Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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RFC: twitchy.com

Am I Racist? is likely to be a... let's call it... frequently-edited article over the next few weeks. As of right now, its only two citations are from twitchy.com. I've seen a few mentions of it in the archives, but mostly in the context of other media properties its parent company owns. Its page Twitchy calls it a "Twitter aggregator and commentary website". That doesn't sound super reliable to me.

Is using Twitchy justified in this case? Snowman304|talk 06:59, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Twitchy does at least have Editors, but the description ('Twitchy is a ground-breaking social media curation site powered by a kinetic staff of social media junkies. We mine Twitter to bring you “who said what” in U.S. & global news, sports, entertainment, media, and breaking news 24/7.') doesn't make it sound particularly reliable. It's also 'founded by conservative pundit Michelle Malkin' then 'sold to Salem Media Group, a conservative Christian broadcasting corporation' so bias may be a concern too.

With that said, it makes me wonder why the page has been approved at all with only two citations and from a potentially iffy source at that. It doesn't sound like it's evidenced a great deal of notability at this time. DarkeruTomoe (talk) 09:41, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

There was no approval of the page. It was a redirect, and converted into an article. Doing so skips NPP and AfC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

The use in that article is just 'he said, she said'. It could be reliable in a primary attributed way (if the opinion is even due), but for that use you could just use the original social media post. It doesn't appear to add anything beyond the original social media posts, so using it in the way it's used in that article wouldn't be appropriate in WP:RSCONTEXT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:47, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

That was basically my feeling too. I'm hoping this sparks a conversation that (eventually) leads to it being put on the WP:RSP list. Snowman304|talk 21:44, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like it just scrapes content from Twitter with minimal filtering by humans. Not RS. JoelleJay (talk) 02:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a Twitter aggregator with minimal human input, run by people on the fringe right. Not reliable. Toa Nidhiki05 19:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

RfC: Universe Guide

The reliability of Universe Guide is:

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable
• Option 4: Deprecate
• Option 5: Blacklist (not mutually exclusive with 3 or 4)

–LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

• universeguide.com: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Background

Universe Guide is an amateur blog about astronomy that is cited on many pages about astronomical objects. This website has been discussed at this WT:ASTRO discussion, this WP:RSN discussion, and this WT:AST discussion, and there is general consensus that it is unreliable, and due to persistent usage, it has been suggested to be deprecated or blacklisted. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 23:13, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey

• Deprecate per the discussions linked in the background section. I can see this is regularly being added to articles, so deprecation seems warranted here. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:25, 1 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4: Deprecate That blog is a self-published site which is not peer-reviewed. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 12:09, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 I've nothing to add from the last time this came up, it's a blog written from what one person researched on the Internet[1]. It doesn't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracyreputation for, if anything it's the opposite as per the discussions at WP:ASTRO. It's self published but not by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications, rather I am an amateur space enthusiast of many years as opposed to someone who is academically qualified.[2] Nothing about the source makes it reliable for verification purposes, and if it is still being regularly added to articles for that purpose then deprecation is appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:20, 2 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 too: Very clearly an unreliable source, even if it's a nice website.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrfoogles (talk • contribs) 05:29, 4 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 4 for deprecation. Actually I called out this first on WT:AST, but was unable to make an RfC here because of personal issues back at home. One of my main issues with this website is this appears too often in Google searches, so it is inevitable it would be blindly used as a source. This is clearly a source written by a non-expert, and even makes its way to very prominent articles like Saturn or the James Webb Space Telescope. Deprecation indeed is necessary to keep this out of Wikipedia.

By the way LaundryPizza, I'm sorry for not initiating the RfC myself. Just got problems a few days ago. SkyFlubbler (talk) 15:16, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4, this website is almost always not reliable, and contain several inconsistencies (like saying that the temperature of star X is 4,400 K, but later saying that it is between 2,400 and 3,700 K). I wouldn't be comfortable if there was any starbox using data from Universe Guide. 21 Andromedae (talk) 18:02, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: @LaundryPizza03: You asked whether it should be deprecated or blacklisted, but only listed deprecated as one of the options for voting. Blacklisting is not bundled in deprecation. ☆ Bri (talk) 19:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, I'll do that. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 02:44, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4 per above. I think over time we have to start to include more of this UGC, but this one seems to be poorly done. Maybe deprecate for now and come back and revisit in a few years if they improve. These things either improve over time or go away entirely. Lets take a wait and see attitude, and deprecate for now. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4, from a look at the source it’s clearly of extremely low quality and seems to just make stuff up. The site decided for us that brown dwarfs are actually definitely stars and calls them brown stars. It says there’s no evidence NGC 474 contains planets and that a wormhole would be required to visit it. We use that page as a source right now. 3df (talk) 21:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4 Amateur blog? Not reliable. Simple as that. If it were a blog by an expert in the field, maybe. But since its not, then I don't see the need for it to continue to be used as a source here. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 16:56, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Are news sources reliable for articles on history?

I have been working on the Yasuke article. It is a topic which has received a lot more coverage in the popular press than in academic sources. However, it keeps coming up in every discussion that there are news sources that cover the topic, and that if anything goes against them, it goes against the majority view. This has conflicted with my attempt to replace news sources with more academic sources, like Britannica. I point out that there are major errors in the CNN Travel article, but that isn’t accepted by another editor, who insists that because CNN is reliable, then the specific article is reliable. https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/19/asia/black-samurai-yasuke-africa-japan-intl/index.html The main expert interviewed in the article wrote a book on Yasuke as well as the Britannica article. The expert’s ideas are not without controversy, but the CNN article conflicts with what the expert has said about Nobunga, and in one case says the wrong source. There is so little literature on Yasuke that one can easily trace most ideas about him and all the primary sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:31, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

we've already talked about lockley here: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 447#Reliability of Thomas Lockley

Was a mess, did not pay attention to it all, no clue what the consensus was at the end.

generally, unless if you can prove otherwise, news articles are generally assumed to be useful secondary sourcing. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:46, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

... i guess this was the closest RFC about lockley Talk:Yasuke/Archive_3#RfC:_Should_the_view_that_Yasuke_was_a_samurai_be_added_to_the_article

TLDR; until someone else has a secondary sourcing about Yasuke, can't really do much else... best you can do if someone hates lockley is attribute a statement to lockley? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:56, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

News articles are not generally reliable secondary sourcing for history -- see WP:HISTRS for overview. (Contemporary news articles are primary sources, while features are the equivalent of pop science, even when written by an expert, as noted in the discussion you linked, as they do not cite sources for controversial claims, which is exactly what is at issue.)

The linked discussion links to a review of Lockley's book (from which the CNN article seems to mostly be excerpted), in which it is made clear that the lack of citations are in the book as well, and it is intended as a pop history for casual reading.

This is not particularly complicated. Secondary scholarly/rigorous work supercedes non-secondary and/or non-scholarly/rigorous work in WP generally. It's not that Lockley's book is not a RS generally; it's that it would seem that anything in there that isn't verifiable in the scholarship generally is his speculation in a non-rigorous work, and so must at best be given with attribution. (The more history-topic-inclined editors may decide some statements should be discarded entirely as non-encyclopedic.) SamuelRiv (talk) 17:02, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

It isn’t about Lockley, it is about CNN. I think a few quotes explains the situation well.

CNN: "When feudal Japan’s most powerful warlord Nobunaga Oda met Yasuke, a black slave-turned-retainer, in 1581, he believed the man was a god"

Britannica: "The researcher Thomas Lockley (the author of this article) speculates that they may have seen him as a form of divine visitor due to the fact that the Buddha and other holy figures were often portrayed as black-skinned in Japan at this time."

I couldn’t find the quote from the book African Samurai, but Lockley believes that Nobunaga was an atheist or at least not very devout, which I understand is in line with other scholarship. The connection between buddha statues and black skin is Lockley´s opinion, no other scholar says this. In this case, CNN Travel is not even correctly portraying what Lockley says. There are other errors, and the general tone of the article is non-academic. Every time I remove the citation, it is added to some uncontested claim in order to add weight. Other more academic sources have been removed in order to insert news sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:19, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

See wp:or, we do not get to judge RS unless we can show they make stuff up, not just disagree with one (not all) expert. Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:HISTRS applies here. (And see pretty much every guideline on RS -- we absolutely do judge RS -- it's not a binary.) SamuelRiv (talk) 16:45, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

That is an essay, and does not trump policy. Yes we can judge a source where is (for example) goes against widely accepted consensus (see wp:fringe, which is a policy), or where it contradicts itself, or where it flat out tells an obvious falsehood (such as the sky is not blue). What we do not do is use our own knowledge rather than referring to RS that contest a claim) to dismiss a source. Slatersteven (talk) 16:50, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no policy that all RS on their face are equal, or that we cannot use multiple factors to judge the suitability RS in context. Per the intro overview of WP:RS: Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. That's pretty much 95% of what's done on RSN (or else we're resolving technical points in a larger contextual comparison of RS in context that goes on in an article's Talk page). And while we ideally try not to turn essays into P&G unnecessarily, the pandemic forced us to make WP:MEDRS into a guideline -- fwiw a roughly similar hierarchy for publications exists in most academic fields. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:11, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Is this an RS or not? Slatersteven (talk) 17:14, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

What do I say to an editor that ignores all arguments about context? The editor that disagrees with me has a similar interpretation wikipolicy as Slatersteven. I would say, more extreme. Suggesting only in cases of fraud or CoI can a source be questioned. In this case, it isn’t about a particular claim, because the citations have been moved from one claim to another, and ended up attached to a non-contested claim that at one point had four inline citations. Does the fact that it is in CNN Travel matter? I think it would be considered Human interest and therefore less reliable? Also, the article appears 90 % based on Lockley, who had just written a book at the time. So does that count as churnalism? Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:41, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

---

>"See wp:or, we do not get to judge RS"<

If @Rotary Engine doesn't mind me paraphrasing a comment he/she made elsewhere:

• ". . . the specific nature of the source in both the context of the nature of the article and the specific content for which a source is intended to be used is important in determining reliability. [Per WP:RSCONTEXT]: Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content. Additional guidance in the context of historical claims might be found in WP:HISTRS (essay), WP:BESTSOURCES, and WP:SOURCETYPES. . ." [emphasis added]

And, per WP:RS:

• ". . . Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process. . ."

(edit: pardon, I see this has already been discussed a bit by SamuelRiv & Slatersteven above; still worth emphasizing, IMO -- these, I think, clearly show that "unless it says 'the sky is red', we cannot use any reasoning about it whatsoever" is far too limited a criterion. It is not impermissible to make basic, incontestable inferences.)

---

As @Tinynanorobots says below, there is seemingly a persistent attempt at using "we can't use any judgment re: sources but rather must parrot them religiously!" as a bludgeon to ensure that the article/discussion is dominated entirely by the ouroboric recycling, in popular media, of what is -- as @SamuelRiv correctly points out below -- actually just a very few actual (pertinent, academic) sources.

I think that's a misread of the guidelines in both letter & spirit.

In some sense, it's a continuum -- no one would object at someone saying "hold on, these news articles are all saying that Yasuke was known for his proficiency with rocket launchers; maybe we need to look at where this 'fact' is actually originating", but more complex objections can become contentious -- but to suggest "recycled, unsourced claims in the popular media, on a topic not in their wheelhouse, must not be questioned at all* because they're on the WP:RS list" is a bridge too far, IMO.

(Interesting, perhaps, to note that one argument made in the RfC in question has been that we must assume news organizations such as CNN Travel have teams of fact-checkers & on-hand experts ensuring accuracy. As Zero references in a reply below, this is extremely optimistic, heh.)

---

• *(edit: by "not be questioned at all", I mean "...not be questioned as to weight at all": i.e. that it is verboten to infer anything from their being news media puff-pieces which all reference one or two original / academic [if you count Lockley as "academic"] sources.

I would argue against this, as said. To suggest that "no, these are all on the WP:RS list & hence we are not to reason about them whatsoever: whether there are 10, 20, or 100 of 'em, it counts as 10/20/100x more bricks on the 'majority view' pile" -- ...is to suggest that one's job as an editor is to turn one's brain off.)

---

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:42, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

@Himaldrmann Don't mind the paraphrase/quote at all. Appreciate the mention. Any pronouns are fine. May post a comment at the bottom of the thread. Rotary Engine ^talk 07:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh good lord are we still doing this? 100.36.106.199 (talk) 00:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that the question here isn't whether this is a reliable source per se, more whether this particular claim is due for a particular article. If it is an exceptional claim, it may be published in an otherwise reputable source and still not be due for the article.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:03, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

There is plenty of free-form discussion on the talk page of Yasuke about what is and isn't due. Best to let questions of due and undue happen there. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:02, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion always stops on the argument on the quality of sources. At least one editor believes that sources that are listed as RS can’t be questioned. All the sources that agree should be counted, and that forms the majority opinion. This comes up in every discussion topic. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:02, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

I would say that if multiple news sources make a similar claim then those can be used if not other better sources exist. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:14, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

There are better sources, but the other editor keeps replacing the better sources with news sources because of weight. When I point out that the news sources aren’t as good, I am called a [[truthfinder]] and accused of violating NPOV. Tinynanorobots (talk) 09:29, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

My understanding from the article discussion threads is that it goes back to its previous RfC (linked earlier), which was a rather complicated discussion about what is a very tiny amount of actual usable sources (exactly 2 scholars that investigate the topic directly, iirc). You're correct that almost every English-language news article is essentially recycling Lockley, which is academically sourced to his one book. The result of the RfC afaik of the pertinent questions is that "it's more complicated than a simple yes/no" (regarding implying a particular definition of 'samurai' across several centuries in particular, wrt what seems the most controversial issue here) and that one or two academics summarizing it is fine because only one or two academics have ever studied it in detail, and their assessments (not their separate speculations) were not particularly controversial, even if quoted from a pop book or their (expert-written) CNN article instead of/in parallel with their academic papers. Either way, if the source SamuelRiv (talk) 13:15, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your answer, but I don’t understand it. You didn’t finish your last sentence. Also, I don’t think this has to do with Yasuke´s status as a samurai. The CNN article not only states speculation as fact, it contradicts Lockley´s book and the article he wrote for Britannica. It also seems to cite the "historical fiction" part of Lockley´s book as fact. The problem is not so much that the article recycles Lockley, but that it falsely represents his ideas. This is shown by comparison of the CNN article with other works by Lockley. Tinynanorobots (talk) 05:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's book is the one with any semblance of academic review (by the publisher and in academic publications after the fact), while the CNN article has none. I love citing a pop sci journalist who writes a good lay summary of an academic source (in addition to the original source), but they can sometimes get things wrong, or extract grossly nonrepresentative quotes from the author. Since we have Lockley's book (and plenty of other lay sources summarizing Lockley), and the CNN article cites only Lockley, I agree it would be ridiculous to cite the CNN article if it misrepresents the source at all. Citing a lay summary (in parallel) is only worthwhile if it's (1) free and (2) good. (For my previous post I probably meant to erase that final sentence that was cut off.) SamuelRiv (talk) 16:17, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Generally speaking, the problem with citing Lockley's book is that the local consensus seemed to be that his book was not acceptable for use in the Yasuke article due to the academic review saying that the author doesn't use citations which makes it difficult to discern his speculation from researched factual statements. The previous attempt to discuss Lockley's book here for a wider consensus was extremely drawn out, bogged down, and is confusing as to what it represents, so much so that I cannot derive any real meaning from it.

Honestly, I wonder if holding an RfC about whether or not Lockley's book is a reliable source might be in order if for no reason than to hopefully get a definitive answer. I have seen people post in the talk discussion that the RSN consensus was it was unreliable, I have seen other editors argue the opposite. It is a confusing mess. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 20:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The previous RfC seemed to suggest it was fine enough for a number of things. The discussion turned up a number of other scholarly RS that might be usable, such as Lopez-Vera (none of which were 100% ideal for this topic, but every topic takes what it gets). But a pop journalism writeup of a pop history book is useless -- just cite the pop history book -- that's what pop history is for (except for getting online text for verification, in which case, cite both in parallel). There's no need for another RfC -- they decided these historians were reliable enough in the previous one, and they settled how to say the most controversial claim in the article. Just use the sources there. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

just cite the pop history book. Except that won't work. People have tried to just cite the pop history book, it gets reverted. It is basically never ending, one side will try to add something and it will get reverted. The other side will try to add something, it will get reverted. One claims "unreliable", the other yells "against the RfC'. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 01:00, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem with Lockley´s book is that it contains dramatization, and it is hard to know what is historical fiction and what is Lockley´s theory. We could probably figure it out by comparing the content in the book with other sources, such as interviews, but every attempt to discuss that is meant with accusations of TRUTHFINDER!. The sources used for the RfC were mostly pop journalist write-ups of Lockley´s book. The RfC was mostly resolved because there is no evidence that any expert thinks that Yasuke is not a samurai. Some are just less sure, or wouldn’t use samurai for any Sengoku warrior. I am not trying to overturn the consensus. The debate over whether the article needs to cite 3-4 news sources that mostly rely on Lockley and were written years ago.

Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:06, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, you got a choice. On the one hand, you have two very imperfect but legit secondary sources on history by legit historians, which seem to be approved by the RfC. On the other, there seems to be some notion that because these are imperfect, it would be better to have these imperfect sources filtered through the lens of the non-historian, non-rigorous, more-pop-audience-focused, news magazines like a CNN feature (which goes so far as to additionally cite even worse sources for information, like a TV show). How does this at all make sense?

If people give you a hard time for citing the original secondary source behind all this, because they think it's not an RS, then refer them to this thread and the RfC. If they raise an undue fuss, we can chew them out from there. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:30, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I don’t understand what you are saying. What are the two sources that you are talking about? I suggest that you look at the lead at the Yasuke page. Then you will see how the sources are used and in what context.

Also, how do I know that there is a consensus on this thread? It seems like every either broadly agrees with me, or is asking questions and not giving clear responses. Tinynanorobots (talk) 12:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

can you provide a concrete example, as in a diff? Slatersteven (talk) 13:20, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems to have happened in stages. The CNN article was used to support the claim about Yasuke being given a stipend, a house, and servants. I replaced it with a citation of the Britannica article that had been newly rewritten. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1238887725 At some point, the in text citation was moved to the end of the paragraph. After that the CNN citation was restored. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1241316774 There have been a lot of edits in the lead, and the citations moved around, often as part of other edits. The claim about the stipend etc. later received a citation to an academic source, but then was replaced with CNN. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Yasuke&diff=prev&oldid=1243549402 The CNN article is not in the lead any more, but it is still used to support the claim about the stipend.

One error the CNN article contains, is that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources. This is not true. All other secondary sources that mention it, point to Japanese sources. Tinynanorobots (talk) 06:54, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that all of these edits did more then just remove the source, they also removed claims solely sourced to that source. Also "that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources", yes as that is where all those other sources get the claim, they are talking about the primary sources. Slatersteven (talk) 11:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The diffs that I linked to? I don’t see that. There are a lot of changes to the lead, but I can’t keep track of that, especially as a lot of them aren’t discussed on talk.

I am not sure what your point is about the Jesuit sources, of course it is supposed to be the primary sources. There are not that many primary sources about Yasuke, so it is easy to keep track of them. Some are written by Jesuits, but Lockley cites Ōta Gyūich as the source for the statement about the stipend, house and servants. Ōta Gyūich wasn’t a Jesuit. There are other sources that mention a stipend, but they are also Japanese. A Jesuit source mentions Yasuke receiving money, but I don’t think any expert has suggested that was a stipend. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:07, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Addition (or changes to) text, not just adding or removing sources "who served as a samurai ", I really need to go no further. Slatersteven (talk) 10:44, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I get the feeling that you are saying gotcha, but I don’t get your point. I made the efforts to find those diffs because you asked for them. There are additional changes, but they are unrelated to the citation change. Pretty much all the sources use "samurai" to describe Yasuke, so changing from one to the other doesn’t change that. Encyclopedia Britannica actually makes the case that Yasuke was a samurai, so it is stronger in that aspect. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:56, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

>"Also 'that it attributes the stipend, house and servants to Jesuit sources', yes as that is where all those other sources get the claim, they are talking about the primary sources."<

I think perhaps this is a misinterpretation of @Tinynanorobots, amigo (although he's not always the easiest to understand, to be fair–). I read him as saying that the primary sources for this particular claim are to be found in Japanese accounts; the Jesuit primary sources exist, but for other claims, not the "servants" bit.

>"It seems to me that all of these edits did more then just remove the source, they also removed claims solely sourced to that source"< . . . >"Addition (or changes to) text, not just adding or removing sources 'who served as a samurai ', I really need to go no further."<

I don't understand your point here either, sorry! -- if, arguendo, this is correct, then we've gone from "a better source is being replaced with a poorer one" (Tinynanorobots) to "true, but also, the information from the better (ostensibly , anyway) source is being stripped out along with it" (Slatersteven)... which, surely, would just make it an even worse example of editorial malfeasance!

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:55, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Travel guides and travel articles in newspapers are notoriously unreliable for history and should not be used. Not only that, but typically the writer has taken information from random places including Wikipedia. One of the most common errors is to uncritically report traditions as facts. Historical events that are mentioned in passing in newspaper articles are also not reliable. The only times that history in a newspaper should be considered reliable are (1) an article written by a historian or known expert, (2) an article by a journalist who directly quotes a historian or known expert. I've seen too many cases of historical errors being introduced from newspapers to suggest a weaker criterion. Zero^talk 13:52, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That seems overly restrictive... Unless you start with a very restrictive definition of history (something other than history being the past). A newspaper writing about something that happened last week is writing about history. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:03, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think anyone defines last week as history in this context. Tinynanorobots (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a very helpful comment unless you offer your own definition of history in this context. For the record I define it that way, history is anything which is not currently happening (call it breaking news in this context). In practical terms I guess one could argue that true history begins whenever someone publishes the first academic paper... But for wikipedia's purposes history would appear to start when the first reliable non-primary source is published. If by history you just mean that news sources will be less reliable about older stuff, well duh... Thats already baked into our preferance for academic sources. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I am reminded of the Isaac Asimov story “The Dead Past,” which lets you only see "historical" events, as in 1 second in the past. Slatersteven (talk) 16:35, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I was reminded of the adage that news is the first rough draft of history (or something like that) Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought you were being reductio absurdium, but not I see that you were thinking like that. I think this is something that common sense, should be able to solve. Unfortunately, people forget that is allowed on wikipedia. There might even be an essay on history vs. the news. I think one litmus test would be if it is something that journalists or historians are considered experts on. Another might be that if there is the possibility to interview witnesses, then it is news. In this case, 1500s Japan is clearly history and not news. Tinynanorobots (talk) 17:11, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem with common sense is yours may not be mind, the Falklands war was 40 years ago (to me history) but you can still interview Survivors. 9/11 was 30 years ago (to me history) but you can interview survivors. History is "the study of past events, particularly in human affairs.". Slatersteven (talk) 10:51, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, those are border cases, and probably would need to be discussed on a case by case basis. Wikipedia policy on breaking news addresses this somewhat. Part of common sense is understanding what skills are needed to understand the subject and what techniques the journalist or historian is using. Most "news" isn’t investigative journalism. A lot of it is interviews or relies on press releases, by people who don’t specialize in it and have to produce something every day. A news article from 40 years ago about the Falklands war should probably be seen as a primary source. A news article written about the Falklands War today, would probably be a reflection piece, and lean towards being human interest. A book written by an investigative journalist would be more useful. However, I think a historian writing on the Falklands War would be better. It is a case by case basis, using common sense and consensus. Tinynanorobots (talk) 15:34, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, maybe, but no one contests whether something that happened centuries ago is news or history -- so @Zero's criterion is easily applicable, and we need not figure out whether "last week" counts or not.

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 23:59, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

The CNN article in question is not a breaking news article -- it is a feature. Not all articles in newspapers are news articles. There are features (profiles, retrospectives, essays and photoessays, obits), op-eds (two separate things), etc. All of these are conceptually entirely different with regards to whatever the above is. (Unless of course the samurai have reanimated and asserted a new dominion in the past week -- I don't watch CNN, so I suppose I wouldn't know). SamuelRiv (talk) 00:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Excellent point! There's no need to confuse the issue with sophistry about whether a news article from last week is unwarrantedly caught by Zero's suggested guidelines: entirely apart from this particular case not being anywhere near the grey area, it's also a fundamentally different type of article.

Himaldrmann (talk) 01:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

So the question then is what relevance does this line of argument have, as this is (unequivocably) about history? Slatersteven (talk) 11:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

None. Tinynanorobots (talk) 12:14, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

...tbh, I've no idea. I just didn't want to seem unfriendly, you know?... Himaldrmann (talk) 14:37, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Lets make this easy, as there seems to be some confusion over consensus.Slatersteven (talk) 12:17, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The point below about "it depends" is very valid, the question really is a bit too broad. Slatersteven (talk) 12:50, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Some crucial information is missing from this thread, which I stumbled upon by chance. Tinynanorobots has been repeatedly removing news sources from the Yasuke article (in what seems like a slow edit war) since August 22 [3]. Symphony Regalia and I reverted their edits, and we had a discussion on the article's talk page (here), which is TL;DR. They didn't achieve consensus and recently began removing sources without providing an explanation in the edit summaries (here's my complaint on their user talk page).

The important point is this: I agree with SamuelRiv Secondary scholarly/rigorous work supercedes non-secondary and/or non-scholarly/rigorous work in WP generally, but the news sources that Tinynanorobots is removing (CNN, TIME, Smithsonian Magazine) haven't been contradicted by any scholarly sources. These sources either support non-controversial content ("Yasuke was also granted servants according to Thomas Lockley"; "He was granted a sword, a house and a stipend", "In 1968, author Yoshio Kurusu and artist Genjirō Mita published a children's book about Yasuke"; "Yasuke was the inspiration for Takashi Okazaki's Afro Samurai franchise") or contentious content that is also supported by reliable academic sources ("Yasuke [...] was a man of African origin who served as a samurai"). There is literally no reason to remove these sources, as they align with and do not conflict with academic ones.

On the article's talk page, I proposed creating two citation bundles to avoid WP:OVERCITE: one for academic sources and another for news sources (here). The aim was to prevent edit warring/disruptive editing by clarifying that the content about Yasuke's status as a samurai is well-supported by sources, while also providing readers with a collection of news sources for those interested in how Yasuke has been represented in the popular press - an important aspect of the "Yasuke case". This proposal was rejected by Tinynanorobots (here), in my opinion without good reason. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

There is literally no reason to remove these sources -- other than the fact that, as has been pointed out, they have been factually been misleading on key points for which they are cited (and for which they themselves give no attribution -- glancing at the discussion you link, date range). the news sources that Tinynanorobots is removing ... haven't been contradicted by any scholarly sources: This is why we have WP:Due -- in an academic topic (like very elusive histories) we don't need an academic source to be saying what is not true, when non-academic sources start saying something else or something new, especially when there are so few academic sources on this niche topic as here. If the information you want to cite is not in the academic sources, you should really ask be asking why you're citing it in the first place.

Anyway, all this substantive discussion of the content of sources as relates to the article is not appropriate to RSN, but rather the article's Talk page. Here we have said to abide by existing recommendations on history sourcing and the previous RfC. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Which did not seem to come to any real conclusion, and which (to a degree) seemed to have the same issue as this discussion, it meandered all over the place, going so far as to claim that because some of his work was peer review this made this book RS (nor does it seem to have been an RFC). So maybe a formal RFC is needed to ask the question is his book an RTS? Slatersteven (talk) 14:46, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

If the RfC on the author was at the article Talk page, then an RfC on the author's book about the article subject belongs on the article Talk page too. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:20, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the RSN notice board. Why do people keep bringing up general questions about this issue, dodging the basic question, is the book an RS? Slatersteven (talk) 15:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

So maybe a formal RFC is needed to ask the question is his book an RTS? I don't think an RfC is necessary: virtually everyone agrees that Lockley's book Yasuke: The True Story of the Legendary African Samurai is not a reliable source. By the author's own admission, much of it is fictional. In fact, our Yasuke article does not cite the book. But this doesn't mean that Lockley is not a subject-matter expert, that his other publications don't qualify as reliable sources, or that news sources citing Lockley are not reliable. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 22:08, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

as has been pointed out, they have been factually been misleading on key points for which they are cited What? Where? Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:36, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment As I saw something said about this earlier in the discussion. Per the header of this noticeboard This page is not a forum for general discussions unrelated to the reliability of sources. If you wish to discuss whether content is, or is not, due for inclusion in an article that discuss should be had at the articles talk page or another appropriate forum. Inclusion is not a matter of verification but of NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:35, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not saying that there aren't questions about reliability here, just that that's the only discussion that should be had here. Splitting discussions about what content to include to an unrelated board isn't helpful. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• One thing worth pointing out is that a few people here and on that talk page are arguing that they don't feel source X or Y as a WP:RS because they believe it to be full of errors. That isn't, generally, a valid WP:RS argument - you can't exclude a source simply because you disagree with it, which is what claiming "this source is full of errors" amounts to. Reliability is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; if editors could just say "this source is wrong, therefore it is unreliable", they could dismiss any source that says anything they disagree with, making it impossible to ever convince them of anything at all. That doesn't mean that we necessarily have to mindlessly repeat errors in a source (there are some options, like finding newer or higher-quality sources that disagree with it.) But "this specific piece is riddled with errors!" isn't a valid WP:RS argument, since as soon as there's a dispute it immediately becomes a circular No true Scotsman argument. --Aquillion (talk) 04:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Are news sources reliable for articles on history?

Note can we here just express our preference, and leave any discussion to the above (main) thread)? Slatersteven (talk) 12:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes

I see no reason why not (as long as they otherwise count as RS), they can do the research, or even talk to historians. Slatersteven (talk) 12:18, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. This is somewhat "it depends", but I will post it here as it should be noted that WP:RS calls out that mainstream news sources are fine from a categorical perspective (in short, policy does not support the blanket exclusion of all news sources from all history articles).

Per WP:RS:

In general, the most reliable sources are:

• Peer-reviewed journals
• Books published by university presses
• University-level textbooks
• Magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses
• Mainstream newspapers

Of course, some news sources are unreliable (conflicts of interest, lack of neutrality, lack of editorial oversight, etc) so that is where editors should express due diligence. Note that a lack of editorial oversight is not the same thing as Wikipedia personally editors disagreeing with the content of a source and trying to arbitrarily discard it, it is how many people at that source are involved in the overall editorial, proofreading, and publishing process. Symphony Regalia (talk) 02:14, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

No

(Good idea, @Slatersteven; impenetrably dense discussion seems to have kilt the motivating RfC—and I've been known to get wordy, myself... [*ahem*]—thanks for taking the initiative, compadre o7)

---

I think the answer is closer to No than to Yes, if we're voting—but upon reflection, I sort of wonder what possible outcomes this can even have. What's the difference between a No, a Yes, and an It Depends? The answer will be the same: "Use your judgment, look at context, look at track record of source, follow guidelines", etc. etc. I can't imagine some new guideline—or advice to ignore current ones—will come out of this...

...so I might leave off responding here, after this, though of course anyone who agrees with everything I say is welcome on my Talk page if they'd like to continue anything.

Cheers,

Himaldrmann (talk) 14:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• No Reliable news media are reliable sources for news. They hire professional journalists whose work is then reviewed by editors. However, they are not specialists in any academic discipline. TFD (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends

A lot depends on what precisely we are verifying when we cite a news source. News sources are great for basic historical facts (such as verifying that X event occured on Y date) but they are not really appropriate for analysis or for verifying conclusions. They often suffer from RECENTISM and so are not good for determining the long term significance of the events they are reporting on. In short, there is more to the issue than a yes/no question of reliability. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Good point, the question is far too broad for a definitive answer. Slatersteven (talk) 12:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends on context, content and source, the same with any other category of source; per WP:RS: The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made in the Wikipedia article and is an appropriate source for that content.

Just as no source is 100% reliable in all contexts; no category of source is 100% reliable in all contexts.

News sources should certainly not be excluded from consideration as reliable sources in historical articles, but were the question Are they the WP:BESTSOURCES for articles on history?, the obvious answer would be "No; they are not." We should prefer WP:SCHOLARSHIP; again per WP:RS. Rotary Engine ^talk 12:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I remember a case long ago where a "historical fact" about a village was cited to a newspaper, but when I looked at the newspaper I found it was a comment in passing in a cooking article. I hope nobody here would consider that reliable. The point is that the reliability doesn't depend just on how long ago something was or how prestigious the newspaper is. It also depends on the context in which it appears in the newspaper. Zero^talk 13:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends. As I said here above [4] there's nothing wrong with the way news sources are currently used in the Yasuke article. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:48, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It always depends. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS Andre🚐 21:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends per context matters -- long-form or focused journalism is probably usually reliable in this vein, and can probably be particularly useful for metropolitan history, as large papers or magazines occasionally and even semi-regularly run features on historical events and persons. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:16, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

It depends on a lot of stuff, including context, attribution, and so on. Not all news sources are equal and not every section of the same news source is equal; there's no way we could give a sweeping answer to something like this. --Aquillion (talk) 04:07, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Bad RfC

Not an RfC, "news sources" and "history" are not well defined as this was immediately pointed out as problematic in the preceding paragraphs, and probably not here as we discuss academic sourcing in WP:HISTRS. SamuelRiv (talk) 14:42, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Its not an RFC, and we really can't answer such a general question, what is needed is a specific RFC about just this book. Slatersteven (talk) 14:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

there has been one already somewhere in the archives of Talk:Yasuke Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The only one linked to here was not an RFC and was about the author in general, not the book. Slatersteven (talk) 15:12, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

the difference between the author being reliable for historical fact, the book being reliable for historical fact, the newspaper covering a book being reliable for historical fact, and news sources in gen being reliable for historical fact seems like a case of trying to justify some argument about excluding/including the word samurai from the yasuke page.

if you want to figure this yasuke samurai stuff out, please do so without trying to make some broad distinction about whether all news stories are disallowed from historical wikipedia pages. seems like a mighty escalation to rfc with such broad and inconcise wording. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 16:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I do not think that the word samurai should be excluded from the article. I have replaced a source that just uses the word samurai, with one that explicitly says that Yasuke is a samurai. There is a case for preferring the word Bushi, but that is off topic. I have actually added extra sources that don´t rely on Lockley that use samurai for the topic. Tinynanorobots (talk) 13:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

There was an RSN about Lockley after the RfC. The consensus save for one editor (who has been involved in a lot of the back and forth edits on the Yasuke page) was that his book 'African Samurai' due to its lack of citations + liberal employment of creative license, and many of his more grounded claims being more appropriate to cite from his peer reviewed scholarly work elsewhere, was unsuitable for citing on the page and should be replaced with higher quality sources. The RfC also concluded that Lockley constituted a reliable source, it is just that this one book is a problem that is best avoided entirely since little is lost from doing so. Since the closure of that RSN, the page has been changed to reflect it by directly attributing Lockley's theories from his more academic peer reviewed work and the page is significantly better off for doing so.

The CNN article is just a case of a journalist (Emiko Jozuka) without a background in history uncritically taking African Samurai's narrative at face value. The book features many claims which have no means of verification, are in no sources, and are largely conjecture such as the role of Yasuke in Nobunaga's death, his escape from honnoji, his service under nobutada, and even service in the Imjin War. The book does not clearly define what is fact, theory, or conjecture - but many of the theories within are present in Lockley's academic works (such as his suggestion that Yasuke was a Dinka rather than from Mozambique as traditionally thought.

While looking through this RSN, I think the last RSN on Lockley has been seldom mentioned despite it being a clear consensus - save one editor. Relm (talk) 14:03, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

reiterating thoughts above, Bad RFC. With such a broad question, without real actionable options, I suspect most reasonable editors would hedge and say "it depends"... which is basically a more polite way of saying they can't/won't comment without much more context.Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:04, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The correct answer is 'it depends', but realistically no valid answer can be given to the question beyond pointing towards some policy pages. The answer to such a broad question would be best laid out in an essay. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:22, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, this poll is bad. I would have at least mentioned CNN Travel in the context of supporting the claim regarding "servants etc." I think I made too many mistakes on this thing. As this issue is likely to be addressed elsewhere, I would like to draw a line under this. I would like to thank everyone for their input as well as patience. If I should have notified someone of this, then I am sorry, I didn’t notify anyone. I am not sure if I should officially close this or not, but I probably won´t be returning to this page for a while. Tinynanorobots (talk) 14:06, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Agree BAD RFC. Interesting discussion, but maybe on another location and not here. Seems to be more of a discussion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:57, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Use of Fox News on Jo Boaler

Jo Boaler (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

Sangdeboeuf has reverted content three times on Jo Boaler over the last few weeks. The content is specifically:

Boaler's work on the 2023 revision of the California Math Curriculum Framework was alleged to contain numerous misrepresentations and inaccuracies. In response, Boaler said that the accusations demonstrated "a lack of understanding of educational research protocols and processes."

The claim is that the content violates WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS because the article uses the word "equity". While the article is published under the media section of the website, the claim here is that the use of any topic deemed to be political is sufficient for excluding content sourced to Fox News. In this case, Fox News is one of the few mainstream sources that Boaler has spoken to about this specific topic.

While there are potential BLP issues with any news source, in this case we are dealing with direct quotes from the living person in question. I suppose this boils down to: Should we include Boaler's critical response to the allegations, or should it be excluded?

Grossman, Hannah; Lencki, Maria (1 April 2024). "Stanford professor defends herself after being accused of 'reckless disregard for accuracy'". Fox News. Retrieved 2 April 2024.

Looking to gather and integrate community input. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is a massive non-story, and pretty clealry exemplifies why we don't use Fox. Fox created a controversy over a "report" (i.e., 100 pages of anonymous ranting that was probably thrown in the trash by the Stanford administration) and then asked for comment. It was dumb of Boaler to engage with Fox, but her bad PR strategy doesn't make any of this due for inclusion in the BLP. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The topic here is whether we should include her rebuttal of the allegations. The coverage of the anonymous allegations is a separate topic which may be worth digging into, but that's not based on Fox News sources. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, if there are other sources use them. Slatersteven (talk) 15:23, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Since we are currently mentioning allegations of wrongdoing against Boaler—"alleging Boaler had violated the research policies of the university"—we should mention her denial of the allegations (see WP:BLPPUBLIC). If Fox is the only outlet that has published the denial, we should still include it. That doesn't mean we should use the Fox source to expand the mention of allegations. A better version would just be

In March 2024, an anonymous complaint was sent to Stanford's dean of research alleging Boaler had violated the research policies of the university. Boaler denied the allegations.

Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 15:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't done a comprehensive search recently, but when the content was added the Fox News source was the only mainstream source that reported on her rebuttal of the allegations. I'll see if I can find anything else that's been reported since then. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

"Boaler denied the allegations" requires a source, like everything. You can't cutely dance around citing sources that you're taking information from just because you think the source is icky. That's textbook WP:Plagiarism. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:53, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand. I'm suggesting that we cite the Fox source for the denial. Am I dancing around or plagiarizing? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:39, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, then I misinterpreted your statement to mean not using the source at all; you just meant "to expand". SamuelRiv (talk) 17:04, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Gotcha. Thanks for explaining. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:08, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Is anyone but Fox and/or other unreliable culture war conservative publications reporting on these anonymous allegations? If not, neither the allegations nor the denial should be in the article. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Voorts has a good point. IF the allegations have been widely reported (and thus DUE to mention) THEN her rebuttal is relevant and Fox can essentially be cited as an ABOUTSELF statement on her part. HOWEVER, if Fox is the only outlet to report on the allegations then the entire thing is UNDUE and both the allegations and her rebuttal should be omitted. Blueboar (talk) 16:06, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I concur. The anonymous allegations and the denial seem UNDUE. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:56, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The short answer is yes. In the BLP, it's sourced to the San Francisco Chronicle: [5]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:37, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Actually, that refers to the previous allegations. Inside Higher Ed covered this specific set of allegations here: [6]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:42, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

See also: [7], [8], [9],, [10], [11]. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:16, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Three of those links are to The Stanford Daily, a student newspaper. Not exactly bolstering the case for due weight IMO. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:49, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Though I've seen it used as a standalone source in other articles, I agree that the Stanford Daily alone should not be used to establish due weight. Inside Higher Ed, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Ed Source are all top tier reliable sources when it comes to broadly reporting news in the education world. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:56, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Fine. In that case we don't need the Fox News source at all, and we can close this discussion. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:44, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The fact that Stanford isn't investigating this at all seems to reinforce that it would be undue to include these anonymous allegations in the article. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:25, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not how WP:DUE weight works. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:44, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This could be used for an WP:ABOUTSELF statement, but that would apply only the second sentence. The first sentence is additional commentary separate from the ABOUTSELF statement, so Fox is likely not a suitable source for it.

Being reliably sourced isn't necessarily a reason for inclusion, rather all content that is included must be verifiable to a reliable source. So whether the statement is due if only Fox has covered it isn't a matter of reliability, and should be discussed on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:21, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

What specifically is the issue with the Fox News reporting? TheMissingMuse (talk) 17:54, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is obvious cult war stuff, and so covered by FOXNEWSPOLITICS. Something doesn't have to be exactly labelled by the source for it to apply. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:38, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear the reason they are reporting on this at all is because of culture war issues, however they phrase their article or what category of article it's sorted into doesn't change that. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't speak for the motivations at Fox News. I can only say that I think Boaler's response is an important part of the story. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:52, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

FOXNEWSPOLITICS describes what the community's consenus is and why Fox is considered to be generally unreliable for politics. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The cited article is not politics news reporting. Is there something specific about the reporting or the article which is concerning to you? TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This is quite clearly a culture wars political issue: going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:28, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source that says the anonymous attacks are due to the fact that she promotes racial equity in STEM? That's a WP:BLP claim, and needs proper sourcing. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:33, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

It would need a source if I were trying to add that claim to the article. I'm just using my common sense and knowledge of how conservative politics operate in the United States. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:14, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This helps no-one. SamuelRiv (talk) 20:20, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

The question was why does FOXNEWSPOLITICS apply, and I was explaining why I think this is a political issue rather than a story about academic integrity. There's a fuzzy line between political, cultural, and academic issues, particularly in the United States where education has become centered in the culture wars. voorts (talk/contributions) 20:24, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, you're going to have to come up with some kind of policy rationale for treating regular news content as political if it's not explicitly labelled as politics. Going with your gut doesn't pass muster, especially when you make unsourced claims like: "going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM". I haven't seen any reporting that suggests that's what is actually happening here. TheMissingMuse (talk) 20:43, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

You're inventing a completely arbitrary standard for what counts as political coverage. Just looking at the "media" category on Fox's website, the top stories include one about Kamala Harris's presidential run, another about Donald Trump's comments about Kamala Harris, and another about Harris's drug policy positions. Do these stories have nothing to do with politics because they aren't explicitly labelled as political? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 23:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Your own Inside Higher Ed source describes this as part of an attack against scholars promoting racial equity: Rufo and conservative media outlets have published multiple accusations of plagiarism and research misconduct [...] They’ve all been backed by anonymous complaints, and they’re all against officials or scholars at prestigious institutions who either work in DEI or have studied race and equity. [...] There’s a reason he’s focused on DEI and 'grievance departments,' Rufo said. [...] Observers such as Isaac Kamola, director of the Center for the Defense of Academic Freedom at the American Association of University Professors, see 'a coordinated attack' behind it all. In short, this is another hack job by Christopher Rufo, similar to the anti–CRT panic of a few years ago: [12] —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 04:43, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Please stick to the article in question. This is not the Inside Higher Ed article. There is no mention of Trump, Rufo, Harris, etc. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:26, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

You said that you haven't seen any reporting that suggests there was an attack on Boaler because she promotes racial equity in STEM. I pointed out that your own source in fact suggests this. You don't get to dictate how sources are used here. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's a [DEI or whatever Fox diversity-buzzword-bogeyman of the moment is] story. It's also an evaluation of a scientific publication. That's both parts of WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 21:48, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no mention of DEI in the article. There is also no mention of any scientific publication, as there are none being referenced. Maybe you are reading the wrong article? TheMissingMuse (talk) 22:31, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Quoting the very first line of the Fox source (my bolding): A Stanford professor, who was one of the thought leaders behind San Francisco's removal of algebra in junior high for equity reasons, is coming under fire [...] "Equity" is very much a part of DEI, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. As reported by Fox, the anonymous complaint contends that Boaler misrepresented the findings and/or methods of a number of reference papers, which concerns a scientific publication. Are you sure you're not reading the wrong article?

The 2021 California mathematics framework, which was the source of the controversy here, has already been heavily politicized: [13][14][15] The anonymous complaint, as well as the university's response, are already mentioned at Jo Boaler, citing The Chronicle of Higher Ed: [16] The Fox article adds nothing significant IMO. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 00:49, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The use of the word equity does not make this a political article. Which reference paper was a scientific publication? TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the complaint details 52 instances in which Boaler [...] allegedly misstated or misconstrued outside studies about learning, neuroscience, and math education.[17] Did you want me to go through all 52? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Fox News covering the intersection of science and culture-war politics is, well, it's not a circumstance in which we can cite Fox News. XOR'easter (talk) 03:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no science or culture war politics in this article. TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Once again, the 2021 California mathematics framework, which became a proxy for various political issues, including equity and social justice, [18] is explicitly referenced in the Fox News article: [19] It quite evidently a political topic that both The New Yorker and CalMatters describe as part of the culture wars. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 16:37, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• It's clearly a political story in context (by being at the crux of a major culture war issue), so no, it's not usable. It's obviously WP:BLP sensitive besides, which would require a high-quality source. --Aquillion (talk) 04:33, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Shifting Focus

I would like to thank everyone for their feedback. There has some strong constructive input from various editors including Slatersteven, Firefangledfeathers, SamuelRiv, ActivelyDisinterested, and voorts. While I don't agree with everything they have said, their feedback has been invaluable.

There has also been another contingent of editors who have been responding quite emphatically that Fox News is just not a source to be used in anything that has even the patina of politics, with just the use of the word equity in the article being disqualifying. I certainly appreciate this perspective as well.

There have also been some questions about whether or not the coverage of the incident in question rises to the level required for inclusion. We have not dug into that deeply, however the broad coverage in the mainstream press and educational press establishes it as more than just an internal issue for Boaler.

It's probably worth shifting focus to evaluate whether or not this topic should be included in the article, and the address the issue of whether or not Boaler's response should be included per WP:ABOUTSELF. While I did not add the content in question to the article, I was the one who added Boaler's response, because I think it's an important part of the story. As for whether or not there is due weight for the topic to be included, I would ask: which noticeboard is appropriate for that discussion?

Input invited, and thank you everyone for participating! TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:40, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Whether something should be included is an NPOV issue. It's usually best discussed on the article talk page, but outside opinion could be sought at WP:NPOV or as this is a living person you could try WP:BLPN (as it's usual better attended then NPOV). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks again for all the help. I will raise the broader topic there. Cheers! TheMissingMuse (talk) 15:57, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Not a single person has said the use of the word equity by itself is the reason to reject the Fox News article. That is a straw man invented by you. The actual reasons given by me and several others are that Boaler has been the target of politically motivated attacks, with the California mathematics framework being used by the right wing as a proxy for DEI in their culture war, and that the source is reporting on unreliable for scientific claims. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 17:21, 11 September 2024 (UTC) edited 03:18, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

To say that "Boaler has been the target of politically motivated attacks, with the California mathematics framework being used by the right wing as a proxy for DEI in their culture war" is a misleading oversimplification. The criticism of the framework came from across the political spectrum and some extremely harsh personal attacks connected with that dispute came from progressive sources. See [20] and [21] for more context. Will Orrick (talk) 18:11, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not misleading and it's not an oversimplification. OP asked about a particular aspect of the criticism (i.e. an anonymous complaint discussed in a Fox News story) and that's what we've been discussing. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I think you need to provide supporting evidence for this statement: "This is quite clearly a culture wars political issue: going after a scholar with anonymous attacks because she promotes racial equity in STEM." Having paid close attention to the dispute over the framework as it unfolded I would not be quick to assume that the complaint was motivated by hostility to equity. The progressive critics of the framework claim that its proposals would harm equity. Given some of the tactics some of those critics used in attacking Boaler personally, it is not hard to imagine that the complaint could have come from one of them. It could also have come from some politically neutral party with strong opinions about mathematics education or about research practices. Will Orrick (talk) 19:20, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The evidence is here. The story was initially published in The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative blog. Whatever the reasons for the initial complaint, it's only in the news now because of the right-wing culture war on DEI. At least one observer sees a "coordinated attack" behind the recent wave of anonymous complaints against mostly black scholars studying race and equity. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the fact that The Washington Free Beacon broke the story points to a right wing source. (I checked that the story in The Chronicle of Higher Education was derived from the one in The Washington Free Beacon, and not the other way around.) I still don't see how one can know that the motivation was culture war based. My reading of Boaler's work is that it is primarily concerned with pedagogy and curriculum, with culture war themes, if present at all, a distant second. The main issues in this controversy cut across political boundaries and relate to tracking, acceleration, student-directed vs. teacher-directed approaches to instruction, but most importantly, to curriculum choices, in particular data science vs. algebra II. Opposition came from all parts of the political spectrum, as, unfortunately, did the ad hominem attacks on Boaler's work.

It may be the case that the only reason this is in the news now is due to the right wing media. That is regrettable, as the issues with the scholarship in the CMF were widely discussed back in 2022. See Brian Conrad's web page and a blog post about it by Peter Woit. Brian Conrad's comments on the blog post, in particular the second one, are relevant. Will Orrick (talk) 17:47, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Boaler has received extensive criticism from across the political spectrum, with the most substantive criticism having nothing to do with culture war issues. In fact, if you review high quality sources like | The Chronicle of Higher Ed, and the | NY Times sources (see article for more sources) you'll find that culture war issues are essentially absent from the issues raised. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:27, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but you raised the issue of this particular anonymous complaint, and several of us has argued that it is a right wing culture wars canard. Both things can be true at the same time. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:30, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone has provided any reliable sources that support that perspective. No one has suggested that Fox News is a good source for establishing due weight for the topic. The only relevant content unique to that source is Boaler's rebuttal of the complaint. I think that's important to include, but I may be alone in that. TheMissingMuse (talk) 18:36, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Reliable sources are required by article content, this would be a matter of consensus building. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:15, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Fox article does contain details about Boaler's response to the complaint that I haven't seen anywhere else, for example her claim that the complaint was padded to make it appear to encompass a larger body of work than it actually does. These details don't appear to be suitable for Wikipedia, but for the reader wanting to hear Boaler's side, a reference to the Fox article could be informative. Will Orrick (talk) 19:51, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Chronicle of Higher Ed and NY Times sources, from 2023 and 2021 respectively, have nothing to do with the 2024 Fox News article nor the recent anonymous allegations made against Boaler. You're just shifting the goalposts now. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 03:31, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

No-one is suggesting that Fox have, or would, falsify Boaler's quote. So the only reliability issue is the first sentence of the diff, which could just be left out as it's covered already based on other sources. Again whether that should be included isn't a matter of reliability, and should be discussed somewhere appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:12, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• Commenting on school curriculum is often political discourse, so if the source is Fox News then WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS applies and the material shouldn't be used. Doubly so if you're thinking about a BLP. TarnishedPath^talk 10:36, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Unicorn Riot reliability

Is this website a RS?[22] Mhorg (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd be cautious. Their "About Us" makes no mention of editors, fact-checking, or even who their writers are. It's a nonprofit set up to report "underrepresented stories" and present "alternative perspectives"; The New Yorker quotes one of the founders as saying they have a "reputation as a clearing house for data dumps on far-right groups".[23] Schazjmd (talk) 23:29, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Just noticed we have an article on them. And I also see that a number of articles do cite them.[24] Schazjmd (talk) 23:40, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

They're certainly biased to the left, but they're one of the few organizations that has on-the-ground coverage of social movements/protests in the United States and engages in investigative reporting of the far right. They have both an editorial independence policy and a correction policy. I would presume they publish under the Unicorn Riot byline rather than individual names because they operate as a collective. So yes, be cautious and attribute their reporting in-text. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:28, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

A paper describing them as an "anonymous hacker and surveillance collective"[25].

A paper describing them as "activist journalism"[26].

They may have aspects that would lead us to treat them as a primary source. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Some news reporting is primary, some is not. We can't say the whole outlet is primary just because part of their work is invesitgative/on-the-ground reporting. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:40, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Biased but reliable. Their investigations are solid and used by others. They report on topics not covered by more mainstream sources. If other more reliable sources exist for a claim, those might take precedence; if not, this source is fine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

If the source is widely agreed to be super biased, how could it be reliable? Seems to be Non-RS to me. These fringe left and right so called publications, which are just PR sites (think Breitbart) are not useful for us to reach NPOV, all we get is false balance. These far right and left websites are just laughable. Unicorn riot (as I type and the first time I have ever visited or heard of the site) is covering what appears to be a 4 person rally to ban astroturf. This is not what we need at wikipedia. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Please review WP:RSBIAS. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:08, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If something isn't notable (a 4 person rally), we'll not cover it, so this is irrelevant. UR is in no way comparable to Breitbart; Breitbart is (super)biased plus unreliable while UR is just biased. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:00, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

My inclination is to agree with voorts and BFB here: Unicorn Riot is reliable for facts but biased. Loki (talk) 21:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC on The South African

Which of the following best describes the reliability of The South African?

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 10:03, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

• • The reason why I am opening this RFC is that I have a concern about The South African hosting plagiarised Wikipedia content in their news articles. The one that concerned me was this article that appeared to have directly copied from our Des van Jaarsveldt article. I emailed the paper informing them of this but got no reply. When I raised the discussion at RSN, opinions seemed to believe there was reason to doubt the reliability of The South African so this is why I am formally opening the RFC and asking the community given it has similar characteristics to the issues from WP:ROYALCENTRAL that led to it's subsequent depreciation. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 10:07, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    Might be worth looking at the author's others writings too.. don't have time to rn Bluethricecreamman (talk) 14:29, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

    • @Bluethricecreamman: Well I have looked into this particular author and it seems he has done it again in a later article about Pravin Gordhan. The article also appears to copy from the Wikipedia article, specifically the lede. I don't know if that may change people's opinion as to whether its just one author or the whole source needs a look at. Pinging @ActivelyDisinterested: and @North8000: so they can see too. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey (The South African)

• Option 2 They appear to be a standard news organisation, although the issues highlighted raise concerns about their quality. I can't find any other issues being raised, although search for information on them is made difficult due to their name. I don't think one issue is enough to declare them generally unreliable or deprecate them, but it does show the source should be shown more scrutiny if it's used. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 (invited by the bot) Except in extreme cases, I'm against generalization (=overgeneralization) of any source. Which means "other considerations apply" is what nearly all should be. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 14:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Its news stories attributed to journalists seem largely reliable, or at least no worse than many other outlets we trust. However, we need to be aware of the possibility of wiki-mirroring in these articles. There also appears to be incipient AI use which may require further discussion if more examples become evident.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:30, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 I think having sat on the fence, I should cast my !vote. Had it been an isolated incident, I would have agreed with the above for option 2. However, based upon the evidence that I found that it has happened again (even after I informed them of the plagiarism), that suggests that it would be better to consider it unreliable since they have continued to copy Wikipedia. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:59, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (The South African)

• There are multiple publications that have very similar names, so it's not easy to search for information on the source. Also there appears to be two very different periods in its history - from 2003–2015 it was a freesheet distributed in London, but since 2015 it has been an online news source focused on the South African market. The BBC[27] and Stanford Libraries[28] both have media guides about South African news media, neither of which mention the The South African. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:09, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

  I've left a notification of the RFC on the Project South Africa talk page[29]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:14, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The Jewish Chronicle

This is a still developing story worth keeping an eye on: Over the past few days, several heavyweight sources in Israel and elsewhere have impugned the reliability of The Jewish Chronicle (currently listed as green on WP:RSP), accusing the paper of publishing outright disinformation in service of a PR campaign by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Interestingly, some of the pushback is from the Israeli Defense Forces:

• Channel 12 refutes report Sinwar planned to smuggle himself, hostages out of Gaza via Philadelphi Corridor, The Times of Israel, 6 September 2024
• 'A Wild Invention': Jewish Chronicle's Report on Hamas' Plans Comes Under Scrutiny, Haaretz, 9 Sep 2024
• Author of a Questionable Jewish Chronicle Article Comes Under Fire on Israeli TV, Haaretz, 10 Sep 2024
• IDF investigates claim Jewish Chronicle published stories based on ‘fabricated intelligence’, The Guardian, 12 Sep 2024
• שרה נתניהו טענה ש"יש ידיעות", הגרי: "לא מכיר מידע שיבריחו חטופים מפילדלפי" (Sara Netanyahu claimed that "There is news", Hagari: "I do not know of any information that kidnappers will escape from Philadelphi Corridor"), Ynetnews, 10 Sep 2024
• Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence? Israel’s army suspects fabrications published in the Jewish Chronicle were part of a pro-Bibi influence campaign, while the article’s author is not as he claims., +972 Magazine, 11 Sep 2024

This may be an isolated case – it appears to be the work of a single journalist (other papers have had scandals based on a single journalist's work, including The Guardian ...) – but the tie-in with Netanyahu and the accusation of politically motivated disinformation are potentially worrying.

The Jewish Chronicle have posted a statement, saying an investigation is underway. Andreas JN466 15:29, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Journalists sometimes don't have to reveal sensitive sources to their editors, so it's possible this reporter got played. Announcing an investigation into what went wrong is precisely what we would expect an RS to do. voorts (talk/contributions) 15:45, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

It's become clear as the story has evolved that the "journalist" involved has issues with his credentials and seemingly little background in journalism at all. It's a fairly similar case to the NYT editorial standards scandal. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking back through the archives, the latest being Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 438#Jewish Chronicle, this publication seems to have a knack for getting itself into trouble. As I said in the linked discussion I merely want the RSP entry clarified that JC is unreliable (rather than no consensus) for topics related to the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians and that seems clearly to be the case and I still have that view. Selfstudier (talk) 15:55, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Probably best to wait and see how they handle the situation. This is obviously bad, but what comes of their internal investigation will be a better indicator. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:44, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Mounting an "investigation" after being exposed does nothing towards establishing reliability. It was forced upon them. The conclusion "While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims." is about as weak as it gets. Zero^talk 04:16, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

This is the new statement marking the conclusion of the investigation, in full:

The Jewish Chronicle has concluded a thorough investigation into freelance journalist Elon Perry, which commenced after allegations were made about aspects of his record. While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.

The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly contested information landscape and we deeply regret the chain of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes so that this will not be repeated.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/conclusion-of-jewish-chronicle-investigation-into-elon-perry-daaqr8b9

I agree this is not good enough. "Has served in the IDF" – with no further details, such as rank, years of service etc. – is risible. (Military service is compulsory in Israel for everyone unless exempt for religious reasons.)

We need to deprecate this source for anything related to the Israel–Palestine conflict (and possibly anything related to the Israeli government). Andreas JN466 06:27, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

More coverage:

• Jewish Chronicle investigating journalist accused of publishing disinformation about Gaza war, The Times of Israel, 12 Sep 2024
• Has the UK’s oldest Jewish newspaper become Benjamin Netanyahu’s propaganda tool?, Middle East Monitor, 13 Sep 2024
• UK’s Jewish Chronicle removes stories by writer accused of fabrications about Gaza war, The Times of Israel, 14 Sep 2024
• Jewish Chronicle fires freelance journalist Elon Perry after false reporting on Gaza war, The Jerusalem Post, 14 Sep 2024
• Jewish Chronicle retracts allegedly fabricated articles on Gaza, Middle East Eye, 14 Sep 2024
• Crisis at Jewish Chronicle as stories based on ‘wild fabrications’ are withdrawn, The Guardian, 14 Sep 2024

Quotes from The Guardian:

• Founded in 1841, the JC – as it is familiarly known – has long been a respected institution in British Jewish life, attracting prominent Jewish journalists and writers to contribute. But the recent events have caused consternation about the direction of the paper as it has drifted further right under its editor, Jake Wallis Simons, and amid questions over who owns it.
• In recent months, there have been suggestions in the Israeli media that stories have been placed in European newspapers, including one in the German tabloid Bild, that are based on fake or misrepresented intelligence, planted as part of an effort to support prime minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.
• The removal of the articles, after an investigation formally announced by the paper only the day before, raises serious questions for JC editor Wallis Simons, a former novelist who has written for the Mail, the Telegraph and Spectator. Despite being provided with a series of questions, Wallis Simons and the JC have so far declined to describe how Perry – an individual with no discernible journalistic track record, let alone as an investigative reporter – came to be writing for the paper or what due diligence had been exercised over an increasingly fantastic series of claims.

--Andreas JN466 16:05, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It's worth noting that at the minute no consensus exists that the JC is reliable on the British left and Muslims, after an extraordinary series of false stories in a short period of time, which coincided with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party. I think we need to stop using the JC, as it is in effect run for propaganda purposes and frequently publishes falsehoods. This is obviously going to happen again.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:33, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

It should already be listed with yellow, given the summary of before 2010 and the prior no consensus, so at the least, edit the listing to conform to additional considerations (and put the ongoing discussion tag up). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Just to note, prior to this episode, the JC has been reported TWICE in four years (2019, 2021) to press regulator IPSO's standards department due to unacceptable conduct. No other paper has been referred to the standards department, not even the ones we deprecate.Boynamedsue (talk) 18:06, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

There should be a guideline on investigative journalism, but it is mostly covered by extraordinary claims: "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources." As a rule, I would not use original investigative articles, but look at other publications that have picked up on them. That will establish weight and some opinion on the degree of credibility. In this case, the story was picked up, so could have been used, even if we did not use the Jewish Chronicle as a source.

The source Boynamedsue provides (Byline Times) to discredit the Jewish Chronicle has a whole series of articles where it accuses mainstream media of bias and inaccuracy called "The Crisis in British Journalism." Mainstream coverage of both the Israel-Palestine conflict and Corbyn's ties to alleged anti-Semitism have been seriously questioned in reliable sources. We cannot ban all of them. TFD (talk) 19:38, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

The British media has a strong anti-Palestine bias, this does not make it unreliable. The JC has a record of massive factual inaccuracy unparalleled in British journalism. Although the media was horrendously biased during the Corbyn years, only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years. That is one breach every 7 issues. The Mail and even The Sun are far more credible in terms of factual reliability.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:11, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's the list of those 15 alleged breaches: [30] Note that only four of the alleged breaches were upheld and they took place over a period of three years. The Times had 16 complaints upheld during the same period. TFD (talk) 23:10, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The list you give actually states 13 separate breaches are upheld, but is incomplete. The press gazette wrote in 2023 that 15 people "have won IPSO complaints or libel settlements against the Jewish Chronicle since 2018", in reality that related to people who sent a letter in 2021, so it covers 3 years not 5. The JC has along track record of extreme unreliability.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

BTW the JC is a weekly tabloid format that is less than half the length of the times. In the time one edition of the JC comes out, the Times has published at least 12 times the number of words. The fact it is producing as many rulings as the Times is astounding.--Boynamedsue (talk) 06:42, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

There were four complaints, including 15 breaches against the paper and I could only find four breaches upheld. All of them were for inaccuracy.

20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 36. complaint partially upheld.

11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle: s.24. complaint upheld.

12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle: s. 13. complaint upheld.

01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle s. 26 complaint partially upheld.

What other breaches were upheld? TFD (talk) 03:36, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Are you only counting from 2022? If not, the results page only shows 4 cases at a time.Boynamedsue (talk) 05:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I am only counting from 2022 because you wrote, "only the JC breached IPSO's code 15 times in two years." [31] [20:11, 14 September 2024] The last two years were from Sept. 2022 to Sept. 2024, during which there were four complaints with four (not 16) breaches upheld. There were also nine complaints over the previous eight years the IPSO was in operation.

I am just replying to what you wrote. TFD (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I did not say the 15 breaches were over the last two years, they were between 2018-2019, part of the JC's long history of unreliability. I am quoting Brian Cathcart, founder of Hacked Off, former advisor to the government on press standards and Professor of journalism at Kingston university, who gives the following timeline: 2018-2019 IPSO finds that the Jewish Chronicle has breached its code 15 times.End of 2019: IPSO’s complaints panel reports the publication to IPSO’s standards department.2020-mid-2021: IPSO finds 18 more breaches.Mid-2021: The first letter is sent demanding a formal standards investigation. This is rejected (after a five months’ delay). 2021- 2023: The Jewish Chronicle is found by IPSO to have committed eight more breaches. April 2023: The IPSO complaints panel again refers it to the standards department for unacceptable conduct.Boynamedsue (talk) 20:38, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I am unable to see 16 upheld complaints against The Times on the website you linked to. This is what I found: 4 upheld complaints against The Times in the past two years, the same number as for The Jewish Chronicle. Could you say how you arrived at your number?

A thing to bear in mind when comparing publications is publication frequency and volume. The Times is a fat daily, the JC is a weekly, publishing a rather smaller number of stories per year. Andreas JN466 06:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The IPSO issues have been discussed exhaustively on the JC's talk page, and my strong view is that this is not a reason for deprecation or gunrel status. Cathcart in Byline Times is attacking JC as a way of attacking IPSO, which is indeed flawed but if we accept this as a reason to downgrade JC we'd have to downgrade all UK mainstream media and only use unregulated media in the UK.

In short, this is a red herring, whereas the new revelations raise serious concerns we need to address. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It's not a red herring. It points to a recent habit of editorial sloppiness and abuse, which, alongside the now lack of transparency regarding the ownership of the publication, forms a pattern of concerning information. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:07, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to use quotation marks and got an inflated number. TFD (talk) 03:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Andreas I think you're not scrolling through the pages. There's 4 to a page. Times has 30 upheld breaches going back to 2015, JC has 13 in the same period, of which I think 4 (those you list above - the first page, of chronologically newest hits) are from the period of current ownership; I believe 9 relate to the period of 2017-20. Some of these upheld breaches are only partially upheld. They range, for both papers, from very small to more significant. 12 relate to accuracy. All 12 of those relate to the two topics of a huge proportion of JC news coverage in the period: the British left (almost all of them) and/or British Muslims.

Crucially, wherever the breach has been upheld a sanction has been volunteered or applied, meaning in the case of the JC that the inaccuracies have been corrected and the articles as they appear now are accurate.

Yes, the output of the Times is far greater than the output of the JC, so with half the breaches JC has proportionately more in relation to its content.

The discrepancy between people (a higher number, as noted by Boynamedsue) and breaches is that some breaches relate to more than one person. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:01, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley I was looking at the last two years only (16 Sep 2022 to now), because TFD was referring to the JC's four most recent breaches.

• The Jewish Chronicle had four breaches since 16 September 2022.
• Over the same period The Times also had four.

TFD explained above that he forgot to put quotation marks around his search term and thus got an inflated number for The Times for this period.

If you look further back:

• The Jewish Chronicle had 9 breaches since 2020
• The Times had 11 breaches since 2020

Basically, the Jewish Chronicle seems to have an order of magnitude more breaches per article than The Times, bearing in mind it is a weekly with a far smaller annual output than The Times produces as a bulky daily. I'd say that is not good enough for top-drawer treatment at RSP, even before the current scandal.

The Telegraph now has a good summary of the scandal as well:

• The ‘fabrications’ and resignations that plunged The Jewish Chronicle into crisis: The newspaper has lost credibility – and writers including David Baddiel – after a contributor was accused of making up Gaza war reports, The Telegraph, 16 September 2024

Andreas JN466 15:22, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley Actually, things are even worse at The JC, because there are five additional cases since 2020 that are listed not under "The Jewish Chronicle", but under "thejc.com": [32] These are all different cases from the ones listed under "The Jewish Chronicle". The ones listed under thejc.com are:

• 14697-23 Friel v thejc.com (published July 2023)
• 09574-21 Gauterin v thejc.com (published July 2022)
• 06399-21 Brace v thejc.com (published January 2022)
• 29092-20 Holborow v thejc.com (published September 2021)
• 28831-20 Ross v thejc.com (published June 2021)

The ones listed under "Jewish Chronicle" are:

• 20214-23 Lunn v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2024)
• 11788-22 Gregson and Weiss v The Jewish Chronicle (published May 2023)
• 12610-22 Bunglawala v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2023)
• 01447-22 Rahman v The Jewish Chronicle (published September 2022)
• 29107-20 Bird v The Jewish Chronicle (published July 2021)
• 01735-20 Downing v The Jewish Chronicle (published December 2020)
• 00074-20 Ali v The Jewish Chronicle (published October 2020)
• 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle (published April 2020)
• 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle (published January 2020)

I also checked for "thetimes" domains and found three additional breaches since 2020 listed under "thetimes.co.uk" (none under thetimes.com). This means JC and Times actually had 14 breaches each since 2020 – with The Times publishing an order of magnitude more articles.

Also worth mentioning: When I did the same search for "The Guardian" and "theguardian", I did not find any breaches at all that concerned The Guardian. Andreas JN466 16:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks that's really helpful. Good spot on the different domains. So, the questions are: 1/ are the breaches relating to articles published under the new ownership (i.e. since April 2020) serious enough for us to downgrade reliability in this period? (my take: possibly, but the real clinchers are the resignations and ownership issue rather than these breaches) and 2/ are the pre-2020 breaches serious enough for us to downgrade reliability for a longer period, and if so from when? (my take: probably not serious enough).

Re The Guardian: it's not regulated by IPSO, but has its own arrangements. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that explains the Guardian's clean sheet. For another comparison, "Mail Online" had 28 IPSO rulings identifying breaches since 2020, "Daily Mail" had 14, for a total of 42. Again, I suspect that is considerably less per article than The Jewish Chronicle. I think we need to come up with some RfC options ... Any ideas how we can keep it as simple as possible? Andreas JN466 17:11, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Do you think we should have a policy whereby if a publications exceeds a set number of breaches it should be deprecated? What would the threshold be? TFD (talk) 19:52, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• If I understand the nature of the complaint, the paper had a reporter filing false stories. The paper has publicly retracted the stories and fired the reporter. Isn't that what we want out of a RS? If not then shouldn't the NYT be downgraded? Springee (talk) 00:32, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Quoted in The Guardian: “It seems that by firing Elon Perry @JewishChron is hoping to put this whole affair to bed, as if decisions weren’t made at the very top to employ a fake journalist, publish nine fake articles without verifying sources, and use the paper [as] an active agent in a pro-Bibi influence op.” Andreas JN466 00:44, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  That appears to be an opinion article. Certainly that quote is the opinion of the author. Springee (talk) 04:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The paper didn't do its job in the first place i.e. they didn't vet the freelance journalist properly. Cortador (talk) 05:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I know nothing about this source, but through reading about the Elon Perry situation I learned that no one seems to know exactly who owns the newspaper. This made me wonder whether this incomplete-information situation is a factor in assessing reliability in Wikipedia. Clearly there is some dependency on knowledge of ownership (e.g. state owned, run by the CCP etc.) that might have an impact on a case-by-case basis, but I'm curious how not knowing who owns a source is handled. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:53, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

When a news source refuses to divulge who owns it, I think we are entitled to assume the worst. Zero^talk 06:40, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

For the ownership question see:

• Alan Rusbridger: Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, Prospect Magazine, 26 April 2024
  • Quote: Well, we don’t know. But imagine a mystery foreign backer with a plausible British frontman buying the Telegraph, on condition that his identity be kept schtum. There would, rightly, be a parliamentary hue and cry about their background and motives. One of those involved in the Gibb-led consortium told me he now regretted ever being involved because of its “incredibly opaque” nature. He said he and another consortium member had asked directly who the other backers were and found it was “an absolutely closed door”.

Also, The Times has weighed in:

• Jewish Chronicle sacks writer over story that caused furore in Israel, The Times, 15 Sep 2024 --Andreas JN466 08:16, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• The "reporter" also made false claims about his background that the paper never bothered to verify. It's not a Claas Relotius situation where someone who is a legitimate journalist gets caught making stuff up. (t · c) buidhe 06:23, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• This happens sometimes even with the best sources, the NYT Caliphate debacle immediately comes to my mind [33]. What counts is the quality of the investigation and subsequent actions, so I think we should wait a bit. Alaexis_¿question? 11:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Wait a bit for what? They claim to have finished their investigation. Zero^talk 12:09, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Lost two of their top columnists as a result ""Of course, all newspapers make mistakes and run articles that writers on the paper dislike," Freedland wrote. "The problem in this case is that there can be no real accountability because the JC is owned by a person or people who refuse to reveal themselves. As you know, I and others have long urged transparency, making that case to you privately – but nothing has happened." Selfstudier (talk) 13:26, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Freedland's departure is particularly devastating. As he noted in his letter, between himself and his father, a Freedland had written for the JC for 75 years – he is only departing, with regret, due to extreme mistrust in the depths to which the editorial standards have sunk, and the risk of association. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:13, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  Ah, I didn't know that. They have therefore removed his stories from [the] website and ended any association with Mr Perry. What else should they have done? Alaexis_¿question? 20:28, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The Jewish News of Northern California e.g. notes: "The Chronicle has not explained how Perry came to author stories that it published nor offered details about how it plans to change its editorial practices."

  Doing those two things would be a good start. Along with being transparent about who finances their operation. Andreas JN466 18:02, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I've seen dozens if not hundreds of discussions on this noticeboard and invariably retractions are seen as a good sign. Alaexis_¿question? 20:45, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Retractions are important. Stealth edits and stealth non-retractions (such as Al Jazeera's recent ones) are a sign of unreliability. Andre🚐 20:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Except that it is not retractions being criticized, it's everything else. Selfstudier (talk) 20:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Speaking of Qatar-funded Al Jazeera, it's a little-known but markworthy fact that Qatar is ranked about 20 places above Israel in the Press Freedom Index ranking. Overall Qatar is now ranked freest in the Middle East region.

  Israeli government censorship is intense. Haaretz once published an article with all the censored text blacked out, just to illustrate the issue: [34] Israel should be doing better.

  Stealth edits are not great, but common across the industry. Take for example the Jewish News article linked below: its headline now reads "Five Jewish Chronicle writers quit, accusing it of prioritising politics over journalism" (the fifth is Colin Shindler, who has written for the JC for over fifty years), but there is no note marking the updates, nor a new publication time/date. You can find stealth updates even in a newspaper of record like Haaretz: compare [35] vs. [36]. Andreas JN466 22:39, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  It is unsafe to compare archived copies for this. The style used in the English Haaretz is a sentence at the end, which might not have made the archive. I don't have a subscription to the Hebrew Haaretz, so I can't check. Zero^talk 00:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Zero0000: If you have a Haaretz subscription, your user account works for both language versions. You simply have to log in again on the Hebrew side, using the same account details. I logged in and checked – there is no added sentence at the end of the article in the live version either. The date, too, just says 20 October 2023 (no exact time given).

  And actually, we are in luck, because you can even view this article via the Wikipedia Library: [37] Andreas JN466 08:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yikes! I wish I knew that subscription thing years ago. Anyway, I confirm that a sentence was silently changed. Zero^talk 09:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  I regularly find stealth edits of article bodies (not headlines), in top outlets like The Guardian or the NYT, with no disclosure. Not a valid signal of unreliability, regardless of how we feel about it. DFlhb (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Resignations:

• Three star Jewish Chronicle writers quit, accusing it of prioritising politics over journalism, Jewish News, 15 September 2024
• Columnists Quit Jewish Chronicle as Troubled Paper Severs Ties With 'Journalist' Over Debunked Hamas Story, Haaretz, 15 September 2024
• Jewish Chronicle writers attack publication after 'fabrication' row, Israel Hayom, 15 September 2024
  • Quote: The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but it is only the latest. Too often, the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgments political rather than journalistic.—Jonathan Freedland

--Andreas JN466 14:43, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

Guardian as well Selfstudier (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

• I'd say not reliable. There are too many serious problems. Most recently, and discussed here, is a whole range of fabricated stories. That is already concerning, so much so that many high-profile contributors have resigned. Perhaps even more concerning is that nobody knows who owns the JC. In my view, transparency about ownership is important for the integrity of any newspaper or media outlet. The combination of planted false stories and no insights on who finances the JC makes me doubt it could be used as a source while the ownership is not known. Jeppiz (talk) 16:45, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
• This is likely to require a RfC, but for the time being, TJC should be considered at least unreliable regarding Israel/Palestine and related topics due to a scandal resulting in four high-profile resignations, unclear ownership structre, plus questionable reporting as noted above. Cortador (talk) 16:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The fact that a massive scandal is causing a massive shakeup is, again, exactly what one would expect out of a generally reliable source. (No source should be used without a minimum of critical judgement, mind you, and is subject to cross-verification.) I suppose in this overall time period of the scandal and shakeup -- plus+minus one year from all the reporter's articles (they span June--September 2024) say -- it's appropriate to say the source is yellow, but it's hardly become now-and-retroactively unreliable.

  Contrast to some of our unreliable outlets where an article or reporter or topic caught red-handed on serial inaccuracy/exaggeration/slop is simply tolerated and dismissed as just a normal part of their political bias or low expectations of rigor. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:24, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Ordinarily I would agree but with the history here plus the lack of transparency, I think there's a problem beyond the usual. Selfstudier (talk) 17:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I think we need to start a RfC here, I can't seem to find the RfC which justified the reliable rating Andromedean (talk) 17:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I would advise waiting at least a little while for the dust to settle before starting an RFC. Reliability is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, so the key is to determine whether this has impacted their overarching reputation or whether it was just one incident. High-quality sources that establish that it is part of a pattern would be particularly useful; it might also be useful to find sources that help us identify a specific point in time where things changed and the source's coverage became less reliable, since it is so old. --Aquillion (talk) 13:51, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  This is not just recent:

  • From the Jewish News article: Freedland, a columnist at the JC since 1998, began his resignation letter by stating his deep family connection to the newspaper. “My attachment to the JC runs very deep,” he wrote. “I have been a columnist since 1998. My late father started writing for the JC in 1951. That bond explains why I have stuck with it even as it departed from the traditions that built its reputation as the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper. “The latest scandal brings great disgrace on the paper – publishing fabricated stories and showing only the thinnest form of contrition – but this is only the latest. Too often, the JC reads like a partisan ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic.”
  • From The Guardian: “The coarseness and aggression of the JC’s current leadership is such a pity and does such a disservice to our community,” wrote Pogrund. “It also once again poses the question: who owns it!? How is it that British Jews don’t know who owns ‘their’ paper. Moreover, how can a paper not disclose its ownership? It’s an oxymoron. I hate having to pose the question publicly but I asked privately more than a year ago to no avail.”

  The problems seem to date back to the 2020 change in ownership. Would this make an appropriate cut-off point? Andreas JN466 18:21, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  I agree with SamuelRiv. Andre🚐 21:03, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  The problems predate the change of ownership in April 2020. On the 4 August 2021, barely a year later Brian Cathcart wrote

  "A slim, weekly publication, the Jewish Chronicle has been found by IPSO to have breached the Editors Code of Conduct 33 times in three years. In the same period it has admitted libel on four occasions, paying damages and publishing apologies. This is a failure of standards on a scale not witnessed by IPSO before." Andromedean (talk) 07:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I guess I should amend my comment, as it presumes the current (or recent) rating of JC is reasonably accurate. Looking through the IPSO issues a bit more I'd agree the baseline "green" rating should be reassessed by RfC, going back as far as Feb-Mar 2019 (from when the first major IPSO complaint/breach was dated, see citation (21)), but 2020 is close enough too. I hold from my comment that this current scandal is not extremely detrimental from the baseline rating since 2020, wherever that should be. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:14, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  The 2021 Cathcart piece in RS Byline Times that you link Andromedean says 28 breaches in 3 years. The quote you give comes from the blog of campaigning organisation Hacked Off in 2022. There's an issue of the lag between the date of publication and the date of reporting the outcome, but Cathcart's arithmetic is kind of hard to fathom and is at odds with the figures on the IPSO site or given in other secondary sources such as Press Gazette or The Telegraph: The [2021] letter claimed there had been 28 breaches of the Editors’ Code in three years, and that there would be “more victims” if nothing was done. In fact, IPSO says there were eight complaints upheld in the past three years, with two not upheld and two resolved through mediation. The Telegraph piece is important to read on the agenda of the letter-writers and of Cathcart. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  I think we have to distinguish between IPSO cases or rulings and breaches of the Editor's Code. Each ruling can identify multiple breaches of the code, see e.g. [38]. Also note – The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. The Committee’s concerns have been drawn to the attention of IPSO’s Standards department. Andreas JN466 16:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

  2019 was the Audrey White complaint, which was a whopper that caused IPSO to alert the broader issue internally (this was linked previously in this thread, which I can't find, by someone with the relevant quote; the complaint was Feb--Mar, and ruling Nov 2019; an overview from HackedOff). Either of those could be a cutoff date, or the 2020 ownership change, or the 2021 IPSO internal alert again. But a precise cutoff has not been necessary for RSP -- just saying on RSP "2020, around the time ownership change with major issues appearing the year beforehand", is plenty enough guidance for editors. Or whatever year you want, it doesn't matter -- absent a complete staff and editorial overhaul in a single day, there's never such a precise transition of reliability. SamuelRiv (talk) 19:47, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• A single instance of flawed reporting doesn't impugn the source's reliability unless it can be shown to be systemic. See the New York Times, which also has controversial views of their ownership (see Biden vs Trump) and it also is relevant how the outlet deals with the coverage. In this case, the outlet seems to be taking the appropriate steps but we should keep an eye on it. There are other outlets who have had similar controversies and ownership (cough Al Jazeera cough) but are considered to be generally reliable if biased on certain topics. Without a more comprehensive evaluation of any failed fact checks, this one issue isn't any more damning of the entire paper than similar issues in the New York Times. Andre🚐 21:02, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Systemic issues – this is a common refrain in the criticism: that the material published is not political and journalistic, but political rather than journalistic – in other words, the politicisation comes at the expense of journalistic standards. This criticism is not restricted to the now-removed set of articles, and it is something that we should take note of.

  As for the paper's owners, it is normal for newspaper owners to have views. The owners of the New York Times and their place on the political spectrum are known. What people are saying with respect to The Jewish Chronicle is that the owners are unknown – because the publication refuses to say who they are. That is unusual to say the least.

  More reporting now:

  • The National,
  • BBC,
  • Times of Israel.

  The Times of Israel also reports on an Israeli press interview with the (pseudonymous) writer of the now-removed stories. Andreas JN466 22:22, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Andrevan's comment makes a false comparison with the NYT. The New York Times has almost 6,000 employees and a print circulation of 300,000, and 9 million online subscribers.

  The Jewish Chronicle has just 30 employees, a total of 3,000 digital subscribers and 3,200 paid for print circulation. There are MANY blogs out there with more employees and more readers. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:49, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Jayen did not. Andre made the comparison. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Jewish Chronicle is an old and storied institution. Reliability is not determined by the number of employees or subscribers, or circulation. Andre🚐 22:52, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  It went into liquidation in 2020. This is a new organization with an old brand. Onceinawhile (talk) 22:55, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  It announced in March that it would be owned by a charitable trust. I would like to point out that a lot of horrible people have owned news media in the UK over the years.

  Also, DYK that Murdoch owns both the Times and the Sun? It does not matter who owns a newspaper but where it follows journalistic standards. And I don't get btw why the BBC should be considered less reliable than the Sun, because the Sun is owned by an individual person while the BBC is owned by the state. TFD (talk) 23:27, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Nor is it determined by age or whatever storiedness might be. It is determined by factual accuracy, which the JC has been proven repeatedly to lack. I would repeat, no other British newspaper has such a shocking record for slandering people and publishing false stories, not even the ones that we deprecate.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:59, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  See TFD's comment above. It is not determined by age, true, but it IS determined by reputation. Andre🚐 23:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

See my answer above. TFD's comments are a good faith error on the number of breaches, and a failure to consider libel rulings and the difference in number of issues between weekly and daily titles.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:56, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These issues should be considered separately than the new issues. In the 2015-20 period, the instances of sloppiness and zealotry led to extreme scrutiny, the led to IPSO complaints (mostly not upheld) and to corrections. Any problematic material from this period has been corrected, and we can therefore be pretty confident of reliability. There is a case for attribution of contentious claims in that period; there is no case for designation as unreliable. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Well its reputation is now in the gutter, so ... Iskandar323 (talk) 05:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• It has been asked above about what papers do in this situation, and it seems usual that they do extensive reporting on what went wrong, what was false or can't be confirmed, and who was involved. The reporting is in depth investigation and done by journalists (usually senior journalists) and editors not involved, but perhaps, this paper is too small or too intent on not being open about it, for whatever reason. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:11, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Given the entire affair is less than 2 weeks old, correct? Maybe they will. Andre🚐 00:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  JC has declared that they have "concluded" their "thorough investigation". Now they might yet again be lying, but I suggest that we believe them. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• Ought be treated as unreliable for anything remotely connected with Is-Pa and British Politics. TrangaBellam (talk) 07:50, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  Why British Politics specifically? The problem articles related to Israel-Palestine. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:57, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• This is quite an grotesquely major scandal for a prominent newspaper; unknown owners who are likely right-wing ideologues, publication of a fabricated story by a freelance journalist under a pseudonym who after their firing made death threats to an Israeli reporter due to the revealing of their identity, and now the resignation of the newspaper's most prominent columnists. The Jewish Chronicle should be immediately deprecated generally and on matters related to antisemitism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict specifically. Makeandtoss (talk) 09:10, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  So not only his credentials were fake, but also his name ... while his subsequent actions speak for themselves. The Times of Israel has also ripped down blogs by the same author, presumably fearful of possible contagion. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• Inclined to agree that the opaque ownership is an even bigger problem than the specific instance of false reporting. Most publications have bias, and many have disreputable owners, but at least when the owners are known we can understand and weigh that bias, and still manage to extract signal from the noise. An anonymous owner is no better than an anonymous editorial board, which would usually be a red flag. It’s a broken chain of accountability. JC articles from after April 2020 (apparently the date of the takeover) should be treated with utmost caution. No opinion on articles from before that date. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:19, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
• The response from JC has been swift and they've removed the offending articles. But it's left serious questions about their editorial controls, and several high profile columnist have severed their ties with the paper. The issues appear to stem from the takeover by an anonymous owner, and the editorialship of Jake Wallis Simons that began in December 2021. Their articles after April 2020 (per Barnards.tar.gz above) should be handled with scepticism, especially in the IP conflict area. Ownership isn't the issue, but the issues seem to stem from the change in ownership. Just to note from a technical perspective deprecation of any article ever written by the source from ever being used for anything is not a good response to this situation, the issues being raised are ones that are due to recent changes (deprecation is just unreliable with an edit filter plus bells and whistles, it doesn't work with any kind of restrictions on topic area or time). I would suggest any issues prior to these dates be handled separately, as the arguements are quite different and often backed up by other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)
• The dust has not yet settled so we might still wait before an RfC, but this is definitely a major concern. Anything published under the current owners (April 2020) and especially under current editor (December 2021) should be treated with extreme caution. Anything by Elon Perry (pseudonym of Eli Yifrah) in this publication or other publications should be considered completely unreliable. In general, even without these issues, the UK-based Jewish Chronicle is unlikely to be a good source on the Middle East unless the article is provided by someone with specific expertise (e.g. by Colin Shindler, one of the writers who resigned this week). The issues are: total opacity about ownership since 2020; an editor with no prior experience of news media since 2021; extent of bias under current editor spinning into unreliability (in particular on the issues of Israel/Palestine and Muslims/Islam). I would oppose designating it unreliable for the pre-2020 period, as these issues were not present (the non-upheld IPSO complaints mentioned above are not a reason for that). I would also be wary about declaring it, even in its current incarnation, generally unreliable, because that will mean its routine coverage of UK Jewish community matters or political issues in the UK of Jewish interest will be lost, including important material relating to antisemitism which is less well reported elsewhere. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  As I stated previously, the record of the JC was extremely poor prior to April 2020. In the two years previous to this the IPSO upheld and sanctioned the following cases

  03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication

  05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020 Outcome Breach sanction: action as offered by publication

  01740-19 White v The Jewish Chronicle 29 November 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction sanction: action as offered by publication

  03222-18 Suárez v The Jewish Chronicle Published date 12 April 2019 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication

  02822-18 Sivier v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary 9 August 2018 Outcome Breach - sanction: action as offered by publication

  Even in cases where a resolution was agreed such as this, the word 'abused' a Jewish MP was changed to 'challenged', quite a change

  01612-18 Wadsworth v The Jewish Chronicle Complaint Summary May 2018 Outcome Resolved - IPSO mediation

  This seems to be a systematic failure of factual reporting irrespective of the ownership. Andromedean (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

  I had a look at the first example 03690-19 Davies v The Jewish Chronicle 2 April 2020, which relates to this 2019 article. There was no inaccuracy in the article, just a lack of context for a quote from a third party about the complainant. Nonetheless, the paper offered an apology and correction, which duly appears. This is totally normal newspaper practice.

  Here is 05411-19 Lennox v The Jewish Chronicle 16 January 2020, a partially upheld complaint where the upheld part was was promptly remedied by the paper. Slightly more serious than Davies, but nowhere near grounds for designation of unreliability.

  Unless the other examples are considerably more significant, this list adds nothing. Focusing on this trivia is a distraction from the serious issues that have emerged more recently. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:21, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Trivia? IPSO noted 33 individual breaches of its code over 3 years between 2018-2021. It was referred to the IPSO standards committee over its libelling of Audrey White, with IPSO stating The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. It is worth noting that this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods.Boynamedsue (talk) 16:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It should also be noted how ineffective the IPSO complaint system is. Chances are we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg because 94% of complaints are rejected, 0.3% are upheld and 5.3% are abandoned or never investigated. This isn't surprising because The Press Recognition Panel (the body which audits press regulators for independence and effectiveness) has referred to IPSO as a ‘trade complaint handling body with no independent oversight Andromedean (talk) 16:47, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Exclusive: UK press regulator IPSO "carefully reviewing developments at the Jewish Chronicle" We'll see. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, "trivial" perhaps too strong a word, but I urge people here to read the rulings and see if these inaccuracies would be cause for a general unreliability ruling for another publication.

this "trivia" had already resulted in this board deciding that there is no consensus on JC's reliability on precisely the topic of its latest falsehoods. Not exactly. The IPSO rulings all relate to the British left and a couple to British Muslims, whereas the latest falsehoods relate to Israel/Palestine. I would not oppose us considering it generally unreliable on Israel/Palestine, although I would argue for exceptions in the case of expert contributors such as Colin Shindler. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:26, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The only reason that so many cases are being dragged before IPSO is presumably because they are not responding adequately to direct complaints. Being dragged before a trade tribunal, and then making amends only after you lose isn't contrition or commitment to editorial standards; it's simply the legal obligation at the end of a long road of stubborn editorial recalcitrance. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Again, read the rulings; in almost all cases the correction had already been made before IPSO ruled. The most serious cases (e.g. the one relating to Rabbi Weiss) relate to a failure to make a correction, but there are only one or two such cases. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:28, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

My concern is that we could use evidence of misconduct that is no different from any other publication to ban some publications, but not others. For example, the Jewish Chronicle has had four breaches upheld against it by the IPSO in the last two years, which is the same number as the Times, although a higher rate because it is a weekly. While no one claims that the Jewish Chronicle is in the same league as the Times, that doesn't mean it should be deprecated.

In the past, we deprecated a source because it published a false news story that had appeared in most mainstream media sources.

There should be objective and persuasive arguments before sources are rated generally unreliable or deprecated/banned. It seems that a lot of these efforts are motivated by objection to the editorial policies of the publications. And if they are downgraded, it sends a message outside Wikipedia.

There has to be a better way to evaluate sources than this process. Editors are asked to base their decisions on the comments of other editors, which may or may not be accurate, have walls of text they cannot read and have no standard with which to compare criticisms with other publications. TFD (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems strange to only count the last two years. In 2021 we discussed the JC based on its record of publishing misleading content on the British left, Muslims and Palestine/Israel. We could not reach a conclusion that it was reliable, and that is the current default. Low and behold, a few years down the line the paper becomes embroiled in a scandal due to publishing false information on precisely the topics we judged it unreliable on. Why exactly are we bothering with this source?Boynamedsue (talk) 05:54, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I would certainly agree to a more objective process. For example a table of breaches, court judgements etc so they can be examined more clearly. However, we must also allow for more subjective criteria such as transparency, ownership and journalistic reputation of staff. Substantial weight should also be given to the opinions of journalistic professionals in academia. I'm unsure if Wikipedia rules already specify this, but should an editor arriving at an opinion based on a professional or reliable source, be given more weight in an RfC than one just saying 'I agree with X' or 'I think it's unreliable or reliable'? Andromedean (talk) 07:34, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I tried to get "in other RS" added to the policy a while ago. Also did you know according to our current policy consensus, I could cite a gravestone or a historical marker because that is technically published? I think some rigor around publication could help. Barring that, feel free to propose something at probably WT:RS or WT:V Andre🚐 07:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

One problem with tables of breaches is that it actually stacks our process against publications, such as the Jewish Chronicle, that are regulated (where there's an authority which records complaints, in this case IPSO). BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:31, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

• I am not an expert at all in this subject, but I would note that the presence of a statement by the source stating that an investigation is ongoing plus resignations of staff evidences that it is an RS since they care to be neutral and take concrete steps to do so. That is all we really can ask at wikipedia. Our OR and POV on the rest of if we like a source or not is pretty hard to sort though. Again, I know nearly nothing about Israeli politics, so please take my statement with a grain of salt and due weight. Thanks! Jtbobwaysf (talk) 03:50, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem comes in the fact its corrections and investigations are all forced. The British press regulator IPSO noted its refusal to engage in correction except when ultimately forced to do. This case shows effective fact-checking does not exist, as until the IDF complained, the paper was publishing random crap without asking itself any questions. So, we ask how much else has been getting through that hasn't been noticed? We can't know. In effect, we do and have deprecated for much less.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:04, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

The resignations aren't positive actions by the publication; they are actions by former staff in despair at the publication's lack of positive action. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:58, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Idk, the part I am most bothered by is AI/IP and I think that should be gunrel, if we can agree that in this discussion then maybe we can do without an RFC? Selfstudier (talk) 16:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

As I said before, I think we should Deprecate The Jewish Chronicle for anything related to Israel/Palestine. I would also support deprecation for "UK politics biographies of living persons" (if other publications discuss BLP claims made in The Jewish Chronicle, they can be cited instead, with a JC ref given as a courtesy link). How does that sound? Andreas JN466 17:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I have said before I'm not wild about deprecation without going through gunrel first. One would need quite a bit of "fabrication" evidence for deprecation (and it would have to be an RFC). Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, my mix-up. I didn't actually mean to contradict you, Selfstudier; I'd conflated the two levels in my mind. So WP:GUNREL for anything related to Israel/Palestine, and I'd be happy to extend that to "UK politics biographies of living persons". --Andreas JN466 18:35, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Mainstream media have run many obviously false stories in support of wars. For example, the Nayirah testimony that Iraqi soldiers removed babies from incubators, NYT journalist Judith Miller's false stories about WMDs in Iraq, and unsubstantiated stories about babies being beheaded by Hamas. For twenty years mainstream media told us we were winning in Afghanistan until one day the U.S. soldiers left and its govenment fled.

If we banned all these source there would be none left and therefore we could not cover current events at all. However using in-text attribution where appropriate and not including material that lacks weight for inclusion, these articles can be as accurate as mainstream media without a culling of news media source. TFD (talk) 20:21, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting we ban all these sources. We are suggesting that the specfic and quite substantial problems that have been indicated for this source – very high-profile fabrications, unknown ownership, high number of adverse IPSO rulings relative to its publication volume – ought to be reflected in its RSP entry. Andreas JN466 10:17, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

As I explained above, the claim that there were 15 breaches upheld against the newspaper in two years was false. There were two breaches fully upheld and two partially upheld, which is within the norm. My point is that no one has demonstrated that the record of the newspaper is significantly worse.

We need an objective rather than anecdotal approach to banning sources. I could put together a case as strong as the one presented here against any publication. TFD (talk) 22:18, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with TFD on this Andre🚐 22:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Agree as well. How often is JC been cited on Wikipedia? Do we have any examples of uses that should be questioned? Springee (talk) 22:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

LinkSearch finds 5517 links. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:36, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Scanning through the first couple of hundred of these, excluding talk page links, there are maybe two that fall directly under Israel/Palestine (one relating to food in Jerusalem, and one a commentary by Tom Gross) and one that relates to someone that might be reasonably called on the British left. The overwhelming majority relate to the UK Jewish community, so we'd gut our coverage of that if we lost the JC as a source altogether. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that is probably the case for many sources, a sledgehammer/non-surgical approach may have unintended consequences and cause unnecessary collateral damage. Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that the JC should be deemed unreliable for all topics (certainly not retrospectively, nor do I see anyone arguing it should be deemed unreliable for all topics going forward). Andreas JN466 21:08, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

There are, as I understand it, various complementary outlets, such as Jewish News, so JC hardly stands alone in any sphere of UK coverage. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:44, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I count 10 breaches in the White case alone: https://www.ipso.co.uk/rulings/01740-19/ As mentioned above, breaches of the Code are not the same thing as rulings. And having the same number of IPSO rulings against it as The Times, which publishes a far greater number of articles, does not put it "within the norm"; it makes it about ten times worse – and considerably worse than the Daily Mail. Andreas JN466 23:10, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

IPSO has also itself been specifically accused of dragging its feet and being exposed as the rather conflicted regulator it is in relation to the JC, first in 2021 when it reacted on a two-year delay to issues in 2019,[39] and then again in 2023 and finally now – drawing past victims to issue a statement calling again on the regulator to act.[40] It's also worth remembering that only the worst and often most defamatory material tends to end up in an IPSO complaint, so such rulings/breaches are merely the tip of the iceberg of editorial failings. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:48, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

OK, so long as people reading the number of breaches are aware that multiple breaches can refer to a single article or cluster of articles. White is one of the most serious case here, and if that's 10 breaches it's 10 breaches in 4 articles, so these 4 articles are a big percentage of the total breaches. BobFromBrockley (talk) 10:54, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

The complaint was for accuracy, privacy and harassment of which only the first was upheld. However, the findings showed that a number of false claims had been made about the complainant. But that was five years ago.

According to The Electronic Intifada, which is a pro-Palestinian source, this and other cases bankrupted the Chronicle.[41] As noted above, the Chronicle has since been sold and a new editor appointed.

I cannot accept a tip of the iceberg claim without evidence. My concern is that if we set the bar low for deprecation, then no publication meets it and whether or not an outlet is deprecated becomes a popularity .

Mainstream media claims about babies in incubators in Kuwait, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and how the war in Afghanistan was succeeding were all deliberate lies in order to support UK and U.S. government policies which haad devastating effects. They are more significant than publishing a claim that someone had been expelled from the Labour Party. TFD (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry Selfstudier but by "AI/IP" you mean antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel and Palestine? (Personally, I think it would be a big mistake to make it unreliable for antisemitism before 2020, given that as more or less the only regular UK Jewish newspaper until 2020 it was the only media source with full coverage of UK antisemitism. The other topics make more sense, especially if exceptions are made for expert contributors, and making this ruling for post-2020 also makes more sense.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 04:00, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean anything that has the usual warning notices that it is part of AI/IP conflict. The antisemitism article does not have those notices, for instance, and that for Islamophobia only for a part of it. The usual "broadly construed" is well understood by all. Selfstudier (talk) 09:27, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

More press coverage today from The Jerusalem Post, The Forward, Press Gazette, The Independent and The Times of Israel
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Further commentary in The Jerusalem Post from Hadley Freeman, Jay Rayner and others: Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 "Today" program on Monday morning, [Freeman] said that, like every journalist, she does not agree with everything in her publication, but that this was a tipping point. While she acknowledged the deletion of the articles by Elon Perry - which she called "wild" - she said that for a "bunch of us, this was too little too late." "We felt that there had not been editorial standards applied to this journalist because that journalist was adhering to an ideology that perhaps was similar to that of the editorial board." Freeman said she chose to join the JC to represent the "liberal modern voice" of British Jews, who she claimed largely support a Jewish state but want a two-state solution. However, she said, "it felt increasingly that the JC represented a more ideological rather than a strictly journalistic point of view, and was becoming far more right-wing and far more in step with Netanyahu, which most British Jews are not." She also reiterated the concerns of other journalists regarding the identity of the JC's owner. Jewish writer and food critic Jay Rayner reposted Freedland's resignation, saying that he had watched "with dismay the collapse in integrity and standards of the Jewish Chronicle." "It’s been a disaster for the Jewish community," he added, applauding Freedland for his decision to leave. The Forward now has an article up as well: Several prominent columnists have resigned from the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper amid allegations that the paper ran fabricated news stories that advanced the Israeli government’s narratives about the war in Gaza. The newspaper confirmed that Perry did serve in the IDF but said it was unable to prove claims that had appeared on his website that he was a professsor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years and that he had served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe in 1976. His two books are both self-published. Four columnists quit Jewish Chronicle over standards, secrecy and ‘bias’: Writers condemn lapse in standards, secrecy and drift to right of specialist title, Press Gazette, 16 September 2024 Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it’s troubling that we don’t know…, The Independent, 16 September 2024 (appears to be a republication of Rusbridger's previous Prospect piece) Jewish Chronicle stalwarts bail over UK paper’s ties to alleged Gaza war fabulist, The Times of Israel, 16 September 2024 Quote: Perry has also faced questions about his biography, including his claims to have served as a commando soldier during Operation Entebbe and that he was a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years. An investigation by Channel 13’s Hatzinor news magazine found that both claims were false. After peddling lies, Jewish Chronical [sic] in upheaval, Ynetnews, 16 September 2024 --Andreas JN466 14:32, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

From the Independent: Why a scandal at The Jewish Chronicle also goes to the top of the BBC Andromedean (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I think we need an RFC at this point. Selfstudier (talk) 16:41, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Tortoise Media also has an article out today. Essential reading.

I propose we brainstorm some possible RfC options ... Andreas JN466 16:51, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The main contention seems to be between the broader "Unreliable since 2019 for Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Israel and Palestine" and the narrower "Unreliable since 2021 for Israel and Palestine". So maybe:

• 1/ Reliable
• 2/ Addition considerations
  • a/ Unreliable since 2019 for AI/IP
  • b/ Unreliable since 2021 for IP

I don't see anyone giving the opinion that it's always been unreliable so I don't think it's needed, but these are just vague ideas. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Since the JC has been active since the middle of the 19th century, I doubt if anyone could make a convincing case for it's unreliability throughout its history. It's the the period 2017-2019 which was probably the most contentious, because even the so called 'reliable' sources were lacking in objectivity on the IHRA definition of antisemitism and the prevalence of Labour 'Antisemitism' as this academic study shows. Andromedean (talk) 20:06, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

That looks good to me. I suppose starting a RfC with those options. Cortador (talk) 06:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Looks good – the only thing I am not sure about is the dates. What is the rationale for using 2019 and 2021?

Also, we should spell out the meaning of "AI/IP" – most people associate these acronyms primarily with the "Artificial Intelligence/Intellectual Property" debate. Andreas JN466 08:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I think something like this is right, but might need to untangle more as it will be difficult to close. (a) Potential cut-offs are current editor (2021+), new ownership (2020+), period of Corbyn leadership, the topic of all of the IPSO complaints (2015-20), previous + current editor (2008+). (b) some people !voting for 2019+ might want to be more specific than the very broad AI/IP. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:04, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

I only abbreviated as I had already mentioned the full descriptions in my comment already, these shouldn't be taken as final wording. The dates are also should be considered set, especially the 2019 date could be set earlier early. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

According to the column in the Independent, Sir Robbie Gibb, who says that he owns the Jewish Chronicle, has been appointed by the BBC to investigate its coverage of Gaza. By focusing on the Chronicle, we are missing the big picture. How reliable is mainstream Western media in reporting on political topics?

In fact mainstream media's reporting is often misleading and deliberately inaccurate. The problem is that it is the most accurate source we have. If we ban them, then we would not be able to cover current events. Meanwhile, singling out a small newspaper that does nothing to improve articles' accuracy.

Perhaps our time would be better spent discussing how to deal with misinformation in mainstream publications. TFD (talk) 12:06, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Our standard for a RS is whether or not it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy (especailly in terms of its reputation among the highest-quality sources.) RS doesn't mean that everything a source says is perfect, or free of bias, or anything like that; it just means that they have a good reputation overall. WP:NOTTRUTH applies here. If all of mainstream coverage has issues, we do have a few options (mostly relying on even higher-quality sources, when they appear, for WP:EXCEPTIONAL / WP:BLP-sensitive things), but ultimately we're an encyclopedia. Our job is to summarize, not report. Deciding that everything that is published is misinformation and trying to correct it is outside our scope. (And what would we even replace it with?) --Aquillion (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

But yet Al Jazeera is ok when it's clearly not a reliable source. It's just the pro-Israel sources that are a problem - right? MaskedSinger (talk) 10:53, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

What has this to do with the reliability of JC? Please stay on topic. Selfstudier (talk) 10:59, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Speaking of al Jazeera, one of its investigative journalists wrote an article accusing Western media of having"repeatedly published unsubstantiated claims, told one side of the story and glossed over violence selectively," in order to justify violations of international law.[42] My point is that no evidence has been shown that the Jewish Chronicle is an outlier. TFD (talk) 12:22, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

What you just linked is an opinion piece, not a news article. Also, AJ's owners are publicly known. They have not been found to publish fabricated stories. They have not been found to hire freelance journalists using pseudonyms. They did not have their prominent columnists resign because of any editorial disagreement. Let's stay on topic and avoid false equivalencies. This scandal obviously makes the Jewish Chronicle an outlier. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:56, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

It appears they might have [43]. Note I just found this via a web search so I don't know how valid it is. I do know that AJ has a reputation for bias in this area and there have been accusations that some of their reporters are actively involved with the anti Israel groups. Springee (talk) 13:50, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

AJ is green per recent RFC and this discussion is about the JC. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

• Reliability is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; that is, we survey what high-quality secondary sources say about it and determine its reputation from that. This means that we shouldn't update a source's reliability based on one event unless coverage is such that it makes it obvious that their overall reputation has been impacted. When it come to Al Jazeera, though, most sources treat them as fairly reliable. --Aquillion (talk) 13:48, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  Guardian today Altogether, we definitely have enough here to go with an RFC, it's not based on one event , it's a pattern over time since 2021. The only RFC for this publication was an initially sock infested affair, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 361#Jewish Chronicle, that had to have its close rewritten as a result (December 2021). Selfstudier (talk) 14:25, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  Key passage: “The Chronicle has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion being ‘pro-Israel’. Nine times out of 10, this is a version of Israel that resonates with the Israeli right.” In the fallout from the affair, the dearth of any meaningful answers from Wallis Simons and other senior editorial figures at the Jewish Chronicle has highlighted other transparency issues around the publication, including who actually owns it, a fact referred to by several of the columnists who resigned last week, who insisted there could be no accountability without clarity around ownership. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:34, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  The coverage of the present scandal is awash with references to things having been out of kilter at the JC for some time.

  • The writers who have resigned have referenced their longstanding unease about the Jewish Chronicle's unknown ownership.
  • Complaints related to this have been ongoing for some considerable time. (Yesterday the Jewish News chimed in on the importance of transparent ownership.)
  • The British writers who resigned have made clear that there have been problems with politicisation trumping journalistic standards for years; what happened now was merely the straw that broke the camel's back – Jay Rayner said he had watched "with dismay the collapse in integrity and standards of the Jewish Chronicle" which had been "a disaster for the Jewish community" (see Jerusalem Post).
  • David Aaronovitch is quoted by Tortoise Media as saying about Jake Wallis Simons, the Jewish Chronicle's current editor: “He’s a very pleasant man to talk to, very nice… it took me a little bit of time to realise that Jake, I think, is really very, very much more right wing than anybody else I’ve ever worked for really.”

  We have

  • The Telegraph saying the paper has "lost credibility",
  • The Guardian saying "What has shocked close observers is how little curiosity and due diligence the Jewish Chronicle applied to Perry, a writer who “appeared out of nowhere” – and who most staff had never encountered – with a series of extraordinary “intelligence scoops” despite having no visible track record in journalism", and
  • Haaretz publishing an opinion that "The venerable British Jewish paper has increasingly abandoned journalistic integrity in order to champion causes widely associated with the Israeli right".

  I don't know how many more flashing lights and beeping alarms we should be waiting for.

  • Unknown owners – check
  • Longstanding IPSO problems, exceeding those of the Daily Mail – check
  • Plethora of complaints from Jewish/Israeli journalists, published across a wide spectrum of mainstream publications, about loss of integritry and collapse of editorial standards at the Jewish Chronicle – check
  • Recent history of wild fabrications serving ultra-right-wing government – check

  This is plainly incompatible with "green" status at WP:RSP – and plenty enough for an RfC now. Andreas JN466 15:40, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  I initially pushed back on this for that reason, but there are many secondary sources now covering the issues and those articles aren't just limited to this one event but a express concerns with a declining standard at the paper. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

These attempts to find loopholes isn't a good look. First there's an attempt to find a cut off date. However, the Byline times provide a useful timeline

• 2018-2019: IPSO finds that the Jewish Chronicle has breached its code 15 times.
• End of 2019: IPSO’s complaints panel reports the publication to IPSO’s standards department.
• 2020-mid-2021: IPSO finds 18 more breaches.
• Mid-2021: The first letter is sent demanding a formal standards investigation. This is rejected (after a five months’ delay).
• 2021- 2023: The Jewish Chronicle is found by IPSO to have committed eight more breaches.
• April 2023: The IPSO complaints panel again refers it to the standards department for unacceptable conduct.
• July 2023: A second letter is sent demanding a standards investigation – but it is brushed off after two months.

Then there's an excuse of low sales, but high numbers of complaints from low sales is worse not better because fewer people have read it to complain. Despite the reporting topic being emotive, antisemitism and Israel aren't the main contentious topics for British newspapers. Immigration, the economy and domestic political corruption are of far more interest to the average British reader and are more likely to generate complaints. The bottom line is that the JC keep making the most blatant mistakes, so they keep getting caught out. This industry is something of a revolving door. This makes the IPSO a very weak regulator and reluctant to criticise their own. They reject 99% of complaints on average. Andromedean (talk) 16:17, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

• I would argue we wait to see the results of the internal investigation and the actions taken thereafter before we re-assess the JC as a source. Talks of deprecation are way to extreme, in the worst case it should surely be reducing the level of reliability we place on the JC either in regards to I-P, or after a set temporal point, if the community deems such action necessary. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:09, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  Waiting of an internal investigation into this latest issue isn't going to change anything. It will however allow editors to continue using the JC as a credible source for an indefinite time. Andromedean (talk) 20:38, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  @Cdjp1 I am a little surprised to see you say this – it appears you have not been paying attention. The internal investigation is over. It took one day. It ended last Friday, a week ago. This was its finding, in full:

  Conclusion of Jewish Chronicle investigation into Elon Perry

  We were not satisfied with some of his claims

  The Jewish Chronicle has concluded a thorough investigation into freelance journalist Elon Perry, which commenced after allegations were made about aspects of his record. While we understand he did serve in the Israel Defense Forces, we were not satisfied with some of his claims. We have therefore removed his stories from our website and ended any association with Mr Perry.

  The Jewish Chronicle maintains the highest journalistic standards in a highly contested information landscape and we deeply regret the chain of events that led to this point. We apologise to our loyal readers and have reviewed our internal processes so that this will not be repeated.

  End of quote

  That's it. Andreas JN466 20:55, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  I only came across this discussion today, and worked of what others were saying which seemed to indicate that we did not have a close yet. So, as that is closed, the remainder of my previous comment outlines my position here. Deprecation of the JC in totality is way beyond what should be considered, but looking toward a GUNREL for either articles related to I-P, or more harshly, since the shift under Simons, is my suggestion. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:12, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

  Sounds good. (I don't think anyone was arguing for deprecation for all topics.) Andreas JN466 21:16, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, having watched it unfold, I honestly don’t think there have been many issues more emotive and generating of rage than the antisemitism allegations in Corbyn’s Labour. The trans debate is the only one I can think of. Cathcart and Hacked Off have been actively campaigning against IPSO, and groups such as Jewish Voice for Labour/Labour Against The Witch-hunt (which most of the complainants were involved in) has been actively campaigning against the JC. This generated a disproportionate amount of complaints.

Once again, I urge editors to look at these breaches themselves. A couple are serious, but many are quite trivial and we’re easily remedied.

I totally agree green status is unsustainable for the recent period, but overly sweeping general unreliability even for specific topics going back to 2018 would be too broad brush.

I guess we need some RfC wording that gives smart enough options to generate the right sanction. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:55, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: building on your comment, do you think the Jewish Chronicle has been reliable in its coverage of Jeremy Corbyn between 2014 to today? The article Antisemitism in the British Labour Party strongly suggests that the Jewish Chronicle was an involved party in the dispute. Onceinawhile (talk) 12:12, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

There’d need to be evidence it’s not reliable for that topic. Possibly it was an involved party, but so are basically all the sources we use in that article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:18, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I was asking for your feeling, since you said you watched it unfold. Onceinawhile (talk) 16:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Personally, I am warming to the options proposed by User:ActivelyDisinterested in this post above. So this would read something like:

Which of the following best describes the reliability of The Jewish Chronicle on the topics of antisemitism, islamophobia, and the Arab-Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict?

Option 1: Reliable

Option 2: Generally unreliable since 2019 for antisemitism, islamophobia, and the Arab–Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict

Option 3: Generally unreliable since 2021 for the Arab–Israeli/Israel–Palestine conflict

References:

• How the Elon Perry fabrication scandal shook the Jewish Chronicle, The Guardian, 20 September 2024
• Opinion | Jewish Chronicle Scandal: When 'pro-Israel' Means Becoming a Megaphone for the Netanyahu Government, Haaretz, 18 September 2024
• The ‘fabrications’ and resignations that plunged The Jewish Chronicle into crisis, The Telegraph, 16 September 2024
• 'Great disgrace': High-profile British-Jewish journalists resign JC over scandal, The Jerusalem Post, 16 September 2024
• History of IPSO rulings against The Jewish Chronicle: The Jewish Chronicle, thejc.com

2019 marks the beginning of a string of IPSO rulings against the paper; 2021 marks the beginning of Jake Wallis Simons' editorship following the paper's 2020 acquisition by new, unknown owners.

Thoughts? Bobfrombrockley, would you like to add an additional, milder option? Andreas JN466 12:31, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I would argue (a) for something like “use with caution and attribution for BLP-related content to do with the British left since 2018”, and (b) that AI and IP should be and/or rather than just and for 2018+, as some might consider it unreliable for one but not the other. I also think that if we go to any version of gunrel for IP we’ll need to be explicit about exceptions for authoritative contributors (eg the RSs reporting on Anshel Pfeiffer and Colin Shindler departing call them things like “respected”).

Finally, if we go to an RfC we might need agreement beforehand whether it’s covered by ARBIA and thus !voting is restricted, as there was no agreement on this in 2021. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:27, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I added partial Arbpia talk and edit notices to JC page for the relevant parts and I guess the RFC is obviously covered for the question about AI/IP conflict, I guess we will just have to suffer the socks regarding the rest. Selfstudier (talk) 16:47, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Contentious topics are by definition broadly construed so any RFC about the reliability of a source in the IP area would fall under Arbpia. Maybe the RFC could be split in half. The first RFC would be something like 'is JC reliable for the British Left post 2017/2018', and the second about IP post 2021. That way only the second one would be under Arbpia restrictions. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:10, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm having second thoughts on if this can be split. The previous close was in regard to British left, Muslims, Islam and Palestine/Palestinians, the details of British left politics are deeply intertwined with the other subjects. I was hoping that by having specific RFC options a difficult to close free for all could be avoided, but I don't know that clear options are available . -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Corbyn's saga was indeed intertwined with ARBPIA, as already fairly obvious at the time from many of the attack lines. And the JC was intertwined with the Corbyn saga, so intertwined. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:42, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Would option 2 include IPSO rulings made in 2019 and later, on articles published in the JC before 2019? In addition, my position is that the IPSO is a paper tiger, and rulings in favour of the JC don't necessarily absolve them. There is also sufficient concern of the number of complaints and forced alterations made prior to 2019 before the IPSO got involved. A more suitable start date should be the 2017 GE, because the sensational and inaccurate reporting on antisemitism (IMO) mainly started to erupt from that time, not because there was increased antisemitism, but that there was a realistic chance of a Labour government sympathetic to Palestinian rights. Andromedean (talk) 16:44, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

To be fair, most of the UK media was on board that wagon even if the JC was pushing it more than most. That timeframe would also have been included in the previous RFC so I don't think we need go there again at this point, for me the issues are since 2021. Selfstudier (talk) 17:19, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

The choices must have a middle ground option. Many editors have made, in effect, caution/considerations apply comments. Presenting only "all good", "bad for X" or "bad for X and Y" is putting a thumb on the scale via a non-neutral question. Any RfC that doesn't offer a reasonable middle ground option is basically invalid. Really, it would be better if we have some examples of improper use on Wikipedia before we play the strategic game of branding yet another source as not OK according to Wikipedia. Springee (talk) 17:28, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

If you mean like the usual Option 2, I don't see why not, altho I don't really see why we need Option 1 except for antisemitism, since they were Option 2 already for the other issues since the last RFC and matters have evidently not improved since then for these issues. Selfstudier (talk) 17:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

How are multiple options usually assessed in a RFC, by a simple majority rule? What happens if the sum of two of the unreliable options outnumber the reliable one, or vice versa (2 reliable 1 unreliable). We have to be careful not to game the RFC to arrive at the decision we would like.:::::Andromedean (talk) 19:26, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It's WP:NOTAVOTE, or it is in effect if all the !voters argue well wrt WP:PAG, which is not alaways the case. I think we can do the usual RFC format and ask editors to comment specifically about the troublesome issues in addition? Then leave it to the closer to figure it out as usual. Selfstudier (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Surely we will end up with some version of option 2: nobody has suggested it's been unreliable since 1840, and there's clear consensus (I think) that the recent issues make green status untenable. So maybe we need to identify some possible specific additional considerations, unless we just let people articulate what they think and let the closer sort it out. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:41, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

We've been trying to do that and getting nowhere, so might as well just go with the standard RFC unless there is an alternate workable suggestion. Selfstudier (talk) 22:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I worry when there's no objective criteria. The number of complaints, breaches, court cases etc should have been terminal last time. Yet the JC is still shrouded in Green and deemed reliable with a note of 'no consensus' tagged on for issues relating to the Left, Palestine & Muslims. What about non-left politics and the Middle East generally and how often is the JC referenced in Wikipedia on other issues? Do Left wing publications have the benefit of editors picking out issues and periods which (may be) reliable, then tagging on the contentious part? Consider the Canary for example. Perhaps it's in a similar position to the JC in that it is regulated (by the tougher Impress in this case) and reports on enough contentious subjects to receive more upheld complaints than its peers over year 21/22 (3 in total). Yet Wikipedia classes it unreliable and biased in no uncertain terms. BTW Where is there any mention of bias for the JCs assessment?Andromedean (talk) 08:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

There is surely no question at this point that it should not be GREL/green past the 2019/20/21 point. The question is where it falls on the spectrum below that (additional considerations apply or other), for what/which subjects, and if the additional considerations point begins prior to 2019 or not. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:22, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't currently address concerns about pre-existing patterns/complaints (which seem to be the substance of many people's contributions), but it doesn't appear to me that the very recent events are evidence of unreliability. This isn't the only publication that has been taken in by a rogue freelancer, and this seems equivalent in facts and in response (thus far, the responses may diverge in future) to a situation faced by the Guardian. I'm sure other examples of RS being taken in by fabricators can be found. Samuelshraga (talk) 12:47, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

It isn't about solely recent events, but instead about the culmination of years of editorial failings – described as "off the scale" for their frequency (for a small weekly publication).[44] Iskandar323 (talk) 13:52, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Note that an RfC has now been started below, in a separate section: #RFC Jewish Chronicle. --Andreas JN466 14:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

www.phoronix.com

I would like to suggest the addition of www.phoronix.com as an unreliable source

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 281#Phoronix

Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 440#cppreference.com Wiktorpyk (talk) 11:24, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there a particular reason or dispute? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:35, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Mainly just got pissed when I saw wrong info on an article that was quoting an article on that website that was wronng to be honest and I also got comfirmation from a GNOME developer that the source is not reliable. I have provided two disputes confirming that too. Wiktorpyk (talk) 21:19, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide the specific article (the WP article and the citation in question)? Phoronix newsblog posts are not generally a RS per existing guidelines, but I don't think anyone has posted an example of it being factually incorrect yet.

The guidelines are clear enough to disqualify it as an RS at a glance, and I don't think anyone would argue otherwise. I dunno if AWB scripts can just put bsn tags on it if bot editors won't otherwise bother to check for the original source material of the blog, though, given that's what it's being generally cited for. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:01, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Adwaita_%28design_language%29&diff=1245507291&oldid=1232781085 Wiktorpyk (talk) 10:46, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll add that Libadwaita was meant to be released in 41 but it was delayed to 42. Wiktorpyk (talk) 10:49, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

For this particular claim, the easiest policy-compliant solution is to use "Heaps of tweaks and improvements incoming with GNOME 42" by The Register (RSP entry), which I have just added to the article in Special:Diff/1245895832. — Newslinger talk 19:19, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe that recognized subject matter experts can be counted as reliable sources, and that includes blogs that are widely used as reliable in reliable sources. It is wide ranging but not always accurate but I think acceptable for what it does. Any expert will find holes in practically every article anywhere on what they're an expert on! NadVolum (talk) 23:03, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

• Is Phoronix any more reliable than any other blog? No, not really. It's a blog, just a technical blog, essentially WP:SELFPUB. It doesn't have any kind public editorial standards or fact-checking board. The reason why WP:NEWSORGs are presumed reliable is that they have some kind of oversight. That being said, is anyone actually citing Phoronix and what articles? I mean, they are, because I just checked and people are citing it a lot for open source press releases, of exactly the kind that this user is bringing up. However, I think we need more than one example of a problem before we can downgrade the source, and it needs to be documented in writing in some amount of rigor. Andre🚐 09:58, 15 September 2024 (UTC)
• Self-published. Phoronix is a blog solely authored by Michael Larabel, the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite. While I have a favorable impression of Phoronix's content quality and consider Larabel a Linux expert, he does not meet the subject-matter expert criterion in WP:SPS: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications." A web search shows that Larabel only publishes articles on Phoronix, which makes Phoronix generally unreliable as a self-published blog that does not qualify for the subject-matter expert exception. — Newslinger talk 18:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed. Andre🚐 21:05, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Yep a self published source without the requirements in WP:SPS. If it's being used for press releases they can be found elsewhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:13, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• I've removed "RFC on" from the section title, as this request is not a formal request for comment. — Newslinger talk 18:51, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

• It is just a blog, we shouldn't consider it reliable. But that doesn't mean it is unreliable. I suppose it depends the claim and article it is used on. I know nothing about SW, so take my comments with a grain of salt please. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 04:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

@Newslinger and Andrevan: Phoronix is regularly cited by The Register[45] and Ars Technica[46]---both of which are WP:GREL. The intent of the WP:EXPERTSPS policy is that "expertise" must be evaluated by reliable sources, not by individual editors, and I believe when reliable sources base their reporting on a Phoronix post, that means Larabel is considered an expert by them.

Treating Phoronix as an WP:EXPERTSPS means we can easily remove the source when its claims are disputed by the subject while still using the source to fill in the details. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:56, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that is a good argument, but it doesn't exactly fall into the letter of the existing SPS policy exception as Newslinger notes. Andre🚐 21:53, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Being cited by other reliable sources for factual claims is one indicator that a source is reliable (per the WP:UBO guideline), but it does not override the expectation that reliable sources should have editorial oversight. The WP:QS policy states that sources with "no editorial oversight", which include Phoronix, are generally considered questionable. If Larabel starts publishing articles in reliable sources independent of Phoronix, he would begin to qualify for the WP:EXPERTSPS exception and I would support treating Phoronix as a marginally reliable source along the lines of Stephen Barrett's articles on Quackwatch (RSP entry) and Anthony Fantano's reviews for The Needle Drop (RSP entry). However, because Larabel doesn't yet qualify for the exception as it is written in policy, I can't support this reassessment at this time. — Newslinger talk 01:02, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

WP:Ignore all rules is also a policy exemption. Phoronix has caused very little problems as a source. It generally reports the truth. The source is regarded as reliable by other sources. In fact, those sources base entire articles on what Larabel wrote.

Does a literal reading of the policy benefit the encyclopedia here? Treating Phoronix as a marginally reliable source would address the issues brought up the original poster of this thread. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 15:58, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Hey I gotta point out that in the diff you provided (and the fact correction you explain), phoronix was not actually incorrect. It is the WP article's fault for misrepresenting and misusing the source. Note the phoronix blog post is March 2021, discussing a feature added in 41 for its planned autumn release. I'd say this is completely expected to post a feature update on a planned release, and two seasons beforehand, to not yet raise a fuss that it cannot release on schedule (not sure when the blog may have started doing that, but it's irrelevant). The Wikipedia article meanwhile took a blog talking about a planned release date, and used it as a source to verify the actual now-past released date. That's the WP editor's fault, not phoronix's.

So the question remains whether phoronix has been factually inaccurate or sloppy, as you claim. I agree it's not a good source by any means, but for straightforward verifiable facts on niche topics we often do tolerate those SPS blogs that the greater reporting community has accepted (per wp:usebyothers RS noted above). SamuelRiv (talk) 16:42, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of Source

Hi I made an edit recently using this source and just wanted to check whether The Indo Canadian Voicehttps://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/MinorityMedia/items/show/1037 can be considered as a reliable source under Wikipedia rules. Thank you ! - Also just to note they also have a weekly physical print that goes out to the local south asian community in Vancouver,

"In September 2024, Satish Kumar, President of the Vedic Hindu Cultural Society in Surrey, British Columbia apologized to the Sikh community after a letter he wrote to the Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre objecting to the visit of Canadian Sikh MP's to the temple. " Jattlife121 (talk) 02:09, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

References

It doesn't have a fact-checking or editorial policy; circulates for free in random stores; calls itself "award-winning" in its logo but doesn't say what award it won anywhere on its website (and I couldn't find anything via Google); and publishes stories about people getting internships. I would say this is probably not reliable. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:48, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Is the story about getting an internship misleading or factually incorrect? Is a free-circulation newspaper suddenly a marker of unreliability (even though it's a sustainable business model for metro newspapers across the world, including very reliable and prestigious ones)? What is a "random store"? These are sloppy judgements.

Now, there are plenty of reasons for why it is not to be considered a quality print publication -- even with print circulation and a named staff, it does not have named writers or bylines, and it has sloppy photo citations. There is an advertising policy but not an editorial policy in its print edition. I'm generally flexible on shoddy subpar publications when it comes to hyperlocal news, but this is Vancouver -- there should be no shortage of better material to cite -- you should even be able to local newsblogs with explicit bylines and editorial policy.

Of course, in this case, OP is not using this for hyperlocal news, but provincial news plus an MP, so there's really no reason to use a subpar hyperlocal source on here period when you should find ample coverage elsewhere. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:19, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Yes the story is quite new and developing. I am sure in the coming days, further reliable sources will be reporting on the events. Jattlife121 (talk) 13:29, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

https://www.sikhpa.com/canadian-hindu-org-call-sikh-mps-ideological-opposed-persons-in-leaked-letter/ @SamuelRiv Would this also be considered as such ? Jattlife121 (talk) 15:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes we definitely need a RFC, but what happened to the last RFC, and how did it get a reliable rating? I vaguely recall an inconsistency between the balance of views and final decision, yet I can no longer find it. Andromedean (talk) 17:38, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't need an RFC and doesn't appear to have had one before. In general reliability is handled by policies and guidelines, so most sources have never been discussed let alone had RFCs. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Could you further expand on this in simple terms per my question. Would be kindly appreciated. Jattlife121 (talk) 23:45, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

This is in reply to Andromedean question, rather than the source in general. It didn't get a reliable rating, as that's not how it generally works. Editors are expected to use their own good judgement on whether a source is reliable (based on policy). Discussions like this, and RFCs, only happen if there is disagreement about a source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:32, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Daily Mail comparison

Several places have framed the deprecation of the Daily Mail as political, comparing it to Fox News or the Telegram.[47][48][49][50] I want to offer an analysis of an apolitical article for future editors to reference. The chart below compares a 2019 Daily Mail article to the WP:RS cited in the Wikipedia article on Rodney, Mississippi, a rural ghost town.

WP:RS	The Daily Mail
The town is in the Mississippi Delta region of northwest Mississippi.	The town is in the "Mississippi River Delta" (which is in another state and 200 miles away).
Economically dependent on river traffic, Rodney, Mississippi, gradually declined when the Mississippi River shifted several miles away from the town.	The town was "ruined by the American Civil War", framing it as the singular result of Union cannon fire.
The river began to change course when a sandbar formed around the time of the American Civil War.	The river changed course after the Civil War "because of the huge reconstruction" of damaged buildings and the construction of a bridge "crossing the Mississippi River".
The town's decline was exacerbated when the railroad bypassed it to run through Fayette, Mississippi.	After the Civil War, the town underwent "a rebuild and it was decided that a railroad would be constructed" across the river.
Construction begun on Rodney Presbyterian Church in 1829 and Mt. Zion Baptist Church in 1851.	The Presbyterian Church and Mt. Zion were built "after 1763 when the town was inhabited by the French" (about one hundred years too early).
The Presbyterian Church was began by the residents who also initiated the founding of Oakland College.	The church was "constructed by the Native Americans before" the French arrived.
Alston is a former grocery store.	Alston Grocery (shown in a photograph) is described as "a rusted lonely red cabin that survived" bombardment during the Civil War.

There are smaller errors, but those are the major ones. Thanks, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 03:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see why we would even bother giving these random opinion pieces the time of day to be honest. If they don't consider fabricating their own front pages (among other things) a dealbreaker that really says more about them than it does about us. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:55, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I will admo

Are you really expecting encyclopaedia type information about a deserted town in America from a popular British newspaper? Something of very marginal interest but fills a few column inches to keep its readers occupied for a couple of minutes? How many readers in America know or care where whole countries like Austria are? It is not where somebody writing about the town would expect to get reliable information from any more than they'd expect to get something reliable about Tyneham in the Los Angeles Times. NadVolum (talk) 08:16, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

These seem to be omissions, not errors, your point is? Slatersteven (talk) 12:24, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

But (and lol) how is saying that the town is in a location ("in another State") not incorrect? Slatersteven (talk) 12:27, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I had a much longer reply, but I scrapped it. Going over all the issues raised in prior discussions isn't really going to be helpful. The depreciation of the source isn't political but these are poor examples of the reasons why. The issue isn't their bias or minor mistakes, they are not trusted as a publisher. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:51, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I will admit maybe I was confused, is this arguing that they are generally reliable or generally unreliable? Slatersteven (talk) 13:07, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Slatersteven: Generally unreliable. No change from the current situation, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 13:36, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Then what is the point of this? Slatersteven (talk) 13:37, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

"an analysis of an apolitical article for future editors to reference" Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 13:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Good work... but it might serve us better in the long term as an essay easily pointed to than somethingin the archives of this page. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 04:15, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

I doesn't seem a very convincing case to me. How does this show it is unreliable for the sorts of things one might hope it would be reliable for? NadVolum (talk) 08:25, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Every major detail in the article is wrong and often in implausible ways. Some errors may be mistakes, but many seem like outright fabrication. This red-brick, protestant church in no way resembles Native American religious sites in the area (like Poverty Point). The railroad crossing is fictitious, and not chronologically plausible. Rjjiii (ii) (talk) 13:43, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

So what? Nobody in their right mind would expect a non-american newspaper to give authorative information about that. NadVolum (talk) 14:42, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

A publication as large as The Mail can afford a full-time US correspondent, never mind just to fly out a reporter for a day or two, or to hire a freelancer, or even simply to telephone the local newspaper office or local historical society. Not saying this is a reason for deprecation, just that this many basic factual errors in a single article is not a trivial thing. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:12, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

• While I have no particular problem with the continued deprecation of the Daily Mail, I don't feel this adds anything to the case. It's inaccurate, but we shouldn't really expect accurate geographical/historical information about minor settlements in the USA. I am willing to lay odds we can find stories as bad in reliable sources on either side of the Atlantic.Boynamedsue (talk) 17:47, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

hill-bagging.co.uk

A new user is using hill-bagging.co.uk to change the heights and relative heights of hills and mountains in Wales by asserting that the information used in this web-site is more accurate than Ordnance survey and is acknowledged as being more accurate than Ordnance Survey. I can find no evidence of that assertion in any reliable source. (see here, here and here and many many more.) Even if it were the case, it is my understanding that the Ordnance Survey data is accepted as the best generally available data for geographic information in the UK and that the data collected by enthusiasts with modern GPS equipment doesn't trump that for Wikipedia as is is not peer reviewed or accepted by any reputable body. My view is that this source is intriniscally unreliable and is not an acceptable source for Wikipedia articles.  Velella  ^{Velella Talk}   22:38, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It seems there may be something to the idea that OS isn’t infallible: [51], [52]. Unfortunately these seem to be WP:SPSes published by enthusiasts. I don’t necessarily disbelieve them; rather it may be a case of WP:VNT. In [53] we read: … a team of independent surveyors who have been responsible for the revision of several summit heights on OS maps, which makes it sound like the enthusiasts may have a means of requesting that OS data be updated. In my view, we should let the OS do the job of evaluating the claims of the enthusiasts. Once OS see fit to update their data, we can update our articles. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 13:19, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

If it's acknowledged as more reliable by other reliable sources, the it shouldn't be difficult to show that. But unless that can be shown the OS should be preferred. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Southern Illinois Now & Channel New Asia

In the Wikipedia article, 2024 Kolkata rape and murder incident, the name of the victim is being cited to Southern Illinois Now and Channel New Asia.

Most major news sources do not mention the name, see

• User:Fowler&fowler/Sources_that_do_not_mention_the_victim's_name_in_the_Kolkata_rape_and_murder_August_2024

Are the two sources reliable and can they be used to determine due weight in the literature on an equal footing with the vast majority of sources that do not mention the name. See also Talk:2024_Kolkata_rape_and_murder_incident#RfC:_Name_of_victim Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:18, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

These are likely reliable, but if something is due for inclusion is a NPOV issue not one of reliability. That something can be verified doesn't mean it must be included, rather if something is included it must be verifiable. I would suggest anyone interested in the question should comment in the RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:48, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Police Website Media Release as a Source

Hi, I've had an individual remove a paragraph from a Wikipedia page suggesting that https://www.peterboroughpolice.com/en/news/media-release-for-thursday-july-25-2024.aspx per the paragraph is not allowed as a reliable source. I believe this source I have used reliable as it's literally the law enforcement of Peterborough, Ontario putting this out.

"Assault Suspects Sought

Peterborough Police are investigating after an incident early Thursday morning.

At approximately 12:16am on July 25, 2024, officers were called to the Hunter Street East and Mark Street area about a disturbance.  Upon arrival, officers learned that a man had been walking home when he passed a group of four young people.  As he passed them, one spat at him and then when he confronted them another knocked his turban off his head and stepped on it.  Another male tried to intervene and both men were struck in the head with pop cans.  The initial victim was treated at the scene by EMS.

It’s also believed the group of young people is connected to the theft of soft drinks reported at a nearby convenience store (Hunter Street East and Burnham Street) about 11:50pm on Wednesday, July 24, 2024.

The suspects are described as four males wearing dark clothing.

This incident is being classified as a hate crime.

Anyone with information is asked to call Peterborough Police at 705-876-1122 x555 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or online at www.stopcrimehere.ca"

Jattlife121 (talk) 19:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news/crime/police-investigating-alleged-hate-crime-in-east-city/article_a16db3cf-13cc-5862-b347-5a1327c388c3.html - There is also this noting the stress on "hate crime" Jattlife121 (talk) 20:55, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there a context for where it's being used? It may not be usable for BLP details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:50, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

No its based on an article for Anti-Sikh sentiment in Canada regarding a hate crime. However there are 3 sources for this. https://w.wiki/BEXz

https://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/news/crime/police-investigating-alleged-hate-crime-in-east-city/article_a16db3cf-13cc-5862-b347-5a1327c388c3.html (this is the newspaper for Peterborough, Ontario)

https://www.peterboroughpolice.com/en/news/media-release-for-thursday-july-25-2024.aspx (this is the official police department for Peterborough)

https://pressprogress.ca/canadas-far-right-is-targeting-south-asian-and-sikh-canadians-to-incite-anti-immigrant-hate/ (This is another media company also reporting on this) Jattlife121 (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Surely this is more than enough to be used a source per a paragraph stating the details of events that took place specifically as police have stated themselves they have "classified this as a hate crime" Jattlife121 (talk) 18:22, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Although the article isn't a BLP, the details about living people in the artcile are still covered by BLP policy. Per WP:BLPPRIMARY you should use secondary sources rather than the police report. Also unless the names of the individuals involved have been widely reported they should be left out (WP:BLPNAME). The secondary sources appear reliable for any details they have reported. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:02, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks got it. I have used the news articles instead now, much appreciated. Jattlife121 (talk) 17:26, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

RFCBEFORE about revising RSPCRITERIA

Input welcome at WT:RSP § It's RFC time, an WP:RFCBEFORE about revising WP:RSPCRITERIA. Thanks, Levivich (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Clinical perspective on stress, cortisol and adrenal fatigue

Before anyone tells me to just post this to WP:MED, I already did and didn't get much feedback.

For some background I'm looking to improve the page Adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue is a pseudoscientific diagnosis which already makes this a tricky topic. In case you're unfamilliar Adrenal fatigue is the proposed concept that after periods of chronic stress the adrenal glands get tired and don't produce cortisol (super important hormone) correctly. There is many high qaulity studies debunking it. The current article doesn't talk about the symptoms associated with Adrenal fatigue. I don't feel like the approach of "Adrenal fatigue isn't real so it has no symptoms" is very helpful. Ideally I would like to write about the symptoms that have been associated with adrenal fatigue but of course continue to maintain that it has no scientific basis.

The issue that I've come to is that the high qaulity studies debunking Adrenal fatigue don't go into much detail about this sort of thing. They mention vague symptoms but not in detail. I have found a source that does go into details but the issue with this source is that it's written by a chiropracter, James Wilson, and written from the perspective of adrenal fatigue being real. This makes the article unreliable in a lot of ways.

My question is, can I use this as a source in the article with the context that there is no proof the disorder is real? I'm unsure of exactly how I would word this but I was thinking of something along the lines of "Symptoms that have been assocaited with adrenal fatigue include xyz".

Wikipedia article in question: Adrenal fatigue

My sandbox for the article: User:IntentionallyDense/Adrenal fatigue

Research article: Wilson, James L. (2014). "Clinical perspective on stress, cortisol and adrenal fatigue". Advances in Integrative Medicine. 1 (2): 93–96. doi:10.1016/j.aimed.2014.05.002.

Any input is appreciated. IntentionallyDense (talk) 21:37, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if the source can be used in this way, but if it can be I would propose either of the following: "Symptoms that have been claimed to be associated with adrenal fatigue (by those who say it occurs) include xyz." / "Claimed symptoms of the debunked disorder include xyz." --Super Goku V (talk) 00:46, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

This is helpful thank you. I'll see what others have to say but I really like that phrasing. IntentionallyDense (talk) 01:23, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest editing the article using Super Goku V suggestion and see if anyone objects. The issue with pre-approving sources is that anyone objecting won't know to object until you edit, making any pre-approval pointless. This is why the process for consensus forming is starts with 'By editing', if someone objects discuss it with them and use a noticeboard like this if you need further input. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:54, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. I wasn't looking for pre-approval persay I was moreso looking to see if there was any major issues with the approach I am planning on taking. IntentionallyDense (talk) 18:11, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Be bold and if you get reverted discuss the changes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Suitability of Syllabus source

Hi,

I was looking for some feedback about the Reliability of Syllabi as a source for Wikipedia. In particular, there has been an attempt to use this syllabus as a reliable source. The user trying to use the source in question has attempted to use it in the first sentence of the lead, displacing the author's academically published book [54]. The user involved in the dispute has put forward the syllabus to try and substantiate a claim that not all Geji engaged in sex-work, but I don't think the syllabus supports that claim, and the claim is also at odds with the scholar's academic book that says they provide sexual entertainment. The syllabus is from a 2010 course, the book was published in 2018. Likewise, in their 2001 Book, the scholar [55] says musical performance and sexual performance were, in fact, usually the forte of an individual known as a "singing girl" (geji 歌妓, literally "song courtesan) on p.77. My instinct in this case is that the source is unreliable for these purposes and we should favor the academic books, but I wanted to seek outside opinion from more experienced editors. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 22:52, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

In general, I would say that syllabuses, and other similar documents (e.g. lesson plans), are not reliable for anything other than perhaps as primary sources on the content of the course. Certainly, they would not be reliable for definitive statements of fact in the lead section of an article on any other topic.

I note also, and share, the concern about the comparative age of the two sources (syllabus & academic book), and suggest that we should prefer the later, more reliable, source. Also suggest that any article content should cleave strong to the source content; which I am not sure the use of the syllabus at Geji did.

Hope this helps. Rotary Engine ^talk 04:52, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The article is Geji with diff . In future, please provide the actual context for your source in question, including the article and proposed edit.

Also, I do not understand your question. It's either a non-question (yes we don't like syllabi, yes we favor academic sources, obviously), or you actually have a particular piece of content that you are referring to in the massive diff for which these books, and their dates, are important. If the content and the difference between academic dates by the same scholar is that important (which is my impression given the information you gave me) then maybe you should take an honest discussion of scholarly sources back to Talk:Geji. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:26, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Oh, my apologies. I didn't know I should provide a diff to the article when I was asking about whether a source would be reliable or not. In particular in Special:Diff/1246332563 a user inserted the syllabus in the lead of the article. Another editor removed it. The editor who added it had also used it as evidence in a dispute that the article should say not all Geji were sex workers. I wasn't sure what the stance of Wikipedia was on the reliability of a course syllabus as a source and I wanted to check. As for then maybe you should take an honest discussion of scholarly sources back to Talk:Geji that has been tried, and it has been relatively fruitless as the editor has argued immensely when I've told them before that a source wasn't reliable. Likewise, another editor accused me of being racist against Chinese women as part of the content dispute. So, before I went and said "this source isn't reliable", I wanted to make sure that was actually the case. In particular, the editor is taking the fact that the syllabus says appeal lay primarily in their surpassing musical and literary cultivation, not their sexual services as evidence that not all Geji engaged in sexwork, however, the syllabus only says that their sexual services weren't their primary appeal. It doesn't say they didn't provide them. Then when the editor added them to the article, they displaced the 2018 academic book. As I said, I am of the mind that the source shouldn't be used at all given the academic scholarship that exists, but I wanted to see what the opinions of others was since when I searched the archive I did see some folks discussing syllabi as WP:EXPERTSPS. Brocade River Poems (She/They) 08:05, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Given the uses to which I've seen it recently put to use, WP:EXPERTSPS probably wants some serious re-evaluation. I can see a place where we might want to include content sourced to monograms, and similar long form, in-depth, yet unreviewed, content; maybe. But the use of various Tweets, hot takes and, yes, syllabubs, seems somehow entirely misaligned with WP:RS; and with the purpose of creating a free (and not too much inaccurate) Encyclopedia.

Of course, I imagine WP:EXPERTSPS is particularly useful to some editors in some instances; suffice to say the example raised above does not seem to be one where WP:PARITY applies. Rotary Engine ^talk 08:31, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

RS does not imply turning off your brain, and wp:expertsps is explicit in saying this: Exercise caution when using such sources. The policy is fine. If you are having problems conveying to an editor what is WP:DUE and not, what accords to an accurate portrayal of modern historical assessment per WP:HISTRS, then that's outside the scope of this noticeboard. On the article Talk page, you may want to ask 3rd opinions from the wikiprojects WT:JAPAN and/or WT:HISTORY, and perhaps an RfC if there's a suitable question to be resolved. SamuelRiv (talk) 15:25, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it's reliable in this context. This is an opening statement of of the course, which obviously will cover the details in more detail and context. The source is being used to define Geji only as only as performing artists, the source only says that the appeal of Geji wasn't primarily their sexual services not that those services weren't part of what they did. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:13, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

checkyourfact.com being tagged as deprecated (unreliable) source

Hi all!

https://checkyourfact.com is being tagged as a "deprecated (unreliable) source" whenever it is used as a citation. How can this be when it is a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter (which has very stringent requirements for its signatories).

It's being tagged as an unreliable source, when I can't find it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources

Can some people look into this? I think Checkyourfact is a reliable source.

Here's its IFCN review entry: https://ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org/profile/check-your-fact

Thanks!

-Object404 (talk) 22:11, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Hmm... apparently it is affiliated with The Daily Caller. The About -> Staff section shows MEET OUR STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS -> Geoff Ingersoll: Editor-in-Chief, The Daily Caller.

-Object404 (talk) 22:20, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Not just affiliated, per their About us page: Check Your Fact is a for-profit subsidiary wholly owned by The Daily Caller, Inc. The majority owner of The Daily Caller, Inc. is co-founder and publisher Neil Patel. Schazjmd (talk) 22:31, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:NEWSORG, Signals that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy are the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest. Checkyourfacts.com is a fact-checking source, attested to by the IFCN certification. Its Corrections policy is here. It clearly discloses its ownership (potential conflict of interest) on its About us page. Its Methodology is here. Its staff and editorial board is here. Check Your Fact was awarded a grant in June of this year from the Poynter Institute's IFCN. From casual googling it appears to regularly align with fact-checks by USA Today Politifact and Reuters, [56][57][58][59] Predictably, Wikipedians who distrust/dislike The Daily Caller will be skeptical of this source, but can anyone point to an instance of a failed fact check from Checkyourfacts, rather than infer guilt by association? Let's check the facts, and stow our feelings. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:45, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

This article is mostly about the Daily Caller itself, but also discusses a couple of specific fact checks. The issue does not appear to be "failed" fact checks as much as skewed or misleading ones. Sunrise (talk) 05:54, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there potential for bias in fact-checking? Sure! This should be common knowledge, easily understood. There are potential biases in which claims get checked (or ignored), the person getting fact-checked, the persons(s) writing the fact-check, how edge cases are handled ("false" versus "partly false" versus "true, but..."), etc. As psychologists Stephen J. Ceci and Wendy M. Williams wrote in Scientific American: "Research underscores that fact-checkers' personal biases influence both their choice of which statements to analyze and their determination of accuracy." Completely unbiased media simply does not exist, whether it leans left, right, or centrist. But bias does not equate to unreliability. Per WP:BIASED: reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. --Animalparty! (talk) 17:13, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Sure, but those are general statements that don't address the reliability of this specific fact-checker. Simply saying "all sources have bias" doesn't help us in that respect. Sunrise (talk) 07:00, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Heavens forbid a source be associated with the company that publishes that source. I don't believe cleaving any unfavourable context from an evaluation is supported by the reliable sources guideline. Alpha3031 (t • c) 11:52, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Which is apparently the issue based on other discussions: Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources, Talk:Burisma. --Super Goku V (talk) 18:38, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm dubious about using any 'fact checking' site as a source. The articles could as easily be posted as news stories, but being published as 'fact checks' gives them an additional veneer of respectability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:20, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

This seems to come down to how editorially independent CheckYourFact is. Looking at the details in the IFCN assessments[60] it seems clear at least at first they were closely tied to The Daily Caller and not fully independent, but as each yearly assessment goes on they appear to be asserting more independence. For instance in the 2017 assessment CYF says Check Your Fact is managed by The Daily Caller's Editor-in-Chief Geoff Ingersoll, which shows that there was no independent editorial control. By 2024 you can see Decisions about what we fact check and our conclusions for our fact checks are guided solely by Check Your Fact editors and journalists. Check Your Fact exercises editorial independence over the creation of fact check content. and they list a dedicated staff.

So I can certainly understand the opinion that they at least started as nothing more than Daily Caller publishing under a different web address, because that's all they were. How they operate now and how reliable they are is more complicated. It would certainly be helpful to have more articles like the science.org[61], which casts doubt on some of their fact-checking, or other reliable sources citing them in a positive way. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

@Object404: Can a you point to specific articles (preferably with diffs) where checkyourfact is being tagged as an unreliable reference? --Animalparty! (talk) 17:21, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

All fact checks should be treated as a type of opinion, especially the overall rating. While some claims are truly false (the moon landing was a government conspiracy), many are going to fall into a gray zone. A fact check that, like a good lawyer, tries to present the best case for and against the claim could be useful. However, too often fact check sites try to argue to a conclusion rather than for the range of conclusions that could be supported by the facts at hand. For example, a politician says crime went up. Is that true or false? If violent crime went down but property crime went up a good fact check would say both then say this is something in the middle. A bad check would emphasize either the stat that agrees or disagrees then say the check is T/F depending on the bias of the source. Those are the sort of fact checkers we should avoid at least as far as repeating their overall assessments. Springee (talk) 13:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

CBC Radio

I am currently working on a draft and I would like to know if CBC Radio is a reliable source as I was planning to add this article as a reference. Outlined Sandbox 2 (talk) 15:58, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

It should be ok it's certainly better than most sources covering YouTubers, but just out of care as this is a living person what is the context? What content do you want to support with the Tapestry article? Also if you can try to avoid AMP pages, so for this article use this link instead. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:53, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

The draft I am working on is Draft:MrBeast videography. I have found BBC News article for the thing I was looking for a reliable source on now though thank you for answering my question. Outlined Sandbox 2 (talk) 20:40, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

CBC Radio is reliable yes. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:05, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC Jewish Chronicle

The reliability of the Jewish Chronicle is:

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

RFCbefore, Previous RFC Selfstudier (talk) 09:09, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Note (Jewish Chronicle)

Existing RSP entry is green with the following commentary:

"There is consensus that The Jewish Chronicle is generally reliable for news, particularly in its pre-2010 reporting. There is no consensus on whether The Jewish Chronicle is reliable for topics related to the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians; there is also a rough consensus it is biased in these topics. Where used, in-text attribution is recommended for its coverage of these topics."

Editors may wish to comment on these issues specifically. Selfstudier (talk) 09:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Just a reminder but it's not technically possible to deprecate a source for a specific are of content and also a deprecated source is not more unreliable than an unreliable source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:07, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Well, there are clear wording differences between WP:GUNREL and WP:DEPREC, beyond the availability of technical means for the latter. Andreas JN466 12:28, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm just summarising Deprecated sources should not be considered to be either unique or uniquely unreliable. WP:DEPREC itself is a short summary of WP:DEPRECATE, but this is better discuss in the discussion section. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:40, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Background (Jewish Chronicle)

• Mainstream media reports:
  • Alan Rusbridger: Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? Why it's troubling that we don’t know…, Prospect Magazine, 26 April 2024
  • 'Great disgrace': High-profile British-Jewish journalists resign JC over scandal, The Jerusalem Post, 16 September 2024
  • The ‘fabrications’ and resignations that plunged The Jewish Chronicle into crisis, The Telegraph, 16 September 2024
  • Opinion | Jewish Chronicle Scandal: When 'pro-Israel' Means Becoming a Megaphone for the Netanyahu Government, Haaretz, 18 September 2024
  • How the Elon Perry fabrication scandal shook the Jewish Chronicle, The Guardian, 20 September 2024
• History of IPSO rulings against The Jewish Chronicle:
  • The Jewish Chronicle
  • thejc.com --Andreas JN466 11:00, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Survey (Jewish Chronicle)

• Option 2 in general, Option 3 for WP:A/I/PIA area. The recent scandal gives rise to significant doubts over editorial control and practices which taken together with the lack of transparency over ownership and recent checkered history suggests we should not consider this source reliable without inline attribution at a minimum and unreliable for matters relating to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.Selfstudier (talk) 09:31, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 for Muslims, the British left and Israel/Palestine since 2016, option 3 for its entire output since 2020. The JC has had a long history of false reporting on Muslims, the British Left and Israel/Palestine (a complex of topics which frequently intersect). In the post 2010 period the JC frequently libelled individuals and published false information on these topics. Individuals were forced to resort to complaints to IPSO in order to get corrections published. Professor of Journalism Brian Cathcart writes the publication of falsehoods has been a characteristic of the paper’s journalism for years. The paper broke IPSO's code 41 times between 2018 and 2023, an astounding number for a small weekly paper, and paid out in at least four libel cases. All were against Muslims or people on the British left.

IPSO lamented the paper's lack of cooperation with complaints in very strong terms The Committee expressed significant concerns about the newspaper’s handling of this complaint. The newspaper had failed, on a number of occasions, to answer questions put to it by IPSO and it was regrettable the newspaper’s responses had been delayed. The Committee considered that the publication’s conduct during IPSO’s investigation was unacceptable. Given the difficulty of obtaining corrections from the paper in cases where individuals are named, it is likely a large amount of false information has also been published where nobody is named, so the possibility of libel actions is eliminated, and the chance of IPSO cases is significantly reduced.

The 2020 change of ownership, meaning nobody actually knows who owns the paper, combined with the false stories on Gaza, suggest we should not use the paper in any capacity until the question of ownership is clarified.Boynamedsue (talk) 09:52, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 in general, Option 3/4 for WP:A/I/PIA area (Option 4 for WP:A/I/PIA coverage from 2024 going forward, given this year's string of fabrications and widespread concerns about journalistic integrity voiced in both the Israeli and international press). --Andreas JN466 11:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

  Explanation of Option 2 "additional considerations", as requested below:

  The current RSP entry says, There is no consensus on whether The Jewish Chronicle is reliable for topics related to the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians; there is also a rough consensus it is biased in these topics. Where used, in-text attribution is recommended for its coverage of these topics.

  Per Option 2, in-text attribution should in my view not just be recommended but required for any topics that are related to "the British Left, Muslims, Islam, and Palestine/Palestinians" but do not fall under WP:A/I/PIA. This should also apply more generally to assertions and allegations of antisemitism that do not fall under WP:A/I/PIA. Andreas JN466 07:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 4: major scandal for a prominent newspaper which should be immediately deprecated for the following reasons:

1-Unknown owners who are likely right-wing ideologues;

2-Publication of fabricated stories supporting Israeli premier Netanyahu's narratives;

3-Allowance of an unknown freelance journalist who came "out of nowhere" to write these fabricated stories under a pseudonym and with a falsified resume

4-The fired freelance journalist then making death threats to an Israeli reporter due to the revealing of their identity

5-The resignation of the newspaper's most prominent columnists who have also stated that the JC's editorial line had become "sensationalist" and "unbalanced". Makeandtoss (talk) 11:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

These issues all relate to the period from 2020 to now. If it’s technically possible to deprecate for a specific timeframe only, is it right to assume you would argue for deprecating for this period specifically? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:20, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I can continue mentioning how the JC was bought by right-wing owners in 2008 and how the newspaper played a prominent role in slandering pro-Palestinian voices as antisemitic including UK Labor Party former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and how it promoted the new antisemitism concept which included anti-Zionism. Also notable that JC had too many IPO violations since 2018. [62] Makeandtoss (talk) 12:58, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

There was no change of ownership in 2008. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:34, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

My bad, editorship* as mentioned in MEE article. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 pre-2015, Option 2 in general afterwards, Option 3 for WP:A/I/PIA area since 2020. This isn't about the current event, rather the current event appears to be the culmination of issues that have been growing for several years. Multiple external sources have commented on this, as have columnists that have recently ended their association with the paper. Oppose 4 in general. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 pre-2015, option 2 post-2015. It would be insane to deprecate a 183 year old publication, so strongly oppose option 4. I have argued in the talk section above that the IPSO breaches in the 2015-20 period should give rise to caution but not lead to option 3. I would urge those who are swayed by these breaches to read the actual rulings; you will find a couple of serious errors but the majority are fairly trivial and have been more than adequately corrected. I would argue against a generally unreliable status for antisemitism for that period because, prior to Jewish News taking off, the JC was the only UK Jewish paper and therefore the only outlet giving deep coverage to UK antisemitism. Designating it unusable means the whole topic can only be covered in a skewed way. I would therefore urge a formulation such as: “use with caution and attribution” for that topic in that period. Since 2020, the case for General unreliability, especially on Israel/Palestine, is strong, but even here we should explicitly note that there will be exceptions for authoritative contributors such as those who have resigned (eg Anshel Pfeiffer, Colin Shindler). BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 pre-2015, option 2 post-2015 Bobfrombrockley really saved me a lot of typing. I also want to emphasize that we really need to be treating most sources, even our top sources like WSJ, NYT etc as green to yellow anytime we are treading into areas where bias etc could come into play. While fundamental facts (times, dates, etc) typically are objective, even good sources can have some bias in how much emphasis they put into certain aspects of a topic or even that they chose to cover a topic at all. This also applies when we look at how much scrutiny is applied to various sources. Outside of the false reports issue (which is hardly unique to this source) are they under the microscope because they are much different than other sources or because their politics disagree with other sources? As a rule we need to put less stock in "the color of a source" and more thought into what the source is claiming and what evidence they present for the claim. Springee (talk) 13:40, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Objectively speaking, they produce far more false reports than other sources. Including sources we deprecate, like the Daily Mail.Boynamedsue (talk) 13:44, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 pre-2015, Option 2 in general afterwards, Option 3 for WP:A/I/PIA area since 2020 as per ActivelyDisinterested. The Jewish Chronicle has issues stemming from its recent change in ownership, but those issues are much more clearly problematic, and more evidenced in third-party sources, for Israel/Palestine-related issues then issues outside that topic area. Loki (talk) 18:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 pre-2015, Option 2 in general afterwards, Option 3 for WP:A/I/PIA area since 2020 seems they used to do good work tho ive seen the ridiculous scandals in the wake of continuing israel palestine conflict. agree for same reasons as loki, springee, hope the org becomes more transparent soon. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:28, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 in general, Option 3 for muslims and the British left, Option 3/4 for WP:A/I/PIA area - Based on the provided background and latest developments, and considering JC's longstanding IPSO issues, undisclosed ownership that complicates the evaluation of the publication's impartiality, questionable editorial standards, etc etc. I've been following the gargantuan discussion preluding this RfC. These issues are not recent or limited to their latest scandal. - Ïvana (talk) 18:56, 22 September 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 from 2015 onwards. No opinion for 2014 or earlier. In answer to queries about the year: 2015 was the year a general campaign of false allegations of antisemitism was launched against the British left and against Jeremy Corbyn in particular. Daveosaurus (talk) 04:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  What is your source for the JC having "launched" a "general campaign" in 2015? This was not mentioned in the previous discussion. If the JC actually engaged in a campaign at this time, then a secondary source would say so. I do see that a 2015 JC front-page editorial made claims of antisemitism about Corbyn. But an editorial (even an inaccurate one -- it's an editorial!) is not what means when one says a newspaper has a "general campaign of false allegations", which suggests misconduct. SamuelRiv (talk) 04:38, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't the JC in particular it was the British press in general. Restricting the Option 3 to 2015 onwards leaves earlier JC journalism able to be used if people familiar with the history of the paper consider it reliable. Daveosaurus (talk) 05:19, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

To clarify then, Davesaurus, you think the British press in general should be option 3 after 2015? BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (Jewish Chronicle)

• This articlel, from The Guardian, should be relevant. At lot of it seems to be from Elon Perry, whose articles they've recently retracted en masse. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 11:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Comment I am concerned with, as are several of the reports on this, about their vague, inadequate response. The statement they made is more like a cover-up: 'we won't tell you the details, we've 'memory holed' this so it will go away, just trust us.' As I suggested in the prior discussion, we should expect when something like this happens that the outlet 'reports the hell out of it'. We should know from them who and why touched off the investigation, who was involved, what was false, what can't be confirmed, where it leads, what charges that preceded the investigation and arose during it could be validated, denied, or for which there is no evidence, what was their investigation, what didn't they investigate, why, what processes went wrong in their organization, what the fixes are, etc. etc. etc. We should also expect disciplining of the editors involved. - Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:06, 22 September 2024

For reference, this was the statement summarising the investigation, published one day after the announcement that an investigation was underway. --Andreas JN466 11:25, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I should have linked those in my comment for others' sake. That's what my comment refers to as inadequate, to say the least. Instead, they are 'sitting on the story', not reporting perhaps among the most important news, in the outlet's history. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment These additional qualfications add nothing, since they already apply to every other news publication.

For all green-lighted news media, they are considered generally reliable for news and additional considerations apply for all other information they publish. See News organizations: "News reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors). [However] [e]ditorial commentary, analysis and opinion pieces, whether written by the editors of the publication (editorials) or outside authors (invited op-eds and letters to the editor from notable figures) are reliable primary sources for statements attributed to that editor or author, but are rarely reliable for statements of fact."

Also, per Exceptional claims require exceptional sourcing, "Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources."

No one has pointed out how this source has caused damage or even that there has been any discussion in articles about specific claims linked to it.

TFD (talk) 18:52, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Objection: There is no cutoff year offered in the RfC, despite many or most in the prior discussion saying that there was a distinct and recent change in JC's reliability, with several sourced dates offered. So voters have added cutoff dates themselves -- but where on earth did the 2015 cutoff year come from? It's not been mentioned at all in the previous thread in the context of when problematic behavior actually occurred. All I could find is User:Bobfrombrockley's 17 Sept comment comparing the total number of complaints since 2015 for the JC and The Times. They do not say why 2015 is the cutoff -- presumably it is because IPSO began in September 2014, so that's the first year of their reporting. That is not the first year in which problematic behavior was reported by the JC -- as far as I can tell the first year in which secondary sources report problematic behavior, or report that JC internally was concerned about such behavior, was 2019. This is not the same as picking a year arbitrarily and counting the IPSO violations thenceforth -- we are taking a RS article that cites either internal communications about violations, or a particular violation as a bellweather event, for their own judgement that JC has dropped standards after that particular point. No such source has said 2015. SamuelRiv (talk) 00:47, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  I think Option 2 is supposed to cover it case by case after 2015 onwards, especially for non I/P stuff, and Option 3 for PIA after 2020 should be a clear enough point where facts from TJC should not be sourced for I/P issues. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 01:17, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

  As per the discussion above, the 2015 date stems from a time where TJC started to receive a number of IPSO complaints. We are not writing an article here; RS are not specifically needed to make an argument that a source is unreliable for one reason or another. Cortador (talk) 08:13, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

• Comment I think we have a problem here already, because people who are !voting option 2 are often not saying what they mean by it. I would invite them to clarify, or we are giving the closer a bit of a hospital pass. Option 2 covers a lot of ground, my own !vote is effectively option 2 prior to 2020, but the important part is exactly what considerations users think should apply.Boynamedsue (talk) 06:24, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Institute for the Study of War

Institute for the Study of War is described on its own WP page as being an ultra-hawkish neoconservative NGO. It has been used as source by on 2024 Allenby Bridge shooting, in a report that is mostly cited to Israeli military and figures tweets at the end. Tagging @The Mountain of Eden: as the inserter of the material. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:04, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Bias is not unreliability. Is there any evidence of unreliability? In the Institute’s talk page, the nearest claim to that is The Intercept (a biased reliable source) describing it as “of dubious objectivity”. The content is the NYT using it as a source, which is in fact evidence of use by others. I don’t know about its reporting on Israel, but having followed the war in Syria very closely I can confidently say ISW was one of the most reliable sources for facts about that conflict. BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:31, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, uncritically and exclusively reporting on claims propagated by the Israeli military, an institution known for long-term disinformation, makes it pretty unreliable for the Arab-Israeli conflict topic area. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:40, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Can you present some evidence of this? What do RSs say about its reliability? BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:55, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Obviously, an institution directly involved in a war is not a reliable source for information about the war due to conflict of interest concerns. Also, there has been many documented incidents in the past year about Israeli disinformation and misinformation, including the decapitated babies lie, to cite one example, which was first made by an IDF spokesperson, propagated by Netanyahu and eventually parroted by Biden.

“ “Many of the reports appear to have originated from Israeli soldiers and people affiliated with the Israel Defense Force (IDF).” [63] ”

Makeandtoss (talk) 13:08, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

How is the ISW directly involved? Why should we be particularly concerned about this specific think tank passing on IDF disinformation? Has any source suggested it has? BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to the institution of the Israeli military which is undeniably unreliable. Propagating their claims and critically and exclusively by ISW makes it also unreliable. Not to mention it’s Hawkish neoconservative background and content which was described to be unreliable by the Intercept. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:56, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Why are you saying ISW propagate Israeli claims uncritically and exclusively? The report you link does have a bunch of footnotes to IDF claims, but it also has footnotes to Iranian claims.

Intercept didn't say unreliable; they said "dubious objectivity". But that seems to be outweighed by the large number of RSs (including e.g. Al-Jazeera, that isn't pro-Israel) that seem to treat it with respect. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:17, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I would be wary of content that is found only on the websites of such NGOs and has not made it into any mainstream publication. Andreas JN466 13:04, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Examples of use by RSs: [64] [65] [66] [67] [68] [69] [70] [71] [72]

These all relate to Ukraine, so refining the search to include Israel and exclude Ukraine: [73] [74] [75] [76] [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:21, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree the Institute is well cited by RS, and usually without caveat or criticism. Still, I question why we should go directly to such a source rather than a mainstream media source presenting information from them with attribution, as your examples do. A thinktank like that is more like a primary source than a secondary source, or rather something intermediate between the two.

Highlighting content from such a source that has not been deemed worthy of mention by any secondary sources risks straying into OR territory. YMMV. Andreas JN466 13:44, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

That's a good point, and I often ponder about that with the niche topics I'm interested in where the underreporting from mainstream sources can be frustrating and so we turn to second tier sources. I definitely agree that we shouldn't use it instead of better sources, but to determine it a bad source I'd need to see a more persuasive case. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:24, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why a thinktank would be a primary source. I think it's a secondary source by definition, since it performs analysis of publicly available data.

Of course, not each and every study by a thinktank would get quoted by other media, so I don't see why it would be necessary to only quote other references that quote the thinktank.

I think the only question that we need to be concerned with would be: does this thinktank have a record of providing unreliale inforation? From what I am seeing so far in this discussion, the answer is "no", which means it should be listed as a WP:RS. The Mountain of Eden (talk) 02:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

If the best thing that can be said about a source is that they don't have a negative reputation, then that sounds at best WP:MREL. Some more context on what exactly is being supported would be helpful. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:10, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

In this case we have evidence of positive reputation, per WP:USEBYOTHERS. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:52, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

In this case, ISW is being used in the article linked by the OP as a secondary source for Kata'ib Hezbollah claims. That seems exactly appropriate to me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:01, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Is Sardesai Unreliable?

Is Govind Sakharam Sardesai unreliable? Are his works considered WP:RAJ, i.e Maratha Riyasat or New History of Marathas? . Note, Marathi Riyasat is stored within Peshwa Daftar Sakharam himself was the editor in this archive on the recommendation of Sir Jadunath Sarkar another well known historian arguably the greatest in India history. More contemporarily known as the Pune Archives, Peshwa Daaftar was built during the time of Maratha Rule and was also used during the British Rule to archive historical documents. The cited source in relation to the following edit is[82] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Normstahlie (talk • contribs) 14:48, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

[Note]: the comment above replaced its original comment and reply requesting more information. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:47, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

This involves @Noorullah21:. Regarding WP:RAJ, it focuses primarily on a couple issues: a skewed or motivated bias of the caste system that is reflected in the quality of sources on populations (including quantitative surveys) and society, a general dubiousness of British East India Company sources, and various problems with turn-of-the-century ethnographers and ethnographies.

In the case of this use of Sardesai's 1929 history of the 18th century to describe a particular personal event in a battle (from primary records), I don't see any factor of WP:RAJ as applicable. Whether or not Sardesai has been generally discredited in his suitability a historian for WP's purposes (which would be outlined in WP:HISTRS), I don't know, and that is not apparent in this sourcing. It would probably better to take the debate on the nuances of this to the article Talk page, and/or to ask input from the wikiprojects WT:MILHIST and/or WT:INDIA.

More modern sources on this would of course always be preferable. I can contribute however that I did find some historiography on the influence of identity in the Sardesai-Sarkar debates, but this hardly approaches "discrediting" either historian. SamuelRiv (talk) 17:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree, this is more something to take toward the talk page, but here are some excerpts I find relevant.

[83] - Page 222 "It does not require any detailed analysis to prove that Sardesai was not correct, and that he suffered from an anti-Mughal bias."

Sardesai has also been criticized by Jadunath: [84] "Sarkar [Jadunath] was very critical of Sardesai's use of Marathi bakhars, or historical ballads..."

I think Sarkar even in the context of this calls Sardesai a nationalist? [85] (page 133-134)

@SamuelRiv @Normstahlie Noorullah (talk) 19:13, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I understand where you are coming from, but something I find rather contradictive is that the same author in the former post has specifically recommended Sardesai and their works, keeping them in the same regard as other modern historians such as Sarkar who is well known for their renown not only in India but in the whole world.

Quoting from the same author:- "In the light of what has hitherto been said we may examine the writings of a few modern Indian historians. Sardesai, Sarkar, Sen and Panikkar are representative historians by any standard; and it may be profitable to concentrate on their works. There can hardly be any doubt as to their contribution to Indian" [86], The author is indicatively recommending the aforementioned authors and keeping them in a high regard no matter the context.

For the second article you've given, the book itself seems to be prone to violating WP:NPOV, by calling Veer Savarkar an outright terrorist and not even giving a systematic analysis for such claims.

[87] Page 188.

Also, the criticism BY Sarkar is again a part of numerous exchanges between Sardesai and Sarkar which cannot be interpreted from a simple sentence, but from what we can infer the use of "Ballads" is the reason of Sarkar's criticality. Ballads often act as primary sources in Indian history, descriptions of historical figures (Like Nizamuddin Auliya by Amir Khusraw) hinting at their personality and accomplishments. masnavis written by Amir Khusraw's one of them being Miftah ul-Futuh written in praise of Jalal-ud-Din Khalji's victories, and another one of them being Khaza'in ul-Futuh recording Alauddin Khalji's construction works, wars and administrative services are regarded as historical sources despite being a form of poetry.

There is no doubt these ballads are often exaggerated which is the reason for Sarkar's criticism, but something to be noted here is that Sarkar himself worked with Sardesai on multiple occasions and they were close friends he was also the one who recommended Sardesai to be an editor at Peshwa Daftar where he reviewed thousands of documents and wrote his book which is in question here the "Marathi Riyasat".

From the context alone, it can be inferred that Sarkar is providing constructive criticism to Sardesai and not calling him a nationalist in any sense, he points out the recurring cycle of Nationalist Historiography which could be an outcome of Sardesai's works, Sarkar also himself admits that there is an unavoidable bias in historical narrative it is also too ambiguous to say that Sardesai committed any such blunders unless we have evidence to his bias which violates WP:NPOV, with enough contextual evidence. Normstahlie (talk) 21:49, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

The finer details of particular historians on particular subject matter is going beyond the scope of the RSN board and is a better discussion in the article Talk, or on one of the Wikiprojects I linked. I have prepared a detailed response about Sardesai's biography, but I will only post it when you choose a venue to move this discussion. SamuelRiv (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

The latter source mentioned by Samuel [88], is also the one cited by Noorullah this is a debate between the two historians and not a conclusion reached by either so I don't think this an appropriate way of discrediting or calling anything unreliable.

Quoting the article:-"The chapter ends by documenting the persistence of this tension, even between the intellectual positions held by Sarkar and Sardesai, who were otherwise united in their battles against the Puna school. The chapter thus demonstrates the early beginning of histories relating to identity-movements in colonial India and their impact on public debates about historians’ methods. On the latter questions, Sarkar had to make concessions even to his comrade-in-arms, Sardesai."

The concessions made here by sarkar makes me question the relevance of the argument made to discourse Sardesai's reliablity, it can also be inferred that they did not reach any conclusive end on either sides. Normstahlie (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

RFC Retracted LA Magazine Article

Looking for comments on the reliability of this source: https://web.archive.org/web/20200526081806/https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/shen-yun-trump/ It is an article from LA Magazine written by Samuel Braslow titled: "Inside the Shadowy World of Shen Yun and Its Secret Pro-Trump Ties". It was retracted by the magazine due to a defamation lawsuit as, according to this article on the case, it contained false claims.

It looks like there have been several discussions about whether to keep this source and the quotations attributed to it in several pages.

See the discussions here which have been going on for about a year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Shen_Yun#Retracted_LA_Mag_article and apparently the "centralized discussion" from a year ago here which didn't seem to end in consensus from what I could read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Li_Hongzhi#Braslow_piece_in_Los_Angeles_Magazine

In all cases though it seems to me the majority of editors involved in these discussions believe it should be removed, there seems to be no clear consensus from what I can tell, as there are other editors arguing that the source and the quotes should be kept.

My concern is that, from what I understand both of those pages are about living persons, and the quotations are contentious (based on the edit history of both pages and the discussions) and the source seems (at least to me and some other editors) to be a poor source given the reasons above.

Personally, I don't think retracted articles that have been subjects of lawsuits for containing false information constitute reliable sources, and I'm confused as to why some other editors insist on keeping it up. But I am a new editor, and perhaps there is some rule I'm not aware of. So I'd like to know what everyone else thinks, and if I'm wrong maybe I can learn something new about how wikipedia works. I don't want to misrepresent the other side of the argument, but from my understanding, the argument is that wikipedia is not censored or that legal threats shouldn't be rewarded so the article should stay.

For some context, below is the content included in the articles that uses the braslow article as a source:

The Shen Yun article says:

Los Angeles–based investigative reporter Samuel Braslow described Shen Yun's background in March 2020: "Both Shen Yun and Epoch Times are funded and operated by members of Falun Gong, a controversial spiritual group that was banned by China's government in 1999 [...] Falun Gong melds traditional Taoist principles with occasionally bizarre pronouncements from its Chinese-born founder and leader, Li Hongzhi. Among other pronouncements, Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group's wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism. In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong's ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li." Editor Chris Jennewein of MyNewsLA wrote that Los Angeles Magazine was sued for defamation in May 2020 by the Epoch Times, referring to Braslow's news report. Los Angeles Magazine pulled the piece from their website in July, as ordered by federal judge George H. Wu, and published a retraction notice in the September 2020 issue of the magazine.

The "Li Hongzhi" article where the "centralized discussion" was says:

According to a March 2020 report by Samuel Braslow published in Los Angeles Magazine:

In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong’s ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li. Despite its conservative agenda, Epoch Times took pains until recently to avoid wading into partisan U.S. politics. That all changed in June 2015 after Donald Trump descended on a golden escalator to announce his presidential candidacy, proclaiming that he "beat China all the time". In Trump, Falun Gong saw more than just an ally—it saw a savior. As a former Epoch Times editor told NBC News, the group’s leaders "believe that Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the communist party".

(Los Angeles Magazine retracted Braslow's article in September 2020 after Falun Gong filed a defamation lawsuit in May.) Blue nutcracker (talk) 03:36, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Sidenote: I think RFC generally refers to a very structured process, see WP:RFC. And in general, if you do start an RFC, it should only be after discussion on here has failed. And arguably, an RFC for a single magazine article for a single wikipedia dispute on this page is not the best place to start it. You may want to start it on the talk page. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:03, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

• In general, a retraction is still a retraction, and unless there is clear information that the article was true and that the Shen Yun/Epoch Times did truly shady stuff and/or overpowered with money, we shouldn't use the article.

Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:06, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Looking for LA Mag retraction, they have retracted other articles before for poor reporting practices as well. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 04:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

First of all, this editor is leaving out that our Epoch Times article in fact reports on the curious case of this retraction (Shen_Yun#History).

Second, just about all of the above quote can be cited to any number of other sources that are today readily available. It would just necessitate light modification. Media sources regarding Falun Gong and its extensions Shen Yun and the Epoch Times (among others) are very easy to find now.

Third, the fact that Falun Gong/Shen Yun went after Los Angeles Magazine for its reporting would seem notable to me. And I'm not alone: Here's for example a news report on it. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:14, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree. If there is something whose sole source is this retracted article then it probably shouldn't be on Wikipedia. Alaexis_¿question? 09:19, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Is the Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media reliable?

There's a dispute on the reliability of this journal here. The journal is apparently peer-reviewed, and I don't see signs that speak against general reliability. Input is welcome. Cortador (talk) 08:05, 23 September 2024 (UTC)