Talk:Tghat

Being pedantic about university research preprints

If we are going to be pedantic about WP:SELFPUBLISH, then let's read it properly: Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications.[8]. The authors here are established subject-matter experts.

How about the next sentence? Exercise caution when using such sources: if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will probably have published it in independent, reliable sources.[9] A key words is "probably". This has to be taken into context. This is fairly recent information obtained through an internet and telephone blockade, which takes a lot of effort to collect and check. The time scale for other academic sources or for legal investigations to publish this degree of detailed report is very long - it's not surprising if in November 2021 there are no equivalent publications. In the case of "Tigray: Atlas of the Humanitarian Situation", there are several authors, who presumably have checked each others' contributions, since their academic reputations depend on the quality of their research article.

Bottom line: whether or not the "The situation in Tigray at the beginning of 2021" and "Tigray: Atlas of the Humanitarian Situation" count as "reliable" source or a "self-published" source in general is a qualitative judgement. The current specific text in WP:SELFPUBLISH is reasonable.

Here the question is whether these sources are reliable sources for establishing the claim that academic sources cite Tghat. How can these sources not be reliable for this claim? We could add a clause "in the preprint" to each of these two sources in the text to clarify that these are preprints. Boud (talk) 19:08, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

RfC: tghat.com

Tghat.com has an RFC for possible consensus. A discussion is taking place. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments on the discussion page. Thank you. Platonk (talk) 20:35, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

OR and SYNTH in this article

There is much original research and synthesis of published material going on in this article. Relevant quotes from WP:No original research are:

• "Take care not to go beyond what the sources express or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intention of the source".
• "Even with well-sourced material, if you use it out of context, or to reach or imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source, you are engaging in original research".
• "Drawing conclusions not evident in the reference is original research regardless of the type of source."
• "Do not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any source. Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source."

These following examples of language in the article are all at best WP:UNDUE because they are used for no other purpose than to name-drop.

• "Tghat's reports ... are cited by academic sources" [1]
• "Tghat photography was used" [2]
• "referred to Tghat footage" [3]
• "was used as a source" [4]

The above four examples are observations by a Wikipedia editor, not something written about in the cited source, nor in any other reliable source. Writing a conclusion (drawn by a Wikipedia editor and expressed such as "are cited by academic sources") is WP:SYNTH because no other sources say that or even hint at that. By stringing together this series of name-dropping, one is attempting to get the reader to draw a conclusion that isn't stated by reliable sources. (See article Name-dropping for explanation of the logic fallacy.)

Though one might try to use such arguments on a talk page when trying to get consensus about whether a website or organization is or is not notable, writing such editor viewpoints in Wikivoice in a mainspace article is original research and against Wikipedia policies and guidelines. Platonk (talk) 01:51, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Name dropping is the other way around. Name-dropping is when John Smith mentions that he recently chatted with Barack and George W. and Angela, to try to raise his social status. If Barack Obama and George W. Bush and Angela Merkel refer to information that they got from John Smith as part of their press conferences on a topic, then that raises the status (notability) of John Smith and his information.

The four examples are facts that do not require interpretation. A summary of these facts is not synthesis. See Wikipedia:What SYNTH is not#SYNTH is not summary. Boud (talk) 18:36, 24 November 2021 (UTC)

Removal of peer-reviewed source

Just for the record, this edit (not by me) removed a peer-reviewed source, motivated in the edit summary by a reversed interpretation of WP:USEBYOTHERS. In an article about a news source X, the reader will want to know what other news sources or academics think of X or whether they find X to be a source worth using. The point here is that the peer-reviewed source judged Tghat to be the best source of both the original and translated versions of Abiy's speech. Boud (talk) 07:43, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

@Boud: You wrote in wikivoice:

Tghat's Amharic original and English translation of Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed's well-known 18 July 2021 parliamentary speech, in which he referred to the Tigray People's Liberation Front as being "cancer" (or "incurable disease") and being "like 'weeds' to be 'uprooted'", was used as a source in genocide research.

However, the source actually said this while mentioning tghat in a footnote:

On 18 July 2021, Prime Minister Abiy further reinforced fears – in a now-infamous speech to parliament, he labelled the TPLF a “cancer” and like “weeds” to be “uprooted.”²⁶

Footnote 26: There are variant translations from the Amharic, some of which are “incurable disease” rather than cancer. A translation with a copy of the original Amharic is available at Tghat, “‘The Cancer of Ethiopia’: Statement by PM Abiy Ahmed,” trans., 18 July 2021, https://www.tghat.com/2021/07/18/the-cancer-of-ethiopia-statement-by-pm-abiy-ahmed/ (accessed 20 September 2021).

It is a very far stretch of WP:SYNTH to go from a simple footnote directing readers to an online translation to saying that the authors used that particular translation, that tghat made the translation, and how very important it was. An ordinary person would read it as 'a translation had been conveniently posted on tghat.com', and no ordinary person (not nowadays) would assume that "tghat" (whatever or whoever that means) made and posted it themselves. No more so than thinking that Facebook is the author of everything posted on it.

I point you to tghat's contact us page which invites contributions and expresses willingness to keep it confidential: "Do you have any photo or video in relation to the war on Tigray? Do you have a story you want to share? Or do you want to send us feedback or write for Tghat? Send your messages to [email address]. Don’t worry, we never publish without making sure every personal information is as you wanted it to be. We thank you, in advance, for any useful information you send us."

Would you like me to similarly pick apart all the other puffery sentences you've added to this article? Like these edits: photography footage report report Desta's victim list — none of that content can be attributed to "tghat" but may well be contributions that were posted on tghat.com. But one doesn't really know.

Do you have some connection with tghat.com that you're not telling us about? I ask that because your repeated defense of tghat.com with spurious arguments is getting tiresome. No matter what I or anyone else does to try to explain, you keep refusing to get the point and continue doing what you want to do. It is getting quite bothersome and is interfering with my ability to do other constructive editing in Wikipedia. This is a waste of my time. Platonk (talk) 22:48, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I'm not completely convinced by your interpretations:

• "used" - Ibreck & de Waal don't want to accuse Abiy of using those particular words without giving a proper source (they would risk a libel lawsuit for damaging Abiy's reputation, accusing him of hate speech). I don't really see the problem with "used". Maybe "referred to" would be better?
• "made the translation" - "Tghat's" was intended in the sense that Tghat published it and took editorial responsibility - if you're worried that it gives Tghat journalists/editors credit for the translation, then probably a better wording could be chosen. Given your opposition to the sentence, for the moment, at least, I'm not going to propose an improved wording.
• "An ordinary person would read it ... no ordinary person ... would assume". The style of the footnote is in a reasonably standard academic bibliographic style: author, title, comment "trans. 18 July 2021", URL, access date. That's a lot stronger than "we happened to find it on the Internet somewhere"; it's "we are willing to defend ourselves in court for a libel claim by Abiy Ahmed based on this source and won't make the journal pay our legal costs".

"I point you ... contributions that were posted on tghat.com" - Emailing a story to Tghat and having the Tghat editors decide if they publish the story, and in what form, is not "posting" on Tghat. In fact, sending proposed reports by email means that there is necessarily some editorial control.

"Do you have some connection with tghat.com that you're not telling us about?"

No. There's no COI there.

Regarding your general feeling about our discussions, I would suggest that you assume good faith rather than making suggestions which are borderline from personal attacks. We are both here to build an encyclopedia. Boud (talk) 00:13, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Platonk. It's hard to say that the Wikipedia text is directly supported by the cited source so I would consider this WP:OR. It's only usable for article space content if the source directly states something about tghat's accuracy or lack thereof. (t · c) buidhe 13:16, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Deleted edit, false

I deleted the content from this edit.

Deleted (false) content: The South African Independent Online referred to Tghat footage of Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) personnel captured during Operation Alula in late June 2021.

Reality: The author did not mention the video nor the tweet containing the video — it had been sandwiched in between a copy of Martin Plaut's tweet and the author's content above which was referring to Martin Plaut's tweet. Neither Martin Plaut nor the Independent Online author referred to that video/footage.

Platonk (talk) 23:46, 26 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that "referred to" is false, that was an error by me. It looks like the author of the article quoted the tweet by "@MapEthiopia" that refers to Tghat "releas[ing] footage". The author of the article chose to quote the tweet among a whole set of other tweets. So the author of the IOL article quotes a pseudonymous Twitterer who refers to what s/he claims is Tghat video footage. @MapEthiopia is clearly not a reliable source in the Wikipedia sense. Boud (talk) 00:31, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Boud. Platonk (talk) 03:56, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources

Deleted edit, UNDUE

I am removing content from an edit.

Original version: "Tghat photography was used in June 2021 by BBC News to show the results of the Togoga airstrike on a market place in Togoga."
Today's version: "In June 2021, BBC News showed the results of the airstrike on a market place in Togoga with Tghat photography."

Actuality: Out of 6 photographs, a single one has the notation "TGHAT MEDIA" in the bottom left corner, similar to the other five (3 Getty Images, 1 Planet Labs, and 1 composite Getty and Planet). It is the method/style BBC uses to attribute an image they obtained from someone/somewhere else. In this case, there is no other mention to tghat nor a link to where this photo came from (BBC's standard practice of attribution doesn't use a link to its source). The single image is grainy as if it was taken from a video and shows a disarray of metal roofing on what looks like a wooden structure, more of a closeup on a single small building than depicting the whole marketplace.

Deeper verification search: I have only seen the word "media" following "tghat" on Twitter, @TghatMedia. I have not seen it being used in anything posted on tghat.com (nor their Facebook account, which appears inactive). I have searched extensively on tghat.com, google.com, tineye.com and Tghat's twitter account to locate the originally-posted image. Nothing. I've even checked in videos to see if I could find this image. Not found. I've checked keywords Togoga, Edagaselus, airstrike, air strike, bomb, bombing, market, June, and several other guesses. I was unable to discover where or how @TghatMedia tweeted that image so as to evaluate its usage or how they presented it (for example, did they present someone else's image).

Evaluation: To write in wikivoice in Tghat (either the original or today's version of this content) might partially be 'technically correct'. However, to generalize it as "Tghat photography" — a plural usage, otherwise one would have written "a photograph" or "an image" — is inaccurate. The content was placed in the Tghat article under section heading "Coverage" with other content intended to indicate that other reliable sources are "covering" Tghat, which BBC is not doing here. They only indicated a single image attribution. In this case, it is disingenuous and exaggerates the importance of this instance under the due and undue weight policy: "Undue weight can be given in several ways, including but not limited to the depth of detail, ... prominence of placement, the juxtaposition of statements, ..."

Therefore I am removing that content. Platonk (talk) 04:03, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Sources