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CAMERA may not be a reliable source

I was reading some quotes cited to the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, and I found a few problems related to the ongoing "Jewish lobby" headache.

  • This CAMERA blog article [1], uses the term "Jewish lobby", and links to an op-ed piece in the Guardian [2] which uses the term, which in turn links to the actual report, which does not use the term. See Report of the All-Party Inquiry into Antisemitism (UK) The closest the report gets is "An example of this would be remarks about the Israel lobby. No-one would seek to deny that there is well-organised support for Israel in Britain, but in some quarters this becomes inflated to the point where discourse about the ‘lobby’ resembles discourse about a world Jewish conspiracy."
"People are scared in this country to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful, very powerful. Well, so what?...Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin...were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust."[3]

This speech from Bishop Desmond Tutu was also reported by the BBC. Interestingly, CAMERA appears to have dropped a line from the middle of the quote. The BBC quotes him as saying:

"People are scared in this country, to say wrong is wrong because the Jewish lobby is powerful - very powerful. Well, so what? The apartheid government was very powerful, but today it no longer exists. "Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Pinochet, Milosevic, and Idi Amin were all powerful, but in the end they bit the dust."[4]

CAMERA dropped the bolded text, which distorts the meaning a bit. Tutu was speaking against Israeli apartheid at the time.

So I'd suggest that using CAMERA as a reliable source for quotations is somewhat iffy. What comes out of CAMERA may not be what went in. CAMERA may be useful as a finding tool (they're powered by Google), but actual quotes should come from a less partisan source. CAMERA's output is mostly derived from other press sources, so if CAMERA has something, there's probably another source for it. --John Nagle (talk) 17:39, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

three little dots... make all the difference. The difference between reliability and unrelibility. They put in the elipses. Ergo, they are rleiable. Unreliable sources are the ones that omit material without elipses. The way the old Soviet Union used to airbrush purged politicans out of the photoAmerican Clio (talk) 15:25, 30 March 2008 (UTC)American Clio


IMO, CAMERA is generally a reliable source for opinions and interpretations, as long as they're attributed in the text to CAMERA. On questions of fact they are dubious at best, and certainly not appropriate for quotations of living people. <eleland/talkedits> 17:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
See also MEMRI above. Pretty much any quotefarm from an advocacy source should be double-checked with reference to the original documents. Relata refero (talk) 14:45, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
CAMERA is reasonably reliable, but one must recognize that they are an advocacy group. They're obviously not an academic source, or a major news outlet. Jayjg (talk) 04:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
CAMERA should be treated the similarly to organizations such as CAIR. Both have distinct ideological perspectives, but they usually get their quotations correct. -- Avi (talk) 22:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
I'd use both CAMERA and CAIR for information on themselves and their communities. For example, CAIR can be quoted on itself and Muslims in America. It should not be used for information on Christians, Jews, Hindus etc. (except when decribing their relations with Muslims). I agree with Avi that I'd treat both partisan organizations similarly.Bless sins (talk) 05:19, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

"CAIR can be quoted on itself and Muslims..." -- Would that were true -- See, e.g. "The 8-Million Muslim Lie," INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY, http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?secid=1501&status=article&id=253930273179676. Just because "major news outlets" believe them doesn't make it so. [Nor will you find any comparable lies from CAMERA.]


CAMERA cannot possibly be considered a reliable source, and they have been caught collaborating secretly with existing Wikipedia editors to subvert Wikipedia editorial processes. See [EI exclusive: a pro-Israel group's plan to rewrite history on Wikipedia]. The linked article includes primary source emails from CAMERA staff and Wikipedia users. Bangpound (talk) 14:44, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

This assumes that the allegations at EI are true. They may be, they may not be. Again, the key to something like Camera is to attribute their statements. That lets readers know that the source may have a bias. Blueboar (talk) 15:05, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Other than Blueboar's comments, we must not give CAMERA undue weight. It may write pages on a topic but that doesn't mean those pages should be incorporated in wikipedia (even with attribution).Bless sins (talk) 15:10, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is the crux of the problem. CAMERA is just another ethno-partisan lobby group, albeit an unusually well-funded and well-organized one. There's no need to go quoting them hundreds of times across the 'pedia, especially since they specialize in dredging up fear, uncertainty and doubt. Where their accusations have genuinely "stuck," that is to say where they've been picked up by more legitimate sources, resulted in a correction being issued, etc., they may be appropriate for inclusion. Where they haven't, they're not. <eleland/talkedits> 15:24, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
This debate reminds me of another one. A while ago there was some discussion on using Robert Spencer and Ibn Warraq as sources on Islam (see Talk:Criticism_of_Muhammad#Protection and Talk:Criticism_of_the_Qur'an#Robert_Spencer). It was concluded that these sources were notable but not reliable to be used for facts. Therefore they should be used wherever they are quoted by a reliable third party, and their views should be attributed.
I think a similar arrangement could work for CAMERA. We can use their publications in mainstream sources (e.g. this article in the Jerusalem Post) or when they are quoted in other reliable sources (e.g. this article in Al-Jazeera).Bless sins (talk) 17:34, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

We should use sources that speak of "Palestinian duplicity" the same day we use sources that speak of "Jewish duplicity". Using CAMERA for "facts" about the I-P conflict is directly equivalent to using the Communist Party of the US for "facts" about the Cold War or the US in Vietnam. It's not that they've got a POV (we've all got one) - the problem with the CP and CAMERA is that they're in lock-step with the governments they support. In CAMERA's case, it's even worse, since they're the angry wing of Israeli POV-pushing. While I'm here, let me state that I've never seen a critic of Israel cheating (eg removing good information for entirely partisan reasons, as we've seen a huge amount of), and nobody has ever tried to recruit me into any kind of cheating enterprise. CAMERA (even worse than the CP) behaves, and has always behaved, like a source that nobody would want to trust. It's bad enough when the protecting of cheats was happening from established editors, lets not encourage this stuff! PRtalk 09:37, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

PR, please stop soapboxing. Jayjg (talk) 01:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Seconded. <eleland/talkedits> 14:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

We've been through a number of clashes regarding quotes by CAMREA; esp. regarding the Jenin "massacre" hoax. When it came down to verifying the quotes, approx. 46-47 out of 50 were already found and the issue still would not go away with Eleland and PalestineRemembered insisting that the Washington Post (who were behind a couple of the quotes) is controlled by a cult. At the time I asked Eleland to pick two of the quotes that he wants me to find in order to alleviate his source concenrs - and he did - and I verified both. I think that CAMERA has proven itself far more reliable about quotes from Arabs and Israelis or stories on Israel related topics than the BBC, the Guardian and the Independant, and I have examples to show for this statement. I do however, fully agree that when possible (adequate replacement is found) CAMERA should not be used, since it is a biased source and if it is used, it should e attributed as the used source. JaakobouChalk Talk 14:54, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Jaakobou, please stop soapboxing. <eleland/talkedits> 14:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is the American Medical Association a reliable source?

In the article on "orthomolecular medicine" also commonly known as "megavitamin therapy", it is disputed whether a statement from the AMA Council on Scientific Affairs dealing with Alternative medicine section on Diet/nutrition is a reliable source to which we can attribute criticism of alternative medical systems that use diet and nutrition: particularly the discussion of systems that, as the report says, "promote dietary supplements beyond the Recommended Dietary Allowances". Tim Vickers (talk) 17:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say since its issued by a reputable and well-kown organization in the field in question, to which many people in the field look for professional guidance and standards, it would be reliable in the conext you describe. MBisanz talk 17:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The AMA is most definitely a reliable source. Blueboar (talk) 17:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
That said, it should be noted the webpage you linked to was actually a tertiary source, so you may find even better sources by hunting down its own, which were well indicated. Someguy1221 (talk) 17:28, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This Wikipedia article has a large number of links to the primary literature, which poses its own challenges. I was trying to find as an authoritative mainstream overview of the field to cite in the lead. User:TheNautilus rejected a direct quote of the American Cancer Society from this report dealing with the subject of "orthomolecular medicine" in general, since he argued they had no expertise outside cancer. This was the best alternative I could find. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This user has indicated that he may refuse to accept any consensus that forms on this noticeboard diff. I get the feeling this is headed irrevocably towards dispute resolution process. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I have made repeated attempts to offer AGF versions that balance and report all sides rather than prominently promote POV. You are repeatedly making (not so?)subtly unfair & provocative statements with undertones that suggest that you want to target me in some way. That needs to change.--TheNautilus (talk) 20:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Funny thing is that AMA has been cited for anti-competitive behavior about disparaging competitors before, the specific page does cite other fields by name but not "orthomolecular" anywhere - an WP:OR violation, and has had highly flawed (but slowly acknowledged, 20+ yrs) attacks on this area, orthomolecular medicine, since Pauling demonstrated a number of embarrassing or serious scientific errors in their methods and publications. Favoring a compromised medical faction to pre-emptively settle or deprecate scientific disputes with flat contradictions this supposed "RS infallibility" is inappropriate.
Blind credibility to economic competitors with repeatedly demonstrated bias and error fails WP:V in multiple ways. WP:V, UNDUE weight, bias, and WP:OR are crucial issues here.--TheNautilus (talk) 18:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I would suggest that any peer-reviewed article, as opposed to editorial, in an AMA journal, is reliable. If an editorial clearly states the position of an author in that debate, it is authoritative in terms of that position. The New England Journal of Medicine is very good about making biases clear. Policy papers of the AMA, however, are quite another matter. Membership has dropped to about a third of American physicians, and a good number of the members do not participate in AMA politics, but join for journal and other discounts.
Your mention of Pauling, however, does concern me. Now, I have read more of his work on chemical bonds than in medicine, but I have not seen, and they may exist, well-designed randomized clinical trials of his theories in medicine. I have seen things he wrote that seemed essentially anecdotal. I'd really like to see some independent review of Pauling's demonstrations of errors, before I would be ready to accept Pauling, Nobel Prize and all, as a reliable source in clinical medicine. If Pauling was a co-investigator with qualified clinical researchers, with a research protocol approved by an Institutional Review Board, that would be an excellent start. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Many of Pauling's comments about rigor in handling and representing data, as well as his critiques of his opponents, have been quietly acknowledged or adopted over time, without (much or any) credit. In a number of cases, Pauling doesn't have to be right on his hypotheses to show his (AMA, too) opponents were wrong or even grossly out of line in terms of scientific conduct and method.--TheNautilus (talk) 18:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The source you cite claims that: "But the approach taken by some alternative practitioners encourages what many consider the excessive use of health foods and dietary supplements, often of a proprietary nature and meant to enrich themselves while promoting several myths:4
  1. it is difficult to get the nourishment one requires from ordinary foods
  2. vitamin and mineral deficiencies are common
As a study found that selenium supplementation far above the RDA reduced the rate of some cancers by approximately 50%, it would appear to me to be unwarranted to include this pronouncement by the AMA as anything other than an opinion, which must be contrasted with other, competing, belief systems.--Alterrabe (talk) 18:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Surprisingly, that study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which seems to be somewhat ironical. It actually failed to show a reduction in the kinds of cancer the study was designed for, but some indication that some other kinds may be affected. It clearly states that a followup-study is necessary before a final conclusion can be drawn. Anyways, this is not any indication of wide-spread selenium deficit - chemo will help many cancer patients as well, but few people claim a lack in cytotoxins.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I hope that you understand that selenium is a substance naturally contained in one's diet, whereas cytotoxins are not. I also hope you understand the distinction between prophylaxis and treatment. If you take the time to do the research, you'll see that Szent-Györgyi explained the theoretical reasons why Se should be a prophylactic against cancer.--Alterrabe (talk) 07:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It is an "opinion" in the sense that any summary of medical evidence is an opinion. As the opinion of the AMA, it carries suitable weight to be included in an encyclopedia article. I'm not sure what the complaint is; the whole article consists of describing "other, competing belief systems". MastCell Talk 18:48, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
An accomplished biochemist has explained to me that it would be a war crime to force prisoners of war to work the hours that residents at medical schools must because such overwork deprives people of the ability to critically examine what they are being taught, "brainwashing" in the vernacular. I wouldn't describe the point I was trying to make as a "complaint," but rather as an insistence that no blanket "appeals to authority" be made. One text that would do this justice would be: "While the AMA declares that there is no evidence that vitamin deficiencies are common, it has published a preliminary study in its own journal that suggests otherwise."--Alterrabe (talk) 08:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

← I would caution against the approach that Wilk v. American Medical Association invalidates the AMA's position on everything. Jayson Blair's fabrications don't make the New York Times an unreliable source. The question is not so much whether the AMA is infallibly correct, but whether it is a useful representation of mainstream medical/scientific opinion, which for the most part it is. Hence it is a reliable source, as Wikipedia defines the term, regardless of our personal opinions of its reliability. MastCell Talk 18:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

My position is that I have offered a neutral acknowledgement that there are significant disagreements, some highly critical and some more neutrally stated in the next to last sentence. The single paragraph designed to good faith represent all sides without overpowering the article with POV that has significant flaws (& attack), in the vein suggested by the uninvolved editor [5], Furthermore, the paragraph could be accurately summarized simply as "This controversial field needs more scientific research to support its claims.".--TheNautilus (talk) 18:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This isn't the place to discuss the article in general, but to decide if the AMA is a reliable, notable and mainstream source to which we can attribute an opinion on this form of alternative medicine. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
"mainstream"? the medical one, yes, not necessarily the Scientific one. "notable" yes. "Reliable" case by case, it is a trade organization beholden to its politics and concentrated financial concerns, where WP:V has too frequently punched holes in its WP:RS on matters of competitors and orthodoxy. Again, the WP:OR concern, and the particular pedigree of the material (many highly partisan sources, not a peer reviewed paper AFAIK).--TheNautilus (talk) 19:47, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The AMA is unquestionably a reliable source (as per wikipedia's use of the term), and in most instances also a noteworthy source. Just need to be careful that any AMA opinion/recommendation is properly attributed to the organization in the main text itself. Abecedare (talk) 18:57, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The current version of the lead says "However, the scientific and medical consensus is that the broad claims of efficacy advanced by advocates of orthomolecular medicine are unsupported,[8][9] with the American Medical Association saying that the idea that most diseases can be prevented by nutritional interventions is a myth.[10]" Is this direct attribution acceptable to everybody? Tim Vickers (talk) 19:18, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, that is fine as far as sourcing and attribution are concerned. It would be a problem if the article stated, "X is a myth.[10]" instead. Abecedare (talk) 19:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Of course more comments in the RfC would be most welcome. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a temporary fix. Having named the other nutritional groups, it is still offtopic or OR, whether or not AMA or the webpage is WP:RS. The specific webpage for that text looks like just partisan opinion inadequately noted or structured, misrepresented as some kind of "nutritional" authority where drugs and nutrition have different evidence bases.--TheNautilus (talk) 20:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The American Medical Association is an excellent RS for describing the mainstream POV in medical science. The different wording (orthomolecular vs dietary supplements in excess of RDA) is not troubling: the former is an "in-term" among those who ascribe to high-dosages, while the latter is a more mainstream description of the same phenomenon. Therefore, the AMA is not only a reliable source in general, but it is also reliable in the context of this article. Antelantalk 20:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Antelan, you are confuting "big supplements" willy nilly in excess of RDA = "orthomolecular". This is incorrect. Big iron, d,l alpha-tocopheryl acetate, (long) time release niacin, Synkavite (K3) are not "orthomolecular" especially where one component accelerates demand of another (per Menolascino, 1988). It says nothing about protocols, *including the conventionally accepted megadose ones*. If AMA wants to criticize orthomed, they needed to do so directly, or more clearly, in this equivalent of a 16 page precise' to avoid OR issues. The various nutritional groups have significant differences that require identification to avoid OR, especially where some were named.--TheNautilus (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Establishing "mainstream" for clinical medicine, yes. I often find JAMA articles (and advertising) at variance with best medical science, e.g pushing the old LDL biomarker as the crucial CVD risk factor, when so many others/combinations already had much better correlations.--TheNautilus (talk) 20:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Since this article is about a form of clinical medicine, do you now accept that the AMA is a reliable source to which we can attribute mainstream medical criticism of OM? Tim Vickers (talk) 20:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
AMA is sometimes a reliable source. See WP:COATRACK. This particular, lengthy tertiary work (~16 pp) which is itself built upon some reknown, less-than-reliable references that have WP:V problems, is not a reliable source for the WP sentence that it purports to support. This particular AMA article's non-specific blurb is being used as a soapbox for twisted text without RS and balance - e.g. " Claims of consensus" & the underlying sources factchecking is dubious. Work the text to achieve its corresponding RS or suggest a better reference.--TheNautilus (talk) 06:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Our personal opinions on the accuracy of this AMA council report are irrelevant to the discussion. Remember, Wikipedia depends on verifiability, not "truth". However, it seems to me that there is a clear consensus amongst the other editors here that this report is a reliable and notable source to which we can attribute criticism from a mainstream medical organisation of orthomolecular medicine. I'll therefore like to ask you to stop your attempts to remove this source from the lead. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It is a weakly related, POVish source (COI sources that seriously fail WP:V), where an NPOV, direct statement (Orthomed...) really is needed. I am going to ask you to try to collaborate objectively in good faith, and to quit belittling my intent[6] and efforts[7][8] to get an accurate, NPOV lede. Other editors have managed to parse my complex discussions of a complex subject littered with distorted, highly loaded statements from conflicted sources with more collaboration and better WP:V, NPOV, RS results.--TheNautilus (talk) 19:59, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I am trying to understand the concept of the policy here. Is the AMA "most definitely a reliable source" because they are big and famous? No. We should look to third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy and I think that the Journal of the American Medical Association just sometimes meets that policy standard. Considering the criticisms that the AMA at times acts as a guild would violate our policy because in those cases they would fail the third-party threshold. SaltyBoatr (talk) 18:13, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

To check that I understand you correctly, SaltyBoatr, are you saying that the AMA is a notable mainstream medical organisation, but the official report from the AMA council is not a reliable source to which we can attribute the fact that the AMA is critical of this form of alternative medicine? The exact sentence this reference is used in says "..with the American Medical Association saying that the idea that most diseases can be prevented by nutritional interventions is a myth.[10]". What source do you think we should we use to support this statement? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
My feeling is that the AMA is acting in the role of a guild here, and making a statement about the policy practice of their members. Still, the statement appears reliable as a statement of the AMA about their medial standards, and does not extend to a greater 'truth'. Therefore I would word the passage "...the AMA has stated that the idea that nutritional intervention can prevent most diseases does not conform to standard medical practice." SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, this is only used as source of verifiable and directly attributed criticism from a notable medical organisation, the consensus that this report is a reliable source for this criticism now seems clear. As to the specific wording, if you look at the section on Diet/nutrition they use the word "myth" to describe this belief and make no direct comparison to standard medical practice, so I wouldn't want to change their meaning. This sentence was written to be a paraphrased quotation. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
No, I disagree. Plainly, per their policy statement, "The Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) reports on medical, public health, and scientific issues that affect the practice of medicine, the public health system, the quality of patient care, and the translation of scientific research into patient treatment.", I see that their declared purpose is to improve "the practice of medicine" in context of the "public health system" and their "patient care" and "patient treatment". In my opinion, I read their policy statement to mean they are speaking to their members about their standards of medical practice as opposed to making at statement about a greater 'truth'. SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Whatever the purpose they might have had in making this specific criticism, do you agree that this report is a reliable source for supporting the statement that they did make this statement? Please note that the lead does not state that this idea is a "myth", just that the AMA has said that this idea is a "myth". i.e. as the NPOV policy says "When we discuss an opinion, we attribute the opinion to someone and discuss the fact that they have this opinion." Tim Vickers (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
No. Their statement was made in a context of their policy, which is the AMA practice of medicine. A 'myth' in the context of the AMA practice of medicine, yes. But a general myth, no. To omit the context would be a distortion in violation of WP:SYN and WP:NPOV policy, in my opinion. Bear in mind that this also raises a question of global context, and that the American Medical Association is not speaking for global medicine, yet this is a global encyclopedia and a global article. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:16, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
What about "Such ideas are not accepted in mainstream clinical practice, with the American Medical Association saying that the idea that most diseases can be prevented by nutritional interventions is a myth.[10]"? The problem I've faced in finding other mainstream opinions on this form of alternative medicine is that it seems very little-known and most other prominent medical organisations do not discuss it at all. If you can find any other statements by such organisations on this topic I'd me most grateful. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
This may be part of a workable solution. It would, however, require that we mention that different countries have medical societies devoted to orthomolecular medicine, some of them with websites. Such as Australia [9], Italy [10], Japan [11], Korea [12], the Netherlands [13], Switzerland [14], the United Kingdom [15], and Canada. The complete list is here [16]. This clearly is a despute between experts, each with their own medical societies, and not between physicians and lay quacks, and if the AMA is invoked, the dissidents must also be. --Alterrabe (talk) 16:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
This is a list of pseudo medical societies established to push the myth.--Kenneth Cooke (talk) 11:29, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
No, giving equal weight to "The Institute for Optimum Nutrition" and the AMA would be a clear breach of our policies, please read WP:WEIGHT. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I couldn't agree more. Quoting the AMA to reflect "mainstream" thinking is fine. But if care is not taken, quoting the American Medical Association as an authority, which it is perceived to be by many, without making it clear that physicians who disagree with the AMA's pronouncements have their own medical associations (and obviously have doctors who have taken the time to investigate the claims and stake their reputations to their belief that the AMA is mistaken) is misleading because it doesn't meet the policy of BALANCE.--Alterrabe (talk) 17:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
1That pushes a highly presupposed POV, Tim - that the statement is right, dominating importance to get this AMA message out about (not) orthomed. Part of the problem is that *your* 1st paragraph lede miscasts this issue, where OMM generally attempts to correct deficiences (e.g. blood, target tissue level or other accessible sample, or presumed due to diagnosis & treated empirically) to an optimal zone or level, irrespective of clinically diagnosed disease and ameliorates symptoms of people with incurable disease.
2The tertiary source itself, the 11 year old "official" webpage of a trade group, uses bad references with *multiple known errors and serious distortions* (WP:V problems) from known extremist partisans (WP:RS, COI). The version of the statement you are pushing needs both better textual sourcing (e.g. "Orthomed...sux") and a more WP:RS source (page) because it miscasts the overall issues, does not directly address orthomed (despite some OR feeling it does), and gives UNDUE weight to partisan opinions that often have *no* experimental basis (mainstream science??? really?) relevant to orthomed, presented to the casual reader as if they were authoritative, including being the final word of the section.
3Further, I feel that this whole effort, initiated by you, represents the equivalent of pre-emptive forum shopping while misframing the question, "Is the AMA a reliable source" (definitely not always, despite the strong reflexive show of support here). 4A better route would instead have been exploring the *various* policy issues with the particular AMA webpage for that quote, finding a better reference, or acknowledge that such a glittering generality implies that AMA is suspicious of the (missing) accused and supports something like " A controversial field deprecated by some critics,[12] many medical commentators...".
5For my part, I am willing to provide the references (this weekend) to support "my" version of the 1st three sentences(1st paragraph), with its crucial distinctions for accurate rendering. The second paragraph currently remains COATRACK hijacked by spurious content from known partisans, not adequate WP:RS. 6I strongly suggest that you review proposed version (3c) for the end of the lede's second paragraph and try to collaborate from there.--TheNautilus (talk) 20:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Although I'm not altogether sure what you mean by "represents the equivalent of pre-emptive forum shopping", this is the correct place to get wider community input on your repeated assertions that the AMA citation fails to meet the reliable sources guideline. In addition, your reference to the opinions of the editors who have chosen to comment as simply a "strong reflexive show of support" is rather rude and dismissive. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You've ignored my positive suggestions,4,6 above,dif as well as most points1,2,5. My "reflexive"3 comment simply refers to the facts that they apparently are not looking at, such as its political nature[17], the AMA's "infallible" credibility for sale (eg. cigarette ads(1933-1953 ads after 1932 cancer link) & the 1997 Sunbeam scandal(1997)contemporaneous to AMA reference), or the specific AMA webpage's *known* bias, errors & falsehoods in the underlying references. One problem is that as long as this old AMA committee report, and its adversarial references that fail factchecking (WP:V), are treated as WP:RS asserting it "true" in the lead, the factual situation on WP:V is much like Hillary brazening out her Bosnian tale despite repeated challenges, expecting to be carried on PR capital and TV coverage despite the long documented facts until just blown away by the visuals, at last.
You have been overstating text with undue weight and dismissive to me[18],[19][20] since beginning this, moving too fast to advertise for the more numerous "skeptics" in various ways rather than discuss fairly, collaboratively, or "scientifically" to develop accurate, encyclopedic text in the first place,3 heavily pushing a conclusion with a poor quality reference.--TheNautilus (talk) 16:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Cleaning margin and trying for clarity

May I suggest that saying "the AMA" is too broad a term to judge RS? Offhand, I can think of several levels of reliability/verifiability:

  • Peer-reviewed research report in a major journal such as Journal of the AMA or Annals of Internal Medicine
  • Review article or consensus committee report published in a major journal, with all members required to disclose any conflicts of interest
  • Report on an external committee (e.g., NIH consensus, FDA advisory) with disclosures and appointment to the committee by scientific, not political reasons
  • Single-author editorial in a journal
  • Resolution of the Board of Trustees or other group not organized around scientific criteria
  • Report of an external politically-appointed group

I would suggest that the first is reliable, and in all probability the second. The third and fourth are more questionable, although some journals are very careful about #4, such as the (non-AMA) New England Journal of Medicine, where an editorial is almost always supplementing original research reports in the same journal issue.

The last two are indeed questionable. Going back to the more reliable sources, there are research reports that are more or less strong in their methodology. For example, a randomized controlled trial, with double blinding, crossover, and a statistically significant population is pretty much the platinum standard. Meta-analyses that purely compare other original studies can be meaningful, but have to be read much more carefully.

A report that challenges the methodology of another study may indeed point out deficiencies in that study, but that doesn't mean that the position of the challenger is RS and V -- only that the challenge is RS and V.

Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 16:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This depends on what a source is used to support. This source is used to support a statement about current consensus within the medical community, in particular the position of the AMA as a prominent medical organisation. Other sources, such as the ones you mention, are better to support statements such as "vitamin supplementation may be harmful in smokers", but this is a statement of the opinion of a notable group, not a simple statement of fact. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Howard. One of the references in the 1997 AMA report, Saul Green's 1992 JAMA article has multiple factual errors that are not even repeated in the subsequent ca 1994 QW/NCAHF webpages attacking a physician scientist despite the QW/NCAHF webpages on the specific MD-PhD still being considered at least recklessly erroneous & misrepresentative by independent 3rd parties (e.g. prize winning investigative reporter with Stanford degrees ). Even where NCAHF dodged state registration renewal for several years after losing another lawsuit and not paying. Incorporating the highly flawed 1992 JAMA reference in 1997, after others' corrections for the public record in 1992-4, is a serious bias problem for the AMA report, and WP:V, WP:RS failure.--TheNautilus (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Tim, properly referenced discussion in the body is fine. Projecting obsolete, flawed work based on biased, some non-refereed, references, and unnamed attribution to orthomed, as authoritiative in the lede isn't. "Nutrition" is very broad & many sided with fault lines and divergences all over, imputing orthomed as the AMA referenced "nutrition" is OR.--TheNautilus (talk) 18:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Tim, very few things in medicine are unambiguous "fact". Quite a few people say they practice medicine in the hope of eventually getting it right.
If I were looking for sources on the validity of the orthomolecular approach, I'd be looking first for consensus conferences, probably at NIH or another nation's equivalent, rather than a professional organization as large as the AMA. More specialized professional associations are apt to be better focused. Howard C. Berkowitz (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
The sources dealing with the medical and scientific consensus on the validity of orthomolecular/megavitamin therapy are in the previous sentence of the lead, this sentence and source deals with the level of acceptance of such ideas in mainstream clinical medicine. Since you seem interested in dealing with these wider issues, I'd encourage you to comment in the RfC. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Neither Jukes' or Jarvis' articles really support the "Less temperate critics..." sentence's "mega-nega"(tive) sound bites on orthomolecular medicine in general and especially in the lede. We still need a *matching* RS source for that "less temperate..." sentence, but I think that single POVish sound bites are poor summaries here instead of summaries that describe a calm, reasoned, notable group's average temper that reflects current science, current medical opinions, not POVish medical opinion from 15-30 years ago that has been shown to be biased, and on the deficient side of right, or deplores & ignores plausible scientific and medical research as "faddism" ad nauseum.--TheNautilus (talk) 02:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Nautilus, I am not sure if I am understanding you correctly, but I must say that the current wording of the article,
"Less temperate critics have even classed orthomolecular medicine as food faddism or quackery.[1][2]"
is inappropriate since the "less temperate" is a editorial rather than a factual description of the critical articles (unless we have sources who call these critics, less temperate). We should simply state what these sources are and what they said, and leave it to the reader to judge whether the statements are temperate, or not. So I would suggest that the sentence we reworded as:
"Some review articles on orthomolecular medicine even classed it as food faddism or quackery.[1][2]"
Abecedare (talk) 03:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
"Less temperate..." was Shoemaker's choice, I am for *summarizing* that there *are* critics without tilting the table by using some (partisan) individual's hottest slag that is prejudicial & very misleading. Quotes would be unbalanced in the tight real estate of the lede. That would replace this particular sentence that is not a direct quote about orthomed, with something closer to this [21] version's 2nd paragraph.--TheNautilus (talk) 08:16, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I've more discussion noted on the slagging of the Orthomed Lede using old, unreliable "RS" personal attack references.--TheNautilus (talk) 21:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Also Aaronson's Cancer Medicine Chapter 6 is asserted as a reliable source on Orthomolecular medicine, the paragraphs' major points are not correct. It is shown[22] through source text comparison and fact checking to clearly be a combination of error and misrepresentation, however conventional such counterfactual opinons may be.--TheNautilus (talk) 20:35, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I added this Table to summarize some relative weight criteria, and to link discussions, to the different references that concern the Lede.--TheNautilus (talk) 08:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

more recent (J)AMA reliability & credibility issues

Beyond the adversarial, non-scientific way JAMA has allowed its authors to treat not-so-pharmaceutically-oriented orthomolecular medicine or nutritionally-oriented doctors, let's look at more recent criticism of JAMA in the last 10 years.

New York Times Magazine, 1998 on JAMA, and others:
JAMA's (then) editor-in-chief on an example of JAMA's declining Journal standards in response to wide criticism on an article by Quackwatch and NCAHF authors: While admitting that five years ago the article "wouldn't have made it into peer review"

NYTM on partiality and conflict of interest: Medical journals represent scholarship, of course, but they are also businesses, and most are beholden to drug makers for their economic viability. N.E.J.M. and JAMA had display advertising revenues last year of $19 million and $21.4 million respectively, the vast bulk of it from drug companies. and ...JAMA has yet to shed completely its poor-cousin status, or its eagerness to please.

NYTM on authors' fears:...JAMA has also adopted this policy, albeit selectively, as have other journals, with the practical effect that the journals enjoy an exclusive franchise on the medical information they purvey. As a result, many scientists are loath to speak publicly of their work for fear of jeopardizing their chances of publication.

Certainly this article suggests a problem: Richard Smith (former editor of BMJ). "Medical journals are an extension of the marketing arm of pharmaceutical companies." PLoS Med 2005;2: e138 The evidence is strong that companies are getting the results they want, and this is especially worrisome because between two-thirds and three-quarters of the trials published in the major journals—Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine—are funded by the industry

Also this 2005 BMJ editorial implies that JAMA seems to think that there have been previous problems with JAMA's own reliablity (and credibility) "Extra scrutiny for industry funded trials" editors at JAMA have recognised the potential for a problem—perhaps bias, fraud, or shoddy work—in submissions funded by industry. Interesting that BMJ with an even higher percentage of ad revenue thinks JAMA's late found reforms are a too "draconian solution".

"In Search of the Truth or Jerry Springer", Nursing Forum Vol 33, No 2, April-June, 1998 Controversial issues must be presented fairly, without animosity. When authors include bias of personal opinions or prejudiced language, editorial reviewers usually red-flag these indiscretions. In fact, this style of writing often raises questions of the research validity to reviewers. Should authors’ bias be overlooked, however, by reviewers, in-house JAMA editorial staff most certainly would remove inflammatory and biased words. When a journal as prestigious as JAMA publishes a research article ...Was the usual review process of JAMA bypassed, or were reviewers’ concerns ignored? Inflammatory language on the “Jerry Springer” show serves to ignite an audience-the show’s exclusive motive. What was JAMAs motive?

Of course, most recently in the 16 April 2008 NY Times: JAMA itself published one of the Vioxx studies that was cited in Dr. Ross’s article...in 2002, ...the journal’s editor..."I consider that being scammed" and "Journal editors also bear some of the responsibility for enabling companies to manipulate publications." Especially some predecessors.

Seems JAMA, and others, may have some serious house cleaning to catch up on.[23][24] We need to try carefully consider WP:V, NPOV, BALANCE, WEIGHT, FACTCHECKING and RS. Biases, of many flavors have been shown, where AMA and the journals (including JAMA) are still struggling with them today, much less the fallout from in their past.--TheNautilus (talk) 03:47, 22 April 2008 (UTC)updated 24 April 2008

Using the Seduction Community website for a review on Stylelife

I added [25] to Neil Strauss to give at least some balance. Several attempts have been made to remove it (or sabotage it by editing the url). It's been removed again, in good faith I believe, on the basis that it is from a blog. It isn't, it is from the Seduction Community's main website (they also have a blog), but I said I'd check that it was ok to use it. Any reviews of 'Stylelife Academy' are likely to be on sites like this one, and I think it is an appopriate site to use, but I'm open to correction. Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 08:59, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Please read WP:BLP: we really want to avoid non-RSes in biographies. This appears to be a self-published blog post on a community site, and as such, isn't really acceptable. --Relata refero (disp.) 09:07, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

firstly it is not the seduction community's main website, secondly while just maybe and perhaps it might be allowed in an article if worded right in this case as it is about a living person much more care should be taken (WP:BLP) so I'll have to agree that it shouldn't really be here. Mathmo Talk 09:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I take your point. Hard to keep it from being pretty much a promo though. --Doug Weller (talk) 11:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Reliability of video "Search for the Truth"

Please see Talk:First Vision#Mormonism Research Ministry for a discussion regarding the reliability of a video (Search for the Truth (video)) that was linked to the First Vision article and has since been the subject of an editing dispute (not yet a full-blown edit war; see that article's recent history). I ask for input from the community in this discussion, since the few editors involved in the discussion there can't agree on whether the video is a reliable source for the First Vision article, and past bad blood between those editors makes it unlikely that we will be able to reach agreement cordially on our own. Thanks in advance for helping resolve this dispute. alanyst /talk/ 23:20, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I see the dispute is over its use as an WP:EL, not as a source in the article. It's certainly not suitable as a source, coming from an anti-Mormon group of evangelical Christians. But I notice there are links to a bunch of Mormon apologetic sites also in the ELs. fairwiki.org? Ugh. Just zap all the links to polemical, unreliable sites in the article, please. - Merzbow (talk) 06:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
"It's certainly not suitable as a source, coming from an anti-Mormon group of evangelical Christians." Are you saying that only pro-mormon groups are suitable as sources for articles concerning mormonism? That would be a surefire recipe for ensuring that NPOV is not attained. Duke53 | Talk 13:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
No, even biased sources can be reliable. But the standards at WP:RS should in general be followed. How does a video produced by an evangelical pressure group satisfy those standards? Although WP:EL is not the same as WP:RS, the guideline still says "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research." I think the burden is on those who want to add links to material self-published by religious pressure groups that the material in question has garnered positive reviews by reliable sources who can vouch for said accuracy. - Merzbow (talk) 17:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the above. Anti-Mormon evangelical groups should not be used to reference controversial statements about Mormonism, nor should they be included as external links for the subject of Mormonism. Likewise, pro-Mormon polemics or blogs should not be used for similar reasons. --Haemo (talk) 20:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. Mormonism is a major religion (or at least a major one among the minor ones ;-), and has received good academic coverage[26]. There is no need to go for borderline sources, much less to obvious attack pieces. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
"I think the burden is on those who want to add links to material self-published by religious pressure groups that the material in question has garnered positive reviews by reliable sources who can vouch for said accuracy". And who, exactly, decides who the reliable sources are? If it comes down to groups 'endorsed' by the lds church there will never be NPOV.
"Likewise, pro-Mormon polemics or blogs should not be used for similar reasons". Again, we are headed down a path where lds owned publications would have to be called into question for their practices and standards, which are not only universally NOT considered to be unbiased, but are viewed by many as pure propaganda. Duke53 | Talk 02:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Read the guidelines. It is not sources endorsed by the LDS. --Haemo (talk) 02:59, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Duke, you're asking a fair (no pun intended) question here, but it's broad enough that I don't think we can help much further without discussion of specific sources in specific contexts. An article by BYU Professor Daniel C. Peterson in Ensign needs different treatment than text from Bushman's book, and in turn an uncredited LDS video used by missionaries again is different. There's no easy checklist here. - Merzbow (talk) 03:27, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Merzbow, you are stating what I consider to be the crux of the problem, but where do we go in determining what has value and what needs to be discounted? MRM seems to be a credible organization ... just because it challenges mormon beliefs we can't pick and choose which parts of their viewpoint to accept as credible or dismiss as 'not credible' according to the whims of a few editors. Duke53 | Talk 14:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't see mrm.org as satisfying any of the requirements at WP:V or WP:RS. - Merzbow (talk) 18:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
"I don't see mrm.org as satisfying any of the requirements at WP:V or WP:RS" I would dare say that the same exact thing could be said about FARMS, but they seemd to used here extensively as a 'credible source'. Their methodology is questioned by many from outside the ranks of the lds faithful. Duke53 | Talk 20:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
FARMS may be an apologetic working group, but it has official status with BYU and official backing by the LDS church. And BYU Professors like Peterson do write for it. This doesn't make it reliable for facts (i.e. "Joseph Smith was a prophet"), but is reputable enough as a source for LDS opinion on certain issues. In contrast, mrm.org seems to be a tiny organization without even the pretense of scholarly association. I'm sure there are far better sources you can find that take a skeptical view of LDS claims. - Merzbow (talk) 21:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • "FARMS may be an apologetic working group, but it has official status with BYU and official backing by the LDS church". Which, on its face, means absolutely nothing about its credibility.
  • "... but is reputable enough as a source for LDS opinion on certain issues" So, I was correct ... we can pick & choose which issues we feel that they are 'reputable enough on'. That is simply a load of malarkey, AFAIAC. A source is credible or not .... size or 'scholarly association' not withstanding. Duke53 | Talk 12:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Nope. A source may be reliable on many things (the NYT normally is), but unreliable on others (as most mainstream newspapers, the NYT has a very mixed pedigree for science coverage). In particular, self-published sources are often reliable about the opinions of the publisher, but may be very unreliable with respect to other things. There is no sign that MRM is remotely reliable for anything but their own opinion. I have not looked at FARMS at all, so I have no opinion on it. But MRM is not a reliable source on Mormon beliefs. Checking Google Scholar, I'd say that e.g. this book by historian Richard Bushman and published by the University of Illinois Press looks like a reasonable source on Mormonism and the First Vision. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
"There is no sign that MRM is remotely reliable for anything but their own opinion" Ditto for FARMS, regardless of any 'affiliation' they may have. Duke53 | Talk 13:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
That may well be (or not...) - as I said, I know nothing about FARMS. But that is a separate discussion. Here, as the headline suggests, we discuss the reliability of MRM. As far as I can see everybody except for you (?) agrees that MRM is not a reliable source on issues of Mormon practices and beliefs. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:39, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
BUT, none of the members of the huge group of editors discussing this here has given a reason for MRM being 'not reliable' other than the fact that they are small in number, have no 'affiliation' with other groups, have a stated mission of questioning mormon beliefs and are evangelical Christians. Yeah, I can see where that makes them 'not reliable'. Feh. Duke53 | Talk 14:01, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Reliability is not the default assumption, it must be positively established. Do you have any argument why the group should be considered reliable? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:11, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
" Reliability is not the default assumption ..." Aha! I was waiting for someone to state that unequivocally; it should be come in handy in challenging articles where FARMS is accepted without question as a 'reliable' source. Thank You so much. I will be linking this discussion in some edits from now on, since 'everyone but me' agrees on this .Duke53 | Talk 15:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't follow your logic. Everybody but you (?) agrees that MRM is not a reliable source. I have stated some of my reasons for this. Others may have other reasons, so be sure to not attribute my opinion to everybody. And, without judging their weight, I note that people have provided at least some argument that FARMS material may be reliable, namely the association with a major university, and the fact that established experts write for it. And even if you consider FARMS unreliable (again, I don't even know what the acronym stands for, so I have no opinion on this), articles written by recognized experts for FARMS may well be reliable independent of any association with the organization. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:32, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
...addition, after reading FARMS. No, I would not consider FARMS as a reliable source on historical questions. They probably are fine on issues of LDS scripture details and opinions of the church. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:50, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Boxofficeindia.com

I want an opinion about the boxofficeindia site. It has being used extensively by a group of editors on Indian cinema related articles. is being touted as the "OFFICIAL SITE FOR INDIAN FILM STATISTICS" on this FAC. However, I see no evidence whatsoever of any such thing anywhere on that site or anywhere else. Admittedly, some sources do quote from this site here and there, but then that isnt enough to qualify any source as RS. For that matter, even wikipedia and several popular blogs are quoted quite often in the media. That does not automatically make wikipedia or those blogs RS. I will appreciate some outside views. Thanks. Sarvagnya 16:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

It should be noted that this source is not just "quoted" in other RSes as claimed by the above editor, but used as a source of information. Reputable newspapers/websites in India (The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff) as well as western newspapers (such as Times Online), use it as a source of information ("According to..." etc.), not just mention it. So actually there is an evidence, and the evidence is more than clear.
This is a major website for box office statistics in India for Hindi films (Bollywood). The site updates itself weekly; their way of working and everything related is detailed, and the information that is featured there, is often approved in the media by other sources.
Good to note that many editors accepted its use on Wikipedia and its reliability, while the above user is the only one who has ever questioned its reliability during the last two three years.
Shahid • Talk2me 17:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm assuming the relevant policy would be Wikipedia:Reliable sources#News organizations, for what it might be worth. John Carter (talk) 17:22, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

BOI is a self published source and the policy in question is WP:SPS. This is what WP:SPS says --

So, now tell me --

What are the credentials of those who run BOI? Are they expert statisticians? Are they film experts? What exactly are their qualifications? Has their work in the relevant field been published (note: "Published" is not the same as "quoted") in independent third-party sources? If so, where? When? By whom? Unless you can answer these questions convincingly, I do not see how this source can qualify as a reliable source. Sarvagnya 18:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

To verify it's "self-published" we would want to know who the "self" being "published" is. The site doesn't seem to indicate that. If you can provide information as to who the company behind it is, that would probably help. From this page, it looks to be self-published by boxofficeindia.com, who isn't expressly said to have any other affiliations. No indication of that firms other affiliations is shown. While that doesn't necessarily make it reliable, newsweek.com is "self-published" by Newsweek, so presumably it could be discounted on the basis of the evidence so far presented as well. Please provide information on what you know about the organization which disqualifies it as "self-published". John Carter (talk) 18:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Your argument is as disingenuous as your analogy. Newsweek has for its editor a certain Mr. Fareed Zakaria whose credentials and expertise is there for everyone to see. When Newsweek publishes an article, it is signed by responsible reporters and Fareed Zakaria who both put their credibility on the line. BOI otoh, if we were to take your words is run by a nameless, faceless individual(s) who arguably have no "credibility" to put on the line. How WP:RS is that?! Sarvagnya 18:48, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
And your refusal to answer a direct question hardly helps your own case. No one made you claim it was a self-published source. You did that on your own. I asked you to provide evidence, and you responded with your typical refusal to directly answer coupled with your typical insults. Either withdraw the claim that it is self-published and file the complaint based on other matters or provide sourcing which indicates that it is. John Carter (talk) 18:53, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
It is not for me to prove that BOI is a self-published source. It is for you to prove that it is not. If it is not, tell me who is the publisher? Who is the editor of that site? What are their qualifications? Who/what are their sources? What are the qualifications of their sources? Several questions remain. You are the one who is defending that source. So the way it works is that I do the questioning and you provide me with the answers. Regards. Sarvagnya 19:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Sarvagnya, please cease misrepresenting the statements of others, as you did above. I have stated it seems to be a reputable source, a la Entertainment Tonight, for the industry. I am not saying I think it is a particularly good source, just that I assumed (I did say that, if you bother to look) to qualify under one standard. Not only have you completely and utterly failed to provide any evidence to disqualify it on the basis of your stated reason for disqualifying it, you misrepresent the statements of others in a perjorative way and seek to place them on the defensive. Such conduct is far from acceptable. Please either provide the source to verify it is in fact "self-published" as per WP:SPS, which is the reason you gave for seeking to disqualify it, or provide some other basis. However, even under that clause, the clause saying that it might be acceptable on the basis that the corporate author has had their work "in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications". It has been indicated that information from this site has been so published. Please cease trying to shift the burden on someone else. Either indicate that it is self-published, or acknowledge that the specific reason you gave among several may have been mistaken. And I urge you once again to try to control your language. Outright misrepresentation of the statements of others is not particularly appealing. John Carter (talk) 19:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I urge you to focus on demonstrating the RSness of your source and stop imagining insults and incivility where there is none. Sarvagnya 19:41, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
You seriously just argued that people must prove a negative in order to invalidate your argument. The burden of proof is on you here, since that's patently wrong, and others have pointed out to you that it does not seem self-published. --Haemo (talk) 19:28, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
OK. It is not self-published. Who then is the publisher? What are their qualifications? Who is the editor.. does he/she have a name? What are the editor's credentials? Care to answer some of those questions? Sarvagnya 19:44, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
If you aren't using the "self-published" basis, personally, who cares? And I accept that you weren't intentionally personally insulting, although you clearly do not think that you have an cause to apologize. However, I would ask you to please cease presuming to tell others what they have to do because of your citation of a policy which is not demonstrably relevant. Such an appearance of arrogance appeals to no one. The question that seems to arise is whether this source can be shown to be unreliable, given that it does seem that at least some reliable sources cite it as a reliable source. And, in fact, other editors have used it as a source in 250 pages or so, without any previous questions regarding its reliability. That isn't proof of anything, but it can give cause to wonder whether you might be mistaken. Please indicate exactly why you believe that those who have cited the source, who presumably were acting in good faith, were mistaken to do so. Like I said above, I think it probably does qualify, in the same way as Entertainment Tonight does, particularly given that it has been quoted in other reliable publications. There is a question here about the anonymity of the individuals involved, but that is an entirely separate matter from your allegations of self-publication. However, in all honesty, in a lot of cases I don't know who wrote or edited some of the articles that appear in newspapers, either. What I guess I'm looking for is some evidence to question the sources reliability. Rhetorical questions are not evidence. Do you have any evidence to question the sources reliability, given that it does seem to be regarded as reliable enough to be cited as a source in publications relevant to its field? John Carter (talk) 20:02, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

If we can't verify who is behind boxofficeindia.com, then it cannot be used as a reliable source. Unfortunately, a whois reveals the domain is registered through a third party domain seller, so the site owner cannot be verified. The only domain contact given in the registration is a hotmail account, not typically used by companies and organizations, making it questionable that there is a real organization behind the website. Is there any other source that someone can provide verifying who is actually behind this website? --MPerel 20:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

While I can't say you are wrong about that, I am not myself aware of any rules which state that verifiablity must include knowing the source. There are several anonymous news articles published elsewhere, and in some cases they are found to be unreliable, although only in some. I acknowledge I don't myself know of any other such sources which are used out there, but that is a separate matter. I'm afraid I don't know of any policy, guideline, or decision anywhere which makes the statement you made above. Neither do I know if this source has a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy, because I don't know this source. But it does seem to have sufficient reputation to be cited as a reliable source on occasion anyway. Maybe this is a really unique case, and I can't say it isn't, but I'm tending to think that even an anonymous source, if there is a clear appearance toward continuity of writing, like a website known by an anon company, might conceivably qualify as reliable for the information it is relied upon for by other sources. I honestly don't know though. Does anyone know of any other anonymous corporate sites which are cited, and how reliable they are regarded as? John Carter (talk) 20:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
This site is not a self-published one. As said by John, "If you aren't using the "self-published" basis, personally, who cares?" - and even there, I don't think we can ignore the fact that not only Indian, but even reputable western newspapers like Times Online use the site as a source of information. The editor is Ashok Tilak, as I've read several times. This is the main problem with Indian sites, their lack of international/wide recognition. That's why they're often considered unreliable. Shahid • Talk2me 21:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I can sympathize with the challenge you are facing finding sites that qualify as reliable sources for the Indian film industry. I just conducted a brief search trying to see what reliable sources are out there for it, and am not really finding anything so far, so I see what you are up against. As far as Ashok Tilak, I see some blogs mentioning him, but those can’t really be counted as verifying that he is the owner of the site, and even if that can be verified, one of the main criteria that needs to be met for a reliable source is (as John mentions above) "a reputation for fact-checking or accuracy". WP:V describes examples of sources that meet this as "peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers." Those are the kinds of sources that have a higher degree of scrutiny and fact-checking, which is why, btw, we need to be able to verify who is behind the site or we won’t know what structure they have in place for fact-checking to qualify it as reliable. If it does turn out to be a one-person website, it might be difficult to meet the fact-checking reliability criteria. Can the information that is being sourced by this website be sourced to something else? One other thought, you might contact the site and see whether they can provide you with something more substantial that publicly verifies who they are so we can further evaluate whether they meet reliability criteria. --MPerel 22:47, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the detailed comment MPerel. I must say that I wouldn't have fought for this site if it hadn't been credible to me from the beginning. As someone who is very involved and updated with the Bollywood media news, I can assure that all the info provided on the site is correct. It was just an aside comment. Now, I think the fact that this source is being used in such reputable sources as Hindustan Times, Times of India and Times Online, is an integral part of finding an evidence to prove its reliability (as it was suggested by User:Nichalp and User:Spartaz back in time who later approved it). Let's remember that. You can see information about the site on here in detail as well. The problem, as I said, is the very minor international recognition Indian sites receive. Shahid • Talk2me 23:24, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry. But, a source doesnt become reliable by 'proclamation' or from editors' assurances or 'judgement' that they are reliable. Neither you nor Nichalp or Spartaz can simply 'proclaim' a source as RS. You are required to demonstrate that the source has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. And this exercise starts by telling us precisely who runs a site, a newspaper, a journal etc., and what their credentials are. And MPerel raises a very important point when he asks - "...Can the information that is being sourced by this website be sourced to something else?" -- the answer IMO is a firm no. The site in question makes truly exceptional claims about the box office collections by giving us precise and ostensibly authoritative numbers. Facts and figures are always "exceptional claims" and "exceptional claims require exceptional sources". This site in question is very far from being an "exceptional source" for the kind of information it gives. Sarvagnya 00:10, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, whichever part of that was a response to Shahid's point is probably wrong. If this source is , as Shahid claims, by other reliable sources, that is, indeed, the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable. Private investigation is secondary to that basic criterion. --Relata refero (disp.) 09:06, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Exactly! Shahid • Talk2me 13:15, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately for you, we dont go by that standard. By that standard, wikipedia and several other wikis and blogs would be reliable sources too. But, we know better. Sarvagnya 16:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Well it's wrong of you to think that you are the one who decides what the standards are. Editors like Nichalp, Spartaz and now Relata seem to think differently. You are by far the only editor who thinks so. Wikipedia is a bad comparison, but we are not talking about just mentioning it, but using it as a source, just like Times Online etc do with BOI, they use it as a source of information. Shahid • Talk2me 17:24, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Would you now stop putting words into people's mouths and go about telling us who exactly runs this site and what their credentials are? And stop misleading people with exaggerated claims. I did a search for <"boxofficeindia" site:rediff.com> and similarly for hindustantimes and indiatimes.com and the results are not flattering. Rediff returns results almost entirely pointing to reader responses on a discussion board and HT and ToI between them have less than 10 references to this site. Sarvagnya 17:51, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll quote Relata: "If this source is , as Shahid claims, by other reliable sources, that is, indeed, the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable. Private investigation is secondary to that basic criterion."
And it doesn't matter "how much" -- the matter here is that it does. Shahid • Talk2me 18:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) What surprises me is the disclaimer in their website which says: "You acknowledge that BOXOFFICEINDIA.COM and its affiliates do not control, represent or endorse the accuracy, completeness or reliability of any of the information available on the web site". With such a disclaimer saying that the website cannot vouch for the accuracy of the contents, I am not sure if we can consider the site as reliable. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 03:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Just what then would you consider a reliable source for Indian film statistics??. If there is a site which shines like a freshly polished shoe with accuracy and reliability, dear god please let us know. I doubt you'll ever find a better site than that for Indian film statistics. I really don't know what you expect to replace it. But because we don't have detailed profiles on the personel that run the site this means we should remove a valuable source from 250 articles because you can't know the shoe size of the BOI editors? Besides this would it really be impossible to find out who compiles the stats? ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 09:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Honestly, I dont know what you'd replace it with. But if you dont have reliable and verifiable sources, then according to policy, such information does not belong on wikipedia. Sarvagnya 16:50, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
There is an editor, as I said, and such disclaimers as that you will find in many reliable sites. That's not the problem. The problem is: Saying that the site cannot be considered reliable if it is used as a source of information in sites like Times Online, Hindustan Times, Rediff etc., is like invalidating these sites too. If Times Online can use it, believe me, so can we. Shahid • Talk2me 09:13, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
In response to Amar, I think I've seen such information posted by other sources who themselves rely on primary sources. There have been cases, where companies have misrepresented material to others. In this case, unfortunately, the only people who would legitimately know exactly how much money a given film has gotten wouls be the film companies and theatres themselves. If they were to collaborate to misrepresent that evidence, for whatever reason, no one short of a court would necessarily know otherwise. But it could be the case, potentially, that one of the film companies might be found, at some point, to have misrepresented a given film's box office earnings. If they did, and BOI published that in good faith, they could themselves, at least potentially, be found to have acted outside the law. Perhaps, and the Indian editors would know this a lot better than I would, there may be a historical case when an Indian film company was found to have released fraudulent data regarding a film's box office. Personally, all I see the statement cited really saying is, "The only people who know the truth regarding this matter have told us this. If they're lying, not our fault," and that is a more or less standard disclaimer. John Carter (talk) 14:28, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

break on Boxofficeindia.com: special invitation for broader input

Fresh eyes to the above discussion are needed. Objectivity thus far appears a bit compromised due to the fact that there is a related FAC at stake, and emotions seem to be running a little high on both sides. The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it (note: I overstated that a bit, see below), though leaving it in perhaps compromises policy regarding reliable sources. This is a discussion that deserves wider input as some of the interpretation of policy being suggested has broader implications than the particular FAC (is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it, and is there ever reason for leniency in this?). I was invited to weigh in on the above discussion and I in turn am inviting a variety of established editors to weigh in, if they can be coaxed, who as far as I know, have no connection to the affected FAC or any of the editors on either side, and who have particular experience and demonstrated wisdom dealing with reliable sources. Here is a briefing of the facts as I understand it:

  1. It is unclear who is behind the site, though blogs seem to identify the owner as an individual named Ashok Tilak, whose credentials are not known.
  2. There does not seem to be any other source available that provides the information this site provides (a particular problem when dealing with non-western subjects).
  3. The information provided does not seem to be particularly biased or controversial, basically just some compiled statistics that appear useful.
  4. The site has a disclaimer about the information being reliable.
  5. The site appears established in the topic’s circles and is regularly cited by reliable sources such as newspapers.

2, 3, and 5 may lend merit to leniency in RS interpretation, while #1 and 4 appear problematic. Thoughts? Disclosure: the following editors are receiving specific invitation for input by me via their talk pages, though all feedback is encouraged please: JzG, G-Dett, Vassyana, SlimVirgin, Fred Bauder, Viriditas, Shirahadasha, DGG, Jossi, Piotrus, Avraham, Keeper76, Risker, Erik, El C. --MPerel 03:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Sorry to squeeze in MPerel, but #5 above does not seem to be true. I havent seen any evidence of this source being widely used in Reliable Sources. Sarvagnya 05:52, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

ABOUT US - Boxofficeindia.com is the premium boxoffice site for hindi films. The site is by far the largest box office site in India and the second largest box office site in the world in terms of reach and viewership. After years of hard work, Boxofficeindia.com has been able to get a team of reporters and representatives to give the most up to date and authentic news related to the business side of hindi films.
SOURCES -All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives.

Unless the source is used for contentious claims, I see no reason why not to use it. And if we do use the source, we can simply attribute the figures to the source: According to site XYZ ..., as to not to assert these figures as facts. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 03:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Jossi, imo, whether what is being cited is contentious or not is besides the point. And fwiiw, this site is being used to cite 'facts and figures' - which imo is inherently "exceptional". Also, it is being used to cite claims like "biggest grosser of the year".. "biggest grosser of the decade" etc.,. Sarvagnya 04:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

The removal of this source from the related article would likely gut it, ... No idea where this notion comes from. Unless the article has changed dramatically since the last time I looked, the source in question is used to source four short clauses. This situation seems to be turning into a tempest in a teapot, and I suggest that if the actual text being cited is examined, solutions may emerge. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I had another look, and when accounting for named refs, it's more than four clauses, but it's still not substantial and nothing even close to "gutting the article"; if the editors who are so engaged in this dispute will look at the actual text cited, again, I believe solutions will emerge. There are not BLP issues here, even though it is a BLP. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:10, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry if I overstated! Not trying to stir the pot. I'm also looking beyond to the broader implications besides the FAC issue prompting this of how to handle similar reliable sources issues. It seems like this situation may come up again, particularly for non-western topics, where there is a shortage of sources available. I'm wondering whether there should be leniency for using weak though non-controversial sites that are cited by other reliable sources. --MPerel 04:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Common sense should prevail. As SandyGeorgia said, if editors involved tone-down the rhetoric a bit and re-look at the material, solutions will emerge. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:28, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
SG, regardless of how much impact it may or may not have on a given article, the larger issue here is whether the site qualifies as RS or not. afa I can say, I see no evidence whatsoever that it is RS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarvagnya (talk • contribs) 04:35, May 11, 2008
I'm not here to engage in the dispute over reliability, as that would create a conflict. I'm here to clarify the statement that the removal of one source would gut the article. Certainly if a questionable source were being used to extensively cite a BLP, such that the article would be gutted without it, the article wouldn't still be listed at FAC. I believe calmer minds can find solutions if the rhetoric will subside and editors will actually examine the text being cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
  • We use the best sources we have. Web sources of this general sort have always been considered acceptable for routine details that are not controversial, so that part isn't really in serious question. I suppose the question is whether it can be used for judgements or matters of opinion as well as straight-forward facts; even for this, I see no reason why it would be any more reliable if it had claimed to be conventionally edited & published. Generally accepted informally published sources of this sort will increasing be the kind of source that will available, and we might as well get used to it. DGG (talk) 04:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry.. but I dont see sources like these being acceptable.. not without either ignoring or rewriting WP:RS and WP:SPS. Sarvagnya 05:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll say what Relata said above, and many of us say many times to the same editor: "If a site is cited by other reliable sources, that is, indeed, the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable. Private investigation is secondary to that basic criterion."
Now, Reputable newspapers/websites in India (The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff) as well as western newspapers (such as Times Online), use it as a source of information. Haven't we had enough of these continious discussions? Isn't that clear that the site is reliable? Spartaz, Nichalp, John Carter, Relata refero, Blofeld of SPECTRE, all of them agree with it being reliable. Sarvagnya is the only one who has ever raised any concerns against this site. Newspapers use the site as a source of information, and if they can, clearly so can we. Please see also User:Geometry guy's note on the FAC. Shahid • Talk2me 05:54, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I absolutely do not buy the idea that we should use an unreliable source simply because we don't have a better one, the question cannot be answered relatively in that way, it must hinge on the reliability of the site itself and whether it meets our criteria. In this case, I would say (somewhat cautiously due to lack of transparency in editorial oversight) that it does appear to meet the criteria, as it is widely cited by other reliable sources and is not known to be contended. We should review this if anyone comes up with a dispute over their figures, or if we get information that shows deficiency in editorial oversight. Guy (Help!) 07:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry.. but there is no evidence whatsoever that it is being cited widely in reliable sources at all! Atleast I havent seen any so far. A google search is revealing -
That by any stretch of imagination isnt flattering. Sarvagnya 07:51, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Again, in "widely cited", the matter is not "widely", the matter is "cited". The fact that this is used, is a direct evidence of its reliability. Also good to note that these sites don't really publish that many articles about box office. Shahid • Talk2me 08:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Says who? I mean, which policy or guideline? Would you bother to point out? Sarvagnya 16:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
If a questionable site is used as a reference in a reliable source like the ToI, that does not automatically make it a reliable source itself. Newspapers sometimes reference claims to extremist sites; does that mean they are reliable now? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:17, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Frankly this site does not seem to be questionable. As for being cited in RS sources, first of all, not according to a number of editors who said that it is a great evidence when someone challenges a source. Of course, not automatically, but when it comes to the extent of being cited not only in Indian sources like ToI, Rediff and HT, but even western sources like Times Online, and the source itself is very active, so we can't ignore its notability and reliability. I haven't seen any extremist source being used as a source of information. And now, the first thing that comes to my mind is that if Times Online can use it, I can't see why Wikipedia cannot. Shahid • Talk2me 17:29, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
First of all, WP:RS and WP:SPS does not work that way, and secondly, a solitary citing in Times Online does not mean anything. Thirdly, Times Online is not an encyclopedia and works differently and is governed by its own policies. Fourthly, we are governed by our own policies none of which bestow RS-hood by association. Sarvagnya 19:02, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
You say it. Many other editors think differently. And it does, if reputable sources can cite it, so can we. Ask all those editors I mentioned above. Again, there is absolutely no significance to the number of times it's been cited, but it's been, and here is the significance. The fact that Times Online used it and mentioned it and cited it. Shahid • Talk2me 19:25, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I am sorry, that argument does not hold water. If you look at something similar, Wikipedia does get quoted in reliable sites like CNN but that would not make Wikipedia a reliable site. Thanks -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 08:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry but Wikipedia is a very bad comparison in this case, because it's a very well recognised site, and people can trust it according to their knowledge. But blogs for example, you will never find blogs cites as sources of information. I was back in time asked to find an evidence, and I didn't find one, but many. And this "according to" only shows that we can use this source as long as we state that in this manner. Shahid • Talk2me 17:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Reply to Mperel's and Sarvagnya's important questions

Sarvagnya asks "which policy or guideline?" says that "The fact that this is used [by reliable sources] is a direct evidence of its reliability." Mperel asks "is a source made reliable because other reliable sources regularly cite it"?

As Relata refero points out, this idea has a long history here at Wikipedia. The phrase "Find out what other people say about your sources" and the suggestion "to cross-check with an independent source" appear in Beland's original version of the page and Radiant!'s first guideline version

But the idea that "cit[ation] by other reliable sources ... is indeed the best possible sign (and our original standard!) that it is reliable" is still there, hiding in plain sight, implicit in our basic guideline, our lex generalis:

Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.

The rest of the WP:RS guideline and parts of WP:V is lex specialis explicating this sentence, but as WP:RS wisely states, not exhaustively, as some editors seem to argue. The dictionary meaning of "reliable" - able to be relied on (by whom?) is clearly relevant. (And the source at hand, BOI seems prima facie reliable and making unexceptional claims - Would we be having this discussion if it contradicted known reliable sources?) That accepted source A in fact does rely on source B is evidence of nonzero weight that B is reliable in the ordinary sense, and I and many others hold, according to Wikipedia rules. Look at "with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". How do we evaluate reputation? Our practice is not to only use sources for which we could find another source explicitly saying this is a great source with great fact-checking and accuracy - and how do we evaluate "the another source" then?

No, the action of citing and using a source speaks louder (and more frequently) and directly about "reputation" than the rarer, but implied, words "this source is good (accurate, fact-checking), we've checked it out." And citations are easy to mechanically google and find, objective and practical.

As Sarvagnya says "a source doesn't become reliable by 'proclamation' or from editors' assurances or 'judgement' that they are reliable." But he is wrong when the he states that "this exercise" of determining a source's reputation "starts by telling us precisely who runs a site, a newspaper, a journal etc." That is simply not what the key word "reputation" means. Reputation doesn't mean "biographical" "credentials" information about a person or institution, which is a useful but indirect means of establishing reputation. Reputation means what other people or institutions think about him, her or it. Were Michael Scheuer's books unreliable sources when he was still anonymous?

Indeed, reputation of a journal, person or text is often based on mechanical computation of citation indices based on the raw fact of citation alone, and not only here at Wikipedia, where it is often used as a criterion of notability. We should not be reinventing the wheel when we think about source reliability. Looking at "who cites it" is second nature and best practice in source evaluation in many fields, in academia, journalism, law (where there's even a word for it - Shepardizing), to many editors and in the real world in general.

This idea is entirely in line with how other core policies and practices work at wikipedia like NOR - we should endeavor as far as is possible not to substitute our own judgment for that of published sources. Avoiding it would mean we put our "objective" and changing wiki-criteria above published reliable sources' opinions. That isn't the wikipedia way. Another parallel example is notability. Recently at AfD, two of the most acute and respected editors (who argue here pro -BOI) argued to delete, or only weakly to keep Sara Roy - she's only a Research Associate at Harvard (biographical, credentials, objective info) - why have an article on her? But it turned out that she is citably well known as the world's #1 expert in her field. "Reputation" data does and should trump "objective" data, and citation clearly can speak for reputation.

However, it might be a good idea to make this more explicit and less reliant on talmudic/jesuitical disputation.

So my proposal is a line in WP:RS like

"That an accepted, high-quality RS uses a source is evidence for the source's reliability for use in the same manner as the accepted RS." The "in the same manner" and "high-quality" parts are there to satisfy Nishkid64's and Sarvagnya's "RS-hood by association" concerns.

And maybe we should also have a sentence somewhere, or an agreement, to the effect that we are not trying to reinvent the wheel, but just to adapt the best and standard academic, journalistic, legal, real world practices in source evaluation, which certainly includes this "shepardizing" idea, to the wonderful world of Wikipedia.John Z (talk) 10:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I can't see a good reason to object to the website. Although it would be better if we knew for sure who ran it, and better still if it weren't a personal website, it does seem to be quite meticulous in its detail, and if it's being used as a source by the mainstream media, it should be okay for us. WP:V says that self-published sources may be used "when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications." Strictly speaking, that means the work should have been published under the source's byline, but I feel the meaning could be stretched in this case to include being used as a source for other publications, because the material isn't contentious. SlimVirgin talk|edits 06:05, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section break

Clarification requested Is there a dispute over a specific asserted fact at the base of this? If so, that particular matter should be discussed in context. DGG (talk) 23:11, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I think that's what Jossi and I tried to point out above, but with all this hollering, perhaps no one's listening :-)) The specific stats cited have to do with the movies, not with Preity, and the editors haven't discussed whether they are challenged. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification - I am not sure why this is being brought up. My question here has only been whether this source is RS or not. This source gives facts and figures and numbers and my question here is whether the source qualifies as RS for such information. If it can be shown that this source is RS, fine. If it cannot, then according to our policy it does not matter what claim it is being used to cite, it simply has no place on wikipedia. Sarvagnya 17:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
It can be shown -- I've provided several such evidences, which have been accepted by most editors.. Oh except you. Shahid • Talk2me 18:16, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Clarification There is no specific dispute over specific facts asserted in the article Preity Zinta, which is in FAC. The site has been used to support numerical figures (box office earning of particular films) at least three times. And the site has been used to support non-numerical claims a few more times (such as, XYZ film was a hit). Sarvagnya has not exactly disputed/challenged the figures with other figures, but objected against the source.
The site has also been used in many other articles related to Bollywood.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Note: Also posted to AN and Village pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Not at all: Everything is fine and always the media results and article approve the facts on the site. Sources I'll show later. Shahid • Talk2me 04:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

All data prior to 1954 is estimated depending on the how long a film ran as actual collections were not published. After that the data has been estimated from what has been given in trade journals. Many figures from 2004 onwards are what the distributor or producers have declared. As corporates are entering the industry, box office figures have become much more transparent and most corporates issue collections of their films. When collections are not issued for films, the network of Boxofficeindia.com is today big enough and is able to get collections from most centres around India through our various representatives. - If figures from 2004 onwards are publicly declared by the producers, then these primary sources need to be discovered and used instead. As for pre-1954 material, I personally am not comfortable relying on what are explicit estimates by a site run by someone with no pre-existing credentials or public methodology to his estimations. (This is not a judgment of the data itself.) If 1954-2004 films have been estimated from trade journal data, then the trade journals presumably can be researched and discovered as well. It would be very nice and convenient for BOI to be a RS, but unfortunately, as much as we may all wish for this to be the case, I see a lot of circular reasoning. Finding some primary sources would settle the question definitively for all, I think everyone can agree. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 08:24, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Could you expand on the circular reasoning? --Relata refero (disp.) 08:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Sure - the argument that the source is reliable because it's been used in other articles, or even other publications. Reliability has nothing to do with prior usage of the reference - if it were, then all that makes a source reliable is having already been used, which would presumably be in the prior cases also because it had already been used. Were this the case, then you start getting into a Gresham's law situation where the bad drives out the good. Which is precisely why RS was implemented. You can't prove reliability, but you can indicate it. Now, per RS and V:
  • Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy.
  • Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
  • Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are welcomed.
  • Items that are signed are preferable to unsigned articles.
  • Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. [emphasis mine]
  • Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. [emphasis not mine]
  • In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is.
  • Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications.
  • Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Such sources include websites and publications that express views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, are promotional in nature, or rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. Articles about such sources should not repeat any contentious claims the source has made about third parties, unless those claims have also been published by reliable sources.
Now, given all of those factors, and the fact that this is a self-published site (ie the publishing of books and other media by the authors of those works, rather than by established, third-party publishers), I don't think it meets encyclopedic standards at the moment. Any claims involving box office data presumably is either being sourced from otherwise available data or is being estimated, which would be original research. Either way, we shouldn't use it, because in the former, better sources exist, and in the latter, the data is being fabricated to a degree (however accurately is irrelevant). That other publications choose to rely on what may be spurious data is not our concern, because our standards are ours, not theirs. The information would be useful for these articles, but the question is not about the information, but the source. So once again, given that BOI itself indicates that more reliable primary sources such as trade journals and corporate announcements exist, it would appear that there is a better avenue for referencing this subject, albeit one that may require more research work offline. For better or worse, it may be less convenient, but it is more rigorously adherent to our standards, which ultimately makes for long-term viability. I'm sorry - I wish that there were a better online source, too. But this one is not it. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Sounds like a reasonable answer. I do have one question, which might be somewhat theoretical, but might also apply in this case, I don't know. I do know of some sources, like advertising companies, which don't always release their information directly to the public, but sometimes just to middlemen. I can't be sure if that is the case here, though. In cases like that, the primary sources might not be explicitly available. Alternately, they might have be release as press releases, which are basically ignored by most if not all other sources and thus can't be found in them. Like I said, I can't know if that is the case here or not though, not being particularly well acquainted with Indian cinema. John Carter (talk) 21:30, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
You may very well be correct, but that doesn't mean that we abrogate our own policies and guidelines in order to allow in more information. The sourcing is as important - if not more so - than the content, because the sourcing is what establishes this site's own external reliability. See also WP:BURDEN. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:43, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think there's an excessive amount of noise about this. There do not appear to be any other sources of equivalent or better reliability on the subject of trade returns; there do not appear to be any stated questions about this site's numbers; there do not appear to be any inherently extraordinary claims cited to this site. (Whether it should be used to cite crucial parts of an FA is another matter, and not the province of this noticeboard. WP:FA? nowhere says that sources should be of impeccable quality. It should, of course, but it doesn't.) --Relata refero (disp.) 08:46, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

"...There do not appear to be any other sources of equivalent or better reliability on the subject of trade returns; there do not appear to be any stated questions about this site's numbers; there do not appear to be any inherently extraordinary claims cited to this site..." - and exactly where in WP:RS is it said that all that makes this site a RS? And talking of FA criteria, look up 1c - "...claims are verifiable against reliable sources..." Sarvagnya 16:35, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
This is reliable. We have proved the reliability of the site, you haven't proved the opposite. Shahid • Talk2me 16:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, it seems to me that this source would be an effective equivalent of Entertainment Tonight, and be called, by its detractors, a "shill" for the industry. That's fine. However, the policy in question seems to me to explicitly state that we prefer sources which are, as it were, "more reliable" than this one. That does not mean that we would rule out the use of them if the material in question would qualify in most eyes as being encyclopedic and there were no clearly more reliable sources apparently available. If anyone can find sources that meet WP:RS for this information, I hope to see them. If not, then I can't see any objections to using the only sources apparently available, provided we indicate in the text as neutrally as possible that there might be questions about the absolute accuracy of the information in at least some cases. I have also contact User:Girolamo Savonarola, the lead coordinator of the Film project, for his input as well, considering his project is very likely among the ones that would be most impacted, one way or another by this discussion, and, possibly, that he might know some more information, or get access to some more information, than some of the rest of us. John Carter (talk) 16:55, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeh right John. I may be saying that for the Nth time, but nevertheless who has not seen that yet -- the source is used as a source of information not only in 300 Wikipedia articles, but reliable newspapers and websites. And good to note that during all the time of its existence on Wikipedia, it's been challenged by only one user, whereas many other editors have supported it. Shahid • Talk2me 17:36, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Not that it is germane to this discussion, but purely out of curiosity, what exactly is the parallel beween Boxofficeindia.com and Entertainment Tonight? And as for your plea that sources are OK if RSes cannot be found flies in the face of what WP:V says -- "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—meaning, in this context, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." Sarvagnya 19:13, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I answered the first point above, if you read it. They both can be said to be "shills" for the industry. And, if the material can be found at the site in question, then it meets Verifiability, according to the quote you just made. So it seems to meet the standards of verifiability as a source, by your not appearing to challenge that, if not necessarily being the most reliable one. John Carter (talk) 19:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • sigh* Verifiablility is not met unless the source is RS. The quote I made has a wikilink to RS.. please click on it and read it. Sarvagnya 19:37, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Please see WP:V: "The appropriateness of any source always depends on the context." The information provided on the site as well as the figures and verdicats -- all as one -- are factually accurate and approved, as can be seen in other reliable sources (BTW, another evidence that it's reliable). And I'm not talking about the site itself being cited and used, which is the first one. Shahid • Talk2me 20:03, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I've been asked to comment here by editors on both sides of the discussion. This is a long thread, and I've only skimmed it, so I can't be sure my comments will be particularly helpful. I was prompted to comment here because of this comment I made at the FAC for Preity Zinta which uses boxofficeindia.com as a source for nine or ten box office figures/comparisons. The main points of that comment are that attribution, not truth, is fundamental to Wikipedia, and that the ultimate arbiter on reliability is the reader, so (just as with our neutral point of view policy) our slogan should be "let the reader decide", and we should provide the reader with the information necessary to make that decision. I don't think I need to develop that argument further, so I will focus on a separate misleading aspect of reliable sources policy. The misleading aspect is that the policy seems to refer to a source as an object/entity (a book, a website, a news agency) and ask us to judge the reliability of that entity. While this simplification sometimes causes no problems, it is a simplification. A source is not an entity, but a source for a particular piece of information, and when we discuss a source of information, the information is just as important as the entity in assessing reliability. For instance, a Veganism society may be a reliable source for the fact that Vegans don't eat eggs, but it is not a reliable source for the health benefits (or otherwise) of Veganism. If boxofficeindia.com is being used to provide opinions on the quality of movies, then the case for reliability is extremely weak or non-existent. If it is being used to provide (comparative) box office figures, the case for reliability (with caveats about attribution) is much stronger. Geometry guy 17:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

In my clarification to DGG, I did point out that the question was whether BOI was reliable for the kind of info it provided - ie., the number, facts and figures it provides. The answer to that surely does not lie in our readers. Our readers, it may be argued are the ultimate arbiters of our(wikipedia's ie.,) reliability, but they should not and are not the ultimate arbiters of our sources. Our choice of sources is governed by our policy, not by how readers judge us. And there is nothing misleading in treating our sources as entities. The info provided by the "entity" is only as reliable as the entity itself. And that is precisely why we have WP:SPS. The only way we can judge the reliability of any information is if we had a way to know where it was coming from and if possible, the methods of research employed therein. In other words, unless we know who is behind BOI and more importantly, what their credentials are, there is simply no objective way to judge their content. And as with your Veganism example, BOI also is a reliable source for an article about themselves.. ie., if the BOI site proclaims that they started operations in 200x.. then it is reliable for sourcing such claims. They are not reliable for anything they claim to be experts in unless they can show us some evidence of being the experts they claim they are. Sarvagnya 18:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
First of all, Gguy, I agree with your comment. Secondly, Sarvagnya, John asked you to prove that BOI is a self-published source; you haven't still done that. After User:Haemo interfered, you yourself said, "OK. It is not self-published." So WP:SPS does not apply to BOI. Shahid • Talk2me 18:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Goodness gracious! I said BOI is not SPS?! BOI publishes BOI. That is what they say on their own "About us" page. Let me break this up for you -- if I publish my own article or you publish your own article or BOI publishes BOI's own article.. we all are still "self-published" sources. Now, if you disagree with the very definition of a "Self-published" source, then just say so. Sarvagnya 19:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought you said above that it wasn't a self-published source, and that you were right then. That policy is more or less meant to apply to political tracts published by candidates about themselves, similar blogs, and similar hype written and published by the subject themselves. BOI is not the subject of it's work, though. What it does is describe films which it seemingly has no part in the creation of. Neither does it seem to directly profit in any way from the films, so it's description of film intake almost certainly does not qualify as SPS, as you more or less admitted above. Unless you've received comments offline from one of the parties you asked clarification of the policy from, I have to say that you are almost certainly wrong regarding applying that policy in this instance. This is not to say that it might not qualify as unreliable according to other policies, but there's no real reason to think that policy applies in this case at all, as others have said above. Why are you continuing to try to press that apparently irrelevant policy in this discussion? John Carter (talk) 19:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Exactly. User:Harel said: "The burden of proof is on you here", and here is your diff. Now it makes some things clear. You said that, and skipped that later, not having proved the opposite. Shahid • Talk2me 19:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm very confused as to this view that SPS are fine except for political writings about oneself. As per SPS:
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.
Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so.
Now, this website has been created by an individual who is not a news organization, so this would be considered self-published. Given that, he has no prior credentials in the field, nor any prior work published in reliable sources. And as the SPS says, any information really worth reporting which is reliable is highly likely to exist in multiple other sources.
The fact as it stands today is this: we don't know where the information is actually coming from. Maybe he has the account sheets direct from the production companies, maybe all of the numbers are completely made up, but the fact is that we have no way of discerning in either direction. And therefore, according to Wikipedia's current standards, this is not a reliable source. Whether or not the information is actually true is not relevant (though presumably, anything which could prove so would probably be a better source anyway). How other publications' editorial boards choose to use the site is also not relevant - many publications are happy to use IMDb as a reliable source; we do not.
As for the question of Box Office Mojo and similar sites, the site information section of that website indicates that their sources are the studios themselves, and the site, to my knowledge, is run by individuals with prior credentials in the field. Therefore a comparison between the two sites would not be equal. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:46, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I don't think that's exactly what I was saying. So far as I can tell, the site is published by a corporation. I think at this point it might be OR to say that corporation is a single human being. And I wasn't saying that any other self-published sources by politicians, actors, writers, or anyone else would be reliable. I was just saying that, so far as I can tell, this is not an SPS in the sense of it being a site owned by the entity which includes material specifically about itself in the information, which so far as I can tell is what SPS is supposed to be. Now, having said that, I could be wrong. But Newsweek.com would fail the same rule, if it were applicable here. John Carter (talk) 20:02, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
"The key distinguishing characteristic of self-publishing is the absence of a traditional publisher. Instead the creator or creators fulfill this role, taking editorial control of the content, arranging for printing, marketing the material, and often distributing it, either directly to consumers or to retailers." What separates Newsweek from SPS is that Newsweek's reporters do not publish the magazine, they do not exercise editorial control over their articles, and they don't do their own fact-checking. These are farmed out to other individuals who therefore can vet the material as need be. That is what distinguishes traditional publishing from self-publishing. There is no indication that this site exists as anything other than a site run by an individual, however well-designed it is. The best guess that anyone has - and it is just a guess - is Ashok Tilak, whomever that may be. Non-self published press sources publicly identify their editorial boards and contributing reporters - that indeed is a key element of reliability - transparency and putting one's reputation behind one's work. If evidence can be found otherwise to show whom is running this site, I would be happy to see it. As other editor pointed out elsewhere, for all we know, teenagers are running it. How would we know?
This information may not be reliably able to be sourced online. That's difficult, for sure. Offline probably has a bevy of far better sources, I would imagine. If not, then it may have to be conceded that the information simply can't be used period. That's a very tough pill to swallow, I know, but it is better than being "determined to fight for this source to the bitter end". Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 20:17, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
The fact is if you are going to disregard apparently "self published data" (which it isn't exactly because they have clearly stated that they use filmproduction company sources to compile it) in favour for "published data", Internet sources are often compiled differently than a traditional Oxford Press source in a book or something. Whoever the authority, somebody has still had to display the details given on a website. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 11:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Self-published has nothing to do with where the data is coming from - it has to do with how the site is written, edited, and published. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 17:22, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Arb section break -2

Well I still can't see what makes it self-published. And regardless of this site's reliability, I agree with Geometry guy's comment above.
And actually we do know where the information is coming from. We just don't know the precise trade journals, and from 2004 on, from distributors.
Now BOMojo also seems to be conducted similarly: Brandon Gray is said to be the one who started it, but we don't know who he is. Yet, this site is considered reliable.
Look also what Mojo states, "Box Office Mojo is regularly quoted in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Bloomberg, Forbes and has appeared on CNN, CNBC, Access Hollywood and Fox News among other television broadcasts." - that's all to show how reliable they are. So does BOI. Both sites are very similar. Only that BOM is an American site which has wide recognition, and BOI, an Indian site which suffers from the same problem as many other Indian sites: lack of international recognition. Shahid • Talk2me 20:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It has to be said that when I've been doing much work on geo articles I myself have questioned data on demographics particularly in the non-english speaking world which has been distributed apparently by reliable government sources. The site has stated that it is the leading compiler of the statistics or whatever and by the government but in the same way it doesn't transmit all the personal details of the credentials of the people who compiled it so we never know if it is entirely accurate. We just assume that they are done correctly by able people and in good faith and record the data as according to census records. Given that we try to use the best source possible, it is up the reader personally to decide whether to trust what is written in these sources and indeed in what is reported on wikipedia. There are hundreds of thousands of wikipedia references obtained in the same way. The same is for BOI and Box Office Mojo. Evidentally they do have some claim as a source because they are not blogs and have been cited in national newspapers, distributed to millions, but further than this they specialize in collecting data on films. WHy would they bother solely dedicating their time and effort to achieving this if they only intended displaying false data?. It is quite ignorant to suggest that a site which clearly dedicates a lot of time to compiling the data wouldn't wish to have it as accurate as possible like us on wikipedia. Ideally it would be better to obtain statistics directly from the film production company itself but the concern over this really is beyond belief. If a questionable source is replaceable then by all means replace it but the reality is there is nothing that is considered "more reliable" for statistics on Indian films. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 11:20, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I haven't read this whole thread, but I agree with the last point made by Blofeld that in absence of a "more reliable" website, boxofficeindia.com should be considered as a "reliable source". There is no Indian Government website which can provide similar information (if you want reason for this, I'll try to search and provide a reason why such a thing is not possible) and boxofficeindia is a 'third-party' 'neutral' website (they do not produce films). Also, I have found at least one evidence that a reliable site like The Economic Times is citing boxofficeindia.com as a source: check this page. GDibyendu (talk) 15:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Agree with you GDibyendu. And not only this source, but also Rediff, Hindustan Times and even international newspapers like Times Online use it. It's too much to consider that unreliable. And yes, it appears to be the only active and famous site for BO statistics in India. Shahid • Talk2me 15:49, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Blofeld, to use the argument that we should use one source unless we find a better source, you will have to change policy first. Per existing policy, sources dont become RS simply because better sources dont exist. That simply is not the way WP:RS works. Also, if you find any sources that are suspect during the course of your work on geo articles, by all means question it. You can bring it to this board for more eyes to look at. But, just because you choose to ignore something elsewhere does not mean others should not question sources like BOI. And talking of BOI, unless the identity and credentials of those running the site is known, we cannot take their words at face value. For all we know, they may be lying when they tell us that they're getting their numbers from "trade journals". Like User:Stephan Schulz says in another discussion below -- "Reliability is not the default assumption, it must be positively established." Sarvagnya 16:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

But the same could be said of any site that states something. If the New York Times happened to have a similar list and they stated that the statistics were compiled from "trade journals" the likelihood is you would take their word for it even if there wasn't anything on the author of the web page. You would naturally assume that as it is the NY Times it must be 100% correct. Would you automatically assume they were lying?? Your;re argument doesn't appear to be about the writers of the web page rather the integrity of the site itself. The question is would removing all figures reported from those websites in the 300 or so articles actually benefit wikipedia as a resource (which is intended to document reported facts and figures) because people one or two editors think the site "might be telling a mistruth"?. P.S I have re-referenced hundreds of articles which I questioned the reliability of in the past so please don't make out as if I "ignore" questionable sources. ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 16:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
You're citing opinions of other editors only when they support yours, but ignoring opinions of many other editors, who agree that the site is actually reliable. As for the credentials you're talking about, as said by John, "If you aren't using the "self-published" basis, personally, who cares?" Shahid • Talk2me 16:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The difference is that the NYT has an editorial control board, they have researchers and fact checkers, and they disclose their names to the public. That is precisely why they are not self-published, and a key reason why they are considered reliable - they have high standards of transparency and accountability. This is not to say that they are 100% reliable, because no source is, but these factors make for a strong disincentive against falsification, since their reputation is based on the work they stand behind.
As for Box Office Mojo, the site publicly discloses the names of its writers, and openly acknowledges that they source directly from the studios and production companies. And even if they didn't, we would still have several other reliable sources for the data. If the Indian information is indeed reliable, there will be other ways of sourcing it. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 17:32, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

But even if we knew who compiled the data personally we would still be having the same conversation because it is more about the reputation of the site. Meanwhile as 100kb of comments are posted here articles on entire Indian states like Bihar are unreferenced and are in serious trouble. Perhaps its high time priorities underwent change on here ♦Blofeld of SPECTRE♦ $1,000,000? 17:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Nine objections directly from policy and guidelines

{{RFCpolicy}} This is mainly from WP:RS and WP:V -

1. Articles should rely on reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. - there is no evidence of fact-checking

2. Material that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable; this means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals. - has not been vetted

3. Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are welcomed. - not referenced to any bibliographies

4. Items that are signed are preferable to unsigned articles. - completely unsigned; we have no idea who is running the site

5. Material from mainstream news organizations is welcomed, particularly the high-quality end of the market, such as the The Washington Post, The Times of London, and The Associated Press. - not a mainstream news organization

6. Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. - there is no evidence otherwise given that the author of the site has prior expertise in the field, that his writing has been published prior to his work on the site by reliable publications, or that the site's information can be independently verified.

7. In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. As a rule of thumb, the greater the degree of scrutiny involved in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the evidence and arguments of a particular work, the more reliable it is. - the site gives no evidence of any editorial control processes.

8. Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued and usually the most reliable sources in areas where they are available, such as history, medicine and science. Material from reliable non-academic sources may also be used in these areas, particularly if they are respected mainstream publications. - does not meet this standard

9. Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for fact-checking. Questionable sources should only be used in articles about themselves. - as per above, there is no evidence of fact-checking.

The source fails for all of the above reasons, not just one of them. No amount of argument or rhetoric will make all of these disappear - so I would encourage the editors to do any of the following: a) continue to research the site to find more information about how they operate, b) do some real-world research to find other sources that may be indicated to exist on paper, and c) drop this source and cease the semantics which others may misinterpret as Wikilawyering.

Lastly, as per Shahid's wishes expressed to me for more editors, I am putting this up for RfC. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 17:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment - I've said this before (like several months before) I've been saying it all along and I say it now.. this site, as Girolamo demonstrates above (something which I've done without luck for months now) is not a Reliable source per existing policy. The only claim that is being repeated ad nauseum is that this source is used widely in Reliable sources. Not only is that claim not true, it is also of no consequence as it finds no support in either WP:V, WP:RS or WP:SPS. Unless the defenders of this source care to address the specific policy concerns listed above (and above and above and way above), their semantics will not be misinterpreted, but rather interpreted rightly as wikilawyering and disruption. This has been going on for months and I am being hounded with ANIs and RfCs and it has to stop now. Sarvagnya 18:47, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

The above summary is rather misleading in terms of comments. "Reputation for fact-checking" =/= "evidence of fact-checking". A reputation is demonstrated by being cited elsewhere. I have no idea what the other points are supposed to mean, frankly. They're not all necessary conditions for reliability.
As for other remarks, I seem to see various references to the use of this site in reliable sources. Perhaps he can quote occasions where other reliable sources have dismissed the numbers? Or where other reliable sources have used some other source for numbers? Or where contradictions are apparent? If none of that is true, I fail to see why a self-stated months-long crusade was even necessary to attempt to remove all references to a site, repeatedly used elsewhere, that doesn't even appear to be vaguely controversial. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Fact checking is evidenced by the presence of editorial controls such as copy editors and researchers. All major news organizations have them. When we require a "reputation for fact checking", this implies that something must indicate it; we don't simply assume that all websites have such a reputation prima facie. This is not about controversy; it's about reliability. The issue has been forced due to an FAC, which is makes it germane to the moment. As for the opinions of other reliable sources, we don't take them into account in the guidelines - news organizations do not compile public lists of what they regard as unreliable; they simply abstain from using them in most cases.
As for more evidence of better sources, see here. It is clear that far better primary sources exist and can be used. Lack of will amongst our editors to track these down is not an acceptable justification to argue for sites with no transparency, pre-existing reputation from their contributors, or editorial controls. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 19:24, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
You know, I share Blofeld's exasperation that this is such a major issue when, say, the article on one of India's first Cabinet ministers looks like this. I really shouldnt comment further. That being said, I will.
Your argument continues to conflate reputation with evidence. If evidence is provided of fact-checking or oversight, excellent. But a reputation for fact-checking is implied when it is quoted without comment elsewhere. We do not assume all sources have any such reputation; which is why we could check to see whether others, who have professional reasons to seek accuracy, quote the source.As you point out, news orgs abstain from using unreliable sources.
About the primary sources: may I point out we traditionally prefer to avoid primary sources for OR reasons. If the primary sources in question are "trade outlets and Independent theater trackers", the latter are frankly going to be open to the same problems as here, and the former aren't independent third-party sources anyway. Frankly, a source that collates this information, makes it generally available, and is quoted by (to add to the list)
causing all this drama on the basis of vague private investigation not turning up details on their editorial board is really strikingly unnecessary. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
(Oh, not to mention being quoted in peer-reviewed articles such as
  • Mannathukkaren, Nissim (2007). "Reading cricket fiction in the times of hindu nationalism and farmer suicides: Fallacies of textual interpretation". International Journal of the History of Sport. 24 (9): 1200. doi:10.1080/09523360701448349. ISSN 0952-3367. Retrieved 2008-05-14. and
  • Stadtler, Florian (2005). "Cultural Connections: Lagaan and its audience responses". Third World Quarterly. 26 (3): 517. doi:10.1080/01436590500033891. ISSN 0143-6597. Retrieved 2008-05-14.
  • and being used by business-school experts on Indian industry as a central source of numbers for their research on the Indian film industry. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:41, 14 May 2008 (UTC) )

Relata, thank you. That is exactly what I have been waiting to see. I will concede the point. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Formula One related sources

Could anyone inform me whether the following sources are reliable as I'm having trouble explaining how they are reliable at this FAC:

Thanks, D.M.N. (talk) 13:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

It would appear difficult to prove that those sites are reliable per the criteria. If any alternatives are available, I would use them. AlexJ (talk) 14:01, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I've removed some of then, but I personally think there is no problem with them, it's not like the material I am referencing is contentious as such, so I canoot see why it can't be used. D.M.N. (talk) 14:21, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with pure repositories of statistics and other data, in those cases the information is simply right or wrong. In this case ChicaneF1 has never been shown to be at fault, as far as I am aware. The problem comes with interpretive editorial commentary such as that offered by the other sites. In those cases there are many other sources, including reputable news organisations, which should be used, if possible. I am alo a little wary of gpracing and galeforce as they are fossil sites that have not been updated in years, and may vanish at any point. In a FAC these points may become important, but for the majority of articles I subscribe to the "something is better than nothing" argument. Pyrope 15:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Are there any other comments regarding this? D.M.N. (talk) 16:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment - I am disappointed that criticizers of these sources as reliable do not come forth to present their arguments. However, perhaps this could be used as a precedent for the reliability on each. Guroadrunner (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment -- ChicaneF1.com and F1DB.com are good to go and are reliable sources. BBC/ITV/SPEED Channel telecasts are reliable (that's a source I use). Don't know about galeforcef1 or gpracing.192net.com -- Guroadrunner (talk) 00:33, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Boxofficemojo

First off, I do think that www.boxofficemojo.com is a reliable source for many things. For movie gross, opening weekends, max number of theatres etc, etc, it is reliable.

However, the films in its database do not go back before 1980, so the RANKINGS surely cannot be used to make sweeping statements like "X is the 12 highest grossing documentary" - there were some major documentaries on the Beatles, Rolling Stones, etc, with substantial mass market appeal. Box office mojo does not include them.

In short, the limits of the source are being roundly ignored throughout Wikipedia. What should we do? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 12:47, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

ISTR that it gave what looked like sensible info for inflation-adjusted box office takes, putting Gone With The Wind in the top spot, so there must be some pre-1980 content if that's still the case. Is there a better source that should be preferred? I'm not familiar with one. Perhaps simply noting "according to boxofficemojo.com" would give the proper context to this apparently best available, but incomplete, source. Jclemens (talk) 15:22, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Who's behind this site? What are their credentials? If it can be shown that it is run by experts who have had their work published in independent third-party sources, it might qualify as a reliable source. Otherwise, it would not. Sarvagnya 17:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't sound like a personal web site to me. Squidfryerchef (talk) 12:21, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I guess we could use it as a source, if no other sources are available, while attributing it.Bless sins (talk) 17:23, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I would consider Boxofficemojo.com a reliable source. The founder and editor of that web site is Brandon Gray, who is frequently quoted in the mainstream media as a commentator on how movies are performing at the box office. See quotes from him at E! Online, Bloomberg News, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today, just this month alone. Gray is aware of the limitations of the data available to him; for example, on his list of the highest grossing documentaries, the top of the page says "1982-Present". [27] The site also indicates that "Since box office has been more closely tracked in recent years, the calendar gross data is generally considered more comprehensive after 2001, while pre-2001 estimates are considered approximate." [28] So editors should be aware of the site's limitations while still considering it reliable as to the data it does have. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Agreed. The problem stemmed from a fight at Expelled:No Intelligence Allowed over using box office mojo to make sweeping claims of ranking over all time. Actually, given the restricted definition of documentary used by Box office mojo, I don't really think we should mention the ranking at all. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 05:24, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

What would the criteria be for RS for Location hypotheses of Atlantis?

This is an article which by its very nature is going to have fringe stuff in it, which is as it should be. But given that we can't use notability as a criterion for inclusion, and presumably we don't want to just include everyone who can write something on a web page, presumably we have to ask for some sort of RS? And if so, what? In some cases it's easy, they've been mentioned in an academic journal, no problem. But that bar is probably too high. Is attending a conference on Atlantis enough? A self-published book (which several have) surely isn't enough, but I don't know what is. Right now I'm discussing this about someone named Franke, and for the life of me I can't figure out what would be a reliable source for him. Any assistance would be much appreciated.--Doug Weller (talk) 21:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, notable hypotheses get in already, so let's set those aside. As for the rest, it's reasonable to ask that the hypothesis has been either discussed or published by a reliable source or an expert in the field. But recall, the status of expert is established (via WP:SPS) as someone who has published in the relevant field in reliable sources. As to the sources themselves, a conference with a website is not inherently a reliable. Obviously, anyone can set up a conference in their living room and start a website. So we require that any sources excersize a modicum of fact checking to ensure accuracy (WP:RS). And obviously, anyone running such a source can claim as much. So I think it's very reasonable to require that any claimed RS that meets these criteria actually be notable. However, if that conference essentially lets anyone in, and has no checks on what people can say in it, then attending it is irrelevant to one's expert status, and nothing said in the conference can be presumed reliable. Someguy1221 (talk) 00:07, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Agreed that attending a conference is not enough. I attended several conferences in college as an undergraduate. I would be appalled at the idea that that meant I was a reliable source on the subject of any of them. John Carter (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
The conference, at least this year's, seems to be organised by some respectable people, not all 'believers'. This year's conference has 47 speakers it seems.[29] -- it is the successor of one 3 years ago [30] whose participants ranged from academics to tour guides to lawyers. So, does presenting a paper at this conference make it a RS? Here's a list of 52 submitted and presumably accepted abstracts so far [31], some by people who are clearly notable, others by people who are complete unknowns (eg J Teeluck). Although it may be a respectable conference, I'd argue that presenting a paper there and even having it published in the proceedings is not enough to make it a RS.--Doug Weller (talk) 12:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Request assistance

I wrote a very detailed, well-researched section using about eighteen newspaper articles in Jedi census phenomenon. The newspaper articles came from google news. Then someone without even a userpage came trolling in the article. A bot even reverted the person one time. The writing on the article is a mix from all these sources, sometimes pulling a single fact unique to each one as many of the news articles repeat the same information while other news articles include facts not mentioned by the others and they all must be included or certain parts are removed as unreferenced. I included them at the bottom of the paragraph for readability. The articles are done in the ref name="" tag as at the top the news articles also cite that a real church exists in Jedi census phenomenon as before it was just a joke so they are referenced at the top and the bottom using ref name="" tags to avoid duplication.

I would like a neutral party to come help out on this. William Ortiz (talk) 20:05, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

  • I have looked at the article and your edits and User:Juansmith's. First of all, I do not believe that your edits were vandalism, but I also do not believe that Juansmith's edits were vandalism either. Juansmith may not have a user page but he has been an editor on Wikipedia for over two years. I believe that there is a problem with the way you have organized the citations of these 19 sources. For example, suppose I wanted to find out which source was used to establish that the defendant's attorney told the court that the defendant was unemployed. I shouldn't have to look through all 19 sources to find the proof. If some facts were found only in a particular article, those facts should be cited to their particular source -- rather than having a 10-sentence passage containing multiple facts with a blanket citation of 19 different sources. Furthermore, some of the coverage of this incident is not clearly related to the Jedi census phenomenon. While the establishment of a Jedi church in Wales is arguably related to the census phenomenon, I don't see how the fact that the organizers of the church were assaulted relates to that. Much less do I understand why the employment status, history of alcohol use, or sentence given to the assailant are worthy of coverage in an encyclopedia. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:47, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

ihro.in

Since past few days, User:Singh6 has been adding references from ihro.in to a number of articles.

Does http://www.ihro.in classifies as a reliable source? The website supposedly belongs to "International Human Rights Organisation", but surprsingly the activities of this "International Human Rights Organisation" are limited to the Punjab insurgency. This seems to be more of a Khalistani propaganda site. The "Discussion board" of this "international" organization is situated on Yahoo groups.

While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them. Surprisingly, inspite of being a "Human Rights Organisation", it does not talk about atroicities committed by religious militants during the Punjab insurgeny. It only criticises the Indian government, while glorifying the fanatic religous militants.

There are many neutral sources on the Khalistan crisis and this site doesn't seem to be one of them.

According to whois information, the domain is registered by an individual Tanveer Singh, not some international NGO.--202.54.176.51 (talk) 12:41, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that it doesn't seem to be an independent human rights body. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Extremist source, probably. See this, if anything remains of it after I take out the copyvios. --Relata refero (disp.) 12:21, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I've removed references to this site numerous times from the Khalistan-related articles. It definitely isn't NPOV. All their "human rights" articles seem to be exclusively focused on Punjab and attack the Indian Government. Usually organizations have a .org. This one has a .in. Makes it a little suspect. whois returns the owner as an individual (Tanveer Singh), who lives in India. The Registrant Organization field is "self", which leads me to believe that there is no organization behind this website. --vi5in[talk] 15:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

NPOV Site- Respected Wikipedia community, as per my analysis, IHRO is not Khalistani Propaganda Site. Being normal humans, we also have a responsibility to keep the true history intact. We should not let our national affiliation over-ride our unbiased reporting. It appears that Punjab Police and other Indian security forces had simply crushed the Khalistan Movement, but it is not true. Thousands of Boys were killed in fake encounters and then cremated secretely. Even innocent family members of militants and others were tortured and killed by Govt of India. "Human Rights watch" has indicated that even world famous "Amnesty International" was not allowed to visit state of Punjab by Government of India. Please note that the related news always appeared on "The Tribune", one of north-Indian newspapers and Ajit, a regional newspaper of India etc. Since The Tribune (a 125 years old newspaper group) did not have online editions prior to 2001 and Ajit didn’t have any online editions untill very recently, hence eliminating the very few NPOV available sources will be equivalent to murdering history as well. Yes! we are proud Indian citizens, but while suppressing information about thousands of murder and rape victims, we should not forget that the victims idintified by www.ihro.in were also citizens of our respected nation. Please throughly read "Amnesty International", "Amnesty International, "Human Rights watch" where it says that "Thousands of mothers await their sons even though some may know that that the oppressor has not spared their sons’ lives on this earth. A mother’s heart is such that even if she sees her son’s dead body, she does not accept that her son has left her. And those mothers who have not even seen their children’s dead bodies, they were asking us: at least find out, is our son alive or not?" and "ENSAAF". I beg you, please do not murder history by suppressing the already extremely less availibility of online sources of information regarding Punjab. I will never add any Khalistani propaganda sites as references, but I have personally seen the crimes committed by govt security forces and I strongly beleive that IHRO is not biased.Singh6 (talk) 07:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, obviously, a person who believes that gun-weilding religious extremist terrorists are "martyrs"[32][33][34][35][36] will find IHRO unbiased. But apart from your belief, what proof do you have that IHRO is really a respected international organization that can be used as a reliable source, and not just some Khalistani propaganda site? 202.54.176.51 (talk) 05:53, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Well! also a person who beleives that convicted sexual offender Kanwar Pal Singh Gill‎ is a Noble Sikh, will also find www.IHRO.in biased because it talks about the crimes committed by him. Also, if you can try to tilt the information from Amnesty International, The Hindu and India Together etc, then you will definitely find it biased. Also a person (you) who has received several vandalism warnings and who had even lost his editing previlages on wikipedia for his POV editing/vandalism see your talk page will definitely find a Human Rights organization as biased. --Singh6 (talk) 08:20, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you can read English, you probably noticed that the IP address 202.54.176.51 belongs to a service provider from which thousands of users connect to the Internet. I am not responsible for any of the vandalism from this IP address.
Also, I never said anything about reports from Amnesty, HRW and other such organisations. My objection is limited to this "IHRO" organiztaion which is not notable at all, and has no credibility. Show me a single edit where I removed any references to Amnesty or HRW. You probably failed to notice "While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency" in my edits.
You're trying to divert others' attention from the real issue again and again. The issue here is whether IHRO is a reliable source or not. You're criticizing KPS Gill, ranting against Indians, calling terrorists martyrs, but you've not provided a single reason why is this "ihro.in" website credible. It's registered by an individual. Even I can register a website or an organization and name it "International Human Rights Forum" and claim that Sikh terrorists raped thousands of Hindu women. What would make this website credible?
The question of martyr varies. For example Satwant Singh and Beant Singh (assassin), both assassins of Indira Gandhi, are declared martyr by Akal Takht, the highest Sikh body. Has Akal Takht declared these persons martyr? If that is the case, then a category Category:People declared martyr by Akal Takht can be created. But a general category Category:Sikh martyrs is inappropriate. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 07:40, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree.

The source in question is probably partisan source. However a little query. "While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them" - How did you know this? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 07:25, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, you're not going to find a reference because nobody (except Khalistani lobby) gives a damn about what this unnotable website publishes. But, you don't have to be a Sherlock to guess that this website greatly exaggerates things. Here are a few quotes from this propaganda site:
  • "In total, all over Punjab, the army killed over 10,000 Sikhs to gain control of the Sikh shrines."[37] - what bullshit. The number of people killed in Operation Bluestar, Black Thunder and other operations in Sikh shrines was nowhere close to 10000. Using such sites is as a reference would be mockery of facts and history.
  • "Soon after the partition in 1947, the Indian authorities decided to come down heavily on the Sikhs and to curb their political power."[38] - this is bullshit, Punjab had mostly Sikh chief ministers: Pratap Singh Kairon, Giani Gurmukh Singh Mussafir, Gurnam Singh, Lachhman Singh Gill, Zail Singh (alos President of India), Darbara Singh, Parkash Singh Badal, Surjit Singh Barnala, Harcharan Singh Brar, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal
  • "It is clear beyond doubt that Delhi, ruled by Brahminical Hindus, has always been hostile towards Punjab and the Sikhs."[39] - bullshit again. When was Delhi ruled by Brahmin powers? Anti-Brahminism and Reservation for non-Brahmins is the most visible policy of the Indian politicians.
  • "The history of Punjab during the last 500 years is primarily the history of the Sikhs."[40] - wrong again. Punjabi history is full of Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. Before 1947, the only district in which the Sikhs were in majority was the Ludhiana district (41.6%) [41]. It was only due to the partition and later Khalistani terrorism, that Hindus and Muslims went away.
Also, this website calls itself "International Human Rights Organisation". How come its activities are limited to exposing human rights violations only in Punjab, and that to only the ones committed by Punjab police? This site explains the history of Punjab insurgency without even mentioning atrocities by Sikh militants who are considered terrorists not only by India, but also by US and Canada (which are not "Hindu"). Why won't a "International Human Rights Organization" website that is not Khalistani propaganda site talk about Khalistani terrorists and thousands of other things?
  • "We in IHRO, therefore, urge the sanitized Indian people to reject the Constitution without any reservation"[42]

202.54.176.51 (talk) 09:42, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Reply Respected Sir/Madam, Please answer Otolemur crassicaudatus’s exact questions, i.e. "While there were undoubtedly human rights violations during the Punjab insurgency, this site greatly exaggerates them" –How did you know this? ..... Please answer the exact question about exaggeration of Human Rights Violation (and NOT some other THINGS, as you have cleverly tried to move away from his question) by this site .... Also, your next sentence that Obviously, you're not going to find a reference..., Well, Respected Sir/Madam, you have been asked to prove, So PROVE !! Please Do Not avoid again!!! ....Now!! Eventhough you have cleverly avoided the answer and tried to start a new chapter on history, Remember! Several books could be written on your word THINGS which you have raised. I would still answer your points this time (But will expect your answers on every single question raised so far... NO Avoiding Please): --Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Answer of 1st Point - 1984 Sikh's Kristallnacht-Part 1 clearly show that Indian government imposed Media blackout at the time of Operation Blue Star. And, at the end of this Operation, Weapons allegedly recovered from the militants were displayed to the world but the causalities were NOT. Official figures of fatalities were 83 soldiers and 493 militants and civilians including 30 women and children but unofficial estimates went on to thousands. Now regarding IHRO, it is not an (Indian) official site, but instead an independent source so if it is showing an independent version and not the official (Indian) version, 2 Harvard Human Rights Journal states that 3680 pilgrims were staying in the hostel inside the Golden Temple complex, leading scholars to question the accuracy of the government’s estimated death toll. According to eyewitness accounts, over 10,000 pilgrims and 1300 workers were unable to flee the complex before the attack. This information further proves the IHRO report as NPOV. 3 SGPC also clearly stated “Thousands of Sikhs were martyred in the holy precincts of Darbar Sahib” further proving the IHRO report as NPOV. 4. Indian Member Parliament’s speech inside Indian Parliament clearly stating that thousands of pilgrims were murdered inside Golden Temple thus proving IHRO reports as NPOV again. Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Answer of 3rd Point - Already answered that Sikhs are being forcibly clubbed under Hinduism per Indian constitution[3]. Sikhs were forced to launch several agitations/morchas to get every single justice from Govt of India. Even state of Punjab was formed on Nov 1st 1966 only when Sikhs started an agitation for Punjabi speaking state[4]. Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Answer of 4 (A) Point - Seems you have intentionally ignored word Primarily in IHRO’s NPOV statement. Eventhough Sikhs were in minority in joint Punjab but they continuously fought with Mugals/Afghans during last several hundered years and eventually they forced both Mugals and Afghans out of their land and made it their kingdom, they even went further and added state of Jammu & Kashmir, northern Himachal Pradesh, today’s Pakistani states of North West Frontier Province, Pakistani Punjab and several other areas into their kingdom. Punjabi history is primarily filled with history of Sikh Gurus, their desciples, Sikh Kings, Sikh Generals etc. Hence IHRO information is again NPOV.Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Answer of 4 (B) Point - Even Amnesty International state that the issue of impunity for abuses committed by Khalistani groups during the militancy period is marginal. Hence! IHRO does not have information about those crimes which were either not committed at all or which were very marginal in nature. Next, answer to why IHRO talks about Indian Security force’s crimes - Please read HRW, Indian Government and Indian security forces are repeatedely blamed for torture, extra-judicial killings, murders and disappearances‘ of tens of thousands of Sikhs AND rapes of several Sikh women (regardless of their age) by HRW and Amnesty International [5]. Remember both of them are not Khalistani sites. Difference is: IHRO has more information because it was already based in India and Amnesty International was refuced entry into punjab by Indian Government. In other words [Amnesty International] and [HRW] are also stating similar to what IHRO state in its reports proving its NPOV status.Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Answer of 5th Point - The Tribune and other explains that the Sikh representatives of constitution committee led by Sardar Hukam Singh had rejected the draft of Indian Constitution and had refused to sign it but. But their protests were ignored, and the Constitution was adopted in 1950. Also, Since Sikhs constitutional rights which Sikhs had enjoyed prior to 1947 were abolished in Indian Constitution in 1950 AND Article 25 was added into it which made Sikh, Jains and Budh religions as part of Hinduism, hence IHRO, being a Human Rights body might have advocated the rejection of biased constitution, references prove it being NPOV.Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

And now, User:Singh6 is using Wikipedia:Canvassing to turn wikipedia into a Khalistani propaganda site (few examples: [43] [44]). Congrats. Now, anybody with a website and friends to support your terrorist propaganda can write anything on Wikipedia. 202.54.176.51 (talk) 10:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Reply - Extremely few "Limited posting/Open Transparency messages" to Otolemur crassicaudatus and a mixed set of respected wikipedia adminstrators/members are considered as friendly Notices underWikipedia:Canvassing. I presented totally transparent facts. Respected Sir/Madam, Regarding your calling my discussion as terrorist propaganda, I request to stay in your sences. This is simply a discussion, so please dont show ur real extremist mentality. Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I have already mentioned the Archive issue with other 125 years old north-Indian Newspaper group, i.e. [The Tribune which does not have archive records prior to year 2001 and Frontline does not have archive prior to 1997. Further, HRW clearly states that Punjab government institutions have equated human rights activists with terrorists and consistently used the insurgency to justify their actions and The Punjab police have also associated human rights activists with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]. I beg you to not to follow Punjab/Indian government’s criminal path, Please don’t get influenced by Indian extremism, Please keep Human Rights Organization IHRO as "NPOV" to support several articles with valid references.Singh6 (talk) 09:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree that Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi governments have equated human rights activists with terrorists and during their times, Punjab Police tortured some innocents by calling them Khalistani terrorists. But that DOES NOT justify actions of Khalistani terrorists who have killed hundreds. And not everybody killed by brave Sikhs like KPS Gill was innocent. Almost all of these were terrorists.

Of course, this has nothing to with IHRO.IN being a reliable source. You are again deviating from the topic and not mentioning what is the credibility of this site. This site is registered by an individual who is urging people to abandon Indian constitution and who is hailing Khalistani terrorists as martyrs. HOW can this be a reliable source for any topic related to Khalstan? 202.54.176.51 (talk) 07:47, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

NPOV site - www.IHRO.in is definitely a reliable and NPOV site. This is a well known human rights organization in India.

User 202.54.176.51 appears to be either an Indian agent or an Indian extremist who want to use all means to put a blanket on his Governme'st crimes by portraying www.ihro.in as a POV site. He put up 5/6 points to prove his hate towards www.ihro.in but I have clearly proved all of his points "Wrong" with solid proofs (including Indian Parliament's video records). If 202.54.176.51 is a NPOV member then he should have appreciated other user's answers to his own questions first, but it is strange that now he has started indicating "the points he himself raised and their answers he received" got nothing to do with the reliability of www.ihro.in . In other words, he has started calling his own questions and their answers as deviation from the real topic.
Also, user 202.54.176.51 has cleverly avoided answering user Otolemur crassicaudatus and user Singh6's, i.e. my questions on www.ihro.in to fool Wikipedia community. I would request user 202.54.176.51 to come forward with any new points (YES! New POINTS) against www.ihro.in (if he has any) to prove that www.ihro.in is a POV. Singh6 (talk) 02:03, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Chair IHRO: IHRO- A unique body -- IHRO is a unique body among NGOs for it is an organisation of principally legal professionals that has a special legal point of view in its approach to human rights issues.

Its professionalism naturally entails the IHRO to take the mandate one step further in becoming a source of reference for governments, intergovernmental organisations, such as United Nations, as well as local and international human rights NGOs.

We believe that regular public reporting and documentation can help to ensure that human rights concerns are not subordinated to any political or other questionable considerations.

We call upon all those committed to protecting human dignity to join this important movement to make the 21st Century, a century of Human Rights with a motto:

“Human Rights is my property, no one can take it away from me.”

Is Wikipedia a reliable source?

Is there a policy about citing another Wikipedia article as a source? In my opinion, given the no OR policy, Wikipedia can't be considered a reliable source. Instead, the editor should cite the original source cited in the other article. If the other article doesn't cite a source, then it can't be a reliable source itself, correct? ThreeOfCups (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a reliable source. In fact, no open Wiki is considered a reliable source. You arew correct about citing the reference, not the article. --Haemo (talk) 20:04, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
This, of course, does not preclude a "see also" sort of footnote. For instance, "Views on the subject are mixed.<ref>See Controversy related to the subject for full details.</ref>" - this is not, however, recommended. At all. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
I would discourage such footnotes... there are better alternatives: For example, I would see if I could link it "in text" (by typing: "Views of the subject are [[Controversy related to the subject|mixed]]... which would come out as "Views of the subject are mixed".) Blueboar (talk) 21:56, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, self references should usually be avoided. You should be writing a self-contained article — it should not contain notes such as "see the discussion below" or "see this page here for more info". --Haemo (talk) 04:27, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
However, if the coverage of a point would fill up too much of an article, having it in another article is always acceptable, if it's not being done to create a POV fork or the like. Break-out articles are a long standing practise. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 21:59, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
If you want to fork information to another article, typically it is best practice to use one of the following: 1) an inline link, 2) {{main}}, {{see also}}, or {{further}}, 3) link to another article in a See also section. I would recommend one of those. Gary King (talk) 00:23, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The actual policy regarding citing Wikipedia articles as sources, or rather not citing Wikipedia articles as sources is at WP:SPS on the last line: "Articles and posts on Wikipedia may not be used as sources." That's pretty clear. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! ThreeOfCups (talk) 22:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

world-mysteries.com - copyright violator

Not only does this look like an unreliable source, it contains copyright articles. [45] I'm under the impression that such sites get blacklisted, or am I confused about this? Thanks.--Doug Weller (talk) 11:00, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Forgot to add I found this at Antikythera mechanism as an EL clearly saying the articles came from The Economist and Scientific American, which was the clue. :-) --Doug Weller (talk) 11:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this reference from eurolang.net a reliable source?

Resolved

There seems to be no way to view this source unless you have an account at eurolang.net and, as far as I can see, there seems to be no way to get an account. Wikipedia:Citing sources states that one purpose of citing sources is "to ensure that the content of articles can be checked by any reader or editor" and this citation seems to fail that.

The citation is used at Mac OS X#Lack of Language Provision and there has been some opposition to the source while other editors seem to be OK with it however I think there may be a little bit of bias involved in some of the opinions. For this reason I think it needs to be addressed here, away from the bias. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:45, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

The page being cited is verifiable by subscription... meaning you have to subscribe and pay to view it (there is a button on the main page that leads to information on how to do so). We have long held that having to subscribe and/or pay to veiw a source is not a violation of WP:V and WP:RS. It is like having to obtain a library card or having to pay to purchase a book. As long as anyone can subscribe, it meets our criteria. Now, as for bias... that is a different issue. Bias does not nescessarily make a source unreliable... and bias issues can often be solved by proper attribution of who holds the opinion being stated. However, some sources are biased to the point of unreliability. Whether the source in question is biased to the point of unreliability is best determined at the talk page of the article... by those who know the subject matter better than we do here. Blueboar (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:16, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

SportsBook Review

Can anyone advise whether or not SportsBook Review can be referenced?96.238.40.131 (talk) 21:22, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Do you have more information about it, either in favor of or against its reliability? --Metropolitan90 (talk) 23:34, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
    • SBR is widely acknowledged among serious sports bettors as the industry leader for sports book information and player advocacy. As a member of this community, I take it for granted that everyone understands the integrity and expertise they offer. Every issue is thoroughly researched and all perspectives given serious consideration. Google News has deemed SBR's news releases worthy of syndication. I'm mystified how any unbiased editor with experience in this field could consider them a non-RS. 96.238.40.131 (talk) 00:28, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Could you ask whoever it is who is disagreeing with you to post here? Apparently somebody must consider them non-reliable for some reason, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I have no particular position on this question, but right now we are only getting one side of the story. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:31, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Is a press release a RS?

Resolved
 – Users in dispute still won't agree

There's an edit-war at Noelia, here is the diff: [46]

The concern is that the references in the deleted section were unreliable because they are press releases. Here are the individual links:

Thoughts? JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 03:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

A press release is a low quality self published source. It might be used for non-contentious, non-self-serving assertions about the organization that issued it, but most press releases are too promotional to use for anything. If the information is worthwhile it should have been picked up by a legitimate news source. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 03:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll add another more reliable source. The thing is that this user not only deletes the information based on the supposedly unreliable source, but whole chunks of information without giving an explanation. For example, by deleting that information, he deleted the year an album was released, who was the producer, who was featured, what songs charted, etc. Those are known facts that are far from being opinions or controversial issues. I'll see to that though. Thief12 (talk) 14:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
More generally, though, some press releases might be reliable sources, when the organisation releasing it is an expert on the subject. For instance, a Fermilab press release would probably be a useful summary of Physics in layman's terms Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Although it would be written in promotional language, a press release from a major motor vehicle manufacturer would be a reliable source for the launch of a new model of vehicle. There are various other cases where a press release might be reliable. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:12, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
A press release is a reliable source. However, it is a primary source which is not as high on the pecking order as a secondary source. A press release is just fine for basic facts about a company or product, such as when a product was released or the name of the president of the company. Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:04, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
If Billboard, an independent and reliable source for their own statistics, uses a press release to announce that Singer X's single "Song" has achieved gold record status per Billboard, then I'd think that's acceptable in an article about Singer X. A press release from Singer X making the same assertion would be self-serving and another source should be found. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 23:08, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Online stores, media databases

I recently had a debate about whether online stores and media databases are reliable sources. Are they? Here are the specific links that were discussed: AOL Music, Windows Media Guide, AOL Video, MTV shop, FYE store. Thanks in advance! -- FatalError 01:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

That's one of the funniest debates I've seen on WP for a while. "Wikipedia requires self-published sources"?? Better than SNL. Anyway I believe the term that was meant was secondary sources. Secondary sources, which means those published by a media outlet with an editorial board, are preferred but not required. Media databases and genre classification systems used by music sellers are primary sources. These should be fine to cite as examples of uses of the genre names. Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:11, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Er, yeah, I didn't actually mean "self-published". Wrong word. xD I meant "secondary". Okay, thank you. -- FatalError 05:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Chilean-Australian: request for comment

Hi! A vigorous - and now somewhat nasty - debate has emerged over the article Chilean Australian over the size of the Chilean-Australian population. The sole protagonists are myself and User:TeePee-20.7, and much of the discussion is on Talk:Chilean Australian.

TeePee is referring to an essay, written by a student intern and published on the website of the Chilean Embassy in Australia, that details the history of the Chilean-Australian population. Much of the article is quite informative and reasonably well written. However she estimates the Chilean-Australian population to be 45,000 without explaining how she arrived at this number.

In other articles that look at ethnic groups in Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 Census data is used to present the number of persons (a) born in a particular country, and (b) declare to have ancestry to a particular country (either alone or in combination with one other ancestry).

TeePee is strongly opposed to using this data, and instead insists on solely referring to the essay reference. I do not think the essay's estimate is accurate.

There is one limitation to the ABS data - somebody who has a Chilean ancestry might only choose to declare themselves according to their new Australian identity, or their European heritage. However I have included a caveat which draws attention to this minor flaw, as well as a statistic on how Chilean-born Australians defined their ancestral backgrounds in 2001.

I believe this version should be used.

TeePee has adopted a highly aggressive posture (and has been previously blocked), and has claimed I do not adequately cite references (even though six out of the seven references in the version above go to my ABS sources). No amount of compriming, humouring, reasoning or exercising of a time-out has worked. Wikipedia would benefit from a third party opinion on this page.

And by all means, seek his side of the story. Kransky (talk) 10:46, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorting through the Propaganda

1st point: True

2nd point: False, very vaguely True - I am not referring to the essay written by the intern who was at the Chilean Embassy. I am referring to the data published by the Chilean Embassy on their website! There is no indication that the intern provided this information as she is not credited to it on the page but Kransky fails to fathom this.

3rd point: True

4th point: False - This is completely false and once again Kransky is lying! If you read the discussions between us you will be able to see this and infact you can even certify that the data has been used so once again Kransky has chosen to act inappropriately and lie once more.

5th point: True - This one took him a while. I had to tell him this because he could not comprehend it before hand but then he adds the caveat trying to shut me up hoping I would not revert his edit where he sneaked in unreferenced information which he has constantly been doing. Only he is not able to comprehend that just because you're Chilean doesn't mean you will put down your ancestory as Chilean as Latinos in general are very multiracial and might wish to put down European, Native American or even specific countries such as Germany in which to indentify as their ancestory.

I believe the current version as of 20:41, 12 May 2008 should be used.

Once again he is disparaging me and behaving inappropriately. I will not even attempt to put into words the patients I have displayed with him you can see this when you intervine in our dispute.

Thankyou for your time and I hope we aren't too much of a burden on you. TeePee-20.7 (talk) 16:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Not a burden as commenting on sources is what the page is for, but it would really help if all could be civil and assume good faith. In my view the web page of the Chilean embassy in Australia is a good source for an estimate of the number of Chilean Australians. The Australian Census is also a highly reliable source. The easiest solution is to present both and attribute them to their sources. In the case of the Census, be sure to make it clear what Census respondents were asked to provide. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:18, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes I know I have tried to tell Kransky this but he just does not listen and seem to think rules don't apply to him, I had to defend myself and make sure this issue was not biased. And yes this is my view also and from that revision you can quite clearly see both sources are used, this issue is Kransky wanting to add unreferenced information and make this article to his own personal preference. TeePee-20.7 (talk) 17:06, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

What is this argument about exactly?

Are you asking if the report found here is a reliable source for population statistics? I'm assuming this is specifically in regards to the conclusion they reach: "Adding to this second and third generation Chileans living in Australia, we arrive at a Chilean-Australian population of around 45 000 persons." I'm afraid that embassy conclusion is nothing but an educated guess and I see nothing to say otherwise. That said a couple questions to ask are: 1) Does this "educated guess" include children and if so 2) does the census data include children for these particular questions (which I highly doubt, but I'm not a demographer so I'm not entirely sure). If the embassy is including children in their guess, as second and third generation people of Chilean ancestry then their guess doesn't seem at odds with the census data. There may be other problems with the census data reporting ancestry, but that should be dealt with through reliable sources. In the end I think you need to keep the census stats in the info box, discuss whether or not an educated guess from the embassy is worth mentioning in an attributed fashion, and perhaps clarify any notable facts or problems that can be reliable sourced about the census data.PelleSmith (talk) 19:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I don't disagree with what you say, and note that the embassy draws on the Census figures throughout. It quotes the Census population figure at the beginning of the paragraph and is not trying to dispute that figure, simply to add another dimension. Honestly, it should not be difficult using these two sources to write a simple factual account of the population. No call for a dispute of any kind. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:37, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Could I please have comments for this comprimise language: "According to the 2006 Census, 25,439 persons resident in Australia claimed Chilean ancestry, either alone or with another ancestry. However this may be an undercount as it ignores Chilean-born residents and their children who may have nominated other ancestries. At the 2001 Census 63% of Chilean-born respondents nominated their leading ancestry as Chilean, while others nominated a Spanish (29%), German (3%), Italian (3%) or English (2%) ancestry" Kransky (talk) 14:20, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
That is not an RS issue, but make sure you have an RS to support the statement "However this may be an undercount ..." Please take this up on the entry talk page and come back here if there are disputes about the reliability of specific sources. Best.PelleSmith (talk) 14:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes exactly! Thankyou, the current revision includes both the ABS data and the Embassy data. Kransky has been constantly trying to enforce his personal preference for this article trying to belittle the source and I'm glad you have approved its verifiability. This is exactly what the Embassy data does "add another dimension" I couldn't have said it better myself. Thankyou all for your time and help. TeePee-20.7 (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
In answer to the question posed by PelleSmith, ie "does the census data include children for these particular questions", yes it does. Regarding the undercount, the census asked for only a limited number of ancestries and one would expect that people would have chosen their most significant ancestries. Chilean immigration to Australia is relatively recent. Less than 4,000 Chileans were living in Australia in 1971. Most Chilean Australians have arrived since then and most of those have arrived less than 20 years ago so I really don't imagine that there would be many 2nd generation, far fewer 3rd generation and almost no 4th, 5th etc generation Chilean Australians. Chilean would have to be a significant ancestry for most Chilean Australians so I can't see how the embassy could come up with a figure almost twice that actually counted in the census. The figures on the website seem to based on some form of voluntary survey while the ABS figures are the result of an actual mandated count of the entire population. I'd give the ABS figures far more credibility. --AussieLegend (talk) 20:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the clarification on the children. Does that mean that children answer the relevant question or that they are counted along with their parents as having whatever form of ancestry the adults are identifying with? (thats more out of curiosity than anything). There has now been a very in depth discussion about the undercount on the relevant entry talk page, and it seems that the nature of the the ABS data, coming from participant self-identification, is prone to a large undercount in this case because of the high percentage of Chilean born individuals who claim other ancestry (mostly European). Anyway the full discussion can be seen there. A reliable source has also now been provided for a larger figure. Thanks again.PelleSmith (talk) 13:10, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
The census form is laid out in a table format. There are individual rows for each question and individual columns for each person resident at the address on census night. If there aren't enough columns on the form then you are supposed to ask for another form or as many forms as is necessary to enable responses from every person present. This enables individual answers for each person. The children's answers can be completely different to the parents. Everything is individualised.
Regarding the claim that the ABS data is prone to a large undercount because of the high percentage of Chilean born individuals who claim other ancestry (mostly European), I should point out that all answers are completely confidential. Names are removed so nobody can know how somebody has answered a particular question. I was born in Australia, as were my parents, and my distant ancestry is predominantly from England, Ireland and Wales but if I choose to answer that I was born in Argentina and my significant ancestry is from Botswana and Mars, nobody will, or ever can, find out. --AussieLegend (talk) 15:38, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes as I have already made mention of I am a Chilean Australian and what you are saying is true. The census is completely anonymous and if you live on the east coast what are you doing up at 2:39am? TeePee-20.7 (talk) 16:39, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Is it a blog?

This question isn't about verificability, but it's about reliable sources in some way, and so it belongs here (or at least it seems the most correct place to ask for this help).

The article Key (company) has a fair use image, Image:Key's booth at Comiket 71.jpg. It says it has been published at a site linked: I don't understand a word of it, I'm not even sure of the languaje (japanese, perhaps?) but the design seems like that of a blog. Surely a photo published in a blog would fail the policies of non-free content (wich would be a whole different issue I would work myself), but for that I need to know if the site is a blog or not.

I checked the official page linked as such in the article. Visually, it's similar, but domain does not seem to be the same: t is key.visualarts.gr.jp, while the linked site is motto.product.co.jp. However, I'm not dead sure if that means anything about being unrelated sites or not. Again, my zero-knowledge of that languaje prevents me from getting this clear Benito Sifaratti (talk) 01:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little confused about the question. Are you asking, as far as fair use is concerned, if it matters whether the picture came from the official site, a news site, or a blogger? Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
No. The question is, fairly and simply, if this is a blog or not, as I don't speak japanese (if that's japanese). Yes or no answer, then I would take care of the rest myself. Benito Sifaratti (talk) 00:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
But why would being a blog matter as far as fair use is concerned? Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is. If you translate it, you can see the "comments" and "trackbacks" links. -- FatalError 01:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

That blog is run by Visual Art's, the parent company of Key, so they had all the right to publish the photo. Well, technically Prototype does the managing, but Visual Art's is still the parent company; the website is called Visual Art's Motto, mind. If you don't even know any Japanese, why didn't you just ask me, the person who uploaded it, first?--十八 11:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The Economist, demographics of the journalistic staff

Can someone take a look at this set of statements and the associated sources.

Concerns are discuss on the talk page already, here.

Grateful for some views.

ALR (talk) 22:56, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Above editor insists on removing text with multiple citations. It basically says that The Economist recruits young Oxford grads, which is not a contested fact. The text reads: A disproportionate number of Economist scribes graduated from the same school, Magdalen College, Oxford.[51][52][53] Many are recent graduates.[54][55]

This editor has been repeatedly reminded of policy and that the sources are reliable, yet to no avail. I would prefer to avoid a revert war and just leave alone the cited non-negative material. Shivering Vacancy (talk)

I looked at the material and they are backed up by well-respected secondary sources, and they integrate properly into the article ( i.e. it's not a tangent, trivia, coatrack, or original thesis ). I see no reason why they shouldn't be kept. However, you may want to soften the wording "disproportionate" to the more NPOV "a large proportion". Squidfryerchef (talk) 23:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Note that each source is either very old, or it is an op-ed that doesn't even claim to be well-researched, or the "source" doesn't confirm what the referrer suggests it says. Or a combination of the above. --EnOreg (talk) 02:18, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I looked at the articles (other than the one behind the paywall) and while published by reliable sources, we may be veering into original research here, as in we're saying a little bit more than the article say. It looks like we have two facts that belong in our article: that there's a stereotype about Economist writers which the 2005 Observer article talks about, and that many of the top editors (as of 1999) went to Magdelen, from the "Not So Groovy" Guardian article. We shouldn't read any more into that than what the sources say. Squidfryerchef (talk) 05:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Haven't read any of the refs. But I point that this data is sometimes (often?...) misread, due to spurious relationships. Say, maybe most of the job applications come from Oxford - for some unseen reason... physical proximity, maybe... - so it would be natural that most employees come from there too. So it most likely wise to stick to the facts and in a way that does not make the reader jump into any (possibly wrong, and unsourced) conclusion. - Nabla (talk) 23:08, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, we have a reliable source that already makes that observation, about one particular college at Oxford, and not Cambridge, which is right next door, and i'm sure there are plenty of other schools within job-market distance. As far as the "recent grads" statement, that could be a spurious relationship; all companies hire a few recent grads, that doesn't mean by a long shot that their staff is mostly recent grads. Squidfryerchef (talk) 12:39, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Ichabodcraniosaurus

Can anybody provide reliable sources for Ichabodcraniosaurus? The third link is dead and the other two go to a mailing list. I looked it up in Google and am not sure which of the hits which come back are reliable sources. Corvus cornixtalk 21:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Looks like maybe none of them, I've looked it up in several search engines. However, I think this just might do: [56] -- but it's a personal webpage. However, it's on the University of California website and the guy is a Senior Research scientist in their musuem [57] so I'd say it's ok. However, should we have the article at all? It hardly seems notable. --Doug Weller (talk) 14:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
And from a mailing list, I find other joke names, eg Kittysaurus and Elvisaurus - should we have articles on them? --Doug Weller (talk) 14:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

GamersGlobal

[www.gamersglobal.com] is a website that lets literally any registered user post news on games. Some of these articles have been quoted in wikipedia articles. Policy says that this would be unreliable, but there is a decent amount of valuable information here too. I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify.

Also, if this does turn out to be unreliable, I'd like to know how to establish that for future discussions. Is there a list of unreliable sources somewhere? Randomran (talk) 18:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

It's not reliable enough because it's a user generated site, the editorial process has not been long established, and is untested. I'm pretty sure you could get better sources for the information on there. - hahnchen 19:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
I am the author/interviewer of the Spore interview with Lucy Bradshaw, and I also own GamersGlobal.com. Let me explain one thing about the site: While any registered user can post news directly to the site, everything which appears as a "top news" (on the left side of the main page) was chosen / edited by an editor, and all "Specials" (e.g. Interviews) are written by an editor. Now, the only editor of the site at the moment is me, but I have been a professional games journalist for 14 years, for example heading GameStar magazine and www.gamestar.de as editor-in-chief for seven years. ---Joerg Langer, GamersGlobal.com

Question Removal of Hassnain & Olsson Books-Yuz Asaf Page

I would like help with an ongoing disagreement at the 'Yuz Asaf' page. For past few years the names of Professor Fida Hassnain and Suzanne Olsson have been synonymous with Jesus in India theory, bloodlines of Jesus, Roza Bal tomb, and Yuz Asaf. Their books were self-published but have met all Wiki criteria to be included as reliable resources. They have been quoted internationaly, reviewed in international newspapers and magazines such as Fortean Times and Times of India, been the basis for films and documentaries and interviews. And yet after recent problems with one editor, this has snowballed into many opinions from editors around Wiki. The pages have become blocked and mention of their books has been severaly limited or eliminated. The reason given is that they are either 'fringe' research or outside self-published guidleines (which they are not). And yet while deleting these references, others of extremely dubious sources have been permitted to remain. These include channeled information from UFO's as reported by a very small fringe group (Jmanuel) , complete self-published fiction books such as 'The Roza Bal Line' and other problematic sources left on Wiki pages. In the last edit, Doug Weller claims the Hassnain and Olsson books are fiction, therefore subject to deletion and the page is apparently blocked from further editing. A seriously impartial administrator is requested to review the pages where this topic and these authors are being discredited or deleted. Thank You.NewYork10021 (talk) 22:44, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

See:
Talk:Yuz_Asaf#Suzanne_Olsson_book
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Suzanne Olsson (2nd nomination)
User talk:R.Tabor
User talk:Kashmir2
User_talk:Dougweller#Self_Published_Books_on_Wikipedia
Wikipedia:Fringe_theories/Noticeboard#Yuz_Asaf
Regards, High on a tree (talk) 01:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I was accused by NewYork10021 of bloxking the Yuz Asaf page, which was never blocked and I'm not an administrator. I was accused of removing fiction books for deleting self-published books in a section labelled Fiction - the only books I have called fiction were in that section. And we now have NewYork10021, User:Kashmir2, and User:SuzanneOlsson who certainly appear to be the same person, although appearances can be deceiving as they say. --Doug Weller (talk) 05:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Memoir: how to use?

Sophia Collier joined the Divine Light Mission (DLM) of Guru Maharaj Ji (Prem Rawat) in 1971 at age 16 and left the movement four years later. During her stay in one of the movement's ashrams she used a considerable amount of LSD. Immediately after leaving she wrote her memoirs which recount in great detail her experiences with the movement, its members and officials, and even its leader. The book, "Soul Rush (book)", was published by a mainstream publisher and received some critical praise. Editors of articles related to Prem Rawat and the DLM would like to use the book as a source for various assertions concerning the woman's emotional perceptions of the movement and its methods, objective facts concerning the management of the movement, and the words and deeds of other people, both named and unnamed, some of which include material that could be regarded as derogatory or exceptional. The question is under what circumstances and for what material can this book be considered a reliable source? ·:· Will Beback ·:· 09:23, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Question: Is someone able to look at this, and give their thoughts on it? While I know that Prem Rawat related articles are somewhat contentious, I really need an editor to have a look at this source and give their thoughts on it, as to how reliable the source may be. Feel free to post it on my talk page, or by email. I'm overseeing this mediation. Many thanks. Steve Crossin (talk) (review) 08:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I have my doubts about the reliability a memoir written by a 20 year old about experiences she had as teenager. In any case, as a first-hand account it would essentially be a primary source. It may be possible to use parts, but only with careful attribution to the source, not using the editorial voice. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:30, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Question on reliability of English translations of Baha'u'llah's works

G'day, I've run into an issue regarding an external link to some translations of the lesser known works of Baha'u'llah. I noticed that the main page did not have any information about translations that have been undertaken by the scholarly community, so I added a link to Who is Baha'u'llah, which provides forty such translations and links to other pages with such translations.

My edit was removed due to the site being personally owned by an individual (Alison Marshall). So, I compromised and edited the link to point to the specific translations page at Baha'u'llah explore.

However, it's still being bumped as personal.

As far as I can see, it's a valuable inclusion into the article, but it's not main enough to go into the article itself. But, the question of reliability keeps popping up.

The translations she has collected and made available on the site (along with links to other translation sites) are not her own, but have been published by Professor Juan Cole. On his page, he lists the publication details of the translations (largely H-Bahai and Baha'i Studies Review). The reason I don't just link to Juan Cole's site, is because Baha'u'llah explore also contains links to translation pages eg. by Dr Stephen Lamden, Khazeh Fananapazir Jonah Winter's Baha'i library and so on (each of these provides publication details on their websites). Also because these other pages contain materials other than just the translations of Baha'u'llah's works, whereas Baha'u'llah explore is devoted solely to these.

To me, these are reliable sources??.o0o.Sufisticated.o0o. (talk) 06:54, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

If the scholars have published their translations, then link to the translations in the scholaly sources, not to a personal website, which cannot guarantee the reliability of the translations. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 12:32, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Ideally a number of the scholarly sources should be used in the article and cited in their own right. But if the owner of this website says that she is merely acting as a web host for scholarly articles then the main issue is copyright. If she has permission to host the articles then it is unlikely that she has made any changes to them and this counts as a convenience link. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:55, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Correct. When it comes to EL, copyright becomes an issue, while reliability can be (not always is).Bless sins (talk) 14:20, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Two sources listing information - are they reliable?

Hi, I turned up two sources while working on List of Sega 32X games that really helped to complete the list, but I'm not sure if either one of them is a reliable source. The first one comes from www.sega-16.com and the second comes from new.guardiana.net. Both lists have been helpful in pinpointing all of the 32X's games (and CD 32X games), but I'm not sure if either source is reliable. The two sources under the appropriate section in the list itself have the exact links to the sites. Thanks in advance for your comments. Red Phoenix flame of life...protector of all... 23:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Using other Wikipedia aritcles as a source

See the article Bob Barr. Reference 63 cites the Wikipedia article on Borat. Is that allowed, can you really do that? -- Coasttocoast (talk) 00:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Nope, Wikipedia articles shouldn't be used as sources, since they themselves are not considered reliable. If it's a cited statement from the Borat article that is being cited in the Barr article, then try using its respective source. Anyway, don't use Wikipedia articles as a source for other articles. Red Phoenix flame of life...protector of all... 03:00, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Reference 63 is not to the Wikipedia article on Borat, but to the movie itself. The link to the article is provided as any internal link to a notable work/publisher often is in a reference. And since the reference is for a self-evident fact about the movie, it's quite reliable. That's not to say it actually belongs in the article, which is an editorial decision. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Try citing the movie itself without the Wikipedia article link, and include the movie article in a wikilink in a "See also" section. I think that will solve the problem. Red Phoenix flame of life...protector of all... 04:25, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
There shouldn't be a link in the see also section as it would be meaningless to anyone who didn't read the relevant sentence, which already has the link. You can remove the link from the reference if it seems confusing; personally, the specification of a time stamp made it clear enough. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:30, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

John Esposito

Impasse on Talk: Jizya about whether the above professor is always unreliable or whether (my viewpoint) he is a distinguished scholar albeit one whose views are sometimes disputed by other scholars. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:41, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I think he can be safely used. Just as any other scholars, those of his views that are disputed should be mentioned alongside those of others. Many of Esposito's publications are with Oxford University Press which practices the peer-review process. --Be happy!! (talk) 09:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Any other comments? Itsmejudith (talk) 16:15, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
John Esposito is "always unreliable?" I want to ask if that is a joke, but then I would be feigning ignorance of the fact that I've heard people make similar claims. Someone cannot have a PhD from Temple University, have held post doc appointments at Harvard University and Oxford University, been employed at Holy Cross and currently have a distinguished position at Georgetown University, all the while publishing in renowned academic presses and peer reviewed journals and still be considered always unreliable in their own field of study. I hope this is the last and only time this question appears here, and I hope the people who claim emphatically that Esposito is nothing but an apologist for Islamism understand that Campus Watch does in fact represent a fringe opinion that is in no way to be confused with that of the academy. The answer here is obvious. He is a renowned scholar, and should be given every consideration of reliability that such a scholar is granted. If he publishes something that is disputed by other scholars it is easy enough to present both sides of the coin. If he publishes something that is, relative to the rest of the academy, fringe, then that is also easily noted, framed, or otherwise dealt with.PelleSmith (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
This is a false dichotomy and a straw man. Esposito is a scholar (though not a renowned one) - however he should be used with caution. BTW, the case that led to this query has Esposito disagreeing with other scholars as he inaccurately generalises matters. Str1977 (talk) 07:16, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Being asked to edit a series of Oxford University Press publications is fairly renowned. You seem to be saying here that you are happy for Esposito's account to be presented alongside that of other scholars. That is of course reasonable but it is not what you were arguing on the article talk page - in a way that verged on incivility. I also think it is not helpful for you to offer an opinion about a scholar "inaccurately generalising", since you and I as WP editors are not called upon to judge such matters. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
At least within the United States and within the academic discipline of Islamic Studies Esposito is absolutely "renowned," but I don't doubt that the statement can be expanded much farther afield. Oxford University Press calls him "an internationally renowned expert on Islam", according to some of his critics the UN billed him in a program as a "world renowned contemporary American scholar of Islam", the University of Pennsylvania seems to believe that he is "a widely renowned expert on the Middle East", and so on and so forth. The examples one could find even just limited to the use of the word renowned are endless. This is a moot point. Whether or not aspects of his work should be used with caution is another matter. As I stated, if his assertions are fringe, or significantly disputed then the issue is not over his general reliability but how to use him, and how to frame this use. Regards.PelleSmith (talk) 14:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree that he is as reliable as any other scholar. His works have been reviewed extensively and praise his works. Examples I found:
  • Review of Islam and politics by Jorn Thielmann (from University of Mainz) in the Journal of Law and Religion, Vol. 15, No. 1/2 (2000 - 2001), pp. 615-619
  • Review of Islam: the Straight Path by Gisela Webb (from Seton Hall University) in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 61, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 359-361
    • The reviewer calls it a "masterful job Esposito has accomplished." The reviewer add that Esposito has "well-known expertise" in the field of Islamic studies.
  • Review of Islam and Democracy by Roger Hardy in International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-), Vol. 73, No. 2, Asia and the Pacific (Apr., 1997), pp. 387-388.
  • Review of Islam in transition: Muslim perspectives by A. Rippin in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 47, No. 3 (1984), pp. 557-557, published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of School of Oriental and African Studies. Note: the review looks at two books simultaneously, the other is by Azzam.
There are other examples as well, but I think the above should be enough.Bless sins (talk) 15:37, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
The objection on talk:Jizya is that he is renowned principally as an observer of modernisation in Islam, and not on its history during Mohammed's lifetime. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:35, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Noted, and I agree with that characterization of his expertise. However this means that any comment he makes about the history of Islam during Mohammed's lifetime that is within the mainstream can be sources elsewhere, which is probably preferable, and that any comment he makes outside of the mainstream can be countered with many other reliable sources. While I don't think the cases are equivalent, this is similar to an earlier question about Rodney Stark. For a controversial claim about the history of Islam during the time of Mohammed, Esposito should at best be used along with other sources sharing his view, but not alone against a sea of other sources disputing his claim. In regards to his general reliability within Islamic Studies see above.PelleSmith (talk) 20:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Elderly Instruments

We are currently sifting through some sources at an FA article, trying to determine which ones are reliable. Many are currently redlinked lesser-known sources in the Bluegrass music industry and local Michigan publications, and we could use some help determining which sources meet Wikipedia standards. Additional opinions requested at Talk:Elderly Instruments#Sources. --Elonka 05:27, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

DrudgeReport.com expose accusation BLP?

I searched that term and Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard and didn't find any reference. I have an old report by Drudge (before he archived) of a conversation he had with a notable person who already has an article here. It's a BLP allegation against a living person which I'd use on a couple BLPs. Useable? Or only if I repeat from a more reliable source that this person told Drudge that? Thanks. Carol Moore 23:42, 19 May 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

The Drudge Report? For sourcing controversial BLP information? Absolutely not. - Merzbow (talk) 02:38, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Could you be a bit more specific Carol? In relation to the report and Drudge (you don't have to give any names but ...) who is alleging, what about whom? Is Drudge alleging? Is he reporting on a rumor? Is he quoting a primary source? A secondary source? What kind of thing are they alleging? etc. Merzbow is most probably correct, but I'm not exactly understanding the nature of the piece you want to use.PelleSmith (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
It's not a big secret, maybe not even that controversial on wiki. It's "An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton By Juanita Broaddrick 'Do You Remember?' Sunday Oct 15, 2000" on DrudgeReport. But typing in name of the letter this time found this as most reliable source mentioning letter FindArticle reprint Reed Irvine story 'Media Ignore Broaddrick's Scary Revelation About Hillary Clinton', COPYRIGHT 2000 News World Communications, Inc.; COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group. Carol Moore 13:11, 21 May 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}
Neither of those are reliable, in my opinion. Neither Drudge nor Reed Irvine's Insight. Incidentally, an article beginning "Media ignores..." is almost certainly likely to be ruled out of most articles per WP:UNDUE. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Guess at my leisure I'll see if any books bring it up. I'm sure Ms. Broaddrick would have denounced it if not true. At least I can blog it. :-) Carol Moore 17:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc {talk}

www.democracynow.org?

I know nothing about this site; it claims to represent a widely-syndicated radio programme and has been used for this diff. It seems rather more polemical than analytical to me. Any ideas? Thanks. --Rodhullandemu 23:32, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

The site is indeed the website for a widely-syndicated radio program... National Public Radio (NPR) is probably the most prominent of the networks that airs the show, and there are others. I would say it is reliable (although it does have a Liberal bias). Blueboar (talk) 23:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I take your point about a Liberal bias, although personally I see nothing wrong with a liberal bias. --Rodhullandemu 00:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
It does not matter if a site was described as "liberal" or "conservative". Political orientation by itself does not affect reliability of sources. If they promoted disinformation per other sources, that would affect reliability.Biophys (talk) 13:15, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Is a 'History' of a movement written 90-odd years ago by a partisan movement-insider a RS?

The book in question is A History of the New Thought Movement by Horatio W. Dresser First published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, 1919. Dresser was a prolific writer/editor of New Thought works (e.g. this list), and was the child of two of its founders (see Phineas Quimby for details on his parents). In at least two books (Self-help and Popular Religion in Early American Culture: An Interpretive Guide p 196, The Village Enlightenment in America p145) give accusations of partisan historical revisionism against him. Can he be considered a WP:RS for the history of the movement in International New Thought Alliance? HrafnTalkStalk 04:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that there's any doubt that Dresser is a reliable source for the two non-controversial statements in the International New Thought Alliance (INTA) article:
  1. That the INTA "claimed" an unbroken membership history.
  2. His dry just-the-facts-ma'am description of the 1915 session of the INTA.
Thanks, Madman (talk) 04:18, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

The 'claim' is an absurdity:

Upon INTA's creation, it also absorbed the International Metaphysical League (founded in 1900), which claimed a membership connection to The Metaphysical Club. Thus, at the time of its official "founding", INTA claimed an unbroken membership history that stretched back 42 years.

Appropriating The Metaphysical Club's history because they "absorbed" another organisation that "claimed a membership connection" to it is ridiculously tenuous.

Here is what the description says:

The convention held at San Francisco, in connection with the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, 1915, was called The First International New Thought Congress. It began August 30, and continued until September 5, with three sessions daily and noon healing meetings. The meeting place was Moose Auditorium, Jones St., near Golden Gate Ave. The convention was preceded by New Thought Day, August 28, at the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The program for that day was as follows: Assembling of all New Thought people at Fillmore St. entrance, to be escorted by officials and band to the Court of Abundance, to receive commemorative bronze medal; Science and Demonstration of Mind Reading by The Ellises, Pompeiian Room, Inside Inn; banquet-lunch at Inside Inn; music and reading, Recital Hall; interpretation of Dante's La Divina Comedia, Rev. Lucy C. McGee; choral and organ recital, Mr. A. L. Artigues, Festival Hall.

It should be excluded as irrelevant detail per WP:INDISCRIMINATE: "Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information", even were Dresser not an unreliable source. HrafnTalkStalk 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Those sound like content issues to be hashed out on the relevant entry talk page. Where exactly is the reliability issue? If there are questions about whether or not the first claim was in fact made, and a suggestion that the source isn't reliable enough to report this claim, then maybe there would be something to talk about here, but that's not what I'm seeing. Of course that doesn't mean the content is relevant in the entry, but simply that this isn't the place for content disputes. Is there any reason to believe that Dresser is not reliable for this type of information? If not then its time to move this back to the talk page.PelleSmith (talk) 14:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
You are probably right. This started off as a query over Dresser's reliability that sidestepped into content issues. The relevance/utility of his quote should most probably be decided on article talk. Whether the 'claim' is a content or reliability dispute rather depends on whether he's being used as a source for the mere existence of the claim, or for the claim's contents/credibility, which is unclear -- a point that may be rendered moot by the fact that the claim does not appear to be in this book at all. HrafnTalkStalk 03:16, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ a b Jarvis WT (1983). "Food faddism, cultism, and quackery". Annu. Rev. Nutr. 3: 35–52. doi:10.1146/annurev.nu.03.070183.000343. PMID 6315036.
  2. ^ a b Jukes, T.H. (1990). "Nutrition Science from Vitamins to Molecular Biology". Annual Review of Nutrition. 10 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1146/annurev.nu.10.070190.000245.
  3. ^ http://www.constitution.org/cons/india/p03025.html
  4. ^ Agitation for State of Punjab
  5. ^ Protecting the Killers: A Policy of Impunity in Punjab, India: III. Background
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