run into WP:WEASEL again. You also wouldn't have anyway of verifying that the person who did write that commentary is in anyway relevant to the issue other than being an activist. So as it is, I don't see that site being usable for citation. I think you're trying to expand the definition of blog to include a group who makes statements about a situation. I don't see anywhere on that site that they even refer to themselves as a blog, or try to present it as such by enabling a comment section on the little bit of opinion they do make.--Crossmr 15:04, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I said any individual post should be written by a single individual. That's one area where our definitions differ. My definition of blog items includes journals put together by groups as well as by individuals. For example, if some human rights group kept an online diary with entries like:

• July 20 The government of A overreacted to the protest...
• July 21 The response of government B to the suicide bombings was disproportionate...
• etc

that would be their blog, whether they call it a blog or not. Its WP-sourceability of course would depend on the reputation of the group. If you are saying that because this is a group's blog, there is automatically editorial oversight, then I disagree. Precis 21:34, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

What I'm saying in that case is if an individual writes the piece and presents it as a group post, its a group making a statement. If a group maintains a site where several individuals contribute pieces of writing and each is signed, then its a blog and can be addressed by the guidelines we're trying to create here. While we can verify that yes indeed post x was posted to humanrightsgroup.com but no one has taken credit for the work, to whom do we attribute the opinion? The website? Its possible, but I think you'd need another set of criteria for establish citing websites as opposed to citing an individuals post to a website. Its possible we could write both criteria into the guidelines here, i.e. "When the post comes from an identifiable individual" and "When a post is unsigned on a website". I think you would have to be stricter with allowing websites as opposed to individuals as Bill Gates' opinion is equally valid regardless of where he makes it known, yet there is certainly a difference between Microsoft and Bob's house of software making statements even though they might both be software companies.--Crossmr 22:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Status

Greetings. Just popping in to check on the status of this proposed guideline. This may be useful guidance in a couple of articles I'm editing, but I wouldn't want to rely on it until it is official. Thanks. St jb 12:42, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is useful, but that's just my opinion. Precis 13:44, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes it is just your opinion. There are plenty of situations where citing certain information or opinions from a blog could benefit an article. Just because you think it should cover a class of websites that wasn't its original intent (and which are obviously different from what was intended) doesn't make it any less useful. The faceless blogs you talk about should be treated no differently than for example PETA releasing a statement on its website regarding some animal cruelty issue. However we'd treat that statement now is how faceless commentary on a site, regardless of whether or not it uses a blogging system or calls itself a blog, should be treated. You've moved from evaluating the credibility and relevance of the person to evaluating the credibility and relevance of the site--Crossmr 15:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Like any proposed guidelines its a work in progress. I've got a rewrite in the works that tries to mesh in some of the original ideas from the original discussion we had about this issue and format it to look more like other proposed guidelines. As always your opinions on any of the points are welcome.--Crossmr 15:37, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Example for Discussion

Okay, here is an example of an article where adoption of this guideline would be sensible and helpful, if fine points can be worked out and acheive consensus. Disemvoweling is currently the subject of an AfD, in large part because the sources cited for an article about blog moderation have been mostly a) blogs and b) documentation to plug-in applets. (I don't know why the latter are discounted as sources, but apparently they are.) The question, as it pertains to this article, is whether it should be okay to cite a blog entry in which a claimed event actually takes place (in this case the first use of disemvoweling as a moderation tool), or a blog entry in which the person who made this innovation discusses it; and whether blog entries by other notable persons can support claims of the first blogger. Under the proposed guidelines on the project page, it seems that Teresa Nielsen Hayden would be citable on the subject of herself; but it's unclear whether she would be citable on the subject of her own innovation, or on the subject of Tor Books (for which she is an editor, not an owner). I personally believe that if a notable person states a fact in her blog (and/or the blog entry itself shows evidence of a claim), other online references (not necessarily citable ones) support the claim, and there are no sources anywhere to dispute the claim, then it should be citable. If the subject is a blog-related one, and reasonable people would conclude that the information is credible, it seems silly to exclude it solely on the basis of it appearing in a blog. I understand that this proposal isn't likely to be adopted instantly, but if the article survives AfD it's a good test case for working out whether this guideline should be adopted, and what the details should be. Karen | Talk | contribs 19:54, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be her own invention [10] This link pegs its usage in the 18th century.--Crossmr 21:53, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• Well, that's a good and interesting bit of info. The claim, though, is not that she invented removing vowels from words, or even that she invented doing so online. The claim is that she invented it as a moderation technique; i.e. a forum or blog moderator removing vowels from the comments of others (and not inserting * in their stead), as a way to deprecate the text and make it harder to read, and thus discourage certain online behavior. I agree, however, that it needs to be put in the context of older usage of the word. Thanks! Karen | Talk | contribs 22:49, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

• The only issue here that separates this case from say some other cases I had in mind for the application of this guideline is that almost the entirety of the article would be based on blog sources, as opposed to part. This isn't a notability guideline and wouldn't evaluate whether or not the term disemvowelling has reached a point where it should be included on wikipedia. I would say that her claims and comments that she makes about disemvowelling should certainly be relevant to the article, keeping the article is another question. I got about 110 google hits which puts it on the very low end of things (unique hits). Spelling it with 2 Ls I got about the same, but many were duplicate hits. If you can find some sources for the historic usage to base the article off of, a section for modern usage I think would be appropriate and I could see her blog being useful as a source for perhaps the history of how it came about, and other specifics (I haven't read her blog).--Crossmr 22:56, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Crossmr, your source (better link) is a piece of satirical fiction, in the mode of The Onion, so not a good reference. As it's from 1998, it does still antedate TNH's 2002 usage, but even older usages of the word are found in Usenet (back to 1995).

Ironically, your source is partly correct about 18th century practice, which could delete ("dash" out) not merely vowels, but either the entire middle of the profane word or everything after the first letter: "damned" or "dammed" might end up "d-mned" (with the suffix retaining its "e"), "d—d", or "d—".

[O]n 9th February 1790, Burns told Nicol: 'That d-mned mare of yours is dead.' ...

— The Burns Encyclopedia: Nicol, William (1744-97)

Fiction in particular would dash out years, place names, and personal surnames or titles, in order to seem specific without actually being so. You'll see this also in notable 19th century fiction, e.g.:

Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. ...

"We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before leaving the Rue C—." ...

"In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the — inst. (the morning of the murder),"... "Call at No. — Rue — Faubourg St. Germain"....

— Edgar Allen Poe, The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841).

So this really didn't constitute "disemvoweling", since (a) not all vowels might be removed, and (b) consonants might also be removed. The more accurate overall category might be "(self-)censorship by partial deletion". -- SAJordan 11:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)