Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Archive 7

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TVP and other Polish government sources

I've noticed that Telewizja Polska (tvp.com) is now shaded red (generally unreliable). I can't find, however, what's the basis of this decision. We did have an RfC on this and some related sources few months back, but it was not closed with any consensus I am aware of (it was also disrupted by socks): Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_355#RfC:_Polish_sources, as was the previous discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_329#Telewizja_Polska (which was split from Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_328#Polish_government-owned_media). My reading of that RfC is that we probably would get consensus to label some of those sources are situational (unreliable on modern politics), but that's probably something for a new RfC (that I cannot find any evidence of having taken place). What did I miss? Who and where did decide to flag those sources as unreliable? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:36, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

PS. Could be just a script issue, as this concerns User:Headbomb's script flagging some Polish sources. I've traced this to April 6, 2021 diff. Headbomb, any idea what prompted you to add those Polish sources to the list? (Those are: |gazetabankowa\.pl|naszdziennik\.pl|ordoiuris\.pl|tv-trwam\.pl|tvp\.pl|tygodnikpodlaski\.pl|wGospodarce\.pl|wNas\.pl|wSumie\.pl|wsieciprawdy\.pl)? The timing matches the older RSN discussion, but I am not seeing it as closed with any consensus? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 09:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I believe those were added when I synced my script with Wikipedia:New_page_patrol_source_guide. For TVP specifically (which is listed as no consensus on the NPPSG), Reporters without Borders was enough for me to put it over the line given the socking that invalidated the discussion. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 15:56, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Headbomb Considering that the socks were critical of TVP, shouldn't it have made your more cautious? :> In either case, I'd suggest following Nppsg, as I think it is rather fair treatment of all subjects. TVP and Polish Radio were decent sources until few years ago (and can still be used for non-political, non-controversial coverage). I suggest reclassifying them to questionable/no consensus. I am also concerned with regards to the (two, very minor) portals - Tygodnik Podlaski and Gazeta Bankowa, they are specialized/regional media that I've never heard criticized. The latter is weird, as the banned domain doesn't even work for me anymore, and I am not sure if this is the same as (not blacklisted) https://www.gb.pl/ or was it some short-lived and already dead project associated with WSieci. As for pl:Tygodnik Podlaski, frankly, it's a niche website that's hardly ever visited or used, but I don't like lumping it with wSieci - I cannot even find evidence that it is associated with it (they have different publishers too, according to pl wiki articles). _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:02, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

The tool, which purely flags sources, does come with an explanation that familiarity with the sources and context involved are vital in using and interpreting it. I also think Headbomb's deference to Reporters without Borders in the context of the socking it sensible. As it says: public media, especially TVP, have been transformed into instruments of government propaganda. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:19, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I can't speak to those discussions, but might be being the state-owned mouthpiece of a far-right government in a country that now has one of the poorest press freedom rankings in Europe have something to do with it? It also seems that in the last 18 months, TVP has been successfully sued and forced to retract material based on a lawsuit that concerned nearly 40 articles and video materials published on the websites of TVP and TVP Info. All of them attacked the ODF on the basis of unverified information, often clearly false, or used the opinions of “experts”, usually played by right-wing journalists or politicians. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:57, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: I am hardly going to defend TVP and associated propaganda tubes (see my comments in the RfC), I'd concur that quite a few of these sources are of dubious reliability. But, a, some of them (like TVP) were quite reliable until the last few years (others, I'd concur, were never reliable, but that's case by case). B, if the RfC was not properly closed, we need a new one. Considering the previous RfC was a festa for socks of a certain indef banned editor, we should make sure to cross the t's and dot the i's here. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 10:05, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I agree that given TVP's reach, its status should probably be formalized at WP:RSN and written up at WP:RSP - it also looks like there's an all-critical distinction between its pre- and post-2015/2016 coverage - something that would not affect its overall cateogrization, but would be worth mentioning as a nuance in the RSP blurb. Various sources have time-dependent reliability caveats. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:12, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 Ironically, you linked https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/poland-media-profile/ - a site which is also flagged as 'generally unreliable' :P ( Perhaps it's due to Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_248#Should_we_use_mediabiasfactcheck.com_to_determine_what_sources_are_reliable?, shrug, I don't see a proper close. Just saying. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:04, 27 June 2022 (UTC) PS. https://rsf.org/en/country/poland would be a better link, methinks. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:06, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

I wasn't attempting to use that site as a reliable source: it is purely indicative. However, it is also an extremely useful repository of details collated from other sources, like the World Press Freedom Rank, that stand by themselves, or others that be can readily doublechecked elsewhere. It also outlines the government's reversal of TVP's remit as an independent public broadcaster. It concludes with a link to a NYT story, which says: During its four years in power, Law and Justice has reshaped the media landscape, imposing complete governmental control over TVP and cracking down on independent media. [1] Iskandar323 (talk) 11:14, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 And I fully agree with that assessment. My point is that we should not be haphazard, and we need transparency in our judgement over sources. The script right now lumps sources which have been, IMHO, always unreliable (Radio Maryja), unreliable for some time (TVP), and ones that I haven't heard any criticism of (pl:Gazeta Bankowa, a financial paper, or pl:Tygodnik Podlaski, a minor regional newspaper). Such an arbitrary list is hardly good practice, we need a proper RFC on all Polish sources (ones, which hopefully won't be ruined by socks...). Unless such RfC had happen before for any Polish source, I think all .pl sources need to be removed from the list used by the script (although I'd hope we could quickly re-add some of them, and describe the reasons at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources). Again, I certainly consider some of them unreliable, but we need to do things properly. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 11:38, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Piotrus Agree - GizzyCatBella🍁 12:04, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 @Headbomb @Piotrus see Bad RfC section --> [2] - GizzyCatBella🍁 12:16, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

It was linked earlier and acknowledged by Headbomb, who noted that he deferred to RWB. Someone just needs to launch an new RFC. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:26, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323 Care to comment about misidentified sources (Gazeta Bankowa and Tygodnik Podlaski), for which we have no proof that they are connected to "Polish government media" or whatever? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 16:09, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Since neither of those feature in any RSN discussions or on the RWB assessment, I can't see a reason why they'd be listed. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Though I don't know anything about them/their ownership structures, so it's quite possible that I might be missing something. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:18, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Iskandar323: TVP did not lose the case in court, nor did they win, the trial is not over yet. It was simply the court's decision that in order to protect the personal rights of the foundation and its activists, some of the TVP materials had to be removed, and in the case of the remaining materials, the editorial office published a statement about the pending proceedings. The possible pro-Russian agent activity of the Open Dialogue Foundation was previously described by The Sunday Times: 1, 2, 3 Marcelus (talk) 12:44, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

That's all very well. Maybe there's more than meets the eye. But the RWB assessment stands, and, really, someone should just launch a new RFC. Iskandar323 (talk) 12:51, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

@Szmenderowiecki you are an author of this that bad RfC that developed confusion and caused all Polish media sources to be declared unreliable. I understand you are from Poland and you speak Polish. Would you like to comment on that? Note participation of 5 (five) sock puppets of the same, globally banned user. Thanks Szmenderowiecki - GizzyCatBella🍁 18:17, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Well, I can leave a few words, sure. First, socks, as any other users are free to discuss anything until they are caught and blocked/banned (as they say in Russian, не пойман - не вор), so the only thing that your observation shows is that the master of the socks is interested in Poland, which, as you might already know, is not news. This doesn't by itself mean that the RfC was faulty, or that I had any involvement with the socks whatsoever.

Secondly, my position was fairly clear at the time, and it is the position I still hold, that TVP (and other government-held resources) shall be distinguished based on the period when they were captured by the current Polish govt (2015 for TVP, around 2016-2018 for Polish Radio, 2020 for regional press, e.g. Nowości Dziennik Toruński, Nowiny etc.), for the coverage that can reasonably be perceived as political. In fairness, TVP hasn't had BBC-like standards pre-2015, but still quite fine to use in day-to-day editing. PAP from around 2016 is a gray area though and should be more thoroughly discussed.

I've never argued for the unreliability of Gazeta Bankowa, as I don't read it, though I will analyse it if asked to. I've never heard of Tygodnik Podlaski (seems like legitimate local press), but I do know that Niezależne Media Podlasia, which I regret having seen, should be deprecated as anti-Semitic and generally deeply unreliable. As such, both Gazeta Bankowa and Tygodnik Podlaski should be removed from the list until any sort of discussion is held on it. To be clear, neither of the two resources were discussed in the RfC I started, so that must be Headbomb's mistake.

There's one problem with Headbomb's indicator: by its nature it cannot distinguish between periods of coverage and normally just pigeonholes them as "depends", "no", "hell no" and "spam". I know, however, that MDPI has a custom wording, which says Borderline source, which often (but not always) fails higher sourcing requirements. For Bentham journals, only those published by Bentham Open are of concern. For IndianJournals.com/Diva Enterprises journals, check the UGC lists. I think we can in the same way make custon warnings for TVP, Rolling Stone, Newsweek and other sources whose reliability was determined on a temporal basis or depending on the topics of coverage. If any discussion is needed for that, fine, I will participate, though at least wrt to govt-controlled resources in Poland, I've explained my position and I think my argument still holds. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 19:28, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

Contradictory criteria of reliability wrt opinion

The criteria by which perennial sources are evaluated seem to be applied in a manner somewhat contradictory to their description, in particular reliability with respect to opinion. For example, The Economist is rated "Generally reliable". The rating's description suggests opinion pieces may be considered "less reliable," while the description for The Economist says it publishes opinion pieces (technically all its pieces are in editorial voice, with a few scattered commentary pieces, but RSN seems to make no distinction between "editorial voice," "commentary," and "opinion.") Jacobin is similar in this manner, as are several others on RSP. (Actionable substantive issue)

This is of course distinct from traditional news outlets which since the latter half of the 20th century have had anywhere from some to most of their work in an objective "five Ws" style. This has diminished since the late 90s to a small fraction of articles, relative to the now-predominant news-feature style which necessarily has voice and bias. (Extra background)

A possible fix would be to clarify the "green check" specification for editorial sources as being about oversight and standards for facts, and to specify outlets that uniformly editorialize. (Proposed (possible) fix)

Of course if editors evaluated every source on its merits in context, this wouldn't be a problem. My observation, however, is that there seems to be a preference for a sort of "an RS is an RS" attitude, with any critical examination of a source being called WP:OR. That is a separate issue on its own, and if those editors aren't reading the guidelines now, adding more nuance won't necessarily help. (Greater issue that can be touched on here or later, but I'm not sure how.) SamuelRiv (talk) 18:28, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

WP:RSOPINION is a relevant guideline. Even from sources whose news reporting is generally reliable, opinion pieces are usually only reliable as sources for their authors' opinions. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC) Striking my comment as User:SamuelRiv changed the comment above after I replied to it. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 22:37, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Not sure. In the case of The Economist (which I know better than the others) they don't have bylines except for pseudonymous ones for the commentaries, so there's no named personal opinion to quote. If you are referring to "Otherwise reliable news sources ... that publish in a blog-style format", there is a big difference from a traditional outlet whose news blog may make occasional sly quips or write from a particular (i.e. young hip) angle, and typical Economist analysis lines like "but what Cote d'Ivoire really needs is free elections and free markets" and "Mr. Duterte should care more about his inflation numbers than his poll numbers". (I wrote like six of these until I realized I had to cut them – I love The Economist exactly for what it is.)

These outlets are also very different entities from think tanks (as much as we may want to believe The Economist has the same quality of analysis), since despite a lack of peer review, think tanks are held accountable for the effectiveness of their research in policy through the funding they receive (i.e. being wrong is not something for which you can just print a correction later – it hurts all future business.) So I don't think these editorial-voice-only publications are adequately addressed anywhere.

Aside: If you don't like my trash talking, the best dissection of The Economist was in a 1991 Atlantic article, or see this CA re-review of said article, and finally a questionable encyclopedia with a good overview of their style. Also it did way worse than I expected in The Factual. SamuelRiv (talk) 21:57, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Business World/bworldonline.com

Please add BusinessWorld to the list as a reliable source, they are a business newspaper from the Philippines originally founded in 1967, they were the first business newspaper of southeast asia, there's actually consesus that is very reliable, they have been serving for years and i've seen some of their press releases and checked the originals, and they've all been all correct/accurate, i haven't still seen a critic of them but of course we have to research more. Moonlight Entm (talk) 22:27, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@Moonlight Entm: Thanks for your edits and contributing to RSP! But I disagree. The inclusion criteria says For a source to be added to this list, editors generally expect two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability in the past, or an uninterrupted request for comment on the source's reliability that took place on the reliable sources noticeboard. For a discussion to be considered significant, most editors expect no fewer than two qualifying participants for RSN discussions where the source's name is in the section heading, and no fewer than three qualifying participants for all other discussions. Qualifying participants are editors who make at least one comment on the source's reliability. To me, you included one discussion with only one editor (I couldn't see any signatures), so it fails two or more significant discussions about the source's reliability, as it is only one insiginificant discussion. The refs listed here are the "perennial" ones; I don't think it should be added again. I hope this helps, happy editing! VickKiang (talk) 03:32, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Delete WP:TheSun

It is just a redirect back to this page; there is no use for it. Krystal Kalb (talk) 03:38, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Shortcuts are there for entries that are frequently cited in conversations, no? Why are you singling out this one in particular, if you do have a reason? --Chillabit (talk) 03:49, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Because there is it just redirects back to this page so there is no use for it, I told you that. If there are more links that redirect back to this page those should be deleted too. Krystal Kalb (talk) 03:05, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

They aren't meant to be used from this page, but to advise people of links that they can use to point to specific entries - ie if you're posting on an article talk page you can link specifically to WP:HUFFPO instead of the general page.

If you still believe these should be deleted, take it to Redirects for Discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:19, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Ok, thank you for clearing it up. Krystal Kalb (talk) 04:03, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Daily Telegraph (UK)

I see that Media Bias Fact Check for years above paper scores it as mixed for factual reporting: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-telegraph/

Does this needed to be reflected in the table? Regards, Billsmith60 (talk) 14:14, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I meant to type "for the above paper" – sorry Billsmith60 (talk) 14:15, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Billsmith60, Look up WP:MBFC. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 02:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

That's hardly useful. The RSP ratings are for whether something can be used as a source in an article. By comparison, we certainly can't cite the number of google hits in an article, but WP:GNUM is a legitimate point of discussion in evaluating something like notability, when used appropriately. There are dozens of media bias/reliability evaluation sites -- if MBFC is insufficient for WP conversations, pick one that's adequate. They all have problematic methodologies to some degree, so as long as it's open to examine (like, ugh, adfontesmedia) it's good enough. SamuelRiv (talk) 03:31, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

In this case I think that WP:RSN is more appropriate, though be sure to back up a few examples which have been proven wrong or scholarly papers saying the coverage is not good enough. I haven't been able to find such info. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 11:54, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Forbes contributors

Does anyone know if there is a difference between Forbes Contributors and Senior Contributors? I thought Senior Contributors sounded more like staff but reading this wiki I'm now not sure and wondering if I need to replace the sources I used from them. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 11:30, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

For us, they are both the same; they are not staff for Forbes and do not have their work reviewed to great extent to be considered reliable. --Masem (t) 14:19, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Biographical content on Amazon

The summary comments for Amazon mentions user reviews, basic information about a work, and future release dates, but nothing is said there about biographies on the site. While checking a citation on Gretchen Corbett, I noticed that Corbett's biography on Amazon.com has "IMDb" in small letters under it. The content of Corbett's biography on IMDb is identical.

If biographies on Amazon are taken from IMDb, should the summary comments for Amazon be amended to include biographies as not being reliable for use in Wikipedia? Eddie Blick (talk) 18:30, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

FANDOM

@Vortex3427: you have updated WP:FANDOM to state Although not user-generated, Fandom's staff blogs are also considered generally unreliable as no evidence of editorial control has been found. This was presumably based on the response to your question at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 379#Reliability of FANDOM News Stories. I disagree with the change and it has caused some edit warring issues over a Fandom source at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power that has led me here. You can see here that Fandom has hired Eric Goldman as managing editor, so it does have the necessary editorial oversight, and Goldman is trusted as a reliable source for entertainment news and information (he previously wrote for IGN and Marvel.com, is verified on social media, has access to press junkets for film and TV, etc.). The specific article that brought me here was an exclusive interview by entertainment editor Kim Taylor-Foster, a published author who also has press access for entertainment information and is verified on social media.

So, knowing all that, I would suggest that the articles on Fandom actually be treated similarly to other entertainment news and review sites such as IGN, Collider, or SlashFilm. We could change your new wording to something similar to what we already have for IGN, such as Fandom's staff articles are considered generally reliable for entertainment and popular culture, but consider whether the information from this source constitutes due weight before citing it in an article. Any concerns with that phrasing? - adamstom97 (talk) 02:08, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes - we shouldn't be claiming the source is generally reliable without any discussion to that effect at RSN. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:11, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Are you saying that this talk page is not the correct place to discuss changes to this article? - adamstom97 (talk) 02:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Somewhat. You can argue here that a discussion has been incorrectly summarized, but we can't decide here to add something not discussed at RSN. See WP:RSPIMPROVE. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:20, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I have moved over to the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. - adamstom97 (talk) 02:32, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, I probably should've said something at the talk page first. EDIT: I don't have any concerns with that phrasing, but some others have mentioned WP:SPS too? — VORTEX³⁴²⁷ (Talk!) 04:59, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Update, I have added some new wording to the Fandom section based on the discussion over at RSN. - adamstom97 (talk) 22:24, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Skeptical Inquirer

Hi folks. Some hours ago, I added Skeptical Inquirer to the list with a GR Status and Summary based on the April 2022 RfC closure that I had run into, and on some earlier discussions that I found in the archives. At Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Skepticism#Skeptical Inquirer listed as generally reliable at WP:RSP#Skeptical Inquirer I left a comment about this informing people who might be interested, and I asked whether to add a sentence, which @HappyMcSlappy: then promptly did upon my suggestion. A bit later @ScottishFinnishRadish: reverted our edits because they did not take into account the fact that a closure review had been conducted in May 2022, which generally endorsed the April 2022 RfC closure, and had showed a clear consensus not to overturn ("there is a rough consensus that the closure is fine and certainly no consensus that it should be overturned or re-closed"). I did not know this, but that indeed seemed relevant to add to the entry here. However, HappyMcSlappy and I did not agree with the revert, whereupon ScottishFinnishRadish said "If you want to add this to RSP, it should really be discussed first in an appropriate location, and added after there is consensus on the language to use". Per WP:RSPIMPROVE, "start a discussion on the talk page, especially if your changes prove controversial." Fair enough, then here I am.

As proposed, this is the text I would like to add to the list:

|- class="s-gr" id="Skeptical Inquirer" | ''[[Skeptical Inquirer]]'' | {{/Status|gr}} | {{rsnl|373|Skeptical Inquirer at Arbcom|2022|rfc=y}} [[Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive343#Closure review of the Skeptical Inquirer RSN RfC 2|A]] {{rsnl|202|Skeptic and similar sources?|1}} {{rsnl|315|Skeptic and Skeptic Inquirer|2}} {{rsnl|364|Columns at Skeptical Inquirer|3}} | {{/Last|2022}} | A 2022 RfC "established a reasonably clear consensus to use the ''Skeptical Inquirer'' with consideration given to proper usage in consonance with existing sourcing and content policy." A 2022 closure review endorsed this consensus, adding: "Moving forward, editors should evaluate the source on a case-by-case basis in line with existing policies."' Previous discussions concluded that content from ''Skeptical Requirer'' is usually considered as journalistic articles or expert blogposts that are reliable within their areas of expertise. There is editorial oversight, as articles will not be published without review, but not a rigorous peer-review process as academic journals conduct. Opinion pieces or articles written outside the author's area of expertise are not considered reliable. As it often covers [[WP:FRINGE|fringe material]], parity of sources may be relevant. | {{/Uses|skepticalinquirer.org|csicop.org}}

• ScottishFinnishRadish disagreed with this proposed text. I would like to know how SFR would like to phrase this differently, and why.
• ScottishFinnishRadish disagreed with the status of GR. I would like to know what other status SFR would like to apply, and why.
• ScottishFinnishRadish pointed out correctly that the closure review has not been properly preserved at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive343#Closure review of the Skeptical Inquirer RSN RfC, as crucially, the closure review closure by Wugapodes of 00:27, 30 May 2022 is missing. Lowercase sigmabot III correctly archived it on 12:00, 5 June 2022, but then somehow a copy of it was preserved later under Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive343#Closure review of the Skeptical Inquirer RSN RfC 2, and the closure review closure in the earlier section (Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive343#Closure review of the Skeptical Inquirer RSN RfC) was lost.
  • ScottishFinnishRadish has argued that the text "Moving forward, editors should evaluate the source on a case-by-case basis in line with existing policies such as WP:RSCONTEXT, WP:PARITY, WP:FRINGE, and WP:BLPRS." should be included or at least taken into consideration when writing a summary of Skeptical Inquirer.
  • I have pointed out that the latter part of the sentence "such as WP:RSCONTEXT, WP:PARITY, WP:FRINGE, and WP:BLPRS" was added by Wugapodes on 00:47, 30 May 2022, which I consider to be a violation of the rule that '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.' Therefore, the closure review closure by Wugapodes of 00:27, 30 May 2022 is to be considered the legitimate version. I have argued that the passage "Moving forward, editors should evaluate the source on a case-by-case basis in line with existing policies." is indeed to be included in the Summary, and I have proposed this (also in the text above).

I hope that this clarifies the points of contention, and that we can find a solution together. I am admittedly not intimately familiar with either the discussions that took place (I was not a participant in them, whereas SFR was), nor am I very experienced with adding items to the WP:RSP (I just added Flags of the World 2 days ago, which was my first contribution to this list ever, and nobody seemed to object to it, so I thought I understood how it worked). SFR was correct that I had missed the closure review, and I hope we can find a solution on how to describe what that means for the status and summary of Skeptical Inquirer on this list. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 17:43, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Just noting that Wugapodes had made the close, and added a clarification shortly after closing, rather than adding to a closed discussion. Such clarifications are common practice. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:12, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok, suppose that it is common practice to add a clarification after closing and not a violation of the no-further-editing rule, what is your proposed Summary text, and why, and what is your proposed Status, and why? Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 18:46, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

I would propose it not be added to RSP, because it's not a perennial discussion, and saying evaluate the source on a case-by-case basis in line with existing policies such as WP:RSCONTEXT, WP:PARITY, WP:FRINGE, and WP:BLPRS. doesn't provide any guidance beyond what is applies to any source, except for the explicit mentions of PARITY and FRINGE. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 18:51, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Inclined to agree. It would open up a can of worms, on a page (WP:RSP) which ultimately has no WP:PAG force. Effort better spent elsewhere. Alexbrn (talk) 19:04, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes. The close amounts to 'no special treatment', so no entry is necessary. We are much better off letting these sleeping dogs lie. MrOllie (talk) 19:12, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Finally, something we all agree on. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I actually didn't expect this hahaha. Well, that's a lot of effort wasted by me today then. I thought it would be helpful to add an entry, but if everyone else agrees it's better not to give it one, then I stand corrected. ;) Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:30, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict; I was typing this before the last three comments): MrOllie stated: "Editors should evaluate the source on a case-by-case basis in line with existing policies is pretty much the standard we use for any source on Wikipedia, whether unreliable, reliable, or in between." Although the WP:RSP#Legend uses a similar phrase under WP:MREL, namely It may be necessary to evaluate each use of the source on a case-by-case basis while accounting for specific factors unique to the source in question., the latter part of this sentence does not apply to Skeptical Inquirer according to the RfC closure ("Various commenters made clear statements about use cases they saw as not acceptable - areas outside the source's area of expertise or opinion usages or specific articles later thrown into question - but those use cases apply generally to all sources." ergo, there are no "specific factors unique to the source" that do not also "apply generally to all sources") and the closure review closure ("Participants here saw the close as adequately summarizing existing policy on reliable sources and a reasonable summary of how the discussion of Skeptical Enquirer relates to that policy." ergo, it is subjected to existing policy, and not to special treatment due to some kind of "uniqueness"). Even if we take into account the post-closure comments of Wugapodes, '[policies] such as WP:RSCONTEXT, WP:PARITY, WP:FRINGE, and WP:BLPRS' are already covered, namely:

1. WP:GREL covers WP:BLPRS: "Arguments to exclude such a source entirely must be strong and convincing, e.g. (...) a different standard of sourcing is required (WP:MEDRS, WP:BLP) for the statement in question."
2. The statement "As it often covers fringe material, parity of sources may be relevant." as suggested by me and added by HappyMcSlappy covers WP:PARITY and WP:FRINGE (note that other entries such as Snopes.com feature the same statement but have GR status).
3. The RfC closure covers WP:RSCONTEXT: "Context of usage matters in all sources, whether "generally" or "marginally" reliable." The examples of context that I have explicitly mentioned (and that come up in most previous discussions, the RfC and the closure review) are (A) opinion pieces and (B) articles outside the author's area of expertise. The very first sentence of WP:GREL is Editors show consensus that the source is reliable in most cases on subject matters in its areas of expertise. Later, it says that it's possible that a specific subcategory of the source is less reliable (such as opinion pieces. So even sources with the highest status are universally agreed to be context-dependent and explicitly said not to be reliable in these two cases. Therefore, the statement really should go without saying; it is redundant, superfluous, and in no way disqualifies Skeptical Inquirer from GR Status, because this applies to all other sources that have GR Status. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

If SI is only reliable when the author is writing in their "areas of expertise" well what does that mean? Skeptics are experts on scientific consensus, which is the essence of WP:Pseudoscience and WP:FRINGE. But there is no such credential as "expert on scientific consensus" is there? Is science an expertise? Is BS an expertise? Yes! It actually is. There are plenty of debunkers who, under the much needed banner of WP:PARITY, are in fact experts on woo and BS. But that's not going to be credentialed by anyone but other skeptical organizations. Run and try to tell a pro-fringe WP:LAWYER that notable debunker such as Mick West is reliable if he is talking about anything but video games. Or an equally well regarded skeptic like Steven Novella can only talk about neurology? Micheal Shermer? Is he only reliable when he's talking about science writing? Honestly, I find it hard to see a good faith reason to try to downgrade SI. It only benefits the fringe. DolyaIskrina (talk) 02:50, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Reliability changes with time

The article gives the impression that reliability of a source is semi-permanent. This isn't true, and especially in the last few years, previously-reliable sources have become unreliable. A major reason is that newspapers (like the UK Guardian or the US New York Times) have much lower circulation, and therefore less income, than in the past. They therefore employ fewer investigative reporters (good investigative work is expensive). Without their own sources, they tend to be more influenced by their national governments, which always want to impose their viewpoint. The last time these newspapers published really important news that their national governments didn't want published was when they reported the Snowden revelations; since then, their value as independent sources has consistently declined. The details are more complicated but I think that is the general picture. Insulation2 (talk) 14:57, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

We have marked when sources have shifted in reliability - see Newsweek for example that we have a post-2013 entry that marks it questionable. --Masem (t) 15:14, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Then why is the New York Times still listed as a reliable source without further comment? It was a reliable source. Now it filters the news at best, introduces inaccuracies at worst, never printing anything which would seriously upset the established leaders of the Democratic Party of the United States.

I am neither a US citizen nor a US resident. It seems to me that there is a general bias throughout Wikipedia towards the Democratic Party. For example, the Washington Times is (correctly in my view) flagged as 'partisan', but equally partisan newspapers that tilt the other way get a free pass.

An example from a couple of years ago is the Hunter Biden laptop story, first reported (IIRC) by the New York Post, a newspaper not regarded as particularly reliable (probably correctly). The laptop was genuine. But for a long time, up to the 2020 election in fact, several media outlets marked here as 'reliable' told their readers, or strongly suggested, that it was fake. Insulation2 (talk) 11:52, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

The notion that the New York Times is losing subscribers and losing money may have been true ten years ago but is not true today. The NYT has more than ten million subscribers and is doing well financially. Subscription growth is strong and it is the most successful newspaper in the US by far. More information here. Cullen328 (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Look at my section below. "The process to update the reliablity of a source is deeply flawed and encourages bias."

That's the procedure flaw that has been gamed for over a decade. That's how Wikipedia's reliability, especially on post-1992 politics, is sinking. Unbiasedpol (talk) 01:32, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Middle East Monitor

Can an editor with more experience of RSP entries than me review the several substantive discussions of Middle East Monitor's reliability and identify if there is enough consensus for an entry? Discussions: 2012, 2019, 2019, 2021, 2021. It seems to have about 1000 citations on Wikipedia. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:02, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Update Business Insider entry?

An RfC regarding the reliability of Business Insider's news reporting was recently archived (Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 381). My initial read of the discussion is that it's a slightly more positive evaluation than prior consensuses, with some editors swayed by a recent Pulitzer win. I think it just might be enough to upgrade its entry to green, but am wondering if others have thoughts on how to word the entry given that there's still some roughness to the consensus. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:42, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

There's currently an RFClose request open. I don't read the discussion as being nearly enough to push to green, but that's the point of an uninvolved closer. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:35, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

My reading of the latest RfC is that consensus is still pretty split so the status quo will most likely prevail. Dr. Swag Lord (talk) 21:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Yahoo! News

Yahoo! News has been on WP:RSN a few times [3][4][5][6] (there's probably more), should we add it? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:01, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

May be worth mentioning. The absolutely key point: Yahoo! News original content = RS; reprints range from solid RS to absolutely terrible sources that should not be used - David Gerard (talk) 09:17, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

huh, and I see there's an RFC that was never concluded. How about this text:

Yahoo! News runs both original reporting and syndicated feeds of other sources. Editors have treated the original reporting as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG and thus presumed generally reliable. Syndicated content varies from highly reliable sources to very unreliable sources, and should be evaluated as you would evaluate the original source; syndicated content will have the original source's name and/or logo at the top.

That's my quick guide summary to the above RSN discussions, and here's even more RSN discussion: [7] [8] [9] [10] That last one is directly about syndicated content too.

Syndicated content is very usable for RSes. Yahoo! News is my personal favoured source for AFP content, for example. The key point there is that their syndication is fidelitous, straight off the wire; they don't dress up the content.

I would say: mark it "Yahoo! News (original reporting)" and make it green, mention the syndicated content in the text - David Gerard (talk) 09:29, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Sounds alright to me. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:32, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

we'll leave it a bit for other opinions, but yeah, I think eight discussions is enough to have an entry! - David Gerard (talk) 09:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Text should probably be "thus presumed generally reliable." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:27, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

good call - David Gerard (talk) 13:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

No objections, so I've added it at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#Yahoo_News - wording tweaks are fine, I think the point is obvious - David Gerard (talk) 09:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Looks good. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:25, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Wording tweak for WP:DAILYMAIL re: other editions

WP:DAILYMAIL on RSP says: The UK Daily Mail is not to be confused with other publications named Daily Mail. This meant things like Nigerian Daily Mail, Hull Daily Mail, Charleston Daily Mail, etc. But I just had a user confused and annoyed that the Irish Daily Mail is included - 'cos it's the UK one with light reskinning. Same for Scottish Daily Mail. I would suggest adding: The deprecation includes the Irish and Scottish editions of the UK Daily Mail. Opinions, suggestions? - David Gerard (talk) 18:16, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

note: Australia and US used to be "editions" and use dailymail.com.au and dailymail.com, though I haven't seen either URL lately; they just use dailymail.co.uk like the Irish and Scottish DMs. There's also the pressreader URLs but those are just the DM too. (More fidelitous for the print edition, on the rare occasions we use it? I dunno.) Maybe The deprecation includes other editions of the UK Daily Mail, such as the Irish and Scottish editions for clarity and futureproofing? - David Gerard (talk) 22:01, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

• Support Andre🚐 18:42, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
• Local editions could pop up or be closed any day. I'd just say "other unaffiliated publications" and call it a day, so it won't become outdated. Nardog (talk) 22:13, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
  • yeah, something like that. Need a suitable precise wording. I mean, endless misinterpretations are possible - David Gerard (talk) 23:31, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
    • And my suggestion is just "other unaffiliated publications", without naming the affiliated ones. Nardog (talk) 10:09, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

      Is there a parent agency of the UK DM that the other two fall into, so that we can say "this also applied to other Daily Mail owned by X"? Masem (t) 17:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

      DMG Media, though they've got other titles mixed in. Chillabit (talk) 13:42, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

change made - David Gerard (talk) 19:21, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Dailywire

Dailywire needs to be looked at and added to the list. Torbslifre (talk) 02:00, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Perennial_sources#The_Daily_Wire - David Gerard (talk) 07:16, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

OMG! Ubuntu!

OMG! Ubuntu! Is a Reliable source you can add to the list. BastienNocera (talk) 12:35, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Sources are added to this list after multiple discussions arise due to controversy about whether they're reliable or not. Some WikiProjects compile lists of sources deemed reliable or useful for their topic matter. In this case you might look to the projects tagged at Talk:Ubuntu. I found this for instance: Wikipedia:WikiProject Software/Free and open-source software task force/List of reliable sources. --Chillabit (talk) 18:58, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

CBC

Where does CBC News fall in this list? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:B100:E006:C2D3:476:7D37:C5F2:3AA3 (talk) 16:14, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

There's been no credible dispute that CBC is the WP:NEWSORG that it appears to be. If something is an ordinary newspaper or (as with CBC) news department of a public broadcaster, we presume it's OK unless there's specific reason to think it isn't, and WP:RSN comes to consensus that it isn't - David Gerard (talk) 23:14, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Associated Press publication of celebrity birthday lists

I'd like to get the community's perspective of the Associated Press publishing "Celebrity birthdays for the week of June 19-25". Associated Press. June 13, 2022.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) for example. It appears to be a clickbait compendium of either Famous Birthdays our WP:DOY pages or some combination. Neither of which would be a WP:RS. It's used in Carly Simon for example but I'm asking in general. Thoughts? Toddst1 (talk) 16:43, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

The feature predates Wikipedia by some time. Since it's the Associated Press and not some random blog, what I would assume be the case -- this is speculation, I don't know the specifics of the AP internal copy editing/fact checking department besides the fact that it exists -- is that at one point it was fact-checked but republished from there on out. I also suspect that the actual text is auto-generated and/or pre-written (like celebrity obits are) and then re-run every year with minor updates. For something like birthdays, that don't change, I don't think that is necessarily a problem. Gnomingstuff (talk) 13:26, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

The process to update the reliablity of a source is deeply flawed and encourages bias.

Edit to the Reliable Source categorization essentially follows two steps: 1. Create a discussion (RfC) about the media in question; 2. Seek a consensus from the editor community.

The problem is, it is usually very difficult to find a consensus on high-profile media such as Fox News, MSNBC and CNN. The past RfCs for these media being tracked on this page have almost always went nowhere. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_307#RFC_on_CNN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_307#RFC_on_MSNBC https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_274#RfC:_%22CNN%22_(October)

How CNN because classified as Reliable in the first place? This is the earliest discussion I could find on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_72#Is_CNN_a_reliable_source?

So CNN was (likely) classified as Reliable because it reported an arson over a decade ago.

All of the future discussions went nowhere because of the controversial nature of it being a high-profile media.

Everyone knows today, if someone posts a poll saying "Is CNN generally a reliable source?", or "Is Fox generally a reliable source?", the result will likely be "Mixed". People will have good examples to consider them reliable or not reliable.

Such reality will never get reflected by Wikipedia's "seek consensus to re-categorize a source" process.

Relialbility of a high-profile source will most likely always be decided by a few people who first discussed it.

Also, it was obvious that some RfCs can be closed prematurely by the OP or moderators. Again using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_307#RFC_on_CNN https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_307#RFC_on_MSNBC as examples.

Those two RfCs closed within a day, without any side providing enough argument. There were only about 15 editors participating in the CNN one. Any conclusion that comes out of them were hardly a "consensus" among all editors, don't you all think? Unbiasedpol (talk) 01:30, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Reliability is based on whether sources provide generally accurate factual reporting or not, not whether public opinion polls suggest that people *think* certain sources are reliable, which is definitely likely to reflect their personal biases and whether or not the news source in question reflects the news echo chamber that they themselves personally prefer. The bar for demonstrating that reputable mainstream sources are factually inaccurate is high and it isn't just about vote counting. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:57, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Reliability is Wikipedia jargon. Obviously news media face a trade-off between timeliness and accuracy. But if we want to keep articles current, they are the best sources. CNN, ABC, CBS and NBC News, and MSNBC are the best cable news sources available and are comparable to quality print media. The fact that they often are wrong doesn't bother me, because we are trying to summarize what news media are reporting rather than fact-checking them.

For full disclosure, I thought the Fox News decision was wrongly decided. Their news reporting as opposed to their talk shows are comparable to other cable news. Decisions like this detract from any view that Wikipedia's articles are impartial. Ironically, keeping Fox News as a reliable source would not have had any impact on article content.

TFD (talk) 05:21, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Everyone knows today, if someone posts a poll saying "Is CNN generally a reliable source?", or "Is Fox generally a reliable source?", the result will likely be "Mixed". People will have good examples to consider them reliable or not reliable. Yes, User:Iskandar323, right-wing MAGA people do not consider CNN reliable, and thus the response will be "Mixed" even though CNN is eminently factual and credible. However, when they say it isn't "reliable" what they mean is: they don't like it when it reports the factual truth, even when this is inconvenient to their worldview. In the same way, these people will claim Fox News is "reliable" as opposed to a highly partisan source of disinformation slanted toward the conspirationist right, thus again making the response "Mixed". But know what? If these people conclude Wikipedia is "liberal left-wing" for standing up to objective truth in areas like climate control, scientific theory and so on, Wikipedia should wear that accusation proudly as a badge of honor. In other words, CNN is objectively reliable while Fox is in many areas extremely unreliable. The process of updating the reliability rating is far from perfect (few things on Wikipedia is perfect) but what it actually avoids, when it ignores pro-Fox anti-CNN voices, is bias. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

entry for People's World

Through Google News I stumbled upon this. While written in a seemingly neutral tone, it makes the same suggestion recently forwarded by several pro-Putin sources (including Elon Musk!): namely "As a sign of goodwill we, the Russians, are willing to give back Zaporizhzhia and Kherson if we get to keep Donetsk and Luhansk". This is a strong indicator that People's World is acting much like any other Putin-leaning media, and so I ask whether we shouldn't add People's World to our list, possibly with the qualification to not trust it when it comes to issues relating to the Russian State, including the ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 17:32, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

The place to raise this discussion would be at WP:RSN, with RSP only becoming relevant if the source is repeatedly brought up for discussion. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 17:43, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

CapnZapp, that is an opinion piece, not a news article. Cullen328 (talk) 17:51, 4 October 2022 (UTC)

Student law reviews

The section for student publications does not mention the many law reviews e.g. Harvard Law Review which are run by students but widely cited and widely considered reliable. I don't want to just declare these reliable so I am posting here but I think this should be addressed. mossypiglet (talk) Go blue! 23:40, 5 October 2022 (UTC)

They are generally reliable AFAIK. Andre🚐 02:03, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Nación Rex

What sort of source would/is the above-named be considered? Ik it's obviously not a top tier source, and given the content headings on their website (Kpop, Test, Gossip, Memes, Random, Fashion) I'm thinking low quality at best, but I'm generally unfamiliar with Spanish/Latin media publications or companies so I can offer nothing about about its parent Debate Media, though Google tells me it's a legitimate company with established offices. The site does have an About us section, but only 3 staff run the entire site? I'm wondering if it could be used to source things like award nominations, or content pertaining to the release of a song or music video, or if it shouldn't be used at all. -- Carlobunnie (talk) 03:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Video game websites

I noticed that several video game websites such as Electronic Gaming Monthly, GameSpot, Kotaku, Destructoid, GamePro, and Gematsu (which was G11 deleted in 2011) are not on this list. I won't ask for them to be added, because reliability should be established first (and that should be for the noticeboard to decide), but as someone who's been a gamer for my entire life, I find their absence odd. 100.7.44.80 (talk) 15:56, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

This just means that those sources have not been repeatedly (perennially) challenged or questioned at the notice board. The sites listed are probably just accepted as reliable. I think most list a masthead or staff page with their editorial positions and credentials. Note that the video game project also maintains a subpage at WP:VG/RS regarding accepted sources on the topic. -2pou (talk) 17:18, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Nice! Thanks for letting me know! 100.7.44.80 (talk) 19:08, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Suggestion for table

For sources that have multiple entries, like Newsweek or Fox, would it make sense to group those with a preceeding column (using rowspan), while use colspan to cover entries with only a single row? Would make it easier to parse those works with multiple entries that likely only one case applies to a given situation. Masem (t) 18:11, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

Daily Signal

This has had a few RSN discussions [11][12][13] and may be worth summarising. How's this?

The Daily Signal is a house blog of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative US think-tank. Editors regard the Daily Signal as an outlet for partisan commentary, and unreliable for factual claims. It may be usable for attributed opinion, but not for unattributed statements of fact. The Daily Signal also reprints syndicated content from deprecated sources, such as the Daily Caller, and advocates pseudoscience such as climate change.

- David Gerard (talk) 11:47, 17 October 2022 (UTC)

No objections, so adding - David Gerard (talk) 11:53, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

There are at least a couple of problems. The first discussion was specifically about using the source "on Russia-related articles". You didn't summarise that. That discussion cuts weirdly and didn't result in consensus. I didn't assess the consensus in #2 and #3. The second discussion doesn't mention the source in the section heading, thus failing WP:RSPCRITERIA. The third source was specifically about congressional record. You didn't summarise that.

It seems that there has never been a project-level RFC that proposed declaring the source "generally unreliable", which is required per WP:RSPI#Prerequisites. The prerequisite itself is based on community consensus. Politrukki (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

huh, I realised that for deprecated but not for GU. Thanks! - David Gerard (talk) 14:05, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

I've just gone and removed the rule, becauses it has been essentially ignored during the construction of this list and therefore there is no clear consensus for it. If it was in force, it would force a rash of RfCs which I can't imagine RSN regulars would be too happy about. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:59, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Well, you can do that, but I don think that's helpful, and that ultimately doesn't change anything. The consensus in that RFC is clear, and it's still the community's view until it's not. Some deprecation discussions – after that RFC – that resulted in deprecation have not always followed process, but that doesn't mean that the deprecation rule should be removed from information page or that deprecation discussions should be redone (because the result is pretty obvious). Politrukki (talk) 20:18, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I am reinstating the summary by David Gerard. There was a clear consensus in the previous discussions that the Daily Signal is generally unreliable. It is not a problem that the discussions arose in particular contexts; discussions in particular contexts are the way that the noticeboard is supposed to work. John M Baker (talk) 19:31, 19 October 2022 (UTC)

Where exactly did you find "a clear consensus" that the Daily Signal as a whole is generally unreliable? Alaexis_¿question? 12:47, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

The criticisms here and here seem pretty overwhelming to me. Do you disagree? John M Baker (talk) 03:29, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, could you be more concrete? In the first discussion there is almost no discussion of the source, just two editors claiming it's not reliable. In the second discussion there is consensus on the unreliability of the Daily Signal in that specific case. The main argument was that that particular piece was syndicated with the Daily Caller, a deprecated source. This argument cannot be used to declare the whole Daily Signal unreliable. The secondary argument was that it's a publication of the Heritage Foundation. I don't think that this argument is based on the policy, so it's better to run a clean new RfC. Alaexis_¿question? 06:34, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

It's the media mouthpiece of a partisan thinktank, so why would it be reliable? There is no evidence on its website that it even has an editorial board. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:47, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

There are many advocacy organisations in the WP:RSP list and some of them are considered reliable, so the argument "it's a partisal think-tank, therefore it's unreliable" is grounded neither in precedent nor in policy. Alaexis_¿question? 07:14, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Breezing over that part about no editorial board I see. Having a panel of experts controlling the tone and policy of your media house is rather key. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:22, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't see what difference it makes to factual accuracy, but the Daily Signal does have a hierarchy of editors, and even a fact checker [14]. Why would an media organisation devoted to a political point of view want to retain factual accuracy? Reputation. This discussions listed aren't thorough, and no consensus was reached. My own opinion of the quality of Daily Signal is that when facts are presented they are truthful and not invented, but the opinions voiced and interpretation of those facts varies from targeted to lunatic. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 07:46, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

In 2022, their chief news correspondent is still peddling bias 2020 election conspiracy stories, when anyone even marginally sane has dropped the stick. Now, bearing in mind this is their 'chief' correspondent, the story is highly indicative of the approach of their senior editorial staff, and what we find is an incredibly loose approach to factual accuracy. The story cites one study that estimates "between 146,000 and 334,000 excess votes for Biden" (free for all to see right there in the abstract) across six battleground states. Somehow this becomes "at least 255,000 excess votes" and "possibly as many as 368,000" in the Daily Signal's spurious write-up. The one accurate part of the story is this line: "The study doesn’t question the legitimacy of the outcome of the 2020 election". - but that doesn't stop the Daily Signal, which leads with the headline: "Study Raises New Questions About 2020 Election Results in 6 States". This is clear factual inaccuracy and straight-up misportrayal. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:17, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Everything that the report says about the paper is true. The report is completely factually accurate, even if the study is completely flawed. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 07:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I provided a clear example of misquoting/misrepresenting the numbers, as well as a headline totally at odds with the conclusion of its source. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

You need to read the actual paper, not just the abstract. "As one test of the sensitivity of sample selection, I re-estimated the models in Table 11 on just the two states that I examined earlier – Georgia and Pennsylvania – as well as the controlled-for swing states (Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio) (see Table 12). In all but one of the specifications, the results imply even larger increases in turnout in counties allegedly engaging in vote fraud; the marginal effects consistently are statistically significant at least at the 8% level on a two-tailed t-test. In the first four specifications, the estimates on the county-level fraud variable imply excess votes for Biden of between 2.46 and 2.68 percentage points, or about 126,000 to 138,000 votes." which then results in the numbers described in the report. The report would have relied on a personal interview with the author rather than directly from the yet to be published study. This is normal practice for studies that have yet to be published.

As far as headlines go, I would expect that citations in Wikipedia are not using headlines. The reliability criteria in Wikipedia relates to the ability to use the sources for citations, this is not a list of recommended readings. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 21:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I still don't see how you are getting to the headline numbers used in the news story, and I don't see how the abstract numbers mislead. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:56, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

The abstract numbers don't mislead, the author has used a number of different models to achieve his desired results. IMO the author is struggling to get the study published and the ones in the abstract have been forced on him through peer review. The problem here is that the study is still currently unpublished and the full study text is preliminary (though likely very close to final draft). The journalist of the Daily Signal has obviously relied on an oral interview of the author of the study, who has provided different figures than what are in the written text, and which were probably so dodgy that the author had been requested to remove them. Verbal interviews with authors of studies prior to publication is standard fair for all non-specialist journalist reporting, and is seen as a significant problem in the academic community, but all of the mainstream journalists do it. The problems with this Daily Signal article are ones that all mainstream media make a) relying on one study for a headline story b) not being able to judge the quality of the study or the author c) reporting of studies before they are published d) relying to much (or completely) on verbal communication with one author (though other outlets interview other academics for opinion), rather than on the published information. The problem is not that the Daily Signal article is factual incorrect, but that it is being used in a misleading fashion. In terms of the actual numbers, I haven't specifically calculated them, but I looked at the difference between the model giving the higher figures and the model giving the abstract's numbers and it looked about the same ratio as that between the news article and the abstract. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 06:01, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

So now we're talking about passing off unpublished and unverified studies as fact. This does not make it better. Worse in fact. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:12, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

The Daily Signal article does not pass them off as fact, it always states that it is what the study found. It is a fact that this is what the author of the study claimed that the study found. The article explicitly states that it is unpublished. All novel studies are unverified, including published ones. What the Daily Signal did here is identical to almost all other mainstream media outlets, with the exception of a) picking a particularly poor author and b) not interviewing contrasting views (many other media don't do that either). All other outlets also routinely report in an identical manner on unpublished and unverified results (or at least used to, I think that they are probably getting better). It used to be called a scoop. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 09:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

As the guy who wrote the Daily Signal entry at issue, I have no issue with it being removed as I was unaware of the RFC on GU entries, which I would probably have supported had I noticed it at the time.

This amount of discussion sounds like you might want to launch a proper RFC for unreliability, rather than argue on the talk page of a description page - David Gerard (talk) 16:27, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. Alaexis_¿question? 18:02, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

Compact ToC

I made this edit [15] but now the link to Y doesn't work. Can someone help? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:35, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

 Fixed. Aidan9382 _(talk) 14:19, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:23, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

Add blabbermouth.net?

Has been discussed in RSN several times. _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 08:42, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Add Ethnologue?

Discussed in 2010 and in 2013. The Wikipedia article about Ethnologue mentions that it "has become the standard reference" but its accuracy is often debated as it is published by SIL International which is an evangelical Christian organization but also the registration authority for the ISO 639-3 international standard for language codes (see a recent example here). A455bcd9 (talk) 16:35, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

• Further relevant material at Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages#Interpreting online sources of data; there were also brief discussions in 2013, 2015 and 2020 (May, Sep). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uanfala (talk • contribs) 13:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

  Thanks @Uanfala, it's super useful. I'm also trying to find what other reliable sources say about Ethnologue and I'm adding these opinions here. A455bcd9 (talk) 14:38, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Bellingcat

Our summary for Bellingcat says There is consensus that Bellingcat is generally reliable for news and should preferably be used with attribution. Some editors consider Bellingcat a biased source, as it receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy. I just looked at the six RSN discussions linked (which have cumulatively involved a very large number of editors), and as far as I can see just one editor in one of the discussions (in 2019) mentioned NED funding and two others mentioned "government funding" in another 2019 discussion. In the most recent discussion, the consensus for reliability was overwhelming, with only one editor mentioning bias or urging attribution. Can we remove at least that last clause of the second sentence, and possibly the whole of it? BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:17, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

They also no longer receive funding from NED anymore, so the entry is at the very least outdated now. They list their funding here, and IIRC, the largest bulk of their funding is from the Dutch National Postcode Lottery, which is privately run. More to the point though, given the original closure of the rfc read I am not at all convinced that the funding aspects are points strong enough to affect wholesale reliability, and it is not an issue that was brought up in subsequent discussions, I would agree with you that the line should be removed from Bellingcat's entry. Endwise (talk) 15:51, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Concur - David Gerard (talk) 22:06, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

I think that as long as we want to use old Bellingcat materials, when they *were* sponsored by NED, the note should stay. We should use the past tense of course. Alaexis_¿question? 06:39, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Could someone explain to me why being sponsored by NED is a problem and the Dutch National postcode lottery is not. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 06:46, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

It isn't a problem. But in circles that object to Bellingcat, "NED" is used to mean "CIA". It's a non-issue - David Gerard (talk) 11:08, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

The Dutch National Postcode Lottery is run by a private company called Novamedia. See more info here. Novamedia is not run or funded by the Dutch government, and they also run other lotteries in the UK, Sweden, Germany, and Norway. They aren't at all comparable to NED, which is an arm of the US government. Endwise (talk) 11:12, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Wait, why do you think they no longer get funding from the NED? It's still there is the latest annual report (page 33)? Alaexis_¿question? 06:47, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

They did receive NED funding in 2021, but don't now in 2022. If they did it would be listed here, but here's confirmation from Eliot Higgins himself: https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1549281136571973632. Endwise (talk) 11:00, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I think it is important that is funded indirectly by USA. Funding is an important aspect in every organization around the world. Also, if it has been funded by the NED for a series of years, the influence and bias still persists. Readers deserve to know who is saying what.Cinadon36 11:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Then it would need more than one comment in six RSN discussions - David Gerard (talk) 01:13, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

My view is that if we a significant number of editors raised NED as a concern in the RSN discussions it should be mentioned, but it wasn't so the summary is inaccurate. The overwhelming consensus in the six discussions was general reliability, with a significant minority early on arguing for its amatueurishness to count against it, with a couple of later editors raising concerns about bias. If editors want to argue NED funding is a significant reliability factor, I think that needs a new RSN discussion and in the meantime the RSP summary trimmed to something that better reflects the six we actually had. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:59, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Why Wikipedia technically aligned itself to Western 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 saw Chinese media CCTV and CTGN is deprecated in 2020 due to alleged "false information and bias", sounds like from Western critic. I know CGTN is state sponsored media but is exactly equivalent as to Western counterpart BBC News or CNN. BBC also voiced misinformation in Russo-Ukrainian War, US invasion of Iraq, Syrian Civil War, and many Western based raids. If Wikipedia is free encyclopedia that can anyone edit, why do censoring websites that's likely come for non-Western parties?

Geographical or demographic bias might be a good indicator of the bias, but effectively banning websites from Orient World without seeking truth is not Wikipedia's aim, meaning using "consensus-only" mode of governance would devastate Wikipedia reputation. Maybe Chinese or Russian sites contain useful information that is likely for non-political reason, such as in science and technology, economy and other aspects. 196.190.62.63 (talk) 17:48, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Did you read the linked discussions? Since this page is a summary of the linked discussions - David Gerard (talk) 20:10, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

You might be interested in Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias. Without commenting on the specific sources you've mentioned, it's true that most English Wikipedia editors come from Western countries, and this leads to bias in our coverage, including in terms of what sources tend to be cited. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:37, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Maybe because it is the least problematic bias of all. Cinadon36 10:27, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

@Cinadon36: I'm puzzled by this statement. Do you mean that Western perspectives are superior to others in some way? Or that a Western perspective should be considered a default/neutral perspective? In what way is this the least problematic bias? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 03:00, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I've written a few publications about how Western Nations have more academics ... or that most academics are educated in the West be there from the west or not...thus leading to Western POV Article ... WP:Academic bias.

Moxy- 03:39, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

There will always be a bias based on the culture of the editors of Wikipedia. The English language version of Wikipedia is predominantly edited by editors with a modern Western perspective. The readers will also typically be from a similar culture. Equally including the perspectives of other cultures doesn't make the articles unbiased, it just changes that bias to something else. Ultimately you could include every culture in the world, but that's still biased to the sum total of current world cultures. Wikipedia in and of itself is a product of culture, and is inherently biased by its sheer existence. The argument that Western bias is the least problematic is based on 1) it is impossible to eliminate cultural bias 2) the point of Wikipedia is provide an experience of information that fits within the cultural expectations of the reader 3) Western culture is a large subset of the world with a broad reach and a degree of heterogeneity so a) there are plenty of editors with differing view points and b) active inclusion of other cultures view points would probably not change Wikipedia sufficiently to warrant whatever mechanisms would need to be put in place to enforce that policy. 4) Wikipedia publishes in many different languages. There is plenty of scope for editors from different cultures to edit in those language. I regularly read the other languages to get differing points of view. 5) Given that the English language edition has so many more editors any attempt to include other cultures perspectives would be doomed because the implementation would ultimately be administered by a team of predominantly Western culture. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 03:59, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for the question @Mx. Granger, I think I have to clarify that. Some western "perspectives" can approach reality in a better way. Rationalism, science, epistemology. These ideas help us decrease biasness from the way we perceive the world. Imo, it is not a matter of genes. All humans share the same nature. Europeans looted the world and accumulated resources to build universities, educational institutes etc. Cinadon36 06:49, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Each language Wikipedia is naturally going to be dominated by the bias of the sources in its own language. Policies pretty much require that as we are supposed to document what RS say, including their biases. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:18, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

No, we're still supposed to minimize known biases in sources such that was Wikivoice says is neutral. Opinions and other factors that come from known biases will still likely predominate due to WP:UNDUE, but that is partially tempered by placing such with attribution and sourcing and not writing them into Wikivoice. For example, nearly all Western sources are firmly against Russia's actions in the Ukraine situation, but we cannot write that in Wikivoice without violating WP:NPOV. Masem (t) 04:22, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

You are missing my point. The sum total of what we document will inevitably vary from language to language because of the dominance of the language sources we cite, and that applies to all content, IOW to facts, controversies, attributed opinions, etc., and all while strictly following NPOV. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:34, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

This is true and it should be noted that the inherent variability is more extreme for languages which are not shared among a large number of countries. For example almost all top tier new sources which publish primarily in Japanese are based in Japan. The same is not true of say English, Spanish, Mandarin, and French. A top tier Spanish language source is as likely to reflect the biases of Buenos Aires as Madrid. It would be hard to argue that Taiwan News and An Phoblacht (both publish in English) share many demographic and geographic biases. We may actually have the best possible situation in English because its the world's current lingua franca meaning that more high quality journalism and academic work gets published in English than all other languages combined (most of it in countries where English is not the dominant national language). In many academic fields you're looking at well north of 70% of all papers being published in English. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:55, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Excellent point. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:00, 3 December 2022 (UTC)

Where relevant, we can and should cite non-English-language sources. In my opinion this is sometimes important for reducing bias in our coverage. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 06:36, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree, but we must remember that NPOV's concern with bias is mostly about the introduction of editorial bias, not source bias. We document source bias using biased sources (nearly all sources) without implying it is either good or bad. Such an implication, even as part of the decision about whether or not to use the source, would violate NPOV. Normal bias isn’t automatically bad. It can even be good. A bias for truth and facts is a good bias. --Valjean (talk) (PING me) 06:41, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think this discussion would be more appropriate to have at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. I actually agree that there's a problematic Western bias on (the English) Wikipedia, but I don't think we achieve anything by talking about it here, and nor is this the right place to try and change consensus around CCTV and CTGN or BBC and CNN. Endwise (talk) 04:20, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
• For a start, the West has freedom of speech. For a US journalist or academic it is not a crime to say that Biden is a traitor to his country, nor that the US has committed crimes against humanity. A Russian journalist is not allowed to publish that about Putin, nor is a Chinese journalist allowed to publish that about Xi Jinping. tgeorgescu (talk) 06:54, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

  That's not really specific to the West – South Korea and Namibia do better than the US on the Press Freedom Index, for instance. In any case, the freedom of speech consideration may be relevant for thinking about hot-button political issues (in particular, absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence), but it's less relevant for ordinary topics like culture, business, or geography. And censorship doesn't necessarily make sources unreliable, just potentially less complete. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 00:50, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  South Korea and Namibia do better than the US Then you should check whether Wikipedia treats South Korean and Namibian state sponsored media like Chinese state sponsored media or like US state sponsored media. If it is the former, then Wikipedia has a Western bias, if it is the latter, then Wikipedia has an anti-dictatorship-sponsored-media bias. --Hob Gadling (talk) 07:21, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• How is state sponsored media identical to the BBC, which is not run by the government, or CNN which is the Cable News Network and is owned by Warner Brothers? 16:40, 29 November 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doug Weller (talk • contribs)

• There's a certain main actor on ANY of the Chinese, or Iranian articles who doesn't allow anything positive to be added about those articles in fear it might seemingly add balance and they delete them systematically under the terms "depreciated source" even when it isn't and then always makes the article only 100% negative. The same individual then runs around claiming COI that the person must be a paid actor for posting something positive and seeks to get them banned from Wikipedia. It is what it is.

You can view the history of the article and figure it out from the article history. The editor I speak of will not let you add any information for example about awards won by any of the journalist on those stations. That is especially as many of the journalists appearing on those stations are actually from other mainstream channels and regularly weigh-in as an alternative view and sometimes might contribute content to bring about respectful additional points of view discussions and dialogue on the channel. Even when it doesn't align with the host(s). CaribDigita (talk) 22:38, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

What does "Western sources" really mean? Certainly, Australia and New Zealand and Japan are not geographically Western countries. Personally, I think of Japan as the Far East. But Japan has a free press. If we really mean "countries with freedom of the press and freedom of expression", then that is not "western sources" but rather sources published in "free societies". So, of course we prefer sources published in free societies with free press protections and freedom of expression. For example, there was freedom of the press in Hong Kong when I visited there 30 years ago, but there is no freedom of the press there today. Every independent journalist there has either been jailed or exiled. So, the "Western" phraseology is just framing to deprecate the importance of strongly preferring the use of sources published in free societies as opposed to authoritarian regimes. Compromising on this basic principle would lead to the rapid destruction of the credibility of this encyclopedia. Reliable sources are published in free societies, not authoritarian regimes. No society is perfect, but there can be zero doubt that there is greater freedom of expression in Japan, the United States and Sweden than in North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Cullen328 (talk) 07:41, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

"Western" relates to the culture originating in Western Europe evolving through from the 16th to 20thC, largely in France and England, and then exported throughout the world. Australia and NZ are thoroughly of that culture. Japan has substantially become Western following the US occupation after WWII, and partly through imitation prior to the 1920's. The concept of a free press is entirely from that culture. It does not and has not existed in any other culture. Japan, the United States and Sweden are essentially of a western culture when it comes to freedom of expression, whilst North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia have held onto local culture. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 10:59, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure how relevant this topic is for any enwiki forum, but the idea that more authoritarian political and cultural formations have held onto local culture while cultural formations that foster more openness, like Tunisia, Namibia, Japan and South Korea are essentially of a Western culture - well, that argument isn't supported by quality sources and typically can't be presented without either essentialism or circularity. Usually, as in the present instance, both are employed. Newimpartial (talk) 13:00, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

• This seems like a very abstract discussion. Does anybody have a few examples of where this supposed "bias" is affecting Wikipedia to its detriment? If not, I suggest we can all go home. Bon courage (talk) 07:58, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  That's very easy. Just take the topic of discussion compare China Global Television Network to CNN. The article on is almost entirely devoted to demonstrating it to be an inferior product, whereas CNN is almost an advertisement. Compare with the Chinese language equivalent [16] and [17].

  This is the case with almost any topic you would care to consider. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 10:47, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  Not seeing anything about "inferior product" but there are problems with Chinese TV, as you'd expect with the malign influence of the PRC regime. CNN looks like a boring workaday kind of article. If you looked at Fox News I'd expect you'd find something rather different. The problem isn't "western" bias, it's more that Wikipedia aligns itself with reality as found in the WP:BESTSOURCES, and some people don't like that, and try to use "western bias" as some kind of trump card to get their misinformation a free pass. Bon courage (talk) 10:58, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  You seriously can't see that the articles have been written to two different standards? The China Global Television Network is almost entirely devoted to "Controversies" with almost nothing on the actual set up of the company or what it actually does. If you don't think that the CNN article reads like an ad I'm wondering how you think you would improve it if it were. How do you justify lines such as "The channel's success made a bona-fide mogul of founder Ted Turner and set the stage for conglomerate Time Warner's (later WarnerMedia which merged with Discovery Inc. forming Warner Bros. Discovery) eventual acquisition of the Turner Broadcasting System in 1996.". The "controversies" topic has been hidden away, and is barely noticeable. There is a large list of awards displayed at the bottom. Have you looked at the Chinese language sites for comparison? Jameel the Saluki (talk) 11:12, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  When a channel is notorious for misinformation, that's what independent sources will likely focus on. This isn't "western bias". Check out Fox News. Bon courage (talk) 11:20, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  There is plenty of information about Fox news. I can find out ratings, outlets, hosts, where it is transmitted. The section on History is focused on the activities and events, in comparison to CGTV which focuses political influence. The content section isn't labelled controversies and presents a much more even handed outlook than that for CGTV which is entirely negative. The controversies section is confined to behind the scenes issues. Admittedly this does not look like the advert that the CNN article does and in doing so I think are highlighting another source of bias, one that I've seen raised before, and that is a bias against particular cultures within the US by other cultures in the US. If I were extra cynical I would accuse CNN of using agents to brighten up their article, whereas Fox News would have no need to do so for theirs because of the target audience.

  In short you can't demonstrate the non-existence of one source of bias by demonstrating the existence of another. Comparing the Fox News to CGTV still clearly shows two standards of presentation. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 11:48, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  The point is Wikipedia reflects the knowledge in quality reliable sources. Some things in reality receive largely adverse comment from such sources (PressTV would be another example). This is because of the nature of knowledge and the nature of reality, not "bias". To show POV you would need to show that Wikipedia departs from such sources. Bon courage (talk) 12:30, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  Firstly there is plenty of information on CGTV from reliable sources. This is why I suggested you look at the Chinese language version [18] which you seem to refuse to do. Secondly the availability of sources is itself a source of bias. The issue with bias is not limited to POV. As I put in reply in a stream further up, Wikipedia itself is a product of Western culture and thus its existence is a form of bias. I that reply I also point out it is a bias that cannot be practically eliminated, which appears to be the area towards which you are now moving. In fact the bias arising out of lack of reliable sources is the essence of what the original query was about. Despite its flawed argument it highlighted the anxiety felt by other cultures to programs like Wikipedia and to the systemic avoidance of other cultural viewpoints because of the issues relating to reliability of those sources. Jameel the Saluki (talk) 12:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  "Secondly the availability of sources is itself a source of bias" ← No, because all an encyclopedia does is offer a handy summary of what decent sources contain. That's it. It's not on a quest for The Truth™. If the sources are "biased" Wikipedia is in lock-step with them; this is a feature, not a bug. Bon courage (talk) 13:02, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  The problem that is related to this is that there is a strong presumption that Western sources are always reporting the Truth and thus we should treat them as absolute, but in reality, the implicit Western bias they operate under means what they report is impacted by that bias, so it may not necessarily be the Truth. They will form what is likely the supermajority opinion or stance on a topic (eg like the strong favoring of Ukraine in the Russia/Ukraine war) but absent years of academic analysis and similar work, that supermajority should not be considered the Truth in how we write. WP:NPOV (particularly under WP:YESPOV) has guidance for how to make sure that Wikivoice is not trying to write these biases as factually true while still respecting that they present the majority opinion in a scenario. As editors, we should not be operating on this blind faith presumption that RSes are infallible which is where this Western bias seeps into our writing; that's our ability as a tertiary source is to go beyond the walled garden and know what the broader situation is and adjust how we incorporate sources to make sure we're staying neutral and impartial. Masem (t) 13:36, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  I think no such presumption exists. Lots of "western" sources are junk, like the WP:DAILYMAIL. Conversely, lots of non-western sources are fine, like 朝日新聞. Bon courage (talk) 13:46, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, count me as another person who doesn't think that Wikipedians blindly follow one region's sources or another. There is no such thing as a perfect source, but our reliable source policy is right that some sources are worse than others. If they don't have a reputation for fact-checking or editorial oversight, we don't use them. What do we do when the strongest editorial oversight comes directly from the state? Those sources are never reliable.

  We also do a pretty good job of distinguishing opinion pieces from factual news. We shouldn't especially care about a journalist's opinion on China or America or Russia. We can report the facts on the ground in each country and allow readers to form their own conclusions. And if journalists are reporting falsehoods about a situation, they will either correct themselves when the truth comes out, or we'll find that they don't have a reputation for fact-checking and blacklist them. Shooterwalker (talk) 21:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

This discussion really doesn't belong on the talk page of the summary information article, quite apart from it clearly not going anywhere. Move to RSN - the usual place for complaints from drive-by IPs who don't get Wikipedia sourcing - or just hat? - David Gerard (talk) 12:21, 1 December 2022 (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.

NY Post

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 a huge issue with the NY Post not being considered a reliable source. It is literally the oldest continuously published paper in the USA and it was founded by Alexander Hamilton. It is the most popular paper in the NY market and its reputation has been somewhat attacked by left wing politicians as a political strategy, as we are learning from the Twitter fiasco. Given the current situation, perhaps its reporting is better than quite a number of trusted sources listed on this page. I propose that it be moved to a yellow designation. ScienceAdvisor (talk) 09:43, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

It's just tabloid rubbish. I mean who reads this stuff? The only reason why it keeps getting discussed so far as I can see is because AP2 POV-warriors want to push the latest bit of nonsense and need a junky source. Bon courage (talk) 09:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Just because it doesn't non-conditionally push the democrats agenda doesn't mean they don't do editorial fact checking. Sure they cover celebrities and have a "gossip section" but, as long as you arent using the gossip section as a source, you should be able to use their coverage. The NY Times, CNN and every other source had the Hunter Biden story wrong and they continued to publish articles quoting nonsense from "intelligence sources" saying Trump colluded with Russia which was proven wrong and that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian propaganda and was hacked... All of which proved to be untrue.. Realistically, if you include all the scandals the NY Times has had from false reporting on the Iraq War from journalists who pretended to be in the country while they were sitting at home in Manhattan.. One could certainly call into question their credibility.. Not what I am looking to do but, I think the Post should be upgraded to Yellow.. This laptop twitter scandal will end up being one of the most important stories in the early part of the 21st century USA history. There is a clear party divide in news publishing and there should be credible sources from both sides.. ScienceAdvisor (talk) 10:55, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

This is a wrong forum, you need to open an RfC at WP:RSN to change the status. Alaexis_¿question? 11:17, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks.. Looks like there is a discussion from today that someone closed extremely quickly.. Not sure why but, I will take my discussion over there and open a new RfC if I decide to push the discussion. Thanks for the help! ScienceAdvisor (talk) 11:27, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Oldest, founder, being popular arent valid arguments to support reliability. Cinadon36 16:28, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps not but, as the current new cycle is showing, they are almost the only credible source over the past 2 years on this particular topic. Mostly because of partisan attempts to do exactly this type of discrediting of sources that don't push their agenda. I thought wikipedia was supposed to be above this type of partisan politics? There are 1000 other sources 24 hours later that can now be used as well. That certainly adds to their credibility. On this particular source, they seem to be the only credible source over the last 2 years and the only one that didn't try to discredit the information for 2 years. The NY Times continually tried to discredit the story and took 18 months to acknowledge the story was real, does that make them credible? ScienceAdvisor (talk) 18:14, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

They are still a horrible source with a huge partisan agenda. Read this section: Talk:Hunter Biden laptop controversy/Archive 4#So many IFs about this story and the previous discussions on that page. Do that before making any more comments anywhere. This is a partisan mess created by Trump's people to smear Joe Biden. That is the mission of the New York Post, so be careful about supporting their spin on matters. Likewise Musk and Taibbi. They are also engaged in pro-Trump spin.

Uncritically covering a partisan story does not make them "credible". It makes them a part of the spin and lessens their credibility. They are the vehicle for a political hit job. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:19, 4 December 2022 (UTC)

Every major media source has now confirmed the story the NY Post released 2 years ago is true. They have confirmed the validity of the laptop and its contents. Just because you don't like Trump doesn't mean the emails and pictures of Hunter smoking crack aren't true. The hit job is coming from democrats trying to discredit sources that didnt follow their political agenda which appears to be happening here on wikipedia. Now, you have more physical evidence proving that everyone who said this story was a hit job was incorrect and you are continuing to spread propaganda even though most of the sources who originally called this fake news have all officially recognized the content as being true. I thought the whole point of wikipedia was to avoid exactly this type of spreading of false information that you are continuing to propagate even after nearly every trusted source on the list is reporting on? Google News, NY Times, NY Daily News, Washington Post, CNN, Wired Magazine, ABC, CBS, etc.. If you want to say Fox News has some crazy stuff on it, I would agree.. but the NY Post is a not a source and this story is confirmed true from everyone.. The only reason you dont see congressional hearings yet is because the Dems control the Senate and the House. In January when the seats change, you will see years worth of congressional hearings and house judiciary hearings assigned to putting people in jail.. ScienceAdvisor (talk) 20:36, 4 December 2022 (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.

Gotquestions

Well meaning, but misinformed Wikipedians quote gotquestions.org as if it were WP:RS. Such shenanigans have to end. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:19, 12 December 2022 (UTC)

Currently there are no article that cite gotquestions.org. If anyone does, just remove it citing WP:SPS and/or WP:FRINGE and link to this list. For fun I created WP:GOTQUESTIONS for you. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 22:25, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

It's amazing how despite neutral Wikipedia claims to be, it's obviously leans Western with how they view the reliability of a source

We have ZERO non-Western, non-Western orientated or non-Western allied source that's considered reliable on the list. 59.21.244.231 (talk) 08:48, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The list just is of frequently-discussed sources. Are there any "non-Western" ones which have been frequently discussed and which aren't included here? Bon courage (talk) 09:34, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

As BC says, the opening sentence is "The following presents a non-exhaustive list of sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed". Actual articles on wikipedia are sourced using whatever language is available on the subject (or translation thereof). This is particularly prevalent when dealing with niche subjects that western sources are unlikely to have covered to a significant level (i.e. regional news / events). Koncorde (talk) 10:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

• Western sources are more likely to be discussed in the first place because they are more likely to be in English and more likely to come to the attention of our western-leaning audience. Additionally, sources in Russia and China are simply more likely to have issues due to the extreme press censorship in those countries - if there's evidence that a source is yielding to that to the point where it impacts their reliability then we have to take that into account. Granted that that means what you're describing is a symptom of our existing WP:systematic bias, but I don't think that the issue is that we're more likely to distrust non-Western sources in general. Also, you're incorrect that there are ZERO non-Western, non-Western orientated or non-Western allied sources, unless you somehow consider Al Jazeera, The Hindu, Kommersant, or the South China Morning Post to be Western-allied. --Aquillion (talk) 15:22, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
• @59.21.244.231: You might be interested to read the discussion above at #Why Wikipedia technically aligned itself to Western bias?, where this and related problems are discussed. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 03:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Has "silo.tips" been discussed?

On my latest random article walk, I encountered this website in references for the first time, and then (as you do) noticed it a few more times. I ask because I am very sceptical of it; at best it looks like a website designed for copyvio uploading of documents, at worst it also accepts any documents uploaded. If there has been a discussion I don't know about, or if anyone here just has any knowledge, is it a case of removing the url for the copyvio but leaving the ref to whatever stolen document it is about, or will we need to check each case to make sure it isn't some student's own work they've uploaded being referenced. Kingsif (talk) 05:44, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not see any discussions anywhere. Looking at the about page and the getting started page, it is clearly a general repository anyone can upload to. I would suspect any citations from it would fail WP:SPS, but it would depend on the specific content. In the future you should bring this sort of thing up at WP:RSN. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 06:06, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I saw. I don't think it's widely-cited enough to need a discussion, just wanted to check there wasn't any discussion I couldn't find (mostly so I could have pointed here instead of explained in each edit reason) before removing. Kingsif (talk) 22:15, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Periodically re-evaluating reliable sources ?

I would argue the above. I don't see why many clearly right/conservative-leaning news media seem to be treated as more reliable than left/liberal-leaning ones or vice-versa, if that would be the case. I'm aghast to see, for instance, that CNN is a reliable source and Fox News is flagged as non-reliable when it comes to science and politics. Given the kind of biased coverage that both cater to their respective audience, especially when it comes to politics, this is one instance that doesn't make sense and should be treated on par. I feel the opposite for other cited sources in the list, but that's not the point. I'm actually advocating for a periodical review of the list and, if that is deemed possible, a broader community involvement/vetting of it.

As WP:CCC states "consensus can change, and if more recent discussions considering new evidence or arguments reach a different consensus, this list should be updated to reflect those changes".

The whole WP:RSP - again as stated in the same page - isn't vetted by the broader community and WP:CON LEVEL reinforces that "consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope".

I think a frequent re-evaluation should be considered overdue (no organization's reliability is cast in stone), given that those "reliable sources" list are often addressed as the foundation of WP's editorial work, defining what can be cited and what not.

I'd like to hear your honest and hopefully & possibly constructive opinions. 37.161.203.87 (talk) 00:11, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

WP:RSP has zero policy force. It's just a handy index of past RfCs. It is useful, mostly to newer editors, as a rough substitute for the sort of WP:CLUE they would hopefully gain through experience. Some editors (especially newer ones) get carried away by the colour schemes and icons and think them some kind of "law". Any editor who thinks the New York Post, Fox News's science views, WP:DAILYMAIL etc. is ever going to be a useful source for anything, has no WP:CLUE. I sometimes think the page should be renamed "Sources For Dummies". Bon courage (talk) 04:00, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Any editor can, at any time, propose an RfC on a source. Having some policy mandate etched in stone that requires every single source, no matter how reliable (Reuters) or nonsensical (MintPress News), to undergo an RfC at arbitrary time intervals seems like utterly-pointless bureaucracy. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 05:02, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Periodic checks waste time, but as long as you can bring evidence that a RPS source should be reviewed at any time through an RFC, that's fine.

And remember, bias by itself is not a reason we put a source on RSP, but a source with extreme bias may engage in behavior that leads it to being added to RSP. Fox News is on their because their political coverage still promotes clear misinformation because they generally favor the conservative side. CNN may have a very liberal bias (though its new ownership may push it to the right) but they have not engaged in misinformation or falsification of their works to concern us. Masem (t) 06:09, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

"but they have not engaged in misinformation or falsification of their works to concern us" This is patently untrue - but the only sources one could cite to demonstrate this have been declared unreliable. Let's not pretend that this isn't all awfully convenient. The "consensus" has chosen sources which agree with its gross leftist/progressive slant and in effect wikipedia has been coopted to mislead readers who believe they are reading objective information. A massive consent manufacturing apparatus. Its no wonder these same "reliable" sources are treating the Twitter Files dump as a non-event when there is direct evidence of suppression of speech at the direct request of intelligence agencies and the whitehouse. There is a glaring credibility problem with CNN et al and if wikipedia is serious about being a reliable source then its treatment of acceptable sources needs serious re-evaluation. Trueitagain (talk) 04:11, 27 December 2022 (UTC)(Blocked editor.)

CNN is unreliable but only the unreliable sources can prove it. Wikipedia is never going to "fix" that "problem." This is WP:IDHT WP:RGW Andre🚐 04:16, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Maybe the "problem" is that your standard of reliability is blatantly political? This is your only post on this page, why are you following me around wikipedia? "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His [ingroup standing] Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" Trueitagain (talk) 04:25, 27 December 2022 (UTC)(Blocked editor.)

I've posted on this page before, for example back in October[19] and it's on my watchlist. Andre🚐 04:28, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Trueitagain has been indeffed. O3000, Ret. (talk) 14:37, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

ODMP / ODM

Has Officer Down Memorial Pages been discussed. It seems quite similar to Find a Grave. GenQuest ^"scribble" 20:24, 12 January 2023 (UTC)

I think this is better reserved for WP:RSN. Partofthemachine (talk) 06:58, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks GenQuest ^"scribble" 16:24, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

Shortcuts a bit off?

I tried these: WP:SBM WP:ROLLINGSTONEPOLITICS WP:RSPSCRIPTURE and it seems I now "get them" at the bottom of the screen, instead of like I'm used to at the top. For example, WP:RNPOV still works like I'm used to. I'm using Vector 2022, is this because of that? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:00, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

I have the same issue, and I think it's due to the table of contents sidebar. Once I've hidden it (and my desire for it to be hidden presumably remembered somewhere), re-entering the url (but not refreshing the page) gets the entry displayed as intended. Maybe a bug to report? I'm pretty sure this affects anchor links on every page. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:00, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Sportskeeda should be added

Discussed multiple times at RSN, and consensus as generally unreliable every time. See: Search BhamBoi (talk) 00:27, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Sportskeeda. Discuss here if the description should be expanded. I was pretty brief. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 03:28, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Overhaul suggestion

The table is getting quite unwieldy – and at 350,000 bytes of wikitext, it's becoming a little large, which comes with its own problem. I'd propose that WP:RSP become an index of links to subpages of Wikipedia:Reliable sources, possibly with at-a-glance icons for users in a hurry. These subpages would contain (usually short, probably) profiles of the source as relayed by the relevant discussions – similar to the "Summary" column we have now, except with more room for expansion. We could also make a toolbox or infobox template to transclude onto every page – it'd include the status of the source, links to the discussions, links to find instances of the source on wikipedia, the source's website, etc. I'd be happy to contribute to all of this myself :) theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 07:56, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Needs one single list with the links to the usage searches, though - David Gerard (talk) 12:15, 2 November 2022 (UTC)

Would it be doable to split it in 2, about halfway? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:24, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång: Split the table in two? theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:16, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, one page for say A-N, one for the rest. This page will link to both. Like a large category or list-article. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:19, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

As someone who actually uses the page routinely, I'm not seeing what this gets me - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

I disagree. I don't see it as being designed for browsing. Doesn't everybody just do a page search if they are looking for details on a certain source? I wish it were longer. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:44, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

Pretty much, often to point another editor to it. If I don't find anything, I search RSN archives. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 07:54, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

But if it's not designed for browsing, then why are we trying to stuff everything into one page? It seems like we have the same objective. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 23:15, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

• I think that the enormous size of the page indicates that it may have outgrown its original role as a compact index of the most frequently-discussed sources. At this point we have talk page arguments and deletion debates citing RSP as gospel, newspapers occasionally writing about it, people on Twitter citing the greenness or yellowness of a source as a reflection on Wikipedia's political ideology, user scripts based on its content... Meanwhile, it is not even clear that the list "is a thing": is there any actual policy that gives RSP entries the color of law? jp×g 15:17, 4 November 2022 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Consensus? RSP gospel: "Context matters tremendously, and some sources may or may not be suitable for certain uses depending on the situation."Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:44, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  Are you saying it shouldn't exist? It's a summary page of RSN discussions, but it's a convenient and accessible summary and the wording is highly discussed. You know there's no bright line between convention, consensus, guidelines and policy, it's a continuous spectrum - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  I agree this page is sometimes misused. The user scripts in particular concern me, as they seem indicative of an attitude that a given source is always reliable or always unreliable, when in fact reliability depends on context. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:03, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  "user scripts"? - David Gerard (talk) 22:04, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

  @David Gerard: I'd guess that they're probably referring to User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/CiteHighlighter. A nifty little tool, but one to be used with a grain of salt. theleekycauldron (talk • contribs) (she/her) 07:46, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  ah! That looks a useful tool! Though it should really use different colours for GU and deprecated ... but yeah, definitely a tool sharp enough you should know what you're doing before wielding it - David Gerard (talk) 11:48, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  Agree. This is a complete bloated mess. I suggest archiving this entire thing and starting over, except this time rating individual journalists/reporters organized by the site they work for. Eamesaguila (talk) 17:17, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

  Editor a bit of a spa who's disappeared and had a beef with one source. But to the point, I always just use find and don't see a need to split. Doug Weller talk 13:00, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

  Are you saying it is not about perennial sources anymore and more a list of sources being analysed? Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:21, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Twitter and 'Verified' accounts

It might be time for us to revisit WP:RSPTWITTER and in particular this line, Twitter accounts should only be cited if they are verified accounts or if the user's identity is confirmed in some way. I think that since Musk changed the way that verified works, to where you can now simply pay for it, we may wish to revise this to differentiate between earned and paid for 'verified' status? Thoughts? — Moops ^⋠T⋡ 19:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Maybe change it to something like Twitter accounts should only be cited if the user's identity has been confirmed. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 02:16, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Agree with Mx. Granger. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 08:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Sounds good. I mean, it's always going to have rough edges - David Gerard (talk) 10:52, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

I'm not up to date on this. Is the paid for blue checkmark back? Does the old kind still remain? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there's now two sorts of checkmark and it's several clicks to check which type someone has. (Or you can look for "THIS MF PAID FOR TWITTER" memes in replies to them.) Musk has proposed adding multiple varieties of new checkmark as well - David Gerard (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

There are also separate gold and gray marks for government and corporate accounts (which I assume have been verified separately from the typical blue mark path). Masem (t) 01:08, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

It's just one click. Click on their blue checkmark and it will say 'This is a legacy verified account. It may or may not be notable' if it is verified in the way it was before/the way RSPTWITTER means. It will say "This account is verified because it's subscribed to Twitter Blue" if they bought the checkmark. Endwise (talk) 01:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• Support Andre🚐 00:44, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• This has been discussed before at RSN: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_389#Twitter_Blue_and_verified_Twitter_accounts. As I said there, I still think we should add a note about needing to click the checkmark to verify if it is "legacy" verified (or the grey/gold one) or if the user is just subscribed to Twitter Blue. Endwise (talk) 01:18, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

The entire idea of only citing sources from verified accounts is flawed in the first place. Why would you let Twitter decide what is fact and what isn't in the first place? This kind of insane trust Wikipedia places in authority, whether they be megacorporation's or western governments leaves the entire list wide open to western propaganda outlets which unfortunately plagues the entire website. bree Breeboi 12:22, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

We just trust twitter to verify the identity of the user. If we can verify it in a different way that's also fine. Having a (legacy) check mark by itself doesn't make your tweets notable or reliable. Alaexis_¿question? 13:00, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

All tweets should be treated with equal caution whether someone is verified (by Twitter) or not. A user being sanctioned by a corporation like Twitter, before or after Elon Musk's acquisition, bares no indication of reliability. bree Breeboi 13:26, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Before Musk, we had reasonable assurance that Twitter went out to verify that the user said who they claimed to be, so that we know a post from a verified account with a well-recognized name was from that name. That's all different now as the blue checkmark only indicated you're paying $8/mo for that, there's no verification now that we can trust. Masem (t) 13:38, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

I concur - I think we should just remove the verification being in the guideline. If the twitter account confirmed by RS to belong to someone that will suffice. But verification is de facto meaningless now (even if you click and get the "old verification" text I wouldn't trust it still) Andre🚐 20:18, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

Twitter should NEVER have been allowed as RS here. I would support an RfC to that effect. GenQuest ^"scribble" 04:34, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Of course it's not an RS for most claims in most contexts. But tweets can sometimes be reliable as primary sources for information about the people who wrote them, per WP:ABOUTSELF. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 03:33, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Twitter isn't allowed as an RS, exactly. It's considered a SPS. Some SPS's can be considered RS, depending on the context and who is publishing the source. Elli (talk | contribs) 01:30, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

I say change the wording to " Twitter accounts should only be cited if they are legacy verified accounts (confirmed by clicking on check mark badge on profile) or if the account’s identity is confirmed in some way. BhamBoi (talk) 10:05, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Add Sky News (NOT Australia)?

I could not find an entry for Sky News. Would it be possible to add it? Thanks! 82.29.131.237 (talk) 10:10, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

At the very least, I do think it should be made clear that that entry doesn't apply to Sky News proper (the British one), or Sky News Arabia. Endwise (talk) 10:40, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

It is indeed a bit odd that the Australian Sky News has an entry on this list but not the British one, since it is a major outlet, it would be useful to have. TylerBurden (talk) 05:51, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

There hasn't been a serious question as to Sky News UK, it's a normal WP:NEWSORG so is presumed a generally reliable WP:RS. Same for Sky News Arabia, which is affiliated with the UK one. I see one direct discussion [20] and two indirect discussions [21][22] that I think show a general view that Sky News UK is a normal NEWSORG. Normally we'd need two discussions actually about Sky News UK, but if you think there's potential for general confusion I suppose we could add a green entry - David Gerard (talk) 17:24, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

Could be a good idea. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 20:31, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I just added it at WP:RSP#Sky_News_UK - David Gerard (talk) 00:56, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 22:24, 9 February 2023 (UTC)