Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/archive 15

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How about a Template for reliable resources with Wikipedia articles?

I just referenced The Political Graveyard on the article James K. Dressel and I did a wikilink to The Political Graveyard (I also do this for IMDb, etc). Which lead to a thought; there are a lot of notable sources out there, many of which are used as references on wikipedia and also have article here. What do editors here think about making a template to place on articles that addresses the reliability of the source as a reference? (I am thinking small right side template like {{Wikispecies}} or {{wiktionary}}) What would it say? How would you address rating? Jeepday (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

We're talking about something along these lines farther up on the talk page, if you'd like to join in. I'm interested in your proposal. Wrad 15:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Where? This page is 216 kilobytes long. It may be helpful to move older discussion into an archive subpage. See Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page page for guidance Jeepday (talk) 15:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree. On second thought, let's keep the discussion here. My proposal was more for an inline tag. I'm not sure I completely understand your proposal. Something that explains the reliability of a source? Wrad 15:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Look up Reliable sources/archive 15 in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
An example would be on IMDb a small template that looks similar to {{wiktionary}} with the text "IMDb is considered a good reference on Wikipedia only for basic information." or maybe the text "Wikipedia editors consider IMDb to be a good reference only for basic information. See talk for Reliables Source Rating discussion. Jeepday (talk) 16:06, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
So this would be in the See also section of articles about the sources they tag. Wrad 16:09, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The template addressing reliability of for IMDb would be on IMDb the the template addressing reliability for the CIA "World Factbook" would be on the article The World Factbook so that when a reader or editor is reading James K. Dressel they can click on the link to The Political Graveyard and learn if Wikipedia considers "The Political Graveyard" to be a reliable reference, and if they have questions they could go to Talk:The Political Graveyard#Reliables Source Rating Discussion (just made this up, there is no "Reliables Source Rating discussion" on Talk:The Political Graveyard) to see why it considered reliable or not. Jeepday (talk) 16:20, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Would we need a source to back up our statement about its reliability, or is it just decided by consensus based on WP guidelines? How would we keep these uniform? Wrad 16:33, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

A section Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Frequently used sources that do not qualify as reliable was just added here and it is based on editor perception. I think if we had some kind of rating system similar to what is used in Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/Assessment it could be applied consistently across article (would require some kind of project to set the rating system). Then the discussion about each reference could occur on the talk page of article about the reference. Jeepday (talk) 16:43, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
So, a WikiProject:Reliable sources to set up a rating system? I think it would help. This is one of the biggest problems on wikipedia. How would it be similar to the Biography assessment? Wrad 16:46, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
First step would be to name values for the ratings and define them. using a format based loosely on Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Quality_scale. Jeepday (talk) 16:53, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm all for looking into it. Perhaps we should propose a Wikiproject. We could rate sources and whatnot on their talk pages or something. Wrad 17:08, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Sounds like a good idea, Currently there are only two of us. How can we get more support?

How many sources are required?

Can a controversial statement be concerned a fact by Wikipedia standards if it is supported by one reliable source, while other comparable sources fail to mention it? An editor recently wrote on Template talk:History of Manchuria: "Wikipedia requests proof from reliable sources, but has no requirement on number of reliable sources." I'm not sure how well this matches the intent of this policy page.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 17:16, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The editor may have been referring to Wikipedia:Verifiability The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth. "Verifiable" in this context means that any reader should be able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source. Jeepday (talk) 17:39, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
This guideline says nothing about the number of reliable sources... all we say is that a source must be reliable. WP:V seems to indicate that one reliable source is all that is needed. However, you should note that there are other policies that come into play on this issue. The Undue weight of WP:NPOV would apply if the "fact" is not a commonly held view. Blueboar 21:29, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Press Releases - RS?

Press releases are often the basis of news articles about a subject, particularly when it relates to announcements (e.g., Joe Smith is New VP, Mary Jones to Release New Album, etc). Is it appropriate to link directly to the press release (which often has more complete information) as a reference source, instead of just the news articles that excerpt it? Risker 19:57, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

The bit on primary, secondary, and tertiary sources at WP:NOR provides some guidance. For basic facts such as you describe they're probably OK. For uses beyond such straightforward info one has to recognize that press releases often contain puffery, so it's better to rely on secondary sources that cover them when possible. Raymond Arritt 20:03, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
The information in a press release used as a source by a reliable newspaper is reliable, but the reliability depends not upon the press release, but upon the authority of the newspaper. The newspaper article should be the one cited. The article may have omitted some material which it thinks less reliable (such as praise of the subject), or added some of its own. This is an exception to the general rule that the original source is better, because the original source has no independent editorial control and the newspaper does.,DGG 20:34, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I was thinking specifically of fact information (graduated from..., names of performers on albums, etc.) that would be relevant to the article but may not be interesting or important enough for a brief news report. The puffery part, I absolutely agree upon. So would I be correct in interpreting this to mean that factual information MAY be acceptable, but should be included with caution and other sources sought to replace/support the press release? Risker 20:41, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that's a reasonable conclusion. The more basic and unambiguous the facts in question, the better -- e.g., "XYZ Corp. holds its Annual Meeting on 25 June" would be OK, but "XYZ Corp. is the leading manufacturer of pocket diaper steamers" would not. (What does "leading" mean, for a start?) Raymond Arritt 21:00, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
I think that's about right, but with some caveats re BLP information. In BLP material, where all reliable secondary sources have left out specific information about a relatively unknown person, given in press releases and similar primary sources, the information is not supposed to go into the article (see WP:BLP#People who are relatively unknown). WP:BLP#Well known public figures prohibits the use of e.g. material from public records that has not been presented by a reliable secondary source; I'm not sure how this translates to press releases. AvB ÷ talk 21:14, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
How about we create Wikipedia:Verifiability/Examples? Different people have different learning styles. I for one prefer examples. Jehochman Talk 01:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Sources

Someone left a note on my talk page saying there was a discussion here about scholarly/non-scholarly sources, but I don't see it. The point is that we use academic and non-academic sources, obviously, and this page must reflect that. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:51, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Searching on scholarly would have found it, but it's #A bit that I find questionable. above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:02, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
The policy says "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made: exceptional claims require exceptional sources." No mention of scholarly sources. Any attempt to prioritize them over other mainstream sources flies in the face of V and NPOV. SlimVirgin (talk) 07:35, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
If we want a caveat based on subject area it might be "Primacy should be given to scholarly sources, particularly in the sciences. [That doesn't fly in the face of NPOV at all] Historical and arts topics will often have a greater range of reliable material, scholarly and non-scholarly." It needs a caveat if its to go in at all, but singling out Pop culture, as Tim's edit did, is not the way to do it.
But this will take up two lines on V, so I suggest moving it there. While we're at it, let's tighten the wording on Exceptional claims and move it over as well. Marskell 07:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
The exceptional claims thing is already in V, as I recall. It would definitely be better to discuss this there, because this is just a guideline, and it can't contradict the policies. SlimVirgin (talk) 08:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I've copied thist discussion to WT:V. Marskell 08:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
OK, let's keep the WP:V statement that reliable sources must be used, and add our consensus wording on what constitutes reliable sources in the section on "Types of source material". We can't however try to define reliable sources with a statement that reliable sources must be used - that is circular logic that will not help the reader. Tim Vickers 16:18, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
It's not consensus wording. There are people objecting, and it arguably contradicts V and NPOV. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of section on generally unacceptable sources

Salaskan, please don't add that list of non-reliable sources again. It contains material that's meaningless, e.g. "A confidential source, i.e. those sources which are considered confidential by the originating publisher may hold uncertain authority, as the original cannot be used to validate the reference." That completely misunderstands the policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I notice you deleted this entire section SlimVirgin, but I must have missed you proposing this change on the talk page. When did you discuss this and gain consensus for this drastic change in the guideline? Tim Vickers 18:50, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Tim, there is no consensus to add this, so I don't need to seek consensus to remove it, in addition to which it contains nonsense. Please explain what the confidential thing quoted above means. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
My word, looking that the history I see this page has been almost completely gutted over the last few weeks. Why on earth is this so controversial? Tim Vickers 19:08, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Tim, you're not editing responsibly. You're adding material that is meaningless, then refusing to say on talk what it means, while complaining that others won't engage you on talk. I am trying to engage you, so please don't ignore me. You need to say what this means: "A confidential source, i.e. those sources which are considered confidential by the originating publisher may hold uncertain authority, as the original cannot be used to validate the reference." SlimVirgin (talk) 19:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
That is a little unclear, where you have minor issues with wording such as that, the best way to approach this is surely to re-work the sentence, rather than deleting the entire section? I'd support changing that sentence to "A confidential source, i.e. sources which are considered confidential by the editor who cites them, as the original cannot be inspected by other editors to validate the reference." Tim Vickers 19:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree. The section can be reworded, but it provides a useful guidance about sources. --Aude (talk) 19:31, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Disagree. This is a guideline while WP:V, WP:NPOV and WP:NOR are policies. Therefore we cannot contradict the policies here. We do allow unnamed authors - our focus is on the publisher, not the individual author. A 'confidential source' could be acceptable if published by a well-vetted reputable publication. In general, it is a bad idea to enumerate these types of sources, because their acceptability and prioritization depends on the context and on our own editorial judgment, where V, NPOV etc. are the controlling policies. Having this section in place will only add confusion, nor reduce it. Crum375 19:52, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Tim, rather than tweaking the wording, please say what you think it means. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:51, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

It means that if somebody cites what they say is a secret document and they refuse to show this document to other people, this isn't a reliable source. Tim Vickers 20:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

When you say "this" isn't a reliable source, do you mean the document, or the publisher of what the document purportedly contains? SlimVirgin (talk) 21:04, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

"A confidential source, i.e. documents that are considered confidential by the editor who cites them, as these documents cannot be inspected by other editors to validate the reference." Clear? Tim Vickers 21:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Avoid cross-posting. Discussion is at WT:V ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 21:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

This is a discussion of a different section of this guideline. Tim Vickers 21:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Tim, you're being very unclear. I'll ask again: What do you mean by "this" in the sentence: "It means that if somebody cites what they say is a secret document and they refuse to show this document to other people, this isn't a reliable source."
You can't mean the document, because it's not our source, obviously, if we haven't seen it and it's unpublished. So by "this" do you mean the publisher of the purported content of the secret document? If the latter, it means if the NYT tells us they obtained a secret CIA document that implies X, but they can't tell us exactly what it says or show it, then we can't publish their story, which is nonsense, because our source is the NYT, which counts as a reliable source.
These examples have been discussed a thousand times over the last few years on this page, at ATT, at NOR, and at V. Yet here are you raising the issue again, and without saying what your new arguments are, or what you mean precisely.
Therefore, please explain very clearly and in full what the section about confidential sources means exactly; otherwise, you're just wasting our time. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Tim, I see that you hadn't edited NPOV, NOR, V, RS, or ATT, or their talk pages, until two days ago, yet you're rushing in to add material that was rejected a long time ago, for good reason, and asking us to go through the arguments for the millionth time, which frankly isn't fair. If you want to make big changes, can I ask you please to spend some time reading the related policies carefully and checking the archives first? SlimVirgin (talk) 22:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I realise you may have spent a lot of your time on Wikipedia in editing these pages, but we should be able to work together effectively on this and you share some of the insights that you have gained from your huge experience of the finicky details of policy making. Something we found useful at the Evolution page as to have a Talk:Evolution/FAQ, where you could deal with these arguments you make millions of times to each inexperienced administrator who comes along. Might that save you some work?

To expand on my answer above, I would rewrite this sentence to say - "A confidential source, i.e. documents that are considered confidential by the editor who cites them, as these documents cannot be inspected by other editors to validate the reference." Here, if a confidential document is cited in a reliable source, such as the NYT, we can cite the NYT. However, if a person has read confidential government reports (which would be reliable sources if they were accessible to others), they cannot add the material in these reports to Wikipedia. Tim Vickers 22:30, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Given various brush fires, another one over "confidential sources" is probably not best, Tim. The addition in question was well-intended, but difficult to explain and certainly difficult to police.
One meal at a time. The Evolution/FAQ is good (I remember the article on FAR) and it hits on some of the points we've been debating. (Global Warming has something very similar.) Let's deal with the issue of science sourcing first and, particularly, let's kill as best we can the idea that scholarly sources should be treated equally to generic sources. But let's do it on WT:V. Again, it matters more there.
Confidential sources are not our largest worry right now. Marskell 22:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
No, this is important, because the addition of those sections shows a fundamental failure to understand the sourcing policies. Tim, you wrote: "Here, if a confidential document is cited in a reliable source, such as the NYT, we can cite the NYT. However, if a person has read confidential government reports (which would be reliable sources if they were accessible to others), they cannot add the material in these reports to Wikipedia."
Yes. Obviously. So what you're saying is we don't use unpublished documents as sources, not that we don't use confidential ones. And we know that already. We don't use unpublished sources no matter why they're unpublished: whether it's because they're secret, or because they're crap, or for whatever other reason. Unpublished is unpublished. No need for a separate section on each of the ways they might be unpublished. And because of your failure to understand this simple point, I've had to waste hours today responding to you, but if I don't do it, I'm accused of being unresponsive, and therefore not allowed to revert. It's called hostage-taking in other contexts. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
A government secret report has certainly been published, but it is not publicly available as it is confidential. However, as you feel this discussion to be a waste of your time, I will bring it to a close here and apologise if I have annoyed you by appearing to be uninformed and slow to understand simple concepts. Thank you for your patience. I think I agree with Marskell, let's concentrate all our efforts on the more important issue being discussed at WP:V. Tim Vickers 23:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Types of source material

The section that was agreed on above has now been repeatedly removed by users SlimVirgin and Crum375 with the explanation that this contradicts the WP:Verifiability policy.

The proposed, consensus addition:

The most reliable material is published by scientists, scholars, and researchers, particularly publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses. These sources are preferred in subjects such as medicine, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. However, alternative reliable sources are used if scholarly publications are not available - which may sometimes be the case in topics such as popular culture or current events.

The policy it that it is thought it might contradict:

Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Sources should be appropriate to the claims made.

What is the contradiction? Tim Vickers 18:48, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The contradiction is that V and NPOV do not prioritize scholarly sources, and indeed make clear that all majority and significant-minority published views must be represented, within the limitations laid down by V and NOR. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
In other words, a story in a local newspaper carries the same weight as a paper in the Physical Review? Raymond Arritt 19:05, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I didn't say that either. This discussion is taking place at WT:V, by the way, so I won't be commenting again here. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:12, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Firstly, this is a guideline, and as such must follow the policies, not contradict them. Secondly, our primary goal is to follow WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, while adhering to verifiable sourcing per WP:V. We need to prioritize mainstream publications and mainstream views, not 'academia' vs. news media, which could run afoul of NPOV. We also prioritize well-vetted published sources vs. minimally vetted ones, which is a core component of WP:V. But we cannot blindly promote 'scholarly' over 'non-scholarly' for example, as that could easily violate our core NPOV and V policies. Also, we must focus on the publishers and their vetting mechanisms, not on the individual authors. Crum375 19:19, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
(ec) OK, so a story in a local newspaper does the same weight as a paper in the Physical Review. This needs to be more prominently noted, because many contributors assume otherwise. Raymond Arritt 19:25, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
Scholarly publications, such as peer-reviewed journals and academic publishers, are well-vetted published sources, to an even greater extent than news media. There is no contradiction to say "The most reliable material is published by scientists, scholars, and researchers, particularly publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses." --Aude (talk) 19:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I think the problem is that people read "The most reliable material..." as saying that this is the only reliable material. This is not the case, all this says is that this is the most reliable material and, as a result it is "preferred" in the subject areas listed. I think this statement is true for these subjects - peer-reviewed sources in the sciences etc are indeed usually the most reliable and they are indeed preferred as a result. This is of course completely different from saying that you cannot use non-peer-reviewed sources, all it says that if peer-reviewed and scholarly sources exist, they are usually the most reliable. A guideline cannot contradict a policy, all it can do is expand and clarify such policies. Tim Vickers 19:26, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

How about rewording it to say, "The most reliable material for subjects such as medicine, natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities are published by scientists, scholars, and researchers, particularly publications in peer-reviewed journals and academic presses. However, alternative reliable sources are used if scholarly publications are not available - which may sometimes be the case in topics such as popular culture or current events." --Aude (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Please let's keep this discussion in one place at WT:V, where it matters more. Marskell 19:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Discussion of changes under way

Discussion of changes to this article is under way at Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Sources. This is mentioned within above comments above. (SEWilco 23:14, 26 June 2007 (UTC))

No discussion of change to this page is under discussion there. It's a proposal to change that page that's being discussed. What this page says is largely irrelevant, because V is the policy. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:54, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:RS Guideline Deprecated?

My understanding is that this guideline has been deprecated in favor of WP:V and WP:NOR. This page in current form is mainly a signpost to direct users to the appropriate place. I am wondering why there are ongoing discussions here, when these discussions seem like they should move to those policy pages instead. Jehochman Talk 23:41, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

There's certainly nothing on the page that indicates that it's deprecated. That should be fixed, because almost everyone I've interacted with thinks that it's still in effect. Raymond Arritt 23:47, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I would certainly be in favor of redirecting this title to WP:V. The phrase "reliable sources" is referred to a lot, but that's because WP:V, which is the policy, uses that phrase, so people get mixed up and think this page is the policy. It would be good to redirect it so that the misunderstanding stops. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:49, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
For the sake of simplicity and consistency we should remove this redundant guideline. Jehochman Talk 23:53, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
I fully agree - this should be redirected to WP:V. Anything else causes constant confusion. Crum375 00:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems the "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" part is the only thing not fully redundant to WP:V, and there seems no reason that could not be added there. 2005 00:13, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Agree; the only thing of value in it is the phrase "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources", which should be moved to WP:V. The rest either duplicates policy or contradicts it. Jayjg (talk) 00:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It's in V, second sentence in the Sources section. [1] SlimVirgin (talk) 00:52, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I stand corrected; then there's nothing of value in it that is not already found in WP:V. Jayjg (talk) 01:06, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
There's more emphasis about the fact we expect reliable sources to be cited when we refer people to a page called "Reliable sources". It's useful to detail what we mean by reliable sources when we say that in WP:V and elsewhere. People still often refer to this page and it's certainly still active. --Aude (talk) 00:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
People refer to this page because they get mixed up. It doesn't actually say anything. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:53, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It doesn't say anything, because the passage about reliable sources and scholarly sources keeps being removed. The page needs to explain what we mean by reliable sources, what's generally expected for articles on scientific topics and other topics and what's generally not acceptable. Of course, we have WP:IAR for exceptions. But this page needs to be meaningful and elaborate/support WP:V. It's handy to refer people to this page, with the page title also meaningful. --Aude (talk) 01:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
The page title would still exist; the suggestion is to redirect it, not delete it. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Understood. But, it's more helpful for people to come to a page with this title, and not a redirect to another page. The word reliable is important, and this page can discuss what we mean. What reliable means may be one thing for scientific articles, something else for biographies, pop culture, and many other topics. But, it's an important idea-- important enough that it can't hurt to give extra emphasis, reiterate, and discussion of it here. The WP:V page would be helpful to keep short, simple, and more concise. --Aude (talk) 01:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
This page is needed to give guidance on what are reliable sources and what is not and provide expansion on the policy summarised at WP:V. At present, the WP:V policy only states that reliable sources are "third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" This is clearly insufficient for new editors unsure of what this might mean. However, although more specific examples will be useful for the reader, there will always have exceptions, so any such general guidance would be inappropriate for policy. Hence, this clarification needs to be done in a guideline. Tim Vickers 01:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I agree with Aude and Tim; the problem exists because most of the needed content here was removed months ago (around November 2006, I think) during the writing of ATT. The solution is to restore and rework the lost content hre. We need a guideline that expands on the policy, as we had before the ATT situation. WP:V lost too much of WP:RS, and it was never replaced here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Strongly agree with SG here. The old RS page was tremendously helpful, whereas WP:V is so vague that it invites a lot of edit warring. But I think the solution is to improve WP:V instead of having two different pages that can drift out of sync. Raymond Arritt 02:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I, too, strongly agree with SandyGeorgia. I was very upset to discover some critical content missing, and I am hardly alone.Proabivouac 02:05, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that the page needs to be redirected to WP:V. It's too confusing to have two pages that cover the same ground. At the same time, WP:V in its present state is hopelessly inadequate and needs to be revised so that it gives useful guidance. Ideally we would have a single, useful page rather than two poor ones. Raymond Arritt 01:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
We tried to have one for a while, Raymond; see WP:ATT, and it worked very well, but then it was overturned. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
No. WP:ATT also folded WP:NOR into the mix, a huge difference. Raymond Arritt 01:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It is rather confusing to have two pages, and seems a bit pointless. I too would be happy with a redirect. ElinorD (talk) 01:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I never thought of it this way before, but Aude's rationale for keeping the page with this title seems a very good one: Reliable sources. And i agree with Tim that we need this to explain things adequately.DGG 02:44, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Even if WP:V is to legitimize the liberal resort to junk sources, we should still provide a reliable source guideline to aid those editors who want to produce serious quality articles anyway.Proabivouac 02:14, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Redirect to WP:V and start developing a WP:V/FAQ in which we can expand on general examples and provide answers to commonly asked questions related to sources. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:22, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. We need to keep policy brief. An FAQ would be extremely helpful. Would this address your concerns, SandyGeorgia? Jehochman Talk 05:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Started. Of course, it means we'll still have a page to watch. The FAQ format may be preferable though. Marskell 09:11, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Why an FAQ? The title of this page, "Reliable sources" is more to the point. We should work material that used to be in the WP:RS page, back into it and make it a useful guideline. --Aude (talk) 12:18, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I went back and looked at the RS page, as it was in October. Wow! Folks have sure been busy eliminating a lot of stuff from this page. I don't think that's a good thing. Not helpful. We need to keep this page and work back in some of the useful material that used to be here. For example, the page used to say:

"Reliability is a spectrum, and must be considered on a case-by-case basis. Typically peer reviewed publications are considered to be the most reliable, with established professional publications next. Government publications are often reliable, but governments vary widely in their level of reliability, and often have their own interests which will explicitly allow for withholding of information, or other motives."

Saying this in the WP:RS guideline would be helpful. More of what use to be in the guideline is at User:Aude/Reliable sources, which may have other useful bits that need to be worked back into the guideline. --Aude (talk) 12:42, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I think we need to somewhere provide people with guidance on reliable sources. The logical place to do that seems to be Wikipedia:Reliable sources. If there is a reason to do it somewhere else, I would want to know where else and why. Right now the material seems to be everywhere. Poking around a little, Wikipedia:Attribution#Reliable sources points to WP:NOR#Sources and back to FAQ: Types of source material. WP:NOR#Sources says the main article is Wikipedia:Verifiability, which says see also Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons. Should we pick one place to record what the core policies imply about reliable sources, and summarize it where ever else it would be useful? I haven't followed these discussions as closely as many others have, so excuse me if we have already been over this and point me to the conclusion. Tom Harrison Talk 14:24, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Certainly WP:V should talk about reliable sources, but expanding on it and addressing people's questions in one place such as WP:RS is very helpful. We should build this page back up, to something better than what was here before. But, some of what used to be here may be worth including. And discussion of sources on those other pages could be covered here. --Aude (talk) 14:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
I support Aude's position. There is no need to be averse to having two pages that relate to one another: WP:V should be primarily about dealing with why we verify material (like it says in the "nutshell" box) and WP:RS should be primarily about what sources to use. There was a lot of good content here once. I do not know if the removal was an attempt to cater for short attention spans or something, but that sort of thing is neither necessary nor desirable. Whatever we need to include in order to provide a detailed guideline with good coverage, we should not shy away from that. If V and RS were to be merged/redirected, it would do nothing positive for their content, intention, or usability. Adrian M. H. 16:30, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

We can rename this Wikipedia:Reliable sources, frequently asked questions or some such, and fold in WP:ATTFAQ. Much of that page is consensus, and should be salvaged; much of it is too longwinded for a policy page. This page's bits and pieces should also be considered; some of them may be more appropriate as policy, others as pages of their own. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I like that idea, but the bottom line is that it should be EASY for a user to find information on 'what is reliable', with examples like 'are blogs/newspapers/journals/etc. reliable?'. I have spent countless hours engaged in discussion of whether a given source was reliable or not because we lack answers to simple questions like that. As a content creator, I'd be much happier if people editing those policy pages would stop highly theoretical arguments about semantics of some WP:V wording, and instead ensured we have policy/guidelines answering basic questions asked by content creators.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

As many discussions around wiki show, theory of verifiability is hardly questioned, same with reliability. The latter is however much more useful and in need of being fleshed out and clearly defined, thus I'd say that this page is of much more practical importance then WP:V (of course I agree that WP:V is much more important in theory, but for people writing articles, nine times out of then, WP:RS is more relevant then WP:V).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:29, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

section "What is a reliable source?"

"In general, an article should use the most reliable and appropriate published sources to cover all majority and significant-minority published views, in line with Neutral point of view."

It concerns me that this wording seems to imply that the point of view comes first, and the best sources are found to support it. My understanding is that points of view are included because they exist in reliable sources. Tom Harrison Talk 14:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with you both in implication and correct priority. --BozMo talk 16:37, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
"It concerns me that this wording seems to imply that the point of view comes first, and the best sources are found to support it."
That is indeed a very common approach, and we should do everything we can do discourage it.Proabivouac 02:00, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally unacceptable sources

Some people wished to delete this section as there was "no consensus" to include it. I moved it to my user space, feel free to comment on it here. What exactly does this guideline overlook or say wrong? Do you want to include it or not? Let's try to build consensus here. SalaSkan 14:49, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

This has two parts; a list of definitions, which seem quite reasonable, and a list of specific unreliable, or often unreliable, sources, which is a grabbag. I would support inclusion of the definitions, in some form; the list of examples seems both arbitrary and controversial. (I largely agree with it; but stigmatizing Urban Dictionary and deprecating the scientific content of the Bible both need discussion.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. Examples are out of place, particularly considering we have Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Examples - which was split off exactly because discussion of specific examples was unbalanacing this page. PS. But for the record, I am definetly in favor of keeping the well designed sections on what is reliable and unreliable sources, the reliability issues seem like the biggest achievement of the ATT fiasco.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

a project to assess reliability of frequently used references

User Wrad and myself recently discussed a project to assess reliability of frequently used references here. It looks like there is room for combining towards a single goal. Jeepday (talk) 01:48, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
there are probably some sources you will be able to specify as being accepted almost unconditionally, but almost all are accepted to a greater or lesser degree, and i am not sure how a template will do it. Septentrionalis's examples are very much to the point. DGG 00:59, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Just thinking out loud here, but maybe a rating system based (very) loosely on the example Wikipedia:WikiProject_Biography/Assessment#Quality_scale. Even if you begin by just listing the areas the source would be considered primary for and the giving a rating of it's known fact checking as a secondary and/or tertiary source. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Just start with People magazine as being most reliable, as that's where it will get moved to. Repeatedly. (SEWilco 15:22, 30 June 2007 (UTC))

A project to assess reliability of frequently used references: we have Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for discussion, and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Examples for preservation of findings and such. I'd suggest working with those pages - no need to reinvent what we already have.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Why use a reliable source section

I think we should overhaul the "why use" section. At the moment I think we could be clearer about the important negatives that RS are important for (RS help us not violate NOR and NPOV and various bits of NOT). More importantly, however, the positive seems left more or less unstated: RS help us make a better encyclopedia. semper fictilis 15:29, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you could write a new draft for review?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:54, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Will do. I'll get started later tonight. semper fictilis 22:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Current version

For the record.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:07, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Sources are used:

  • To support an assertion made in an article. Sources used in this manner should be directly referenced for the point that is being supported.
  • To give credit to the source, to avoid the appearance of plagiarism or copyright violations.
If all the sources for a given statement or topic are of low reliability, the material may not be suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia.

Draft

Heres a draft. semper fictilis 02:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is, before anything else, an encyclopedia, and as such aims at being authoritative. The best paper encyclopedias achieve this by hiring experts to write its articles. Wikipedia's articles, by contrast, are written mostly by non-experts who depend on Reliable Sources for their information. The citation of sources, then, helps establish authority by supporting assertions made in an article. Citing sources also

  • helps other editors know which details in an article are secure and which may need further examination;
  • helps direct readers who want to know more about a subject towards useful bibiography;
  • helps avoid Original Research, since the existence of a reliable source proves that a fact, argument, or theory has been presented to the world in other fora;
  • helps facilitate Neutral Point of View, which promotes the inclusion of all significant points of view, since views that are supported by reliable sources are by definition worthy of inclusion;
  • help give credit to the source, thereby making clear that plagiarism and/or copyright violations have been avoided.
Finally, citing a reliable source proves that what is being added is worth including because it is verifiable.


Hmmm, I'd incorporate the two current notions, and try to link WP:V and WP:CITE too.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:08, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Good point. I've squeezed the first of the two points ("support assertions") into the first part, and copyvio to the end. And I've added WP:V to its own sentence. WP:CITE, which is about mechanics, I think should be brought up later in the article. semper fictilis 02:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest changes as below:

Wikipedia is, before anything else, an encyclopedia, and as such aims at being authoritative. The best paper encyclopedias achieve this by hiring experts to write its articles. Wikipedia's articles, by contrast, are written mostly by non-experts who depend on reliable sources for their information. The citation of sources helps establish authority by supporting assertions made in an article. Citing sources also

  • helps other editors know which details in an article are verified and which may need further examination;
  • helps direct readers who want to know more about a subject towards useful bibliography;
  • helps avoid original research, since the existence of a reliable source proves that a fact, argument, or theory has been presented to the world in other fora;
  • helps facilitate Neutral Point of View, which promotes the inclusion of all significant points of view, since views that are supported by reliable sources are by definition worthy of inclusion;
  • helps give credit to the source, thereby making clear that plagiarism and/or copyright violations have been avoided.
That's better. I've fixed a typo or two. Also: (1) I've struck "by definition worthy of inclusion", since that could be used for mischief and any argument about that question should be referring to WP:V and WP:UNDUE, not here. (2) I suspect the order could be more effective. semper fictilis 16:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Reliability of Best_Week_Ever

Does that show count as a reliable source? Corpx 09:21, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Please ask questions about specific sources at the noticeboard.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  10:11, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
Short answer is... it depends ... it depends on what article you are using it in (a quote from the show itself is a reliable source in the article about the show), and what you are trying to say in that article. to give any further advice we would need specifics... and as Piotr has noted, the best place for that is the noticeboard. Blueboar 12:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally acceptable and unacceptable sources

Since those sections were removed (and restored, and removed, etc.) let's try to discuss whether we want to keep them, remove them or rewrite them. As a content editor, I find them extremly useful insofar as they tell me that:

  1. Books and journals published by universities and known publishing houses;
  2. Mainstream newspapers and magazines published by notable media outlets;
  3. Books written by widely published authors;
  4. Mainstream websites published and maintained by notable media outlets

are reliable and further, note some specific qualities in a checklist that allow one to identify if a source is reliable (if it has editorial oversight, for example) or not (if its an anonymous source or article from Wikipedia). I am sure that those sections can be tweaked, maybe some editors would object to parts of them, would like to introduce other items to the checklist or would like to rewrite some for clarification, but as a content editor who spend hours arguing over reliability of newspapers or obsolete sources, I think it is crucial that we have a policy that clearly what those paragraph state. As I wrote before, without them, this policy (and WP:V, too) are an exercise in philosophy with little usefulness for content editors, who all agree that we should use verifiable, reliable sources, but then spend countless hours arguing about the definition of those terms. Those two paras contribute greatly to the definition of reliability, and thus should remain in the article (of course, I am all for rewriting and improving any unclear or inconsistent fragments).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Just as useful, IMO, was the clear statement that
  1. anonymous sources
  2. unpublished sources
  3. obsolete sources
  4. confidential source
  5. questionable sources
  6. self-published sources
  7. Wikipedia articles, or any article from open wikis
Are generally unacceptable (with some case-by-case exceptions and amplifications which were explained at that point) . I added the final item to that list less than 24 hours prior to the deletion of those sections. My purpose in doing that was to provide a clear statement that could be cited in an edit summary. I know that WP:V#What_is_a_reliable_source.3F and WP:OR#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources cover this, but they don't cover this specifically, clearly, or concisely. I want to be able to point to something in an edit summary which clearly says that a citation which I'm challenging or removing is not considered acceptable. -- Boracay Bill 02:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. But also we need to be able to point out that a source is reliable: I had a looong discussion recently with a user who argued that newspapers are never reliable, and any fact giving newspaper as a source is as good as having no source at all...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  11:45, 12 July 2007 (UTC)
I’m not sure how prescriptive we can make such lists, however worthy. While their inclusion provides better insight into what’s generally reliable and what is not, they bear their vague definitions. For instance, what’s an “obsolete” source – and is it unreliable in its entirety because of later findings or theories? Asserting that something is a “questionable source” begs the question of “how so”? What factors make a source questionable? As Piotr notes, some editors have considered all newspapers and related popular news sources to be “questionable” if not altogether “unreliable”. Furthermore, even if generally true, suggestions like “Books written by widely published authors” are too broad, because any such source can be a reliable source for some uses and an unreliable source for others. (E.g., as I’ve pointed out before, Mein Kampf is a reliable source for some subjects, such as Nazi ideology, but unreliable for others, such as Jewish cultural values.) Rather than lists of generalized guidelines, perhaps what is needed is better specific guidance on how to determine what makes a source reliable or unreliable – for Wikipedia’s purposes – for a given usage. Askari Mark (Talk) 19:38, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
I feel that the sections on examples were on balance more helpful than not, and should be restored. However I do agree that they can benefit from refinement. Rather than remove the lists entirely, I would prefer to see them restored, and then modified on a point-by-point basis to improve them. Of the two lists, I feel that the positive one listing examples of good sources is of greater importance to restore than the list of bad examples. Buddhipriya 00:02, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Go right ahead and improve the sections further. Eventually I think we will end up with a clear procedure allowing us to determine what is reliable and not, and an extensive list of specific examples at WP:RSEX. Certainly the current version, while more useful then the past, still has much room for improvement (for example, see my post below).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  08:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I think that having a short set of well-chosen examples here is important because keeping the policies clear and easy to understand is very important. Many editors (including me) are very frustrated by the very large and complex number of policies that we must consult. Something as critical as WP:RS should offer a sort of "one-stop shopping" where an editor can get a very clear picture of the policy and its application all in one place. The maze of detail WP:RSEX is important, but it is not designed to be an overview, and should not be confused with the primary article, which is WP:RS. A short list of example (not to exceed seven as an absolute maximum) makes things clear in ways that describing ideas does not. In the list of "good" sources it has "Books written by widely published authors" which someone else has objected to. I agree that it is a problem, because being widely published may be a sign of notability but it may not be a sign of reliability. This distinction comes up often on articles I edit, as there are some very well-known cranks whose WP:FRINGE ideas are widely published, and not worth the paper they are printed on. So I would agree some change is needed to that example. Buddhipriya 08:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I guess I agree with Piotr and Buddhipriya that these detailed sections are helpful, especially for less experienced editors who need this sort of direction. I've relied heavily on these sections in the past and wish they were still in the guideline. TimidGuy 19:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Examples section

There is no consensus for adding these sections. Please do not re-add. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 22:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

You are the only one who has objected so far to them; all other editors who commented seem to approve their inclusion. Please stop removing content many find useful, particularly w/out any reasoning or explanation, while others have provided plenty arguments for inclusion.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  07:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with the restoration of the examples [2] and am puzzled by the statement about why they were removed. Can we have more discussion here regarding the issue before they are removed again? Buddhipriya 08:06, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Piotrus, the section contains material that is plain wrong. Look at the confidential sources part, just as an example (under unacceptable sources). It's practically meaningless, and the only meaning that can be derived from it (viz. that we wouldn't have been allowed to use material from the W/Post when it was relying on Deep Throat) is simply false. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 11:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
As I and several other editors wrote above, there is room for improvement, but on average, the section is useful. I will restore it, minus the 'confidential' part. If you have objections to any other parts, please list them here, perhaps if we cut out all 'plain wrong' material that way we will end up with the most useful part (and I do agree the sections are a bit overweight at present). The 'Generally acceptable sources', with one exception noted above, seems quite uncontroversial. The 'Generally unacceptable sources' may contain more problems, (like overlap of 'questionable source' and 'Wikipedia article, or any article from an open wiki'), but with the removal of the 'confidential' part it seems quite reasonable. Do you think that statements like 'Books and journals published by universities and known publishing houses are generally reliable', for example, is 'plain wrong'? I'd think not.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  15:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I have restored the material because it would be better to improve the parts that need improvement rather than throw the baby out with the bath water. I am unwilling to see the statement 'Books and journals published by universities and known publishing houses are generally reliable' removed from this article, because it is an essential issue on most of the articles that I edit. Removal of this material from this place will make my editing life more difficult. Can we pick one statement at a time and either agree it is OK or improve the wording? For example, I just removed the specific statement "* Books written by widely published authors;" because of the reasons which I previously explained above. Does anyone feel that that specific point should be put back in? For the list of unacceptable sources, I have cut: "An obsolete source is one that is out-of-date, or has been officially withdrawn or deprecated by its author(s) or publisher. Editors of articles on fast-moving subjects such as law, science, or current events should ensure they use the latest sources." This seems to me to be the weakest of the examples. In the articles that I edit most often, which related to history of India and topics in Indian philosophy and religion, some of the academic sources are subject to intense debate, and establishing what is obsolete is not an easy task. So that that particular issue is very difficult to enforce on a practical basis. By removing these two items, one from the good and one from the bad, I am trying to get the two lists down to a minimal core which may be better able to reach consensus. If you do not agree with these specific items, please dialog about them so they may be improved. Buddhipriya 18:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Widely published indeed is not enough, Hitler's Main Kampf is quite widely published, but it's not very reliable (other then as a source on Nazism, but let's not go into details). On the other hand, I'd like to restore the obsolete sources claim, although possibly rewritten. It is a fact that a lot of even great quality academic work eventually gets obsolete. It is quite apparent in the 'natural sciences' (I do remember reading a papar that claimed that a very high percentage, approaching 90%, of works in medicine, is obsolete (wrong) after ~50 years...), and less so in the 'social sciences' - but even there we can see a process of replacement of old sources with new; for example, pre-20th century historians are much more biased and much less accurate then newer works, and should be avoided if a replacement exists.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  19:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding the "obsolete sources", I completely agree that it is an important issue, and could live with restoration of a reworded version. This comes up very often on the articles I edit, where sources in Indology published over 100 years ago are regularly cited as authoritative, despite the fact that the field has progressed quite a bit since then. My concern over the wording relates to the fact that whether something is obsolete is a matter of opinion for some fields more so that for others. I can see that in the case of fields such as medicine, where very current research is well-documented and the subject of constant peer review, the obsolete criterion would be relatively easy to enforce. However in the cases of history or philosophy, intellectual debate may take place over a much longer period of time and be subject to controversy that is more difficult to document. Can you try to addresses these issues in a reworded version? The terminology of fields that are "fast-moving" does not do the job, because any academic field is subject to constant change. I am a strong supporter of using the most current possible sources in Indology, for example, because even if the subject is the ancient past, the impulse to publish, publish, publish, results in constant rethinking of old materials. Regarding the Main Kampf example, it is a good example of a book that is notable but not reliable with regard to matters of fact. The confusion between notable and reliable comes up constantly on religious articles. Buddhipriya 20:10, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I think a key division here is 'natural' vs 'social' sciences. It is relatively easy to judge what is obsolete in first, not so in the second. Thus, wording for the first should be easy (we could simply restore it and note it applies for natural sciences), for the second, we may need to think a little bit more.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:27, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Rather than try to state specific fields, which will lead to Wikilawyering, I would prefer to see a general statement of principles without mentioning specific fields. Since most fields that are subjects of academic study undergo constant refinement, use of current sources is preferred in all cases. The issue is when a work can be labeled as "obsolete" which is a matter of opinion. That is the issue that is very active on many of the articles which I edit. If you put in a policy which mentions the natural sciences, those who are not editing those articles may engage in Wikilawering to say that the currency issue does not apply to them. Can you take a stab at specific language again? Buddhipriya 21:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Please don't keep adding this. Much of it is simply incorrect. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Can you please say specifically what is incorrect? Your choice not to participate in dialog on this matter seems disruptive. Buddhipriya 21:45, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Almost all of it. This has been dealt with before; the section was edited down to be accurate, and there was almost nothing left of it, so it was removed. You're trying to reinvent the wheel. :-) SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Then surely you can provide us with diffs to the old version that was removed and the corresponding discussion. I am also puzzled how statements like 'academic sources are reliable' are 'wrong'. Interested editors have been discussing some issues above, but puzzlingly, the consensus is that only few minor details need tweaking, not the entire section. Once again, you are welcome to post in detail why you disagree with specific points that the section is making, but please, don't remove it again claiming that 'it is all wrong' when there is no consensus for that. PS. Please stop moving RS noticeboard, you ignored both my questions at that page and yours talk after the move last time.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It was months ago, and I don't have time to look for diffs right now, so you'll have to look around yourself. That some of the claims are correct doesn't mean that most are. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:23, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It may have been months ago, but it is incumbent on you to repeat your arguments, rather than to claim a consensus continues to exist because it may have existed months ago. Hornplease 23:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) Here is the text of the most recent version of the "credible" examples. Can you please say specifically what is problematic with this text?

Reliable sources are credible published materials with a reliable publication process; their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand:

  • Books and journals published by universities and known publishing houses;
  • Mainstream newspapers and magazines published by notable media outlets;
  • Mainstream websites published and maintained by notable media outlets;
Note that the reliability of a source depends on context; what is reliable in one topic may not be in another. A world-renowned mathematician may not be a reliable source on topics of biology.

It seems to me that all of this is clear, helpful, and necessary. Rather than bulk reverting all of the material, can you join in a discussion of specific parts with a view to improving them? Individual sections could be restored rather than continuing bulk reverts without dialog on the content. To try to break the cycle of bulk reverts, I have restored just that one section back to the article, since I have not seen any specific criticism of those statements. Buddhipriya 22:29, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Good move. Let's discuss the parts one by one - as SlimVirgin herself told us that a 'move to talk' is what she wants - and if there are no critical comments, we can move it back to the guideline. PS. Please note I would like to see a change of the point 3, see section above.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Regarding point 3, I am unsure what text you are referring to "above". Can you please state here the suggested wording change? Buddhipriya 22:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Ilinked it above :) -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Your comment was "I'd suggest removing the the entire second part of this - instead, let's make sure there is consensus on what are 'mainstream websites'. Certainly, those 'published and maintained by notable media outlets' are reliable, but they don't fill the entire picture, I am afraid." As a general strategy, I would support removal of the dubious phrase, while keeping the first part. Simplification of the directive will help get us down to a simple and clear statement, if possible, while adding more detail may make it more difficult. In order to break the revert cycle, if we can reach agreement on a short but strong list, it may stick longer. Buddhipriya 22:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Great; could you do the appropriate edit?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I just tried the cut strategy, but it leaves us with just "Mainstream websites" which seems worse. Is Google a "mainstream website", for example, or prominent blog portals? So I guess my suggestion about cutting was too simplistic. Any other suggestions? Since you did agree that "Mainstream websites published and maintained by notable media outlets" is OK, but that it is incomplete, I would suggest leaving it in because the purpose of the example list is to get a short set of "no brainer" examples in place rather than to be a comprehensive list. Buddhipriya 23:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. I have one, but I am not happy with it. Mainstream websites published and maintained by reliable outlets. That, of course, is only skirting the issue, leaving us with the inevitable follow-up question... :( Btw, I spotted another issue in the first part of the section: 'known publishing houses' - known = notable = the problem you spotted earlier. I would suggest a change to reliable publishing houses, but... Similar, the world notable in the second part one may also be problematic. PS. Looking at it from a different angle, we are dealing with two issues here: a type of publication and a type of publisher. A tentative solution is to keep listing the types until we run into problematic one. For example, 'academic' publishers are as reliable as 'academic' publications, so that's easy. Media is more difficult.. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps it would be good to step back and give other editors a chance to react to the edits we have made so far. My main concern was to break the bulk reversion war and get into a dialog mode regarding specific content points. Do any other editors want to chime in at this point regarding this? Buddhipriya 23:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

New title needed

The problem with this page is that people keep wanting to add descriptions of what a reliable source might be, but they have very little knowledge of the content policies, so they keep adding stuff that's wrong. Then other people come here and think it is the policy, and they leave the page misunderstanding what the sourcing policies say. That problem has led this page to be widely ignored by most good editors, which leads to even more confusion.

I think a solution might be to direct this page to Wikipedia:Verifiability/FAQ, or Wikipedia:Verifiability/Reliable sources, and to build up that page as just an FAQ, not as a guideline or a policy. Then people can basically add any opinion they want, with the understanding that it's a subpage of the policy and shouldn't be inconsistent with it (and if it is inconsistent, the policy applies).

Any thoughts? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 21:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

For content editors, as I wrote before, the issue of reliability (and detailed explanation of it) is crucial; while everyone agrees (and nobody has problems) with verifiability. This page needs to be developed, not curtailed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:00, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
What do you see as the difference (for Wikipedia) between reliability and verifiability? And I'm not saying this page can't be built up. I'm saying it needs to be a subpage of the policy, just like NPOV/FAQ. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It might be better to build the new page you propose, so everyone will understand exactly what you have in mind. I would not support dismantling this page until and if I see that what is to replace it is better. Tom Harrison Talk 22:14, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
It would be this page, Tom. I'm suggesting it be redirected to a new title (e.g. V/FAQ) to make clear that it's a subpage of the policy, and not a policy itself, as in NPOV/FAQ. Therefore, there's nothing I can build to show you. It would be up to others to expand it (i.e. expand this page at the new location) if they wanted to. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:21, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Just to be clear, you want to move this page to another title, preserving all the content that is now here? Tom Harrison Talk 22:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes. If it has a title that makes it clear it's a subpage of the policy, and if it's an FAQ and not a guideline, then people can add opinions about sources to their heart's content. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:26, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
If all the current content is preserved, I am not opposed to moving to an appropriately-titled subpage of V. There may be issues I have not considered, so I would want to take a few days and hear what people think. I do not think we should deprecate the guideline, or turn it into a noticeboard. Tom Harrison Talk 22:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
If it's a guideline, then we have to be tighter about what can be allowed in it, and that's the problem with this page. Because it's a guideline, it doesn't get as much attention as the policies, and so lots of editors arrive here to add their own opinions, sometimes helpfully, often not. But the guideline status makes new editors think this is the main sourcing guideline/policy page, and they then wonder why it seems to contradict itself and other pages. That's why other editors have to swoop in here every so often and remove the worst parts of it.
This page started life as a POV fork of V, and has had these problems throughout its existence, including several good editors trying to remove the guideline tag. The situation does need to be sorted out because it's been going on for too long. It's fitting if it's returned to V as an FAQ subpage, and so long as it's not a guideline, people can feel free to add whatever opinion about sources they want to, and others can use the advice or ignore it as they see fit. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I do not support the idea of creating new pages, as the number of places where someone must look to get a clear answer is already too great. The proliferation of policies, FAQs, and guidelines makes it more difficult to work on Wikipedia for the average editor. The WP:RS may be supported by other detail, but anything essential to the core ideas, and examples which help the new reader to grasp them, should remain here. Buddhipriya 22:37, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Not a new page. This page; new title. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Simply. Nobody disputes that a source needs to be verifiable - or to be precise, I have yet to see a verifiability issue come up in a content dispute. However, what is a reliable source is a cause of many disputes. Therefore instead of tweaking the verifiability policy, which is already good enough, we should concentrate on provided the best possible answers to the question 'what is a reliable source', a question that plagues many content editors. PS. I think that this page is the best place for answering it; since it is widely known and the name is quite self-explanatory.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:40, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
You wrote: "Nobody disputes that a source needs to be verifiable ..." Can you say what you mean by that? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:41, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
You know WP:V quite well, I don't think I should quote it to you. I have yet to hear an argument about content where the issue of 'what is verifiability' or 'this is not verifiable' or 'this is against WP:V' comes up in a content discussion (although I'll admit it probably happens, just from my experience not as often as the 'is this reliable or not'. Of course, if you want to split hairs, the word 'reliable' (and derivatives), from WP:V policy, does come up quite often - but this only shows we need a guideline (at the very least) to describe it.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I do know V quite well, but I don't understand what you mean. Could you please say what you mean by "a source needs to be verifiable"? SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Everybody agrees that "Articles should only contain material that has been published by reliable sources. Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed." But a lot of people disagree about 'what is reliable' and 'what is not'. Is this sufficiently clear?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  22:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, that is clear. But it doesn't say anything about "a source needs to be verifiable." You said everyone agrees with it, but I can't even work out what it means. Please explain. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 22:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Let's try it that way: you try to explain to me why a content editor might have problems with that policy. I can give you plenty of examples why content editors can and have problems with too vague wordings of WP:RS. If you cannot do the same for WP:V, then its proof that content editors don't have (on average) problems with it.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand your question.
You made a very strong statement above, which you now won't explain. You wrote: "Nobody disputes that a source needs to be verifiable ..." But it's a meaningless sentence. And herein lies the problem. The profileration of sourcing policies and the unclear use of language causes editors not to have a clue. They then turn up and try to edit those pages, causing further deterioration. That is why I'm requesting that we at least move this to a new title (V/FAQ) or similar, so the page falls under the policy.
To get back to how this started, there is no difference between the concepts of reliability and verifiability as we use the terms on Wikipedia. Material has to be referenced to reliable sources, period. That's what V and RS are both about, and there's no need to have both, unless one distinguishes itself by being an FAQ. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Good question, why do we need both? RS was there in support of V, and was never policy. Let's augment V with an FAQ about reliable sources and redirect RS to V. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:22, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Jossi, do you have an opinion as to whether the FAQ should have the guideline tag on it? I'm inclined to think not, so that it remains an advice page only. That means people can be free to add their own opinions, with the understanding that, in any content dispute, the policy holds sway. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I would start by having the FAQ without any status. Then in a month or so, we can look at it again and decide if it is stable enough to promote, if at all. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:28, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Before you do any of that, I am assuming you will advertise your plan on appopriate fora and wait for a consensus? Which, the last time I checked, was not reached. Instead of discussing a bureaucratic technicality of correct name for this page, a much more important issue - of clarifying what is reliable - should be addressed.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  23:34, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't think "reliable" will ever be clarified, because it boils down to editorial judgment and depends heavily on context. WP:V has offered some rules of thumb. The reason for wanting to move this page to V/FAQ is that these rules of thumb could be expanded without people thinking (as they do here) that it's a separate guideline. SlimVirgin (talk)(contribs) 23:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

<<< (oudent) There is no need for consensus to start a WP:V/FAQ, where frequently asked questions about WP:V can be answered. The reliability of sources belongs to WP:V as it is the policy that discusses them. See WP:V#Sources. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:44, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, you can start such a page, or create a verifiability noticeboard. Keep in mind, however, that content forking should be avoided with policies, too; and we don't need two pages on the same issue. Already enough effort has been wasted on WP:ATT, much of which is now slowly being forgotten and gather dust. It has been shown since a long time that reliablity needs a dedicated page, thus why WP:V/FAQ answering other questions may be a good idea, reliability questions should be addressed here, and other pages should only summarize the consensus reached here, not suggest some new, possibly contradictory, info.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  11:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
That's a very sensible beginning, though proliferating pages is not the answer. And as for 'reliable' never being clarified, some of us may choose to disagree with that assumption. And consensus should be seen to emerge before, if ever, this page loses guideline status.Hornplease 23:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Yes, I would support a move, probably to the FAQ option. I tend to agree that people aren't fully understanding what the policies are. I've lost count of the number of people who don't realise that information must reflect the source referenced. That was why I thought WP:ATT was so vital. Hiding Talk 13:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Biographical material about living people

Is this change [3] objectionable for some reason? If not, why was it reverted over?[4] Tom Harrison Talk 14:21, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Many changes were recently reverted, without any explanation on talk. This is indeed a worrying development in policy/guideline discussion :( -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  14:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:BLP applies to all materials about living persons and not only on specific articles, as explained in the policy itself. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:50, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
Certainly it does, which is why I changed and in biographies of living people to and material about living people. Why did you revert that change I made? Tom Harrison Talk 15:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
The change is definitely appropriate, to reflect what BLP applies to - not just biographical articles but any material. --Aude (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I have no problems with the re-write, although I do not think it is necessary. The revert was done on the context of reverting to the stable version before the last round of edits. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 15:23, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
You seemed to think it was necessary just above, when you told me how blp works, and gave me a link to the policy. In the future I hope you will read my edits, assume I have some idea what the hell I'm doing, and don't revert my changes if you don't object to them. Tom Harrison Talk 15:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Lead changes

Old lead:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources. This page is a guideline, not a policy, and is mandatory only insofar as it repeats material from policy pages. The relevant policies on sources are Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:No original research. Wikipedia:Verifiability says that any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged needs a source, as do quotations, and the responsibility for finding a source lies with the person who adds or restores the material. Unsourced or poorly sourced edits may be challenged and removed at any time. Sometimes it is better to have no information than to have information without a source. See Wikipedia:Verifiability/Noticeboard for queries about the reliability of particular sources; see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability for queries about the policy.

I think the new lead, which is shorter, has better (non-redirect) links and doesn't repeat parts of WP:V nor of Template:Guideline is better:

Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published sources. This page explains what sources are considered reliable. Note that this page is a guideline, not a policy; the relevant policies on sources are Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:No original research. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for queries about the reliability of specific sources; see Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources for queries about the guideline; see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability and Wikipedia talk:No original research for discussion of relevant policies.

Any comments?-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  14:43, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This page explains what sources are considered reliable I do not think this page does that, Piotrus. The only piece of information that is not already available in policy pages is the section about "extraordinary claims", that IMO needs to be moved to WP:V. The rest is wikilinks to existing policies. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
In other words, you are saying that "Reliable sources" page does not address the issue of reliability? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I would suggest that you put your excellent copyediting skills at work at WP:V/FAQ, where they will be put at better use... ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:54, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Please note that we already have substantial material in policy pages about the reliability of sources:

...making this page redundant. Let's work instead on the FAQ for V were we can address specific questions. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:13, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

No, that only makes the editors confused which page to check; that material should be moved here.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:29, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree.Hornplease 23:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
How can you say that? V, NOR and BLP are official policy of Wikipedia. This page is a guideline. A guideline can only provide guidance on existing policies, not create new ones. The aspects of reliability of sources are already described in these policy pages, this being only a convenient place to link to these aspects in existing policies. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:46, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
I think I misunderstood Piotr's proposal. I was objecting to the creation of a FAQ subpage of V instantly without a consensus here about what it would contain. I hope that makes my position clearer. I do not think that we should start by assuming that RS is merely a series of links. If nothing else, that would seem to contradict an eventual goal of a subpage of V.Hornplease 06:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
What is confusing, is that editors refer to WP:RS as if it was a policy when actually it is not. The policies that discuss sources and their reliability are V, NOR, NPOV and BLP, as explained in the lead: This page is a guideline, not a policy, and is mandatory only insofar as it repeats material from policy pages. The relevant policies on sources are Wikipedia:Verifiability, and Wikipedia:No original research. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 01:49, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:RS is referred to in many places throughout Wikipedia, so it's understandable that people believe it carries some weight. (See WP:GACR, WP:FACR, even WP:NOR.) What needs to be done is to go through all these places and replace the references to WP:RS with WP:V given that (a) WP:RS isn't policy and (b) over the past few months WP:RS has been essentially gutted of any meaningful content. Raymond Arritt 02:02, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Even in the current form, RS tells the editors more about reliablity then V. V, for content editors, is mostly useless, it is more of a peace of 'Wiki philosophy'. RS is extremly needed, and whether it is explained here or moved to V FAQ, explanation of 'what is reliable' is what will be constantly referred to in content discussions (hence the noticeboard issue - go ahead and create a WP:V noticeboard and see if anybody ever uses it...).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  10:45, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
The main issue, I believe, is that people refer to RS without the necessary context (i.e. V, NOR, NPOV, BLP, etc.). The reliability of sources is not an aspect that stands alone: sources must be evaluated in the necessary context, always. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:12, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
Of course, but this only means we need a more detailed explanation on this page - something that both the 'unreliable and reliable section', and WP:RSEX, are trying to do. Splitting the reliability issue among a few policies is a worse solution then having a dedicated page for its discussion. Btw, my main problem with WP:V/FAQ is that /FAQs and generally /slashed subpages are not common on Wikipedia.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:28, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that the key problem is that most editors are not experts in Wikipedia policy and lack context for many things. For that reason, some redundancy between guidance articles is a good thing, because it increases the chance that editors will see the key ideas. So long as the redundant material is consistent across multiple uses, I see no problem with it. I view the proliferation of policies, guidelines, and FAQs on Wikipedia as a serious problem. Buddhipriya 15:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

removed at any time

I propose the removal of "material with no sources or unreliable sources may be removed at any time" from the lede. This is a part of WP:V. (I'm not 100% sure it commands unqualified agreement either, considering the way it has been used with what some people may think excessive zeal.) I think simply referring to WP:V will prevent possible duplicate argument. DGG (talk) 02:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I replaced that sentence with the wording used in the policy page. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 02:38, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think that's better 02:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Grey Area of WP:RS

Often times, we see notable media publications quoting questionable, non-WP:RS sources. What are people's thoughts on the usage of these articles in WP articles? To make matters confusing, often times, I find people involved with the non-WP:RS sources also writing articles on the same topic in said media publications. Apologies if this is confusing to read Kkm5848 06:39, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

We tried to address the issue of notable media publications, but the relevant section keeps being removed from the article. Please see recent threads above; the proposed version declares 'notable media publications' (more or less) reliable.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  11:10, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Fact laundering and related ArbCom case ≈ jossi ≈ (talk)
A very interesting statement, one that should certainly make it to this guideline (or whatever rewritten form it takes in the future).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:26, 18 July 2007 (UTC)
when a reliable publication uses an inadequate source, they are presumed to do so on the basis of their professional judgment and reputation. Thus we can quote a NYT statement based on an unidentified informant--they stake their reputation on the accuracy. This is only a presumption, and can of course be countered by other evidence. A peer-reviewed article in a journal can be assumed correct, but the strength of the assumption depends on the reputation of the journal, and for even the best journals, it can be upset by evidence from elsewhere. DGG (talk) 01:43, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
What type of facts / sources are required to upset the fact laundering that occurs? I have sometimes found that going to the original sources reveals alot of things that are common sense as unsubstantiatable...but do we need a secondary wp:rs sources to counter-wait the first? Kkm5848 08:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Television episodes

What is considered a reliable source for the plot of a television episode? The reason I ask is that there is a discussion going on at Talk:The_Sarah_Connor_Chronicles#Leak as to whether a plot description based on a viewing of a leaked episode is appropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia. In the list of featured televsion articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Television/How_to_write_an_episode_article many do not site any references at all for the plot description. One cites the DVD reelase and a couple cite summaries elsewhere on the net. Citing a DVD releases makes some sense, but what is the recommended practice for shows without haven't been released on DVD yet? I can see that a leaked episode could easily be considered a non-reliable source, however in this particular case, the article already includes a link to a review that appears to predate the leak and describes a plot identical to the leaked episode, thus providing an independent source.

I'm interested in peoples opinions on the general question of how to cite for TV episode plots, and also on the question of whether it is okay to describe details of prebroadcast or leaked shows. BigBadaboom0 06:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

The episode itself is not verifiable till it becomes legitimately available. So no, you can't cite it. Matthew 07:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Unless you have another source for it ofcourse. // Liftarn
  • I think watching a show and writing a plot summary about it constitutes as interpretation of a primary source, and thus becomes original research. I don't think any plot summary should be added unless its referenced from a secondary source. Corpx 08:06, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia as an unreliable source

In Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia we read:

In all academic institutions, Wikipedia is unacceptable as a major source for a research paper.

Also in Wikipedia:Citing Wikipedia we have:

For many purposes, but particularly in academia, Wikipedia may not be considered an acceptable source.

I think it should also be reflected on this guidline. One way is to confine to adding a link to the above two giudelines. Another way (which I prefer) is to also add a statement which has the same message in it.

I have added a section to this giudeline, here. If you think it is not appropriate (or not enough) I'd be glad to have your comments. huji—TALK 09:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is more reliable than some newspapers that we sometimes cite. But the point of attributing accessable (published) reliable sources is to a minor degree to provide further information, which we also do with internal linking which would not make sense if it was to a page with unreliable data. But mostly it to enhance credibility which can not be done by citing ourselves: "See here is further evidence that I am right, I agree with myself." WAS 4.250 11:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) See WP:OR#Primary.2C_secondary.2C_and_tertiary_sources -- Boracay Bill 11:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

additionally, it would seem perfectly legitimate for a summary article in WP to rely on the sourcing of the detail articles--I have sometimes seen this challenged, though I cannot think why (assumingthe detail articles are themselves adequately sourced). It might be good to say something about this--the routine bio facts in the principle article about someone should be sufficient for mention of them in other articles. DGG (talk) 01:14, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
In principle this should be OK, but care has to be taken that the two articles do not drift out of sync so that we end up with unreferenced statements. Someone may edit the detail article without realizing that other articles depend on it for references. I'd tend to err on the side of duplication. This is especially a concern when WP:BLP issues are at stake. Raymond Arritt 02:33, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Reasonable indeed given the nature of Wiki, though as a matter of style, I tend to leave introductory summary paragraphs to longer cited sections, or introductory statements linking to other sourced articles, footnote-free unless specifically asked to provide a citation. Sometimes it seems to be a bit of an overkill leading to unnecessary redundancy, but after interacting with other editors who too freely place {{fact}} tags to statements that may be referenced in the very next paragraph, I try to make it a habit as often as reasonably possible. In the end, it is probably better to err on the side of duplication than to have legitimate material removed. Don't know how this should reflect on the guideline though. — Zerida 06:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
I disagree with WAS 4.250's statement — Wikipedia is less reliable than any newspaper. It cannot be reliable, because it is subject to change at any moment. It is often more accurate than some reliable sources. It's important not to confuse the two. Reliable sources do not guarantee accuracy, but are merely our best substitute for for something that cannot be achieved in human-collected and -reported information. And it largely works, too. Ironically, what makes Wikipedia so useful to readers is its surprising amount of accuracy for such an unreliable publication. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 03:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Well, it all depends on reliable for what purpose. The current version can not be relied on to not change, but any specific dated version can be relied on to not change. And wikipedia can be relied on in general to be accurate as you just said. As noted below, even court documents can be inaccurate. WAS 4.250 14:08, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. For the record, RS had a statement about Wikipedia and wikis in general being unreliable, but it was removed together with other clarifications - see my comment in the section below.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  10:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Australia's government used the Essjay case as evidence in arguing that "freely edited web sites such as Wikipedia (and by extension the linked web site "Armeniapedia"" are unreliable, saying :

It is also noted that in support of the submissions concerning the unreliability of the web site, reference was made to a newspaper article critical of the parent site namely Wikipedia. The article apparently appeared in The Age newspaper on 8 March 2007 under the title, "Wikipedia ‘expert’ admits: I made it up". The article involved a person purportedly claiming to be an editor of Wikipedia and who had been incorrectly referred to as a "professor of religion with a PhD in theology and a degree in cannon law" serving his "second term as chair of the mediation committee" which purportedly rules on disputes over information posted on the web site. The article reveals that the person holds no advanced degrees and in fact is a 24 year old from Kentucky. It was submitted this demonstrates the unreliability of the material.(source : http://www.austlii.edu.au//cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/FMCA/2007/975.html?query=Refugee%20Review%20Tribunal )

The court itself make the mistake of saying Armeniapedia was "a branch of Wikipedia". Inaccuracies can be found in even the best of sources! WAS 4.250 14:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Jeff Q probably just isn't aware of how often newspaper are wrong - the Pullitzer Prize winning journalist Dave Barry summed up the problem nicely, who noted the problem with American newspapers is that while you can be fairly sure what you're reading is false, you really can't rely on it - unless it's a weather forecast, economic outlook or horoscopes, all of which are consistantly false. Hell, where I work the usual joke is that anything printed in Nature must be wrong ... although the occasional correct article probably does slip through. WilyD 14:18, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
This, I believe, is more of a WP:V discussion: we don't care about right or wrong (truth or untruth). We care about verifiability. Newspapers are sometimes wrong, sometimes correct. So are wikis. Most newspapers, however, are written by pros, not amateurs, and have some editorial checking.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  14:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Outdated scientific research superseded by by more recent research

Didn't this guideline previously contain advice about later studies superseding earlier research? Can't seem to find that now in the policies and guidelines. I thought it was useful. TimidGuy 17:15, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It did, but some users decided there is no consensus to include such examples, although they had not provided detailed rationale. Please see #Generally acceptable and unacceptable sources and #Examples section. Feel free to comment there or restore the points you liked. See also WP:RSEX.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:33, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks much, Piotr. That explains why I couldn't find it. Of course, it's a bit disorienting to be familiar with the guidelines, to reference them in debates, and then get into another debate, only to return and find that the guideline has changed. : ) But I guess that's the nature of Wikipedia. I'll add a note to the discussion you pointed to. TimidGuy 19:09, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

As a frequent editor of WP:RSN I can attest that having explain something on Day A using part of the guideline that is disputed on Day B is not a pleasant experience :( I look forward to reading your other comments.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  21:21, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Forums

There's a section in the Randall Flagg article detailing the fans' controversy over his appearence in his last book. Would in this case topics and opinions from thedarktower.net count as a source?--CyberGhostface 01:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

  • I would say no, because anyone can say anything on forums, with no editorial oversight. Corpx 17:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Fora are not reliable sources in themselves. You may be able to report what was written on a forum, as you would report what someone said in an interview, but you should not use that to enforce a point of view or verify a claim. Adrian M. H. 17:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Conference proceedings

Trawick, Prof. Margaret (1999), “Lessons from Kokkodaicholai”, Proceedings of Tamil Nationhood & Search for Peace in Sri Lanka, Carleton University, pp. 1-10 

Does using this violate WP:RS ? This is Professor Trawicks home page. This has been disputed in the Prawn farm massacre article. Thanks Taprobanus 17:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved it here per requestTaprobanus 21:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Citing the content of television and radio factual programmes

I cannot find any information or prior discussion that outlines whether it is generally appropriate to cite the content of television and/or radio documentaries and other factual programming. Does the transient nature of the source make the claims unverifiable once the programme is no longer being broadcast? Does this actually matter? I am thinking about this preemptively in anticipation of encountering references such as this (I'm sure they are used on occasions), and I really would like to see some advice about this incorporated into either this guideline, WP:V, or an essay. Even the historical Attribution/FAQ neglected to cover it. Adrian M. H. 22:29, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

  • Technically, these are primary sources and can be used stuff. However, there should not be any kind of interpretations drawn from this. Corpx 00:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
It has to be possible for someone to "look it up". The broadcast must be recorded and available someplace reliable or it can't count as a verifiable claim. WAS 4.250 16:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
So such a source could be described as unverifiable in the event of a content dispute. That confirms what I suspected. With the ATT FAQ being lost amid the debris of ATT itself, where best would such a piece of information by placed? Is there an RS FAQ? Adrian M. H. 16:40, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
WP:V and/or WP:NOR should have what you want. WAS 4.250 17:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
First, most such programs have published transcripts. Second, almost all have archived content. It either of them is available to the public there are sources. sources do not have to be in writing. The content of WP includes images as well as text, and the sources likewise. But, as Corpx says, in general they are primary sources and can be cited for the content of what they say. But programs prepared by recognized authorities and commentators have authority as secondary sources. For example, the various BBC and discovery channel transcripts and summaries have the same authority as any printed magazine. DGG (talk) 04:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I see. If a dispute arises in which an editor had cited the programme itself, and another editor requests that a transcript be used instead, what is the likelihood of this being possible. I ask because I was not aware that such transcripts were ever publicly available. This is all hypothetical, but I do a lot of work with 3O and advising new editors, so this would be useful. Adrian M. H. 15:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
I don't know if we have ever dealt with this... so I don't know how likely approval for such a request would be. Personally, I think it would depend on the program and how available it is ... TV programs are usually recorded and put up for sale... For example, the History Channel regularly makes their programs available (for purcase) on DVD. Thus, such a TV program itself and what is said in it is verifiable, and "Published" (ie produced) by a reputable company. Radio broadcasts, however, are not often recorded for sale... instead they are transcribed, and the transcript is made available.
In most cases, a citation to a TV program is fine. However, if the underlying statement being cited is contentious, and especially if it is challenged, I think it might appropriate for the challenger to request a quote from the transcript. Also, it might be appropriate to request that information cited to a radio or TV show be attributed to the producers of the program as statements of opinion as opposed to statements of fact. Blueboar 16:21, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Tehelka on terrorism

  • Tehelka, an investigative paper in India, has been cited as the source for claims that a suspected terrorist identified the Indian gov't and not Sikh separatists as being behind the worst act of aviation terrrorism prior to 9-11. See new content added to Air India Flight 182 and Talwinder Singh Parmar. Does anyone have perspective on whether it is a reliable source? The theory had in the past been discredited, but if reliable sources are examining it, I guess we have to cover it. Canuckle 00:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
  • I would say hold off on it until other sources are reporting their own findings (as opposed to reporting what Tehelka found). WP:RS says "Exceptional claims require exceptional sources" and I would say that this would need more verification. Corpx 01:31, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
If this is something covered and discredited in multiple reliable sources, the best route for inclusion would be to mention the paper said X, but that this theory has been generally discredited. Be sure to cite mentions of the theory being widely discredited from reliable sources. To present the theory as potentially accurate, multiple reliable sources would need to be available as mentioned by Corpx. Vassyana 01:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Tehelka is a 'notable' source, but I dont think it can be called a 'reliable' source, especially in sensitive and controversial issues. Tehelka is known for sensationalism and its promoters and journalists themselves have been the subject of several legal/criminal investigations. So, anything they say has to be taken with truckloads of salt. Sarvagnya 01:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks all for ther reassurance. I'll go see what I can do about the content. Canuckle 06:03, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Please try Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard for queries about reliability of specific sources.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:07, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

IMDb?

As a user-contributed source, should IMDb be considered a reliable source for biographical information (i.e. an actor's full name, DOB, etc)? — pd_THOR | =/\= | 12:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

No, because the information is not verifiable... we don't know who contributed or what their qualifications are. Blueboar 12:16, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikinews, Firefox news, other user created news sites

Do these meet WP:RS? They don't appear to, from my understanding, but wanted to get a third opinion. Kyaa the Catlord 21:52, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

  • Wikinews definately is not a reliable source. It looks to me like firefox news is user-submitted articles, so I'd say it does not either. I might be wrong on that Corpx 14:42, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Biased sources

I apologize if this has been asked and discussed before, but I do not see any element on the numerous policy/guideline pages regarding conflicts of biased sources (or those accused of bias). We all understand the concept of reliability and verifiability as it pertains to, say, published scholarly works vs something you found on the internet, but when it comes to a conflict between sources equivalently official or formal or scholastic, what is to be done?

The problem derives largely from political agendas embedded into sources, and political persuasions of the editors using those sources. There are countless ostensibly reliable sources which are heavily tilted to the political left or right, twisting, skewing, and otherwise misrepresenting the facts.

In short, many (if not most) editors will, based on their background, education, etc, have sharply differing views about which sources are reliable. There are those who are strongly anti-American, and will accuse American sources of being biased and inaccurate. There are those who trust American sources over Chinese, Soviet, or Arab/Muslim sources, accusing the latter of being ideologically biased. There are those who discount all Israeli or pro-Israeli sources as being part of some Zionist conspiracy. This isn't restricted to secondary sources (scholarship, the media) - historical primary sources can differ widely on the facts as well.

How do we deal with this? How can we argue, definitively and convincingly, that (for example) American government sources are more reliable than Chinese government sources on any given subject, particularly when dealing with someone from an anti-American and/or pro-Chinese background and persuasion?

Not all government sources are equally reliable. Not all scholarly sources are equally reliable. For that matter, not all wiki, blog, or otherwise online sources are equally unreliable. But how can we objectively and definitively argue the reliability of one source against another? Surely a majority vote is not quite good enough. I see this as one of the most major problems facing NPOV and verifiability on Wikipedia, and I don't see any direct policy or guideline addressing it.LordAmeth 16:34, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Neutral point of view and no original research require that we do not attempt to judge which information is "true", but rather that we present the information from reliable sources available, without placing our own conclusions into the article. Claims from a single source, a dubious source or held by an extreme minority are covered by rules regarding undue weight and fringe theories. Our verifiability policy sets out how questionable sources should be handled. Also keep in mind, we're expected to use some sense and discretion. The rules are intended to be an elaboration of principles, explicitly discouraged from trying to detail every circumstance. I think the situation you describe is already well within a sensible application of the principles as already elaborated. Vassyana 22:18, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. I definitely agree that rules creep is a bad thing. Still, the diversity which makes Wikipedia so wonderful also means that there is no commonality among editors as to discretion, or our ideas of what constitutes common sense, reliable sources, or dubious material. WP:V explicitly states that "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and that "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking or with no editorial oversight." But this kind of guideline/policy only serves to leave it completely open for people to disrupt Wikipedia in order to further their own political or ideological agendas. This isn't about different scholars interpreting the same event differently, the kind of debate which fuels all academia; rather, this is about people being raised and educated in highly nationalistic, ideological, or otherwise propaganda-laden environments and then arguing, repeatedly and endlessly, that their version of the truth is the real truth, that their sources are reliable, and that others are not. How can Wikipedia itself ever hope to be a reliable source itself if it gives in to this kind of skewing of the facts? LordAmeth 23:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
this is not a question for rules, but for the development of a proper spirit of cooperation and cultural sensitivity, and this can only done by the continued interaction of WPedian committed to these ideals. In practical terms, when it breaks down, the solution is a WP:THIRD third opinion or other dispute resolution,or a discussion of the sources at this notice board or elsewhere as appropriate. Most WP articles actually do fairly well once the problem is pointed out, and if you have some exceptions in mind, let's hear about them.DGG (talk) 07:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
You're right, this really is about developing a spirit of cooperation and cultural sensitivity, but unfortunately, that idea works far better for a smaller, closed community wherein the members can gradually work towards this spirit together. As it is, with new people constantly joining, who have not been a part of that development of a spirit of cooperation and sensitivity, and bringing their own biases, their own agendas, etc. ... As you asked for some examples, I point you to Korean War, where one editor has been repeatedly and incessantly pushing for the use of Chinese and North Korean statistics rather than Pentagon statistics regarding casualties. Take a look at Japan, Military history of Japan, or countless other articles in which editors constantly push for a representation of Japan more in line with their own Chinese, Korean, or otherwise anti-Japanese nationalistic ideology. These forces are even stronger and even more evident in articles such as Israel, Palestinian people, and 2006 Lebanon War. I have no interest in continuing this debate further - I am not trying to be confrontational or contrary - but I think the problem is evident, and is a quite serious one. If Wikipedia hopes to ever be a reliable source, it needs to take a stand for truth, and to stop giving in to nationalistic, ideologically skewed, or otherwise inaccurate accounts, regardless of how many people believe them or how strongly they believe them. LordAmeth 13:51, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
I agree, but in the examples given, it is not only Chinese and Korean nationalistic sources that are problematical, but nationalistic Japanese sources as well, just as Pentagon statistics are one source, but not for that fact absolutely more trustworthy (independent sources seem more reliable on Vietnam and Iraq, for example). Ienaga Saburo was forced into a 30 year lawsuit from the mid-fifties because of the Educational Ministry's cancellation of his history book dealing with WW2. There are still many issues: brothel slavery, Nanking, Causes of World War Two(many senior political figures blame the US), Unit 731, colonial policy in Korea, genocidal policies in Chinese regions etc., which find strong editorial and political opposition in Japan, though one must allow that the quality and diversity of scholarly research in that country covers far more angles than is the case in many countries which were its victims in WW2. There are senior figures in academia who deny the Nanking massacre took place, and many scholars who affirm it did, but are often treated as minority voices. Generally speaking, if a country has a vigorous culture of quality public and academic controversy over key questions of this order then one is in better waters, and Japan does, unlike China and to a lesser degree South Korea, have this. But much of what passes for mainstream opinion, or is dismissed as minority views in Japan would, respectively, be minority views and majority opinion elsewhere. Western countries are not exempt from this apparent paradox, nor is the Middle East. Israelis often express surprise at how little of what is debated with polemical fire within Israel gets into the Western press, and how many opinions many of them entertain unproblematically in Israel, are attacked as 'anti-semitic' if represented abroad.
I understand the well-meaning intentions of the governing principles and think them salutary, but they do not solve many outstanding issues, and those with long experience (certainly not people like myself) should do a little more to refine them. National viewpoints in themselves are not at all trustworthy, American, Chinese, Japanese, English, Russian, Israeli, or Arab. I would go further, a national perspective ipso facto is unreliable: though it can be studied and cited as such, it necessarily understeps the limits from which serious understanding begins, because the scholars engaged in it do not look at the facts, but rather what facts are congenial to the image and politics of the nation defended. Scholarship that is up to snuff is required to strive for certain cross-national, or universal standards of qualitative research into archives, sieved by basic principles of judgement about bias, tendentiousness, incomplete perspectives etc. I think one can get beyond this by insisting that, rather than scooping the net for information, in these delicate, politically charged areas, people be asked to give particular attention to the scholarly literature, of which there are vast quantities, most of it not available by scouring search machines. The vice, as I see it, is that wikipedia tends to feed off net-sources in areas of controversy where national interests are in play. Net sources contain immense riches, but in critical sectors are so riven by sectarian, nationalistic and political interest groups, that composition of an informed, neutral and intelligent article, is improbable if much of the work is woven from digital sources.
You can't cite Alexander Cockburn's Counrterpunch here (radical leftist rag), independently of who is hosted on it (Uri Avnery, Craig Roberts) without strong challenges, but you can cite the once respectable, (but in scholarly circles considered thus no longer) Wall Street Journal, despite the many self-opinionated crackpots with a dreadful trackrecord for honest and precise analysis it hosts. The problem here, is that Alexander Cockburn was a resident editorialist of the Wall Street Journal for several years. He hasn't changed, and was acceptable to the WSJ. That has changed radically over the last two decades, and yet is still acceptable on the strength of a reputation in desuetude, while Cockburn and his paper are not.
As a though exercise, I would ask, finally, others to imagine what kind of wikipedia would have been written had it been composed in 1770? Voltaire, Rousseau, Hume, Diderot, d'Alembert, Helvetius, etc. would have been swamped out as minority polemicists with a strong POV, and no fixed social position, opposed to the standard powers, royal and clerical, of the age, and instead we would have a tissue of articles mugged up from précis of broadsheets, newspapers, chapbooks, antiquarian encyclopedia, learned provincial journals for the educated gentry etc. Nishidani 15:43, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Who took out everything under see-SUMMARY sections?

Hey, WP:SUMMARY says you're supposed to leave at least a paragraph in {{see}} sections. Who took out everything and just left links? This page sucks for searching now. ←BenB4 19:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Dammit, I'm going to revert those sections back to what they were before in a day or so unless someone else does it first. ←BenB4 06:14, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Just a quibble ... but WP:SUMMARY applies to Article Space, not Policy/Guideline Space. That said, I don't see any harm in summarizing the other Policy and Guidelines pages that relate to this one... as long as we do so accurately. Blueboar 12:20, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
Pointers to this page attempting to explain what a reliable source is are now worthless, because someone deleted the explanations of what qualifies and replaced them with pointers to other pages
the above line used to be the section header ←BenB4 07:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I am so upset about this. I hope lengthy headers don't qualify as WP:POINTs, but if they do I apologize. I think it's fair to make everyone who looks at the TOC see this at least until it's fixed, at which time I will be the first to shorten the header. ←BenB4 04:50, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Well this was one of the deletions in question, done at the time WP:ATT was being promoted as a unified policy. I have seen widespread lamentations about the missing information. I am restoring the blanked sections. ←BenB4 07:26, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I put them back

I believe I have brought the missing sections of this guideline back to their pre-WP:ATT-promotion state. This guideline was positively eviscerated by SlimVirgin in April while she was trying to build consensus for the WP:ATT policy merge. This version is the result of my effort.(diff) ←BenB4 07:46, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

I support the restoration of this material. I understand that there are two schools of thought on this, that some feel simple, broad, general guidelines are best and that the more detail there is, the more it leads to wikilawyering. But I believe that it's good to spell things out for people. I've seen many editors who use very poor judgment in regard to sources and who have benefitted from this greater detail in the past. TimidGuy 15:00, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't mind having the material back... but one of SV's criticisms was that the material at times contradicted what was said at WP:V and WP:NOR (and thus WP:ATT)... if we are to keep the material we need to carefully go through and check each bit against the Policy in question. Blueboar 15:08, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Blueboar. I could put in a little bit of time each day -- up to a half hour. Could you help? And Ben? TimidGuy 16:13, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Not a problem: I copied the sections when applicable from WP:V and preserved the {{see}} header at the top of those sections. Only when the section was not available from other policies did I use the text from the early April version. ←BenB4 20:16, 12 August 2007 (UTC)
Good work. Maybe invite SV to take a look? Would be nice to have her on board. TimidGuy 20:48, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

This policy should be destroyed

just for the bands sections

WAIT!!!is just my opinion cuz... the stupid people ACTUALY exist... now, I'm basing my opinion in a video I watch on youtube the video was named Stone Sour & Murderdolls: don't remember this part (but you can still see a link in the talk page from slipknot).. there the viedo said that Slipknot is a Death Metal Band and they're NOT. If you sheck the death metal section you will se their far away from death metal. The only reason they say that slipknot is a death metal band is beacuse their heavy and they nihilistic, but (again) their FAR AWAY from death metal.

Another example is when I saw in a magazine (i don't remember it's name XD but it was a poser magazine) that my chemical romance is emo and if you take a look in the emo page you'll see that they're far away from emo, just like Fall Out Boy that call them selves emo

My point is... we should rather use the experts musicologists opinions than the opinions of unexpert crritics or the self-labeling bands cuz the next thing we would see is that a power pop band that is a bit heavy is thrash metal or grindcore just beacuse MTV says so (besides grindcore ain't even metal)

I'm sure that many of the wikipedists are musicologists just like me (I'm not famous but still I am). But in the meanwhile we should use perhaps the sound of the bands based definitions of the generes to know which genere is which band.

HEY!!! HO!!! SHEISHOP!!!

Actually, your comments show exactly why this guideline (it isn't a Policy) is needed. It clearly states that we should be using expert musicologists as sources... provided they can be established to be experts and have published their opinions in a reliable forum. Youtube isn't a reliable forum. Blueboar 12:35, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
no, but what I was about is the video that was on youtube, but the video is an MTV video, so then, can I still taking MTV as a reliable source?
Another thing is that, for example you can find in a page that the Used is heavy metal, so for then, that page can't bee considered as a reliable source, can it? - Yo, yo!!! sheish!!
You could not report your own observations or findings based on watching MTV. That would be considered original research. On the other question, it would depend on what kind of "page" it is. If it's a page from a music magazine, or a music magazine's website, then yes that would reliable and probably would need to be cited for verification purposes. If it's just another website, then no. Vassyana 01:39, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Then, at least this policy or rule or whatever should change just for these cases. Only in pages that especializes in music, but what about the self-labeling bands? can a band's page that self-labeles itself as a genere and does not not fit in a genere be considered as a reliable source? User;SHeishop =P
There is an absolutely vast number of references that discuss music, including (but not limited to) popular music magazines, trade publications, reference works, textbooks and so forth. If there is a lack of such material, it is highly questionable whether or not the band is notable. If the band is notable, there should be third party reliable sources that describe the music. Vassyana 02:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
In a case where a band self identifies with a particular genre of music, and they have their own webpage, that webpage is considered reliable per WP:V and WP:RS (under the self published clause). MTV is a reliable source... however where a musicologist contradicts MTV in another reliable source (say, a music magazine) I would give the expert a greater weight. This is a perfect example of the fact that there is a range of reliability. It isn't always black and white, yes or no. One expert might classify a band in one genre, and another might classify them in another. Blueboar 02:50, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
The music magazine SWITCH talks about haow pop punk now days is not punk at all is just pop, those are musicologists, does that means I can change the genere of a band like +44 to pop rather than pop punk? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sheish (talk • contribs) 02:22, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

footnotes

User:Iknowyourider recently added (returned?) a footnotes section. I (sort of) object... Not to the content of the footnotes, but to having footnotes at all. This is a styalistic thing... I don't think policies and guidelines should have footnotes. If something is worth including in this guideline, it should be in the main text and not stuck down at the bottom of the page in a footnote. We can argue about the specifics of what these particular footnotes say later... first, let's see what the consensus is on having such a section at all. Blueboar 17:38, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Spam of on-line "source" for personal names acceptable?

I just noticed that somebody has added a box with a number of standard links to a great number of pages on personal names. One of the links goes to a website called http://www.behindthename.com/. It seems to be a pretty low-quality amateurish and non-academic website, which cites no sources in itself. Is it really acceptable to spam a link such as this one on all pages on personal names?

If sources are needed for these pages (even though most are basically just lists of people with a certain name), there are real, academic onomastic dictionaries for various languages or cultures. Most are probably not on-line, but will be found on a reference shelf in your favourite research library. Olaus 07:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

You've certainly got the right idea. Check out our pages about external links and spam. The good people over at the spam WikiProject might be able to help you out with individual cases or get feedback. If a particular site is problematic or a particular user repeatedly spams, you may wish to report the incident so it can be handled. Hope this all helps. Cheers! Vassyana 08:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. I went to Wikipedia talk:External links and discovered that there had already been a discussion about this very website there a few weeks ago, but with few comments and no clear conclusion reached. I added my view there. Olaus 08:55, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Is a collection of article summaries hosted at a third party site a reliable source?

I my mind it is not, since the summaries carry the biases of the one that summarized them. Also for quotes, the context is missing... What do you think?--Alexia Death the Grey 16:06, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what you are using the source for. Blueboar 17:23, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
For this. Comments are welcome.--Alexia Death the Grey 18:10, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Can a wiki ever be a reliable source?

I'd say no, given that the content of a wiki can change, but what do others think?--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 09:02, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

That's not relevant. Opinions change over time. Reliable sources of knowledge die eventually. The paradigms that govern our perceptions shiftover time, etc.etc. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Wiki is invaluable because it does constitute an intimately meticulous record of the way general judgements are constituted over time, unlike most reliable sources which present one with a single-frame snapshot of a field that has limited temporal validity Nishidani 10:39, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Personal website of family member, a reliable source?

Is the personal website of a family member considered a reliable source for an article's subject? We're facing this issue at Antoni Dunin where a number of people keep resisting removal of stuff that is sourced to the subject's granddaughter's personal website. WP:RS says specifically:

For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources.

I have stressed the point that we cant use personal websites like this as sources for an article or to assert notability, and this is what is being done here. Any feedback from uninvolved editors would be appreciated. --Matt57 (talk•contribs) 12:03, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I have weighed in at the article... but will repeat here. Basically the answer is "no", it is not reliable. It would be a reliable source in an article about the family member who owns the website (and I would say a statement in another article about that family member) but not as used. Blueboar 13:26, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Using Michael Neumann as a source for remark on Raul Hilberg

I've been slightly worried, I think needlessly, but I am not expert on these rules, about possible objections to my using Michael Neumann as a source for a remark on Raul Hilberg as a life-long Republican voter. He wrote an 'In Memorian' article in Counterpunch recently. Michael Neumann is, for some (not myself) a controversial figure: Counterpunch is attacked as an, intrinsically, 'unreliable source'. But . .Michael Neumann happens to be the son of Franz Neumann, who was Raul Hilberg's Phd supervisor, and oversaw the drafting of that historical masterpiece. There's a family connection, in short. If someone out there thinks this questionable, I'd appreciate a note.Nishidani 14:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Please post this at WP:RSN. ←BenB4 08:18, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

TV Squad

Is TV Squad a reliable source? - Peregrine Fisher 03:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Primary/Secondary sources

I've removed the recently-added material concerning primary and secondary sources. This material was previously at WP:NOR, and was moved here despite a major controversy concerning it on the talk page. Clearly, there is no consensus as to this section, and in any event, it would be redundant, as there already is a link here to the disputed section. COGDEN 20:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

The edit summary (link here) indicates that this material used to be a part of RS and was removed when WP:ATT was promoted (unsuccessfully). Was this removed by consensus at the time? If not, shouldn't there need to be consensus to remove it, not add it? R. Baley 21:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so. Policy and guideline articles aren't like normal Wikipedia articles, where consensus has a kind of "inertia". Policies and guidelines must reflect and describe present consensus and usage. See WP:Policies and guidelines. They are very conservative, since they have a potentially damaging coercive effect across the whole Wikipedia. If something is controversial, it doesn't belong in a policy or guideline, unless Jimbo or the WP:Arbitration Committee make a ruling. COGDEN 22:13, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow! I have been against mentioning that concept for a long time, but I had given up on it and didn't look here for a long time (I applied WP:Ignore_All_Rules instead). :-)

In short, the (in principle good!) idea was that original raw data ("primary source) may be difficult to interpret for average editors, in which case it could be better to use so-called "secondary" (interpretive) sources. Regretfully that led to introduction of more stuff ("tertiary sources) as well as to the misunderstanding that hear-say and inaccurate citations of earlier sources should be preferred over the original sources, even when those original sources are perfectly clear and/or already interpretive. In the end, it's better to do without confusing jargon. Harald88 19:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Jargon serves a purpose. And in any case, the primary/secondary divide is very important to spell out. I am restoring that divide, at any rate. Hornplease 21:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Hang on, I've just seen the edit comment that removed it. Can the reason its not here be explained futher? Is it now enshrined permanently in WP:NOR as policy, or is, as it used to be, a guideline? In which case it should be here? Hornplease 21:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed, I see that it's still present in WP:NOR; however, the mess that I described here above is - happily - absent, as far as I can see. So it's become quite harmless now. Harald88 20:54, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Interview article on web site

I have conducted an interview with an individual on his product.

The interview is posted on a site, which also happens to be a forum.

There are further articles in the same area of interest, often with research, references, etc.

The site bares a valid Health On the Net Foundation logo, and abides by it.

Could the interview be referenced and considered as reliable source?

If not, what are the criteria for reliability for web-published interviews?

--Libertate 13:34, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Distinguishing WP:Verifiability from WP:Reliable sources

Over on WP:V, there is a discussion going on under a section with the same title as this one, it's worth checking out. I suggest that the discussion be geared towards both arguments for/against full separation of WP:V and WP:RS; AND essays on what the new WP:V and WP:RS pages should contain. I'll include my own essay concerning a revamped WP:RS below. -Nathan J. Yoder 03:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Njyoder's new WP:RS essay

DRAFT v 0.5 beta

Summary of verifiability changes

I believe that WP:V should remain as is with the criteria for what constiutes an RS removed. It should simply state that reliable sources be used with the relevant exceptions concerning when a reliable source need not be used and it should outline a distinction between verifiable sources (i.e. something that can be looked up by anyone, regardless of quality--a set that includes the set of reliable sources--most often this applies to primary sources) and reliable sources, but I won't go into detail about those here since this is about the new RS, not the new V.

Policy

  • Pro: Strict, rigid and as such less prone to abuse via overly broad interpretation.
  • Con: Slow to change due to consensus taking longer to form. Being rigid, oversights and changes are more difficult to account/compensate for.

Guideline

  • Pro: Flexible, allowing more interpretation and built-in allowance for exceptions not previously conceived. Consensus is garnered more quickly, allowing changes to account for oversights and changes.
  • Con: Flexibility allows for more abuse due to overly broad interpretation.

Arguments for status as policy/guideline

V is a general, abstract concept and can be easily understood as such and there are no exceptions as to where a verifiable source shouldn't be used. Because of this, it's possible to to apply it much more consistently and objectively by Wikipedians. This means changes to it are much less likely to occur, making it ideal as a policy.

RS entails various general concepts, but can also become onerous when dealing with new, less traditional media (due to evolving media and technology). Changes in application are much more frequent due to divergence from traditional sources (both in terms of new quality sources arising and traditional sources being less likely to give adequate coverage to new niches of a technical [not necessarily technological] nature) and oversights are much more likely due to the large number of potential quality sources. The nuances of the various types of sources requires a more descriptivist (as opposed to prescriptivist) approach. This makes it ideal as a guideline.

How reliable sources should be changed

WP:RS should be about what it means to be reliable, not a list of DOs and DON'Ts. So what is the essence of reliability? What makes a source reliable from Wikipedia's perspective and is it possible to judge reliability without making judgments of veracity of the source material?

Isn't a source being judged as 'reliable' against the spirit of NPOV policy? Suggesting that a source is 'reliable' means making a judgment call on how accurate the source is...an assertion of veracity of the source included in the content. From WP:NPOV: "None of the views should be given undue weight or asserted as being judged as "the truth."'

The spirit of RS should be 'what do people consider to be reliable', in line with NPOV's spirit of 'what proportion of the population holds a given view' when determining its 'due weight.'

The number of people in the relevant population (e.g. scientists for scientific journals) that consider the source reliable (relatively speaking) within the context that it's being used in. In terms of contexts, its possible a source may be considered reliable for certain things and for those it could be used, but for many others it could be considered horrible and it wouldn't be used for those.

e may also consider 'hypothetical reliability' instead of 'known reliability'--that is, instead of just going by a source that the population already knows about, you may consider sources that the population is less aware of, but would consider reliable if they encountered it.

This is a measure that can be enforced consistently, without passing judgment of veracity, by users who have any type of view. Most traditional sources (e.g. print newspapers) are very notable and would do well, so that's not an issue. This would have the added advantage of including non-traditional sources that many would consider reliable in technical and other types of niches that the general population isn't as directly aware of.

-Nathan J. Yoder 03:38, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Comments

I agree, and think this is a good move. I do see a meaningful distinction between WP:V and WP:RS, the former being a policy, the latter being a guideline, and they are really about to distinct issues. The respective pages should focus on what they are about and not simply duplicate each other. COGDEN 23:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. The internet is basically open season for someone who wants a soapbox, and without policy guarding what can and cannot be used as a reliable source it opens the floodgates for people to push pov by creating sources or using fringe povs which don't meet WP:NPOV. Strictly defining sources does nothing but improve the quality of wikipedia as it would force people who want to use fringe sources, unusual or uncommon sources to discuss them before trying to use them in articles. This should be done anyway, but some editors insist they hang their hat on "if its not policy I can ignore it and edit as I choose because I think my pov is really deservign of an exception". This behaviour isn't restricted to new users.--Crossmr 23:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Would you please stop carrying this grudge onto other pages? You're not debating this like you said you would, you're just restating your view for the millionth time (argumentum ad nauseam). Please defend your views and don't just circularly define them to be right. I'm confused about your statement concerning strictly defining sources, since you're taking a very pro-prescriptivist stance, which by definition includes using strict definitions and requiring that users never violate those strict definitions (which you've shown strong support for yourself). -Nathan J. Yoder 05:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
You're not the only user who has tried to use unusual sources in an article. Nor the first who has demanded policy far and wide on every aspect of a disagreement. This isn't a problem which is restricted solely to the article you're currently working on. In fact I probably can't even count the amount of times I've had to deal with users who try to use unreliable sources in articles. This is a problem far and wide in many articles, as such I believe these sources have to be strictly defined for that reason. Having them defined in a policy with instructions for how to handle sources that fall outside of that (e.g. via a special discussion board, or how to go about proposing them on article talk pages) would nip many edit disputes in the bud. As Vassyana pointed out, there is a long standing bond between WP:V and WP:RS and while we've made the effort to strictly define when reliable sources are made, we haven't made the effort to strictly define those sources. Defining those is important for several aspects of WP:NOT. As well WP:NOTE relies on RS to define those sources which are considered reliable to help establish notability another important aspect of article creation.--Crossmr 21:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Stop harassing me. All you've been doing is repeating yourself here and on WP:V. We get it, you disagree. You're basically commenting to everyone who agrees with me to get them to disagree. We know your stance. Vassyana misunderstood my stance and all you're doing is simply using their name to perpetuate this sillyness. Unless you're willing to actually debate your premises, instead of just repeating them, please don't comment. If you're going to assert that using vague definitions is a good idea and somehow leads to LESS abuse, support it, because as I see it, it leads only to confusion by the nature of what it means to be vague. -04:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I strongly disagree. Verifiability has long emphasized the need for reliable sources and should continue to do so. It's a very broad and firm consensus that claims should be verifiable in reliable sources and the general idea of reliable sources. The detailed guidance on what constitutes a reliable source is a guideline. Trying to completely divorce verifiability from reliable sourcing seems deeply misguided, to me. Vassyana 21:32, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't interpret Yoder's proposal as completely divorcing verifiability from reliable sourcing. I think his point is that WP:RS can contain the "detailed guidance" you're referring to, while WP:V contains the cut-and-dry rules as to what verifiability means. The verifiability policy can say with certainty a bright-line rule for when attribution is required to a reliable source. But the definition of reliable source, which is an issue more appropriate for a guideline, can be found in WP:RS. COGDEN 02:15, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
As I pointed out above. The moment you move something from policy to guideline you're changing the dynamic. Keeping and making additional clarification on sources policy prevents things like WP:SOAPBOX. Otherwise "it's not a policy" rings aloud which I've heard many times.--Crossmr 02:27, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Stop repeating yourself and stop this harassment. Nothing is being moved from policy to guideline, they are all staying as they are. You are so clearly just using this as an excuse to accuse me of soapboxing. -Nathan J. Yoder 04:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Please see WP:OWN you own neither articles nor discussion pages. This is a policy discussion page and changes are being debated. I'm free to debate those.--Crossmr 04:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
If only you were debating the issue instead of just repeating your original propositions (read argumentum ad nauseam, seriously). Where did I claim I owned it? I asked you to stop harassing me, which is not only reasonable, but it is also against the rules to harass users. It's sad that you have to make up ridiculous claims that I'm OWNing anything in order to justify your presence. -Nathan J. Yoder 04:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Unless you're willing to actually debate your premises, instead of just repeating them, please don't comment. Seems like you're trying to dictate who can and can't comment and how they can comment in a page you're editing.--Crossmr 04:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
You're right, using "please" makes it sound like I'm trying to own it instead of requesting that you engage in the debate. Next time, I will not request that anyone engage in the debate. Can't you just admit that that was a dubious accusation? -Nathan J. Yoder 04:56, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Vassyana, I'm not proposing getting rid of either of them, nor preventing verifiability from emphasizing the use of reliable sources. The point is that defining WHAT a reliable source is should be left only to WP:RS and WP:V should rely stricitly on verifiability and how it ties in with reliable sources, along with the need for both, but without defining WP:RS. -Nathan J. Yoder 04:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for the misunderstanding. I think we're actually mostly in agreement. Vassyana 22:25, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Nathan, but I believe that our primary task is to turn RS into a collection of precise and explicit statements on what is reliable and what is not. Currently content editors waste countless hours arguing whether newspapers or 100-year old sources (for example) are reliable or not, and we this page does not provide them with answers to that. Sure, a good section on 'how to determine if a given source in general is reliable or not' is useful, but we need sections stating that 'academic sources are reliable, wikis are not' (for example). See here and here for some proposed changes to RS that I thought were going in the right direction.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  03:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure, reliable sources should include precise examples, but it should defer to the general definition as the ultimate determiner. In other words, the examples as such shouldn't be stated as if they were (nearly) set in stone. -04:08, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

What is the point....

... of copying and pasting material from WP:V and WP:BLP into this guideline? I have removed these copy/paste and left wikilinks to the corresponding policy pages.≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 16:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

As shown above, I and many other people would very much like it to stand alone, so that we might cite it to newcomers in hopes that they will be able to have a comprehensive summary of all of the rules about sources in one place. I can agree with taking out some of the BLP detail which really doesn't belong here, but I'm going to replace, for example, the stuff about extremist sources which is directly pertinent to the topic. ←BenB4 21:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly agree with Jossi and disagree with BenB4. The problem with having redundant passages is that then it creates massive synchronization problems over time, since every significant change to one will have to be debated on the talk page for the other as well.
Also, BenB4, there are obvious and logical reasons for having links in See also to "Don't create hoaxes" and "Google bombing." Those articles help educate users about why the reliable sources guideline is necessary to prevent editors acting in bad faith from perpetuating hoaxes on Wikipedia or using Wikipedia during Google bomb projects. Please review Seigenthaler controversy for the classic example of the kind of craziness which all responsible Wikipedia editors need to be on their guard against. --Coolcaesar 05:29, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
You are saying that we shouldn't include all the guidance on reliable sources here, but we should include links to those pages -- and what do they have to do with whether a source is reliable? ←BenB4 08:53, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
  • I agree with Jossi as well. The sync problems are extra work to deal with. Guidelines should wikilink to the policies wherever possible. - Crockspot 06:45, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
    • Those policies don't change very often, and even if they do, how does being out of sync create a problem? My desire is to have all of our guidance on reliable sources in one place. In practice, WP:RS is cited to noobs a lot more than WP:V. ←BenB4 09:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
      • While that may be, there is also the issue of policy vs guideline and how one might interpret them. Often new users and even some experienced users will try to make the argument "This is a guideline, and really I don't think it applies to me right now because this is what I'm interested in and I think an exception should be made". If RS can't be made a policy some of the more important aspects of it need to be left in WP:V to ensure that understanding.--Crossmr 21:55, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
  • Eh? I do not understand. (Yes, I am a noob.) Verifiable in the real world does not mean reliable source, but reliable source is verifiable, but does not require such. The verifiable does not go that far. Verifying something involves a third or more parties. I think the WP:V description is wrong in involving reliable source as base of the information. WP:V means, I believe, that it can be verified by an other party, other than the resource. The resource does not need to be a WP:RS - the verifying resource (the third party) must be. Even WP:RS can be verified, but is not required, because by its nature we accept is as "pre-verified"... But.. I am just a noob.--Libertate 01:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Should Wikipedia prefer non registration/subscription sources for references?

I believe that Wikipedia should prefer references and sources from websites that do not require registration or subscription. What does everyone else think? How should I go about fixing reference policy? Note there is a WP:External links policy that external links generally not be made to sites that require registration or subscription but it excludes references, I think it should include references. Which sand witch sandwich? 21:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

It really depends on how this "preference" is expressed. If two sources are equally reliable, and one is freely available to all, while the other requires registration or subscription, then I think it's reasonable to replace the paid/registration source with the free one. But if information is available only on a reliable site which requires registration (such as the New York Times' archives), it would be foolish to exclude that as a source.
For article sources, reliability is more important than accessibility. Lots of reliable sources can be accessed only by going to an academic library. That doesn't mean we shouldn't use them. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 21:31, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I nominate your text above for how the policy change should be worded: equally reliable then free content is preferred. I bring this suggestion up because I think nytimes.com is used way too heavily as a source since it requires registration and there are numerous other newspaper websites that don't. How many people have to agree before we can update policy? Which sand witch sandwich? 21:35, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
If we have two reliable sources we should generally cite them both - multiple sources are considered a good thing aren't they? While I understand the desire for freely accessible links, I think the only time we should consider replacing a link for a reliable source is if there happens to be a link to an equally reliable free/non-registration/non-copy-vio version of the same document. -- SiobhanHansa 21:46, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
(EC) That the reliable source exists (or existed) and has been used is the most important part. We don't mind when someone refers to a long out of print book that they found in a well stocked reference library, and I have occasionally used subscription sources when they had no equal. For obvious practical reasons, we do not insist upon sources that anyone and everyone can verify. Otherwise, anyone who does not live near a reference library (to use that example again) could challenge a perfectly good source, and that would be unreasonable. Adrian M. H. 21:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Isn't a bedrock policy of Wikipedia open or free as in freedom content? I think non registration/subscription requiring sources should always be preferred, and sources that require registration/subscription should only be included if there is no other reliable source. Which sand witch sandwich? 21:51, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but that surely refers to the content that Wikipedia is providing directly, not to content to which we refer in citations. Book analogy again: If someone cites a book that they purchased because it is not available in libraries or in Google books, is that wrong because it is not free content? Adrian M. H. 21:55, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I think Wikipedia is part of the open and free as in freedom content movement, as such Wikipedia should prefer non registration/subscription sources. Which sand witch sandwich? 21:57, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Free-as-in-beer/non-subscription does not equal open content in a licensing sense. Are you proposing we should prefer GFDL or similarly licensed sources? -- SiobhanHansa 22:07, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Registration and subscription really are examples of closed content, as such we should prefer alternative sources. Which sand witch sandwich? 22:18, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
They are no more closed than a book published in the last 70 years. But more to the point - sites that are free are still not necessarily open content- and open content is what we wikipedia is about. We're about making closed content open. As such using closed sources and rewriting them so the information is now easily available in a GFDL format is a good thing. -- SiobhanHansa 22:21, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
That's not necessarily true, when I am done with a book I can give it to my neighboor, subscription websites might not let you do that. Should I create a straw poll section for whether non registration/subscription websites should be preferred for references? Which sand witch sandwich? 22:25, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
The discussion at WP:CITE is fairly detailed by now, and largely parallel to this one. I suggest that you wait and see what consensus emerges there before pushing the discussion here further. And remember that polling is not a substitute for discussion. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 08:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Since registration and subscription sources are not readily accessible to all, except on payment (1) citing them can be abused for evident reasons, also for financial ends by interested parties (2) one must, if one cannot pony up each time the necessary price, take the citer's word for it. Presumably then the person employing such resources has access and should cite for others, in the talk forum at least, the relevant snippet from the text in order that others may be in a position to judge the relevance and authenticity of the cited article. Unless some mechanism of this kind exists, one will create a two-tiered system among editors, consisting of (academics and the well-heeled) and the hoi polloi. I had a problem verifying one cited source which looked very suspicious to me, because I happen to know the author's writings well, and the view attributed to him was totally out of keeping with his known views. Fortunately I knew someone with professional access to the restricted site, and after some hours, he passed me on a copy of the text. The passage in question was wrongly quoted. Most editors will not have the opportunity, as I did in this case, of controlling and verifying the correctness of a reference to a restricted source.Nishidani 08:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
It is perfectly in order to request first page numbers, and then quotations, and translations if necessary, if the material is critical and contentious. I have even known scans to be supplied in particularly difficult cases where the existence of sources was doubted.
But in any case there are editors who can help provide access to almost any material. A good place to start is at the appropriate wikiProject talk page for the subject. Some of those with extensive general access who offer to help can be found at the WikiProject Resource Exchange which has a list of people prepared to supply copies of articles and other material, almost always for free, (for wikipedia research purposes only). Most librarians at Wikipedia will do whatever necessary to obtain copies of needed material without their individual capabilities. See the WikiProject Librarians.
Librarians in any public school or academic library will also help. They all know about Wikipedia, and most are fascinated by it. There should be no need for payment in most cases, at least if one is willing to be patient-- books generally take several weeks.
Remember that many books before 1900 or 1920 can be found in full text via Google Books--an amazing number is already available, which will soon include the complete contents of some of the largest libraries. Even for books after those dates, sometimes "snippets" of material are available there which can serve to verify quotations.
For the long range solution to this problem, see Open access. DGG (talk) 10:10, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Josiah, Adrian, et al. This movement is (in the short term, while most of the world remains copyrighted) a chilling effect rather than a step towards editorial democracy. If implemented, it could do more to help supporters of censorship and editorial control rather than those who oppose those values. Anchoress 23:07, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I concur. To clarify: Nearly every document available in a proprietary database like LexisNexis, ProQuest, or InfoTrac is merely a a copy of some paper document. The solution is to simply draft citations in the Wikipedia article pointing to the hardcopy document; that's what I do in all my Wikipedia contributions; it's not very hard. For example, whenever I'm citing the New York Times, that's not because I dug up the original article on microfilm, but rather because I found it on ProQuest. Rather than insert a link to the non-free ProQuest article copy, I insert a citation to the underlying hardcopy article that was scanned into ProQuest.
Anyone who needs to get the original document can simply search on WorldCat, which will point to all available hardcopy versions and electronic versions available in databases (because many libraries post the offerings of their database subscriptions into their WorldCat catalog records). --Coolcaesar 01:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Dubious sources vs. no sources

A point has been made elsewhere that a well edited uncited article is a better bet than one with dubious references. I think that is a good point. It might be a good idea to make that point explicitly in both WP:V and WP:RS. -- Boracay Bill 23:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Neither should exist here. Whether you write it well or poor its still uncited. Whether the text is cited with a questionable source, or uncited its equally questionable.--Crossmr 23:32, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
yes, but the point is that a bad source looks good unless carefully investigated , and thus misleads the readers into thinking the content is better supported than it is. The lack of a reference additionally calls attention to itself, encouraging editors to improve it. A much-used way to support a total biased or even bogus article is to add a number of impressive and over general references. error is more dangerous than the absence of information. DGG (talk) 03:48, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
If there is question at all about the verifiability of the text, WP:V already addresses this. The citation has to be provided by the individual who wants the material included. Even the fact that its in the article lends it some legitimacy, dubious citation, well written or otherwise. Rewriting something to be more eloquent while removing a dubious source doesn't give any justification for leaving something in an article.--Crossmr 03:58, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I agree DGG, especially if it's an obvious or non-contentious statement. By having them in the article and tagged, it brings attention to the article for someone to find a source, contributing to the better overall quality of Wikipedia. Simply removing everything immediately leaves an empty article, where there is much less compelling people to edit and improve it. I believe that immediately removing it is (generally, but not always), counter to the goal of the encyclopedia. The immediate removal approach ignores the whole psychological factor of people editing the encyclopedia--people are more attracted to articles more fleshed out and that have specific problems marked that need to be changed. Sure, policy allows you to remove them immediately, but doing it just because you're allowed to is justification akin to "I'm doing it because I can." -Nathan J. Yoder 06:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information, to state it another way.--Father Goose 07:13, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I strongly disagree that that is the consensus of the wider Wikipedian community and I also believe that that oft used quotation mis-states the case as many an uncited article is not misleading and is sound because the many eyeballs of Wikipedia have made it so. The trouble is that to be truly encyclopaedic (i.e. in the sense of covering just about any topic) Wikipedia will reach into areas that are not well documented yet it is perfectly possible to get good quality articles.
The drive for verification is a worthy goal, but I think it is at odds with the desire of the community who would prefer something to nothing (a stab at the truth over verification). There is a conflict between the Wikipedia of being the ultimate reference and the universal reference. It can do both, I think it should do both, it is doing both, and the policies need to evolve with that understanding. Spenny 13:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
There is a compromise... go slow and be reluctant to remove info, but insist on good sourcing. Tag statements that have dubious sources or no sources at all. Bring attention to the problem through edit summaries and comments on the talk page. Then leave the article be for a while. Give other editors time to locate good reliable sources (and better yet, go look for them yourself). If no progress is made on sourcing after several weeks (or longer), then consider removing the information. The goal is to have solid factual information, backed by reliable sources... but nothing says that every article has to be in perfect shape right now. A fact tag or reference template will tell readers that the article is still a work in progress, and that at least some parts of it should not be relied on. Blueboar 14:46, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
WP:V specifically cautions against leaving unsourced information in the article for too long, which "several weeks" would be. A more reasonable time is 1 week. If no sources are provided in 1 week it indicates there isn't sufficient interest in that particular piece of information to warrant keeping it. If someone does find a source for it at some point it can be re-added. The text can be moved to the talk page in the meantime as well.--Crossmr 16:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
Just because some people[who?] overinterpret Jimbo's quote doesn't mean it isn't ringingly true in a straight reading. Untrue information is wrong; zealotry over sourcing is wrong too.--Father Goose 16:44, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
How can you over interpret It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced.? He's fairly straightforward with how he feels it should be handled.--Crossmr 17:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
A more complete excerpt is random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information... should be removed. Taking that to mean Jimbo supports the removal of all unsourced information is to me a clear overinterpretation. My interpretation of his statement was, if it seems dubious, don't tag it, remove it. That makes perfect sense to me. And the subject line, zero information is preferred to misleading or false information, is ringingly true.--Father Goose 20:14, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
You've divined my meaning (rather than what I said!). The point being, we can all agree with the statement that nothing is better than something wrong. The quotation however, is talking about spurious nonsense - the quote often used in the context of being applied to uncited information, which is not the same thing. I have no problem with the obvious and sensible quote, it is the suggestion that an uncited article is by definition 'random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information'. I willingly remove that sort of stuff: that leaves a lot of solid uncited articles and citation is not the only method to achieve such articles. Spenny 01:22, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Which is typically where I try to make the distinction between "Company X has 200 employees" and "Most of the users of Software Y think it sucks". The second is an interpretive and subjective opinion, usually based on what someone has experienced on a forum, mailing list, etc.--Crossmr 21:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. I prefer a poor source over no source. A poor source (ex. a blog) at least gives us a hint about relative unreliability of the article, an unreferenced article tells us nothing - it may be afiction, or it might have been writen by a schoolar with refs who just didn't realize Wikipedia requires citations.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  20:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Regardless of how wikipedia markets itself, we have to be cognizant of the fact that many people see wikipedia as reliable. Leaving unreliable sources in articles to demonstrate unreliability gives them credibility. It also gives people "precedent" for using blogs, forums, and other unreliable sources to push pov in articles. Dubious, poor, or downright unreliable sources should never be left in articles and at worst they should be removed and the statements tagged. At best, if the statement appears to be one for which a citation may never surface (these usually take the form of OR or those using weasel words) it should be removed right away.--Crossmr 21:05, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I also prefer a poor source to no source... but a dubious source, especially for a dubious fact, is bad. If both the fact and the source seem credible, having the source at least gives one a chance to evaluate where the information is coming from.--Father Goose 23:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
There are ways of indicating, usable when there is nothing better at hand. "According to X (published by the SX National Front, .... " or "According to the 19th century traveller So-and-so,... " (I've used each of these wordings at times) DGG (talk) 07:13, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Open wikis, including Wikipedia as unacceptable sources.

I just had an occurrence of finding a wikipedia article cited as a supporting source. I reverted that, and explained my reversion on the article's talk page. However, I had to jump through hoops to find a spot in the guidelines where it says clearly that Wikipedia (and other open wikis) are not reliable sources. I see this often enough that I am convinced that this guideline needs to be made more visible. Accordingly, I have revised the "Generally unacceptable sources" subsection to explicitly list Wikipedia in particular, and other open wikis in the explanation of that as a generally unacceptable source. My intention is to wait a few days to see what discussion of this develops here, and then make similar changes in WP:V and, possible, in WP:CITE. -- Boracay Bill 07:32, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I saw your change Diff it looks appropriate. Jeepday (talk) 14:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
With the disclaimer that wikis are a type of self-published source, and so in certain cases they may be appopriate, I do agree that on average, their reliability is very low - and I do think that we had (have?) a rule of 'Wikipedia articles are not suitable references for other Wikipedia articles).-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  16:43, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
If such a statement has gotten lost in the shuffle, we need to re-add it. That has long been the rule. Blueboar 17:09, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

It has been already discussed that there is no consensus in providing such examples. Removed. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 23:15, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

See above #Generally unacceptable sources ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 00:15, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
I agree that specific examples can be removed, there is no consensus for them - they belong to WP:RSEX anyway. But the sections themselves are extremly useful, we need that level of detail for this policy to be actually useful for content editors.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  13:11, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I looked at that, and that discussion seemed to be about a wider, more general subject. Specifically, I propose that this guideline say, explicitly and clearly, that open wikis are not considered reliable sources and should not be cited — and that this specifically applies to Wikipedia articles. A clear statement of this guideline is needed in order to support challenges to or removal of instances of citations of wikipedia articles as supporting sources. -- Boracay Bill 04:10, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur. --Coolcaesar 07:53, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
That is already obvious in policy. See WP:SPS ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 14:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess you mean WP:SPS#Self-published_sources_.28online_and_paper.29. I disagree that it is obvious there that the section speaks of Wikipedia articles. I can read into it a presumption that Wikipedia is no better than a blog, making Wikipedia articles "largely unacceptable" as sources. Some, though, would probably not agree with equating Wikipedia with a blog, and "largely unacceptable" isn't strong enough.

Please note that with the recent removal of the "Generally acceptable source" and "Generally unacceptable sources" sections from this article, there is now no clear statement which I have been able to find that Wikipedia articles not to be cited as sources. One can draw that conclusion by reading the "What is a reliable source?" section of this article and mulling it over. One might be able to convince another Wikipedia editor who disagrees with that conclusion; or might not. If the answer to the question, "May Wikipedia articles be cited as supporting sources?" requires a talk page discussion to answer, I'll just give up on this point and stop challenging the cites of Wikipedia articles which I sometimes run across (yesterday, I removed two of these in two separate articles). -- Boracay Bill 23:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

     In pushing POV's, editors often perform edits citing other similar POV edits in other articles, then insisting they are "simply conforming to Wikipedia standards." Create a reference article about something, then cite it in an edit for another article. The intent is to create a feedback loop to allow POV's to snowball, that is: if you say it once, it's a lie; but if you lie in ten places, it looks like a fact.
     The contents of Wikipedia articles must NEVER create a self-referential Wiki-loop, either through direct citation or through "just because we said XYZ this way over here...". "Additional reading..." is, of course, perfectly appropriate. But both articles' and discussions of articles' contents MUST always reference only reputable scholarly sources. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:28, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Mainstream websites published and maintained by notable media outlets

I was just composing a rely to a noticeboard question, and I discovered that the above definition is suboptimal. There are many 'Mainstream websites published and maintained by notable non-media outlets'. For example, governmental websites or various small organizations that are not very notable, nor media, but reliable nonetheless (professional associations, etc.). I'd suggest removing the the entire second part of this - instead, let's make sure there is consensus on what are 'mainstream websites'. Certainly, those 'published and maintained by notable media outlets' are reliable, but they don't fill the entire picture, I am afraid.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

      I should mention that particularly in the geopolitical arena (but holds true everywhere), the use of media sources as "reliable" must remain specific to the appropriate realm. For example, "News Agency ABC reports that noted physicist XYZ stated the moon is made of cheese" is a reliable reference only that this particular statement was made by this particular person. It is abjectly NOT a reliable reference supporting the scholarly contention that the moon is made of cheese.
      What constitutes statements versus what constitutes scholarship are two completely different things. Lumping university-published books and respected media sources together as simply "reliable" sources is not sufficient. The scope of reliability needs to be defined to prevent abuse. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:37, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Just reverted an attempted expansion of who can publish a reliable source

I just reverted the following insertion by User:DieWeisseRose:

However, a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has gained expertise through substantial work in that area.

This passage is patently ridiculous on its face. There are many examples in the history of science of sources gaining "expertise" out of their primary fields in other areas and making complete fools of themselves in the process. Should we cite physicist Linus Pauling as an authoritative expert on vitamins? Or cite physicist William Shockley as an expert on eugenics? Or cite Vannevar Bush as an expert on the value of the social sciences? I think not. --Coolcaesar 06:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

This really depends on the fields of study we are talking about and the reputation of the source in their "side" field. For example, a person's primary field of work may be in agriculture (they may be a farmer)... but they could also be considered an amature expert on steem locomotives, or of the tactics of Robert E. Lea, or a host of other things. Reliability does not always equate to having a degree... it can be achieved through building a reputation for good, accurate, work.
I do agree with your deletion... the insertion was a bit too vague... but we do need something that allows for amature expertise where appropriate. Blueboar 11:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
There are also way too many self-proclaimed "experts" in certain fields who are not really experts. Corpx 15:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The reverted edit read, in full: "The reliability of a source depends on subject matter context, for example, a world-renowned mathematician may not necessarily be a reliable source about biology. However, a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has gained expertise through substantial work in that area."

The current language is too restrictive. For example, Noam Chomsky was trained as a linguist and that is what he teaches at MIT but he is also an accomplished speaker and writer on politics and international affairs. His work in these areas has been widely published in both the scholarly--e.g. "Simple Truths, Hard Problems." Philosophy. January, 2005--and popular press. As currently written, this guideline would suggest that Chomksy is not a reliable source for articles on politics and international affairs merely because he is a linguist. This is a ridiculous result which should not stand. Finally, my revision does not open the door to any and every source who claims expertise in a particular field it merely allows that some people may acquire expertise outside their primary fields--expertise that would qualify them as a reliable source. This is patently true. --DieWeisseRose 04:05, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It's hardly a ridiculous result, and don't try to change policy so you can cite your favorite author in an area in which he has no expertise, regardless of his vocal activism. Jayjg (talk) 18:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, please remember to assume good faith. Chomsky was just an example and I have not anywhere tried to cite him or anyone else "in an area in which he has no expertise". --DieWeisseRose 21:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
yes, but the proposed version was too broad. It is not experience alone which does it. It's acceptance as an authority. DGG (talk) 04:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
My statement spoke only to how expertise may be acquired. Although I didn't use the word "experience" I agree that experience is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a source ot be reliable in a particular field. --DieWeisseRose 21:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Suggested rewording: "The reliability of a source depends on subject matter context, for example, a world-renowned mathematician may not necessarily be a reliable source about biology. However, a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has become recognized as having expertise in that area."
I think this is more along the lines of consensus. Recognition of the expertise of the source is the key. Blueboar 12:49, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
I think your rewording is an improvement. Thanks. --DieWeisseRose 21:44, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The whole thing is nonsense. An expert in one field doesn't become an expert in another simply by being an activist. These kinds of attempts to create new policy so as to win edit conflicts are tiresome. Jayjg (talk) 18:47, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

No one but you, Jayjg, has suggested that one becomes an expert "simply by being an activist." Let us please stick to the arguments people are actually making, instead of knocking down arguments that no one is making. --DieWeisseRose 22:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
"gained expertise through substantial work in that area" - Who determines if the work is substantial? I really dont think we need to open this door. Corpx 18:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
Agree completely with Corpx. This is a subjective determination, as any source that someone might want to include under this change will obviously have been active in the subject matter. TewfikTalk 18:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

While there have been a few world-famous experts in one field who have used their celebrity status to "take on the establishment" in another field and (very occasionally) been made to look complete idiots, we'd be doing the project a grave dis-service to ignore these academic giants and the contributions they make. The statement "The reliability of a source depends on subject matter context, for example, a world-renowned mathematician may not necessarily be a reliable source about biology. However, a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has gained expertise through substantial work in that area." covers the case and belongs in this Content Guideline. It's not the likes of Noam Chomsky, a widely published author and speaker who are (ever?) a problem, but propagandists such as Shmuel Katz with just one respected book to their name. PalestineRemembered 20:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


The rule should be read to understand that books written with due regard for academic rules of evidence, by people with an academic background, cannot be disputed as sources. It does not matter what discipline they hail from, since the question is, are they dedicated to the rules of evidence acceptable by the academic world. There is such a thing as interdisciplinary work, and all such interdisciplinary work would be unquotable if the rule was interpreted as some have tried to do in objecting to Chomsky et al. Wiki deals in reliable (i.e. the work of people trained to analyse evidence scrupulously) sources, their verifiability. It is not concerned with the truth of what those sources say. Any other reading just opens the floodgates to pernickety and pretextual attempts to disqualify information this or that poster dislikes, and make serious contributors to this encyclopedia lose valuable time in making it a worthwhile source by actually collaborating on building up articles, by having them frig about with inane disputes. I will now comment on the general issue.

'There are many examples in the history of science of sources gaining "expertise" out of their primary fields in other areas and making complete fools of themselves in the process'
So what? There are many examples in the history of science of qualified scientists making fools of themselves within their own discipline (Pons-Fleischmann, Cyril Burt,Lysenko, etc.etc.)
(1)Charles Darwin fumbled his first degree in Edinburgh and withdrew from medicine, and was sent to study theology at Cambridge, where he just got by for his degree in math, physics and theology. He was an amateur student of nature through those years, but never qualified for the science that would, later, make his career and his revolutionary theory. Same as Alfred R.Wallace who thought out the same theory contemporaneously. His major qualification was surveying and map-making.
(2) Aristotle trained as a philosopher, after his primary education as a physician, and wrote on rhetoric and everything else. All of his works are classics in their field
(3) Ernest Gellner trained as an anthropologist-sociologist, and wrote a powerful, quoted critique of psychoanalysis.
(4) Richard Rorty was a philosopher who wrote brilliant essays on Nabokov, Proust. All professional literary scholars read them and cite them with informed interest.
(5) A.E. Housman wrote poetry while being primarily one of the greatest classical philologists in history (though he was failed in the subject in his finals). The poetry is accepted by all anthologists as a beautifully crafted lyric voice.
(6) Sir Joseph Needham, writer and editor of the massive encyclopedia 'Science and Civilization in China' qualified as a biochemist, and was only tutored privately in classical Chinese. All sinologists ignore the fact he was primarily a biochemist, and recognize his preeminence as an historian (another discipline) of Chinese sciences and thought patterns.
(7) Karl Popper trained as a carpenter before qualifying in philosophy, and then aside from the 'Logic of Scientific Discovery' wrote extensively on 'Historicism' and History .
(8)Schliemann was a wealthy businessman who had no training in archeology or academic qualifications in classical languages. His discovery of 'Troy' and excavations in Mycenae radically revised scholarly interpretations on prehistoric Greece, and he is numbered amongst those who have made invaluable contributions to the history of Greece.
(9) Robert Bittlestone, a management consultant, turned amateur archeologist, has been recognized by eminent scholars like James Diggle for his epochal revision of the age-old identification of Odysseus's home with present-day Ithaca, which he identified as Paliki off Kephallonia. No one in the field worries about his being a businessman. He did the required background studied, employed consultants, financed the work, and discovered fascinating facts. He will be accredited for his contribution to the crux for generations by all classical scholars.
(10) All three founding anglophone scholars of Japanology, Basil Hall Chamberlain, Ernest Satow, and William George Aston, not to speak of George Bailey Sansom, were, before coming to Japan, bankers, diplomats,English teachers,classicists etc., who had no prior training in Oriental languages, or historical writing. They all became historians and philologists of Japan without the requisite academic degrees.
(11)William Empson did a double in mathematics and English at Cambridge, but wrote his seminal book on 'Seven Types of Ambiguity' as an undergraduate, before he got his BA, and never got a MA and was expelled from the University for using condoms in his college rooms. The failure to qualify properly never stopped him from getting a professorship later in life, or being recognized as the greatest literary critic of his age.
(12) Bertrand Russell qualified as a mathematician but his first work, one of many to come on history, society and ethics, was on German Social Democracy, a book which in 1896 got him a post as lecturer at the London School of Economics. He had no formal qualifications in history, politics or sociology. That book is still regarde by historians as a useful historian source.
(13) Leonardo da Vinci's only professional training was with Verrocchio as a painter. Historians of engineering and science consider him one of the most remarkable minds in the history of those latter two fields.
(14) Claude Lévi-Strauss was qualified in law and philosophy. His career in anthropology and his fieldwork were done without formal training in the discipline.
(15) Jacques Berque, one of the finest French Arabists of the last century, was primarily a civil servant and agronomist, and despite lack of formal qualifications in either Arabic or ethnography, got a chair at the Sorbonne.
(16) James Lovelock, the formulator of the ecological theory known as the Gaia hypothesis. His only qualification is a medical degree. His theories are taken seriously by paleogeologists and theorists.
(17) Uri Milstein, correct me if I err, qualified in political science, economics and philosophy, but was employed by the IDF as a military historian. He's quoted all over wiki articles on Palestine.
(18) Meron Benvenisti qualified in political sciences, and spent a good part of his middle career as an administrator. That doesn't stop historians from using his Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948
(19) One of the most important foundational studies for Holocaust history in the post-war period, Gerald Reitlinger's Die Endlösung - Hitlers Versuch der Ausrottung der Juden Europas (Eng.The Final Solution, 1953) was written by a British archeologist.
(20)Raul Hilberg, the greatest authority on the history and mechanisms of the Holocaust, trained in law and political science, not in the faculty of history.
These people got recognition as authorities in fields they had no formal qualification in, because of the quality of their contributions (technically as amateurs or outsiders to a professional discipline) to those fields. In general this whole absurd, maliciously motivated debate (malicious because wikipedia articles are overwhelmingly sourced to Internet sources, newspapers, etc., written not by specialized academics or field professionals.A larger number of people participating democratically in these pages show a poor understanding of what careful historian composition requires. Many do not seem to read books but skim their contributions off net sources, which contain 0.000001 of the omne scibile in libraries.)
Chomsky qualified both in linguistics and philosophy. But his thesis was on the Morphophonemics of Hebrew. As both a Jew and specialist in the Hebrew language, from early in his career he, like Milstein, wrote historical studies which reveal a very close and precise knowledge of primary and secondary sources in Hebrew and other languages. His approach is informed by recognizable criteria for academic research. Chomsky has many works, meticulously sourced, on the Middle East. His serious critics do not waste time challenging his right, to comment on Arab-Israeli relations and history because his primary academic qualification was in linguistics. They challenge his interpretations of the evidence he has marshalled. I.e., they do what all historians do to each others work in peer review.
Most articles in Wikipedia on Arab-Palestinian relations suffer from what historians (the phrase goes back to Thucydides) call 'preponderance of power'. The majority of those who read, edit and write on the issue in here are extremely attentive to Israel's image, and use the rules to contest anything that can possibly read as casting a negative light on what is a political image in the world's imagination. (2) While large numbers of Israelis and West Bank squatters contribute, there are relatively few contributions from Palestinians, many of whom don't perhaps even know they are being written about (3) Israel's various versions of what happened are predominantly in Hebrew and English sources. Little of what happened, as experienced by Palestinians, got into archives. (Indeed, Pappe has documented, I believe, the way military victories in 48,67 led to academics and authorities ransacking Palestinian archives. The practice hasn't stopped. Over the years, incursions against suspected terrorist enclaves have on occasion led to 'incidental' destruction of important muncipal archives in various towns). The Palestinian story so far, predominantly, and the point is one of relevant comparison by volume, is one of oral narrative, or in Arabic sources little known even to historians. As insiders, these contested scholars trouble many because they never lose sight of this simple fact: overwhelmingly the English language narrative of 1948-2007 comes from sources, professional and otherwise, hailing from the country that won successive wars, and wrote the master narrative. The obsessively close scholarship they use holds this fact in mind. - We are discussing Israeli-English issues about a third party, that is massively under-represented.
That Palestinian narrative of events is reconstructed mainly through Hebrew and English sources. No historian thinks this anything but a highly partial and parlous procedure. Due weight must be given, in each evaluation of sources, to what is lacking from the unheard voices of the vanquished. Most modern historical writing does this. Why did Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago make such a huge impact- partially because for the first time, history no longer relied on partial accounts and selective Soviet uses of archives, mostly kept under lock and key, but could harvest the massive and minutely recalled reconstruction of the Gulags by the victims. The work of Chomsky, Finkelstein, Shahak, Mezvinzky, are frequently challenged on an extremely pedantic and forced reading of the technical rules, though it is they who endeavour to balance the natural bias in the world's understanding of the tragedy visited on the Palestinians.

p.s.I have yet to see the slightest evidence that those who cite the putative rule about reliable sourcing against Chomsky and co., have the faintest familiarity with his works. If they did, they wouldn't underwrite attempts to censor him here. Nishidani 12:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well said, Nishidani. --DieWeisseRose 00:35, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

well said, but i do want to point out that 1/many of the examples listed were early figures at a time where there was no really targeted professional training (eg daVinci 2/what establish reputation is not the first degree but the equiv of the thesis, the "master-piece" in the old sense. Darwin established that with Voyage and the book on Barnacles. 3/ Some of the 19th century amateurs listed would not really be accepted as authorities today. Obviously the first European Japanologists must have been amateurs. 4/ some of them relied much on specialist assistants or collaborators, such as Needham. 5/ the difference between some fields like political science & history is very small. 6/ geniuses are exceptions. 7/ Lysenko is not an example of a qualified anything.

and, more important, when people write about controversial politics, academic expertise is not the deciding factor.

incidentally, most of the israeli patriots (or chauvinists, whichever you prefer) around here are convinced that the anti-israelis are dominant at WP and they they are a small and misunderstood minority here. The evolutionists too think they are in a holding battle against the hoards of conservative christians, and vice-versa.
My personal viewpoint is that those who seek to exclude views from expression, here or anywhere else, are likely to have the wrong of it. I take NPOV seriously, and think that the provision for exclusion of very small minority viewpoints is much overused, though in the perfect good faith that the views one thinks hideously wrong are unimportant. DGG (talk) 06:32, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
First let me clear up 'anti-Israelis'(which sounds like 'anti-semite'.What is under discussion is not the existence of Israel or of sentiments expressive of a dislike of Israelis. It is about how to deal with Israel, a country and political unit, and its relations with the Arab world and especially Occupied Palestine. There is nothing personal about this. I personally am 'pro-Palestinian' (see below) but this entails nothing about being 'anti-Israeli' a term which is stupid and implies racism if not a restricted, politically delimited, anti-semitism, involving also Israeli Arabs).
DGG (Apropos 1/2) I cited not 'many' but two premodern examples of 20. Most of the examples (I could cite another 50) are of the modern period. I made my remarks with Arnold Toynbee's 'A Study of History in Mind', vol.1 in mind, in that long passage where he discusses the negative consequences of the academic professionalism of certain areas of the humanities. If you qualify as a Sinologist, technically nowadays, it does not mean you can talk with authority on China. For your qualification will be in an abstruse subject like 'Education under the Ming', 'The phonology of Jurchen loan-words in Middle Chinese', 'Ch'an soteriological texts in early Qing China' etc., a specialisation so intense it often means that the expert in question can tell you little original or reliable about anything outside his or her field of formal competence. If we drive this rule to its logical conclusion, only those with academic qualifications on any specific issue in Arab-Israeli relations 1948 onwards can be cited. So Benny Morris's books would not be citable on Egyptian foreign policy under Nasser, nor Shlaim on demographics, nor Lustik on rabbinical ideology: no historian or political science graduate unversed in Arabic would be citable on Arabic affairs etc., an obvious absurdity, Walter Laqueur idem (a fine historian on Europe and fascism, but his volume on the 'Road to War:1967' is virtually unusable for its shoddy use of selective sources, except to document the bias of rashly jerrybuilt books on events). An historian is always an historian qualified in a very specific and restricted field of study. An historian of Byzantine dynasties does not by that token gain authority on the Peloponessian war. Talk of demography, well only specialists qualified in the field can be cited? Talk of wars? only Creveld and a few others. Talk of the erasure of old Palestinian toponyms, only Benvenisti. etc. The sense of an encyclopedia would evaporate.
On point 3/, you write:' Some of the 19th century amateurs listed would not really be accepted as authorities today. Obviously the first European Japanologists must have been amateurs.' 'Some' perhaps. But the men I cited, Aston, Chamblerlain, Satow and Sansom are and always will be considered authoritative, (and of course challengeable). They achieved marvels of scholarship from a zero ground base. Their annotated translations of difficult texts are still used.
On point 4/ 'some of them relied much on specialist assistants or collaborators, such as Needham.' Some, namely 2, Needham and Bittlestone, but note, Needham authored alone volumes 1 and 2, and had a decisive role in ordering, mustering, analysing and writing up much of the rest, until Parkinson's disease hit him. It wasn't as if the assistants he required to write about Chinese mechanics or astronomy had to keep him on guard from making amateurish lapses. He was fully accepted by the sinological community as an astonishing polymath in their ranks, despite his lack of formal qualifications in their discipline.
On point 5/ 'the difference between some fields like political science & history is very small.' Actually, that is hugely debatable. A historian typically must strain after intricate details and evaluate them, to recover the unsaid of the past. They have to tease out what the record doesn't tell us explicitly, if they are worth their salt. Political scientists basically deal with what is said. There's a whole difference in the professional mindset each type of discipline cultivates.
On point 6/ 'geniuses are exceptions.' I could quip back 'and exceptions prove the rule' in its modern sense, but geniuses, in the strict IQ sense, are not that rare in academia. Darwin and Einstein have changed the way scientists see the world. Both were notoriously poorly qualified.
On point 7/Lysenko was an agronomist, and, like it or not, controlled thousands of scientists in the Soviet Union. If you dislike that example, replace it with that madman Nikolay Marr, author of the Japhetic theory of the Kartvelian languages.

I.e. the majority of my cases were modern, and consist of unqualified outsiders who, with a good professional background in some subject, took on a completely different field as amateurs, and made a great impact on it, subsequently recognized by their peers.

You then write: 'and, more important, when people write about controversial politics, academic expertise is not the deciding factor.'
I don't understand this, I'm afraid. All politics are controversial, by their very nature. All comment on politics cannot avoid a controversial character. It is in the nature of controversy that different parties see things differently. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is not uniquely controversial. It illustrates a general problem acutely, yes.
I'm not talking about Israeli chauvinists or patriots.
Many of those I would strongly disagree with in here are serious people motivated to monitor minutely texts according to the rules of Wiki which however they apply unilaterally. They are far more certain or what can and can not be said than I myself am. Many I disagree with prefer intensive editing on what others write to actually reading up and writing contributions. Many individual edits I have done are the result of a half an hour to several hours meditation. I put it in, and someone spends little more than a few minutes in editing it out or reverting, without adequate explanation I spend another half hour clarifying the edit and analysing whatever reason was given, usually discovering that the editor in question has not taken the time to read my motivation, but merely cites wiki rules (I.e., I'm too lazy to tell you why you are wrong, read the following pages) I know, and which, even rechecked, prove irrelevant. It is this editorial mania unaccompanied by productive contributions, which disconcerts many.
NPOV is an excellent rule for writing, but it does not avoid the obvious problems of knowledge, something which is a whole academic field, in good part, initiated by Karl Mannheim. We know that however hard a historian tries to get the facts right, no matter how scrupulous his intended objectivity may consciously be, his presentation will ineludibly have a POV. To practice the profession of history is not ipso facto to enjoy exemption from a POV. It simply means, in proper practice, that the historical mind is trained to observe his own prejudices while trying to evaluate data about others. To have a POV is not a fault, since we all have it. It is a fault if we allow it to distort the intrinsic complexity of evaluating the available information at our disposal so that only one version triumphs. To pretend that while excising what others write as POV means 'invariably that in the edit concerned, there is no POV involved, but simply a neutral application of the NPOV rule, is superficial. I trust NPOV judgements, personally, by looking to see how those who edit apply it, unilaterally or equably to either side in a disputed section. There are several people who I admire in here for editing quickly contributions by anyone, pro-Palestinian or Pro-Israeli as the case may be, that attempt to distort or maim the historical record, or establish language that prejudices the reader (The use of 'Judea' without some gloss like 'in the Biblical Judea' when writing of the West Bank has gone largely unnoticed. You cannot technically speak of 'Judea' without adjectival qualification referring to its past denomination in Biblical texts, of territory which in international law is Palestinian, and is now properly 'The West Bank'. To do so is to insinuate settler language onto the page. Several dozen pages have this error, sitting quietly there, without anyone troubling to correct the misusage).
'most of the israeli patriots (or chauvinists, whichever you prefer) around here are convinced that the anti-israelis are dominant at WP'
Well, professional historians I know of (and some are Jewish, and not public figures in these controversies, and please don't object to the qualification 'jewish') say they have given up trying to contribute to Wikipedia because on Israel-Arab relations, it is impossible to work sanely, and not because of pro-Palestinian bias. We are required to be balanced, sure, but 10% of the historic population in 1900 has 78% of the land, and is still haggling for more of the remaining 22% nominally in Palestinian hands, but effectively under the control of the IDF and 'settlers'.(a euphemism for 'squatters', as English usage customarily called the practice they engage in), on the grounds that the residual, undeportable population is congenitally terrorist, or as Rabbi Kook put it, not fully endowed with a human soul.
If one is in pursuit of objectivity, one shows it by using sharp eyes out for imbalance on all sides. For example, every instance of an Arab massacre of Jews is minutely documented, argued, and detailed (fortunately). Look at the 1929 Hebron massacre. I touched that because I know that the universally voiced figure of 67 murdered happens to be incorrect, and needs finessing, and a futile edit war was sparked off, I suspect by overnervous people who thought that by lowering the figure to the median 64-5. somehow the memory of those who were massacred would be dishonoured, or even that I might be an anti-semite. Most known massacres of Arabs do not even have pages, or if they do, but do not register on the average person's memory, they are brief (the Safsaf massacre was as atrocious as the 1929 Hebron massacre. It has none of the detail of the latter). If the massacre of Arabs registers on popular opinion and looks like it could be the likely object of frequent searches, Deir Yassin for example, then the site seizes up with edit battles endlessly, guess what, over the numbers, with 'patriots' endeavouring to haul the figure down, independently of whether Milstein is correct or not.
'exclusion of very small minority viewpoints' I hope this is not an allusion to Shahak, Chomsky, Mezvinsky etc., or even Finklelstein (whose purging from the University was organized by Alan Dershowitz, against the consensus of peer review, and against the known esteem for the quality of Finkelstein's research by Raul Hilberg, the foremost authority on the Holocaust - instance enough to show one how important a role the control of what the public may know is considered in many quarters). 'Majority viewpoints' are basically about 'public opinion' and as Nietzsche once observed, public opinions are what people who lack private opinions embrace, i.e. they follow the impressionistic drift of the 'public' consensus Walter LIppman long identified as a consciously structured bias manufactured for political ends. In the academic world, there is not neat sensible 'majority' - crackpot minority divide on these issues. (The minority rule is rightly understood to keep flat-earther kinds of comment to a minimum, not to exclude say, in articles, on Turkish history, Armenian or Kurdish contributions).
I can assure you that whatever Wikipedians of different persuasion think, the views of these men are not minority views among people who trouble to inform themselves of the history of Arab-Israeli relations. What Shahak says Lustik says, only Lustik has the proper degree, Shahak was just a Holocaust survivor and chemistry professor with a deep interest in Jewish traditions. "You cannot cite him, he's a polemical Chemist!" Okay, one cites his sources, Nahum Barnea, Herusalem Post/Haaretz etc. You cannot cite them because you got them from Shahak", the ever reliable Jayjg shouts, and the newspaper articles are cited without titles (as they are, unchallenged, on numerous other wiki pages, btw). Effect? Neither Jayjg nor I doubt that Nahum Barnea's article on the Baruch Goldstein massacre on the said date exists. But unless I take a plane and go to the archives (original research) and dig out that article, I cannot cite it from a secondary source he regards as 'unreliable'. This is not editing, this is censorship, or making it laboriously difficult to get well known evidence paged. I note this with equanimity, as slightly comical, and a proof of the said editor's indifference to Wikipedia as a reliable source of information, and bide my time.

These men are deeply respected for their exemplary display of an old virtue, the capacity of a dominant majority to see deeply into the hidden unspoken or suppressed world of the dominated minority. I even know of people whose anti-semitic outlook I managed to break down because I thrust on them precisely books written by the Chomskys and Shahaks of this world. They talk truth to power. Half of Western modernity came from Jewish intellectuals who could do that, because they assimilated into the majority culture of Germany, France and the US, but kept their vision tuned to the age-old awareness of what it was like to be an abused and despised minority. It is now characteristic of much Western thought, and reins in our implicitly imperial presumptions to enjoy the world at whatever cost to those who will never be a part of it, because the system has crushed them underfoot, and swept them under the carpet.There you have my POV. I got it from a great man, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote it while imprisoned by the Nazis,-We have learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of those who are excluded, under suspicion, ill-treated, powerless, oppressed, and scorned, in short those who suffer. I thrust it into view, because we all have one, only some pretend that WIKI rules, if scrupulously applied, will guarantee that one's POV as editor/contributor will automatically disappear. That is epistemologically puerile Nishidani 11:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

who can publish a reliable source - break

I posted this above, but it may have gotten lost in the shuffle... does anyone have a problem with changing the wording to:
  • "The reliability of a source depends on subject matter context, for example, a world-renowned mathematician may not necessarily be a reliable source about biology. However, a source may be reliable outside her/his primary field if s/he has become recognized as having expertise in that area."
I think the change shifts the focus onto how others view the source... It accounts for the fact that some people are considered experts in multiple fields, or are recognized as being amature experts in one field even though they may be primarily employed in another. Think beyond the Chomsky debate folks... there are a lot of subject areas that have recognized experts who are working outside their primary field of study. We can not write policy based on our desire to either include or exclude one particular source. Blueboar 12:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
I think your rewording is an improvement. Thanks. --DieWeisseRose 23:46, 2 August 2007 (UTC)
It depends on what "recognized as having expertise in that area" means, and how we can objectively define it. TewfikTalk 07:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
‘’The Middle East Policy Council’’ of Washington opened its pages for several years to Israel Shahak some years before his death, for 11 articles and an interview. They do not publish fringe-lunatics, or weirdo views, but only positions by people considered as having authority to speak on the subjects they address. An editor, Jayjg, has removed consistently citations of this material, published in that journal, because he was a primarily a Chemistry Professor, at Tel Aviv, notwithstanding the fact that one of his works was also written in collaboration with a noted historian, Norton Mezvinsky, professor of history at Central Connecticut State University. Long a distinguished scholar and teacher the latter was awarded the title of Professor by that university in 2002 with the following words:-
'Norton Mezvinsky is consumed with excellence in teaching, research and scholarship, ever mindful of his responsibilities to contribute to the larger good of his fellow human beings. Professor Mezvinsky’s work as a consultant in Arab/Israeli peace negotiations over many years has had a profound effect. The insight of those many years of labor provide his students with ‘living’ history. Professor Mezvinsky is one of those rare, extraordinary, and erudite professors who make the profession of teaching the calling that it truly is.'
That is not good enough for some editors in here. Are anonymous editors better judges of the concept of ‘academic authority’ than ‘The Middle East Policy Council’ and the Trustees of an American University? He considers Shahak as an outstanding authority in the field of Jewish fundamentalism. Why do the views of anonymous editors, whose credentials for making such judgements one cannot evaluate, carry more weight than recognized experts and organizations in the field?Nishidani 09:28, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think we can set a clearly defined line for what "recognition of expertise" means... it really depends on the subject area, the reputation of the source in question within that subject area, and the consensus of editors working on our articles dealing with that subject area.
My point is that we can not and should not write policy based on the disputes that arise out of one topic area or another. We have to take a more wholistic view. There are subject areas (especially those dealing with pop culture) that rely completely on "amature" experts (one does not get a degree in Pop Culture)... these have to be accounted for. And some sources are considered experts in more than one field (the TV sports commentator Stan Fischler, for example, is considered an expert on both the sport of Hockey and on the history of the New York City Subway). We have to allow some wiggle room in our policies and guidelines.
Yes, an undefined line will mean that there is a grey zone... where a source may be considered an "expert" by some but not by others. Where there is a debate over the degree of "expertise" of a given source (such as the ones you discribe above) it will have to be settled by consensus on the article or project talk pages, by the Wikipedia community at large through RfCs, and even in a few situations by Arbcom cases. Blueboar 13:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
DieWeisseRose's edit and Blueboar's subsequent modification are an improvement, and Nishidani's list of scholars whose training was in one field who have made significant contributions in other fields was fascinating and enlightening (thank you!). I would add to the latter two examples of a slightly different order. R.P. Blackmur and James Wood are two of the most influential literary scholars of the second half of the 20th century. Wood never did any graduate degree and Blackmur only had a high school diploma. I give these examples because the discussion of "primary" vs. "secondary" areas of expertise is sort of a red herring. The credibility and stature of a source is determined not by his degrees or the topic of her dissertation; it's determined by his or her recognized contribution to a given field. This is measurable. That Chomsky is a linguist is neither here nor there; his contribution to media studies, political science, and Middle East studies (in that order, probably) is enormous, and recognized as such. This can very easily and objectively be established by scholarly citation indices, honorary doctorates, academic conferences organized around his work, and so on. Of course Chomsky can be cited as a reliable source; and if Nishidani's edits on Hebron are being reverted on WP:RS grounds, he should probably file an RfC. That Chomsky has a bias does not distinguish him in the field of Middle East Studies; if Chomsky is cited for an opinion or analysis or whatever, then certainly it should be "balanced" by others, but then that is true of any scholar in such a contentious field. But if it's a citation of archival materials that's at issue, as Nishidani's post above indicates, there should be absolutely no question of Chomsky's reliability.--G-Dett 23:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
A slight correction. Chomsky if I recall correctly hasn't be challenged on Hebron, certainly for as long as I have worked there, but on other pages where I contributed. I think one would have great difficulty in denying him, within the rules, the right to be cited on the Middle East, because it is fairly obvious that he is recognized for the quality and intelligence of his input. I believe West Point Military Academy recenly invited him to give a lectureon the Middle East to the graduating class. Yet, editors of senior standing still question his being cited (except possibly in court), and the challenge is pretextual.
I would have thought no one would question Ian Lustik's right to be cited, of course, but I have actually been challenged by Jayjg for having cited his quotation of an anonymous rabbi at Baruch Goldstein's funeral in a section on 'Commemoration' , which was removed on the grounds that it is a  :' claim attributed to an unknown and possibly non-existent rabbi'
I don't need to explain to experts what's going on here (apart from noting that the phrasing is inept. What is being attributed is not a 'claim' but a quotation.) We're not supposed to refuse material from eminent authorities because we have personal or unexpressed grounds for doubting its veracity. The principle is verifiability not truth, or asking people to do background checks to ascertain a hinted counter-truth which may inform the editor in question's suspicions but which he will not divulge to others. To challenge, anonymously, a qualified historian in this way is . . .extraordinary.
A more difficult case is Shahak. Second part of the page on him is disgraceful, esp.for giving prominence to the foul charge he was anti-semitic, and for highlighting quotes from people who don't know what they are talking about (or aren't familiar with such old classic studies as Joshua Trachtenberg's on the odder sides of Jewish folk religion and rabbinical treatment of it). There are very few people deeply familiar with the intricacies of the Talmud, its reflection in certain fundamentalis rabbinical circles in Israel, and on ideology Shahak was one of the few to scrutinize this complex terrain. He may well have got some important things wrong - I don't know a historian who doesn't - but he does give one a glimpse into areas little known, and cites his sources. Secondly, since he collaborated with Mezvinsky, a qualified and distinguished historian, to make those charges is by association to brand Mezvinsky an incompetent and an anti-semite, all to disqualify important (if polemical) material from pages where it may have relevance.Nishidani 12:30, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me if person A contributes/publishes outside their discipline and one can cite reputable sources B and C within that other discipline which refer to/utilize person A's work in that "outside" discipline as reliable/reputable, then we're done. Even renowned "hobbyists" are generally acknowledged by "professional" experts in that hobbyist's field. But until one can provide such a citation of B's and C's acknowledgment, person A cannot be cited as reliable. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on existing reputable scholarly sources, not an avant-garde think tank. If that means it cannot be on the "cutting edge" of every issue, that is a small price to pay for attempting to construct a reputable encyclopedia. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 14:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

PhD Thesis

Are PhD thesises considered a reliable source? In some instances when I am hunting sources they are cited (in journal articles and other scholarly works). While arguably self-published, it isn't like they aren't given serious scrutiny by experts (my own thesis defence is still three years away and already I dread it!). Sabine's Sunbird talk 02:06, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I consider them "semi reliable". I would trust them for factual claims, less so for opinions. Often the key points appear later published in a peer-reviewed paper, which is certainly reliable. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
Depends - many are published by the relevant University Press, and they're at least "quasi-reviewed" - i.e. the defence. WilyD 13:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
This has been discussed in the past. A PhD dissertation undergoes a considerable amount of peer review -- perhaps more so than a published article. There are typically five committee members who are specialists in the field. The committee also usually includes someone from outside the department or the university. Dissertations are regularly cited in academic journals. I think they can be cited as bona fide scholarly work. TimidGuy 15:03, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
I generally think otherwise, at least in science. first, they are often almost unavailable--in the case of many UK theses, literally unavailable without the consent of the author. Second, anything good in them would normally be published in a peer reviewed journal. Third, at least in my experience on both sides of things, the level required is nowhere near as high as an article. In the humanities, theses are sometimes cited. I would not accept it as a reference unless it had been cited by another worker in a peer reviewed article, or if there were special circumstances. They're just too iffy. US theses are never' published by the university press in the usual meaning of publication--if they appear to be, it is either a case of a book based on the thesis having been published by the university press, or the university being listed as the publisher--which is another matter entirely of much lesser authority--the university publishes all sorts of things, press releases included, or they are printed by the university press--that also is the case in Europe sometimes. Basically I agree with CBM on this. DGG (talk) 01:35, 16 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, DGG. Good points. Let's say I wanted to cite a Harvard dissertation. Which guideline or policy would disallow it? TimidGuy 10:16, 17 August 2007 (UTC)
I would discourage the use of theses in general, especially if they are not on the university’s normal accession lists. The whole purpose of sourcing is allow other editors and readers to readily confirm what has been written in an article. If the source is accessible with only the greatest difficulty – or not at all – then it’s really rather useless. Worse, it becomes a venue to insert someone’s POV in a nearly unverifiable way. If the thesis is of fundamental interest to the specialized community, then it will likely be further developed and find its way into a peer-reviewed publication or book. Perhaps we should best think of them as “proto-reliable sources.” Askari Mark (Talk) 16:53, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoa! Please note that in some countries doctoral dissertations are always published, and they are completely uncontroversial to cite, just like any other academic monographs. Considering the crap that appears to be acceptable to reference on Wikipedia (see my complaint about the name website below), gratuitously banning all doctoral dissertations would be a pretty stupid thing to do. Olaus 12:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I had the same thought -- that compared to other types of sources cited in Wikipedia, such as a local newspaper, dissertations would be a good source of expert information. And it seems like they're relatively easy to access, either via interlibrary loan of via purchase through ProQuest. But it may be that Wikipedia should at some point address the issue raised by DGG and Askari that relative accessibility may be a consideration. Right now the impression I've gotten from earlier discussions is that if the source is, in theory, available, then it's acceptable -- even if that means traveling to a special collection in a distant city. TimidGuy 15:01, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I tend to agree with the last two. In the humanities, I'm dubious that articles, let alone non-academic books necessarily have more reliable opinions - dissertations tend to be more cautious I would think. On accessibility, one of the leading members of the Good Article Review team (Homestarmy) doubted that the British Museum Catalogue of Illuminated manuscripts was an acceptable source because, though fully available online, the site didn't always work! Johnbod 03:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

PhD theses should be considered reliable once they have been cited by reputable scholarly sources as a reference (for example, articles B and C in reputable international affairs journal X cite A's thesis on a particular topic). However, again, that does not make A a reputable source on all aspects of all geopolitics everywhere—only where acknowledged. Many experts in particular areas of geopolitics made their first significant contribution to their field in thesis form. This is often somewhat of a necessity in articles which deal with events of the past half century. —  Pēters J. Vecrumba 15:05, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Or reviewed in a reputable journal, I presume? Olaus 11:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this more an issue of giving due weight to sources or views (I have seen a policy on "undue weight" somewhere). A recent dissertation on some minor or previously untreated topic should be perfectly fine to cite for that topic, while a recent dissertation presenting a bold new answer to some significant long-debated question should not be used as the main source for that subject until it has gained a following. Olaus 11:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As for accessibility, not only are dissertations often published in print (and, as I said above, in some countries, they are always published, and I was personally surprised to learn of the opaqueness of the British system). An increasing number of doctoral dissertations are also available in electronic form. Here (Swedish website, but not too difficult to understand, I think) is a collection of links to databases in various countries (Frankrike=France, Norge=Norway, Tyskland=Germany) containing dissertations and other university publications in electronic form. (The following section is for Swedish universities, and includes a link to the DIVA Portal database containing dissertations, other university publications, and unpublished undergraduate or master's theses from several Swedish and Norwegian universities. Search can be filtered to only include doctoral dissertations. As on many of these sites, an English interface can be selected.) Olaus 11:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing duplications of policy sections

In general, paraphrasing, copying, transcluding, etc., other policy and guideline sections is a bad idea. Among other things it creates WP:FORKs. Policy pages are constantly changing. If we copy one here, someone might change this version, someone might change the remote source version, and then we have a divergence. It also creates confusion over which is the actual source of the policy and which is just a quote, and where to turn for the real policy. A link is a lot more clear and orderly for this than a long excerpt of the linked page.

Also, a guideline is supposed to give people rules to follow, perhaps with a little rationale, helpful hints, links, pointers, etc. When you import a policy from somewhere else it's not clear whether you're just trying to stress that the policy is important, or instead whether you mean to say that the policy applies here in some special way.

For all these reasons I think we should avoid quoting policy, especially very obvious policy like WP:V, on this guideline page. There's already a discussion by some that the two pages should be combined. I have no opinion on that, but if this page is going to stand on its own two feet it has to be clear what it's adding to the discussion beyond just quoting the main policy.

That's what I was up to with removing the WP:V quote. It's no less important, just clearer that way. And shorter, which is always good.Wikidemo 23:29, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that WP:RS is cited, in templates and by experienced editors, far more often. I think having this page contain all of our guidance on what is or is not a reliable source is well worth the fork: If you remove, e.g., the information on self-published sources, someone is going to miss it because it just doesn't make sense to click through to WP:V to find out whether a self-published source is considered reliable, especially for a noob. I wish there was a way to transclude sections.
And are policy pages really constantly changing? If this page gets out of sync with WP:V, what kind of problems could that cause?
Wouldn't it be better to put comments in the pertinent sections saying not to edit this text and to copy it over here if you edit WP:V? ←BenB4 01:01, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
The problems it cases are that people quote the wrong wording of policy because they see an out-of-date version, and sometimes even a modified version. Some argue (I've seen it) that the differences are important and that the guideline means to amplify on the policy when it was just supposed to be a direct quote. And sometimes (as in WP:BLP they actually DO mean to cite policy from another section and tweak it for just the cases covered by that page). So all in all you have to be clear whether you're referencing policy, endorsing an interpretation or application of policy to a particular case, or meaning to apply a modified version. Finally, some people make the mistake - as you hint at - of thinking that the rules are just a guideline established by RS, instead of knowing that it's actually a policy that also has other important sections. All in all it's usually better to refer people over to the main page. If there's a special reason to quote it, you can do that with transclusion rather than just copying text. Take a look at how they do that over at WP:NONFREE, where they quote the entire WP:NFCC policy. That's an option here but I'm not sure if it's a good idea. It could be the answer to that question about merging the two pages. Just quote all of WP:V and treat this page as a guideline-level elaboration of that. Wikidemo 01:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)
Part of the problem is that the requirement to cite reliable sources is a Policy Statement (sepcificly a key part of the WP:V policy, but reinforced at NOR)... so it is important to point back to the Policy Statement. Unfortunately no policy has ever spelled out what is meant by "reliable source". This guideline was created in the attempt to do that. When it started, it kept things fairly general... trying to outline was reliable, what was not and giving a few examples. Unfortunately, that concept was somewhat flawed. Things that were considered not reliable in one field of study were considered perfectly reliable in others and vise versa (the most extreme differences were between those writing pop-culture articles and those focussed on science articles). The guideline soon grew unweildy as editors kept adding exemptions and qualifications to account for what was considered reliable in their field of study.
About a year ago, several of us attempted a major rewrite... changing the focus account for these differeneces. We attempted to explain that reliability was a range: some sources were considered clearly NOT reliable (Joe blow's personal POV issue advocacy webpage for example), some sources were considered clearly reliable (peer reviewed papers from respected accademic journals for example), but a lot of sources fell into a grey zone where their reliability depended on the topic, how it was used in the article, and whether there was a more reliable source available. This revision attempted to focus on giving advice rather than spelling out rules. The idea was to help editors figure out for themselves whether a given source was reliable or not, given the subject matter they were writing about. This concept did not fly well. It was clear that many people wanted clear cut "rules" as to what was reliable and (more to the point) what was not reliable. People kept adding in "dos and don'ts"
It was around this time that the great WP:ATT debate took place. Some wanted RS to be firmly merged into that proposed policy, while others definitely did not. Parts of this guideline were cut and pasted into the ATT/FAQ... others were not. Some proposed that this guideline be demoted. It left this guideline in a mess. And the result was that this guideline contradicted what was said in WP:V, WP:NOR and even WP:ATT.
In rebuilding this guideline after all of that settled, it was felt that we needed to ensure that it conformed to what those policy pages said, and to place it firmly under V and NOR by directly quoting what those Policies had to say. Blueboar 13:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo has suggested at WT:V to transclude the source-related portions of WP:V into WP:RS. That way, the many templates and people that frequently cite WP:RS would not be excluding some of the most important information about what does and does not qualify as a reliable source. Are there any objections? ←BenB4 12:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

There has also been discussion on WT:NOR over whether the WP:PSTS section belongs in WP:NOR. But I do agree that all the cross-quoting of policies is confusing, redundant, unnecessary, and should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhaluza (talk • contribs) 13:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

A guideline should be based on existing policies, and avoid setting up "rules" or describing "interpretations" of policy. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 19:28, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

How is quoting verbatim not basing? I think it is unfair to make new users run around and read everything "in full" when it is easy to have all the subject matter in one place. ←BenB4 15:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
I think Jossi was reacting to a statement of mine on a different subject that wasn't very clear. But as to the sentence immediately above, copying all the related policy "in one place" does not save editors from having to "read everything 'in full'". Worse, as people are noting on the WP:V talk page it makes people read it four times instead of once because the sourcing material there tends to get rephrased when it's cited on various guideline pages. When you condense, summarize, or elaborate on things you introduce a variant. It's a stylistic judgment call whether you want to repeat all the policy relevant to a guideline on the guideline page, versus a simple link to the policy page(s). The former case risks the evils of version control, unduly long pages, uncertainty of the source and authority of the quoted material, and so on. The latter case accepts the known "run around" of having to follow a link. I don't see that as an evil though. Following multiple links to get to where things are described is the premise of wikified / hyperlinked content, isn't it? Some people see that as a plus. Wikidemo 16:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)
and in practice if it appears twice, the two always get out of sync, and it is not even always clear which is the intended current version. DGG (talk) 04:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)