Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Archive 5

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Breaking CNN up into a “Politic” section and “Non Politic” sections.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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{LOGIC Statement, Ignoring WIKI policies...Also sorry for anyone pinged.}

So over the Rfc’s happening at Talk:Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, it has come to the attention of the big debate between liberal and conservative sources. A person (IP address) pointed out a big comment about Fox News leaning toward Trump...Which makes it unreliable. From that statement, I can assume they meant any news organization that leans one way can be ‘unreliable’. CNN is considered ‘Reliable’ in all aspects, EVEN though it leans toward Biden and his associates.

Fox News politics is just as reliable as CNN politics. So if Wikipedia considers Fox News politics ‘no consensus’ in regards to being reliable, then maybe CNN politics should also be considered ‘no consensus’.

From the Talk:Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory#Discussing the term "False" in opening statement. it is extremely clear the differences between CNN and Fox News. The moment the New York Post made the allegations, CNN quickly said they were false without looking for facts. Fox News said they ‘MIGHT’ (Might being a key word) be true. If anything, Fox News was not using bias and CNN was.

So begin the Discussion/vote on splitting CNN up into a politics section and a non-politic section.Elijahandskip (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

Fox News politics is just as reliable as CNN politics. Multiple RFCs disagree with that assessment. Considering how recently they were concluded, this is a non-starter. Separately, Fox was not deemed unreliable because it "leans" toward Trump, but for a number of reasons regarding the accuracy and quality of its reporting, as determined by a consensus of editors. Grandpallama (talk) 14:47, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

• Suggest a speedy close, we just did this. Guy (help! - typo?) 14:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• Per Grandpallama, FoxNews's unreliability in the realms it was deemed unreliable is because it habitually reports untruths in those areas (science and politics). It has nothing to do the editorial position of Fox's opinion shows and writings, it has to do with the lack of journalistic integrity in its journalism. No one has yet demonstrated that CNNs news-reporting division habitually makes false statements in regards to politics. --Jayron32 14:13, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Have you seen Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 307#RFC on CNN? Asartea ^{Trick | Treat} 15:25, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow. The opening description of that one nakedly admits it's a Fox fan playing "tit for tat, you list my partisan propaganda network so I'll list the legitimate reliable sources", and the same person dropped an almost identical one about MSNBC on the same day. I'm glad it was speedily closed, that was ridiculous and shameful. I think the relevant policy concerning both of those listings is WP:POINT, and the point they were trying to make wasn't based in reality. IHateAccounts (talk) 16:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Ridiculous, a bare-naked attempt at false equivalence. Fox has earned its (dis)reputation by repeatedly engaging in violations of journalistic and ethical standards, and on multiple occasions peddling frauds smuggled in from even less reputable areas of the right-wing blogosphere or tabloid papers https://www.vox.com/2019/5/24/18639159/fox-news-hack-gap-gatekeeping. Yes, we are all aware that Fox deems CNN to be its "enemy" and everything to the left of hunting the homeless for sport to be "communism", but that does not automatically mean that reputable reliable sources that adhere to journalistic and ethical standards suddenly became unreliable. Bear in mind that watching Fox actually makes people less informed than if they watched no news at all https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/study-watching-fox-news-actually-makes-you-stupid-235770/. After reading the previous discussions about Fox, the only reason Fox remains in the "no consensus" category and not "generally unreliable" or "publishes false or fabricated information" is that Fox's fans believe, cultlike, that everybody but Fox is lying. (example: MONGO, whose comment was a rant about his belief that Fox is "Far more reliable than its cable competitors such as the pathetic CNN or MSNBC that are little more than 24/7 coverage of "we hate Trump."") IHateAccounts (talk) 15:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I'll also add, I think maybe another discussion of Fox should happen. It's gotten worse and worse in the past year as it tries to compete with the OANN propaganda network and Sinclair Broadcasting "Must-Run" propaganda segments. IHateAccounts (talk) 15:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

You need to provide us with the supposedly contradictory statements made by Fox News. I see no difference between Fox and the other cable networks news. After all, NBC hired two of Fox's news anchors, Megyn Kelly and Shepard Smith. And note that all cable news networks pushed false information about WMDs and links between Iraq and al Qaeda in order to persuade the public to support the invasion of Iraq. They also mislead the public on the level of foreign support for the invasion. In 2016, mainstream media pushed a number of false stories about Bernie Sanders, including allegations that photographs of him addressing students in Chicago were of someone else and that chairs were thrown at a state convention. But news media is merely the first draft of history. It's the best we have about what happened in the last few hours. TFD (talk) 16:07, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Lots of misrepresentation in your reply.

1. "After all, NBC hired two of Fox's news anchors, Megyn Kelly and Shepard Smith." - NBC's television division hired Kelly for a "triple role" that included a talk show (opinion), a "newsmagazine" that turned out to be another opinion show, and sporadic "correspondent" appearances. It... didn't go well https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-news/megyn-kelly-nbc-fired-blackface-747389/
2. Shepard Smith was ousted from Fox for failing to toe the party line and adhering to journalistic standards and ethical standards against the will of the Fox bosses, repeatedly contradicting the falsehoods and fabrications of the opinion hosts such as Colmes, Hannity and Hegseth. He was hired by CNBC, not NBC. If anything, the circumstances of Smith's departure from Fox illustrate Fox's downward slide and lack of journalistic and ethical standards.
3. "false stories about Bernie Sanders...and that chairs were thrown at a state convention" - And when it was shown that this secondhand account from Jon Ralston was uncorroborated, corrections were issued. That's how ethical journalism works. Similarly, while there were students who believed the photos in Chicago to be a case of mistaken identity, real reporters dug deeper to check, the stories were updated and corrections issued https://time.com/4108379/bernie-sanders-photo-civil-rights/. Again, that's how ethical journalism works.
4. "I see no difference between Fox and the other cable networks news." Then you may be overdue for your yearly eye exam. IHateAccounts (talk) 17:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Look's like a double standard. If Fox News does something, it's evidence of their unreliability. if other cable news do the same thing, there's an excuse.

Are you implying that Fox News was fine when Smith was there for 23 years but not after he left? Or are you implying that it took Smith 23 years to figure out he was reading fake news? If so, why would a reliable network hire him? And the fact that Kelly's $15 to $20 million per year job at NBC didn't end well is hardly any credit to them.

As for chair throwing, why is it that they would run with an false, uncorroborated story about Sanders, but fact check before they do the same with Biden?

I notice you ignored the fabrication of news during the run up to the Iraq War. The media had months to correct their misinformation. Foreign media on the whole provided much more reliable information.

TFD (talk) 18:31, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• Speedy close per Guy, as we did indeed just do this. XOR'easter (talk) 17:33, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• Recommend close: I find Elijahandskip’s “LOGIC” that a source that does not lean right must therefore lean left, and there can be no vast center, to be a logical fallacy. soibangla (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Notability establishment purposes

Could it generally be assumed that sources in the list that are yellow couldn't be used to elevate notability even if it doesn't specifically say so? Graywalls (talk) 02:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

What specific Wikipedia article do you have questions about? It is difficult to help you solve a specific problem when you ask such a broad and general question? If you let us know what article this is in reference to, we can try to solve the problem for you. --Jayron32 14:21, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

@Jayron32:, it wasn't specific to particular article. I just noticed some of them says not suitable for notability purposes while others don't. Graywalls (talk) 17:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that's an appropriate assumption to make. A fair amount of "yellow" entries are sources where additional concerns apply. For example, Cosmopolitan may not be a reliable source for contentious claims about a BLP, but may be perfectly ok to help establish the notability of a skincare product. Having full-fledged Encyclopedia Britannica entry is an almost guaranteed indicator of notability, but we prefer not to use tertiary sources, and some of EB's entries are crowdsourced, and so on. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:46, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Notability isn't just about what source is used, its how in-depth the source is. A name could be mentioned in 100 CNN articles but if that's all in passing, that doesn't make it notable. --Masem (t) 17:16, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think all "no consensus" sources should be considered ineligible for the general notability guideline. That guideline requires "reliable sources" rather than "generally reliable sources", which means that each source should be still assessed on a case-by-case basis regardless of its classification on this list. In my opinion, "no consensus" sources pass the reliability requirement of WP:GNG if and only if they would be considered reliable enough to be cited in the article as a secondary source. As a note, sources which are only usable under WP:ABOUTSELF are primary source equivalents, and do not meet the secondary source requirement of WP:GNG. — Newslinger talk 01:33, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Can we add fields for CBR and like here?

See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_315#Popculture_Top_10_lists for discussion of those websites. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 00:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

HuffPost RfC has closed

The HuffPost RfC that I opened has been closed by SMarshall (See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_313#RFC:_HuffPost, does anyone want to update the entry? Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:51, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

S Marshall, thank you for closing the RfC. Would the phrase "generally fairly reliable for factual reporting" from your closing statement correspond more closely to "Generally reliable in its areas of expertise" or "No consensus, unclear, or additional considerations apply" for HuffPost staff writers' coverage of non-political topics? — Newslinger talk 01:39, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

More closely to the former than to the latter, but after reading that debate I did choose the words "fairly reliable" with quite a lot of care. Is it possible to keep the "fairly" qualifier in the entry on this page?—S Marshall T/C 08:39, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

​Thanks for the clarification, and that is absolutely possible. I've added my draft of the new HuffPost entries to the workshop below. Feedback and alternative suggestions are welcome. — Newslinger talk 10:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Workshop (HuffPost)

Three-entry proposal

Source	Status (legend)	Discussions			Uses
		List	Last	Summary
HuffPost (excluding politics) (The Huffington Post) WP:HUFFPO 📌 WP:HUFFPOST 📌		2020 +TBD	2020	A 2020 RfC found HuffPost staff writers to be generally fairly reliable for factual reporting on non-political topics, but notes that they may give prominence to topics that support their political bias and may give less prominence, or omit to cover, things that contradict it. HuffPost's reliability has increased since 2012; articles before 2012 are less reliable and should be treated with more caution. HuffPost uses clickbait headlines to attract attention, and the body text of any article is usually more reliable than the headlines. See also: HuffPost (politics), HuffPost contributors.	1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16
HuffPost (politics) (The Huffington Post)		2020 +TBD	2020	In the 2020 RfC, there was no consensus on HuffPost staff writers' reliability for political topics. The community considers HuffPost openly biased on US politics, and there is also no consensus on its reliability for international politics. See also: HuffPost (excluding politics), HuffPost contributors.	1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16
HuffPost contributors (The Huffington Post)		2020 +TBD	2020	Until 2018, the US edition of HuffPost published content written by contributors with near-zero editorial oversight. These contributors generally did not have a reputation for fact-checking, and most editors consider their content to be highly variable in quality. Editors show consensus for treating HuffPost contributor articles as self-published sources, unless the article was written by a subject-matter expert. In 2018, HuffPost discontinued its contributor platform, but old contributor articles are still online. Check the byline to determine whether an article is written by a staff member or a "Contributor" (also referred to as an "Editorial Partner"). See also: HuffPost (excluding politics), HuffPost (politics).	1   2

The above mockup splits HuffPost staff writers into two entries: non-political and political topics. The HuffPost contributors entry remains, borrowing some of the language from the new RfC's closing statement. — Newslinger talk 10:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

not sure the politics specifically warrants a yellow rating; but the contributors split is correct. The main point is that its news coverage is just a NEWSORG, but its blogs, contributors, etc are a notorious trash fire - David Gerard (talk) 12:03, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Slightly tightened up:-

Source	Status (legend)	Discussions			Uses
		List	Last	Summary
HuffPost (excluding politics) (The Huffington Post) WP:HUFFPO 📌 WP:HUFFPOST 📌		2020 +TBD	2020	A 2020 RfC found HuffPost staff writers fairly reliable for factual reporting on non-political topics, but notes that they may give prominence to topics that support their political bias and less prominence to, or omit, things that contradict it. HuffPost's reliability has increased since 2012; articles before 2012 are less reliable and should be treated with more caution. HuffPost uses clickbait headlines to attract attention, and the body text of any article is more reliable than the headlines. See also: HuffPost (politics), HuffPost contributors.	1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16
HuffPost (politics) (The Huffington Post)		2020 +TBD	2020	In the 2020 RfC, there was no consensus on HuffPost staff writers' reliability for political topics. The community considers HuffPost openly biased on US politics. There is no consensus on its reliability for international politics. See also: HuffPost (excluding politics), HuffPost contributors.	1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10   11   12   13   14   15   16
HuffPost contributors (The Huffington Post)		2020 +TBD	2020	Until 2018, the US edition of HuffPost published content written by contributors with near-zero editorial oversight. These contributors generally did not have a reputation for fact-checking, and most editors consider them highly variable in quality. Editors show consensus for treating HuffPost contributor articles as self-published sources, unless the article was written by a subject-matter expert. In 2018, HuffPost discontinued its contributor platform, but old contributor articles are still online. Check the byline to determine whether an article is written by a staff member or a "Contributor" (also referred to as an "Editorial Partner"). See also: HuffPost (excluding politics), HuffPost (politics).	1   2

No substantive changes were intended.—S Marshall T/C 13:34, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Regarding the phrasing, something about the syntax of this part seems a bit awkward: they may give prominence to topics that support their political bias and less prominence, or omit to cover, things that contradict it. The way that or omit to cover is inserted there doesn't quite flow. Either less prominence should be give less prominence or the or omit to cover phrase should be verbless, like or no coverage at all. XOR'easter (talk) 17:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Tweaked.—S Marshall T/C 18:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

 Implemented in Special:Diff/985809589. Thanks again for helping with the draft, S Marshall. I've also re-examined all of the discussions and sorted them into the new entries. For some of the discussions, the entry or entries to put them in were judgment calls, and feedback would be appreciated. Feel free to propose any further adjustments to the new entries. — Newslinger talk 02:17, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The Daily Beast changed to "no consensus"

In response to an inquiry at User talk:Newslinger § Daily Beast, I've reviewed the discussions on The Daily Beast (RSP entry) and changed the classification from "generally reliable" back to "no consensus", because the editors who participated in discussion #4 expressed enough caution to counterbalance the optimism in discussion #3. Please feel free to discuss the reassessment here, or start a new discussion on the noticeboard if new information on this source is available. — Newslinger talk 05:11, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Newslinger: Shouldn't you have at least put it up for a discussion first before making the change, since it was at "generally reliable" for a year before someone raised an objection? IHateAccounts (talk) 16:43, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I think implied in Newslinger's comment above (or any such comment) is that if this reassessment seems way off the mark, it's subject to BRD like most other things. Summarizing consensus is a very tricky, sensitive thing, so if it's contentious it's better to have a clear discussion on it before changing. If it's not contentious, then it makes sense to just change. The amount of time a version has stood gives the status quo some additional weight, but isn't itself a reason for keeping it, of course. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:04, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• I disagree with the change. First, as it's been in there for a year, the WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS should not be changed. Second, where discussion three (linked above) had more editors participating than discussion four, I don't see how we can say four overrides or nullifies three. I would suggest a proper RFC is in order if someone wishes to challenge TDB's reliability. -- Calidum 19:27, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

I second the call for a full discussion if this is going to be a change. IHateAccounts (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Multiple comments in discussion #4 pointed to a distinction between the news coverage and the opinion columns. Perhaps these should be split in our table, or noted explicitly as in the entry for the Wall Street Journal. XOR'easter (talk) 16:51, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Aren't opinion columns covered by WP:RSOPINION either way? IHateAccounts (talk) 00:57, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• Implied consensus is only a thing until it is challenged. Then it no longer enjoys consensus. PackMecEng (talk) 20:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• Sorry about the confusion, everyone. Here's what I'm going to do from now on: if someone proposes a change to this list on my user talk page, I'll move that discussion here, and the result of the discussion will determine whether the list should be changed. The list belongs to the community, and discussions about the list should be held here, where all interested editors can participate. I have always preferred that discussions on this list take place on this page, but I had previously expressed that preference as a recommendation. In the future, I'll simply move the discussion here.

  At User talk:Newslinger § Daily Beast, Levivich disputed the reclassification of The Daily Beast from "no consensus" to "generally reliable" on 26 December 2019 (Special:Diff/932530133). At that time, there were only three indexed discussions for this source, with discussion #3 expressing a more positive sentiment and receiving significantly higher participation than the other two. Based on these three discussions, I still think "generally reliable" was the most appropriate classification for The Daily Beast at that time. However, the comments in discussion #4 (January–February 2020) do not consider The Daily Beast to be a top-tier source, leaving us with three lower-participation discussions expressing "no consensus" and one higher-participation discussion supporting the "generally reliable" classification. Based on a full review of all four discussions, I agree with Levivich that these discussions altogether are closer to "no consensus" than "generally reliable".

  As Rhododendrites noted, I changed the classification back under WP:BRD. Calidum disagreed with the change, restored the old entry, and we're now discussing the entry here. It's been over half a year since discussion #4, so if anyone has new information or evidence regarding The Daily Beast's reliability, I recommend starting a new discussion on the noticeboard. Otherwise, let's finish the reassessment of the four previous discussions here. — Newslinger talk 01:20, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I think if you want a change, you should start that new discussion. The #4 you linked is indeed tiny and was focused on a niche subject. IHateAccounts (talk) 01:44, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion #4 involves six editors who expressed an opinion on the reliability of The Daily Beast, which is three times the minimum set in the inclusion criteria. The comments focus on the publication's general reliability, despite the initial question being focused on a specific article. — Newslinger talk 02:36, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

So... you're opposed to actually having the new discussion? Why? IHateAccounts (talk) 04:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Please feel free to discuss the reassessment here, or start a new discussion on the noticeboard if new information on this source is available. are not the words of someone opposed to discussion. Lev!vich 04:46, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I did not say that I was opposed to discussion. Anyone with new information is welcome to start a new discussion on the noticeboard. A request for comment is also an option, to solicit views from a broader section of the community. However, I've explained why I don't think the "generally reliable" classification is the best fit for the four previous discussions. — Newslinger talk 05:22, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

The general tenor of the comments at discussion #4 seem more about tone and whether coverage in TDB counts for establishing weight than about factual accuracy. Reliability isn't the axis along which it was challenged there, as I read it. XOR'easter (talk) 17:28, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

• I support a new discussion. Daily Beast is fine for some things, but for others definitely not. If we need to clarify that, let's do it. —valereee (talk) 16:01, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Unreliable sources for notability

WP:GNG requires WP:SIGCOV in WP:RS/WP:IS. This is a clearcut policy, esp. if unreliable sources refers to sources based on user-generated content, paid content, press releases, etc. However, the way WP:RSP has gone, it appears that many partisan sources or other major media sources that have in the past pushed particular agendas or even conspiracy theories have been listed as unreliable. My contention is that there needs to be some sort of a differentiation between what's considered a reliable source for factual citation, and what's considered a reliable source for notability-related significant coverage. e.g. while Bild, Daily Kos, The Electronic Intifada, Fox news talk shows, Metro (British newspaper), Telesur, The Onion etc have been deemed unreliable for factual coverage, in my view, a profile in any one of these should count towards WP:SIGCOV. On the other hand, any amount of coverage in unreliable sources such as Blogger, Facebook, LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter, Patheos, PR Newswire etc should not. Any thoughts? — Ad Meliora ^Talk∕_Contribs 19:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

The Onion? Really? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:54, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, really! Similarly to the fact that if Saturday Night Live is lampooning you, you've arrived, if The Onion is lampooning you, you are probably notable. — Ad Meliora ^Talk∕_Contribs 20:42, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I would have to disagree, since one of the objectives of the general notability guideline is to ensure that there are sources of adequate quality and number available for article subjects to be described in a way that meets the core content policies. The Onion can only be used under WP:ABOUTSELF or as a primary source to supplement a reliable secondary source. However, WP:PSTS states that "Wikipedia articles should be based on reliable, published secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources and primary sources." — Newslinger talk 21:16, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Say what? Since when is satire the same as self-published?— Ad Meliora ^Talk∕_Contribs 19:43, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

The Onion is a questionable source, and WP:ABOUTSELF applies to both questionable and self-published sources. — Newslinger talk 04:39, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it has to be noted that while The Onion is self-admitted parody and should not be used as a factual reference for anything, there may be material on The A.V. Club that is useful and reliable enough for Wikipedia, especially when discussing critical reactions for entertainment such as movies, television series, and video games. IHateAccounts (talk) 14:54, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and The A.V. Club (RSP entry) is currently classified as generally reliable. G/O Media has a diverse set of web properties, and each of them should be evaluated separately. — Newslinger talk 15:02, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

The Onion? No. As funny as it's "reports" may be, these "news stories" are satire written to amuse, and are definitely not factual accounts of people and events. It is not a reliable source. The use of such sources would lower the credibility and quality of the encyclopedia. Netherzone (talk) 15:14, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Newslinger You might have missed the point of this post. I am well aware that that Wikipedia requires the sources to be RS/IS. My contention is that the the notion of RS should be different with respect to notability vs factual citations. Different words could be used to refer to these two types and different lists of sources would fit in. Bild, Daily Kos, The Electronic Intifada, Fox news talk shows, Metro (British newspaper), Telesur, The Onion have all been deemed unreliable for factual coverage by the community. They should, in my estimation, be considered reliable for notability purposes. My comment is normative (what should be), not positive (what is). You seem focused on the positive, i.e. the policy as is. — Ad Meliora ^Talk∕_Contribs 14:55, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

What I had meant to say in my first comment is this: if a topic is not able to satisfy the current general notability guideline, then an article on that topic would not have enough reliable source material to cover the topic in detail while satisfying the core content policies (verifiability, neutrality, and no original research). The article would rely mostly on passing mentions in reliable sources, which would be more likely to form a skewed representation of the article subject.

If you would still like to propose changes to the notability guideline, I recommend starting a discussion on Wikipedia talk:Notability. The talk page we are currently on focuses more on applying current policy than on changing it. — Newslinger talk 07:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Is Oc-Media.org reliable?

Some of our wiki writers refer to OC-Media to justify their controversial information. I am raising the question about OC-media reliability as one of the major funders of this media is Open Society Foundations which is direct tool of George Soros to conduct revolutions in Eastern European countries, that is no secret anymore. Supporting opposition is already meaning to take a side and journalism in OC-Media mainly support opposition people in Eastern Europe an other countries that can't not be considered as proper journalism. There are too many conspiracy and controversial information about George Soros who is the main owner of Open Society Foundations. In order to avoid misleading information and any potential biased articles my suggestion to include OC-Media into unreliable sources. Mirhasanov (talk) 05:31, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Bias does not automatically rule out reliability. — Ad Meliora ^Talk∕_Contribs 10:04, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Ad Fontes Media

@Hemiauchenia: I have no objection to your addition in this edit, but why did you remove and have questioned its methodology? The source's poor and statistically unsound methodology is one of the primary reasons it was found to be generally unreliable, and IMO that qualification should stay in the description. Armadillopteryx 10:09, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I was trying to reflect recent discussions of the source, which regard Ad Fontes Media's rating of articles as at least somewhat objective. "and have questioned its methodology" is vague, and the criticism in the entry should be more specific. Hemiauchenia (talk) 10:38, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I should note that I was the one who wrote the entry to begin with, I am only editing my own words. There's sort of a tension because there is the two separate dimensions of its use in article space without a 3rd party source discussing it (which the overwhelming concensus is no) and its use as a metric to discuss source reliability in noticeboard discussions (which seems more mixed). Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Newsmax

With Newsmax gaining a much broader audience, I think it needs to be reconsidered as a reliable source, their coverage of this election differs from other MSM such as CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Etc. I believe that they offer a different perspective of current events that is widely ignored by other reliable sources. I believe that this perspective is important and should be considered reliable for election related news at a minimum.they no longer represent only fringe viewpoints. BlackBird1008 (talk) 20:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

for everything you just said. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 21:37, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

this has been posted in multiple places that it’s has surpassed fox business and CNBC in daytime ratings https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/11/newsmax-tv-surpasses-fox-business-cnbc-key-ratings-newsreal-blog/

Viewership is up, because conservatives think Fox News is too liberal. This does not make Newsmax at all reliable though. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:43, 11 November 2020 (UTC) BlackBird1008 (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

1. "their coverage of this election differs from other MSM such as CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Etc." - That would be because Newsmax is a propaganda outlet unconcerned with factual accuracy.
2. "I believe that they offer a different perspective of current events that is widely ignored by other reliable sources." - Your belief is your belief, but Newsmax as an outlet produces and promotes falsehoods with shocking regularity and disdain for human life and the consequences of spreading false information, such as their promotion of anti-vaccination propaganda.
3. "and should be considered reliable for election related news at a minimum" - Ahh, now we're getting to it. It's the spreading of disinformation about the 2020 United States presidential election that you're wanting?
4. "they no longer represent only fringe viewpoints." - They may repeat what other parts of the extreme right-wing WP:FRINGE of American politics repeat, but that does not make their false claims, propaganda, or disinformation WP:RELIABLE.

Given the sheer unreliability of Newsmax, it should probably be in the same Deprecated category as Breitbart News, The Daily Caller, Daily Mail, and The Epoch Times. IHateAccounts (talk) 22:15, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I’m here for an real discussion. Using terms like propaganda, disinformation and extreme right-wing tells me that can’t happen with you on this topic. You seem to be intolerant to a viewpoint that differs from your own BlackBird1008 (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Terms like "propaganda, disinformation, and extreme right-wing" views are a pretty apt description. My favorite part is the constant reminding to their viewers that Newsmax hasn't called the election for Biden...even though they don't even have a decision desk. Grandpallama (talk) 01:13, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

• This seems like a discussion that should be had at WP:RSN. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 22:24, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I believe you are correct, I’ll move it there BlackBird1008 (talk) 01:29, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Criteria for inclusion

This page reflects what happens on WP:RSN. A source can be left off off this page because it is so bad that nobody has ever come to the noticeboard with a question about whether it is a reliable source -- https://zapatopi.net/blackhelicopters/ -- and a source can be left off of this page because it is so good that nobody has ever come to the noticeboard with a question about whether it is reliable source --Guy Macon (talk) 08:28, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

This is already covered by WP:RSPMISSING. Hemiauchenia (talk) 09:00, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Republic TV

Republic TV is an Indian-news channel. It is at present the most popular news channel and website in India. It is my personal ideology, that it isn't politically reliable, but is reliable in all other cases. I think it deserves to be in this list.--Atlantis77177 (talk) 09:49, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

An active discussion is taking place at WP:RSN § Republic TV. — Newslinger talk 14:53, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

FNC

Fox news channel's news pieces on politics have become more "reliable." Although that trend has been highly visible in its news reporting of 2020 presidential race, probably it has been felt earlier by folks who regularly surf FNC website. FNC and MSNBC, (On their websites) generally do not spread false information about politics. But they are worded smartly to appeal to conservatives and liberals, respectively. If you consider MSNBC to be a reliable source even when it reports on political issues, I will urge you to endow FNC with the same epithet. The Conservative "lying" syndrome (CLS) in FNC, is generally less "intense", compared to OANN, Newsmax, Breitbart and others. So I think we should look at whether FNC still suffers from CLS or it has recovered. Before answering the question, have you kept an eye over how they reported 2020 election on their website. Please don't judge FNC's news content via looking at Ingraham or Hannity talk shows. Pro-Abortion on demand, Pro-recognition of gay marriage individuals like Jimmy Kimmel and Daily show host Trevor Noah are talkshow hosts on mainstream media. So we would love to have a constructive debate on the subject. And please don't judge me by my words. I have adopted pragmatic centrism long ago (AKA New Mexico politics). So what to do about FNC's status? Ppt2003 (talk) 12:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

We just had this RFC - David Gerard (talk) 13:22, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

I looked in the comment for some kind of actual point but all I found was a lot of false equivalence and whataboutism. IHateAccounts (talk) 16:01, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

@IHateAccounts: Was that response necessary? jp×g 11:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

• Nothing in the RFC prevents us from using Fox as a source for politics (or science for that matter). -- Calidum 17:30, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

OP, I think you would be well-served to consult the numerous RfCs on this subject. This specific issue has been discussed ad nauseam in multiple places before; simply reigniting the issue without citing specific conclusions of past discussions seems unlikely to cover any new ground. jp×g 11:53, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

Adding the 'Washington Free Beacon'

Recently I encountered someone claiming The Washington Free Beacon was usable as a source for potentially-defamatory claims about a BLP; they cited the fact that it wasn't listed here as evidence (here and prior discussions). While I explained to them that that's not how it works, I also noticed that there was in fact a previous RFC on RSN that looks like it reached a conclusion to depreciate; it was never formally closed and had somewhat lower participation than some, but the results seemed clear enough. Is that sufficient to include it here? --Aquillion (talk) 22:59, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

We should formally deprecate Washington Free Beacon. I'm surprised it hasn't been listed at all in the table. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:45, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

I mean, by my reading, we already did, it just wasn't added to the table. I'm just making sure other people agree that that discussion is sufficient for the reasons I mentioned. --Aquillion (talk) 08:05, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

We did not. Free Beacon is a reliable source, with a history of fact-checking and accuracy. As of May 2020 or so, deprecation requires an RFC. I don't think there ever was one, but maybe Doug Weller could confirm? Politrukki (talk) 11:06, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Note: this discussion also came up at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#Free Beacon, wherein some posts occurred. jp×g 07:49, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

How will we deal with Substack?

Hi folks,

I wonder how Wikipedia will deal with Substack in the future. On the one hand, it's a lot like blog posts. On the other, quite a few reknowned journalists are leaving their organizations to go there. (Gleen Greenwald, Andrew Sullivan, Matt Taibbi), etc. MonsieurD (talk) 13:25, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

We will have to wait and see. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 13:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Substack is a publishing platform, just like Medium (RSP entry) and YouTube (RSP entry). A publisher doesn't become any more or less reliable by publishing on Substack, than if it published articles on its own website using some other content management system. Greenwald's, Sullivan's, and Taibbi's newsletters on Substack do not appear to have any editorial oversight, so they are self-published sources equivalent to personal websites. There are also some news organizations (such as The Dispatch, which is currently being discussed on the noticeboard) that use Substack as a platform. Likewise, they should be evaluated as if they were publishing on their own sites using in-house technology.

The best comparison is the WordPress platform, which powers self-published blogs on WordPress.com (RSP entry), generally reliable sources such as Variety (RSP entry), and generally unreliable sources such as the New York Post (RSP entry). It all depends on the publisher. — Newslinger talk 07:15, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that Substack always lacks editorial oversight, so by current rules, it can't be used on Wikipedia. However, if reknowned journalists continue to move toward Substack, these rules may become a problem for Wikipedia in the future. MonsieurD (talk) 12:57, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Publications that use Substack (e.g. The Dispatch) can have editorial oversight, and if they are considered reliable, then renowned journalists who write for them can still be used on Wikipedia. On the other hand, the use of self-published sources has always been highly restricted on Wikipedia. In particular, WP:BLPSPS prevents any self-published source from being used for third-party claims about living persons, regardless of the platform the content is published on. — Newslinger talk 13:16, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Having written most of the Substack article and contributed to those of some Substack contributors, I agree with this assessment. Jlevi (talk) 02:59, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

yeah, it's a blogging platform, with some actual publications living on it - not a publisher itself - David Gerard (talk) 09:05, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I think that, if there ends up being a trend of independent journalists and commentators issuing their own publications -- this was probably only a matter of time since the WWW came into existence -- sourcing guidelines will need to be applied on a per-author basis, rather than to publications at large. I don't see why this would need to be substantially different from existing RS guidelines, but it will definitely involve more work. jp×g 04:23, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

There is a difference between Bellingcat (as an example) setting themselves up as an independent self published publication and some of the recent Substack self publishing; which is effectively the last refuge of at least one journalist unhappy at being expected to follow the usual journalistic rigour and deciding to publish unqualified rumours, long disproven theories, and repeat conspiracy theories without any sense of irony. Koncorde (talk) 06:36, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

• The answer is simple: treat it as a self published source. It's reliable for their opinion. All opinion must be attributed. It shouldn't be used on BLP. It'll never be reliable outside of those attributions without independent verification and oversight via editorial board or similar. Should be treated like any other publically available essay by a notable person (I mean Dan Rather is still active, but we're not sourcing content to his facebook posts). You do have to question why a journalist goes solo in such a fashion to the extent whereby even as a freelancer they are unable to find a publisher for their material. Koncorde (talk) 06:36, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

  This is the conventional wisdom, yes. I'm not sure which specific journalist you're disagreeing with in this post, but regardless of how much you dislike them, I think it bears note that the Huffington Post was, at one point, an "unqualified" blog; BuzzFeed was a content aggregator/listicle farm; Bellingcat was a D&D goon's personal website. This is the 21st century. Weird stuff is going to happen. jp×g 07:47, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't dislike any journalist doing journalism, however I am pointing out any journalist that cannot find a publisher is almost certainly peddling the unsubstantiated crap we should not be using - and the conventional wisdom explains why.

The difference between HuffPo and Buzzfeed vs Greenwald and Taibbi is that the prior submit to fact checking and editorial oversight and it took years to change public opinion of the institution that they worked for to confer reliability to their staff writers (and most content on HuffPo for me is still questionable, particularly on politics, but also science and medicine due to years of allowing woo to be peddled by guru's). In effect - they changed to become reliable sources.

In contrast Greenwald in particular has rejected the trappings of reliability and any oversight and wants to publish his feelings. At this point he barely qualifies as an RS even for his own opinion so much of it is regurgitated bunkum refuted by all other RS.

Bellingcat is marginally better, if only for the source of their information being routinely crowd-sourced / open-sourced, and subject to criticism in the public domain. It should still be attributed where used, and is reliable only for the sites own opinion in limited sitiations - which must be balanced against the RS either agreeing or disagreeing.

In short, multiple journalists running to a self published medium doesn't mean we change our conventional wisdom. They don't become more reliable for becoming self published. Koncorde (talk) 08:17, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Bellingcat largely still falls into that category so, that assertion's an RSN discussion really - David Gerard (talk) 09:32, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Should clarify: not suggesting Bellingcat is actually publishing crap (meant to move that lower and forgot to move that line before editing the above paragraph - so have struck from above) - my position on Bellingcat is as per the last paragraph. If we are using, or someone is trying to use Bellingcat unfiltered then it definitely needs an RSN discussion. Koncorde (talk) 10:15, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Without wishing to support or oppose anything said above (since I know v little of the sources mentioned) but we should acknowledge that a lot of very competent journalists have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, purely because the market for subscriber-funded quality journalism has collapsed in favour bot-generated click-bait. So to say that "any journalist that cannot find a publisher is almost certainly peddling the unsubstantiated crap we should not be using" is, well not to put too fine a point on it, unsubstantiated crap.

[In case it is not immediately obvious, I am not now and have never been a member of the journalist party.] --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:11, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Journalists losing their jobs is very different to journalists not being able to find a publisher for an expose. Newspapers losing permanent members of staff is very different to engaging with freelancers, usually respected journalists will to engage with their editorial standards, to publish content. The only time I would suggest this is untrue is with local interest stories where the market to publish doesn't exist at all due to old news media becoming defunct. But we're not on about small paper journalists breaking news on a corrupt school board self publishing content in the public domain - which would be entirely unsuitable for wikipedia - we are talking about content rejected by large scale news carriers about allegations of national interest being published because the journalists in question don't want to engage with editorial standards because "censorship". Koncorde (talk) 11:37, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

I know the phenomenon you mean. But OTOH, I also know a lot of journalists who are looking into newslettering as a more reliable source of income, and gathering into new small publications hosting via Substack - with editors, journalists, a professional approach, etc. I would advise caution for Wikipedia usage, but this may be a new model emerging. If it turns out to be viable - David Gerard (talk) 12:26, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Which is when it crosses the line from being self published same as HuffPo (although there are plenty of vehicles created just to push personal POV), but would have no inherent reliability beyond any other public newsletter.

Currently this model already functionally exists for games journalism (i.e. Jim Sterling) and in a few other limited spaces, people paying for content they want to consume. If Sterling was to form a conglomerate it would be interesting to see if he suddenly became a reliable source outside of his own attributed opinion. Koncorde (talk) 13:43, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Why the mainstream media are considered RS when they continuously and demonstrably lie?

Closed per multiple editors pointing out that this thread is going nowhere. XOR'easter (talk) 20:09, 29 November 2020 (UTC) (non-admin closure)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

One specific recent lie is that they report that 2020 election fraud allegations have no evidence. In reality there are hundreds of affidavits, and affidavits by definition are considered acceptable evidence in court. Mass media (CNN/MSNBC/CBS/New York Times) lie (deny the verifiable facts) and are still considered RS. I suggest they are removed from RS sources because lying is not compatible with being a "reliable source". Yurivict (talk) 21:19, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

To provide context for this diatribe, they edited the Sidney Powell with the summary

The theory that Dominion voting system was designed to rig elections is supported by several affidavits, which are a legal evidence, so it can't be dismissed as "false" based on some government officials interviews

and were reverted. The reasoning is obviously nonsense even if the title of this section didn't make that clear already. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:57, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

They appear to have Wikipedia:Competence is required issues when it comes to source evaluation, per discussions on their talk page where they say things like "The One America News TV channel does honest, excellent reporting; NewsMax accurately reports current US news; The Epoch Times (https://www.theepochtimes.com/) has very reliable information; same can be said about American Thinker (https://www.americanthinker.com/) and Big League Politics (https://bigleaguepolitics.com/)." [1]. IHateAccounts (talk) 04:28, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

IHateAccounts, if one checks their recent (the last couple weeks) contribution history, one could easily build a case for NOTHERE and lacking COMP, enough for an AP2 TBan. -- Valjean (talk) 23:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

We seem to have someone that believes affadavits are "evidence" of fraud (as opposed to people that believe fraud was committed or they were witness to fraud), but affadavits legally must have other evidence underpinning them to bring them out of hearsay. I.e. to say a crime was witnessed, but to have no evidence of said crime is generally speaking a bit of a boo-boo. Rarely are affadavits viewed as evidence alone other than as corroboration of other material evidence, and are subject to the same scrutiny one would expect any unsupported claim. Koncorde (talk) 01:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Koncorde pretty much summed up my point, so I concur. An affidavit can claim the Dominion software changed votes, but there needs to be actual hard evidence to support the claim, which there is none at this point. Basically they're saying "The votes were being changed, I can't tell you how I possibly can know or give you proof that votes were changed, I just somehow know it was fraud." So when a RS says "without evidence," it's not a lie. But the cake is. Persistent Corvid (talk) 02:19, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Basically we consider court documents outside of final decisions to be primary sources and should not be treated as reliable for anything related to the case. The final decision should be a juducial summary of the case and thus the facts as seen through the eyes of the law, so if there were anything factual in the affidavit, as determined by the court, they will include it in their decision and only then could we consider it factual here. --Masem (t) 03:35, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

There is now a recurring tactic among the conspiracy theory set to present an "affidavit" as an indisputable statement of truth. Merely waving "affidavits" on television is often effective in persuading millions. soibangla (talk) 02:35, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Affidavit is evidence: "An affidavit is admissible evidence [...]" [2]. It isn't a definitive evidence, or a proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but it is evidence. When mass media talks about "evidence" this has to be understood as "any evidence" unless specified otherwise. When they are saying that "their is no evidence of fraud" - this is clearly an intentionally false statement. Yurivict (talk) 08:43, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

We know what they are. However you are ignoring the limitations of affidavit in order to present them as incontrovertible facts or material to the case in question. In other words, you want everyone to take the affidavits as evidence of fraud, rather than evidence of a persons opinion which hasn't yet been ruled as admissable or even submitted as evidence in a case.

As has been seen in each case so far, the affidavits when submitted (in most cases they are culled down to one or two at best) make no claim as to fraud, and the Lawyers have been at pains to make sure that their case before the judges do not argue fraud (including Giuliani last week). Each has so far alleged either a failure of process, or requested action from the judge to rule on matters such as which ballots are valid based on State election law, but not fraud. There is a simple reason for this: accusing someone of fraud is extremely serious and can leave you open to being counter sued. The Trump campaign have steered clear of such things because they don't want to be also liable for such allegations. That includes for the media reporting such allegations as fact, or treating affidavits as evidence of fraud. They aren't about to put themselves on the hook either.

Sidney Powells case in contrast is the first case brought and submitted that uses the words fraud that appear attested to by affidavits. Their status as evidence of criminality has yet to be tested in court. Her accusations for whatever reason have actually avoided accusing Dominion (which is interesting, presumably to avoid being shut down with a few seconds by someone that is technically proficient) and instead allege that entire swathes of election officials were party to and collaborated in fraud... but the affidavits she has collected don't say that. They say they show only vulnerabilities and allegations that the software was used in the past in some fashion for fraud. In effect, the evidence that actual fraud took place again isn't in the affidavit. Koncorde (talk) 09:40, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

When media says "there is no evidence" it isn't meant "of incontrovertible evidence", but rather "of any evidence", and it doesn't mean "admitted" or "submitted", just "any". "Affidavits [...] make no claim as to fraud" - false. Election mail backdating is fraud, there are affidavits of witnesses. Scanning ballots multiple times is fraud, there are affidavits of witnesses of that too. Yurivict (talk) 09:53, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

"Well, Your Honor. We have plenty of hearsay and conjecture. Those are kinds of evidence." But that's not how it can possibly work at Wikipedia - David Gerard (talk) 11:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. Scanning ballots multiple times may have been due to numerous reasons. Backdating may have been due to reasons. Which is why they are not evidence of fraud, they are evidence of a persons opinion about what they saw. They might think they saw fraud, and even attest to it - but that is hearsay.

Show us where these evidences of someones opinion have been taken into court and the judge has taken them as evidence OF fraud, and then you will have an argument (plus RS would cover such instances).

At present the RS will treat affidavits that are not presented at all, or are presented but rejected wholesale, as the absence of evidence - and as we reflect the RS so will we. Koncorde (talk) 12:09, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

"Show us where these evidences of someones opinion have been taken into court and the judge has taken them as evidence" - this is *not* the standard that media used during Brett Kavanaugh approval procedure. It was clear hearsay, not even an affidavit, without any physical evidence, yet media extensively reported it and also sided with it. In case of 2020 elections media takes the approach that only the evidence that has been accepted in court is something that they even report on. This shows clear, unambiguous bias. Yurivict (talk) 18:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

First of all, WP:OTHERSTUFF isn't a valid argument. Second, you're grossly misrepresenting virtually everything regarding the Kavanaugh hearings. IHateAccounts (talk) 18:56, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

And everything related anything else for that matter. The MSM are covering and reporting on the allegations, and are characterising them as either already debunked, groundless, fantasies, conspiracy theories etc because they looked at the affidavits (usually with expect legal commentary) and thought they were a joke. Unsurprisingly 30 of 31 have been tossed for being utterly without foundation despite Yurivicts claims of "evidence" to the contrary somewhat confirming the accuracy of their analysis over Yurivicts. Koncorde (talk) 19:12, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

The FEC chairman mentions "hundreds of affidavits" (link below), so who thinks those 31 tell the whole story? InedibleHulk (talk) 03:12, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It's not 31 singular affidavits; in a series of cases sometimes dozens have been submitted at once - only to be withdrawn, struck out, or dismissed by the Judge as hearsay. Also a Gish gallop of affidavits does not speak to the veracity of the content. While Trainors opinion per reliable sources is about as accurate as Yurivicts. In short there's few cases in front of a judge that allege fraud, the affidavits that do allege fraud are not being submitted as the majority of cases are not arguing fraud. In effect we have a group of people screaming fire in a crowded room, but then when asked to point it out they claim only that the fire extinguishers don't have the correct pull tabs. Koncorde (talk) 10:26, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm currently having a strangely similar discussion with PersistantCorvid at Talk:2020 United States presidential election#Suggested change to the third paragraph, but checking Valjean's edit history to see where another discussion about purported interference went, if anybody present wants further context or if Corvid wants to chime in here. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

The source in question there doesn't have a fancy name, it's just the news (interviewing some federal election chairman). InedibleHulk (talk) 00:13, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

There is plenty of evidence besides affidavits:

(1) Votes counted in Pennsylvania after 9PM on Nov 3 until Nov 12 have correlations that are impossible to occur in any natural voting process: [3] (data is based on the New York Times datasets). Most of these unnatural votes went for Biden.

(2) Based on the New York Times dataset, one batch of 23,000+ votes in Georgia went 98+% for Biden [4], which is absolutely impossible in any real voting process.

(3) Vote counts went down on live TV in Pennsylvania [5], Virginia [6], Wisconsin [7]. Every time votes went away from Trump to Biden. Vote counts can never ever go down, ever.

Anybody can see this for themselves. You can download the same information from the New York Times website and make sure for yourself.

Media outlets should be first to investigate and report these issues, instead of just saying "there is no evidence of fraud". Saying this constitutes intentional lying, and they can't be considered RS. Yurivict (talk) 10:14, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

This is original research. 1. I've been a data analyst for over a decade and I haven't a clue what Ed Solomon is up to or why he is surprised that if X goes to Biden, and Y goes to Trump, then the remainder must go to Jorgenson among other things. 2. Gibberish at best. 3. Counts do go down as data is checked. You're waaaaay down the conspiracy hole Yurivict. Koncorde (talk) 10:56, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

No, it's not gibberish. You are extremely biased. Can you explain how 23,000 votes in a row can go to one candidate? Is 100% also okay? Yurivict (talk) 11:06, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes, 98% of the batch could just be votes for Biden. Occams razor. Koncorde (talk) 11:21, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that establishes that you have no idea what you are talking about. Yurivict (talk) 11:30, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

It establishes that I don't focus on a single batch absent of the underlying reason for it happening. Statistics are great, but alone they are not evidence (or very rarely). They may be indicators, but they are only where you might start looking at an issue. If you were to tell me a batch of votes in Kansas went 98% to Trump in a county that went 60-40 I'd be like "cool, guess it came from a predominately Trump supporting area". Koncorde (talk) 12:01, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

These statistical abnormalities mathematically prove that the voting data posted in Pennsylvania after Nov 9PM is forged, and certainly didn't occur naturally. This is not just an indication that some problems may have occurred. Yurivict (talk) 17:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Actually they don't. BTW you would be much happier editing at Conservapedia. Please note this thread has devolved into a debate that has nothing to do with reliable sources, perennial sources or their use in wikipedia articles. IMO the thread should be closed and hatted. MarnetteD|Talk 17:59, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Statistical hypothesis testing disagrees, and by that logic Campbell County, the most Trump County in Wyoming is certainly forged among dozens of others. I assume you have an issue with more ballots being cast than registered voters, and returning 86% Trump? And in 2016, 2012, 20082004 right? Some suspicious numbers, almost like they want to always ensure the outcome is around 85% and use an algorithm to switch votes, even going so far as creating more voters than actually exist.

That's how this works, right? Koncorde (talk) 18:15, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

"Rumble.com" appears to be a Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#User-generated_content site that would need to be treated the same as WP:YOUTUBE. The videos on their own have no validity unless it can be shown that they are posted to the official channel of a recognized WP:RS, or can somehow qualify in the very narrow WP:RSSELF experts exception. None of the videos provided appear to do so, and there are major misunderstandings of both statistics and math to be found in their "analysis." @Koncorde: has it exactly right. IHateAccounts (talk) 17:58, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I have opened an Arbitration Enforcement case, see Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement#Yurivict. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:08, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

When people fail in a debate they try to silence the opponent.

I am arguing not for inclusion of anything into Wikipedia, but against certain sources being RS. You can't use the sources this arguments is made against as a basis that the argument is wrong, due to circular reasoning. But based on the above discussion I doubt that anybody here even has a capacity to understand such a nuance. Yurivict (talk) 18:37, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

You probably shouldn't be questioning anyone's "capacity to understand such a nuance," when you, yourself SEEM to not understand the nuances of percentages and demographics, whether that is on purpose or not. If a county is heavily supportive of Democrats, then it makes sense that the percentage of votes for a Democrat will be high, especially with limited data dumps. When a heavily partisan county has a high population and thousands of votes, say 200,000, and each data dump (or sample) is like ~5,000 or so, it stands to reason that some samples will be more saturated than others. This is not strange, unusual, or fraudulent, sorry. As per David Gerard below, please hat this. Persistent Corvid (talk) 19:45, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I meant, "someone please hat this." Persistent Corvid (talk) 19:48, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Is there any reason not to hat and close this discussion? Basic statistical education really doesn't belong on this page - David Gerard (talk) 19:27, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

CNBC

It looks like NBC and MSNBC are reliable sources. Has there been any determination made regarding CNBC? HocusPocus00 (talk) 22:57, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Can't see any in the archives of WP:RSN. Generally I'd assume they were a normal WP:NEWSORG so presumed reliable. But I would guess you're thinking of their cryptocurrency coverage, which has been shilling for shitcoins so extreme that even crypto people think they're a joke. I think this is one that might need a proper discussion over at RSN - David Gerard (talk) 23:32, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll create a new section over there for discussion. HocusPocus00 (talk) 14:22, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Slate

not reliable anymore. Here (see discussion) the blog states many wrong things which were can be dunked in an easy way. I suggest to downgrade it. --Julius Senegal (talk) 20:42, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Since this is new information, please feel free to start a new discussion on the noticeboard. ​— Newslinger talk 14:58, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Less a problem with Slate, more a factor of MEDRS being the correct place to start with any sourcing for medical facts related to human physiology as mass media (even the NYTimes) is presumed to be poor at reporting these things. --Masem (t) 15:36, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

Reading the arguments that Julius is making [8], it seems like the issue is Julius's understanding of medical terms and pregnancy progression, and not the Slate Future Tense article's writing or facts. Understanding that a "three month old fetus" is in the "fourth month of pregnancy" is pretty basic stuff, since for the first month of pregnancy, the fetus is not yet a full month old... IHateAccounts (talk) 15:44, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

TMZ

Should it be changed to red instead of yellow? It's usually considered to not be a reliable source at all. MikaelaArsenault (talk) 09:39, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

What new evidence do you have that the conclusions of prior discussions should be changed? --Jayron32 15:10, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

This user is indefinitely blocked from editing article space for one year edit warring low quality sources into BLP articles, not anybody worth taking seriously on source reliability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:13, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm partially blocked from editing until May of next year. MikaelaArsenault (talk) 19:42, 11 December 2020 (UTC)

RealClear media

Moved to WP:RS/N#RealClear media
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
I'm wondering about the status of RealClear media, IOW RealClearPolitics (RCP) and RealClearInvestigations (a redirect to RCP). My initial impression is that they are aggregators, but also with own, very biased, content. All I find is this thread opened by User:JzG in November 2019: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_278#RealClear_media Valjean (talk) 17:00, 14 December 2020 (UTC) I just noticed this use at our conspiracy theory article Russia investigation origins counter-narrative: Jeanine Pirro, a long-time friend of Trump, described Mueller, FBI Director Christopher Wray (a Trump appointee), former FBI Director James Comey and other current/former FBI officials as a "criminal cabal," saying "There is a cleansing needed in our FBI and Department of Justice—it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired, but who need to be taken out in cuffs." Here we have a combination of types of sources. All content at Wikipedia (other than WP:ABOUTSELF) must come from RS, even to document the most ludicrous pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, etc. If something is not mentioned in RS, it does not have the due weight to be mentioned here. Period. That makes this use of RCP, if it is deemed unreliable, very dubious. The NYTimes and Salon should be enough. -- Valjean (talk) 17:10, 14 December 2020 (UTC) Definitely Unreliable. Doesn't clearly mark the difference between opinion and news content on the columns it publishes, and the rest is just aggregation (including a number of questionable sources like the Washington Examiner). For instance, "Donald the Dragon Slayer"[9] today is labeled as "Commentary" and not listed in its "Editorials" section. IHateAccounts (talk) 18:43, 14 December 2020 (UTC) If we're going to discuss RC's reliability, it should be done at WP:RSN rather than here unless there have been additional threads on the matter already. -- Calidum 19:28, 14 December 2020 (UTC) I agree. I'll move this there, so feel free to continue there. -- Valjean (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2020 (UTC)

Sources

www.thefamouspeople.com

Could someone add this website to the list, per this and this? I have no idea whether it is "no consensus" or "generally unreliable". Regards, Jeromi Mikhael ^(marhata) 01:49, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't seem warranted (but I know nothing about how RSP criteria is implemented). Has anyone asked about the source in the last year? ~ El D. (talk to me) 19:55, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Encyclopædia Britannica

I came across an article in Encyclopædia Britannica, by John Steven Watson, "George III" (1960).[10] Watson was possibly the leading scholar on George III in his day, having written a volume about him for The Oxford History of England. The article has since undergone only a small number of changes, such as changing King, Duke and Prince to king, duke and prince.

Age matters says "older sources may be inaccurate because new information has been brought to light, new theories proposed, or vocabulary changed." I wonder if we should have some mention of this issue.

TFD (talk) 02:25, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

As a novel argument, this is best raised on WP:RSN per WP:RSPIMPROVE. ~ El D. (talk to me) 11:19, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

deprecated/unreliable source tag

I've encountered a deprecated source added tag and I believe that it is misleading. Its description at Special:Tags says "This edit added a deprecated source. Deprecated sources are not usually appropriate for Wikipedia articles" however in fact it's also used for generally unreliable sources.

The end result is that a source like Wikileaks, for which the consensus is that it's generally unreliable but that "It may be appropriate to cite a document from WikiLeaks as a primary source, but only if it is discussed by a reliable source" ends up deleted on sight because of this tag. I've also posted at Wikipedia_talk:Tags#deprecated_source_tag, not sure which is the right forum for this. Alaexis_¿question? 13:12, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

If Wikileaks isn't deprecated, then it shouldn't be tagged as deprecated, surely. It should likely, however, be tagged as prima facie unreliable - David Gerard (talk) 19:46, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, exactly. Do you know who can fix it? Alaexis_¿question? 20:48, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Just remove the wrong tag, or replace with the correct tag, as appropriate? For a broader solution, go through uses of the "deprecated" tag and check they're all on actually-deprecated sources?

The tag was originally a compromise with editors who objected to deprecated sources just being removed - though, of course, this didn't stop them objecting, and they just moved to other objections - David Gerard (talk) 21:49, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

It's the tag that appears in the edit history so I can't remove it. But I found the right place to discuss it: Wikipedia:Edit_filter_noticeboard#Wikileaks_filter_(#1034)_is_misleading. Alaexis_¿question? 22:01, 27 December 2020 (UTC)

Ahh, I thought you meant inline in the text! Yeah, that edit filter is only for actually-deprecated sources - David Gerard (talk) 00:00, 28 December 2020 (UTC)

Page bloat

The number of entries here keeps multiplying, and eventually will start to cause page loading issues once a certain length is reached. With this in mind, I have to wonder if some of these source listings are out of scope. For instance, "battery university.com" is listed here despite having only two discussions, none since 2014, and there doesn't seem to be a significant issue with people trying to use this source frequently that I can tell. RSP seems to be intended as a quick chart for common sources, sorta like a FAQ. But adding a bunch of obscure sources just slows down the page load time and makes it harder to find the more common sources. The listing needs a winnowing, as including stuff like battery university is probably out of scope. Hog Farm _Bacon 04:47, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Cite Unseen updated to include RSP sources

Examples of Cite Unseen in action on citations

For anyone interested, the Cite Unseen user script has been updated to add icons to citations based on RSP ( marginally reliable, generally unreliable, deprecated, and blacklisted; generally reliable is also available, but opt-in). This is in addition to other icon categories, such as state-controlled, advocacy organizations, opinion pieces, press releases, blogs, and more. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 01:58, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the incredible work, SuperHamster! This update to Cite Unseen makes it much easier to scan lists of references and identify sources with potential issues. — Newslinger talk 23:20, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

We seem to be forgetting that this page is for PERENNIAL sources

We seem to be forgetting the core purpose of this list... it is supposed to be a list of sources that have repeatedly been discussed at the main RSN page (that is what “perennial” means after all). I think we need to be stricter about this. Blueboar (talk) 13:47, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Color coding. Just one more example of the normally sighted majority making the internet less useful for those of us who don't see colors very well. Please, be sure to include both pink and salmon, along with 15 shades of purple. Color coding is almost always useless for people like myself.

Is there no alternative method to put your ideas across? Numbers are good. Rank your reliability from 1 to 10. That's not a bad idea, even with color coding. Color your stuff, then print a number in the colored area. I will most definitely mistake all your purple/violet shades for blue (or maybe black), but I should be able to see the number contained in the colored field. Just be sure to use a contrasting color for the printed number!

67.223.200.41 (talk) 20:11, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

On Flickr's classification

Pinging @SK2242: who added this; while I agree on the broad classification as unreliable, this should be mirroring the language for YouTube (as a USERG site) based on the discussions and how the sources work; content (specificly, captions) from verified, expert uploaders can be taken as reliable, but that's the extent of reliability. Emphasis should be added stressing that one cannot make interpretations from photos hosted at Flickr, even if from verified sources, as this was a point in these discussions too. --Masem (t) 20:03, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for raising these points, I have replaced the description for the source. You are welcome to edit it further if it still needs work. SK2242 (talk) 21:04, 10 January 2021 (UTC)

I am happy with the revised, I think that fairly captured the discussions and USERG aspects. --Masem (t) 02:32, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

South China Morning Post

It's green, but as I look at the linked discussions, it doesn't look like anything close to consensus for general reliability. If anything, I see consensus that it's not generally reliable. Anyone else think the color should be changed? Levivich ^harass/_hound 20:52, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@Levivich: The RfC link was broken, which I have corrected. The RfC had an overwhelming concensus that SCMP is generally reliable, and given the wide attendance I think it should remain green. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:57, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it and setting me straight, @Hemiauchenia. Yes, I missed the recent RFC due to the broken link; that settles it, green is correct. Levivich ^harass/_hound 21:00, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

MDPI.com

Is this the right place to ask if this is a reliable journal publisher? Open-access publisher sounds very iffy to me. GenQuest ^"scribble" 08:31, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

See WP:CRAPWATCH. MDPI journals are treated with caution. Alexbrn (talk) 08:43, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction

What do folks think about using The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction as a reliable source for personal information - like authors' WP:DOB? While it has been published as a book, it appears to have about 200 contributors, some appear to be scholars and some seem to be any old shmoe off the street authoring articles under pseudonyms. This smells a lot like WP:USERG to me. What do folks think? Toddst1 (talk) 23:41, 19 January 2021 (UTC)

The book version will be an RS in the field. The dates are likely to be accurate too - David Gerard (talk) 00:43, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

The link above mentions pseudonyms, but only in the context of having cross-references for biographical entries of science fiction authors who use pseudonyms (e.g. there is an entry for Richard Bachman, which identifies Bachman as a pseudonym of Stephen King and provides a link to King's article. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:38, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

It's been widely cited per google scholar.[11] Worldcat shows the print book is in a number of academic libraries.[12] It has full-time editors, inclusion criteria, and a means for reporting errors. Contributors are identified, and many are professionals in the field. I would consider it reliable. Schazjmd (talk) 01:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)

Reliable Source "bear" that is now a big topic.

So in the past few months, I have heard SO much about sources like Fox News not being reliable per RS. I fully support that right now. However, I have heard a lot of editors use examples of Fox News being Pro Trump, which helped it be unreliable. It is time to possibly do some reconsideration since sources like CNN now support the President? It is a bear that needs to be discussed fully. Elijahandskip (talk) 02:56, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

There was an extensive RfC which I instigated around half a year ago, that found Fox News to be generally reliable for topics other than politics and science, for which there was no concensus on reliability. no concensus ≠ unreliable Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:06, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I know. Part of the political reasons I have heard for Fox News to not be reliable is because it was supportive of Trump. Now it is switched so there might be some RFC changes happening soon for some sources about being reliable for politics.

Elijahandskip (talk) 03:25, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The RfC was well attended, there is no reason to run it again. Hemiauchenia (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

I actually disagree with you. At this moment, there might not be a reason to do it, but I just read a decent amount of it. One of the biggest things I saw was a decent amount of "Option 1's" that was for completely reliable and a decent amount of "Option 2's" which was for not reliable in politics/science. Reading the option 2's it was really clear that the majority of them were talking about their political bias, for instance "There is clear bias in how they report certain things, and which things they report and which they don't." (Mubushgu) I think once Pres. Biden has had a while in office, some of the roles taken by news organizations like Fox News will be switched with roles of that of CNN. So for this instant, there isn't a reason to run the RFC again. But, I believe sometime near the middle to end of 2021, there might be a good reason to re-run it. Elijahandskip (talk) 11:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

The concern was never about how a news organization felt about a particular president. The concern was about journalistic integrity. If journalistic integrity becomes a concern, it can be discussed on a case-by-case basis. GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Arab-Israeli related articles

Out of curiosity, why is the electric intifada deemed as unreliable in comparison to Haaretz? If both are considered to be accurate but contain political bias, then shouldn’t both be banned? Reinhearted (talk) 21:18, 23 January 2021 (UTC)

WP:RSP links 8 discussions about that publication (and 9 about Haaretz), Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_250#Electronic_Intifada_(Again) being the latest. Perhaps there's a reason in there. It's possible to start new discussions at WP:RSN. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:56, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

The Canary

Burrobert, Selfstudier, Bobfrombrockley, Shrike, can you (quickly) agree that there is a consensus one way or another on The Canary or do we need an RfC? ~ El D. (talk to me) 16:25, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

My view is that, based on the examples provided by editors and the mixed responses from editors, it is unfair to characterise The Canary as generally unreliable. That could mean listing it as having no-consensus with a summary of the concerns that some editors have raised, or, possibly, removing it from the Perennial List. Burrobert (talk) 16:35, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Nocon, opinionated, biased plus attribute. For now.Selfstudier (talk) 16:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Until New RFC , RSP listing shouldn't be changed. Anyhow there are clearly no consensus to consider this tabloid as reliable --Shrike (talk) 16:53, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Agree on some things from above. It should be described as biased, opinion should be attributed and, yes, there is no consensus to regard it as generally reliable. Burrobert (talk) 17:23, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

The place for this is WP:RSN, where there is literally a discussion on this in progress - David Gerard (talk) 18:41, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I killed the discussion because it was going around in circles and had been for a little under a month. The OP of the RSN should have placed it on RSP to begin with as we are simply trying to make sense of RSNs. If anyone feels that the result is unclear or think they have something to add, place create an RfC and once it has finished running get an administrator to close it. ~ El D. (talk to me) 18:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

This discussion had a margin of 1 editor in a 23 editor discussion pushing for general unreliability (over no-consensus and general reliability). The previous 10 editor discussion had a 2 editor margin for general unreliability. A significant margin for general unreliability can only be gained by looking at older discussions. Given the small width of these margins, I feel 'no consensus' would be most accurate. Does anyone disagree? If so should we hold an RfC? ~ El D. (talk to me) 20:29, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

El komodos drago, If you want to change RSP entry please do a proper RFC Shrike (talk) 21:02, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Seems reasonable, I will RfC in the morning. Good night, ~ El D. (talk to me) 21:13, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

I find the following unsatisfactory: we had a discussion about ‘’The Canary’’. An editor interpreted that discussion as showing ‘’The Canary’’ was GU and added it to the Perennial list. Another editor disagrees with that assessment but is required a start another RfC to change the listing. Is there no process for resolving disagreements about the interpretation of RSP discussions? Does the first editor to update the Perennial list get to make the decision and other editors then need to create new RfC’s? Burrobert (talk) 02:34, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

I think you are right there, the fact is that it is in the RSP as unreliable without an RFC so I think perhaps it ought to be taken out for now until the RFC is concluded.Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Re This discussion had a margin of 1 editor in a 23 editor discussion pushing for general unreliability (over no-consensus and general reliability). The previous 10 editor discussion had a 2 editor margin for general unreliability. A significant margin for general unreliability can only be gained by looking at older discussions. As I noted in the discussion (now archived here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_321#The_Canary ), there have now been three discussions at the RSN and over those discussions 21-23 editors have argued GU, 4 for a use-with-caution approach, and 8-11 for GR (the lower figures are for those who explicitly opted for a position, the higher figures includes those I'm interpreting that way but were not explicit). In this discussion alone, the margins are: 13 GU, 3 NC, 6-7 GR. I know consensus and votes are different ans don't know what sort of numbers would look like consenus so am just saying the margin is much higher than 1. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:27, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

Yes, older discussions give a much higher count for people saying that it was unreliable. In terms of the most recent discussion, I counted 11 editors either leaning towards no consensus or reliability and 12 editors. Now I am not saying that my maths is perfect (I managed to miss my own !vote for instance) but either way that doesn't seem a very large margin. In the discussion before that, there was a margin of 2 for unreliability. What we do with that I will leave up to others but I personally feel that a contentious categorisation should be settled with an RfC. ~ El D. (talk to me) 14:04, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

Our numbers are close (I think I missed one GR/NC that you counted and I counted one GU that I think you missed) but I had been thinking of the margin in terms of GU vs GR rather than GU vs GR/NC, so I understand now. I have no experience in how consensus is identified in such cases so draw no inferences from this! BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:50, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

I oppose any change in RSP and anyhow such change should be done by uninvoloved admin not one of the participants in the discussion --Shrike (talk) 20:42, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

@Newslinger: You entered Canary in as unreliable based on what you knew at the time, see anything in here that would change that or should we just get on with an RFC and see where that goes?Selfstudier (talk) 22:19, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

​I've marked the "generally unreliable" classification for The Canary as disputed in Special:Diff/998766619, and I've requested a formal closure of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 321 § The Canary at WP:RFCL. Let's revisit the classification after the discussion is formally closed. — Newslinger talk 23:11, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

So it is closed?(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_321#The_Canary) and suggests an RFC.Selfstudier (talk) 12:14, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The discussion was closed in response to my request, but it is not an RfC, since the request for comment procedure was never used for the discussion and it was never advertised through the feedback request system. Unfortunately, the closing statement is not particularly helpful for the purposes of determining a classification: "Note this close is not alone a reason to change the WP:RSP label to no consensus, rather I suggest editors look to previous discussions to determine a consensus, as there is not one in this kludge of a discussion. The best way forward would be to start a standard RfC on WP:RSN, though, which will provide some structure to this discussion." I've started a proper RfC at WP:RSN § RfC: The Canary, which should hopefully settle this. While the RfC is in progress, I've cleared the status in the disputed entry. — Newslinger talk 03:48, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Battery University listing

I have boldly removed the listing for this source on RSP. I'm seeing no evidence that this is anything anyone's trying to consistently use, is doesn't seem to have ever had a formal RFC (just a couple discussions on a single article talk page), and it hasn't been discussed in years. The very first sentence of WP:RSP says This is a non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed, and that does not seem to apply to Battery University at the time of this writing at all. Hog Farm _Talk 06:00, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Examples of untruths that have led to an "unreliable" rating

As political commentary from Mother Jones, People, Buzzfeed News, Slate & The Daily Beast is permitted as "reliable" on wikipedia --- but political commentary from Fox News, National Review, Forbes, & Newsweek are considered "unreliable" - is there a repository of the articles that led to the unreliable designation?

If an article is deemed "unreliable" and a citation against an organization, couldn't we dissect the article/s in question for where they made errors in fact? TuffStuffMcG (talk) 13:20, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

On "the articles that led to the unreliable designation". On the WP:RSP page you can find links to the discussions that lead to the current rating. For example, if you check the Fox News entry, you have links to 20+ such discussions, 2009 and onwards. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:32, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

• Individual errors on specific articles aren't usually the reason a source is depreciated (though discussions will often focus on them because they're something concrete); the question of whether a source is generally unreliable is established by looking at their long-term output, hence the "generally." You can find the detailed discussions that led to the classification of any particular source linked on WP:RSP. Also note that many of the sources you named are not strictly classified the way you said they are - eg. Forbes contributor pieces are considered unreliable, since they lack fact-checking and accuracy, but other things on Forbes are generally WP:RS. Likewise it's important to note that Buzzfeed News is a separate organization from Buzzfeed, with much higher editorial standards. --Aquillion (talk) 14:32, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

thank you for pointing me in the right direction, much appreciatedTuffStuffMcG (talk) 15:22, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

New York Daily News

I find it a bit odd that the New York Daily News is classified as "no consensus", but the text next to it says "Most editors consider the content of New York Daily News articles to be generally reliable". The entry for HuffPost indicates its headlines are sometimes clickbait, yet it is classified as generally reliable? Heartfox (talk) 22:38, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

The headlines being clickbait doesn't have much impact if the full body of the article is still reliable. —El Millo (talk) 06:36, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Well yeah that's my point if they're not a problem for HuffPost why are they for the Daily News? Heartfox (talk) 17:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe change it, and the see if stands or you get reverted. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:48, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Heartfox, yes there are a few odd ratings like that on here. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 15:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for updating the classification, Heartfox. I've checked the discussions, and removed the first one from 2009 in Special:Diff/1014821921, since it does not meet the inclusion criteria with only one qualifying participant who commented on the source's reliability. I believe the New York Daily News was previously classified as "no consensus" because the entry was created before WP:HEADLINES became a guideline. Now that headlines are no longer considered reliable for any source, criticism directed toward the New York Daily News's headlines is less relevant to the reliability of the source on Wikipedia. Based on the listed discussions, the source is very close to the boundary between "generally reliable" and "no consensus". If any editor disagrees with this reclassification, I recommend starting a new discussion on the noticeboard. — Newslinger talk 08:24, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I think it was more a criticism that this page does not really correspond 100% with outcomes of the noticeboard discussions. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Before the WP:HEADLINES guideline was in effect, the reliability of a source's headlines was given greater consideration when evaluating the reliability of a source. Now that WP:HEADLINES considers all headlines unreliable in general, whether a particular source's headlines are considered unreliable plays a lesser role in determining the reliability of the source. That was what I meant when I said, "Now that headlines are no longer considered reliable for any source, criticism directed toward the New York Daily News's headlines is less relevant to the reliability of the source on Wikipedia". — Newslinger talk 05:01, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Daily Record

What is the agreed status of Scottish tabloid the Daily Record? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 16:20, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

The only significant discussion on the Daily Record that meets the inclusion criteria is "Scotland and the Daily Record" (2017), which means that the Daily Record has not yet been discussed enough to be listed here. It might be worthwhile to start a new discussion on the noticeboard. ​— Newslinger talk 16:43, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

list #5 on vice links to daily caller

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_258#RfC:_The_Daily_Caller

the 5th numbered link (put in plain text above) isn't even related to vice news.

would someone be able to fix it?

additionally #7 links to a renamed that was named: "Vice_and_Dazed" in the link, but on the page this section does not exist, nor is vice talked about in any section as its main topic. was this deleted or hidden from the page?

198.0.126.141 (talk) 15:41, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

 Done in Special:Diff/1018008322. Hi there, and thank you for these suggestions. I've removed the former discussion #5 from the entry because it does not meet the inclusion criteria (which requires three editors commenting on the reliability of the source, in discussions that do not include the source's name in the section heading). While three editors mentioned "Vice" in the discussion, only two commented on the accuracy of one of Vice News's headlines, and only one of these two expressed an opinion on Vice News's reliability. The current discussion #6 has been archived, and I've updated the link accordingly. — Newslinger talk 20:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Should the link to searches for uses of sources be changed to only list article-space usage?

Currently the RSP links for sources (in the far-right column) are to a general search for every usage; this isn't so useful for cleanup, since it isn't that necessary to worry about an unreliable or depreciated source being used on talk. For an example of the problem, compare searches for the depreciated The Daily Caller in article space (5 uses, all for very straightforward ABOUTSELF stuff) vs. the currently-linked search for all uses (over 1000 hits, ~995 of which are almost totally meaningless). --Aquillion (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this. Should be articlespace only. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:52, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

This is a good suggestion. Working on it now. — Newslinger talk 04:24, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

@Aquillion: Wait, I'm not seeing the same links as you. For me, the first link for the The Daily Caller (RSP entry) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/insource:%22dailycaller.com%22 – which goes to a search of the article namespace only. I can't find anything in the {{Domain uses}} template that would cause all of the other namespaces to be included in the search. Are you using a web browser on a desktop/laptop computer? — Newslinger talk 04:30, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Web browser on desktop, yes. And the link you posted, for me, redirects to the link I posted. Did you change your default search options with the "remember selection for future searches" checkbox? --Aquillion (talk) 05:06, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

After testing the link on several different web browsers on both the desktop and mobile Wikipedia sites, I'm not able to reproduce what you're seeing on my end. I don't think I've ever used that setting. Could you please try opening the list in private browsing mode, and then clicking on the link again? — Newslinger talk 06:25, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Hm. It is possible that at some point in the past I saved my default to search everywhere and forgot. --Aquillion (talk) 05:04, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

That would make sense, too. If you ever find any other issues with the templates or links, please do point them out. — Newslinger talk 06:09, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Blabbermouth.net

Blabbermouth has come up a fair bit: Here, Here, Here, here, here, Here-ish, and that's just the results from the noticeboard, who knows how much else is out there. Can it be added? I'd try to myself but that's a lotta lotta history to try and interpret for consensus. 92.24.246.11 (talk) 23:33, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Six discussions exceeds the inclusion criteria by a fair amount, so it looks fine to include. Music-oriented sources are also listed on Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Sources (WP:A/S), which has an entry on Blabbermouth.net that might be helpful. — Newslinger talk 01:15, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

I know. Like I said, I'm asking if it can be added. Like I said, I'd do it myself but it's a lot of dense conversations to try and boil down to a sentence or two. 92.24.246.11 (talk) 21:27, 16 April 2021 (UTC)

Washington Post have its rating downgraded like Fox News

Moved to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Washington Post have its rating downgraded like Fox News

 – — Newslinger talk 03:08, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Why doesn't Rebel News appear on the list?

rebelnews.com  

Moved from Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § Why doesn't Rebel News appear on the list?

 – — Newslinger talk 02:56, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

This list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Sources

I see there have already been past discussions.--Cripplemac (talk) 01:58, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Weakly support. Like other sources missing from RSP, it's probably just because there hasn't been enough community discussion for it to meet the inclusion critera. Except for this discussion, I can't find that many instances of it being misused. Common sense usually prevails.

There was one seemingly significant discussion of Rebel News on the noticeboard here in October 2020, and another here in November 2020 which mentioned it in passing. There appears to be a weak consensus that it is a questionable source, but not that it necessarily needs to be listed as a perennial source. RoxySaunders (talk · contribs) 02:43, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Cripplemac, I've moved this discussion from the reliable sources noticeboard to the talk page of the perennial sources list because it primarily concerns the content in the list. There have been two prior discussions of Rebel News on the noticeboard:

• Rebel News (2020)
• CounterPunch, Other98, and People's Democracy [by CPI(M)] on Left, and The Daily Wire, Blaze Media and Rebel News on the Right (2020)

However, the second discussion was criticized for discussing the general reliability of too many sources at the same time, and did not generate substantial discussion on the reliability of Rebel News. Coupled with the fact that Rebel News barely squeaks past the inclusion criteria, it's a borderline case and there are valid arguments for both inclusion and exclusion. — Newslinger talk 03:03, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

• The key word here is “Perennial”. The point of this list is to record the consensus on sources that we have discussed repeatedly (ad-nauseam in many cases) usually with the same results. I don’t think we have discussed Rebel News nearly enough times for it to be included on this list. If you wish to discuss it now, I would suggest you do so on the RSN board (make sure to give examples of where and how it is being currently used... context matters). Thanks. Blueboar (talk) 22:33, 17 April 2021 (UTC)
• Probably because it doesn't come up often enough. I checked, there are only two uses outside Rebel News (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views). Guy (help! - typo?) 22:42, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

I was curious about that myself. Generally how many times does a source need to be cited on WP to be included on the perennial list? Or is there another means to determine inclusion? - wolf 20:42, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

The inclusion criteria (WP:RSPCRITERIA) count the number of significant discussions on the reliable sources noticeboard. We don't use the number of article citations to determine inclusion, since there are uncontroversial sources with plenty of citations – e.g. high-quality academic journals – as well as highly controversial sources with few citations – e.g. WorldNetDaily (RSP entry).​ — Newslinger talk 05:12, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

• Weak support We might as well include it as unreliable or depreciated if someone is asking, I can't see consensus being anything else or changing—blindlynx (talk) 18:19, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
• Per all of the above comments, this page is NOT a comprehensive list of all sources. The absence of a source from this list means nothing about whether it is reliable or not; there are LOTS of potential sources, both reliable and unreliable, that aren't listed here, and probably never should be. The only reason this list exists is to avoid having to relitigate every discussion ad nauseum once we've reached a firm conclusion about the reliability of a source. If a source is unreliable, remove it from articles. You don't need permission from this list, or really anyone, to make Wikipedia better. If someone disagrees, have a discussion about it, and come to a consensus. If that fails, bring in outside help. However, as a first step, just fix the problem yourself: if this source is unreliable, take it out of articles. If no one objects, then you were probably right. If someone objects, work it out. --Jayron32 18:40, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Shortcut for The Hindu

Hi Roller26, while I appreciate that you added shortcuts to three Indian sources last October in Special:Diff/982792641, the WP:HINDU shortcut was originally used by WikiProject Hinduism, which still appears to be using that shortcut on its project page. Since that WikiProject has been using the shortcut since 2006, I've retargeted WP:HINDU back to Wikipedia:WikiProject Hinduism and created a new shortcut, WP:THEHINDU, which redirects to the entry for  The Hindu (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 07:26, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Roller26 (talk) 08:19, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Coda Media

Moved from User talk:Newslinger § Coda Media RSP

 – — Newslinger talk 04:38, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Newslinger. Thanks for adding Coda Media to RSP. I noticed in the summary box you labeled Coda as a biased source for intentional politics since it received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. I re-looked at the RfC and it seemed that only one editor in their !Vote deemed that Coda was biased due to their funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. The RfC closer didn't reflect this concern in their closing summary. Do you think the bias aspect should still remain in the RSP summary? Let me know what you think. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 00:16, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, I've moved this discussion about the entry for  Coda Media (RSP entry) from my user talk page to here so that other editors can participate. In the Coda Story RfC, two editors (Thucydides411 and Aquillion) noted the funding from National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and asserted that Coda Media is not neutral for various topics in international politics that involve US interests. No editors in the RfC contested this potential bias. The description I used for the Coda Media entry is based on the entry for  Bellingcat (RSP entry), another NED-funded publication, although I scoped the area of potential bias to "international politics related to the US". You're right that the RfC closing statement did not mention the NED funding, but entries on this list are not strictly limited to the contents of the closing statements (especially when they are brief), and this list tends to indicate sources' conflicts of interest when editors do the same in noticeboard discussions. Would you prefer that the Coda Media entry's mention of international politics be shortened or revised in some way? — Newslinger talk 04:38, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

@Newslinger: I didn't notice that Thucydides411 made note of the funding too in their reply to another editor. I don't really see how just receiving a grant from NED inherently makes a source biased (and neither editor really provided evidence that Coda is biased off that grant). The Bellingcat RfC had a much more substantial debate over the potential bias of the source. However, if you think Coda's potential bias in international politics is a good reflection of community consensus, then perhaps we could revise the summary to read: ...few editors consider Coda Media a biased source for international politics related to the US, as it has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, though not to the extent that it affects reliability.? Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 05:17, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

​Thanks for suggesting this. Your wording looks like an improvement over the current wording, so I've implemented it in Special:Diff/1020444180. I feel that some mention of this is warranted, since a substantial portion of the discussion focused on Coda Media's usability for a claim related to international politics (on Talk:Uyghur genocide). If anyone else has an opinion on this, please feel free to share it. — Newslinger talk 03:42, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Newslinger, thanks for being reasonable about this. :) Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 03:52, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

I personally think that we should try to more closely reflect the close; the closer did not seem to even mention it. If we believe the bias deserves a mention, we should be clear in stating that there is not a majority view and that the allegations of bias do not reflect consensus. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 14:57, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

Mikehawk10, what do you think of my proposed wording? We changed it from "some editors Coda Media a biased source..." to "A few editors Coda Media a biased source...". We also added " though not to the extent that it affects reliability" at the end. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 19:56, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

It seemed to be more the case that the editors who opposed its reliability believed it was unreliable due to its supposed bias affecting reliability, with at least one editor calling the source unacceptable. This was not the consensus view—the consensus was that the source is GREL—but I don’t think that those who consider it a biased source all agree with the “though not to the extent that it affects reliability” portion. Out of the editors that stated that there was bias, they didn’t really offer any concrete examples of how the work showed a biased presentation of facts; they just kinda pointed at NED funding and said that was sufficient to justify that the source is biased. There are plenty of generally reliable sources that receive NED funding (including the fact-checker Poynter), so I think that we might be giving too much weight to the minority in the description by including it as “a few editors.” This, combined with the fact closer didn’t feel compelled to mention it in the close (unlike that of the Bellingcat RfC), leads me towards omitting the bias accusations altogether from the entry on WP:RSP. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 04:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

You make a good point about Poynter which owns both  Politifact (RSP entry) and the  International Fact-Checking Network (RSP entry). I made the exact same argument as you: neither editor provided evidence that Coda is biased, they just stated the fact that Coda once received a grant from NED. One can make a similar argument that  NPR (RSP entry) is a biased source in relation to the US government. A source can potentially have hundreds of COIs, so I'm not exactly sure when it's appropriate to list out a source's potential COIs and when it is not. Maybe Newslinger has the answer; they have a lot more experience with RSP. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 08:10, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I’m not aware of any scandals over NED funding effecting editorial independence or anything like that, did I miss something? I also don’t see anyone making a distinction about reliability of domestic vs international reporting or political vs non-political reporting, the concerns raised by the two editors seem to be about bias across the board and that concern wasn’t even mentioned by the closer so I’m not sure exactly how we arrived at "A few editors consider Coda Media a biased source for international politics related to the US, as it has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, though not to the extent that it affects reliability.” I would also note that both of those editors do seem to think that its biased to the extent that it effects reliability so the very last part confuses me. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:21, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Question about reliable sources and liberal bias

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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I have read Wikipedia articles on a regular basis (usually daily) for several years now. What I've noticed is that the large majority of reliable sources are liberal/left-leaning news media outlets. This is a fact based on simple analysis (not opinion). Why are so few right-leaning/conservative news outlets considered reliable? I could be wrong on this but I believe WSJ is literally the only right-leaning outlet considered "generally reliable" (i.e. the green check) according to perennial sources page, while there are at least 15 or 20 liberal/left-leaning sources. How can Wikipedia be considered a neutral and balanced encyclopedia when this is the case? K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:39, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

K.Q.1997, well, in short, we view these "liberal" sources as more reliable than "conservative" sources because they are more reliable. For a recent example, consider how the sources handled Trump's allegations of voter fraud. The truth is that this election had no systemic voter fraud, but many "conservative" sources pushed the lie that there was voter fraud to the level that it stole the election from Trump. Also, keep in mind that WP:NPOV does not mean "neutrality" in quite the way you may be used to. NPOV means we reflect reliable sources honestly, including if they point out something that would seem to lean more to one side or another. We don't push for WP:FALSEBALANCE, because that is a POV problem. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:01, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

If there is any political bias, it is for liberal democracy, otherwise unspecified. We are indeed biased for mainstream science (WP:GOODBIAS), for the mainstream academia (WP:ABIAS), for mainstream Bible scholarship, religion studies and against fundamentalism (WP:NOBIGOTS). Tgeorgescu (talk) 23:09, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

K.Q.1997, I’d really like to use sources deemed “conservative,” but in recent years it has become increasingly difficult to find any that haven’t abandoned reality in favor of relentless lying for political expediency. I’m old enough to remember when this wasn’t the case. I encourage others to identify conservative sources that haven’t joined a cult. soibangla (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

I encourage others to identify conservative sources that haven’t joined a cult. I can think of a few, but someone should point out to OP that they're seeing a selection bias. Grandpallama (talk) 20:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

WP:RSP concerns itself with frequently challenged and frequently discussed sources; conservative sources that are perfectly fine don't show up here because people aren't challenging them. There is a misunderstanding that WSJ is literally the only right-leaning outlet considered "generally reliable" (i.e. the green check) according to perennial sources page in that RSP isn't all-inclusive; the many problematic right-leaning sources listed here as unreliable are here because they have been discussed as such. WSJ is also definitely not the only right-leaning source on the RSP list, by the way. Grandpallama (talk) 20:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

"Why are so few right-leaning/conservative news outlets considered reliable?" maybe it's because they too eagerly embrace "alternative facts." Acousmana 20:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)

Checking back and noticed none of the above editors answered my original question about the bias found throughout Wikipedia on American political articles. Instead people brought up stuff about how Trump is a liar (which I agree with) and how conservative media are all in a cult and embrace alternative facts. This makes me thinks the issue could be the editors themselves who have a partisan bias and are able to skew Wikipedia in one direction. What are the credentials of people who edit Wikipedia articles? Also to be fair I don't follow politics of other countries but as a person who identifies as a centrist on most issues/liberal on social issues like abortion & LGBT rights, the bias in favor of one side is pretty obvious. K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:37, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Frankly, if I had the right to vote in the past US presidential elections, I would not have bothered to vote. After it was clear that Biden won the elections, I even wrote on Quora that Trump was a good president because he did not start a war. After the riots in the Capitol, I despise Trump. So, I think the amount of bad press about Trumpism is objectively justified, and conservatives who chose him to be their leader were simply unwise. See The End of White Christian America: A Conversation with E. J. Dionne and Robert P. Jones on YouTube why the GOP is out of luck in the next presidential elections, demographically. So, the supremacy of White Christians over US culture and political life is gradually coming to an end. And that's why previously disenfranchised voices (social groups) are becoming mainstream. Society is changing, culture is changing and the press mirrors that change. That explains the abundance of "liberal" views over "conservative" views. IMHO, conservative is supposed to mean classical liberal, not radical Christian right. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:56, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

So, a few points

1. If you accept Trump is a liar, and if (broadly speaking) every single "Conservative" source in America repeated his lies to the extent that they are being sued for them, then why would you expect to see them treated as reliable sources?
2. Most Conservative sources in the US are nakedly allied to the GOP. In the last 5 years they have been broadly aligned with Trump. In the last 12 months almost entirely in lock-step with Trump on every single matter. Being in mind point 1, what makes you think that the sources own partisan bias makes them reliable in terms of fact checking, correct errors etc?
3. Most Conservative sources in the US run news / opinion as largely and broadly the same thing, while there are innumerable other sources that do not. If there are better sources to be used for observable facts then why would we use Conservative sources that (per #1 and #2) muddy the waters or are in many cases indivisible entities?
4. When people speak of Conservative news media they are, invariably, referring to a very narrow niche group (Fox, OAN, Newsmax, Washington Examiner, Breitbart, NY Post for example). The issue is that there is actually a ton of Conservative news coverage out there that is otherwise smothered (WSJ for instance) and / or criticised for being "left leaning" or anti-Trump because it holds centrist positions that 15 to 20 years ago were very much the core of the GOP base. Those tend to be traditional historic media that predate the abolition of the FCC fairness doctrine but that still adhere to its standards for editorial oversight. In contrast most popular Conservative media today was founded after the doctrine was struck down purposely to exploit the absence of required balance.
5. To show our "bias" isn't selective, you can look at other analysers or [13] to see what they think about the reliability and accuracy of sources. Koncorde (talk) 23:34, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Again the response is to avoid answering questions that I'm asking and distract with unrelated stuff. K.Q.1997 (talk) 23:04, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

You got good, policy-based answers. Please don't ignore them. --Hipal (talk) 23:32, 14 April 2021 (UTC)

Checking back and noticed none of the above editors answered my original question about the bias found throughout Wikipedia on American political articles. Sure they did. Not liking the answer you received =/= not receiving an answer. I, for one, pointed out that you fundamentally misunderstood WP:RSP. Grandpallama (talk) 00:03, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

• In addition to what other people have said, one thing to keep in mind is that Wikipedia seeks a worldwide perspective. On the whole this means that the perspectives of individual nationalist parties and organizations (while they do get reflected to an extent) are generally going to be less WP:DUE here than people within countries where they are strong might expect - eg. if you look at only the right-wing media bubble in the US, you might come away with the perspective that climate change is controversial; but from a worldwide perspective this is not true. That poses a particular problem for reliability in nations where a nationalist party is strong (eg. the US), because they tend to create mouthpieces intended to reinforce their doctrine, often - as in that example - to the point of outright disregarding the facts. And that dissonance can result in editors who think that those sources are more reliable than they actually are, which is what gets a source perennial discussions, an eventual RFC, and a spot on this list. --Aquillion (talk) 17:46, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

• Looking at the adfontesmedia website posted above I see NY Post skews right and CNN skews left so why is NY Post considered unreliable (not even yellow triangle no consensus) and CNN is? They are both equally partisan news outlets so both should be reliable/unreliable. But only one is which sort of proves the point that Wikipedia is a partisan website as far as American politics-related articles. A good example of how clearly biased mainstream media is in favor of one political party is the Hunter Biden laptop issue - it was censored last October in the media because Democrat partisans lied and claimed it was possibly "Russian disinformation" however Biden gave an interview earlier this month and admitted the laptop definitely could have been his (in other words it was his laptop).

• "Most Conservative sources in the US run news/opinion as largely and broadly the same thing" so you believe that liberal/left-wing sources in the U.S. don't run news/opinion as largely and broadly the same thing despite massive evidence to the contrary? K.Q.1997 (talk) 23:22, 19 April 2021 (UTC)

I would suggest you look again at Adfontes. You will see next to the icons things like "TV" and "Web" for the same news provider. So MSNBC is distinctly in the same bracket as NYP for its TV content (which is news, opinion, and analysis). However MSNBC web, like most left print that is considered reliable is, is in the upper section. You will see there are other reliable sources up there on the right, including the WSJ, but whether they align with the GOP is another issue.

As for whether liberal / left wing sources run news / opinion. In short: old media, no. They generally delineate their web stories from their editorialising. There are of course huge chunks of left wing new media that is waaaaaay more along the lines of NYP and others (DailyBeast etc) where you can have your left wing ego massaged if you like. The Conservative old media is actually similarly delineated, they just aren't as numerable or as popular as those most frequently cited by people trying to push a POV. Most of the popular Conservative media falls firmly into the analysis / opinion spectrum way more firmly and regularly. Koncorde (talk) 00:18, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

There are definitely a bunch of junk sources on the left, but (with a few already-depreciated exceptions) they're not very successful, rarely get cited in the first place and therefore rarely make it to WP:RSN or WP:RSP. I think the underlying reason dates back to at least the 80s anti-academia push from the American right in Tenured Radicals and the like - since at least then there has been a steady drumbeat on the right telling people that pretty much the entire intellectual landscape of America is tainted and untrustworthy. As a result, while most people on the left trust a wide variety of sources, Americans on the right trust only a comparatively tiny conservative bubble. That has a number of knock-on effects that show up in our WP:RSN discussions. Fringe-y or unreliable conservative outlets have a captive audience (people who have been repeatedly told not to trust anything else), which ensures that they get attention regardless of quality and results in them getting cited here when they shouldn't be, getting them to RSN and eventually RSP. Making matters worse is that recently, with many online right-wing outlets fighting for this audience and no competition from more mainstream sources, the litmus tests necessary to be considered a "conservative" outlet in the bubble have gotten more extreme over time, sometimes to the point of being incompatible with being a WP:RS - flatly counterfactual takes on climate change, COVID-19, the 2020 election, etc. You can see how Fox was forced to swerve in response to a challenge on the right from Newsmax, say. Successful outlets on the left have to compete with more mainstream sources like the AP and the New York Times, and have to at least make what they say academically defensible or they'll lose much of their audience. The conservative bubble means that conservative outlets face no such pressure - their pressures are instead the fear of losing their viewers to Newsmax or even Alex Jones or someone similarly utterly disconnected from reality, which forces them to sometimes take positions that are completely intellectually indefensible. --Aquillion (talk) 18:47, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Many people on this website seem to genuinely believe (I'm going to assume most are acting in good faith) there is not significant bias in corporate mainstream media (MSM) like NYT, WaPo, CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, etc. But how do you then explain the way media covers Democrats vs. Republicans? Again, just to be clear I'm not a conservative or a Republican but when I watch/read mainstream news it seems blatantly biased and agenda-driven (almost like MSM and Democrats work hand in glove). Evidence of this would be several now-debunked stories reported in corporate media like the Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy theory and the more recently debunked Russian bounty program story. Another example would be how MSM covered up and censored the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020 claiming it might be "Russian disinformation". Last month Hunter Biden gave an interview and admitted the laptop could have been his (in other words it was his laptop). Honest journalists like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi (there are a few others but those are two "big" names) have exposed a lot of this. People on this website should be aware that media in United States is not like mainstream media in Europe or Canada or Australia, it is controlled by a corporate elite that have zero interest in getting accurate information to the American people. K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:14, 11 May 2021 (UTC) *pinging users: Aquillion,Acousmana,Muboshgu,Koncorde,Soibangla,Newslinger

When one party likes to make up lies about an election being stolen, why would we expect the media to treat them 100% equally? Everybody has their biases. Our corporate media is biased towards corporate interests. What is clear here though is the nature of your bias. Trump/Russia is not a "debunked" story, the Hunter Biden laptop story remains a fabrication, and Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi are highly questionable sources. There's nothing more to gain from this discussion. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:17, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Everything you just said is false. K.Q.1997 (talk) 22:23, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) There was a time in this country when conservative news sources were by and large things like the Wall Street Journal. A solid, reliable reporter of information that was editorially conservative. There is nothing wrong with citing a source like that. There are many other similar examples. On the other hand, you have sources like The Federalist, that just make things up, that print things they know are lies, and that keep it entirely secret who is actually paying their bills. Doesn't matter what their political bias is, that's not ok. Clearly, the what the OP wants is for Wikipedia to give equal weight to discredited lies from the MAGA crowd, which is never going to happen. So I think Muboshgu is right that there is no purpose in continuing this thread. Beeblebrox (talk) 22:29, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Per above. Too many to unpick in one go - but just the first example of Trump/Russia collusion: the legal standard for an act of criminality is higher than the public perception of what is right / wrong. However, pursuant to the Trump/Russia case in particular the level of obstruction was unprecedented in scale and influence - using the mechanisms of government to both hide activities, and suppress interviews / reporting etc. All of which culminated in a DOJ that went to bat for the President in the face of similarly unprecedented criticism from the author of the report. This is WP:NOTAFORUM though, so not getting into discussions of individuals or other BLP elements. Koncorde (talk) 22:30, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

• Other people have already talked about the difference between bias and reliability, or about the issues with trying to decide for yourself what's biased and unbiased - or reliable and unreliable - based on what you think coverage should look like, or your personal reading of events. But on a more basic level, the fact that you're talking about the "MSM" already gives you your answer. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; it follows the sources, roughly, wherever they lead, in accordance with their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. The divide here isn't a neat one between left and right; instead, what you're talking about is a relatively tiny ideological bubble where coverage is determined entirely by what advances their tribal agenda, and a mainstream consisting of essentially everyone else in the world - not just the media, but academia, international coverage, and so on. Compounding this is the fact that on an increasingly-lengthy list of issues (climate change, COVID, the 2020 election, etc.) dogma has shifted so far from accepted reality everywhere else that it's increasingly hard for a source to maintain its tribal standing in the bubble while still maintaining a reputation as an WP:RS everywhere else. Even if you think that that "bubble" is a bold cadre of truth-tellers and that everyone else is a sinister conspiracy to silence them, by identifying their enemies as the "MSM", you're acknowledging, yourself, that the sources you prefer are on the fringes and that their fact-checking and reliability are not generally respected; no matter how strongly you feel about that, Wikipedia is not the place to try and start righting that wrong. --Aquillion (talk) 23:16, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

K.Q.1997, and in the US, maybe start with the propaganda model - for one possible perspective - and work your way forward to where we are now, there's reams written on this stuff, educate yourself. We write articles here using consensus building, only very exceptional editors can claim to be 'without bias,' if you are not happy with the results, try Conservapedia and see how that grabs you.Please don't ping me again, Acousmana 10:07, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

I just want to respond because several editors have implied I'm a conservative or MAGA person or a Trump supporter. However the closest label you could use for me would probably be a center-left populist. In 2016 and 2020 I thought Bernie Sanders was probabaly the best choice for president so my politics are very different from a typical Trump supporter. That doesn't mean however that everything people on the left say about Trump is true e.g. the Russia collusion conspiracy peddled in the media for years. The MSM that people here seem to think is so great and should be trusted and used as reliable sources is the same MSM that not only pushed the Trump/Russia collusion hoax but also the Iraq WMD hoax in 2002/2003. Mainstream media in the U.S. is not like media in other countries, it is controlled by corporate elites who have agendas. Great journalists like Chris Hedges, Taibbi, and Greenwald have written that this is obviously the case in the U.S. and since around probably the 1990s corporatist elitists have controlled most of the media in the U.S. Greenwald in particular is great at exposing these people, this a great article from just today: [14]

There's a lot of literature on the ability to use paranoia and tribal fears in order to manipulate people. You know, when Obama used to be pressured by Marco Rubio and McCain and the hawks in the Democrat party, he used to say that Russia is not a scary power. They have an economy smaller than Italy, they are like a regional power at best and yet in the Democratic party mind, Vladimir Putin is like Darth Vader, Russia is an existential threat.

They've contaminated and infiltrated institutions, they are deliberately stoking the fear constantly among their liberal flock because doing so keeps them frightened, and keeping them frightened means that they are more submissive and more malleable to control. K.Q.1997 (talk) 23:21, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

• pinging users:Aquillion,Acousmana,Muboshgu,Koncorde,Soibangla,Newslinger,Beeblebrox

I think this discussion should be closed, and K.Q.1997 warned, if not blocked, for WP:NOTHERE and WP:BATTLE behavior. --Hipal (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

NYT "panned for claiming pipeline cyberattack caused no hike in gas prices or long refueling lines"

• NYT panned for claiming pipeline cyberattack caused no hike in gas prices or long refueling lines
• Washington Post, New York Times, and NBC News retract reports on Giuliani
• Washington Post correction tells a sordid tale of agenda-driven ‘journalism’

At what point is wikipedia going to be consistent and devalue "overtrusted" sources like NYT to the same level wikipedia gives to fellow political propaganda outlets, instead of covering them up under their current moniker mainstream media? 2601:602:9200:1310:91B9:30F0:652:3D3B (talk) 11:34, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

June 28, 2047. Mark your calendar. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 12:24, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

You're citing a Fox News report for that? Yeah, no, try again. --Jayron32 13:33, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

• Fox News and the New York Post aren't great sources for that, but beyond that an WP:RS isn't required to always get everything completely right - what matters is how they react when they make a mistake (ie. do they publish retractions) and whether it seems like they are intentionally publishing false things. Also the first one seems to be complaining about a... tweet? We don't cite tweets anyway. The second one merely notes that Giuliani has disputed the accusation, which is updating their reporting to reflect new information. The third one is an opinion-piece (in the NY Post, which isn't reliable anyway), and while it's worded as an angry partisan screed the substance is the same as the Giuliani one, ie. they updated their reporting when new information came out. --Aquillion (talk) 16:45, 12 May 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:17, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Making corrections and retracting flawed stories is what responsible journalistic entities do, as opposed to doubling down on lies and misinformation. Everyone makes mistakes, it's what you do when the mistakes are evident that makes the difference. Beeblebrox (talk) 01:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

CNN

Moved to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § CNN

 – GorillaWarfare (talk) 03:40, 21 May 2021 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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CNN is not a reliable source Here are just a few examples https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/business/media/cnn-retraction-trump-scaramucci.html https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6248938060001 — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheeFactChecker (talk • contribs) 22:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

The fact that CNN issues retractions when they make a mistake is actually a sign that they are reliable. Perfection is not a realistic expectation. As for the Sky News piece, it's another video released by Project Veritas, who doctor their videos to create the narratives they want to create. – Muboshgu (talk) 23:41, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)TheeFactChecker, shouldn't this be at WP:RSN as User:Jorm pointed out to you at Talk:Gab (social network) § Gab, the company engagement in antisemitism? Before stating your case, it would be wise to familiarise yourself with past debates around this, see Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § CNN, before restating past arguments that went nowhere and wasting everyone's time in the process. 15 (talk) 23:44, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Cyberscoop

Afternoon all. Anyone have any experience with the reliability of Cyberscoop (and related sites). It appears to have some notable journos such as Jeff Stone formerly of the WSJ for instance? Little information on their site unfortunately. Koncorde (talk) 23:19, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

NewsGuard

Shall we consider NewsGuard's credibility and trustworthiness approvals as a benchmark in selecting future WP:RSP portal links? Inviting interested editors for a discussion. Thank you! -Hatchens (talk) 06:57, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Why should we do that? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:08, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I found this [15] interesting, but that's from 2019. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:11, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Gråbergs Gråa Sång for sharing that link. Also, I found this one that proves your concern. When I first encountered this concept of NewsGuard, I liked it... so I thought why not put this as a topic for a discussion at WP:RSP. - Hatchens (talk) 05:13, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Newsguard looks interesting and can hopefully be useful somehow. But the good/bad classification has limits to it's usefullness, it can't be repeated enough that what is a good ref is often contextual. Thanks for the article, that was interesting too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:00, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång, we are actually in the "stuck-in-a-limbo" phase when it comes to an entity like NewsGuard. Now, I believe... except for WP:RSP, there is no such place on the web that discusses the authenticity of a news portal's standards. And, many of the sources need to be revisited (from time to time) so that AfC reviewers like us always have an updated ready reckoner. - Hatchens (talk) 03:33, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Climate-data.org reliable or not?

Hello i want to know whether https://en.climate-data.org/info/sources/ is deemed reliable or not. If not, which sources can i use for latest climate data of cities, particulary in Ethiopia.

Thank you Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 01:11, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Hi Dawit S Gondaria, the data source for climate-data.org is European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts. So, the site is nothing but a data aggregator. It's would be better if ECMWF counted as reliable in the first place. - Hatchens (talk) 05:18, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Hello Hatchens thanks for clearifying. Unfortunately, i have no acces to ECMWF to verify the data on climate-data.org. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 16:52, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Dawit S Gondaria, then I guess... we should avoid data aggregators. But, please do take an opinion from others. - Hatchens (talk) 04:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Hatchens opinions from others are most welcome, especially pointers/direction to a good reliable source for African/Ethiopian city climates is also very appreciated. Dawit S Gondaria (talk) 18:42, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Inclusion of resources from foreign-language RSPs to the list

There are plenty of resources in Russian, French that may be of interest to editors who know English and their respective native languages (as is in my case). Should we make efforts to analyse foreign-language analogues of WP:RSN and include resources to the English version of WP:RSP, preferably with cooperation of these language Wikipedias? Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:04, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

No because this is meant to be for perennial sources (i.e. those which are always cropping up as contentious). If, however, a foreign language sources fulfils that criterion it could merit inclusion, although other language wikis can have different takes on what constitutes a reliable source. Alexbrn (talk) 13:13, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

I exactly mean those that have been discussed in foreign-language wiki projects and fulfil WP:RSP's criteria, though not necessarily contentious for a native-speaker English-language editor (British, American, Australian etc.).

As for criteria, the gist of what constitutes a WP:RS (that is, verifiability, reputation for fact-checking, their policy on corrections/retractions etc.) don't seem to differ substantially across different language versions, so I believe they could be cross-transferrable without much corrections. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 13:52, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't see why this would be necessary. The point of RSP is to save time when it comes to sources that have been discussed at RSN again and again. If a source hasn't come up at en.wikipedia's RSN, then there's no need to add it to the list – just start an RSN discussion if you have a question about its reliability in some context. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:18, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

This may not fit your request exactly, but I do wish there were a formalized dialogue between analogous projects on Wikis of different languages. Maybe there is one for this and I just haven't heard of it, who knows. I do notice editors from other Wikis coming here to make their views known, but that hardly seems formalized. I somewhat doubt that consensus isn't going to diverge significantly between Wikis, but perhaps I'm wrong. I only know English, so obviously I'm not acquainted.

To your actual question though, I don't think it would be found acceptable to lift consensus from other Wikis and apply it here, no. But I would support more dialogue and analysis of other Wikis' opinion when/if the specific sources come up, that seems constructive. I hope I haven't misunderstood anything here. --Chillabit (talk) 02:34, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

You understood my question correctly. As for formalised dialogue, what I am basically asking here is whether English WP a) can import other Wiki conclusions without much deliberation and, if no, b) whether that would require some form of cross-Wiki cooperation or I could just put a notice on WP:RSN to approve descriptions based on other Wikis' consensus, to be discussed here or else c) invite French-/Russian-language editors to WP:RSN (provided they know English, of course).

You know, if the answers like Mx. Granger's prevail, there's no need to make any further efforts in the first place, because these are going to be contested by the community. Treat this question as a pre-clearance for further action.

Thank you for your input, I'm waiting for others to weigh in. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 03:57, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it would be unacceptable to lift consensus from other Wikis and apply it here. However, I note that several other WP:s have RSP-pages of their own, and there is nothing wrong with looking at those for inspiration/guidance. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:26, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Is this newspaper a reliable source?

Is Prabhat Khabar a reliable source? ABSTYS (talk) 15:45, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

ABSTYS This question fits better at WP:RSN. Afaict, it hasn't been discussed there. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:25, 26 May 2021 (UTC)

Radio Free Asia RFC

RFA is a propaganda outlet run by the US Gov't (this also applies to Bellingcat, which is also rated as reliable). There's a link to an RFC which supposedly resulted in the conclusion that it's a reliable source anyway, but the link is broken, and the reliable sources noticeboard receives so much traffic that it's hard to find in the edit history. If someone could hunt that down and fix the link, that would probably be a good idea, because assuming that the CIA and US State Dept are reliable sources is probably not a very popular opinion outside of the US. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.252.36 (talk • contribs) 21:37, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

The link worked fine for me: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 333#RfC: Radio Free Asia (RFA). Aoi (青い) (talk) 22:08, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

@Aoi: Ah, thanks. I missed that link in the list column; the one in the summary column was outdated, fixed now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.252.36 (talk) 00:28, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

National Review

Although there has never been an RfC for the  National Review (RSP entry), based off the last six major discussions at RSN, there seems to be consensus that NR is generally reliable (with caveats, of course). Here's a quick summary of the previous discussions:

• Discussion 1: There seems to be consensus that NR is reliable.
• Discussion 2: A short discussion, but there does seem to be consensus that NR is reliable (with attribution in this case)
• Discussion 3: This was the hardest discussion to decipher. My reading of the discussion is that there was no consensus regarding a specific NR opinion article.
• Discussion 4: There seems to be consensus that a NR opinion article is reliable
• Discussion 5: There is consensus that NR is a biased source. The specific NR opinion article would need attribution, if it were to be used at all in this case.
• Discussion 6: I don't believe this was an official RfC, but there seems to be consensus that the print version of NR is reliable. The online-only version of NR is not as reliable.

I would like others to weigh in, but the way I see it is that NR is 1) generally reliable, 2) biased, 3) opinions/editorials always need to conform to appropriate guidelines (and make sure they conform to BLP standards), and 4) (based off the last discussion) the online-only version is not as reliable as the print version. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:15, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

This analysis looks mostly good. The most recent discussion seemed to have some points regarding the difference in quality between online-only and magazine, though it looks like one of the editors who acknowledged the difference even were split on whether the online-only portions of outlet’s publications were “usable” but lower quality or “likely be unreliable” a-la WP:FORBESCON. We may want to shape the final part around that; it looks like the online-only content doesn’t have a consensus, but the magazine news content has a consensus for general reliability. It might be worthwhile to have a bit more community discussion on the online-only side, seeing as the most recent discussion only had about two editors seem to comment on the issue directly. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 05:16, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry—what do you mean when you say that the National Review is "reliable"? It's a journal of partisan opinion. Are you suggesting that it's reliable as a source for facts? Or simply that opinions expressed in the National Review may be appropriate, in some instances, if properly attributed as partisan opinion? As to the discussions, they seem to have minimal participation and the most recent appears to be about 3 years old, so if it's important to resolve this issue then I'd strongly suggest a properly-advertised, well-attended RfC addressing the question. MastCell ^Talk 19:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Reliable mostly for opinions. Pretty much the same as  The Nation (RSP entry) is reliable for left-wing opinions. In fact, The Nation has a pretty decent RSP summary, so I would like to mimic that for NR's summary. There seems to be enough participation over the years in order to classify NR as generally reliable. I'm usually not a fan of starting RfCs unless I have a question about how a particular article is used in context. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:18, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Hmmm. Looking at the entry for The Nation, discussions about that source are both more recent and much more heavily-attended than any of the linked discussions about the National Review, so there doesn't seem to be a comparable level of community support demonstrated for these two sources. I don't see "enough participation over the years" for the National Review—in fact, I don't see any participation in the last 3 years, and only very limited participation before that. I don't think that's enough to justify an RSP line announcing an active community consensus. MastCell ^Talk 20:38, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding WP:RSPCRITERIA & WP:RSPIMPROVE. I thought it's acceptable for RSP to derive a community consensus once there has been either 1) two or more significant discussions on RSN or 2) an RfC on RSN. That pretty much explains why sources like  Ars Technica (RSP entry) or the  Cato Institute (RSP entry) are on the list despite the fact that they haven't been discussed in many years (and the discussions garnered few participants). Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:53, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes there is no harm in using discussion from years ago, but we must keep in mind things can change. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 14:26, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Sure things can change. Editors might even vote to deprecate NR if someone opened an RfC right now. I'm only saying that based on prior discussions, NR seems to be misclassified. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:34, 3 May 2021 (UTC)

Discussions regarding overall reliability of National Review have been sparse. We should do an RFC to cement a change. Sources' reliability can change. starship.paint (exalt) 10:11, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I am not saying that there is a change, or that we should waste people's time by doing an RfC. Just that over time things can change. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:50, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I don't think an RfC would be a waste of time. National Review is a pretty prominent partisan opinion source, and the most recent discussion was ~3 years ago, during which time the conservative media landscape has changed substantially. I really don't see the downside to formally assessing current community consensus with better participation and representation than in previous discussions. As time permits, I can format an RfC, or if one of you would prefer to set it up that would be fine too. MastCell ^Talk 20:54, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

I am fine with you setting up the RfC if you have time. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:20, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

I would be a little cautious starting an RfC right now. Editors are getting a little agitated over the number of RfCs that are being opened up at RSN. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 20:08, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Dr.Swag Lord, Ph.d, Emir of Wikipedia, MastCell, and Starship.paint: I think that the stuff has died down regarding too many RfC's on the page. Is this something that you'd still like to see discussed? — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:05, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I would like to have it RFC’d but I’ve never done it before. starship.paint (exalt) 01:43, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind if someone opened an RfC. But I think the RfC should be more narrow--something along the lines of "Is NR a reliable source for attributed opinions regarding politics?" Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 01:53, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

I don't think there's disagreement on that point from the discussions above; it's clearly reliable for attributed opinions of its writers (even a self-published source would be OK in that respect). I'd be interested in seeing if its labeled news coverage is reliable (a-la Weekly Standard) as news. Its not categorized as "news" are obvious WP:RSOPINION territory. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:58, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

From the six previous discussions I linked, I don't think there's disagreement, either. However, based on this current discussion, there does seem to be disagreement on even classifying NR as reliable for attributed opinions. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 05:18, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Twitter:

One more for the discussion-list: Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Tweets_announcing_"Happy_birthday_to_me!_I'm_21_today!" Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:12, 30 June 2021 (UTC)

Middle East Monitor

How reliable is it? I'd like to have some feedback before I can use it as a source. Nacaru 18:51, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Please discuss on the mainpage not the talkpage. This is not an article, the mainpage is the place to ask about a source here. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:18, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

This has now been discussed three times recently: Feb 2019, May 2019, May 2021. Can a neutral editor look at the discussions to see if discussions were sufficiently substantial and there is enough consensus for it to be added to the RSP list? BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:39, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

@Bobfrombrockley: I think that the link for the second most-recent (May 2019) discussion is incorrect and should be this. I participated in the most recent discussion but did not !vote nor leave a top-level comment. The two more recent discussions, in my opinion, are sufficiently substantial (the most recent discussion had 8 bolded !votes and a few other top-level comments, while the second most recent discussion had 5 users participate). It's pretty clear to me that ie's in the 2/3 range (there's general agreement it's not WP:GREL and agreement that there should be some caution used), though I personally won't go further in analyzing whether consensus is WP:MREL or WP:GUNREL as I involved myself in the most recent discussion. — Mikehawk10 (talk) 01:51, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Mikehawk10. Amending my link to make things easier. Just commenting again to see if a non-involved editor feels able to make a judgement if the consensus is MREL or GUNREL. It would be really useful to have this listed in the RSP, as it comes up a lot. BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:52, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Daily Kos

The three discussions listed for the Daily Kos don't seem to support the assertion that it's generally unreliable. In fact, the most recent discussion was by two editors editors, and one of them seemed to opine that it's mainpage works were generally reliable.

There seems to be broad agreement that the site is highly partisan, with a left-wing slant, and there seem to be some questions about its reliability, but I can't find an actual consensus that the site should be considered generally unreliable. I've seen it mentioned at RSN both as an uncontroversially reliable partisan source, and as a highly partisan, unreliable source. I've seen a few editors put them on blast for "dishonesty" and the like, but each time, the NYT and CNN were included in that, so I don't give those opinion any weight.

I managed to find this book by Klaus Dodds which seems to imply that the Daily Kos is a trustworthy source. There's plenty of use by others, as well. It has an editorial board that exercises judgement over what to publish (it clearly calls out articles that aren't subject to this oversight in the byline), and it is, actually, used as a source in several articles. See here.

I'm of the opinion that it's more of a "use with caution" source: don't cite it for contentious claims and keep an eye on it's bias whenever citing it for anything political, but it's okay for uncontroversial stuff and attributed statements. So put it in the "no consensus", rather than the "generally unreliable" grouping as it currently is. I'm not bound and determined to get it changed though; if the consensus of this discussion is that they're generally unreliable, then that's good enough to settle the matter.

Pinging 力, Feminist and Collect as I've seen their name in more than one of the previous discussions with some measured commentary. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:04, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Historically, the biggest problem with the Daily Kos is conflation between staff content (which is partisan but largely reliable) and user-generated content (which is only reliable for stating the views of the authors of that content). There have been some changes to Daily Kos in recent years to try to make that distinction more clear; I'm not sure if it's good enough. Also, oftentimes staff content is commentary on other sources which should be cited instead (there is no reason to cite this Daily Kos article on Nikole Hannah Jones in preference to the many other articles on that topic); there are some situations where it would be correct to cite DK but I'm not sure how to phrase a rule that describes them. User:力 (power~enwiki, π, ν) 18:37, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

That seems to line up with my own assessment, that it belongs in the "no consensus" category. In other words, each use would have to have reliability determined individually, for the most part.

I agree about that example article: it reads like a re-write-up of the NC Policy Watch article, though that's a fairly common practice (related to the whole concept of the scoop). I wouldn't use any article from any source that did that (except for attributed opinions, of course, and only when those are due), if only to avoid the extra layer of interpretation it adds.

I've noted that the UGC seems to be marked these days with the label "Community" and the disclaimer "(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)" Keeping with the subject of your example here's an example of that. That's a pretty clear distinction, and hard to miss as it's part of the byline of each article. I'm reminded of Forbes' method of putting their UGC in the "sites" namespace. The fact that DK doesn't operate on an invite-only basis like Forbes is notable, but doesn't really affect anything.

As far as a rule, what would you think of doing something like we did with Forbes; splitting the entries based on staff or community content? See WP:RSP#Forbes. I'd start with that, then put the DK site into the "no consensus" instead of "generally reliable" and add a note about partisanship. WP:RSP#Entrepreneur does something similar, though with only one entry. I'd be fine with that, as well.

I'll note that the DK was added unilaterally back in late 2019, and though it looks like a good faith addition, it's the lack of a clear consensus before putting something in the "generally unreliable" category that I object to. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 19:10, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Absolutely not. Daily Kos is one of the most hyperpartisan, clickbait-y websites out there. They've spread pure nonsense on numerous occasions. I'm surprised it hasn't been deprecated yet. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 22:05, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

It can go either way between "no consensus" and "generally unreliable". I'd note that Daily Kos seems widely used and accepted as a source for election predictions. I agree that they aren't bad at marking WP:UGC, but I can't imagine their staff reportage being that useful of a source for citing facts. When they cite other sources, that would be similar to Cracked, Heavy, Mediaite, or Washington Times on the RSP list. feminist (+) 02:52, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Woman's Day (Australian magazine)

Is Woman's Day (Australian magazine) (unrelated to the US Woman's Day). It does not look like it to me. Its Wikipedia article is pretty critical of it (e.g. 'Woman's Day was criticised on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Media Watch, in which it was described as "garbage journalism" for the use of sensationalist headlines and content'); and if the cover shown in the article is typical, it looks a lot like like unreliable supermarket tabloids like the US National Enquirer ("considered generally unreliable") or the UK's Daily Mail ("There is consensus that the Daily Mail (including its online version, MailOnline) is generally unreliable").

Us Weekly (itself not at the top of anyone's list of reliable sources) calls it "Australian tabloid Women’s Day"; you know it's bad when Us casts aspersions.

Where this is coming from: There's long been rumors that Olivia Newton-John's boyfriend Patrick McDermott faked his death. The article includes the sentence: "In 2016, more than a decade after his mysterious disappearance, investigators claim that he was found healthy and alive in the town of Sayulita, Mexico—where he lives with his new girlfriend. This claim was made by the weekly magazine Woman's Day." There's no specific citation at all (Actually, I'll add one, pending this discussion); other sources I can find are all meta-sources, all going back solely to the Woman's Day article.

If Woman's Day is deemed reliable, I guess it's okay to include the claim; but if not, it ought to be stricken. TJRC (talk) 00:20, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

I don't know about Woman's Day (Australia), but I found a 2018 story about that photo the tabloids claimed was him in Sayulita (with quotes from the man the photo really is of), if that helps. (Note that New Idea and Woman's Day are the same magazine family.) Also, another story ridiculing the New Idea claim. Schazjmd (talk) 00:37, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Womens Day is clearly one of numerous problematic sources used in the article. The claims that he is still alive in Wikivoice were absurd, so I've cut them, there's still a lot of work to do. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:00, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, Hemiauchenia. I see you've done all the cleanup in the article that I was considering, and more. I'll cross this off my list of things to worry about. TJRC (talk) 20:13, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

References