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Question about source designation

Can you help clarify what WP calls a source that is written and published by the same entity that is advocating for or reporting on the information in the source? For example,

1. a book or report authored by one or more members of a think-tank, published by that think-tank (book or report at website) would be considered.... ????
2. a book or report authored by an expert on the topic, published by their own publishing company or a pay-to-publish company would be considered....????
3. a book or report authored by faculty/staff of a university, published by that university (book or university's website) would be considered...????
4. if information contained in the book or report published by any of the above sources is proven inaccurate, (a misquote), can it still be quoted?
5. if any of the above sources has a known bias, or advocates a cause can it still be used to include contentious material and/or labels of bigotry in a BLP or any other article?

I've gotten so many different answers, and none of them seem to hold up under pressure when there's a conflicting POV. I would like to hear your perspective if you'd be kind enough to share. Atsme☯^Consult 15:19, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

That is a good, and therefore difficult, question. It will depend on the circumstances, the degree of peer review, and how controversial the view is.

1. A book by members of a think tank published by the think tank would normally be reliable for the views of that body, or the views of the movement of which it is part. It's better than a blog, but it's not a neutral description of anything. Such books may be well researched (e.g. some form the Centre for Policy Studies) or may be worthless (anything from the creationists, usually). I'd normally look for independent evidence of its significance, in references in other sources.
2. A book published by a university tends to be much more reliable, as long as it's a decent university. So books published by Louisiana Baptist University would be worthless as sources, but books published by Cambridge University Press are generally highly regarded. University presses are commercial organisations and most will have a Chinese wall between them and the institution, they are a favoured route for publication of the work of academics in the university but simply being on faculty does not guarantee acceptance. These essentially count as peer-reviewed sources in normal usage, unless there's evidence to the contrary.
3. A book or report authored by an expert on the topic, published by their own publishing company or a pay-to-publish company would be considered self-published and reliable only as an indication of that person's view on something, and not normally outside an article on the author.
4. If information is shown to be inaccurate? Depends on how. A retracted paper should not be quoted in an article on the topic of the paper, but may be quoted, and the retraction noted, in discussion on the development of the idea (e.g. Andrew Wakefield's fraudulent paper in the article on MMR and autism). Information that is contradicted by other sources may be a case for balanced coverage (A says X< B says Y) or may be a case where this would be false balance. We should not quote an AIDS denialist in an article on HIV, even if we then go on to show them to be wrong, but we might well cover ideas once thought to be plausible and subsequently falsified, or we may cover wilful denialism in the context of ongoing holdouts against settled science. So there's no one size fits all there, the guide should be WP:WEIGHT.
5. A source with an agenda may be a reliable source in respect of accusations of bigotry. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a good reputation for accurately identifying hate groups, whereas several religious extremists do not. If the group making the claim is significant or of substantial academic reputation then it is generally legitimate to attribute a claim to them (WP:ATT), but not to state the claim as fact in Wikipedia's voice. In most cases it is better by far to find a reliable independent secondary source that weighs up the competing claims, rather than weigh them ourselves.

I think I know the article in question, and I have made my views clear on the source there: it is valid in the body, but not the lede unless it is picked up more widely by substantial sources. A New York Times article which notes the accusation in the opening paragraph would be a good argument, but the mere existence of criticism is not evidence for its significance and we definitely need to attribute and ideally reference independent discussion of the accusations.

Does that help? Guy (Help!) 18:49, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Very well written, and yes it helps, thank you. I'm actually not referring to the article you're thinking of, but when the time comes, I hope it's ok if I ask for your guidance again? The articles that instigated my source questions are Emerson and IPT, both of which are getting quite a bit of heat right now because of Emerson's Birmingham gaffe. Emerson is PP, so the focus has turned to IPT which has already undergone substantial changes - primarily criticisms which have created UNDUE. The History section contains more criticism than it does the organization's actual history. One such criticism dates back 20+ years ago before IPT was formed, and was obviously included for the purpose of discrediting Emerson. The same criticism is also included on Emerson's BLP creating a double whammy. The sources came into play because Emerson's statement was incorrectly paraphrased by biased RS (oxymoron?) which you already noted was problematic on one of the noticeboards. I was confused over whether a source both written and published by a think-tank was considered a self-published source, (self being the entity), but I now understand that isn't the case. It is simply a "source", and in this case, a biased one which takes it out of the realm of factual into being opinion. Right? Last year, a BLPN closer confirmed that Emerson and IPT are inextricably linked, therefore WP:BLPGROUPS applies and extends BLP protection to IPT. Does that mean BLP sanctions would also apply to IPT ? I tried to get the two articles merged last year, but was met with great resistance, and now we're seeing the repercussions of a double whammy on a single BLP. I think maybe our BLP policy needs a new section for clarity. A couple of other editors mentioned it as well. Atsme☯^Consult 20:26, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

OK, but take care: Emerson is an ideologue and it's normal for ideologues to be subject to criticism, some of which is unjustified and some is not. These are among the most difficult articles for neutrality. Allegations can be made in polemical sources which are rejected by mainstream sources, and other allegations in the same polemical sources can be found to be entirely justified. Most editors will also have a strong opinion on the article subject. Truly neutral editors are few and far between. Always be ready to check your own biases, and recheck them over time, because repeated resistance to POV-pushing actually drives you towards pathological belief or pathological skepticism. So, handle with care and ask for specific advice and review.

I don't have an opinion on Emerson myself, but as you say I did find issues with the proposed source. Separate articles? Hmmm. If the sources about Emerson are mainly about IPT then there is a great reason to merge. If IPT is Emerson, then merge the other way. Otherwise evaluate the sources: if they are substantial and about the article subject (rather than mentioning it in passing) then it's fine. Guy (Help!) 23:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Those are some extremely level-headed and astute answers, JzG. (Well, except maybe response number 3, which would be a 100% accurate response if the question was about self-published sources rather than published by a University academic publisher.) In fact, your responses show such a high degree of comprehension that I am finding it difficult to believe that the same person also wrote:

in this case the claim relies on some rather obscure and obviously pro-Islamic sources that make an allegation of islamophobia

and

The source is scarecely without an agenda, either, since it's written by academics on Islamic studies. So instead of nit-picking, how about finding a robust, independent source that actually supports the sentence, or modifying the sentence to something actually supported by the sources? He has been accused of islamophobia by islamists, would be entirely uncontroversial.

If I understand those comments correctly, you were calling the sources "pro-Islamic" and "islamists" (is that a thing?) and driven by an "agenda" — is this true? May I ask you to clarify your reasoning behind those statements? Is Adam Taylor of the Washington Post "pro-Islamic"? How about the authors (Sylvia Chan-Malik, R. David Coolidge, Edward E. Curtis IV, Nabil Echchaibi, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, Zareena A. Grewal, Julie Hammer, Rosemary R. Hicks, Sally Howell, Amaney Jawal, Akel Ismail Kahera, Michael Muhammad Knight, Karen Leonard, Debra Majeed, Kathleen M. Moore, Amid Safi, Richard Brent Turner, Gisela Webb, Timur R. Yuskaev) of the scholarly work on Islam published by the Cambridge University Press? Perhaps you were referring to Carl W. Ernst's book? Isn't he the Religious Studies professor quoted as saying, "The study of religion is an extremely important field in the United States; it’s one of the key ways we deal with diversity. I feel my professional activity is designed to encourage the notion that you can deeply understand another person’s religious or spiritual trajectory without having to join in. We have to retrain academics to write in a less specialized way, to reach a wider, popular readership. And that’s one of my goals." I'm of the opinion that the sources being examined are neither "obscure" nor "obviously pro-Islamic", and I'm left bewildered at your comments. May I press you for a little more explanation? Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 22:56, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

You left out important parts of what Guy actually stated - The text the source purports to support is: "Some of Emerson's statements and networks have been challenged as fomenting Islamophobia". It does not mention fomenting, and I don't see any such mention in the others either. The source is scarecely without an agenda, either, since it's written by academics on Islamic studies. So instead of nit-picking, how about finding a robust, independent source that actually supports the sentence, or modifying the sentence to something actually supported by the sources? He has been accused of islamophobia by islamists, would be entirely uncontroversial. You seem determined to go much further. Guy (Help!) 23:02, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

The sources in question are

References

• The Cambridge Companion to American Islam had passing mention, a very bigoted one at that - ...cited Islmophobes Steven Emerson (the discredited "terrorism expert" who falsely identified Muslims as being behind the Oklahoma City bombing committed by Timothy McVeigh) and the equally notorious Daniel Pipes as his sources.
• The Washington Post included one short statement - However, Emerson has been accused of Islamophobia in the past.
• Carl Ernst's Islamophobia in America: The Anatomy of Intolerance, also passing mention in a chapter titled "Women as Producers of Islamophobic Discourse" - Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipes, Newt Gin[g]rich, Steven Emerson, Glenn Beck, Frank Gaffney - many of the most prominent producers of Islamophobic discourse are male.
• Law as movement strategy: How the Islamophobia movement institutionalizes fear through legislation - ...funding flows to the Islamophobia movement's 'misinformation experts' including...Steven Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism.

All but one source represents an allegation, none of which are backed up by anything but biased opinion. Co-authors Safi and Hammer who wrote the Cambridge published book are the only ones who actually called Emerson an Islamophobe, and then cited a Think Progress article which incorrectly paraphrased an evaluation made by Emerson during a CBS interview 20 years ago, an evaluation that was supported by law enforcement. Emerson called it "a Middle Eastern trait" with no mention whatsoever of the word Muslim. WP should not be the forum for such unfounded allegations and echoing the bigotry shown by scholars of Islamic studies. Editors should be striving for accuracy and verifiability. If the criticism by Safi and Hammer are included, they don't belong in the lead, rather they belong in the section about the Murrah Bldg. The phrases were clearly cherrypicked to give readers the impression Emerson is "fomenting Islamophobia". Smells a lot like WP:SYNTH. Regardless, this discussion belongs on BLPN, rather than as a critical distraction to my RS questions to Guy. Atsme☯^Consult 00:28, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Atsme! No, I didn't "fail to include Guy's complete sentence", as you claim in your edit summary. I intentionally only quoted the portion I wished to discuss with JzG, as I completely agreed with all the rest of his comment. I didn't come here to clutter his Talk page with a full debate on the reliability of the sources. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 00:55, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Hi, X - just wanted to mention that Guy responded to my questions by paraphrasing them in his lead (which editors love to see in post production). My interpretation was that he simply transposed his answers to questions 2 & 3. Atsme☯^Consult 01:47, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Ah, you appear to be correct - thank you very much. I've struck that sentence accordingly. Regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 02:03, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Policy

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Which policy did MyMyTang violate that warranted a block? [1]. (Note per WP:ANYUSER there's no minimum requirements to comment on the Administrator boards.) If there is no violation please unblock them forthwith. Also per strike or redact the description of the editor as dramawhore, per the recent arbcom finding, which explains Administrators are expected to behave respectfully and civilly in their interactions with others. This requirement is not lessened by perceived or actual shortcomings in the conduct of others. NE Ent 03:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Please provide links and diffs. Thanks. Jehochman Talk 05:08, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Check the contribution history. This is either a sock puppet or one of the legion of drama-only accounts that have made the Gamergate farrago so toxic. It's not about where the edits are, it's about users whose only interest is continuing a long-term pattern of widespread trolling against anyone who dares to support the consensus view. We simply do not need people who are here solely to push that particular PoV. They are a massive time sink. That said, see the note at top. I do not assert that my view is Received Truth. I do assert that if the rules stop me improving the encyclopaedia, I have the right to ignore them - or, as in thus case, short cut the inevitable. I do not support either side, I support the consensus of independent sources as currently described in the article. It would be the same with any editor appearing to stir up shit about climate change, evolution or homeopathy on the drama boards with fewer than 50 edits to their name. Sock puppet or meat puppet makes no odds. Guy (Help!) 07:04, 2 February 2015 (UTC) This block is as bad as the one on DarknessSavior, if not worse. —Xezbeth (talk) 07:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I have no idea who that is. I see someone who came here solely to promote the idea that conduct described in pretty much every reliable independent source as harassment, is somehow not harassment and should be facilitated by Wikipdia. And this in a context where rather a lot of people have colluded off -wiki and then piled in with little or no prior history, to fan the flames. Sure, people are upset that the real world doesn't think much of what they have done. Not our problem, and I'll thank you for not continuing to try to make it so. Guy (Help!) 07:27, 2 February 2015 (UTC) If you don't even know who that is, then I don't understand how you can accuse this user of trolling. Is disagreeing with the majority opinion a blockworthy offence now? It's an interesting way to build consensus I suppose. —Xezbeth (talk) 08:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I actively don't care about the individuals who have been involved in the Gamergate farrago in the past. As far as I can see, very few of them have covered themselves in glory. However, this is a user with fewer than 50 edits, all of which seem to be meta discussions around Gamergate. You compare this with DarknessSavior (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log). That's pretty silly. DarknessSavior has been editing since 2012 and has numerous mainspace edits. I have made no attempt to evaluate their quality, but there is a clear and obvious difference between a long-term content contributor and someone with less than 50 edits, pretty much all engaging in drama debates. Not only is this extremely unlikely to be a genuinely new user, it is also precisely the kind of person we do not need right now. It is very clear that a significant number of people have come to Wikipedia solely to engage in this drama. The drama can only be resolved by ordinary Wikipedians doing the ordinary things that Wikipedians do (fact-checking, copyediting and so on). These new editors are not equipped to help maintain a neutral article even if they wanted to, and since most seem to perceive their own bias as neutrality, I see little reason to think that is going to change. I welcome new editors to Wikipedia, as long as they contribute productively to actual content and don't immediately pile in to prolonging a toxic mess. I have been reading up on the background, but deliberately ignoring names. I have also read some external summaries and the sourced article we currently have, which accurately reflects other analyses. We now have a neutral article. It needs care and attention, not single-purpose advocacy accounts. I give any uninvolved admin carte blanche to unblock if they think I am wrong (one is not required to be infallible in order to wield the mop), but I am firmly of the view that we do not need that kind of input. And by the way, I think TyTyMang is almost certainly a very nice and sincere person, many of those whipped into the fray by the egregiously inaccurate reports on Reddit and elsewhere undoubtedly do sincerely think they are helping. But they aren't. They are acting as meatpuppets for Gamergaters, which is as welcome here as acting as a meatpuppet for a creationist or a climate change denier. Accidental or not, this is contributing to a toxic atmosphere on Wikipedia and giving the impression that we are hostile to women and minorities. If they care about Wikipedia they need to walk away. If they don't, they need to be ejected forcibly. TL;DR version: any editor who has no history outside of Gamergate and related drama, should find some other area to edit, or leave. Guy (Help!) 12:35, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Where is the documentation / evidence of the so-called "long standing consensus"? [2]. NE Ent 12:51, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I have no opinion on why the person was blocked. However, I've no idea why you thought it appropriate to refer to anyone as a 'drama whore'. Let's keep things WP:CIVIL shall we? Regardless of the other person's behaviour. PanydThe muffin is not subtle 16:11, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I already dealt with that. NE Ent: see WP:SOCK under meatpuppetry. We do not draw a distinction between use of multiple accounts and multiple editors pursuing an identical agenda in collusion. And now I think we're done. Let the user appeal, I am happy to stand back and let others make the call. My personal view is that the time for extending indefinite tolerance to those coming here to Right Great Wrongs is past. This dispute has consumed the Wikipedia community for months and right now it is very plain that the Gamergaters (and presumably the radfems) are all up for another round. In the mean time, we have finally achieved a half-decent article, and it would be good to beat off the circling mosquitoes and concentrate on making it tighter and better still. Guy (Help!) 17:23, 2 February 2015 (UTC) The question is, who is trying to Right Great Wrongs, people that civilly discuss changes and decisions made or WP:INVOLVED admins claiming there are no two sides to an article explicitly labeled as a controversy [3] that say things like "if the rules stop me improving the encyclopaedia, I have the right to ignore them" and refer to other editors as "drama whores" and "circling mosquitoes" while blocking them without regard to policy because they're apparently "the kind of users not needed right now"? 79.247.127.58 (talk) 19:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC) The problem with this article has been civil POV-pushing by an endless succession of "new" or "returning" editors. That burns out those who attempt to police neutrality. As we saw. Guy (Help!) 21:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC) I get it, I really do, but I have unblocked them. Preemtive blocking is not really a thing. It may turn out you were right but that we just don't do things that way. Also, if you want to topic ban someone from gamergate stuff the proper way to do it is to file at WP:AE,see new remarks below Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2015 (UTC) and I think you will find they are not exactly soft on misbehavior over there. Bottom line: I consider this a procedural unblock only, and I have made it clear to them that this should not be considered an endorsement of their editing. Beeblebrox (talk) 21:42, 2 February 2015 (UTC) Fine. Guy (Help!) 21:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC) What I dont get is why you thought blocking a user pre-emptively with no valid reason and then calling the user a "drama whore" would prevent drama instead of inflaming it. Gamergate is pretty much solely fueled on Streisand effect. By blocking someone premptively (and someone who was protesting about pre-emptive blocking of others at that) and attacking them you've probably drawn even more people into the fray. Your actions got 721 UPVOTES on the Gamergate subreddit, and were on its front page for all of yesterday. So the purpose of your block has pretty much completely backfired. On a side note, I find it amazing that admins calling editors they're blocking dramawhores is treated as such casual a misdemeanor. Bosstopher (talk) 13:12, 3 February 2015 (UTC) As you can see I have stricken part of my remark. Somehow I forgot the way discretionary sanctions work after only a week of being off the committee. Any admin may invoke them if they see a user acting disrutively. So instead of blocking and then demanding a topic ban in return for an unblock you could have issued the topic ban and if they violated it then you go to AE for an enforcement block. Beeblebrox (talk) 19:21, 3 February 2015 (UTC) I ready the ArbCom case. If you adopt the approach of waiting until each "new" WP:SPA has exhausted the patience of the community before showing them the door, you will never see the end of it. This would not be a problem if it weren't for the fact that we are already pretty much out of people who want to go anywhere near that toxic mess, while there is no shortage of people to whom it is vitally important to rewrite history in their favour, because the consensus of independent sources makes them look like spoilt children. I understand Reddit has already pitched in, and no doubt the usual griefers will be right along. Guess what? That's one more admin who's going to shrug and say "fuck this for a game". Never mind, it's someone else's problem now, I have nothing more to say on the matter. Guy (Help!) 21:16, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Confusion on G. Edward Griffin edits

I am confused by your edits concerning Griffin. On the AN you said "close, there is nothing to fix" which seems to support the RFC closure (which determined to remove the conspiracy theory stuff). But then you actually edited the article to add the CT stuff. In any event there is a new discussion about a proposed lede which will include CT jargon, only with less prominence. Thanks. – S. Rich (talk) 00:22, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Per the closer's comments, we don't call him a conspiracy theorist (I disagree, but will abide by consensus), but we talk about what he does. He is known, as per the infobox, for promotion of conspiracy theories. X is a conspiracy theorist: tricky. X is an author known for promoting conspiracy theories: unarguably correct. Guy (Help!) 14:41, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Figured it wouldn't be long...

Congratulations on being the next person targeted. It's exactly what I said the playbook was, and yes, that's exactly why the ArbCom decision was so poisonous. Perhaps one day the project will wake up and realize what a mistake it made. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 00:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

The stupid thing is, what they are doing is reinforcing the impression that all the fault is on their side. Basically they have just proved me right. When it comes to video games I never had a givable fuck in the first place, my view is that there is probably no smoke without at least some fire, but they have gone out of their way to prove that they do not care in the slightest about objective standards of right and wrong, they are just trolling and trying to resurrect their reputation from the sewer. Independent evidence indicates that's not going well for them, and their tactics are, beyond any possibility of doubt, the reason why. Any reasonable person who is tied up in gamergate needs to leave now before they turn into the kind of poisonous troll described by dispassionate onlookers, many of whom, like me, do not care at all about video games but do care about fairness. Guy (Help!) 10:41, 8 February 2015 (UTC)