Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context!

Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Additional notes: RFCs for deprecation, blacklisting, or other classification should not be opened unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed. Consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments. While the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not policy. This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. Start a new discussion

RfC: NewsClick

An investigative piece titled "A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul" was published by The New York Times in August of 2023. The inquiry examined the reported network of groups and persons that American tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham sponsors in order promote Chinese government agendas and interests across the globe. One of organizations apparently getting financing from Singham's network was named in the report specifically as NewsClick. It said NewsClick's coverage presented a positive image of China and at times resembled talking points of the Chinese government.

The reliability of NewsClick is:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

• newsclick.in: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwan0031461/: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

14:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Survey (NewsClick)

• Bad RfC. ND61F has not indicated what Wikipedia article has disputed cites, and four-way forms with blanket-ban options are always bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  I am counting 4 uses of this as a reference, using a very silly search. [1] I am not quite sure it is used extensively enough to warrant an RFC as well. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  Using insource is a better way, as it can see the URLs hidden inside cites.[2] Using that shows 333 pages with references using the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  OHH. did not know about that. thank you! Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 with a note warning about bias and a lack of independence related to the Chinese government and its talking points. I can understand the concerns about the lack of prior discussion, but I think this is clear-cut enough that we don't have to waste time on it unless someone wants to argue for unreliability or deprecation (which it could still be downgraded to in a later discussion if evidence comes up or if it remains an issue.) There are sufficient reasons to believe it is biased that some sort of warning where people will see it is called for; while it isn't perennial yet, RSP is the only logical place to put such a warning, and a source like this shouldn't be used 300+ time without at least some indicator of the problems where people might see them. --Aquillion (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  +1. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 06:20, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (NewsClick)

• For reference the New York Times articles can be found here or in this archive. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Was there any WP:RFCBEFORE relevant to this RFC? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Let's do RFCBEFORE now. The source is used quite extensively, including for topics like Right-wing politics (the right-wing tendency to elect or appoint politicians and government officials based on aristocratic and religious ties is common to almost all the states of India) and Cryptocurrency (Review of "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism"). If there are credible accusations of this outlet spreading Chinese propaganda, we should at least note its bias and make sure it's not given undue weight. Mostly it's used for India-related topics and I'm not really qualified to judge the quality of the articles used there. Alaexis_¿question? 20:43, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  The source is only briefly mentioned in the NYT article, with it showing bias towards China and talking points of the Chinese government. Would a note about these issues be enough? If so is a RFC even necessary. In the first example you give above the source is one of four used to support the statement, the second is used to support an attributed statement by David Golumbia who according to his obituary[3] was "an expert on cyberlibertarianism, bitcoin, blockchain". Is there any concerns with the reliability of these statements?

  To be clear my point about RFCBEFORE was that it could make the whole RFC unnecessary, not that discussion shouldn't happen. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would suggest we close the formal RFC (unanswered) … and continue to explore several of the citations that use this source and the context in which they use it. Blueboar (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Alaexis_¿question? 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  If so I would suggest a note be added about the validity of the concern of Chinese bias, lest the closure of this RFC become a way to brush those off. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 10:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would have thought that, and that it probably shouldn't be used for reporting on the Chinese government or Chinese history. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:18, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  I think that at the very least noting its biases is worth doing, and that even in the absence of previous disputes over it it's worth adding something like that to RSP (or somewhere) in situations, like this one, where it wouldn't otherwise be obvious. The problem is that AFAIK we can't actually add something to RSP without a designation, or at least it would be fairly awkward to do so. Would it just default to a yellow "unclear" entry, if we don't discuss it in any context except its bias? At the bare minimum concerns over its biases appear serious enough to be an "other stuff applies" situation even if the rest were reliable (which we haven't really examined.) --Aquillion (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  This is a point I would love clarity on; I was considering for some weeks now starting a discussion about the related question of: where and how do we discuss that a source is biased? Because WP:RSP records when sources are biased, but the "standard options" for RSN RFCs are only about reliability (not bias, which editors have to decide on their own to mention); if someone doesn't dispute the overall reliability of a source (let's even say, one that's already present on RSP, so how to colour-code its reliability isn't an issue), but wants to discuss adding that it's biased, where do they do that? Here? How, a custom RFC which people will complain doesn't have the "standard options"? And then, yes, as you ask, how do we note the outcome / bias in RSP if all we want to note is "unexpectedly, this source is biased about X" and not "this source is reliable/unreliable"? Should there be a separate page—or section of WP:RSP—WP:RSPOVP, where this is noted? -sche (talk) 20:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

  Well, nothing prevents us from adding a new record to the RSP table with blank status and a note about the bias in the summary field. Alaexis_¿question? 08:41, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

• Bias is even more contextual than reliability. I think that it's valuable to note it down precisely because of sources like this one (where the bias is clear-cut but may not be obvious at a casual glance); to me, part of the value of RSP is to give people an at-a-glance sense of a source in order to provide a starting point for local discussions. I don't think we need an entire column for it or more details than that - it's the kind of thing where if there's a dispute or problem related to it you really want to read the entire entry and think about how it applies to using that specific source in that specific context anyway. --Aquillion (talk) 23:23, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for raising this important point regarding the evaluation and documentation of source bias. Your observation highlights a significant gap in our current processes for assessing source reliability and identifying potential biases. The current system, while effective for determining overall source reliability, does not adequately address the nuanced issue of bias. As you correctly point out, the absence of a dedicated platform for discusing source bias creates challenges for editors seeking to address this critical aspect of source evaluation.

I agree that clarifying the appropriate forum for discussing source bias is essential. A dedicated page or selction within WP:RSP, as you suggest, could provide a structued approach to these discussions. Addtionally, developing standardized criteria for assessing bias and documanting finding would enhance consistency and transparency in process. I propose we initiate a formal discussion to explore potential solutions for this issue. This could involve creating a task force in order to develop recommendation for addresing the evaluation and documantation of source bias. I look forward to collaboratng with you and other interested editors to find a satisfactory resolution.

Please let me know if you would like to proceed with creating a task force. ND61F (talk) 07:42, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that RFC is not necessary. The fact that NewsClick is heavly influenced by Chinese gov propaganda is a serious allegation that requires detail investigation and talk. It can't be dismissed with a simple note. 333 unchecked citations of NewsClick are alarming. It is imperative that we review these instances to analyze impact of this potentialy biased source on our articls. I understand your concern about the length of the RFC proces, but in this case, it's essential to ensure accuracy and neutrality of our content. A well structred RFC can expedte the process by focusing the discussion and gatherings. The NYT article provides imp evidence of NewsClick bias, but it' is not enough. We need a comprehensive analysis of the source, including its editoril policies, funding, connection to the Chinese government. RFC will allow to collect evidence, check the source content, and reach a consensus on its reliability . ND61F (talk) 08:00, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with ND61F, if there are biases present in Newsclick with the help of fundings from the Chinese Communist Party then I don't see how this is any different to WP:GLOBALTIMES or Huanqiu Shibao which is also funded/owned by the CCP. Xoocit (talk) 16:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

RfC Sihang Warehouse - Questionable English Sources?

Japanese primary sources and contemporary newspapers state X force was engaged in the battle, newer English sources generally with few or no citations assert Y force was engaged in the battle, academic English source notes Y force as not being present in said battle. I am requesting a comment on the reliability of the four English sources in question and additional comments on any of the other sources mentioned would be greatly appreciated too. Adachi1939 (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

There has been an ongoing dispute for about 2 years now regarding the participating sources during the Defense of Sihang Warehouse and more recently a dispute regarding the subsection covering the same event's subsection on the Battle of Shanghai Article. As the battle seems to have been of little significance in Japanese history, most of the known Japanese sources are un-detailed reports from the Japanese military itself or contemporary news reports. Japanese sources state the participating forces were a reinforced battalion and some artillery companies of the Japanese NAVAL landing forces. Contemporary Japanese newspapers also state the Warehouse was captured by naval landing force units. Likewise, contemporary English news reports support this, noting the participation of the Japanese Naval Landing Forces or "marines." When the warehouse was occupied by the Japanese, it was repeated in a major China-based English newspaper that the "Special Naval Landing Party" were the ones who had taken it.

However several newer English-language sources assert it was the Japanese ARMY's 3rd Division. These assertions not only contradict primary Japanese-language sources and contemporary news reports, but also an academic English-language essay authored by reputable historians which documents the IJA 3rd Division as being outside of the city attempting to cross Suzhou River (while the Defense of Sihang Warehouse took place). A look into the references shows this essay was based largely on primary sources authored by the Japanese military.

Other editors have understandably taken issue with the use of Japanese primary sources for the Japanese Order of Battle and have disputed them with several English language sources.

The main English sources being used to assert the IJA 3rd Division's involvement are as follows:

1. "Three Months of Bloodshed: Strategy and Combat During the Battle of Shanghai" by James Paulose. Page 18 (frame 10) states the involvement of the IJA 3rd Division and cites "O’Connor, Critical Readings on Japan, 273-75." I have not been able to read O’Connor's work and verify if this work actually mentions the IJA 3rd DIvision.
2. Robinson, Stephen (2022). Eight Hundred Heroes. Exisle Publishing. There are a number of passages stating the IJA 3rd Division's involvement but the majority lack citations for where this information came from. One page cites "Hatttori, Satoshi, with Dera [misspelled], Edward J., 'Japanese Operations from July to December 1937', The Battle for China, 169" which is from the same English-language essay mentioned above which states only pages later the IJA 3rd Division had already left Shanghai by October 26, 1937 (a day before the Defense of Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai occurred).
3. Niderost, Eric (2007). "Chinese Alamo: Last Stand at Sihang Warehouse". Warfare History Network. Web article with no citations.
4. C. Peter Chen (2012). "Second Battle of Shanghai". World War II Database. Web article with no citations.

Adachi1939 (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Update: I added a summary of mostly secondary and a couple primary Japanese-language sources and their translations on the talk page for the Defense of SIhang Warehouse article.

These sources conclude the participants on the Japanese side were indeed the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces (mostly from the Shanghai SNLF) and the IJA 3rd Division albeit nearby, was outside the city preparing for/engaging in the Suzhou River Crossing Operation.

Given the English sources I presented above are in direct conflict with all of these Japanese language sources, including ostensibly reliable secondary sources compiled by Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, I feel it is safe to conclude they are not reliable.

However if it is solely my opinion on this matter presented, editors on the contested articles are likely going to keep reverting my changes. I would really appreciate some comments or any input from others regarding these sources. Adachi1939 (talk) 00:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Bloody Elbow

What is the reliability of Bloody Elbow pre-2024?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Survey (Bloody Elbow)

• Option 3 See previous discussions at RSN:[4] [5] Three of the four editors who weighed in, not counting me, considered it a blog that was generally unreliable. One editor pointed out it had been cited more than 500 times, but did not otherwise weigh in. Please note that I have a conflict of interest as a consultant for WhiteHatWiki.com, hired by ONE Championship which has been covered in Bloody Elbow,

While Bloody Elbow currently seems to be a reliable source under the new ownership, (See their editorial policy, prior to this, Bloody Elbow was a small blog. When GRV bought Bloody Elbow in 2024, [6] it laid off the existing staff and deleted most of its archival content, indicating a lack of confidence in the site’s past work.

Most of the citations to Bloody Elbow on Wikipedia no longer work and can’t be rescued. On the Ultimate Fighting Championship page, for example, of the 35 citations to Bloody Elbow, only five links work - three go to the Ghost Archives, one to the Internet Archive, and only one to Bloody Elbow. I tried to find the 29 sources on the Internet Archives and the Ghost Archives and I could not locate them.

When deciding whether a source is reliable WP:USEBYOTHERS says: “How accepted and high-quality reliable sources use a given source provides evidence, positive or negative, for its reliability and reputation.” The media rarely cited to Bloody Elbow over its 16 year history. I found only three reliable sources pre-March 2024 that cite to it, two of which described it as a blog. A story written by a contributor on a site called “Fannation” uses Bloody Elbow as a news source. The two other reliable sources that refer to it as a blog are a small Florida publication and Washington Post sports blog. The Post seems to have used it exclusively to reprint quotes from fighters attributed to the Bloody Elbow blog E.g. [7], [8], [9].

My suggestion is that Bloody Elbow pre-March 2024 be treated as unreliable for statements of fact, but can be used for statements of opinion, if attributed. Regardless, editors are going to need to replace the hundreds of dead links with new citations. Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 19:02, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

What is the purpose of this RFC? The consensus from previous discussions is that it isn't reliable. That is also the case with previous discussions on SBNation blogs in general. Has there been any disagreement with that assessment? If not this seems a waste of editors time. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:19, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I see there was a discussion of SBNation, in which you participated, but there was no consensus. You argued that these blogs were sometimes reliable, and sometimes not,[10] which would be Option 2 if applied to Bloody Elbow. But there is recent precedent for examining the SBNation blogs individually here at RSN. Here is an extensive discussion from July 2023 of team SBNation team blogs, in which you also participated and argued they should not be used for BLP.[11] Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 15:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

The issue is still unsettled under WP:RSPCRITERIA. The first discussion had three participants and two agreed that it was unreliable. [12] The most recent one, had three participants, two of whom agreed it was unreliable, but my vote likely shouldn’t count since I am a paid consultant to a company written about by Bloody Elbow. [13]. WP:RSPCRITERIA says that to declare a source unreliable you need significant discussions between at least two qualifying editors about the source's reliability or an uninterrupted RfC. @ActivelyDisinterested: Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 18:40, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't need to be listed, and starting discussion and RFC just to get it listed on RSP is non-productive. This board is for advice for disupted sources, not a place to fulfil thr requirements setout to get listed at RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:49, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3: Generally unreliable, as its just a blog. Slatersteven (talk) 18:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RFC As the RFC was only started to get the source listed at RSP. Blogs are covered by WP:BLOG, and strongly oppose listing this at RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Whether it was a blog or news source pre-March 2024 is the issue. It was not self-published - it had different owners and employees. Wikipedia editors frequently misuse it as a news source, in my opinion. It has been cited more than 500 times on Wikipedia, such as on the page for Ultimate Fighting Championship more than 35 times, and on ONE Championship. I think most of these uses are incorrect even though they are widespread. A formal decision on an RfC will help prevent further misuse, and also clarify that this does not affect Bloody Elbow post March-2024. This decision will directly impact how I treat the source when making proposals for edits I am planing. That's all I care about, not whether it gets list at RSP. @ActivelyDisinterested:, would you like a few examples of where it is treated like a news source on Wikipedia so you can see what I mean - to establish that there is widespread misuse on Wikipedia, which makes this RfC meaningful. Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 23:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

How it is used on Wikipedia isn't how reliable sources are judged, many unreliable sources are used extensively on Wikipedia. If it wasn't a blog at some point could you provide details? As far as I could see it was always a SBNation source and they are all blogs.
You should make the edit requests and then see if anyone objects. The first part of WP:CONSENSUS is through editing, if someone objects discuss it with them, if you can't come to agreement with them see WP:Dispute resolution (which may include looking for third party input on a noticeboard like this one). You are circumventing the normal editing process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:58, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

I think it was always a blog, which is why I chose Option 3. Also, RSN is commonly used outside of disputes that went though Dispute Resolution, apparently contrary to your claim. On this page alone, RSN is used to determine the reliability of a source outside the context of a specific edit dispute on WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Is NPR a reliable source?, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Reliability of NewsReports, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#profootballarchives.com. As to bringing up the 500+ edits, I only investigated the angle of how widespread usage has been on Wikipedia because User: Schazjmd brought it up during the previous Bloody Elbow discussion,[14]. When you participated in Profootballarchives.com, you did not object to User:Fourthords starting the discussion stating it has been used in 1500 articles, nor did you object when the same editor stated that they could find no other discussion about the reliability of the source (therefore no previous dispute about the source, which you say is necessary before coming to RSN). Brucemyboy1212 (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Notice of Close review - "RFC: The Telegraph on trans issues"

Following a close review at WP:AN#RfC closure review request at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: The Telegraph on trans issues[15], the close of the Telegraph RFC on trans issues has been overturned to the preceding status quo[16]. The closer has also updated the WP:RSP entry[17]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:27, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The close of the RFC review has been formally rescinded [18]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:22, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• I haven't followed this at all, but I'm a bit surprised the Telegraph is still considered reliable for anything these days; it really has gone to seed. Bon courage (talk) 13:29, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• Update The close review at AN has been reclosed[19] by ProcrastinatingReader. The original close of the RFC has been overturned and the RFC re-opened[20]. I have made a request for a new close[21], once it is reclosed I will post an update in a new section on this noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:38, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Peoplaid.com and geni.com

I just want to address two suspicious sources popping up on the Philippine side of Wikipedia. Peoplaid and Geni. The articles where peoplaid is regularly used are on Philippine House of Representatives articles, while geni is used in Norberto Romualdez. Peoplaid is reliable for me because it supplies information the same by reliable sources, while geni is probably user generated. Reaching out for your thoughts. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 03:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Geni.com is mentioned on the the perennial source list, and there is a strong consensus that it is not a reliable source.

I can't find anything on Peoplaid.com, it's website doesn't have any 'About us' information, I can't find any uses of it by other source, and it's never been discussed in the RSN archives. There is a small chance that it's well known in the Philippines, so I've messaged the Philippines project here WT:TAMBAY#Discussion at RSN on Peoplaid.com. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

If you want, you can see a discussion on my talk page (archived) related to the subject here, which also links the about us section, and also stating that the website is a blog, making it a little less reliable, reaching out for your thoughts. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 11:20, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

No comment on Geni, but Peoplaid seems to be a Wiki, so should fail WP:RS but sometimes I stumble upon the website checking for Filipino politicians for their past positions and it should be vwry accurate. Howard the Duck (talk) 11:39, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, sometimes no other sources state this. 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 11:57, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

PeoPlaid has a Facebook page that started out as "Isko Moreno Fanpage" in 2020 before changing its name, if that's relevant in any way. It also looks like a blog? I can't find any other sites that use it as a reference other than Wiki pages (mostly politicians), and it's hard to verify where the info came from. Personally, I'd err towards not calling it RS. NyanThousand (talk) 13:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Peoplaid.com seems to be a blog, which falls under WP:UGC, failing WP:RS. While the contents it publishes provide information that other reliable sources do, Peoplaid's reputation or reliability as a whole is questionable. Their posts about certain individuals do not cite any sources that could prove that the information is reliable enough. Even their disclaimer page states that the reliability or accuracy of their content is not guaranteed. So yeah, as @Hariboneagle927 has said, if known reliable sources already provide that same information, then it is better to rely on them instead, especially if the information is about a person. AstrooKai │ Talk 21:15, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

"https://peoplaid.com does not make any warranties about the completeness, reliability and accuracy of our posts. Any action you take upon the information you find on this website (https://peoplaid.com), is strictly at your own risk. https://peoplaid.com will not be liable for any losses and/or damages in connection with the use of our website."

— Peoplaid.com Disclaimer page

I do not feel confident about Peopleaid.com, the administrator/s of the website which follows a blog format even says so. Using Peopleaid.com is not prudent imo, its better to just use those "same other reliable source" than using Peoplaid.com itself. And we don't settle for Peoplaid.com in cases such information is solely mentioned in Peoplaid.comHariboneagle927 (talk) 12:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Probably partially reliable though? 🍗TheNuggeteer🍗 12:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Based on experience highly reliable, but I'd use the info found there to find other refs from more reliable sources, then use those sources. Howard the Duck (talk) 09:31, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

This generic legalese disclaimer means nothing—many reliable sources have something similar, it doesn’t convey any actual information about fact-checking or editorial policy or any other signifier of reliability. 12.188.91.199 (talk) 03:21, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Geni.com is as unreliable as sources come. Anyone can edit it to say whathever they want. Definitely not reliable for anything. Jeppiz (talk) 17:21, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Is NPR a reliable source?

In 2014 a study was conducted to find the reliability of news organizations. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/10/30/which-news-organization-is-the-most-trusted-the-answer-is-complicated/

One of the things that stood out was NPR because it showed that not a lot of people have heard of NPR, only 53%, And only 55% of the people trust it.

0.53 x 0.55 = 0.2915

So, 29.15% of the total population trusts the news source.

This tells us that while just over half of the people are aware of the news source, only about 29% of the total population actually trusts it. The overall level of trust in the news source is therefore relatively low in the context of the entire population. LukeTheAwesomePro (talk) 01:32, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Reliability is not measured in general fame. 53% is in no way "not a lot of people". It is literally most people, and far more than most of the things we rely on as sources.... but again, that's irrelevant. And we don't judge reliability on response of the general public. And the study is not a study of the reliability of sources, it's of the trustedness -- which is different than trustworthy. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 01:44, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

What I meant that 53% of people know of it, I meant by 53% of all the people within the survey know it, the other news articles had at least 90% of people know them. Also, trustedness often stems from perceived trustworthiness. If something is deemed trustworthy, they are more likely to achieve a high degree of trustedness in the eyes of others. LukeTheAwesomePro (talk)

No, that section of the page is just showing select examples from the sources studied. If you look at the full list, you'll find 36 sources listed, with 15 being less famous than NPR. It ranked 12th among the total percentage of the poll respondents who specifically trusted it, beating such sources as the Washington Post and The Economist. And none of that matters, none of that is how we measure reliability. As you can see at our list of sources that have been brought repeatedly to this board, NPR has been repeatedly judged reliable. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

As Nat Gertler pointed out, Wikipedia does not evaluate sources based on how much trust the general public has in it, but on reliability as defined by Wikipedia itself.

NPR is also part of the perennial sources list since its reliability is often debated and currently reads:"There is consensus that NPR is generally reliable for news and statements of fact. NPR's opinion pieces should only be used with attribution". Yvan Part (talk) 02:23, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Technically, the ranking that Nat Gertler said it got was also based on the general public too. LukeTheAwesomePro (talk) 02:26, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not talking about a ranking but part of Nat Gertler's first reply "And we don't judge reliability on response of the general public". Yvan Part (talk) 02:33, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I was saying your statements were simultaneously inaccurate and irrelevant. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 02:52, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Most people know their local NPR affialiate, in the pre-internet age thats who actually delivered the content and even today its who delivers the vast majority of it. This means that as far as the listener in Alabama is concerned they're listening to Alabama Public Radio and as far as the listener in Boston is concerned they're listening to Boston Public Radio but both may actually be consuming a NPR program. This has also already been pointed out but just about every inference you draw from that data is wrong. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

As Nat says, reliability is not measured by a popularity contest.

A stupid example, The History Channel used to air somewhat(?) reliable black and white documentaries of various WW2 campaigns and such. Its viewership had been dwindling for years though.

To increase popularity, it started airing alien documentaries instead and becomes significantly more watched. It is arguably much less reliable now, however, even though it appeals to more folks. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:16, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

While it's correct that we not care about popularity, the example is IMO not particularly apt. It's easily possible people trust The History Channel less than they used to. Even if you are talking about absolute numbers and considering it likely more people know of an have an opinion on the trustworthiness of The History Channel, it's still easily possible less people trust it. Just because something is popular doesn't mean people trust it. However as I said at the beginning, even if a lot of people trust a source, it doesn't mean it's reliable (and vice versa). Nil Einne (talk) 11:38, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The point is generally also made that the most reliable sources (high end scientific and medical journals) are almost entirely unknown outside of a specific circle of experts and practitioners. They have no public recognition and as a result they have no public trust (at least as Luke prefers to do the math) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:54, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

• Just another editor chiming in to say this is in no way how we determine the usability or reliability of sources on Wikipedia. Sergecross73 msg me 12:14, 12 August 2024 (UTC)
• +1 that source reliability is not a popularity contest; this is Wikipedia editing 101. Left guide (talk) 06:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

One could counter that 100% of Republicans (about half the population) trust Fox News. That doesn't make it reliable. Reliability has nothing whatsoever to do with popularity or obscurity. I think the Ad Fontes Media Bias chart is a more reliable indicator, which shows NPR as reliable but biased to the left of center. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Mike Ashley

There is a discussion at Talk:Historicity of King Arthur#Additions from Mike Ashley whether Mike Ashley is a reliable source for the article. As editors do not agree I am bringing this to RSN. Dudley Miles (talk) 07:27, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

His work would in general be considered reliable, but it might not be in a given context (see WP:RSCONTEXT). You should look to the best quality sources on a subject. Ashley's book shouldn't be weighed the same as more academic works. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:42, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that in this particular context, Ashley's work is pertinent and reputable. The article is on the Historicity of King Arthur and gives due credit to the skeptical perspective of most current specialized scholarship on Dark Age Britain (Dumville, Halsall, Higham). It nevertheless refers to other scholars' and authors' attempted identifications of a historical Arthur and has a section on "candidates" for him. Since the evidence does not allow a positive identification -- if it did, specialist scholars would not tend to deny his existence, such identifications remain inevitably hypothetical and subjective. If Ashley is considered a more popular author and less of a specialist, his work remains applicable especially to this section of the article. The work in question is A Brief History of King Arthur: The Man and the Legend Revealed, 2010, an updated extract (the first, historical section) from his earlier The Mammoth Book of King Arthur, 2005, which had included a discussion of the medieval literary sources beyond Geoffrey of Monmouth. Despite its title, the more recent work essentially accepted that there was no King Arthur of the kind popularized by Geoffrey of Monmouth; Ashley's disagreement with the likes of Dumville and Higham is that he is not ready to deny the possibility that the Historia Brittonum (829) could contain viable pieces of earlier information that can shed light on Dark Age Britain -- to wit, the list of twelve battles culminating at the victory of Badon. Dumville himself was somewhat ambivalent, denying the viability of the Historia Brittonum as a source on the 5th/6th century (being written in 829), while at the same time showing some readiness to consider this section of it (the battle list, chapter 56) the incorporation of an older battle poem, as had been proposed. Ultimately, it comes down to a negativist and positivist take on the scant available evidence, such as it is. If the article seeks to provide comprehensive and objective coverage, it ought to refer to both. Ashley works through the sources down to Geoffrey of Monmouth in great detail, and then considers the various interpretations offered by others, as well as discussing observations of his own -- all the while referring back to both the sources and the literature, specialist and more popular alike. In the process, he mulls over much that could have been safely left aside (particularly where the obvious fantasies of Geoffrey of Monmouth are concerned), but it is because in the end he seeks to identify possible historical prototypes that might have served as sources for the composite literary figure of Arthur -- in Geoffrey of Monmouth and perhaps already in earlier Welsh tradition and even the Historia Brittonum. He does this with greater patience and in greater detail than Higham, and also serves as a more comprehensive reference to the arguments of other scholars, as well as a basically fair critique on them. I think that the "candidates" section of the article can only benefit from the inclusion of the figures discussed in these publications (Ashley's and those of others, seemingly exhaustively referenced by him), for the benefit of the reader who might want to explore further. And the reader would already be informed that specialists today tend to be very skeptical, so the expansion of the list of candidates to something more comprehensive can hardly be considered irrelevant. StefThrax (talk) 16:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You arguing for the inclusion of content, which isn't an issue of reliability. Although all content must be verifiable not all verifiable information needs being included. Ashley's work is likely reliable but how that is weighed against other sources and what should or shouldn't be included in the article are issue of WP:NPOV, which are better discussed at the articles talk page. Sorry this bounces you back and forth but RSN isn't the right venue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:45, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The content was added because it was pertinent. Then it was removed, because another editor felt that Ashley was supposedly not a "reliable source" -- although he is published reputably and verifiably (as a matter of fact, none of these are sources, they are all secondary literature and all interpretative) -- compared to, say, Higham. There is no real correspondence in the extent or depth of treatment of the "candidates" between Higham and Ashley, so Higham is insufficient to relay possibilities, even if he is more of a specialist than Ashley. Do they all need to be noted? Possibly not, but we would be extremely subjective in denying the inclusion of those that have been published and discussed. StefThrax (talk) 21:53, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

That why I apologised for bouncing your back to the talk page, it's wrong to say this is a reliability issue. As I said Ashley is probably reliable, but whether some is pertinent for inclusion is a matter of WP:DUE/WP:BALASP. e.g. will the article be neutral with or without Ashley's opinions and how should they be included if are included. These are WP:NPOV issues that are separate from reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:36, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not agree that reliability is not the issue. StefThrax argues on the basis of his own opinion of Ashley's work. Other editors have stated that Ashley is an RS without giving any reason. There is an element of judgement in all writing, and the personal views of Wikipedia editors are not irrelevant, but basically we have to rely on the evidence. Ashley has written extensively on a wide variety of subjects, especially fantasy, science fiction and mystery novels. His only books on early medieval history are his books on Arthur, so there is no evidence that he has a basic knowledge of the historical background required for a full understanding of the subject. Even more importantly, his A Brief History of King Arthur is not listed in bibliographies of books on Arthur, which would be the best evidence that it is a reliable source. Halsall does not list him in the bibliography of Worlds of Arthur. Higham lists his edited work Arthurian Legends but not A Brief History of King Arthur, showing that he regards Ashley's collection of sources as useful, but not Ashley's own views. Marc Morris's The Anglo-Saxons lists Halsall and Higham in the bibliography, not Ashley. We have to go on the evidence for reliability, not our own personal opinions, and the evidence does not justify regarding Ashley as an RS. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:46, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

A quick search shows that it's found in the Bibliography of the International Arthurian Society, published by De Gruyter, a Montclair University course assignment specifically on this book, including the note "Mention at least five of the personages discussed by Ashley.", a University of Michigan dissertation bibliography, a Saint Francis University reading list alongside the Cambridge Companion and Oxford Guide to Arthurian Legend, Higham's work, etc. --Yodin^T 12:09, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

These sources are mostly focussed on the legend of Arthur rather than the historicity, which is the subject of this article. It is also unclear whether some are comprehensive - all books on the subject - or curated lists. The criterion should be citation by experts, not inclusion in a bibliography or discussion by non-experts. Dudley Miles (talk) 12:37, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

As you say, the personal opinions of Wikipedia editors are not irrelevant, but I feel that you are pushing yours. You note that Higham cites another work of Ashley's, and infer it is because the one I referred to did not impress him. But it doesn't seem to occur to you that perhaps Higham either did not read A Brief History of King Arthur, or he found it less convenient to dismiss. Higham's scholarship is most impressive, but he is not above running with his own subjective assumptions and pushing his own point of view. As ActivelyDisinterested noted, this discussion is only partly about "reliable sources" but also much about neutral point of view. By excluding the additional "candidates" from the article, which are discussed by Ashley (all of them) and by other authors (those who proposed specific identifications), you are being the opposite of neutral. There are ways to indicate that such identifications do not have the support of the most specialized scholars today without denying them inclusion in this section of the article. But excluding them does no justice to the topic.

To give an illustration: Higham notes and dismisses a "candidate" for a historical Arthur, Arthwys ap Mar, in a couple of sentences (p. 269), on the basis of his appearance in the 12th-century genealogies, his variant name, and references a much more "popular" and speculative book by Keegan (n. 153, p. 345), ignoring the more sober treatment of the same figure by Ashley -- who does credit the genealogies' ability to preserve possibly credible information to a point, and who regards this Arthwys ap Mar (significantly the only Arthur-like name that can be placed c. 500) as a possible partial historical prototype of some of the tradition that got bundled up in the later literary character of King Arthur (in the Historia Brittonum, possibly Y Gododdin and beyond).

Since we are conversing here, pertinence also seems worth noting: Dumville, Halsall, and Higham represent something like a single school of thought that, responsibly, seeks to base historical argument on reliable historical evidence and evaluates the primary sources critically. However, this Medievalist can tell you that what pass for primary sources in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages are more often than not everything but primary, and the expectation that such evidence should be available in every instance is both unreasonable and naive. That does not mean that the Historia Brittonum or the Welsh Pedigrees can be verified and vindicated, but it also does not mean they can be summarily dismissed with anything like the certainty these scholars advertise. Which does leave room for other, more positive assessments, of varying quality. Some authors have put the pieces together in a way that has supposedly yielded a single identification of Arthur: as Riothamus, as Owain Danwyn, as Athrwys ap Meurig, etc. I don't buy them, but they are published and should be referenced. Ashley actually provides a different approach, and I think that is worth noting: he realizes that there was no historical King Arthur as such (in part by following Dumville and others), but he also wonders how the literary character of Arthur came about and seeks to uncover possible historical precursors, the stories about whom ended up in the Arthurian tradition. StefThrax (talk) 19:08, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Religious affiliations of vice presidents of the United States

A recent edit switching Walter Mondale’s affiliation from “Methodist” to “Presbyterian” drew my eye to this list. I assume the edit was made in good faith (no pun intended) - but because no sourcing was included (for either denomination), I have no idea if the change is accurate or not. And THAT made me realize that the entire list is mostly uncited. This is a problem that needs fixing. Are there any suggestions for reliable sources that could be used to verify the list? Blueboar (talk) 13:40, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Please try the reference desk. This noticeboard is for discussing the reliability of sources. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

No problem… I posted here because I wanted to highlight an article in desperate need of reliable sourcing (which is within the remit of this noticeboard). But I can also ask at the ref desk. Blueboar (talk) 18:05, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Should Similarweb be cited to report web traffic rankings on Wikipedia?

I added this to the Similarweb talk page, but I discovered it doesn't belong there & I believe the question is better posted here per suggestions from other editors found at the bottom of this posting (copied directly from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing). The original question was posed on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Similarweb#Should_Similarweb_be_cited_to_report_web_traffic_rankings_on_Wikipedia? & contains further discussion of the subject.

(I apologize if I've used the incorrect template. If so, please replace it with the appropriate one.)

This topic came up on Talk:GunBroker.com where I have a COI, and merits further discussion by the community at large, given the large number of pages that could be affected (to date, 166 pages). It is not my intention to engage in Wikipedia:Edit warring, but to work toward Achieving consensus.

User:Lightoil stated on 4 May 2023 that "Similarweb may be used if it is considered a reliable source."

On 24 August 2023, User:Spintendo implemented a COI edit request to cite Similarweb web traffic data.

On 26 September 2023, User:Graywalls removed the cited data and maintains that "Similarweb.com is not really a data source. [...] Similarweb is just a data aggregation."

Graywall and I have not been able to reach consensus on this matter, so it seems opening up the topic is warranted.

Should Similarweb be cited to report web traffic rankings on Wikipedia?

Similarweb is used to report rankings all over Wikipedia, most notably the entire List of most-visited websites page, which relies solely on Similarweb as the source.

There are at least 165 other Wikipedia pages (to date) relating to website traffic for entities like Facebook, Weather Underground (weather service), WebMD, and numerous international entities. Other notable pages using these metrics include List of most popular Android apps, List of employment websites (which sorts the data based on Similarweb traffic rank), and List of online video platforms, to name a few.

The question is whether or not Similarweb rankings are a valid source, as it is common practice to use them as an exclusive source on Wikipedia pages (as evidenced by the above links and articles). Since data from sources like Alexa Internet has been discontinued, I'm at a loss to find other secondary sources for website traffic data that could be used on any pages. I would welcome other reliable secondary sources if any could be provided. LoVeloDogs (talk) 21:03, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I think to start with it's best for someone to establish why a data aggregator cannot be used as a source on Wikipedia. Aggregation does not make data less reliable, it just means you're taking data from different places and putting it into one place. An ETL pipeline usually involves aggregation. That makes data more usable, normally, not less reliable. Komonzia (talk) 18:53, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion starting a discussion on the Reliable Sources Noticeboard would be best to settle the issue on whether Similarweb is a reliable source. Lightoil (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

Indeed. The Reference desk is not the right venue for resolving issues concerning Wikipedia policy.  --Lambiam 20:47, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

LoVeloDogs (talk) 21:14, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Minnlawyer.com for attorney BLP

See also:

• Churnalism attorneyatlaw.com used to create previous draft, August 2023
• Multiple other draft creations, suggestive of PE or COI, August 2023

Following on the issues above with attorneyatlaw.com,

• Draft:Christopher W. Madel

has been submitted by a Florida IP with a resume-like structure, still using non-reliable attorney-at-law.com, and now relying also on minnlawyer.com.

Similar to attorneyatlaw.com, Minnlawyer.com

• has some staff writers (Bohlander, Sjerven, Beneke and Brown)

but seems to be mostly user-submitted churnalism:

• People and practices
• Business connect
• Verdict & settlement
• Partner content

and it goes on. I can't determine what their "Attorney of the Year" is based on. No Minnesota attorney I have spoken to has ever heard of this website or its people.

Looking down the other sources used in this draft, many are very brief, passing mentions of the subject as any run-of-the-mill attorney would get in news reports about a case or client (samples: Denver Post, New York Times, Brainerd Dispatch, The Guardian, ESPN, and so on.)

The one minnlawyer.com source used from staff writer Brown is subscriber only, so I can't read it to determine if it has any journalistic qualities or is purely promotional churnalism. Mother Jones and MPR news have the most indepth coverage of the attorney, so I suspect the subject may meet notability even though the article does a poor job of demonstrating it.

But should minnlawyer (distinguishing between Brown the staff writer and other writers) be used in the context of a BLP? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think Minnesota Lawyer is unreliable. It seems to be a legitimate legal publication per its about page. Regarding the categories of content you've noted, the publication expressly labels those things as paid content. The "People and practices" and "Business connect" section are expressly categorized under "press releases". For example, in an attorney hire announcement, the bottom of the article states: "Announce your new employees, promotions, board positions, community notes and leaders in your organization to Minnesota Lawyer’s influential audience. The information in the People & Practices section is provided by the submitter." Likewise, the "Partner content" is expressly labelled as "sponsored content" at the bottom of the main page. The "Verdict & settlement" thing is a common practice of legal publications; the New York Law Journal, which I don't think anyone would dispute the reliability of, calls on readers to submit decisions for coverage. The paid content may be usable for ABOUTSELF purposes, but obviously shouldn't count for notability purposes. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The Central India Gazetteer series (1907)

Is the source, the Central India Gazetteer series (1907) a reliable source for discussing kingdoms and states within India in the 1400s? The article/template in question where the source is being used is Template:South Asia in 1400.

The source does not even seem to be addressing the 15th century. Link: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Central_India_State_Gazetteer_Series/Qv0bAQAAIAAJ?hl=en Ixudi (talk) 08:09, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Rudolf Steiner

FitzGerald, Michael; Barber, Barrington (2013-07-05). The Nazi Occult War: Hitler's Compact with the Forces of Evil. Arcturus Publishing. ISBN 978-1-78212-703-1. Rudolf Steiner was always regarded as a mortal enemy by the Nazis but many of his ideas were sufficiently similar to theirs to become incorporated in their occult mythology. The source of the 'acceptable' aspects of Steiner's ideas was never credited but as there was considerable overlap between the views of many German occultists it was not hard to adopt an idea from one 'thinker' and assign its origin to another.

I don't think it's bad source; I don't think it's a good source. Help me decide. tgeorgescu (talk) 10:48, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

None of author (i don't see Barrington Barber on title page or in work), publisher, or content inspire any confidence. Why wouldn't you use Staudenmair for such content? fiveby(zero) 15:13, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Fiveby: That's why I was asking. I wanted to be sure I make no mistake. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:19, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Just in case, here is his profile: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B004AQBGUI/about tgeorgescu (talk) 16:44, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

UkrainiansintheUK.info for George Raffalovich

I'd like to use this page as a source for George Raffalovich. The about page implies that anyone can submit material, but also implies there is editorial control, without making it really clear what the academic level is of the contributors or editors. Does anyone know more about the web site, or have other evidence bearing on its reliability? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:59, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

International Peace Project in the Middle East: The Effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field

More eyes needed at Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation, and Transcendental Meditation technique. One specific issue is the reliability of a primary research paper published in the Journal of Conflict Resolution. It proposes that group practice of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field (the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program) during August and September, 1983, in Jerusalem, would reduce stress in the collective consciousness and behavior of Israel and Lebanon. It concludes that the "yogic flying" by the group had a leading relationship to change on the quality-of-life indicators, supporting a causal interpretation.

Orme-Johnson, David W.; Alexander, Charles N.; Davies, John L.; Chandler, Howard M.; Larimore, Wallace E. (December 1988). "International Peace Project in the Middle East: The Effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field". Journal of Conflict Resolution. 32 (4). Sage Publishing: 776–812. doi:10.1177/0022002788032004009.

The following is comment on the article by the journal's editor, from a history of the journal published in 2017.

Extended content

The role of editor of a scientific journal is rarely smooth, and sometimes a ride that is both hilarious and dangerous through potholes. I remember best an article entitled “International Peace Project in the Middle East: The Effects of the Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field” (Orme-Johnson et al. 1988). I’ll not reproduce it here, but you can get the basic message from their abstract...After the reviews arrived I made, in some fear and trepidation, the decision to publish it with the following comment to precede the article (Russett 1988): "The following article presents and tests a hypothesis that will strike most readers (myself included) as, to say the least, unorthodox. The hypothesis, supported by the empirical tests, is that the practice of Transcendental Meditation by a relatively small group of individuals can lower the manifestations of social conflict in a much wider circle of individuals not in any contact with the meditators. This hypothesis has no place within the normal paradigm of conflict and peace research. Yet the hypothesis seems logically derived from the initial premises, and its empirical testing seems competently executed. These are the standards to which manuscripts submitted for publication in this journal are normally subjected." "The manuscript, either in its initial version or as revised, was read by four referees (two more than is typical with this journal): three psychologists and a political scientist. One dismissed the first version summarily, as “using social scientific method to legitimate religious/philosophical teachings.” Two others, reading the first version, raised various questions about the methods employed in the study. One of those referees, himself technically adept, began his report with the words, “This paper illustrates that Box-Jenkins techniques can be used to support any hypothesis.” The other, after a detailed methodological critique, nevertheless concluded that the paper “has a great deal of merit in that the author(s) proceeds to examine a hypothesis that is on (or just beyond) the fringe of accepted ‘scientific knowledge’ in a very professional fashion.”" "A year later, I received a revised version of the paper, in which the methodological problems with the original seemed to have been properly addressed. I sent this version also out to referees: one of the previous referees and a respected associate of the Journal. Both essentially passed the methodology as competent. The first discussed the research design and execution in detail, replying that “if I apply the criteria I would use to judge any other example of ‘traditional’ research I would have to recommend publication.” He then nevertheless expressed reservations about the implications this had for the conduct of scientific research, and offered to write a commentary, which I am happy to print at the end of the article. The second disdained the paper as “a logically and methodologically coherent effort to test a set of hypotheses that, to be blunt, I regard as absurd.”" I decided, also ambivalently but with the opposite conclusion, that JCR should publish the article. While one should have serious reservations about research originating in highly implausible assumptions, the criteria for plausibility are unclear. For example, even non-Marxists would hardly find it acceptable to dismiss a piece of research simply because it originated in Marxist assumptions. I am also sympathetic to the second referee’s further stricture: “I do not trust a quasi-religious organization to conduct fair and impartial tests of the predictions of the founder of the organization. I’d be willing to consider seriously the current research for publication if, and only if, it were conducted by an independent, scientific body such as the National Academy of Sciences.” Yet, this is a bit of a catch-22. For a study with premises as heterodox as this one, it is almost impossible to imagine a body like the National Academy of Sciences being willing to fund such a research effort without some prior appearance of evidence for the hypothesis as produced by the normal scientific review procedures. Acceptance of the stricture would in practice mean the virtual impossibility for evidence ever to appear in print. Some would doubtless reply, “and so it shouldn’t.” Certainly, one can imagine a system of science becoming deluged with quackery passed off as research. Certainly, there is a great deal of quackery in the world at large (not all of it being practiced by quasi-religious organizations). It is vital to uphold normal scientific standards. But the practice of censorship in science, as in more overtly political realms, can be very unedifying. See, for example, DeGrazia’s (1966) report on the methods used to discourage publication of Immanuel Velikovsky’s rather outrageous work; Galileo was censored because his views offended the precepts of religious authorities. Most research—at least the presentation of new findings—is performed by scholars who begin with the belief that their hypotheses are plausible. Who else would spend the effort? Those who doubt that plausibility can try to replicate the original findings, and if they cannot do so they cast new doubt on the plausibility. This adversarial process must be conducted according to scientific norms and standards for evidence. Eventually, the dialectic begins to produce something like a consensus. It is possible to “cook the data,” in ways from wishful thinking and marginal adjustment to massive fraud ... . The procedures for detecting error are cumbersome, and most of the time, we must rely on the scientist’s own honesty. But the costs of being caught cheating are severe—few people lose status faster than a scientist so apprehended. All in all, it is an imperfect process, though less so in instances such as this where the data are basically in the public domain, and what really is the alternative? Publication by itself provides no “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.” It does, however, provide the opportunity for anyone who either believes in the plausibility of the hypothesis or who does not to carry on subsequent research. Attempts to continue or replicate such research should explicitly compare results produced by these authors’ hypotheses with those of alternative hypotheses. The research should incorporate the best safeguards against the intrusion of personal bias. All the data must be publicly available for scrutiny. It also would be desirable for major replications to include in the scientific team members whose initial bias is against the hypothesis as well as those in favor of it. This whole affair produced numerous jokes and complaints—so many that I sometimes regret publishing the article. But JCR survived it, and so, I hope did my reputation as editor. On the whole, I think it raises issues which are still relevant.

What are editors views on the article's reliability? Cambial — foliar❧ 13:21, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

As a general principle Wikipedia tends rightfully to be somewhat wary of citing primary-source papers on any subject. More so if the research seems to run counter to current scientific consensus. And given that this paper doesn't so much run counter to scientific consensus but depart off at a tangent into a new reality entirely, there are no circumstances I can imagine where policy would permit it to be cited as factual evidence for anything. Wikipedia reflects current scientific consensus. It is not part of its mandate to demolish it, and to construct a new paradigm where bouncing around on ones arse (which is a key component of 'Maharishi Technology': any good search engine will find plenty of videos depicting 'Yogic Flying') results in outbreaks of world peace. Hokum isn't science, even when misguidedly published in a scientific journal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:41, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

References

https://www.xda-developers.com/ for tech

editorial policy: https://www.valnetinc.com/en/editorial-integrity

staff: https://www.xda-developers.com/page/about/ (12 people listed)

publisher: https://www.valnetinc.com/en/our-brands

I want to use it for this claim in Flutter_(software): (this is currently an unsourced statement that someone else added some time ago, not me.)

On May 6, 2020, the Dart software development kit (SDK) version 2.8 and Flutter 1.17.0 were released, adding support for the Metal API as well as new Material widgets and network tracking development tools.

source: https://www.xda-developers.com/google-flutter-117-dart-2-8-stable-sdk-app-development/ J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 20:03, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Out, PinkNews, and Pride.com

I am using Out and Pride on "Lacy" to source that some critics considered the song to have potentially sapphic lyrics and PinkNews and Out on "Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl" to source that a lyric about the artist liking gay men received a mixed reaction online. I wanted to ask if any (or all?) of these could situationally pass as high quality sources if the articles were to go to FAC. I'm a bit torn since articles should represent diverse viewpoints but these are not the most reputed websites. All four authors are gay if that helps ([22], [23], [24], [25]), so not sure if that would represent a conflict of interest or help their credibility...--NØ 17:48, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

those are reliable. also that the writers are gay/queer is clearly not a COI. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:39, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I know that PinkNews is green at WP:RSP, though with some caveats. Loki (talk) 19:56, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Out is a poppier sister publication to The Advocate, which is the American LGBTQ community's publication of record. While some caution might be warranted about due weight given its sometimes tabloidy approach, it's presumptively reliable. -- Tamzin^{[cetacean needed]} (they|xe) 20:16, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

+1. We even have a Wikipedia article to give us the info we need to vet it. As a longstanding publication, I'd treat it like People, which I'd also expect to meet the high-quality FA bar when used appropriately. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 01:54, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

MaranoFan, since your question is specifically related to the requirement at WP:WIAFA, 1c, for high-quality reliable sources, your question is above and beyond the general requirement for WP:RS and the remit/domain of this noticeboard. This board will engage many editors who aren't accustomed to generating content at the FA-level; general reliability is different than the high-quality sourcing requirement at FAC, which is partly intended to avoid unencyclopedic, unenduring, newsy content, and partly intended to assure that a full and comprehensive survey of scholarly and high-quality sources has been conducted.

I think the general answer in this case is "no", they would not normally be considered high quality for FA purposes, but as always, it depends on the text being cited and how controversial it is, and how well you have attributed opinions. For example, the caveats at WP:PINKNEWS would disqualify it as high-quality or for citing some kinds of content; again, it depends on what you're citing. If the article goes to FAC with those sources, I would expect them to be flagged on the source review, and it would be up to you to defend at the FAC that the sources are high quality as required at the FA level for citing the content they are used to cite. If those are the only sources expressing a given view, I'd expect that they could be considered UNDUE by some FAC reviewers (Wikipedia is WP:NOTNEWS, and we don't have to include every opinion). And whether any article meets the FA standards is ultimately up to reviewer consensus; not every reliably-sourced article gets to be an FA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of an international law - agreements, conventions

In the Chechil, i have been trying to rephrase the leading of the article according to the geographical indication which is registered in Georgia, like it is in the articles of Champagne, Roquefort and many other products which have geographical indications registered.

The origins of Chechili is protected by the copyright laws which protects the geographical indication of the product. So to say simply its patented by Georgia. [26] Which is part of the international law procedure of protecting and preserving a culture originally.

The mentioned patent is in accordance to the international agreements which Georgia takes part in such as:

1)Berne Convention[27]

2)Rome Convention[28]

3)WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty(WPPT)[29]

4)WIPO Copyright Treaty(WCT)[30]

5)AGREEMENT ON TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS(TRIPS)[31]

Moreover, the registration of trademarks is regulated by the agreements and conventions of:

1)Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property[32]

2)PROTOCOL RELATING TO THE MADRID AGREEMENT CONCERNING THE INTERNATIONAL REGISTRATION OF MARKS[33]

3)AGREEMENT ON TRADE-RELATED ASPECTS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS(TRIPS)[34]

"Proceedings of the Third Regional consultation on geographical indications in Europe and Central Asia" by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations[35] p. 55

"The basis for the protection of GI in Georgia is national legislation and relevant international agreements. The Law of Georgia on Appellations of Origin of Goods and Geographical Indications (hereinafter the Law of Georgia) was adopted in 1999. The Law of Georgia complies with international and EU laws and is based on the sui generis protection system."

"A geographical indication (GI) is a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin. In order to function as a GI, a sign must identify a product as originating in a given place. In addition, the qualities, characteristics or reputation of the product should be essentially due to the place of origin. Since the qualities depend on the geographical place of production, there is a clear link between the product and its original place of production." [36]

Geographical indications of Georgia is protected in almost 40 countries, including a country that the compatriots of are trying to affiliate the product to. Are these considered as reliable sources to have the leading rewritten as it is in the cases of Champagne, Roquefort and others which includes the geographical indications. Lemabeta (talk) 09:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: In OPs long writing WP:SYNTH analysis of primary sources, only a single source actually mentions Chechil (specifically Meskhuri chechili type chechil), the rest of their sources are irrelevant and don't even mention the subject (see WP:V), so I'll address the one that does. It's a Georgian government WP:PRIMARY source [37] not suited for Wikipedia usage especially in disputed topics. Whereas one of the secondary WP:RS books in the Chechil lede that literally specializes in cheeses ("The Oxford Companion to Cheese") verbatim says that:

"Twisted string cheese, chechil panir, husats, or tel cheese are Armenian pasta filata cheeses,…”

Lastly, a Georgian government primary source showing Meskhuri Chechil type of chechil being trademarked doesn't determine Chechil origins. How is a mere trademark of a particular type of Chechil determine Chechil origins? Especially considering when the secondary WP:RS specialist source in the article says it's an Armenian cheese. It is per our rules that Wikipedia is written based on WP:SECONDARY reliable sources, we can not WP:OR / WP:SYNTH analyse primary sources to reach a conclusion especially in disputed topics and especially when the strongest source in the article doesn't state any of the OP's claimed POV [38]. Vanezi (talk) 09:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Al Jazeera

What is the the reliability of Al Jazeera English in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict and generally? 14:50, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Jump to:

Reliability of Al Jazeera - Arab-Israeli conflict

Reliability of Al Jazeera - General topics

The immediate background to this discussion is:

• Discussion about "Why is Al-Jazeera green?", a discussion of prior discussions where it was said The current noticeboard discussion appears to be evolving into a full RfC. When this happens, I urge the RfC starter to ask responding editors to evaluate the aspects of Al Jazeera that I mentioned in the #Discussion review (Al Jazeera) section, and to list the RfC as a centralized discussion
• Discussion about "Al Jazeera - factual errors", as a WP:BEFORERFC
• Question drafting

To keep this discussion concise, editors are encouraged to limit themselves to no more than ten comments.

Other prior discussions
Al Jazeera Trustworthiness Al Jazeera reliability Al Jazeera - 2023 Al Jazeera might have published a false claim

Reliability of Al Jazeera - Arab-Israeli conflict

What is the reliability of Al Jazeera English in relation to the Arab-Israeli conflict?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Note: Only extended-confirmed editors may participate in this discussion, per ARBPIA General Sanctions.

Survey (Al Jazeera - Arab-Israeli conflict)

• Option 3. Previously I reviewed approximately half of the 76 articles published by Al Jazeera on the Israeli-Palestine conflict within a two week period. Among these articles I found three - almost 10% - that made significant factual errors in Al Jazeera's own voice, errors that have gone uncorrected for two months despite being reported. By any reasonable definition of the term, a source that makes significant errors almost 10% of the time is "generally unreliable".
  1. US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school

     Al Jazeera claimed that Fourteen children were killed, as well as nine women in an Israeli attack. This is false; nine children and three women died. While the figures did match the initial figures reported by al-Aqsa hospital, those figures had been corrected hours prior to the report being published - and even if the figures had been corrected after, Al Jazeera's decision to put them in their own voice would have meant that they still had a responsibility to issue a correction.

  2. Nuseirat, anatomy of Israel’s massacre in Gaza

     Al Jazeera claimed that Israeli special forces began the operation at 11am under heavy air bombardment on the camp. This is false; airstrikes began only after the hostages had been retrieved, as Israel tried to extract them. (AP News, New York Times, ABC News, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, NBC News)

     In the same article, they claim that three other captives were killed. While this hasn't been proven false yet, Al Jazeera's decision to put the unverified claims of Hamas in their own voice raises questions about their reliability.

  3. Israel occupying Palestine echoes France colonising Algeria

     Al Jazeera claimed that the Second Intifada started off largely nonviolent. This is false; it started violently, with gunfights in nearly every major West Bank town and city within the first few days, something that even Al Jazeera previously acknowledged, saying that it began when Ariel Sharon's visit to Temple Mount sparked a violent reaction from Palestinians.

Other sources that contradict Al Jazeera's Second Intifada claim

Arab Uprising Spreads to Israel, published October 1, 2000 The rioting and gunfire seemed to spread everywhere today--to Arab towns and cities in northern Israel's Galilee region; to Jaffa, the scenic old port town just south of Tel Aviv; to Rafah on Gaza's border with Egypt, where a pitched gun battle was punctuated by Israeli missile fire; even to Ramat Rachel, an upscale kibbutz on Jerusalem's southern outskirts where molotov cocktails exploded this evening. Israeli forces and Palestinian police and gunmen traded fire in nearly every major West Bank town and city, from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south. "Between Humanitarian Logic and Operational Effectiveness: How the Israeli Army Faced the Second Intifada": But unlike the first Intifada, which was basically a civil uprising against the symbols of an occupation that had lasted since June 1967, it very quickly lapsed into an armed struggle between Palestinian activists and the Israeli armed forces. Almost from the very start, armed men took to hiding among crowds of Palestinians, using them as cover to shoot from. The IDF retaliated forcefully, each time resulting in several deaths The Current Palestinian Uprising: Al-Aqsa Intifadah On October 1, Israeli helicopter gun ships fired on Palestinian sniper locations in apartment buildings near the Netzarim junction after Palestinian snipers started shooting at the Israeli military post. Rioting as Sharon visits Islam holy site, published September 29, 2000 Young Palestinians heaved chairs, stones, rubbish bins, and whatever missiles came to hand at the Israeli forces. Riot police retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets, shooting one protester in the face. Al-Aqsa Intifada timeline 30 September: In one of the enduring images of the conflict 12-year-old Muhammad Durrah is killed during a gunbattle between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the Gaza strip Broken lives – a year of intifada The Netzarim junction, where Muhammad al-Dura was killed on 30 September 2000, was the scene of many riots involving demonstrators throwing stones or Molotov cocktails in the first days of the intifada. Chapter 4 The Second Palestinian Intifada The Palestinian uprising, soon termed the al-Aqsa intifada, began with groups of Palestinian teenagers throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints at border crossings, but it quickly escalated. There were increasingly fierce clashes between armed security forces of the Palestinian Authority and the IDF. Palestinian snipers directed fire against Israeli civilian neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Violence escalates between Palestinians, Israeli troops, published September 30, 2000 At least seven Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died and hundreds of demonstrators have been injured in three days of fighting, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials. Sharon Touches a Nerve, and Jerusalem Explodes, published September 29, 2000 Tightly guarded by an Israeli security cordon, Ariel Sharon, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader, led a group of Israeli legislators onto the bitterly contested Temple Mount today to assert Jewish claims there, setting off a stone-throwing clash that left several Palestinians and more than two dozen policemen injured. The violence spread later to the streets of East Jerusalem and to the West Bank town of Ramallah, where six Palestinians were reportedly hurt as Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and protesters hurled rocks and firebombs.

Any one of these errors, uncorrected two months later despite being contacted, is sufficient to consider the source unreliable - and there are three of them.

In addition, scholarly sources do not consider Al Jazeera to be independent media but to instead be a hybrid model, that operates independently in routine affairs to boost its credibility, and only reverts to state-sponsored-style broadcasting when the state considers its interests to be at threat. Given the identified issues, this lack of independence raises further concerns. This is discussed further here. BilledMammal (talk) 14:50, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to !vote in this discussion, but if your rationale for GUNREL is that they made errors in reporting immediately after events on the ground, then pretty much every publication reporting on war and conflicts should be GUNREL. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:42, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

It isn't that they make these mistakes, it is that they don't correct them - The Guardian, for example, also often makes mistakes in the "breaking news" coverage, but they are prompt and open about issuing corrections. BilledMammal (talk) 07:27, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I had previously replied to BilledMammal's objections here. 1. As mentioned back then, AJ did issue a correction here. 2. More details in discussion below, but TLDR is that IDF and Palestinian witnesses gave competing versions of the events, AJ supports the Palestinian side and some other RS do too. 3. "largely nonviolent" is pretty open to interpretation. We should not be using ambiguous statements from any RS.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:18, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1: noting that WP:GREL means generally reliable, not "always reliable". If we imposed the requirement for sources to be "always reliable" in order to be WP:GREL then we would judge the New York Times to be not reliable on behalf of their parroting the demonstrably incorrect claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. TarnishedPath^talk 15:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, per my comments based on the assessment of academic sources in 2020, my brief comments at the last time this was discussed at RSN to the same effect, and the lack of any new evidence of similar caliber in this discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Generally reliable for the topic area, I would note that despite being used to support BilledMammal's innovative (if unconstructive) argument none of those sources would survive the same level of scrutiny which is being applied to AJ. This sort of blatant cherrypicking is exactly what we are NOT supposed to do at RSN. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:49, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, generally Fog of war issues are not enough to destroy a news orgs credibility. Also we have discussed similar "factual errors" before here: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_445#Al_Jazeera_-_factual_errors. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Thoughts in general:

  Al Jazeera is the only media org with correspondents/journalists on the ground. Most western sources have removed their correspondents due to fear of bombardment [39], and use IDF supervised visits to look over Gaza. [40]

  Thoughts on claims:

  • "US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school"

  a fog of war claim and seems silly to try to deprecate a source when constant air strikes and on the ground reporting means sometimes a correction of deathtoll remains hard to do.

  I would also argue that compared to many other news outlets that do not regularly report the deathtoll of airstrikes, Al Jazeera provides better coverage.

  • "Nusseirat, anatomy of Israel's massacre"

  The claim about the early airstrike comes from analysis of an expert professor at the Doha institute. [41] The claim about a delayed airstrike comes from citing the IDF's own press communication and statements.

  • "Talks about the Second Intifada starting non-violent."

  This claim is based on decision of what counts as violence and which side started violence, a loaded bit of argument that would be impossible to adjudicate on this thread and would expand the scope of this thread. Al Jazeera is biased, like any news outlet. I'd argue that in comparison to many other english media sources that are biased towards Israeli claims (see [42] [43] [44] [45]) that Al Jazeera provides a useful counterpoint. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:10, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Similar issues with other outlets:

  • See the various claims and debunking of some of them in Screams Without Words, the NYTimes article that had been done by an IDF syncophant who was eventually let go
  • [46] [47], both CNN articles, states that Hind was 5. Uh no, she was 6.

  Trying to deal with Fog of War is challenging for all outlets. Expecting pinpoint accuracy on all points or else arguing unreliability seems like too much to ask.

  Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1. This has been debated to death and it's pretty clear that Al Jazeera English is a legitimate, reputable news organization in line with what we'd expect of a generally reliable source, including for this topic. The stick needs to be dropped on this one. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:08, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Rosguill and agree with Horse Eyes Back that this is cherry picking articles that some Wikipedian disagrees with, not ones that sources have actually raised a concern with reliability for. It’s claiming that if a source does not agree with the sources they prefer then the source is unreliable, and that is antithetical to the entire NPOV system. nableezy - 17:19, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  And to demonstrate how far reaching this method of determining reliability would be, let’s examine a couple of sources. France24 has, still uncorrected and in their voice, that The war began with the Hamas cross border incursion that brought terror and slaughter to towns, kibbutz and a music festival. 1,400 Israeli civilians were killed, and 229 are still in captivity, kidnapped by Hamas. No, 1400 Israel civilians were not killed, about 1200 in total were killed and several hundred were Israeli military personnel. The NY Times at least said after the Hamas attacks that killed 1,400 Israeli civilians and soldiers on Oct. 7 and while they have civilians and soldiers they have not corrected the count down to 1200. The Washington Post got the number right, but said On Oct. 7, militants surged across the Gaza border and began hunting down Israeli civilians, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostage. That was corrected on March 19, three months later, by changing Israeli civilians to people, but silently so, no correction appears on the article. Nobody would consider this cause to claim any of those sources are generally unreliable. nableezy - 00:31, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 and suggest snow close. For the Intifada thing, people can debate what counts as violence and who started it, and the other two points are pretty clearly "fog of war" issues that happen with immediate reporting. If these three cherry-picked examples are the biggest "errors" that Al Jazeera committed, that makes them a pretty reliable source. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 17:27, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with a snow close here. TarnishedPath^talk 23:23, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1: Nothing significant enough in the cherry-picked examples to warrant a change. I agree that the stick should be dropped. C F A 💬 19:12, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Tentatively option 2. I am not worried about breaking news being wrong, but I am tentatively convinced by BilledMammal's arguments that Al Jazeera is not exhibiting the pattern of error correction that we generally expect from reliable sources. I could be persuaded otherwise by evidence that other reliable sources also have uncorrected errors of the kind noted above. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 20:12, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  @Compassionate727 did you nableezy's comment above? Also AJ did make a correction, see this comment.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:28, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3. A source that always errs on one side in this conflict (see u:BilledMammal's examples) and is under the influence of a country that is the most important financial backer and foreign ally of Hamas cannot be higher than GUNREL. Alaexis_¿question? 20:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  I think I'll continue to follow American newspers even though the US is Israel's most important financial backer and foreign ally and I think the newspapers are under american influnce. NadVolum (talk) 21:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Similarly, Reporters without Borders lists Israel as a country with less freedom of the press than Qatar ([48])--Qatar is listed at 84, Israel at 101, Palestine at 156 (although Palestine's low rating seems to primarily correspond to the more than 100 journalists killed by the IDF in Palestine). Quote: Since the start of the [2023-2024] war, Israel (101st) has been trying to suppress the reporting coming out of the besieged enclave while disinformation infiltrates its own media ecosystem. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 21:21, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  The US and Israel have outlets that are sharply critical of their country's policy. There is no such thing in Qatar. Alaexis_¿question? 21:31, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Global Peace Index United States 131, Israel 143, Qatar 21 alongside Australia and Belgium. Can't say I'd want to be there, but which are deserving of sharp criticism? NadVolum (talk) 10:01, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

  Peacefulness doesn't imply much about press freedom. Qatar has punishments including life imprisonment for certain "propaganda". — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:51, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1: Generally reliable. Toeing the pro-Isreal western line is not the bar for reliability. They are no worse than the NYT or any other mainstream western sources. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:51, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: They have a point of view, as do most News organisations, but that does not make them propaganda or unReliable. It does not colour their reporting more than that of many other sources we accept as Reliable. It may be that we notice it more because we are so awash in News coverage predicated on another point of view that we fail to even notice that it is a point of view at all. I don't want to entertain option 2 without a clear indication of what the specific "special considerations" might be. I can not conceive of any argument for options 3 or 4 that would leave us with any News outlets on the Reliable Sources list if applied equally across the board. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:57, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. Per the previous discussions. M.Bitton (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. For the first example, the article was written based on information available at the time provided by the hospital and even an AP reporter. Note that AJ also reported on the corrected figure later that day.

For the second example, AJ is citing Palestinian witnesses. The other news outlets, like most western ones, are citing the IDF. Not sure why one is automatically more reliable than the other. Regarding the three killed captives, the exact quote is Among those Israel killed, according to the al-Qassam Brigades, are three Israeli captives, one of whom had US citizenship. AJ is not claiming anything in their own voice.

Lastly, for the third example, they're right. During the first day, after Sharon left, Palestinians started protesting, not rioting (calling any protest riot is straight out of the IDF book). Some Israeli officers had minor injuries caused by stones and three Palestinians civilians were shot. The next day, 7 Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded. After this, when the Palestinians protested again, the Israeli reaction was to fire more than a million bullets against civilians, which were unarmed (unless you adhere to the IDF doctrine that a stone is equivalent to a WMD). The violence started from the Israeli side, which usually responds to anything in a grossly disproportionate way. Trying to frame this as the arabs being violent out of the blue is asinine. Largely non-violent != no violence. I wouldn't call a protest violent per se, but indiscriminately shooting at protesters (who have the legal right to protest btw) certainly is.

Aside from those examples you provided, and addressing the main issue: the fake concern about bias always comes up for non western sources. I don't see that being applied to for example the BBC. You won't see a source without a bias, and most of the mainstream RS are in fact pro-Israeli (consider the abuse of passive voice in their headlines when the victims are Palestinians, parroting uncritically what the IDF says, prepending "Hamas-run" to the GMH, being purposely vague when the perpetrator of massacres is Israel, refusing to even call them massacres, etc etc etc) or Israeli (the Times of Israel and JPost keep being used with seemingly no major opposition). AJ not only has people on the ground (independent media access to Gaza is banned and IDF censors whatever comes from there), which is why Israel banned them, accused them of being terrorists and recently killed one of their journalists, but also usually reports on things that other outlets do not. Do they have a bias? Yes, like every single source. Per WP:SBEXT, Wikipedia content reflects the biases in the sources it uses. Removing our key non-Western source (we barely have any) will worsen our WP:BIAS. The fact that some things cannot even be included in Wikipedia unless they have coverage in English speaking sources is ridiculous, especially with conflicts like this one. I don't see any issue with AJ that you wouldn't encounter with any other RS. Removing AJ would heavily distort Wikipedia's viewpoint, leading to an overly one-sided narrative on Middle Eastern conflicts. - Ïvana (talk) 00:18, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 Little reason provided for why the previous consensus ought to change. News outlets all have biases, it is only when a bias becomes so pervasive it directly affects the factuality of the source when a news outlet becomes unreliable. Besides some fairly minor errors and fog-of-war issues that plague all media, I do not see any infactuality in AJE's reporting. Curbon7 (talk) 00:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 preferred, option 2 with [no factual information cited, opinions permitted] acceptable. There is ample evidence that this is not a "point of view" issue, but that they are slow to (or neglect to at all) issue corrections when they get facts wrong, that they will quickly issue corrections/updates that look good for "one side" (ex: higher civilian casualty count in Gaza) than they are for corrections that don't do the same (ex: lower civilian casualty count than originally reported), and that their reporting is, at best, "hasty" to put it nicely. I have seen no argument here that they are actually issuing corrections where they are expected, and no argument that we should not expect corrections to be issued where they were pointed out in the prior discussions (which satisfy BEFORE, by the way). There furthermore is not a published editorial corrections policy beyond a one sentence statement that 7. Acknowledge a mistake when it occurs, promptly correct it and ensure it does not recur.[49] for their English language non-TV news. The only evidence any editors have shown of their actual policies covers their television and other endeavors (such as social media in some cases), but not their English language news format. There is furthermore, as was pointed out in the most recent discussion no easy way to submit corrections to them as is expected of other news sources. It requires a generic contact form and then multiple unclear selections to get to a form that allows a "correction" to be submitted. Reliable sources do not hide/obfuscate the method of reporting errors to them.
  Some have also pointed out that they are one of the few, if not the only, news organizations with "boots on the ground". We do not bend our standards lower just because of a lack of reliable sources that fit some arbitrary "geographic coverage" criteria. We do not permit sources to fail to issue corrections, report blatantly inaccurate information (hours or days after it's corrected in other sources), etc. just because they are one of the few of a "dissenting point of view". We actually have an entire guideline that requires we do not do just that. If Al Jazeera's English language reporting is one of the few of a point of view, then it needs to be evaluated as against the mainstream consensus of reliable sources. Ultimately, however, none of this paragraph matters because their reliability is not based on bias or lack thereof, nor their point of view. Any arguments based on their point of view or similar are completely irrelevant and should be downweighted accordingly.
  Furthermore, I will point out the discrepancy in correction timing. Corrections that "support" their desired point of view tend to be issued within no more than a week (7 days) of the information being available. Corrections that don't support their point of view, however, are issued months later, if at all. Put bluntly, while a week or so is not a questionable time frame to issue corrections, failing to issue them for over 2 months (in at least one case) when the information you're correcting may "damage" your point of view is unacceptable. Per WP:V, The best sources have a professional structure for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments. The greater the degree of scrutiny given to these issues, the more reliable the source. And that cannot be said about a source that issues "good" corrections in a timely manner, but sits on (or fails to issue) corrections that may damage its reputation in a timely manner. All of these things considered, Al Jazeera English cannot be seen as a reliable source for facts related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and should only be used in specific situations for opinion/similar reporting where their "boots on the ground" means they're the only ones who can possibly report things. As one example, I would consider them to be reliable for reporting on the opinion of Gazans on a topic if and only if there is no other way that that opinion could be gathered.
  I encourage those providing their opinion here to, if possible, provide evidence of their "reputation for fact checking" that shows they issue corrections in a timely manner and will happily reconsider my view if such evidence is provided. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
  • I absolutely must correct this bolded claim (with no links to evidence) no easy way to submit corrections to them. At the bottom of the Al Jazeera website, click on Contact Us. After ten words, a very visible dropdown menu appears, in which you select "AJ English Feedback". Then, by default, both "I would like to provide content feedback" and "Content Correction" are is visible (EDIT: click that and "Content Correction" becomes visible). This is not hard, unless you don't know how to operate a dropdown menu. I seem to remember I corrected this claim in the previous discussion, and I am very disappointed that it was brought up again despite my correction. starship.paint (RUN) 01:19, 18 August 2024 (UTC), edited 10:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

    Compare that to "better reliability" sources that provide a direct link to a corrections email or form, without having to "hunt" for it. Not to mention on two of the issues that were identified in the past BEFORE discussion, I myself submitted two corrections that had not yet been made. They were no more than one paragraph (a few sentences) and linked to multiple other reliable sources which had either reported the correct information or made similar corrections. Neither of those contacts ever received a response, nor have they issued either corrections. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 01:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

    Hunt? I would not call changing the dropdown menu from the first option to the fifth option being a hunt. (EDIT: one more click of one of the three options was required to see "Content Corrections") We don't even know what you have submitted. starship.paint (RUN) 01:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC) edited 11:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 News media is the first draft of history and will inevitably report claims that turn out to be false. No evidence has been presented that al Jazeera's reporting is any less accurate than other reputable media. TFD (talk) 00:58, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - per Rosguill, Nableezy, and Ïvana, who respectively argue that academic sources rely on AJ, that errors are sometimes made by news organizations, and that in the issues raised above, for issue 1, AJ did also report the amended figure, while in issue 2, the other news outlets are reporting the Israeli military's version of events, even quoting Admiral Daniel Hagari. Indeed, in the fog of war, errors are to be expected. The fog of war has been specifically worsened by Israel's ban on foreign journalists in Gaza [50] [51] [52] [53] and Israel's raid and shutdown of Al Jazeera [54] [55]. The Israel government has even ordered that media must submit for censorship any content on hostages, Israeli operations, Israeli intelligence, rocket attacks, and other issues. One must consider all these context in light of any reporting that does not seem to align with the Israeli government/military. starship.paint (RUN) 02:11, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable..... Was waiting to see some sort of independent analysis outside editor analysis.... But to no avail. As a Canadian you choose this over most any American publication.Moxy🍁 02:22, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, and support snow close as per Chaotic Enby. To start, 3 out of 76 is not "almost 10%". The three sources linked would not go against WP:GREL by any reasonable interpretation of it. As has already been pointed out by other users, applying this unrealistic standard to GREL would make a lot of currently reliable sources WP:GUNREL. Additionally, the errors pointed out are not errors I would question the integrity of editorial staff over, much less call into question the reliability of an entire publication over. They appear to be issues with early reporting during wartime, and has been pointed out, they are also not entirely wrong in some cases, or released articles that have given correct information later. SmittenGalaxy | talk! 05:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. Give us a break. This "evidence" is simply pathetic and blocking a large news organization on account of a tiny number of errors (even if they are errors) would be a travesty of the first magnitude. I must admit, though, that I am going to have to review my knowledge of arithmetic on learning that 3/76 is almost 10%. Zero^talk 08:42, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
  • @Zero0000: a bit of a misreading there, BilledMammal said they reviewed approximately half of the 76... starship.paint (RUN) 08:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
    • Not my fault if BM can't write clearly. Anyway, BM claims to have found 3 errors in 76 articles; nobody can assume that the ones he didn't look at have the same proportion of errors as the one he did look at, nor do we have to assume that his method of selecting which of the 76 to look at was uninfluenced by his a priori suspicion of whether they would suit his case. So his case is 3/76 at best, not 10%. Zero^talk 08:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 The methodology proposed by the RFC opener is deeply flawed and the three examples cited are unconvincing. The methodology took three sentences and divided them by 38 articles to claim that Al Jazeera's factual accuracy is 10%, which is obviously misleading and nonsensical. Looking at the supposed three sentences which are factually inaccurate: #1 is as stated by them "match the initial figures reported by al-Aqsa hospital" so I no issue here; #2 "under heavy air bombardment" does not imply subsequence or consequence so I see no supposed factual inaccuracy here; as for #3 the Second intifada did indeed start non-violently as reported by esteemed Israeli historian Ilan Pappe in his the Biggest Prison book page 206. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per the Royal Television Society (Current Affairs - International: Rescue Mission Gaza - Witness, [56]), New York Festivals (2024 Broadcaster of the Year [57]) and the Peabody Awards ([58]). Daveosaurus (talk) 10:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 Al Jazeera may have a bias, but bias is orthogonal to reliability. I disagree with the assertion that "Any one of these errors, uncorrected two months later despite being contacted, is sufficient to consider the source unreliable". No, those aren't major errors, those are errors about details rather than significant claims, and seem about par compared to the error rate in other reliable sources. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:40, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3. While WP:BIASED sources can sometimes be reliable, Al Jazeera's biases do get in the way of reliability. Consider for example the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, which they referred to as Israel’s attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the deadly Israeli air attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital, etc. well after that assumption became dubious. They also don't have a good track record for promptly and transparently correcting false information. E.g. after they reported on rape allegations which turned out to be false, they quietly removed the video; they did nothing to correct the record. They also never corrected their live blog; the false account is still here. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 20:54, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

  Live blogs should not generally be treated as reliable regardless of whether their publisher is otherwise a reliable source or not. Generally live blogs are "corrected" by a new post in the live blog, since their very nature means things move fast and people are unlikely to be seeing that old post anyway once the correction can be issued. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 21:19, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Al Jazeera - Arab-Israeli conflict)

• Comment: note that this RFC was started by @BilledMammal. TarnishedPath^talk 15:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RFC: Nothing seems to have changed significantly in either Al Jazeera's leadership, company org, journalistic standards, nor do these errors seem particularly egregious Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:12, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Also, i argue BEFORERFC has not been satisfied. There is no fundamental difference from status quo in the previous questions brought up. this RFC seems forced, and previous discussion has been tortured along the same veins of discussion as all previous discussions of Al Jazeera, with same fightlines, and same broad consensus of reliable if a bit biased on Israel-Palestine.

  Repeating myself, I argue that unless there is some significant change in the status quo, this is bad RFC Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

There are multiple reliable sources which confirm the influence the Qatari state has on AJ which result in blatant propaganda and manipulative techniques and double standards. Since the Qatari state is involved in the conflict and has been hosting the Hamas leadership, this kind of influence is quite problematic. Alaexis_¿question? 20:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Qatari crisis study states in conclusion that it can't assume that Qatar specifically caused increase in coverage of Yemen war, though it also says that increased coverage does reveal a pro-Qatar bias. That news sources can have bias is not the question here, and there are no specific finding about reliability.
• Al-Jazeera’s “Double Standards” in the Arab Spring by Zainab Abdul-Nabi specifically talks about the issues with al jazeera arabic, which is far more biased than Al Jazeera English.
• The article by Kosavara states also the same, there is bias, and that Al Jazeera English is more reliable than Al Jazeera Arabic.

Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The article by Kosarova is about Al Jazeera English (Selection of the articles was preceded by a preliminary research. We decided to examine one case study not directly dealing with a conflict and focus on how the websites of Al Jazeera English and Al Arabiya English. Alaexis_¿question? 12:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• I hope that irrelevant arguments are not taken into account. It's true that other outlets mostly don't have journalists in Gaza but that's also the case in the Russian-occupied Ukraine. So should we consider Russian state-owned media reliable as well because there is no alternative? Regarding the for of war, it's true that it's hard to get facts right in such circumstances, but if it makes such errors then it should not be used ~100 times in an article like Israel-Hamas war. Alaexis_¿question?

Just a note that I am unable to locate a relevant policy or guideline based argument from you in the above section so if you want to start throwing stones be aware of that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:03, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

This is precisely my problem with the argument "there are no other journalists in Gaza" that it's not based on any policy. Alaexis_¿question? 12:17, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Detailed response from above. Did IDF's bombardment of Nuseirat start at the beginning of the operation, as AJ claims, or only after the vehicle got stuck, as IDF claims? AJ's claims appear to be based on Palestinian witnesses on the ground. AP also quotes these withnesses: "The commandos sprang from the truck and one of them threw a grenade into the house. “Clashes and explosions broke out everywhere,” he said." The article implies this happens before the IDF vehicle got stuck. NBC repeatedly casts doubt on IDF's chronology of the account: "Asked why the footage appeared to be taken 45 minutes before Hagari said the operation began, the Israel Police referred NBC News to the IDF, which declined to comment" and "Hagari said the IDF had come under intense fire after withdrawing from the apartments, but did not provide evidence for his claims." Guardian also seems to support this: "The hours of bombardment were ordered at least in part to shield the hostages and Israeli forces, and the attacks intensified after a rescue vehicle carrying the three male hostages was trapped under heavy fire." This would imply the bombardment had started much before the vehicle got stuck.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 08:24, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Great find, Vice regent, these are good points that should caution us from blindly accepting the Israeli military's narrative of events. starship.paint (RUN) 08:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Al Jazeera - General topics

What is the reliability of Al Jazeera English generally, excluding the Arab-Israeli conflict?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate

Note: All editors may participate in this discussion.

Survey (Al Jazeera - General topics)

• Option 1: noting that WP:GREL means generally reliable, not "always reliable". If we imposed the requirement for sources to be "always reliable" in order to be WP:GREL then we would judge the New York Times to be not reliable on behalf of their parroting the demonstrably incorrect claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. TarnishedPath^talk 15:07, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, Al Jazeera is one of the strongest general purpose english language news sources currently extant on our planet. Partisan hacks who want to wage the Arab-Israeli conflict need to find somewhere else to do it besides wikipedia. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:43, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - no compelling argument presented that it is anything other than a NEWSORG generally. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Al Jazeera has a reputation for reliability, especially on issues in the Middle East. They have defined editorial policies and are often cited by other major news outlets which we consider reliable sources. I haven’t seen any compelling reasons why they shouldn’t be considered reliable. Elspamo4 (talk) 16:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: same reasoning as TarnishedPath. Al Jazeera English seems generally useful as a NEWSORG.
• Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per the many previous discussions about this source that determined it to be generally reliable. It's going to take something much bigger than a few nitpicks to raise legitimate questions about reliability. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 I haven't seen any reason that Al Jazeera English general reporting shouldn't be considered generally reliable. They have an editorial staff, publish corrections, are cites by others, etc, etc. Obviously all the normal policies and guidelines apply (NEWSORG, RSOPINION, RSBIAS, HEADLINES). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:18, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: No indication of why it shouldn't be considered generally reliable. C F A 💬 19:20, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: Generally reliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:52, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1: Why was this even proposed? --DanielRigal (talk) 20:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. This is a no-brainer. M.Bitton (talk) 21:04, 17 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 As above, there is no indication of why this is anything but generally reliable for non I/P topics. Curbon7 (talk) 00:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - there's really not much to add aside from what the other editors have already said, not only in this RfC but in the previous ones. Nothing has changed since then that would justify going through this process again expecting a different outcome. - Ïvana (talk) 00:21, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - there is no evidence of problems for this source outside the Israel-Palestine conflict and related topics for which their bias is evident and their editorial control is clearly insufficient. As such, they can still be considered generally reliable for other topics. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez | me | talk to me! 00:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. This is a ridiculous proposal. Zero^talk 08:45, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1, given the paucity of evidence this should be WP:SNOW closed, let's not waste everyone's time in this section. starship.paint (RUN) 08:46, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

  I've called for a close on the basis of WP:SNOW at WP:CR. TarnishedPath^talk 08:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 I don't see any reliability issues outside of the IPC topic area either. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:23, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per the Royal Television Society (Current Affairs - International: Rescue Mission Gaza - Witness, [59]), New York Festivals (2024 Broadcaster of the Year [60]) and the Peabody Awards ([61]). Daveosaurus (talk) 10:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. AJ had "articles framing the [Qatari] regime’s propaganda as facts", used "manipulative techniques" and its "discourse is politicized to serve their sponsor state especially when dealing with a conflict situation where states have certain interests at stake". Alaexis_¿question? 12:15, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. Why are we doing this again? This is a bad faith RFC; we don't decide whether a source is 100% reliable, but generally reliable, and there has been no compelling argument given to show otherwise. Bias and reliability are two different things; one doesn't equate to the other. ~Anachronist (talk) 15:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2, with additional considerations applying to anything either directly or otherwise closely related to interests of the Qatari government, where they should not be used for any contentious claim, per @Alaexis; I would consider them GUNREL for this. The usual issue with AJ Arabic likely applies, but I could be wrong. FortunateSons (talk) 19:43, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Al Jazeera - General topics)

Outside the Arab-Israeli conflict area I have not found any significant errors, although I have also reviewed a far smaller proportion of the articles published. However, I am concerned by their lack of independence and their use by an autocratic regime to advance their agenda, so I'm reserving comment on their reliability generally for now. BilledMammal (talk) 14:50, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: note that this RFC was started by @BilledMammal. TarnishedPath^talk 15:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  I am generally unimpressed by the RFCBEFORE, and what seems to be repeated attempts to undermine a source whose strengths and weaknesses have been extensively assessed by peer-reviewed publications, using only ad-hoc original assessments of sentence-level accuracy, a level of scrutiny not applied to any other source discussed here in recent memory. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 15:47, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

  Having an RFC is probably better than another month long hotchpotch like the discussions last November and then again in March and June this year. Having a discussion with a proper close should hopefully put a stop to the repeated discussions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:08, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal: Is this the best you've got? I was expecting examples in the neighborhood of misquoting casualties as deaths, not stuff like background errata (at worst) and reporting from the other side (which, by the way, you didn't address in previous discussions). RAN1 (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

The OP forgot another discussion they started here on this two months ago so I've added it to the the end of the list of 'Other prior discussions' they provided above. NadVolum (talk) 20:56, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry I see they actually linked to it in the text above. NadVolum (talk) 09:34, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

References (Al Jazeera)

References

GB News

Should GB News be considered as a reliable or unreliable source? I'm sure this question has been asked before, but I'm prompted to ask it again now following this discussion during which someone suggested it as a possible reference. The channel is an opinion- rather than news-led entity, with a right-leaning perspective, and would probably be similar in nature to Fox News in the US. Some of the general news stories on their website seem to be fairly ok, although they can be skewed a little, but their programming has faced criticism in the UK media and from the regulator, Ofcom, for a number of issues. Notable among these are using politicians as newsreaders (which is not allowed in the UK except for under exceptional circumstances), allowing active politicians to conduct interviews with members of their own party, and for providing a platform to far-right figures (such as anti-vaxxers) without adequately challenging their rhetoric. These issues, and others, call into question their neutrality. I notice there was once a redirect, WP:GBNEWS, which has recently been deleted and may have led to guidelines about use of the channel as a source, and feel this is something that should be addressed. This is Paul (talk) 11:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

See recent discussion: [62] Consensus seems to be that GB News is 'generally unreliable'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:38, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Surely it needs to be included here. This is Paul (talk) 11:41, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Only if people keep trying to use it, and ask about it, are they? Slatersteven (talk) 11:44, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It was removed due to only having one discussion included previously,[63], have returned it adding the other one as well as this one, given it clearly qualifies for inclusion based on criteria.[64] The summary could be better improved though. CNC (talk) 12:24, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Ok great, I've added a redirect, but feel free to delete it if you don't think it's necessary. This is Paul (talk) 12:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Exactly, it is not a perennial issue, this is a list of regularly discussed media, not ones that are deemed unreliable. It is not an RS it can be deleted without discussion. Slatersteven (talk) 12:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:RSPCRITERIA has nothing to do with whether a source is GREL of GUNREL, not sure where you got that from, it's whether there have been multiple discussion or not and regularly. 3 discussions within 4 years would be considered regular by RSP standards, granted maybe this isn't obvious at first glance. Irregular would be when discussion become stale, with no discussion after 4 calendar years, though many are still included due to regular usage, and there isn't consensus to remove these either. You'd do very well to revert yourself here, but this isn't a discussion for here anyway. I'll take it to RSP. CNC (talk) 12:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

IM have had my say, tike for others. Slatersteven (talk) 13:16, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Dan Wootton is a columnist, he wrote Fishy Rishi is on course to be thumped at the next general election, says Dan Wootton. This has nothing to do with the reliability of GB News, it's about whether a label in an opinion column needs reproducing in List of nicknames of prime ministers of the United Kingdom. To which the answer can be: Well, if the editors who involve themselves with the article think so. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:31, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

But what if that opinion piece comes from somewhere regarded as unreliable (as is the case here)? Do we make an exception, or do we stick with the general consensus? This is Paul (talk) 15:29, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Opinions are often undue (which is more an NPOV matter), but opinions are reliable i.e. we know Dan Wootton spewed it. A precedent was the original Daily Mail RfC whose closers stated that the ban wasn't about opinions. WP:NOTCENSORED is policy. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:02, 18 August 2024 (UTC)