Talk:The Libya Observer

ownership? independence?

The Libya Observer seems to be quite widely referred to online, but it's hard to find much info about it. The most useful I've found so far is these forum comments, describing the newspaper as "Libyan Dawn hardcore anti-Haftar", which might be a clue to help find proper sources. Boud (talk) 23:10, 12 April 2019 (UTC) (By "useful", I meant useful-if-that-were-a-reliable-source.) Boud (talk) 23:11, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Comments regarding Libya observer, Anonymous, from Libya March, 2020

The unfortunate circumstance of this news 'Agency' being the only "professional" source of information and widely visited by viewers worldwide, is a danger to many Libyans who do not agree with a narrative often driven by Islamists and by a failing transitional government in 2020. There is no legal body, independent fact checking body that could confirm any of the claims made by Libya observer. News is a source of information, and plenty of it was corrupted, distorted and tailored to fit a set agenda. As you may be informed as of 2020; The GNA as a governing body is a failure. It uses militias under the guise of being a "formal" security apparatus to entrench itself as a supposed civil and democratic government. Militias under its administration mostly work together under a temporary alliance in the fight against the LNA. If it were not for the LNA's existence, the militias would be intra fighting themselves ( usually with heavy weapons within civilian areas ) since 2013 over the usual issues such as Kidnapping, controlling checkpoints and territories, power and money; quite literally, as organized criminals fight over territory and power. The most serious motive for fighting the LNA is Libya dawns existential issue being threatened by Haftar. The GNA counter claim to all of the above was that a conference to initiate elections was to be held and that Haftar derailed the elections by initiating war on Tripoli. Thereby accusing haftar of seeking dictatorship, warcrimes, and military rule. Yet, regarding the conference and the election process, it would have been expected to be a sham, possibly rigged theatrical stunt, because in 2013 there was an election. And yet, The Tobruk government was removed via coup detat by Libya dawn islamists ( who claimed they fought Gaddafi Loyalists ) resulting in chaos. By 2020, the confusion is stronger than ever with unsettled disputes, and making matters worse, Turkey, a staunch supporter of the Muslim brotherhood in Misurata that evidently toppled Gaddafi wants to entrench the Islamist presence in Tripoli therefore exposing a agenda that was previous covert. Libya observer is not a reliable source of news information due to its very vicious dissemination of war propaganda, and viewers should be advised to be more cautious. - Anonymous. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.16.76.13 (talk) 03:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

It's obvious from reading The Libya Observer that it tends to have a pro-GNA bias. Quite a few of its articles have factual content that tends to be consistent with that of other sources; presenting facts is not excluded by a bias. However, for adding content to the article about either of these points, we would need to find some reliable sources that make claims about any biases or reliability or non-reliability of the newspaper, and the text would need to be written with a neutral point-of-view. Boud (talk) 00:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"Unsourced information"

A Libyan should be a reliable source enough for now. Wikipedia and information in general is improved and built upon, rather than completely thrown out of the window because someone didnt satisfy your subjective requirements for a "Source". If you so need a reliable source trustworthy source, then you are welcome to sue, or open a police case against this controversial 'agency', because the existence of its office is shady. No one knows if its in Tripoli, or in Turkey, Or Qatar, Or Egypt. It has reported "News" for years without any body investigating any of its claims. It is shaping thousands of peoples views on the country by simply googling "Libya News" and this website comes up because of the search engine. And it definitely was engaged in war propaganda and warping of news. It does more damage than it does good. It refers to this fragmented cluster called Libya and the "GNA" as the "government", despite it being in total chaos. People need to be informed. So Kindly do not remove any that information, and rather expand or improve it. If you so wish for it to be sourced, you're welcome to go read up any articles online regarding the case, rather than removing all the information on the pretense that sources are missing. Rather than questioning my sources, you should question this 'agency', office, or person's credibility. Biomax20 (talk) 05:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding unsourced information and letting other people provide sources if/when they wished to was common in the early epoch of Wikipedia, but that epoch is long over. Today that is no longer accepted in Wikipedia, unless the information is credible and uncontroversial enough and likely to find a citation on a reasonable time scale, depending on the context.

There is also a major difference between an essay and an encyclopedic list of notable claimed facts based on sources. The text that you reverted reads very much like an essay that makes judgments and uses strongly subjective adjectives, rather than encyclopedic text. The material would (at a minimum) have to be attributed to the person or people who make these claims, and the source would have to be provided.

Please read WP:VERIFIABILITY. Boud (talk) 13:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Boud This is destructive censorship. There is no reasoning behind the deletion of information based on your requirement criteria for "Notable" sources, if none came forward to provide any information. "Today that is no longer accepted in Wikipedia", only because you make it so. I will be reverting any removals you do. The purpose of ANY work, or document, is to improve upon. Not remove.I am in the confidence that your behavior is destructive. Any further removal of information will be reverted as many times as necessary. To you this is text book principles. To us, its a matter of our future under attack by Radical Islamists. Biomax20 (talk) 21:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Biomax20:

• WP:VERIFIABILITY was not written by me. Please read that guideline fully. You will see in the introduction these sentences: any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material. Any material that needs a source but does not have one may be removed. Please also read the full guideline, not just the introduction.
• You wrote Any further removal of information will be reverted as many times as necessary. Please read WP:EDITWAR - Edit warring is unconstructive and creates animosity between editors, making consensus harder to reach. Threatening to carry out an edit war is unacceptable in Wikipedia. (This is loosely analogous to the situation you mentioned in Libya: threatening to keep fighting in Libya "until the other side stops first" is an algorithm that risks never converging.)
• You wrote To us, its a matter of our future under attack by Radical Islamists. Everyone is aware that there is a civil war continuing in Libya. Wikipedia can only contribute to solving that war indirectly, by providing sourced information that is NPOVed. Please read WP:NOTESSAY regarding the material that you tried to re-insert: please do not use Wikipedia for any of the following: ... Personal essays that state your particular feelings about a topic (rather than the opinions of experts). Although Wikipedia is supposed to compile human knowledge, it is not a vehicle to make personal opinions become part of such knowledge.. The personal essay that you have inserted is not acceptable in Wikipedia.
• Finally, please read WP:AGF.

I am fully aware that editing Wikipedia is not a question of abstract principles alone, and that information distribution affects people's lives. These are some of the reasons why these guidelines have been developed. Boud (talk) 22:41, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Boud, This is ridiculous. We are talking about a 'news' website that started on a unofficial facebook page, Is unregulated, most likely unlicensed, Controversial, and akin to a online blog masquerading as a Official news source. But alright "BOUD", i will satisfy your 'criteria' of Citation in an upcoming edit, with sources. Soon enough. Again, your "Guideline" extremes are destructive, as are nonsensical copyright takedowns undertaken by "Editors" like yourself who seem to be most busy with removing information rather than editing. Biomax20 (talk) 19:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

website investigated

WP:NOR and WP:NOTFORUM EvergreenFir (talk) 06:33, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I have discovered discrepancies with regards to the website, and the website ( may or may not ) be run from within Istanbul and Not Libya. They may have Libyan members who report news on the ground, but generally, the editor Abdulkader Assad had his education done in Syria - Allepo ( This is not a common Libyan name therefore we assume he is not Libyan ), Has written from istanbul and even states on his personal twitter account that he is based in Istanbul. This is suspicious as Libya Observers overly loyal pro GNA bias is clearly politically motivated and may not reflect the views of many Libyans. according to OSINT, The registrant of LibyaObserver.Ly on LibyanSpider goes by the name of Yaqoub Khaled, who, according to reverse searching on social media is a Syrian and not Libyan, moreover, a attempted search in Libya's chamber of commerce does not show any company or entity, or office, registered as 'Libya Observer'. Again, the popularity of this unregulated website is highly dangerous as Libya Observer is shown on Google as one of the top visited websites when searching the term 'Libya News' with no independent fact checking body to verify the validity or set a standard to responsible news reporting.Biomax20 (talk) 23:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC) Biomax20, the onus is on you to provide references that prove otherwise. The information in the article is sourced. If you believe that they are based elsewhere, then the burden of proof is now on you to provide that information. No one is going to look up company registrars on your say so, and to so do would actually violate WP:OR. Canterbury Tail talk 02:28, 12 January 2021 (UTC) @Boud you have brought up WP:VERIFIABILITY, well i would like you to verify the validity of Libya Observer's claim that it operates in Libya by showing us registered Chamber of commerce number. If it is indeed registered in Libya as it claims, then this issue will be dropped; Or Istanbul as we suspect, then i would like to ask you to change your Article to factual information that it is based in Turkey as we suspect, rather than what the Website may - or may not - claim to be operating from. Biomax20 (talk) 23:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC) Who is we? That implies that your account is being used by more than one editor, which is against Wikipedia rules. Canterbury Tail talk 02:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC) That's a good suggestion, but you cannot require others to do your work for you. Wikipedia is a volunteer activity. Getting back to your suggestion itself: rich countries mostly have reasonable websites with registered commercial organisations. Feel free to help point out the URLs where we can find the Libyan and Turkish registers. What I could find are these, which are not sufficient: List of company, tax and statistical business registers Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey https://www.tobb.org.tr -> https://www.tobb.org.tr/Sayfalar/Eng/AnaSayfa.php Boud (talk) 00:16, 12 January 2021 (UTC)