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Before posting, check the archives and list of perennial sources for prior discussions. Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports.

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• WP:RS/N
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KANYABIGEGA Silas 22:33, 8 June 2012 (UTC)== Overseas Development Institute ==

I would like to use a variety of Overseas Development Institute publications to provide additional insight to a number of articles. For example, I want to add the following section to the Pastoralism article:

EXAMPLE EDIT: Management

Researchers at the Overseas Development Institute explored the management of natural resources relating to pastoralism in the Horn of Africa. They highlight that the management of pastoral mobility is key to the management of livestock, of the rangeland and of community relations . As a result, agencies working in this area are obliged to consider a range of relevant issues, and not focus on any one issue in isolation. Understanding the livelihood system from an institutional perspective is crucial.

The status, history and mission of ODI

ODI is the UK’s leading independent think-tank on international development and humanitarian policy. Founded in 1960, it has made major contributions to research, dissemination and policy change, on all aspects of development and humanitarian policy. The Institute has a staff of around 150, half of whom are researchers, with the remainder providing a wide range of support services.

ODI's mission is to inspire and inform policy and practice which lead to the reduction of poverty, the alleviation of suffering and the achievement of sustainable livelihoods in developing countries. This is done by locking together high-quality applied research, practical policy advice, and policy-focused dissemination and debate. ODI works with partners in the public and private sectors, in both developing and developed countries.

With a reputation for high-quality research and policy advice, ODI is in demand by governments, international institutions and other partners around the globe. Through their core research programmes they work across a wide range of sectors that have a direct impact on the well-being of the poorest people in developing countries. In addition, ODI offers consultancy services that include monitoring and evaluation and the development and delivery of tailored training courses, as well as expertise in communications and knowledge management.

ODI attaches great importance to dissemination and public policy work. The Institute:

- publishes two peer reviewed journals – Development Policy Review and Disasters – as well as a range of authoritative publications such as ODI Briefing Papers, Working Papers and Opinions

- has a large public affairs programme, with many public meetings and seminars also streamed live online

- runs international networks, for example the Humanitarian Practice Network and the Climate and Development Knowledge Network

- hosts the Secretariat for the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP)

- provides support to parliamentary activities, including the All Party Parliamentary Group on Overseas Development (APGOOD).

ODI also manages the ODI Fellowship Scheme, which has placed postgraduate economists in government positions in developing countries since 1963.

The ODI is held in high esteem by both international policy makers and the global scholarly community. For example, t The James McGann Think Tank Index, updated annually, ranked the ODI second in the world for International Development Think Tanks. in 2009 ODI does not fund its own research; donors are predominantly governments, for example the Department for International Development, and large international development institutes such as the World Bank.

ODI’s research programmes cover a vast range of development and humanitarian issues. Further information is available in the Institute’s Annual Report, and on the website.

NewsAndEventsGuy and I have been discussing whether ODI publications are a reliable source. I am very much of the opinion that they are. My talk page provides extensive evidence to support my position. It would be great to have some further input from other editors to confirm for certain that this is the case.

References

1. ^ Levine, S. and Pavanello, S. 2012. Rules of the range: natural resources management in Kenya–Ethiopia border areas Overseas Development Institute Retrieved 29th April 2012
2. James G. McGann, Ph.D. 2009 (updated 2010) The global “Go-to think tanks” , University of Pennsylvania
3. Overseas Development Institute

Hannah Polly Williams (talk) 07:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to write a very thorough question. However, I'm not sure I fully followed it, did you want to include the section above entitled "The status, history and mission of ODI" in the Pastoralism article? Or is that just there to try and help your case and convince us that you're right? I'm thinking it's the latter, in which case, please don't do that (feel free to remove it), we can do our own research here thank you.

Assuming I'm correct, discussing the first part of your question, ODI seems like an RS source for this claim, although I would change your first sentence a bit as it's almost an exact quote of your source, and if you're doing that a lot in the article you're going to run into wp:copyvio issues. The source seems solid, and you've even included an inline attribution. I don't see the problem here. They appear to be experts, and this is their analysis. However, this does not mean that I can say yes to them being RS for "additional insight to a number of articles" as you mention above. RS-ness is evaluated on a context basis (it also does not cover notability or any other issues for your articles). Just because they are RS for this edit does not mean they are RS for every edit you would like to make. I'm only making comment on the one you've provided here. -- Despayre   14:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• Comment.
  

1. The only content to add about the institute to the pastoralism article is a sentence or two of information about specific major projects the Institute has engaged in, that can be shown to be important by sources outside the institute--so important that they're amomng the key projects that anyone interested in pastoralism would want to know about. If you have 3rd party source to show they're important, then you can add a link to the institute publication on it to give a link to details. But otherwise its promotional content. You may not use the article about a particular problem to put in an extensive section about the work of the institute on that problem--that's promotional spam. If you add such material to articles on general topics, you're likely to be blocked as a promotional account.
2. Or perhaps you want to use the institute article as a source for the importance of the viewpoint presented, that "the management of pastoral mobility is key to the management of livestock, of the rangeland and of community relations" If you do, its a pretty vague statement, and needs some specifics to illustrate what you actually mean--does it mean we need to reduce & control the mobility of pastoral groups? The last sentence of that paragraph says , in my opinion, nothing at all--pure PR jargon. I cannot see any specific meaning in "Understanding the livelihood system from an institutional perspective is crucial." If you're just saying we need a systems approach, is that a meaningful contribution to any actual policy question?
3. perhaps I misunderstand, and you intend to add some of it to the article on the Institute. But in my opinion the present article is promotional because of its use of adjectives of praise,, and the material you suggest adding is even more so. What you need to do if you want to use it anywhere is remove vague adjectives , and vague descriptions of its noble plans and worthy intentions, and talk instead about specific accomplishments for which you have outside sources. Phrase like "to inspire and inform" belong in a promotional newsletter, not an encyclopedia-- they're PR jargon. Lists of projects beginning "such as" should instead list actual projects, with references for every one listed--preferably from an outside source, to show it's significant. I struck out some meaningless sentences and adjectives as an example of content that does not belong anywhere in an encyclopedia. DGG ( talk ) 21:34, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much for your comments and advice. Despayre - I would certainly only put the section relating to Pastoralism into the article; the information about ODI was merely to provide information about ODI to other users. Someone had previously recommended that I do this.

I will ensure my edits draw on only the findings of ODI publications. I will be sure not to paraphrase from the publication itself in order to avoid copyright problems. Thank you DGG for highlighting this. I think ODI publications have a lot to offer in terms of providing current, well researched findings to wikipedia users.

Many thanks again for your input!

Hannah Polly Williams (talk) 07:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:SELFPUBLISH and WP:COI concerns

The one time I looked at one of these reports it appeared to be self-published. User Hannah did offer a policy-based explanation for why they are still RSs, but I got 'way too busy to review it before going on extended wikibreak. I've just been popping in briefly from time to time and today I see user Hanna has been active promoting ODI reports in most if not all of her contribs. Is there a bit of an agenda here, to promote self-published reports? In response to comments above, user Hanna even says "I will ensure my edits draw on only the findings of ODI publications." (bold added) While I appreciate the mission of ODI, let's pretend the think tank in question was Heartland Institute or some other example of very left or very right politics. Why should ODI's self-published material pass muster and blogs and inhouse reports from other such groups get rejected? I am going back to wikibreak. I just wanted to offer the question for any editors with interests in evaluating RS questions, with (hopefully) a consistent and neutral scale. Kudos to ODI, keep up the good work, I'm just dubious its appropriate material for this forum. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Easy question, WP:SPS generally refers to a single person, who may or may not be an expert, not usually to organisations who, in this case, has a staff of people with obvious experience and expertise. If you look at the staff listing for ODI, they have extensive expertise in this field, ergo, they're RS. However, as I pointed out to Polly, it helped that it was cited inline, and it may not be RS for other things she wants to use them for. The same policy would probably apply to some questions about right/left wing extreme groups too, assuming they had the education/expertise/experience on staff to back up their point of view, and they didn't stumble into WP:FRINGE problems. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply from the bolded section of Polly's comment above, but whatever she wants to do with her edits seems a little outside the scope of this board. Having said that, if you feel she's used something from ODI in a way that it shouldn't be, or may not be RS, please bring it back here and we'll evaluate that. As I said, ODI likely won't be RS for everything, but I can't speculate without context (which would make it not speculation at all . -- Despayre   15:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

My main concern is intellectual integrity and application of a consistent policy. In the climate pages usually self published sources get tossed. If folks think ODI meets the execption criteria, that works for me. But question, Do the ODI reports' authors also submit to peer reviewed journals? If so those cites would be the better source. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Prem Rawat and Nobel Peace Prize Nomination

Is this video (link here, at the 2:40 mark of the second video) a reliable source for the claim that Prem Rawat has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize? -- Maelefique 22:32, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Willax.tv is an edited news channel (despite their horrible video interface :( ). The interviewer says (by the official subtitles) that he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. This is an extraordinary claim that a soft-soap interview is not sufficient for. (It is also a specious claim as a journalist is not an appropriate source for this, particularly given the nature of soft soap interviews). The claim itself tends to unreliability. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:38, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you explain what you mean by "soft soap"? And I also am not sure I follow what you mean by "the claim itself tends to unreliability", can you explain that more as well please? -- Maelefique 07:27, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The genre of a work supplies reliability information. The video is not an investigative journalistic interview, but a "puff piece" or "soft soap" interview: an interview which lionises the interviewee and predominantly uses prompts and information supplied by the interviewee themselves. Thus, unlike a news piece or an extended investigative journalism video, the quality of reporting is low. Secondly, the claim itself is extraordinary, and requires extraordinary proof. A soft soap interview is not sufficient for an extraordinary claim of fact. Thirdly, the claim itself has one natural reliable source: 50 years after the fact the Nobel committee itself makes available the actual information. In such circumstances there is a presumption against claims to have been nominated. Unless Rawat was nominated in 1961, there is no reason to believe anyone's statement that he was nominated. Finally—this kind of statement, that X was nominated for a Nobel Prize is specious and weightless—anyone can be nominated for a prize by a parliamentarian or academic. The weight is in the award, not in claims to have been nominated. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:23, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Since the names of nominees are not released, there can be no reliable source for anyone in the last 50 years. Dougweller (talk) 08:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you both for your opinions/comments. -- Maelefique 15:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Since the list of those entitled to nomminate a candidate for the Peace Prize is very large ("members of national assemblies, governments, and international courts of law; university chancellors, professors of social science, history, philosophy, law and theology; leaders of peace research institutes and institutes of foreign affairs; previous Nobel Peace Prize Laureates; board members of organizations that have received the Nobel Peace Prize; present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee; and former advisers of the Norwegian Nobel Institute"), the fact of nomination is not really very significant. I'm sure that, if I really wanted, I could persuade a friendly MP or sociology professor to nominate me. So this may indeed be true, and reliably sourced, but still not worthy of inclusion in the article. RolandR (talk) 17:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

This comes up so often that perhaps we should have a section at WP:RSEX on the general question of reliably sourcing claims about nominations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

LupinEncyclopedia.com

Source: *

Would this be labeled as a reliable source? The source is used in alot of the Lupin III articles. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 21:49, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it looks like a fansite. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:59, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Despite being a fansite, I believe it should still be considered a reliable and accurate source. While a fan site, like Nausicaa.net, all the information provided on the site are accurate. The value of this site is great, as it provides cast information and production staff information for all specials and TV series, as well as information on games, manga, music, and recent news. The reviews section may be the only section that may not qualify as usable for sources, but everything else is accurate and reliable. Reed Nelson, who provided audio commentaries and detailed notes for Lupin III DVD releases by Diskotek Media (see here andhere), sources the site on his website lupinthethird.com. Nasuicaa.net, an accurate and useable fansite, is already considered a reliable and accurate source by WikiProject Anime and Manga --AutoGyro (talk) 22:22, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, see this article from an industry anime magazine, verifying the reliability and usefulness of lupinencyclopedia.com (see last paragraph).

Luis A. Cruz self-publishes lupinencyclopedia. There is no editorial control. Despite a single paragraph in a low grade US otaku magazine suggesting that readers look at the website, there is no recognition in a community of expertise of Cruz as an expert. SPS, no editorial control, no expert exemption: unreliable. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, Otaku USA is currently the ONLY anime news magazine in North America. I wouldn't consider that low grade. --AutoGyro (talk) 00:04, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

As above, this site is not RS. But the issue has nothing to do with its contents. It has to do with the things it doesn't have (already laid out nicely for you by Fifelfoo). Even if the information on that site is 100% correct, it fails to meet the criteria of RS as per policy for WP. -- Despayre   23:25, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It's sourced and endorsed by Reed Nelson of LupinTheThird.com, who provides audio commentaries and detailed notes for Discotek Media's Lupin DVD releases, which would qualify Nelson as an expert on the subject. Luis Cruz is also published on The Fandom Post, a web site with editorial control, whose editor in chief is Chris Beveridge of Mania.com, an industry website also with editorial control, where Luis Cruz isalsopublished --AutoGyro (talk) 23:50, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Can you provide a link at www.lupinthethird.com indicating Reed's endorsement? I was unable to verify that there's anything relevant there.

Fandompost.com does not state any editorial review process or editorial expertise, I would not consider this site RS either. Also, neither Luis (nor sprack) are listed on the about page under contributors. His content on that website appears to be nothing more than user-based input, of a blogging style, with no indication of editorial control. Where do you see that this site has any oversight policy listed?

Mania.com does seem like it would be a generally RS source for anime news, but I'm not sure how that helps you. The fact that Chris Beveridge edits there does not mean that the rules from there also apply to Fandompost.com (or from there to the site you're asking about).

Luis' content there is a user-submitted review as well, at the bottom of his review there's even this link: "Submit Your Own Review". His review consists mainly of what the DVD layout looks like. The content I was referring to that would be generally RS from this source would be from the team of employees only, not from the user-submitted sources, such as the 2 reviews you list above (both almost 10 yrs old btw). Sorry, but I don't see any of this info as a game changer for me. Still not RS. -- Despayre   01:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Luis Cruz's reviews on Mania.com were back from the AnimeOnDVD.com days, and were not user submitted content as available on Mania.com today. Mania.com user content can be distinguished from authentic staff content (see here, particularly "When searching for reviews, those that have a URL format of http://www.mania.com/*title*_*somenumbers*.html and that follow the original AoD review format are written by staff reviewers and are considered reliable and usable for articles. "Maniac" reviews written by users which are not RS can be detected by the lack of structured format and a URL in the form of http://www.mania.com/*username*/review/*title*_*somenumbers*.html"). Also, see here, particularly, "The version of the FAQ Pearl hosted was actually a conversion of the original text version to HTML which was coded by our own Luis Cruz. The FAQ would eventually be reborn as an actual living website (Lupin III FAQ HTML version), and later as the Lupin Encyclopedia, both dutifully and masterfully maintained by Luis Cruz with some early contributions by ex-Lupin fan Bruce Osborne." This FAQ was originally maintained by the late Steve Pearl, who would also be considered an expert in this area. Lupin III Encyclopedia is found on LupinTheThird.com right under the home link. By the way, I really appreciate taking the time to verify all of this! I'd really like to make sure that the Lupin content is well sourced, and it's important to have accurate and reliable sources to help us improve all the content in the Lupin III category, so thank you (and thanks to Fifelfoo, too!) :) --AutoGyro (talk) 02:03, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I'll play along for a minute... I'll give you that, 10 years ago, Luis was on staff at mania.com, and wrote 3 reviews, which largely consisted of physical characteristics and technical formatting of a DVD. Now what? (BTW, thanks for the link explaining the old AoD/mania article naming, that was helpful). But what does that get us? are you saying that makes him RS? or Notable? or something else? I'm not clear on what contention that supports yet. Also, lupinthethird.com is a borderline call for RS-ness, and only that, because of the blurb at the bottom of the FAQ, but again, for the moment, lets assume it's RS, just because I want to know what dots you're trying to connect here that will change my mind that a website with no policy for oversight will suddenly become RS through this chain. -- Despayre   03:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, the criteria state to avoid "Links to blogs, personal web pages and most fansites, except those written by a recognized authority, " so I'm trying to establish that Luis Cruz would be considered an expert on anime, and particularly Lupin the 3rd, and thus a recognized authority. Also, he wrote more than three reviews, which follow the standard AoD format by reviewing technical features and packaging, followed by a review of the content (you can check all the linked reviews, they all end with a review of the "content,") but he also reviewed other Lupin III DVDs for the site, see besides the three linked above, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and that's just Lupin-related content, which is several years old because that's when the DVDs were released. He also reviews non-Lupin content, see 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There are others, too. Thanks for taking this into consideration :) --AutoGyro (talk) 03:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Expertise, in relation to anime, means something well along the way to why Hiroki Azuma would have an expert exemption; or why Scott McCloud would have an expert exemption; or why Katherine Dacey would have an expert exemption. I'm not seeing this with Cruz. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:21, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That would actually go against the established RS-eligibility of individuals on WikiProject Anime and Manga --AutoGyro (talk) 03:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

A project's walled garden of delight is not the concern of WP:RS/N—and I can strongly suggest to you that RS/N is much more highly esteemed regarding reliability than the Anime and Manga project is. I checked through the individuals listed there, and most gained an expert exemption by (apparently) long term paid work on publications with an editorial policy (confer: Katherine Dacey's biography). Cruz, again, doesn't show that. I'd suggest that a number of the non-individual "exemptions" look dodgy as hell to me from first impression, but I don't comment on general reliability issues on RS/N. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

So, then, all his published reviews on Mania.com and the relationship with LupinTheThird.com, which is by a paid Lupin expert, would not qualify Cruz for the expert exemption? Can we at least establish that Reed Nelson of LupinTheThird.com is RS? --AutoGyro (talk) 04:08, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Unknown Author (Unknown date) "Unknown article" Mania.com for use in Unknown article to support unknown claim

• Please supply required material for this RS/N query, refer to the top of the page / edit window for what we require Fifelfoo (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Mania.com is an industry website written by a team with editorial oversite, see the Web site's About Us section. Mania.com is regularly used as a source in many anime, manga, and comic articles on Misplaced Pages --AutoGyro (talk) 04:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Mania.com is mainly used just for reviews, alot of the reviews are user submitted so you do have to be careful that you get a staff review. - Knowledgekid87 (talk) 05:07, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

The features on Mania.com area also RS, considering they're written by staff --AutoGyro (talk) 15:07, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Reed Nelson (Unknown date) "Unknown article" LupinTheThird.com for use in Unknown article to support unknown claim

• Please supply required material for this RS/N query, refer to the top of the page / edit window for what we require Fifelfoo (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Reed Nelson runs LupinTheThird.com. He provides audio commentaries, expert notes, and checks English subtitles for Diskotech Media's Lupin the 3rd Releases (see here, hereandhere). Note that LupinTheThird.com used to be LupinTheThird.net (

I cannot find anything on the website that indicates the level of involvement or control that Luis Cruz has. That's a problem for RS-ness, I don't find that Cruz's work has risen to a level for an expert exemption. My opinion on Reed Nelson stays the same, he *may* be RS for this topic, he does have a certain expertise here, reviews of his DVD work seem quite favorable. But his small "check out LE.com" comment on his website doesn't rise to the level of "endorsement" for me, in terms of RS-ness. Is there somewhere else that he specifically endorses it, or Cruz? You can always use an inline attribution for non-contentious facts as well, such as "According to lupinencyclopedia.com, blah blah blah", or Luis Cruz of le.com said that "blah blah blah". If it's not contentious, and the view of the editors there is that its "good enough" as a source, there shouldn't be a problem with that. But if there is disagreement about using it, I would still say, take it out. -- Despayre   15:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, see this post by Reed Nelson on the LupinTheThird.com forums, particularly, "The version of the FAQ Pearl hosted was actually a conversion of the original text version to HTML which was coded by our own Luis Cruz. The FAQ would eventually be reborn as an actual living website (Lupin III FAQ HTML version), and later as the Lupin Encyclopedia, both dutifully and masterfully maintained by Luis Cruz with some early contributions by ex-Lupin fan Bruce Osborne." The "Pearl" referred to here is the late Steve Pearl, who would also be considered an expert in this area, and who was involved in early versions of LupinEncyclopedia.com, which was then, as Reed Nelson mentioned, taken over by Luis Cruz. Also see here, where Luis Cruz was a guest on Reed Nelson and Michael Davis' Lupin podcast. There's still also the fact that Luis Cruz has multiple Lupin III reviews published on Mania.com--AutoGyro (talk) 16:16, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Also, there are no disagreements on using LupinEncyclopedia.com. It's by no means a controversial source. We use it for English translated titles of episodes and specials, release date information, basic facts kind of stuff. The site does have a reviews section, but that reviews section is not used to source any Lupin articles on Misplaced Pages. The extensive information available on LupinEncyclopedia.com is not available anywhere else in English because there has not been a need to create another source when that one is already available. If you look at the English Lupin community, everyone cites back to LupinEncyclopedia.com, as it's a definitive source for factual information about the series in English (not opinions or reviews, just simple facts, dates, titles, releases). If we can't use that as a reliable source, we'll have to start using Japanese sources. Lupin III and List of Lupin III Part II episodes make extensive use of factual information from that site. One is currently a good article while the other is a featured list.--AutoGyro (talk) 16:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I'll take a look at all that other stuff later, but regarding your last point, there is absolutely no requirement (it's only preferred) that your sources be in english, if you have RS Japanese sources, you should go right ahead and use them, as per WP:NOENG. -- Despayre   16:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

I was just wondering if you had a chance to review the links above :) Many thanks! --AutoGyro (talk) 17:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

It's been a few days since this has been looked at and without a response yet. I was wondering if you could check out the links I provided above :) thanks! --AutoGyro (talk) 15:27, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Do you have Japanese RS sources you can use for the same information? -- Despayre   15:41, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Not for all of the information available on LupinEncyclopedia.com (for example, English titles), and things like original air dates would require some digging in, and I'm not proficient enough in Japanese for that. The official Japanese websites list date ranges, and some other information, such as opening and closing songs, etc. It would still be tremendously helpful to have an RS english website for this information, and, based on what I provided above, I honestly believe that Luis Cruz and LupinEncyclopedia.com would qualify. That website is a standard and trusted resource for the English-speaking Lupin community. Please take a moment to see how the site is used in the Lupin III article --AutoGyro (talk) 23:33, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Lexology.com

I've recently produced three new drafts of articles on financial topics, each of which used an article from the website Lexology.com as one of their sources. Since the articles were written on behalf of a client, I submitted them for review by volunteer editors at WikiProject Cooperation, where a discussion has begun about whether Lexology is a reliable source or not. I've seen the source used elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, and it was suggested to me that I should come here to see if editors can provide clarification on whether it can be used or not.

To provide some more context, I've highlighted below the facts that I have used the Lexology article to support.

Draft for Commodity trading advisor:

On January 26, 2011, following the 2010 enactment of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the CFTC proposed additions and amendments to the regulation of CTAs, including two new forms of data collection. The CFTC also made a joint proposal with the Securities Exchange Commission to increase disclosure requirements and amend the registration criteria. Due to these changes, advisors managing funds that use swaps or other commodity interests may be defined as CTAs, subject to registration with the CFTC.

Draft for Commodity Pool Operator:

In particular, funds that use swaps or other commodity interests may be defined as commodity pools and subject to registration with the CFTC, where previously they would not have been.

Draft for Managed futures account:

Under the new amended registration requirement, funds that use swaps or other commodity interests may be defined as commodity pools and must register with the CFTC, where previously they did not.

References

1. "Commodity Pool Operators and Commodity Trading Advisors: Amendments to Compliance Obligations" (PDF). Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Retrieved 14 May 2012.
2. ^ "The CFTC's final entity rules and their implications for hedge funds and other private funds". Lexology. Globe Business Publishing Ltd. 10 May 2012. Retrieved 14 May 2012.

I'd appreciate the input of editors here as to whether this is an appropriate source to use, particularly to support the above facts. Due to these changes being very recent, the majority of other sources I've found are similar to Lexology, in that they publish articles prepared by law firms. From what I've seen, all provide essentially the same commentary regarding CFTC rule changes that would increase the number of funds defined as commodity pools. Is there a particular legal source that is best to use for this sort of information?

If none of these are suitable, I've found an article in the Wall Street Journal and one from Hedgeweek that explain this, but not as clearly as the Lexology source. I'm interested to get an independent opinion about the best course of action here. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 22:03, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

• As an editor involved in this issue: Lexology exercises no control over the content it receives, and content is written and submitted by members of law firms as "working papers" without the kind of academic or judicial expertise that our meaning of "Expert" would require to exempt a self-published source. Analysis of law has a method of reviewed scholarly publishing: the legal journal. Lexology does not resemble this in the least, and no editorial or peer control is expressed over what is (essentially) a user contribution based blog. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:44, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Lexology does not look RS based on its disclaimer page (how can you tell this site is run by lawyers?!), "The Publishers, Globe Business Publishing Ltd, make no warranty of any kind with respect to the subject matter included herein or the completeness or accuracy of this website...Without limiting the above the Publishers and the contributors shall each have no responsibility for any act or omission of any other contributor...This website may contain technical inaccuracies and changes to the information contained herein may be made at any time". There is no indication of oversight here, or editorial control (just the opposite it seems), and no way to determine the expertness of any given author (btw, I was unable to view your specific lexology PDF as I am not a member, free though it may be). There is a small problem with your WSJ cite, while I did not find it unlcear or confusing, it uses the future tense, so it would seem as of the writing of that article, the law had not passed, ergo that may not be RS for what you want either (I don't know how contentious editors are being in this particular case, but WSJ can hardly be held as RS for events that haven't taken place yet). I do find HedgeWeek to be RS for all 3 of the above statements. It may not be as clear, only because it's slightly more technical in tone, but I believe it speaks to each of the above edits, and is RS for them. You may also like to use this source found via Highbeam, it also looks RS to me and has some coverage on this issue it seems. -- Despayre   00:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, Despayre, that makes a lot of sense. I'd read the About language, but had missed the Disclaimer—wish I'd caught that in the first place. Glad the Hedgeweek works, and the Morgan Lewis looks pretty solid as well. I'll replace the cite. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 02:05, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Lexology is not automatically RS for the reasons already stated, and in addition it is password-protected. However, the particular article in question was written and published by Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, a law firm prominent in the field, so it should be RS as the publication of an expert. You should cite to the law firm's publication, here.

The second and third statements above are actually incorrect, because they say that the funds may have to register. It is the commodity pool operator, not the commodity pool, that is subject to a registration requirement. However, that is the editor's error and not in the original Sutherland publication.

HedgeWeek is basically a trade newspaper - RS, but not comparable to peer-reviewed scholarship. If I were ranking these for reliability for real-life purposes, I would put the Sutherland article at the top, followed fairly closely by HedgeWeek, and then the Wall Street Journal considerably below that. John M Baker (talk) 21:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

As I noted in my comment, published legal opinion (ie: the professional and academic criteria for expertise in law) is publication in peer reviewed professional or scholarly legal journals. I'm not sure how a working paper from a law firm in any way resembles the acknowledged structure of establishing expertise in law. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:11, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly true that the preferred sources are academic and peer-reviewed publications. In the legal field, the most common such publications are law reviews and legal treatises. However, such sources are not always available or may not be up to date. In the case in point, the change is only four months old, and there may not be any law reviews or legal treatises on point as yet. It therefore is necessary to turn to other, still acceptable sources, such as news reports and self-published material by established experts on the topic. Sutherland is a leading law firm in this area. (I don't work for them; they're a competitor.) Law firms put their reputation on the line when they issue reports of this kind, and they use internal vetting processes that generally are better than those available at newspapers (whose editors, after all, are not lawyers and not experts in the area). John M Baker (talk) 22:55, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, personal "repute" is not an adequate measure of expertise. You'd need to demonstrate it by noting citations in peer reviewed modes of working papers from this firm; or a particular esteem of this firm. Outside of your own opinion regarding the expertise of the firm, how can you establish their expertise (with reference to printed material such that encyclopaedists can establish their expertise without becoming specialised legal practicioners). (As a tertiary point—even a working paper from a firm that regularly handles such cases is not a guide for an encyclopaedia for what the law is, even if it is a guide for a business attempting to comply with the law; at least in a common law jurisdiction). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:37, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think I have to go much further than our article on Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, which shows that US News & World Report lists Sutherland as a best law firm and that the firm is included in the Am Law 100 and in America's 250 Largest Law Firms. The article also notes that John H. Walsh, a partner at Sutherland, is a former associate director at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Walsh is one of the lawyers listed in the referenced document as one of the responsible attorneys for it.

I also consider this to be a matter of choosing sources and prioritizing resources. What other sources are available here? Nobody has produced a genuinely scholarly source. There are newspaper reports, which realistically aren't any better, probably not as good. There's the primary source, which is the CFTC release, but primary sources need to be treated with care; it's 200 pages long and it's easy for a non-expert to misunderstand. Then there are reports from other law firms, which are in no better position than Sutherland.

As far as prioritizing resources, I will only say that, if I were to make a list of ways to improve these articles, finding a better source for these points would not be in my top 20. John M Baker (talk) 00:53, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure about your other points, but I am sure that you've demonstrated expertise for an exemption for a self-published source for the document in question :) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Abkhazian Network News Agency showing video interviews with Houla massacre survivors (plus Syria News)

According to their web page, http://anna-news.info/about, "The Agency has officially registered as mass media in the Republic of Abkhazia, 18 July 2011." The web site is in Russian only, so the above went through Google Translate. Abkhazian Network News Agency (ANNA) has published an article including a video documenting eyewitness accounts of the 2012 Houla massacre that took place on May 25. Here's there article with the Google Translate link:

• http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ru&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://anna-news.info/node/6220&usg=ALkJrhiSii7WCjtvbYX5-8-zbPf4WXuH2A

I basically wonder if ANNA and this article can be used in the Houla massacre article to attest to claims that contradict the western and mainstream media narrative of how the events went down that led to so many people being basically butchered. We've had some discussion already at Talk:2012 Houla massacre#Testimony from villagers blaming bandits, but this is a situation where input from this noticeboard will be needed.

There is in addition the ancillary issue of one news report which cites the ANNA news story, from a news outlet called Syria News, both as to whether it strengthens the RS status of the ANNA article and if it is itself an RS:

• http://www.syrianews.cc/syria-what-really-happened-in-al-hula-homs-689.html

As far as I'm able to investigate this site is based in Los Angeles, CA, but that's all I can figure out. __meco (talk) 09:58, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Syrianews is a website which takes the "alqaeda narrative" of the Syrian government and has no RS credibility. http://www.syrianews.cc/ Sopher99 (talk) 12:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The ANNA is completely unreliable I should point out. Its a news source only about Syria, made in 2011, only in Russian, and fully takes on the Syrian governments narratives

Here is some of their headlines, translated through google translate

"France must not blindly follow the U.S. in their crusades"

"Syria news: Al-Hula - ordinary fascism, the first witness"

" "Humanists" have once again prepared to attack the chosen victim"

Sopher99 (talk) 12:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you are arguing the position that since they are arguing opinions that contradict what we "know to be true" they cannot be considered reliable sources. That's not how reliable source status is established. Also, there's this Press TV article which references the ANNA report. I'm of course well aware of the status of Press TV vis-à-vis this noticeboard. __meco (talk) 12:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I am arguing this position because ANNA is a russian conspiracy theory website. Sopher99 (talk) 12:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I quote Misplaced Pages:RS in saying "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." Sopher99 (talk) 12:30, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Please do not bring your talk page arguments to RSN, the editors here are quite capable of researching the problem on their own, and speaking for at least some, I don't really want to read your reasonings, I just want the facts, which I had in the first 3-4 sentences. I/we don't have a lot of interest in your views of what is or isn't ok to use. Obviously, if you both agreed, you wouldn't be here, and if someone didn't disagree in the first place, the question wouldn't be brought here. Bickering about it here only diminishes input from others. Having said that, I am examining your sources, and will have some further thoughts shortly (I only get them in short bursts ).-- Despayre   15:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• For a contentious issue like this, I would get it translated by a Wikipedian, not Google translate, as per preference at WP:NOENG, particularly since some of the sentences don't make sense from google. Translators can be found here.

• Dealing with syrianews.cc first, I suspect they are at the CC domain as there is no free press in Syria, however, the writer, Viktor Reznov is in Syria, and his qualifications list him only as "blogger". Additionally, on the disclaimer page for that organisation, the following snippets appear "SyriaNews.cc does not warrant that any of the materials on its web site are accurate, complete, or current. SyriaNews.cc may make changes to the materials contained on its web site at any time without notice. SyriaNews.cc does not, however, make any commitment to update the materials. ", "SyriaNews.cc has not reviewed all of the sites linked to its Internet web site and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by SyriaNews.cc of the site" (specifically, that would cover the video), "SyriaNews.cc does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials". Further, I can find no page that indicates the staffing, or editorial board, or editorial policy or oversight for this site. I do NOT find syrianews.cc to be RS for this claim.

• anna-news.info - Generally has credibility, it's not great though. This particular author seems to spend a lot of time on Syria-related stories. Their website says that they are accredited journalists, and gives identifiable information that could be used to follow up their credentials if someone had doubts. They claim their objective is "accurate and quality documentation of relevant facts and events of global redistribution ("what" "where," "when" happened)" (there's more, but that's the relevant part). They do claim to want to also offer analysis, I am not so sure they are a good source for the latter aspect of their goal, in WP terms at least. I would like to see some biographical data on these editors, and a more clearly labelled editorial policy, but at least it has one, although you have to read a lot to interpret it. I have some concerns about this website, but, barely, I will put my opinion down as RS for this source for aspects of what happened. I would not say they are RS for analysis (such as the last sentence in the article). You may also run into WP:FRINGE issues here as well if you were planning to use this for anything other than the facts of what happened. -- Despayre   16:28, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate your reasoned input thus far. I see now that I forgot to enclose a link to an English translation of the video news report. Here it is:

• https://www.facebook.com/notes/konstantyn-scheglikov/the-residents-of-tal-dow-and-al-hula-saying-truth-about-massacre-in-village-al-h/420266358007933

I think a central strength of this would-be reference is the video report and its survivor/residents testimony. With those, the merits of ANNA, the news agency, becomes less in the focus I would surmise, instead we will want to consider what the witnesses are saying. From the translation of the testimonies it is clear that these people are from Houla, actually the village of Taldou, one of the two villages affected by the massacre, and equally clear becomes their corroboration of the official government version that the killers are on the side of those rebel/militias which attacked the army checkpoints, with repeated reference to them coming from al-Rastan, a town 20 km north of Homs. I'm not sure the assessment of the (perhaps theoretical) possibility that the media outlet has blatantly forged this video, and abetted fake witnesses presenting a concocted narrative, would be quite the same as assessing the news agency's standing as a reliable source with reference to their otherwise reporting and publishing of news material? __meco (talk) 16:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• I am unlikely to ever find a person's facebook page to be an RS source (and I don't find it to be so here). You're much better off going to one of the translators I provided you a list of. Without proof that the news agency has forged evidence before, the idea that the video is forged is purely supposition, and would fall under WP:OR. The fact that ANNA does not always have the same view as other news agencies isn't very relevant either, and should probably be included under WP:NPOV, unless they are going to remove it for WP:FRINGE or WP:WEIGHT concerns, but initially, I don't see those problems for this. Being the only source that is providing an alternate POV in this case does not necessarily make it fringe or weight-problematic, due to the scarcity of sources for this in general. -- Despayre   17:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• I have made the call to three Russian translators with recent edits, so we should expect someone to turn up. __meco (talk) 18:31, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• Other non-involved editors may want to weigh in here too, I suspect it's so borderline that we will probably not have a consensus here, but, we'll see I guess. -- Despayre   16:29, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Channel 4 have been in the actual town - - the implication if you're saying the ANNA line is reliable is that Channel 4 mocked up the story about their journalist entering the town and asking the villagers about what happened and who they blamed - no-one except the government and their supporters thinks the government line at all plausible as I understand it - you are seriously concluding ANNA Abhazia/Russia is equal RS to Channel 4? Sayerslle (talk) 17:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I think you may have been reading someone else's comments, since I neither mentioned channel 4 at all, nor did anyone ask about the RS-ness of channel 4. Aside from that the odd idea of "equal RS" is not what we do here. Additionally, if it's your thought that one RS source will not contradict another RS source, that is not correct. -- Despayre   18:11, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

its not - this RS says Shabiha , this RS says whoever the regime names - its RS says Shabiha, ANNA (not RS) says whatever the regime says. Anyway, i'm done - i don't get the tone of the thought here - looks like some policies are followed that look ok , but are actually totally politically naif/cynicalSayerslle (talk) 18:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

"its not", I don't know what that means (refers to), and I don't know what naif stands for either. I understand your views on the policy, and you may be right with regards to them, as well, since I haven't seen any of the other usual editors here weigh in yet, it may still turn out that there is a consensus of non-RS for this source. However, this is not the page to discuss changing those policies, I only try and interpret them to the issues that are brought here, whether I agree with what the policy says or not, I try not to bring into my decision (everyone call always call on WP:IAR). I have no agenda on this topic, I've heard of none of the involved events/parties (Other than Syria and Russia, generally). -- Despayre   19:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Half-way point

Although I have been mildly involved (I advised User:Meco to go to WP:RSN), when it comes to ANNA I was wondering about one thing. In order for source to be reliable it has to be established by his previous work as having reputation for fact-checking (and should be based on third-party sources, what cannot be always the case). About section claims that this "agency" came to existence on 18.07.2011. Can we conclude that during those 11 months of existence it has reputation for fact-checking? Just quoting from several articles I find interesting

• This one claims that anti-Assad forces has been established as penetrators by UN experts on the ground, yet that is not true, as a matter of fact fingers were more likely pointed towards Syrian government.
• This article claims that Germany and France stole 200 billion dollars from Gaddafi and than used it for financial help to Greece.
• This one uses for the articles sources from www.globalresearch.ca, notorious conspiracy website (oh, and yes Cynthia McKineey, self-proclaimed former UN chief for fight against terrorism) and Press TV, Iranian state TV
• This one claims that 16 French soldiers, including French colonel, were arrested during Siege of Homs. Short version - they were not arrested.

I am sure I would find more had I more time to dig in, but this should give you some picture about it. To me it seems as Russian version of globalresearch.ca, nothing more. EllsworthSK (talk) 18:01, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

WO! because there is an alternative to the western-centric pvo on WP means its unreliable? thats rot! read any of the cnn/bbc/france 24 and you;ll find their criticism harden against such stances. its blatant! as does a l jazeera, the foreign policy tool of qatar!Lihaas (talk) 19:22, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Its not just a different take on a situation... EllsworthSK is pointing out blatant false information (lies) on this site. Sopher99 (talk) 19:39, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, exactly that is what I wrote. Now, re-read my post where I pointed out several lies by this agency, which do not fall under requirement of WP:RS, think about it for a while and possibly edit your comment. EllsworthSK (talk) 19:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Ellsworth, you may be right about the conclusions, but you have posted no RS sources for your rebuttals, making them all OR (or opinions) on your part. Also, as I said above, it is not impossible, in fact, it's common, that RS sources can disagree on a topic. It's completely plausible that ANNA is RS and is completely wrong in their facts. Being wrong does not make them non-RS, see WP:V for more on that. -- Despayre   19:41, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

That is not correct. I posted 4 examples, provided source for one of it, proved that unreliable sources were used for second one and 2 remaining are flagrant conspiracy theories. French officers is claim made by Lebanese pro-M8 newspaper which turned out to be untrue, denied by French government and not ever confirmed by Syrian government. Yet, it is presented as a fact. As for the "Germans stole G money" - article provides no third-party sources, nt verification of facts, it draws conclusion it wants and even lies when it says that "200 frozen billion suddenly became 15 billion". I am sorry, but it is not my job to de-buff conspiracy theory, it is editors job to back his claims by facts and third-party sources. EllsworthSK (talk) 19:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I just went back and looked at your 4 examples:

• The first one is a report repeating what another photojournalist said. ANNA would be RS for their interview that this person said it. Not that ANNA claimed it themselves. They are merely repeating what they attributed to him. I don't see a problem with that, and it's clear from the story that this is the case (which was not clear from your representation of it). Your Reuters article does not dispute this claim, although, while it says further investigation is needed, it indicates only that it seems likely that at least some of the damage was caused by govt forces.
• Second article. I googled "200 billion dollars from the accounts of the Libyan", and got 1.2 million results, on the first page, at a glance, I see europe/Germany/Greece mentioned at least a half dozen times, I did not check those references for RS-ness, but it tells me that it may not be not utter garbage as a starting point. Having said that, I would not suggest that story was RS for the assertion, as it has no sources, and I don't see any of the economic expertise that would be required for that story (it falls more under the "analysis" concept, which I said above, I doubted would be RS. So we are in agreement on this one.
• Third. The facts of this article are not in dispute, the court of Kuala Lampur *did* find Bush and Blair guilty of war crimes. So now even when they report undisputed facts you have a problem with how they did it? I would not necessarily use this source for that, but the fact that they got the salient points correct is key here. Also, I don't write off Cynthia McKinney quite as quickly as you either.
• This story only seems to have been reported in other sources that I have RS questions about, but I was unable to find any other news outlet that refuted it either, which I would have expected since you picked it out as an example of "slant" to disprove RS-ness of ANNA.

My opinion remains as it was, but I'm not sure you clearly read my opinion either, because I did not say this website was great, I said it was barely ok for some things, with some caveats attached. I don't see anything here that makes me think it's any more or less sketchy than I thought originally. -- Despayre   23:36, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

• You are wrong, read once again the second sentence. It states that This version is supported by UN observers on the scene. That is not sentence said by photojournalist in later interview, that is lead written solely by author. Also other source says completely otherwise But there are also victims from individual weapons, victims from knife wounds and that of course is less clear but probably points the way to the (pro-Assad) shabbihas, the local militia. I can find you quotes by Major-General Moods who attributes guild from close-range executions to no one till investigation is over (hence not what ANNA claims). There is no source that could back the claim made by ANNA editor.
• You clearly missed my point here. I do not dispute that 200 billion was frozen from Gaddafi accounts. On the contrary, that is well known fact. The second part of the sentence which claims that Germany stole 175 billion from this frozen assets and returned only 15 billion to the NTC is completely unsourced. I can guarantee you that no matter how hard you try, you won´t find RS for that. I tried, I failed. It is claim I saw several times presented on various pro-Gaddafi blogs and sites such as globalsecurity.ca. Just as I saw gazillion of 9/11 was inside job theories on similar blogs.
• Once again, not my point. Writing an article about how Kuala Lumpur found GWB guilty of war crimes is all right in my books, what I pointed out were sources which editor used for his article. If source is using notorious unreliable sources as base for its article, what does it make? As for McKinney, that is your choice but I would strongly recommend you to write her off as soon as possible. I have no good word for 9/11 believers and in her case that is just top of the iceberg. The amount of her trash that I and other editors had to deal with during Libyan civil war was unbelievable.
• All right, I thought this was self-explanatory. Let´s take this source as a starting point . First, ANNA claims that those are 18 soldiers. In fact, what was reported are 13 soldiers. Primary source is Lebanese Daily Star, specifically this article. It quotes unnamed pro-Syrian Palestinian source. As you can see in first source it was denied by French foreign ministry. As for Syrian government, you can hardly find what doesn´t exist, especially when SANA official webpage is like from 90s, no search engine, no news archive and site map is not working. And upon trying this web archive it gives me nothing. Even in original Daily Star article it says that Damascus did not comment on it. So despite the fact that French foreign ministry denied the claim, Syrian government never commented on it and after 3 months no one is missing 13 military officers, it is presented as a fact. Other RS at least wrote that it is unconfirmed claim and who the original source is. ANNA did not.

And no need to get defensive, I was not accusing you of anything, nor I intended to. I was simply reacting and point out several examples. As I wrote the first time, I have no problem with searching a little bit more and disproving reliability of this source, I just thought that this will do. The POV pushing from this agency is undeniable, as an examples I can provide you with these articles and fact-checking is little to none. I wrote already a extremely large wall of text, so I should probably let you and other editors to say their view on this matter as well. EllsworthSK (talk) 00:24, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

How many hits something gets on google is not an indicator of RS or significance. There could be a million hits google of "why the armenian genocide didn't happen" filled with crazy rants from conspiracy theories, does mean we put such things on the Armenian genocide page.

The notability of the persons in question, such as those interviewed, are also a very important factor. Misplaced Pages guidelines do not call for the wrong people to be quoted. For example, it is unlikely the wikipedia article for the Jewish practice of Passover will have quotes from hitler critiquing the practice of passover. Sopher99 (talk) 00:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Distorting what I said, and then refuting that distortion, is called a straw man argument. It isn't helpful, and doesn't change my opinion of what I said, which was in fact the opposite thing, that it was NOT RS for that claim. I never said that because Google shows some hits that it is RS. Also, congratulations on validating Godwin's Law so quickly. -- Despayre   00:28, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Godwin's law has very easy applications. I could have used the cambodian genocide - or Stalin and maozadong. Maybe Bosnia and Kosovo, Rwanda? I simply used a controversial topic, an obvious one. No need to Judge me for that. Sopher99 (talk) 00:59, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

You could have, and they would all be just as ludicrous on scale alone. And what about the other 5/6ths of what I previously said? Just ignoring that? -- Despayre   14:52, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

@Ellsworth, you are only proving my original analysis, that this site may be RS for some things, and is not going to be RS for others (anything that has to do with analysis). I'm not going to repeat what I said about the Libyan money for a third time, if you didn't read it the first two times, I don't see a point in saying it again now. If you'd like to deal further with your first example (where you claim I'm wrong), you've inserted "" but really what it says is "" if you read it. The source in the article later confirms that with "armed miltant groups". Is that the disconnect problem you have? -- Despayre   15:04, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Libyan case - you probably can´t read in azbuka, otherwise you´d know what article claims (175 billion stolen by German government and used as financial aid for Greece - that is the main point, not that 200 billion were frozen by German government after UN sanctions were in place). Good luck in finding RS supporting that claim. As for "" that is something I added to the quotation in order to put it in context. Radical islamists or anti-Assad forces from context of that article bears no difference, it generalize both terms as one and the same. Context of the article is crystal clear - radical islamist anti-Assad forces (for the lack of the better word and NPOV) killed 100+ civies in Houla what was confirmed by UN observers on the ground. And lastly who is going to pick up which article can be used as RS and which not? Will we classify the source as semi-reliable? How would that work, I wonder? EllsworthSK (talk) 15:18, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

@despayre where you write "you've inserted "" but really what it says is "" if you read it" - imo this illustrates what you yourself have admitted - you dont't know anything about the situation , you don't care about the politics of this situation, or understand it . channel 4 news - a RS for sure - have entered the town and spoken with survivors they blamed Shia/Alawite Shabiya - to believe that anna is a RS that just disagrees , or has got it wrong but is still a possible RS - no, bollox.Sayerslle (talk) 15:35, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

@E, AGAIN with the Libyan Money?!?! Seriously?!?! WE are NOT in disagreement about that article, as I have said *4* times now!! Good luck proving I've said anything else other than that. Referring to an actual issue, I know you inserted it for context, but your context was not as accurate as it should have been. That article is not crystal-clear about much at all. You are making this way overly dramatic. In response to your last question, I would probably suggest asking at RSN, that's what it's for.

@S. The situation isn't all that relevant, the question is, "is the source reliable?". Which is why RSN exists, so that non-embroiled editors can offer opinions. You should re-read WP:NPOV (specifically WP:BALANCE) which clearly states that two RS sources can disagree (I have no idea whether channel 4 is "RS for sure" or not, since I've never had to look into them and it isn't relevant here, unless you are going to say they are not equal in prominence). And personally, I've seen it many times. To describe the possibility as "bollocks" shows a basic misunderstanding of WP's core principles, which I cannot fix here. My opinion on the source question asked remains as it was, no more and no less than I said. Arguing with you over long established other policies that you don't seem to understand is not what I am going to do this weekend. -- Despayre   15:58, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

@D well forget about explaining policies to me, - two reliable sources are not disagreeing in this case, a reliable source is being 'disagreed with' by a propaganda source ,bleedin' obvious - anyway, when will you come to a decision? is it reliable? where are the judges? are you on your own? Sayerslle (talk) 16:15, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

While understanding the policies makes the answers here easier to understand (truth can be irrelevant according to WP:V), it's not necessary to ask questions here. I've given my answer to the question brought here already (up top). I do not see the site as a "propoganda site", although I'm sure they have some kind of agenda, especially in the "analysis" articles. But that doesn't make them blanket non-RS. You may not quite follow how RSN works either, you'll be happy to know I don't make any "judegments". I have presented my opinion here, as someone who has looked at a lot of source issues. Often there are several regular editors here who will leave an opinion, but almost never when other involved editors come over and attack the question and create a wall of text for them to read first. As I said, I will send out a couple of msgs to see if anyone else will comment on their opinions either way. *IF* there's a consensus here (which I said waaaay up at the top there might not be, because this one is a little close to the line), you can take that back to the article and say it appears to be RS. That doesn't mean you can't keep it out because of WP:WEIGHT, WP:NOTABLE, or even WP:FRINGE if you think they apply. -- Despayre   01:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrary Break II

(I am an RS/N editor, whose opinion was solicited to help clarify the discussion). The article Ольга Драфт (2012-05-25) "Сирия новости: рассказывают жители Таль - Дау и Аль- Хула" ANNA is not reliable. It is attempting to rely upon the "eye witness claims" of the interviewees, and not the considered journalism. We do not accept random individual's claims, and attempting to construct an article from eye witness interviews is an attempt to turn an encyclopaedia into a newspaper. We would want to rely on the journalistic opinion, subject to editorial review, of Драфт—but Драфт's statements aren't the subject of the reliability issue: random villager's interviews are, and they're primary sources with no reliability. Meanwhile, even if Драфт did draw a journalistic conclusion, there's no indication that Драфт's article received editorial scrutiny per the About page for ANNA. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:14, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I find it hard to digest what you are writing. Because it appears to me that you are saying that a newspaper article which is written around a collection of eyewitness accounts cannot be reliable as (I'm quoting you) "t is attempting to rely upon the 'eye witness claims' of the interviewees, and not the considered journalism." I'm frankly astonished by that assertion. Would you by that measure also exclude these news articles which are currently used as references in the Houla massacre article?

You go on to emphasize that "e do not accept random individual's claims, and attempting to construct an article from eye witness interviews is an attempt to turn an encyclopaedia into a newspaper." Is this a non-sequitur or has there in fact been an attempt to "construct an article from eye witness interviews"? I can see no such attempt having been made.

You also seem to confuse the definition of what a primary source is. The villagers' testimonies published by the villagers or someone representing them, now that would be primary sources. Recorded by a foreign news agency and published by that agency, as is the case here, clearly is a third-party source. __meco (talk) 07:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have problems with Misplaced Pages's primary source policies. Republishing an interview does not make this a secondary source.

Regarding the quotations, I refer you to the RS/N request, and to the content of the document in question. The document is a collection of quotes from people purporting to be eye-witnesses: ie, it is a collation of primary materials. Such a collation does not become "secondary" by the act of collation. This is in no sense a third party source, because the only quotable element of these interviews is unedited opinion from involved persons. On top of this, the news-source exercises no editorial control over their "journalists."

If you have questions regarding further sources, please feel free to ask further questions below, changing the title of the section, and providing all the details requested at the top of this page. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

According to the About page,

"The aim of the project ANNA is the true information, analysis and prediction of events that are directly related to the problem of Russia's national security and its strategic allies in the current military-political context of the global processing, the need to protect their own people, territory and national interests, taking into account the global nature and specificity of the third world war. Today, the power division of the world is part of a strategy of direct access neoindustrialnyh countries to natural and raw resources of the territorial colonies, dismemberment, and neo-colonization of the resource, separation and targeted grazing of their people. The specificity of the modern world of global process and reformat themselves wars of the 21st century is to avoid the use of the tank corps and armies as was the case previously, and at the rate of covert intelligence operations, advanced technology of social manipulation and controlled media, the criminal terror special forces and the NATO bombing."

It sounds like an advocacy site, not a legitimate news organization. The site doesn't even have a physical address. Further, the use of tags for articles suggests that this site is a group blog. Not reliable. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 15:42, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Unknown Author (Unknown date) "Unknown Title" Unknown News Source

Meco appears to have concerns regarding the reliability of other sources, but has not specified the source, or claims being made based on the source. Fifelfoo (talk) 07:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC) If Meco could specify these sources here, preferably one section per source, or initiate entirely new RS/N discussions on those sources it would be appreciated. Discussion two sources in one section doesn't work on RS/N due to the wiki discussion format. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not going to do that simply to make a point. I realize there's a consensus opinion disapproving of the ANNA site. __meco (talk) 17:47, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

The Digital Fix

Is anyone here familiar with the website thedigitalfix.com? The site's music page is being used in the Naked Lunch film article to source the claim that samples from the film were used in the Bomb The Bass single "Bug Powder Dust". The review does source the claim, but I cannot determine whether this site is reliable. I can find no list of authors, editors, or an editorial policy. I would like to hear some other opinions on this, please. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 14:48, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Based on my reading of this page. I would say that this source is RS for that claim. The page lists a policy for members, warns of things not to do, indicates that they had an admin staff that will moderate posts that are not ok. Provides links for copyright holders to contact them for any material that should be removed. In short, they seem to be doing all the things a responsible website should do for crediblity. I would like to have seen a list of the staff, and their CV's, but hey, I can't have everything. -- Despayre   16:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I read that page too, but it seems to refer only to their message boards, and says nothing about the actual articles, or their editorial policy. At this point, I am ambivalent. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 18:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed, but in light of the non-contentiousness of the information, the fact that the editor is listed in other media capacities when searched for (in google), and the absence of any of the other "alarm bell" cues, along with the public availability of the chief editor/owner (also easily found, including phone numbers and addresses), I think it's more likely that this source is RS, I don't have any reason to believe they would be less stringent with their staff articles than they would be with user content. This one got a "thumbs up" more because it seems to do lots of things right, rather than an explicit declaration on their part. As well as the relatively minor nature of the edit in question. If you choose to claim it's not RS and want to pull the edit, there is an argument to made for that too, it's not a "bright line" case of RS, just seems sufficient in this case, to me. -- Despayre   19:47, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

You convinced me. I have seen this information cited somewhere else, and if I can find that, I may replace the cite, but at this point, it seems good enough. ---RepublicanJacobite_TheFortyFive 03:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Jeff Lindsay (engineer) jefflindsay.com

Is this self-published writer a reliable source? His website, jefflindsay.com, is used in a number of articles. Most of these are to do with Mormonism, but I've also found Hmong American where he is used although when you check the article on his website it's just his self-published opinion.

More typical examples are at Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. Here he's used 3 times. The first time he is attributed, but not the next two times. The 2nd time he is used, rather bizarrely, for the statement "However, critics dispute the existence of figs in the pre-Columbian Americas". THe source, does mention critics but with no names, and I say bizarrely because you would expect a source for this to link to critics, but of course his web page is a criticism of the critics. The next link backs a statement about apologists beliefs, although Lindsay, who is an apologist (singular), doesn't mention any other apologists. And his article says "Richard Abanes, a writer critical of Mormonism, refers to Lindsay's work as "numerous self-published articles, not scholarly, extremely biased, articles often based on misinformation". Some LDS people also disagree with some of Lindsay's viewpoints. Lindsay has no formal education in molecular biology, Mormon history, or several of the other topics he explores on his website." Which raises not just the question of whether he is a reliable source but also if he can be used to represent Mormonism in general.

At Archaeology and the Book of Mormon he is used as a source for a letter from the Smithsonian and at a section on cattle he becomes a 'they' again ( is the url cited). I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Dougweller (talk) 17:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

You have. Jeff Lindsay refers to himself as an amateur "LDS apologist". Combined with the fact that he has no formal education relevant to the fields of history, archaeology or anthropology and is self-published like you mentioned, I see no reason why he should be considered a RS. Unless someone can point to material that was published by a respected publisher, I recommend removing all references to him from the article. - Lindert (talk) 18:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

For historical articles and ethnicity this is FRINGE beyond FRINGE, SPS and non-expert. Delete on sight. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Jeff Lindsay *may* have an SPS exception for the subjects of IP rights, US Patents, or possibly chemical engineering. Anything outside of those fields I do not consider him RS for. Specifically, I do not find him RS for matters concerning the Mormon faith, any more than I would consider any average Catholic an expert on the Catholic faith. -- Despayre   23:52, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Twitter counter websites

There is some debate about whether http://twitaholic.com/ and/or http://twittercounter.com/pages/100 count as reliable sources for articles like Justin Bieber on Twitter, Barack Obama on Twitter, Lady Gaga on Twitter and Ashton Kutcher on Twitter. The are desired for citation of current follower, followee and tweet counts. In addition, pages like http://twitaholic.com/justinbieber/ are desired as sources for Twitter account launch dates. Are these websites reliable sources for these types of information?--TonyTheTiger (T/C/BIO/WP:CHICAGO/WP:FOUR) 23:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Twitter puts out a datastream (I think they currently have an API and a RSS feed) which can be used to track these things, you can create your own too if you want to spend the time to do it. As stated at the bottom of twitaholic, "All information is based solely upon publicly available information generated by Twitter.com." So yes, I think they are RS for this type of material. Twittercounter.com also refers to the fact that they collect their info direct from Twitter as well. -- Despayre   23:59, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

How do I provide a reliable source to append my peculiar wikipedia citation? The article we posted covers a newly built Mosque in Tijuana Mexico.

Our religious organization recently built a Mosque in Mexico, and we put a Wiki citation to chronicle its development and existence, especially as it is the only Mosque located in Baja California. Is this or the content outside of Wiki guidelines? Cite: Masyid al Islam — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.184.136.253 (talk • contribs)

An editor reviewed this question, but it did not have the required level of detail necessary to provide a useful answer. Source reliability, or unreliability, can only be assessed in context. Please cite the specific source(s) for that edit, link the affected article, and diff link or <blockquote> a specific edit, to help editors here answer your question. When you have done that, please remove this banner. Examples and additional info: The easier it is to find your source, and the edit that it is trying to support, the more likely you are to get a response from other editors. The "Better way" examples provided will often get you more results here. It is very useful to include a direct link to a website-specific page, and text: Basic way: "Is oprah.com a reliable source for saying beef from Texas is no good?" Better way: Is the third paragraph of to the Oprah.com website a reliable source for this edit , that says beef from Texas is too chewy? RSN editors respond faster when you provide a full, linked citation to your source: Basic way: Is the book "Early Childhood Education Journal" a reliable source for the Kindergarten article? Better way: Is the journal article, Strickland, D.S. and Worth, B.S. (1980) "Books for the children" Early Childhood Education Journal 8 (2): pages 58--60 doi:10.1007/BF01628031 a reliable source for the assertion that attending Kindergarten makes kids IQ's go up 200 points, as claimed by this edit ?" We like a wiki link to the affected article you're talking about: Basic way: Some editors have been using bad sources about regional Australian towns. Better way: I'd like an opinion on these sources used about ] and ]'s populations, I've listed the sources in question below. Are there any relevant talk page discussions that could be helpful on this issue? Basic Way: See talk page for our discussion about this Better Way: This issue is discussed at: ] and ]

StatsF1

Hey, I am having trouble identifying whether is a reliable source. The site is currently used in List of Formula One polesitters, and is a very useful, as it provides a plethora of statistical information, which appears to be unavailable elsewhere on the web. Currently, the aforementioned list is at FLC, and a few reviewers have concern over its reliability. I was unaware of this page before a reviewer mentioned, so i've come here to see what other editors think of the site, cheers. NapHit (talk) 09:37, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

As well done as that site appears, it does not appear to meet RS guidelines. It does have a place to send an email if you see a mistake, but that's about all I can see in terms of editorial policy. I cannot find anything out about those who are writing the stats, whether they have any expertise or not, and at the bottom of the stats page, it seems to back away from the text being authoritative when it says "All the texts present on the StatsF1 site are the exclusive property their authors. Any use on another Web site or any other support of diffusion is prohibited except authorization of or the author(s) concerned.". Do we have authorization to use it even? -- Despayre   14:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Essentially that's a copyright claim, a reminder that if on other grounds we find the information reliable, we still should not go beyond "fair use" in citing it. Heavy use in a single article is a bad idea for that reason.

But in any case I agree with Despayre that we seem to have no way of confirming that this source is RS. Andrew Dalby 08:45, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Ye I agree with what your saying there are no indicators of reliability, just thought I'd get opinions from uninvolved users, which confirmed what I thought, thanks for the help. NapHit (talk) 18:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

ABBYY Compreno

Could someone please give opinions on the quality and reliability of sources used here. Details are included into the linked discussion. I've addressed several guys listed here asking them to confirm the sources. But only one of them replied so far very shortly. Thank you in advance. -- Nazar (talk) 11:43, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

There does not appear to be an RS problems here. The problems I see according to your discussion are those of WP:WEIGHT, and I think you are bumping up against WP:CRYSTAL as well. -- Despayre   14:49, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Yitzhak Kaduri's note on Messiah

The edits in question are here.

Interactions on the RS issue here

Here is the Hebrew news source re the note News1, with the note and its contents. Here is the poor google translation. This looks like RS to me. The World Net Daily article is here. Israel Today's archives no longer contain the article, but it does contain the image of the note and its editor has received but not yet replied to my enquiries, but copies of screenshots of the original article on 30/4/2007 are widespread.

Attempted interpretations and images of the note are still being addressed on what is reported to have been Kaduri's own site Intensive discussion on the meaning of the note is documented elsewhere here for example.Cpsoper (talk) 21:21, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

It is disputed that Kaduri.net is Kaduri's own site, and it is certainly not a reliable source. Parsha.blogspot.co.uk is also obviously not acceptable. News1 claims to be a news site, but appears to be more a muck-raking site than a reliable source. The non-contextualised jpg from Israel Today proves nothing; certainly not that Kaduri wrote this note. And World Net Daily has been found countless times to be an unreliable source. None of this is remotely sufficient to establish that a note discovered after a leading Rabbi's death proves that he believed Jesus to be the Messiah, and that he would soon return, Exceptional claims demand exceptional sources, and these are exceptionally bad. RolandR (talk) 23:40, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks as always for your trenchant opinions, RolandR. First, I think we must clarify that there is no attempt to claim that Yitzhak Kaduri identified Jesus the Nazarene as the Messiah in the edits, and that has been hotly contested by the considerable party of Rabbinic supporters of the note's genuineness. As to his belief that Messiah's return was immminent, that is sourced from Maariv not News One or the note's contents. Can you prove your claims about Kaduri.net? Did it not serve as his own site before his death? If not, why didn't he or his family disown it then? Neither interestingly, to my knowledge, is there any formal denial of the note's provenance, on line. Please correct me if I err. The presence of the image of the note in its archives, is strong corroboration of the widely published Israel Today article - even if it has curiously subsequently been withdrawn, and its editor not responding to enquiry. I wonder if others would like to comment about News One, especially since the journalist Yoav Yitzhak later joined Maariv, who's 'muck-raking' appears more acceptable here - isn't this a common description of a primary task for journalists? Cpsoper (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Your Maariv reference was incorrectly formatted, so lead to a "page not found" error. I have taken the liberty of amending your comment to correct this. RolandR (talk) 23:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

And reading the article, it merely states that Kaduri believed that the Messiah would arrive (not "return", that is your gloss, and not in the article) imminently. This is a view shared my many rabbinical eschatologists and kabbalists. It says nothing about a note, nothing about a name, and certainly nothing to suggest that he believed that Jesus was the Messiah, or that his return was imminent. RolandR (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, for corrections. For clarity's sake, the Maariv article has a whole paragraph entitled, 'המשיח עתיד להגיע', or 'the Messiah will come'. The paragraph below specifies in Kaduri's view this would be soon, and contains his claim of having met the Messiah, presumably mystically or in a vision, a year before. It was not my claim that the obituary mentioned the note, it was a year too early, simply that his strong Messianic expectation is well attested. Again for clarity, Kaduri's purported note does not name the Nazarene, he describes the Messiah, but by acronym, a common Kabbalistic technique, the derived name by Rabbinic Orthodox Jews, many of whom believe the note to be genuine, is Yehoshua. Any evidence of your statements about Kaduri.net? I would value the opinions of others on News One's value as RS.Cpsoper (talk) 10:40, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Have had communication from Israel Today editor, the article was in their print edition for 2007, 'We did feature it on our website for a time after WorldNetDaily wrote about it, but the article did not get reprinted online when we revamped our website.' I also hope to have news from Kaduri.net soon. I'd still be grateful for other views on News1. I see it is used elsewhere on wiki in at least two places as RS, Ronald Lauder and Nahum Barnea.Cpsoper (talk) 21:28, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for not mentioning this on the Kaduri talkpage. I actually think that News1 is normally an RS though it is evident that in this case, it merely picked up the note picture from the kaduri.net site which is certainly not RS and seemingly dubious and there is nothing in the news1 article 'source' to give any other background at all. Given the lack of RS reporting the authenticity of this note at this time, it should not be included in the Kaduri article. --Shuki (talk) 21:50, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, happy to transcribe these comments to talk if you agree appropriate. I await your response to questions of evidence on kaduri.net there, Shuki. Perhaps we should clarify with NFC whether it 'merely picked up the note picture' from kaduri.net, I agree that would not constitute proper journalism? Though the Israel Today and WND articles went further, as you know. I agree NFC is ordinarily RS, there are at least three other citations Gideon Levy, Yoel Lavy and Haaretz. If it were not ordinarily RS, these should also be amended.Cpsoper (talk) 22:15, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I grant my Hebrew is not excellent, but my reading of the page does suggest first hand sighting of the note, not a second hand report 'הגיע הערב (ג', 23.1.07) לידי Nfc.', the crucial word being 'to my hand'. There are also details about the note's writing which also imply first hand enquiry. It appears to be corroborated by the other two sources (though there may be some interdependence between WDN and IT) and of course kaduri.net.Cpsoper (talk) 22:53, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

No, your translation is wrong. The Hebrew does not state "I received it", but "Nfc received it" ("to the hands of Nfc", rather than "to my hands"). So the comment does not necessarily suggest first hand sighting; the (unnamed) writer could just be stating that someone else at the site had mentioned seeing the alleged document. RolandR (talk) 00:39, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Vassula Ryden Article: Inclusion of CDF Dialogue for Roman Catholic Church's stance on Rydén

As a brief overview of Ryden, she is a controversial figure in and out of religious circles. I would like to get some opinions for the inclusion of some text for the Roman Catholic Church's stance on Rydén in the Vassula Ryden article, and more importantly what people think of the 4 references that I would like to use to backup the text in question.

Proposed Text and References

From 2000 to 2004 a dialogue followed between Ryden and the CDF. The CDF’s collaborators examined her writings for doctrinal errors. Subsequently, the CDF submitted five questions to her in a letter dated April 4, 2002. The five questions were meant to clarify certain expressions that could be misinterpreted but that were not in themselves heretic according to Catholic doctrine. At the request of Joseph Ratzinger, Ryden's answers were published in the twelfth volume of her writings. As a conclusion to this dialogue, Joseph Ratzinger wrote a letter, dated July 10, 2004, to five episcopal conferences who had been negative about Rydén and her writings indicating that she had given "useful clarifications regarding her marital situation, as well as some difficulties which in the aforesaid Notification were suggested towards her writings and her participation in the sacraments”. He also advised that the Catholic faithful should be called to follow the dispositions of the Diocesan Bishops regarding the participation in the ecumenical prayer groups organized by Mrs. Ryden.

References Description

I will proceed to explain the details of the references in their numerical order:

Source 1) Hvidt (see reference #1) was a primary witness to the 2000-2004 dialogue which concluded in an interview with Joseph Ratzinger (now pope Benedict), in which Ryden and Hvidt were present. Niels Christian Hvidt obtained his doctoral degree from the Pontifical Gregorian University and made observations that were published in a part of his book, with Oxford University Press as the publisher. The book, under the direction of Fr. Prof. Elmar Salmann of the Pontifical Institute of Sant’Anselmo, is Hvidt’s doctoral dissertation, which investigates the issue of Christian Prophecy WP:3PARTY. This also makes it compliant with WP:IRS, WP:IS and WP:IRS Scholarship

Here is a quote from the book (page 119, first paragraph) that I am basing most of my text on:

From 2000 to 2004 a dialogue followed between Vassula Ryde´n and the CDF. The CDF’s collaborators examined her writings for doctrinal errors. Subsequently, the CDF submitted five questions to her in a letter dated April 4, 2002. The five questions were meant to clarify certain expressions that could be misinterpreted but that were not in themselves heretic according to Catholic doctrine. At the request of Joseph Ratzinger, Vassula’s answers were published in the twelfth volume of her writings.374 As a conclusion to this dialogue, Joseph Ratzinger wrote in a letter to a number of bishops’ conferences that Vassula Ryde´n through the published answers had supplied ‘‘useful clarifications regarding her marital situation, as well as some difficulties which in the aforesaid Notification were suggested towards her writings and her participation in the sacraments.’’ The Notification had charged Catholic bishops with not allowing any space for the writings of Mrs. Ryde´n in their diocese. Now, on the basis of the ‘‘useful clarifications’’ she has provided, following the dialogue, prayer groups inspired by her writings are allowed, as long as they follow the guidelines of the diocesan bishop.

Source 2) This source contains Josheph Ratzinger's 2004 letter in its entirety, also mentioned in Hvidts text

Source 3) Part two of this 2007 letter by William Levada confirms that the dialogue took place (see point 2). This reference is already being used in the article as a source for Levada's 2007 letter.

Source 4) This source is from a Swiss magazine. Ryden has lived in Switzerland for a considerable number of years, hence a lot of the publications regarding her are based in Switzerland, French and other foreign based sources. The last paragraph in the entire article reconfirms the issuing of the Josheph Ratzinger letter, dated July 10, 2004.

The original text is as follows:

La publication de ce dialogue a été annoncée dans une lettre datée du 10 juillet 2004, signée du cardinal Ratzinger en personne, adressée à plusieurs Présidents de Conférences épiscopales catholiques qui avaient exprimé leur souci concernant Vassula et ses écrits. Sa Sainteté leur expliquait dans son courrier que la position de la CDF est modifiée envers Vassula et ses écrits. Le Cardinal désire que chacun lise les questions posées par la CDF à Vassula et les réponses qu’elle leur a apportées.

The translated text Google Translate from French to English results in:

The publication of this dialogue was announced in a letter dated July 10, 2004, signed by Cardinal Ratzinger in person, addressed to several Presidents of Catholic Episcopal Conferences who expressed concern about Vassula and her writings. His Holiness explained to them in his letter that the position of the CDF is amended to Vassula and her writings. Cardinal wants everyone to read the questions posed by the CDF to Vassula and the responses it has made ​​them.

Note that I am only intending to use the first part of the aforementioned text which mentions the July 10, 2004 letter.

Discussion by involved editors bringing their dispute to WP:RS/N

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.

I would like to know if the 4 combined aforementioned sources (considering they are cross referencing each other) would be good enough to include my proposed text, at least until I can find more publications (I know they are out there) which confirm the dialogue took place. Opinions would be appreciated. Thanks! Arkatakor (talk) 13:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

The reason for the rejection of the sources is here: Talk:Vassula_Ryden#cdf-tlig.org_website. Note that another Vassula related single purpose account (WP:SPA) has already initated dispute resolution on this topic so this section only serves to fork the discussion. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

IRWolfie-: With respect, I am looking for other opinions than the people who have participated in that conversation, including yourself. Thanks. Arkatakor (talk) 14:25, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

For those interested, here is the other similar thread: Misplaced Pages:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Vassula_Ryden_discussion, hence this RSN post unnecessary divides attention. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:27, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I was unaware of that post, since I was not mentioned in that dispute. You would also do well to take note that my proposed text and references differ substantially from that of Sasanack. In response to your attempt to cloud my reputation before people even read my inquiry, you would do well to take note that I have justified my SPA status to you a week back, to which you have not responded, yet you responded to this noticeboard within minutes with your SPA comment which I had already clarified a week back. Also your comment "this RSN post unnecessary divides attention" seems to indicate that you do not want other opinions to be heard regarding my proposed sources. I do not think its too much to ask for you to let this RSN query follow its course and allow others to come up with their own feedback, simply based on what I have posted here (prior to our discussion), without being clouded by your opinion or mine in the dispute. Thanks. Arkatakor (talk) 14:40, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

None of the four sources is acceptable. Hvidt is not independent. Ratzinger and Levada are primary sources. Stella Maris is a far cry from reliable on matters like this, as they have no credible expertise in interpreting Vatican documents and no reputation for factchecking and accuracy. Furthermore, none of the sources support the information you wish to add, which appears to be pure OR and synth. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

As I mentioned to IRWolfie- I am looking for other opinions than the people who have participated in that conversation, including yourself. Also I would advise that you stop trying remove the dispute tag. Currently there at least 2 ongoing disputes being made with regard to this article, as mentioned by IRWolfie- Arkatakor (talk) 19:16, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Hvidt can't be considered an independent objective source regarding Ryden considering that he proclaims on his own self published web page that he repeatedly lobbied Church Officials on her behalf, arranged meetings for her, took photos of her, did his thesis paper on her, feels it's his "duty" to disseminate information about her, etc. etc. etc. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:32, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

And nonetheless his book (source 1 in this topic) meets wikipedia criteria for reliable sources with flying colors, a point which you completely refused to acknowledge. RE: "did his thesis paper on her", as I already mentioned to you, in point 3 of my comment dated 12:27, 24 May 2012 (UTC), Rydén is mentioned only as one of the examples of prophecy within a chapter dedicated to historical examples of prophecy, which constitutes only one dimension of the larger framework of the book’s content.

The fact that you overlooked that point (among probably all the others in that post) clearly demonstrates that you seem unable or unwilling to register the information I have been trying to bring across to you.

For this reason I decided to cease discussing this topic with you any further and instead make a post here, to get a totally independent and objective view from someone who has not been involved in the discussion. Arkatakor (talk) 21:56, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You might recall that I told you on the Talk page that Hvidt's personal opinions properly attributed might conceivably be used in the Supporters section of the article, e.g. "Hvidt says" that "medical reports confirm cures of grave illnesses in her presence", etc. but that his admitted status as a Ryden supporter means we should not use him as an authoritative source, and we could never use him as source to speak on behalf of the Vatican or interpret their position re Ryden. - LuckyLouie (talk) 22:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You might also recall that I have said 3 or more times in this topic already, that I am not interested in your opinion or that of anyone else who has been involved in the Vassula Ryden dispute. Thanks. Arkatakor (talk) 22:22, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Commentary and discussion by uninvolved editors

Comment - User Arkatakor asked me, an uninvolved editor, to comment on this (because I also commented on the DRN page). It would be nice to have some other source for the 2000-2004 dialogs, especially a Vatican source. For example, the 1995 Vatican pronouncement is on the Vatican website here ... does the Vatican have something comparable for the 2000-2004 dialogs? Also: The sources above indicate that Ryden included some of the 2000-2004 dialogs in subsequent editions of her books. It is appropriate for the article to summarize the content of her books; and the post-2004 amendment which included some of this dialog could be mentioned in the article. That is permitted under the principle that a primary source or fringe source can be used as a citation for describing the content/view of the source itself. Thus, Ryden's book could be used to present her view of this purported dialog. But the article could not word it in such a way to suggest that the dialog conclusively happened ... it must simply say that Ryden claims the dialog happened, and that she amended her books in the year 200X to include blah, blah. --Noleander (talk) 22:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

• The treatment of Hvidt's work above, and on the article's talk page, is frankly appalling. Oxford University Press (OUP) published a research monograph on theology. Hvidt is widely recognised in the field of contemporary religosity (a chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Miracles from CUP), he is cited favourably in Politics, religion & ideology ( 10.1080/21567689.2012.659487 ) regarding modern catholic religosity. OUP is a scholarly publisher of theology and religious studies, CUP is a scholarly publisher of theology and religious studies, Politics, religion & ideology is a scholarly journal of studies of religion. Hvidt academic work appears to be standard to me, the quote from the text looks standard. The actual use of this may be misweighted though, it looks like a short sentence fact regarding interfaith theological dialogue.
• The two letters are external links at best. There is no indication of why any weight should bear on open circulars, or why the opinions of involved parties should be included in wikipedia's voice when we've got an OUP publication. I would frankly consider these primary sources due to the direct involvement of the senior religious administrators in question.
• Swiss journalists are not experts in the structure of internal Catholic disciplinary limitations against external texts, Hvidt already supplies a scholarly account. There is no reason to consider use of this source. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

• Regarding Hvidt. As quoted from Oxford University Press, "Oxford University Press publishes works that further Oxford University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education.". It appears that Hvidt is also an Associate Professor of Theology at the University of Southern Denmark. He also taught for 4 years at the Gregorian University in Rome. As well, he's been a "visiting scholar" listed at the faculty of theology at the university of Notre Dame. He has extensive publication in journals, books, magazines, and newspaper articles, all dealing with theology. I cannot find a single reason why this source would not be RS for its claims. I understand that he is a follower of Ryden. I do not believe this outweighs his substantial credentials in this field. There is no evidence that is a case where he has put his personal beliefs ahead of his scholarship that I can find. Hvidt is an RS source for his claims.
• I do not find ewtn.com to be RS. (reasons available if necessary, but it seems pretty obvious)
• I do not find parvis.ch to be RS. (obvious reasons there too, also it's unnecessary as stated by Fifelfoo above) -- Despayre   15:31, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Feedback on Commentary and discussion by uninvolved editors

References

1. Hvidt, Niels Christian (2007). Christian prophecy: the post-biblical tradition. Oxford ]Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press. pp. 111–119. ISBN 0-19-531447-6.
2. Ratzinger, Joseph: Letter to Presidents of Bishops Conferences (10 July 2004)
3. Levada, William. "Letter to Presidents of Bishops Conferences (10 July 2004)".
4. "Vassula Rydén, prophet of unity since 25 years" (PDF). Stella Maris. Parvis. January 2011. Retrieved 3 June 2012.

Arabic source on BLP

An Arabic-language source is being used to support a contentious claim on Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber. The article's come up at WP:BLP/N; I've done some cleanup as have others. I know foreign-language sources are permitted. Because I do not understand Arabic, however, I cannot verify the following:

1. Is this a strong reliable source?
2. If it is, does is accurately support the claims as written in the article?

Especially with the second part of that claim, I'm not sure that it does based on googletranslate, but that doesn't mean a great deal as it isn't much help with Asian languages. The source is possibly called Sharq newspaper. Thanks. --92.6.202.54 (talk) 15:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps you could use Google translate to identify the parts of the website which might provide some information related to editorial oversight and other issues you think are important vis-à-vis establishing reliable source status, and then use Misplaced Pages:Translators available to have it competently translated. Then it could undergo an informed discussion here. __meco (talk) 17:21, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I've tried Google translate again and unfortunately I didn't find much detail at all. I found the website lists more than one contact address and also learnt several Arabic newspaper names include the word 'sharq'. Online English-language sources that mention this source are sparse & not esp. reliable, but it 'seems' to be called al-Sharq, and is 'possibly' a Saudi daily launched early this year which focuses mainly on domestic and regional news. Few listed Arabic–English translators are active; I've now asked the one that is if he'd join in here. --92.6.202.54 (talk) 21:04, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:NONENG advises non machine translation, however a non-english source being used to support a contentious claim needs extra attention per WP:REDFLAG. - LuckyLouie (talk) 21:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I have given it a once-over, and scoured the related media, English and Arabic, for third-party references to it; as of this time, I do not believe al-Sharq (which is a very new Saudi newspaper) can support the claims as written in the above diff. (Note, I can read it, but not with absolute certainty, as I learned Qur'anic and Egyptian Arabi : but I can read it well enough to know it does not meet anything other than "common-knowledge" verification at the present time.) It appears somewhat reliable, although I've not done much more than read a few articles off of the front page, but a combination of the fact that the Saudi media is not known for its rigorous fact-checking (and is often for outlandish claims), and that the newspaper, as far as I can tell, is under a year old, does not give it "extraordinary source for extraordinary claim" notability, although, in the future, it may become a very reliable source. (Note, that for extraordinary claims touching on Arabic, Persian, Jewish, Western, contoversial, or Islamic persons or ideas, in general, most of the Arabic-language media is unreliable most of the time, esp. for WP:REDFLAG). However, in this case, I have found no redflags nor any ludicrous information, but base my current decision based on the small presence and age of the newspaper itself. My knowledge of Saudi culture is a bit old, but from what I can see as well, that paper is very close to an opposition paper (especially on gender issues), if not one outright (which it seems not to be, as it doesn't blast the government); so it may be that the House of Saud has finally liberalized? (I think not!). St John Chrysostom _τω 22:49, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Translators available#Arabic-to-English might be of some help. - SudoGhost 22:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec) that's where he got me, but the list is woefully under-populated. St John Chrysostom _τω 22:59, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Whoops, I missed that it was already linked above, looks like it's time for some sleep. - SudoGhost 23:06, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment that the BLP claims are extraordinary, and that without further guidance regarding what the newspaper is and if it has an editorial policy exceeding the standard Saudi policy; I think the claim is too great to hang on a standard Saudi newspaper. I would be pleased to find if a one year old Saudi newspaper was reversing the trends of Saudi journalism, but until the editorial standard of the supposed newspaper is demonstrated, I think the extraordinary nature of the claim against a Living Person means we need to not include this content supported against this source. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:12, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for checking Arabic media for third-party references to it particularly, St John C. A 'decidedly "colloquial" tone' is typical of a tabloid, which is unsuitable per WP:BLPSOURCES. Lack of evidence for a strong reputation for fact-checking or editorial oversight is a further key problem. I gather Al Jaber is controversial among some, for his strong western ties if nothing else. Given you say most Arabic-language media is unreliable for extraordinary claims about controversial Arabic figures, that's another reason to be cautious. Certainly it's an extraordinary claim. The final comments you made suggest the paper is far from mainstream press. As WP:REDFLAG holds exceptional claims require multiple high-quality sources, and that extra caution is needed when an apparently important claim is not covered by multiple mainstream sources, this goes against using it. I also noticed very recent press sources linked from his official site including Forbes made no comment about his 'personal liberty', which somewhat contradicts the claim. I think based on the comments here, for which I'm grateful, the appropriate course of action is to not include these claims supported with that source. Thanks to all. --92.6.202.54 (talk) 02:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

magicnook.com and magictricks.com

These are used in a number of articles as a source for biographies, see and . Any comments? Neither one of them feels reliable to me. Dougweller (talk) 14:16, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that they are made in good faith - and the sites are commercial. However, that does not mean they are defined by Misplaced Pages o be "reliable sources". Allow it for really non-contentious stuff <g>, but nothing else. Collect (talk) 17:14, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Collect, by policy they are not RS, however, magictricks.com does list a bibliography that they draw from, which could be used, a quick glance through their list shows RS sources. I wouldn't use them for anything contentious. -- Despayre   17:21, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

E-books as references

I cannot find any guideline or policy that speaks to this issue so I assume we treat each one on a simple case by case basis. My question is, how do we determine if an e-book is a reliable source, not self published (someone paid to have it published) or self published by an unnotable figure etc. Is this just a matter of looking very close at each use, determining the credentials of the author and their mainstream notablility, the publishing company (determining if they allow pay-for-publishing) and the overall notability of the publication? Are there any specific criteria i may look to in even an essay form? Any help would be greatly appreciated.--Amadscientist (talk) 16:45, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

We handle e-books the same way we handle printed books. So, yes, we look at all of those things. To help determine whether a book is self-published, we created List of self-publishing companies. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:07, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks that helped a great deal!--Amadscientist (talk) 17:11, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Vanity and self-publishers tend to advertise this fact fairly heavily on their websites. It is why a citation should always include a publisher. If the publisher and the author are identical (with some exceptions for corporately authored objects, such as published government reports, etc) then chances are, the work is self-published. If you have any doubts regarding a work feel free to bring it to RS/N. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

How to handle dead links

There is a disagreement on the reliability of sources in Operation Sharp and Smooth. The discussion does unfortunately not take place on the talk page but here:

Misplaced Pages:Administrators'_noticeboard/Edit_warring#User:Jokkmokks-Goran_reported_by_User:Shrike_.28Result:_No_violation.29

And here:

User_talk:Sean.hoyland#Explanation_required

AnkhMorpork (talk) is of the opinion that I’m using unreliable sources. He mentions two specific cases. One case concerns an Arabic newspaper article (from al-Mustaqbal). I have frankly no idea why he believes it to be unreliable.

The other case may be more interesting to hear other views on. It concerns the initial Israel Defence Forces (IDF) statement about the Baalbek raid, supporting this content:

According to the IDF ten "terrorists" were killed and five captured during a "precise surgical raid", that claimed no IDF or civilian casualties.

This is the original link to the IDF home page:

http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55483.EN

Unfortunately, this link is now dead, but I found the statement reproduced here:

http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=788256&Date=8/3/2006

AnkhMorpork seems to be of the impression that this link expresses the "views" of the United Jerusalem Foundation, rather than that of the IDF. It does not. The United Jerusalem Foundation is a pro-Israeli organization that among other things republishes thousands of articles relevant to Israel, including statements from the IDF. They usually provide links to the original files. I have never come across a case where they have faked or tampered with documents. It would be very surprising if they did so with an official Israeli statement.

Furthermore, all of the facts and the quotes that I use in the Misplaced Pages article are also found in these two reports by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International:

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/lebanon0907.pdf (p. 124 and 129)

http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE18/007/2006/en/4a9b367a-d3ff-11dd-8743-d305bea2b2c7/mde180072006en.pdf (p.14)

I prefer however to link to the United Jerusalem page since it contains the complete IDF statement. I have tried several times to recover it through the Wayback Machine. They seem to have kept a copy of the page from 2007:

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20070815000000*/http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55483.EN

When I try to access it I get the following message:

"Bummer. The machine that serves this file is down. We're working on it."

If somebody has any other idea how to retrieve the original link I am grateful for suggestions.

Assuming we cannot retrieve the original IDF statement, what is the best way to handle this problem? Should we make an explicit remark in the footnote that the original link is dead? Should we keep the United Jerusalem link or switch to the HRW / Amnesty links? Or use both?

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 08:39, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Please supply a full citation for the al-Mustaqbal article. We are unable to discuss unnamed, undated, unauthored sources which lack a page number. If there is a link to the article in question, please also supply it.

Please indicate the specific claims proposed to be supported by each source. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:52, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I was reluctant to bring this up because, as I wrote above, I have no idea why the source is questioned, apart from being in in Arabic, which few of English Misplaced Pages readers understand. On the other hand the Baalbek raid took place in Lebanon, where the official language is Arabic.

The source mainly covers this content:

An official report by the Lebanese Interior Security Forces (ISF) confirm these numbers, although the names do not always match those supplied by HRW. Two of the victims were identified as belonging to Hezbollah but the Communist party members were not mentioned in the report. The report also contained the names of the 14 Lebanese wounded in the fighting.

The source also covers (confirmed by another source) the names list of abducted civilian Lebanese: Operation_Sharp_and_Smooth#Civilians_kidnapped_to_Israel.5B8.5D.5B22.5D

The article can be found here:

http://www.almustaqbal.com/storiesv4.aspx?storyid=190040

Both the “Interior Security Forces”, who carried out the investigation, and Al-Mustaqbal (newspaper), who reported about it, are affiliated with the Hariri clan and thus independent of warring parties.

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 09:20, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, I have formatted the two items under-discussion below in a way that more conveniently assists RS/N editors

Short answer: You follow the instructions at WP:DEADREF. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:32, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Mirrors of a dead IDF link

• The idf link http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55483.EN which is now dead is claimed to be mirrored at:

• http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=788256&Date=8/3/2006

• and possibly at:

• http://wayback.archive.org/web/20070815000000*/http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=7&docid=55483.EN

• To support the following statement:

• "According to the IDF ten "terrorists" were killed and five captured during a "precise surgical raid", that claimed no IDF or civilian casualties."

The IDF is still serving something much like the data you indicated via this file. The search required was (google:) "Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek" site:idf.il. Given the trivial nature of the document, I am going to note it here as a citation, (20060803 13:03) "Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek: " ¶"Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek…" "IDF and IAF special forces yesterday raided a Hezbollah headquarters located in a hospital in Baal-bek, Lebanon. Ten Hezbollah terrorists were killed on the mission and five more captured. There were no IDF or civilian casualties." which varies in a number of ways from text at United Jerusalem. Apart from the apparent copyright violation at United Jerusalem there is no indication of an editorial or more importantly archival policy. The waybackmachine seems to have failed to archive IDF content due tothe structure of the IDF's page serving. Given that the content being sourced against the unnamed link above is matched in every degree by (20060803 13:03) "Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek" ¶"Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek…" except for the matter of the strike being surgical, I don't see why (20060803 13:03) "Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek " ¶"Special Forces Raid in Baal-bek…" can't support this claim if slightly modified. Note the dead link (which shouldn't affect reliability in general if we can confirm that it once existed and matches the claim substantially, especially for trivial claims such as this, it appears that a longer story was published by the IDF on this point), rely on the other reliable sources in addition, and add a citation to the text file. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

(20060803) "تقرير أمني يقدّم المعلومات الرسميةعن إنزال بعلبك" al-Mustaqbal

For other editors, to supply the deficits in Jokkmokks-Goran's ability to cite sources as requested, the al-Mustaqbal article is:

• (20060803) "تقرير أمني يقدّم المعلومات الرسميةعن إنزال بعلبك" al-Mustaqbal number 2344, page 1

Is used to support the following claim, "An official report by the Lebanese Interior Security Forces (ISF) confirm these numbers, although the names do not always match those supplied by HRW. Two of the victims were identified as belonging to Hezbollah but the Communist party members were not mentioned in the report. The report also contained the names of the 14 Lebanese wounded in the fighting." plus a list of names.

I'm having difficulty seeing this source supporting the claim, given that the source clearly claims that 13 people were wounded in the fighting?—please check the correspondence of the sources with their claims. I don't see any problem with the reliability of this newspaper, it is the organ of a responsible parliamentary political party with an obvious editorial policy, and the particular article is clearly reporting and attributing material garnered from a government report. Any one suggesting this article for this use needs to revisit verifiability and reliability policy. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The article clearly names the 16 fatalities (two of them being identified as belonging to Hezbollah), the 13 wounded and the 6 abducted (1 released before leaving Lebanon), as is evident even from Google Translate:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ar&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.almustaqbal.com%2Fstoriesv4.aspx%3Fstoryid%3D190040

Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 10:26, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

So why is it being used to support this claim in the article, "An official report by the Lebanese Interior Security Forces (ISF) confirm these numbers, although the names do not always match those supplied by HRW. Two of the victims were identified as belonging to Hezbollah but the Communist party members were not mentioned in the report. The report also contained the names of the 14 Lebanese wounded in the fighting."? Fifelfoo (talk) 10:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The preceding sentence reads : "According to the investigation by Human Rights Watch 16 Lebanese residents were killed in the raid, of whom four were deemed combatants and a further two civilian members of Hezbollah or the Communist party." The Lebanese investigation thus confirm the HRW number of fatalities (16) and the number of Hezbollah combatants (2) but not the two Communist combatants. The report also names 14 injured - the 13 named people at the end of the article and Mohammad Nasrallah (14 years), who was thrown out of an helicopter and thus sustained injuries (according to the report).Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 11:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

al-Mustaqbal clearly indicates the people who they believe were injured as a result of the raid, and they number them 13. Mohammad Nasrallah was very clearly not indicated by al-Mustaqbal as being injured as a result of the raid. You are drawing an inference that is not supported by the text—original research. Do not do this. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:24, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand how you can deem this as original research. I'm just reading what the article says:

"…as they left, Mohammad Nasrallah (14 years) was left behind after being thrown from the helicopter at the outskirts of the town of Nahla, which led to him sustaining injuries…"

"…13 individuals were injured and they were: Hassan Husayn Nasif, Ali Abdallah Sa’id, Muhamad Husayn Salhab, Ali Ahmad Murtada, Bashir Abdel-Salam al-Masri, Muhammad Husayn Shuqayr, Muhammad Mahdi, Asour Ali Muhiddin, Nour Muhammad Saloum, Hani Muhammad Sulh, Talal Shibli, Quboul and Mustafa Shibli."

Muhammad Nasrallah was clearly injured and his name is not included in the list of 13 names at the end of the article. That adds up to 14 different named injured individuals mentioned in the article. How can this constitute original research?Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I also have trouble with the math based on that source, and the conclusion you are drawing for the same reason as Fiflefoo. I understand how you get there, but it is not supported by the source, and using the source for it is original research. The article is very clear, going so far as naming each name. The person who fell from the helicopter was not injured during the fighting, therefore was not listed as a casualty of battle. Therefore, claiming he is, is OR. -- Despayre   15:08, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Listen, I don't want to make a fuss about this. But the source is very clear. According to the report, the boy was abducted from his home (together with 5 relatives or neighbors) by Israeli special forces, marched to a nearby town and thrown out (he did not fall out) of the helicopter and was injured in the fall. The source does not state that these injuries were sustained outside the fighting and that he therefore is not listed as a casualty of war. The only thing that differentiates him from the other injured is that he was first abducted and was therefore included in this group.

By the way, this version of events is not supported by the Human Rights Watch report and I therefore decided not to use it in the article. It is only a question of whether the article should write that this report names 13 or 14 wounded Lebanese. Maybe "more than a dozen" would do the trick? Jokkmokks-Goran (talk) 17:27, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

That would be a discussion for your article talk page to decide. -- Despayre   00:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Three Irish wordpress sources

I have a query whether these websites would be considered reliable in the context of providing information on Irish politics.

• http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/
• http://irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com/
• http://geographyspecialinterestgroup.wordpress.com/

The Cedarloungerevolution is a blog which contains an online archive containing a number of documents from a number of historical and current left ing groups. IEL is an archive of election literature. It also contains infromation on past local election results in Ireland. The final website is run by Dr Adrian Kavanagh of NUI Maynooth.

If these websites are unreliable can anyone give an explanation as to why so? UNATCOReviewer (talk) 16:46, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

These *may* qualify for an expert exemption under WP:SRS, but can you point out on each of these sites where it says that he maintains control over them, and that he is responsible for the content, and agrees that it is correct to the best of his knowledge, or that he will fix any errors reported (or if there is somewhere to report errors even)? Is he vouching for the authenticity of the documents or information he's providing? I was unable to find any such assertions. Also, it's very difficult to give any site (particularly any with user-input forums) a blanket yes/no to anything, context is too important, it would need to be asked if they were reliable in relation to specific edits for the clearest answers here. -- Despayre   00:47, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

We do not require sources to claim that they are "responsible for the content". Every newspaper website I've checked has a boilerplate disclaimer saying that they're not. An enormous number of technical and scientific sources say the same. And if it's just an archive of someone else's work, then such a disclaimer would be entirely appropriate, since the poster isn't actually the source of the information. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:19, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

However, in the case of SPS exceptions, the poster can be the source. Newspapers add that boilerplate to prevent lawsuits only, they also have editorial mechanisms (fact checkers, editors, etc) in place specifically to make sure that if errors do occur, there is a way to correct them. That is all I meant by "responsible for the content". A newspaper won't publish anything just because *someone* said "this is true, you should publish it". In that sense, they are responsible for the content. An SPS from an expert would/should have a similar control policy listed. -- Despayre   16:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

While they don't have to be "responsible for the content", they still should be third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Is there anything that demonstrates that these blogs have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? - SudoGhost 16:38, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• irishelectionliterature.wordpress.com looks like a valid archive. It is almost entirely primary sources though, primary sources that are still within copyright (even if the archive is for educational purposes). I would suggest that judicious external links be used, or that the quotation guidelines in WP:HISTRS be used. So rarely, and only when secondary sources justify the use of a specific primary source. And only then by quotation. (Beautiful archive though.) Fifelfoo (talk) 02:09, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Frederic Gracia

reliable source

here some tag for trying not deleted Frederic Gracia page I place here some reliable references found and added within a ten-day grace period, for this article may be not deleted.

here is the 1st page when you look for Frederic Gracia on GOOGLE FR

Google searches are not reliable to establish artistic notability as google searches are not authored or edited. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

here the 2nd one for Frederic Gracia on GOOGLE FR

Google searches are not reliable to establish artistic notability as google searches are not authored or edited. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

here is the 4th page on google .fr

Google searches are not reliable to establish artistic notability as google searches are not authored or edited. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:33, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

here a tag toward a Frederic Gracia's biographie

Self-published source, clearly promotional. I feel very very strongly that this is a bad source given the levels of extreme hyperbole. Possibly reliable only for the prizes received. I am highly reluctant to accept this for the establishment of notability given its self-promotional tone and lack of editorial review of the facts contained within. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:00, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

here a tag toward a press blog 1st page

http://gracia-presse.blogspot.fr/ is not a press archive, and there is no reason to believe that it has archived the news articles intact, complete and intact. Actual articles may or may not be reliable, but they'd need to be specifically raised with a full citation of the item under consideration. This link is almost certainly a copyvio. Not reliable, not useable. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

here a tag 2nd page

http://gracia-presse.blogspot.fr/ is not a press archive, and there is no reason to believe that it has archived the news articles intact, complete and intact. Actual articles may or may not be reliable, but they'd need to be specifically raised with a full citation of the item under consideration. This link is almost certainly a copyvio. Not reliable, not useable. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:02, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

my official website

my 2nd website

here the page of wikipedia .fr for Frederic Gracia

fr.wikipedia.org is an encyclopaedia derived from user contributions. It is not reliable and does not establish notability. Moreover, just because other stuff exists elsewhere doesn't mean en.wikipedia will accept that content. Fifelfoo (talk) 00:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

As per WP:SOURCE, WP:CIRCULAR, WP:OSE. Misplaced Pages is not a source for articles in Misplaced Pages, in any language. -- Despayre   00:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

goutte

press

presse 2

street art book

page presse

page presse2

page presse 3

There is enough independent reporting of Gracia's work to make him notable in Misplaced Pages terms. The problem is rather that the editor concerned (Garcia or a friend) has so fundamentally misunderstood the way Misplaced Pages works that a meeting of minds may not be possible before the deadline. He needs to stop crying and find a mentor. Are there mentors? How does one find them? I'll say this on the article tak page as well -- it isn't really a reliable sources matter. Andrew Dalby 18:47, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

We don't do mentoring, we only do source reliability here. (Notice how we picked the low hanging fruit, the easy observations of SPS, or inappropriate archives of media content). I don't know where the mentors hang out. Normally by the time something hits RS/N it is a problem with underlying encyclopaedic conduct or deeply disputed points, rather than newbie errors. Fifelfoo (talk) 23:03, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Is this a reliable source for criticism of The Zeitgeist Movement?

Is this piece in Tablet magazine a reliable source for support of the 'Criticism' section of our article titled The Zeitgeist Movement? (And the 'Criticism' section of the related articles Zeitgeist: The Movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum, and Zeitgeist: Moving Forward .)

I apologize for the posting below being long. The only reason for that is that the piece in Tablet magazine is very long, and has many problems.

I think there are two sets of issues:

(a) General problems with Tablet magazine, and

(b) Specific problems with the particular piece in Tablet, authored by Michelle Goldberg.

(a) This is the About Us of Tablet. This is the Home page of Nextbook Inc. This is the Staff page of Nextbook Inc.

As you can see, none of these pages contain clear info on whether Tablet has a reliable publication process. For example, the only staff persons mentioned are an executive director, editorial director and a creative director. But there is no info on how many people, if any, are directly engaged in, say, checking facts and accuracy, analyzing legal issues, and closely scrutinizing the writing. And there is no info on the source of the funding.

(b) Regarding the specific article in Tablet by Michelle Goldberg: In the sequel, I believe I provide proof that the article may contain lies, concealment of inconvenient truths, and distortions and twists of other truths.

Goldberg's Tablet pieces expresses a negative POV about The Zeitgeist Movement. She states anywhere from common criticism that is supported by our set of reliable sources (for example, allegations that the Zeitgeist movement advocates utopianism, communism, an un-realistic global socio-economic system, etc), but Goldberg's Tablet piece focuses mostly on extremely negative, paranoia-based, fear-mongering-based, hate-mongering-based criticisms of The Zeitgeist Movement (and the three Zeitgeist movies), criticisms that are not supported, nor even mentioned, by any of the reliable sources that support our article: the New York Times, The Huffington Post, The Palm Beach Post, The Orlando Sentinel, Globes (an Israeli financial newspaper), TheMarker (another Israeli financial newspaper), and TheMarker Television (Israel). (The Zeitgeist movement was also interviewed 5 times on RT Television, where it was also criticized.) Goldberg has commodified Tablet readers' natural hatred and fear of anti-semitism, and is apparently attempting to financially profit from that fear and hatred, by using the Zeitgeist movement as a coat-rack.

If the Zeitgeist movement and its 3 films were (reasonably, not to mention widely) believed to be anti-Jewish within the (Hebrew-speaking, or English-speaking, or global) Jewish community, would it not be reasonable to assume that, at the very least, the two Israeli papers and the Israeli TV interview would characterize the movie as anti-Jewish? After all, the lede of our article on Israel states: "Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state."

Literally thousands of articles have been written in hundreds of highly reliable sources around the globe over the last 6 years accusing Wall Street (and global) bankers of malfeasance. If Michelle Goldberg's analysis is a reliable source, then the authors of all these articles in reliable sources are anti-semites and Nazis. And so are all the participants in Occupy Wall Street, and the thousands of members of the Zeitgeist movement who are Jewish, including the members of the Israeli chapter of the movement.

Furthermore, in all our reliable sources, members of the Zeitgeist movement were given a reasonable and fair opportunity to respond to criticism, and all these sources printed the movement's responses to critical allegations. Again, the Tablet stands out as an extreme exception: there is no indication in the Tablet piece that Goldberg provided the movement with a reasonable opportunity to respond to her allegations, or that she reviewed the many tens of hours of videos posted on the movement's official website, to find counter-arguments to balance her biased accusations.

Thank you. user:IjonTichyIjonTichy

• Walls of text are not welcome contributions at RS/N. Please remember that conciseness is a virtue. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• The claim being supported is, "The original documentary that launched the Zeitgeist movement has been criticized as being anti-Jewish. In 2009 a German social networking site, studiVZ, banned Zeitgeist groups because of what they characterized as their implicit anti-Semitism." Fifelfoo (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• Your reasoning in a) is faulty. Tablet displays all the signs of a normal edited work. Michelle Goldberg's opinion isn't weighty in relation to internet phenomena, social protest movements, or economics—she's a journalist at best; she lacks any of the field significance that would lend her opinion weight. However, the article is mostly straight reporting and covered by the obvious fact checking apparatus that Tablet employs. I don't see how half the article is weight-worthy in relation to the subject of the article in question, but that is a weighting issue, not a reliability issue—and the claim in question is a terse encyclopaedic summary of the issues raised as fact. Your reasoning in b) is not an issue countenanced at RS/N—we deal with source reliability in terms of demonstrable editorial control, not in terms of abstract "truth." Fifelfoo (talk) 08:52, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

WP:TLDR, and totally unnecessarily. -- Despayre   14:10, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Fifelfoo. Sorry about the wall of text. Goldberg's article is very long, and has many problems, and this is the only reason my post is long.

I don't have a problem with the second half of the claim. That is, I don't have a problem with "In 2009 a German social networking site, studiVZ, banned Zeitgeist groups because of what they characterized as their implicit anti-Semitism." This particular claim is supported by a posting on the website of the Australian chapter of the Zeitgeist movement. I only have a question regarding the claim "The original documentary that launched the Zeitgeist movement has been criticized as being anti-Jewish," supported by Goldberg's piece in Tablet.

And at least one editor of The Zeitgeist Movement have recently indicated that Goldberg's piece "should be more completely summarized" in the 'Criticism' section of article. IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 14:28, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest that Goldberg's compilation has the character of an op-ed piece. Goldberg lacks the scholarly capacity to critique new social movements. Weighting critique—ie summarising more completely—based on its presence in Goldberg's article is inappropriate weighting as Goldberg lacks the capacity to bear that weight. Find scholarly or professional critiques of Zeitgeist as a new social movement. I'd suggest that sociologists, social historians, movement political scientists, political philosophers, and highly placed (Zizek or better) pundits are your appropriate pool for drawing reliable and weightable critiques. If those critiques substantially match Goldberg's (that Zeitgeist is primarily critiquable for anti-semitism), then summarise out of Goldberg for fact if required. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:59, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

What if there are no scholarly works to use as sources? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

This doesn't change the fact that Goldberg lacks the capacity to bear weight for the critique of social movements. If there are no appropriate critiques, then wait for the reliable sources in reality to change, and do not include inappropriate critiques. (My suggestion would be to publish in Interface: a journal for and about social movements where the journal and its refereeing procedure would lend any critique suitable weight). Fifelfoo (talk) 23:12, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I think Chip Berlet has written a bit about it, but I suspect most social science researchers don't much care. That being so, the article should be cut way down to match it's limited coverage by mainstream sources, and many of the internal links promoting it be removed. But that's a topic for elsewhere. For now, I think Goldberg is a reliable source for what's cited to her. Tom Harrison 23:15, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Based on their About page, they have editorial oversight and are staffed by professionals with degrees in journalism, and their articles have been republished by multiple times by at least one other reliable source. For example: Good Samaritans. I would say that it's reliable. While scholarly sources may be more desirable, often times with fringe theories, such sources don't exist and we should use the best that are available. If in doubt, feel free to use in-text attribution. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I accept Tablet is reliable. But reliability is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for inclusion. The Tablet article's extreme accusations are not supported by any of our other reliable sources, including the NYT, Huff Post, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, and three Israeli sources. Thus, the Tablet piece represents not only a minority view of TZM, but an extremely small minority view. Per WP policies, significant minority views should be at least mentioned, without giving them undue weight; but extremely small minority views that are not supported, nor even mentioned, in other reliable sources, should generally not be included in WP articles.

Until this issue is discussed and resolved in full, any and all claims in the article supported by the Tablet piece have to be tagged with "undue weight" tags, at the very least. IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I've just blocked one of the participants in this dispute for edit warring, and then started nosing about to see what it is all about. I haven't and won't be editing the article, however. I agree with everybody that the Tablet article is a reliable source, but also concur with Fifelfoo and others that high quality, scholarly articles about the movement are best. I've just found this scholarly article] which talks about the Zeitgeit Movement thus "The second is weighted towards conspiracy theory. It was taken from the Zeitgeist Movement, a web site promoting global activism connected to Zeitgeist the Movie, a 2007 web movie. Zeitgeist alleges, among other things, that organised religion is about social control and that 9/11 was an inside job. The producers claim that the movie has been viewed 100 million times." I can send copies of this article to anybody who sends me an email through WP mail. Here is another source which will likely require a German speaker: the article is the one by Björn Milbradt in the online peer-reviewed journal "Conflict & communication online". The (English) introduction says that the article "offers reasons why 'fixed' definitions of anti-Semitism are in some ways inadequate. "Anti-Semitism after Auschwitz" is basically characterized by its vagueness and the need to work with allusions rather than with manifest resentments. In 'Zeitgeist' this is accomplished by providing viewers with a description of an alleged international conspiracy and some indications of whom the filmmakers hold responsible for it. 'Zeitgeist' can be interpreted as a document that systematically develops the grassroots of an actualized manifest anti-Semitism." These articles might prove helpful to editors, perhaps. --Slp1 (talk) 00:54, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Björn Milbradt's Björn Milbradt "Grauzonen der Antisemitismusforschung, oder: Versuch, den ‚Zeitgeist' zu verstehen" is a great find Slp1, as is Ward and Voas' "The Emergence of Conspirituality". Great work! Fifelfoo (talk) 01:21, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

What about the fact that reliability is only a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for inclusion. Accusations of anti-semitism are not supported by any of our other reliable sources, including the NYT, Huff Post, Palm Beach Post, Orlando Sentinel, 5 RT TV interviews, and three Israeli sources. Accusations of anti-semitism represent not only a minority view of TZM, but an extremely small minority view. Significant minority views should be at least mentioned in our articles, without giving them undue weight; but negligibly small minority views that are not supported, nor even mentioned, in the vast majority of reliable sources with wide readership, should generally not be included in WP articles. IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 14:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The Zeitgeist Movement makes a factual statement based on the allegation of anti-semitism. Question: What about the importance of the factual statement, i.e., its prominence? Is the fact that it is a factual statement (based on a reliable source) only a necessary condition for inclusion in the article, or is the fact that it is a factual statement both a necessary and a sufficient condition for inclusion in our article? If it is not a sufficient condition, do we need to remove the factual statement from the article? The factual statement is not prominent; it is not supported by any of our reliable sources, including 3 Israeli sources. Until this issue is discussed and resolved in full, any and all claims related to anti-semitism in the article have to be tagged with "undue weight" tags, at the very least. IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 16:01, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

This was previously asked, and this was previously answered. By revisiting the point you are showing I don't hear that behaviour. You need to read the discussion above again, and pay particular attention to the detailed discussion of weighting, and to the indication that academic sources (cited academic sources with handy links even available freely online) exist covering anti-Semitism and the article's subject. All of the material required to conduct appropriate weighting of criticisms of anti-semitism now exist to article editors. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:46, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you Fifelfoo. Regards, IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 00:14, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Second Congo War, International Rescue Committee, BBC News

• In Second Congo War to support the claim that "2.7-7.8 million dead (1998–present)" assumed amongst civilians, is (20100120) "DR Congo war deaths 'exaggerated'" BBC News reliable, and does it appear to represent the preponderance of scholarly opinion?

• In Second Congo War to support the claim that "350,000+ (Violent Deaths)" occurred, is either:

• International Rescue Committee () Congo Crisis International Rescue Committee; or,
• Les Roberts & others (2001) Mortality in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo: Results from Eleven Mortality Surveys (PDF) (Report) International Rescue Committee

• reliable, and do they appear to represent the preponderance of scholarly opinion? Fifelfoo (talk) 09:50, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Question 1:

The BBC article cites a new Canadian study that claims to use a more accurate natural mortality rate, which would reduce the actual number killed from fighting, down from 5.4 million to 3 million. So I think that wording of "2.7-7.8 million" should be tightened up a bit before this source supports it, it certainly doesn't support 7.8 million killed. I don't have a problem with the source itself. However, as the article mentions twice, this is a new study. It is unlikely at this time that it is the "preponderance of scholarly opinion" since scholars don't work that fast. It takes time to review these studies and draw new conclusions, or find fault with the methods used (peer review, etc). It may become common opinion over time, but not yet (particularly since the previous study went to some fair lengths to pass peer reviews to begin with).

Question 2:

The website is RS, and while it doesn't give a numbers breakdown, it does support the fact that the 5.4 million deaths are greatly weighted towards medical causes, rather than violence.

The PDF source is RS. And does support the claim of 350,000+ violent deaths (the remainder being due mostly to disease and malnutrition). -- Despayre   14:36, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

News is not usually the best kind of source for such figures. At PMC 2223004 (PMID 18244974) we have a good Feb 2008 source for the 5.4 million which identifies the timespan 1998-2008, and ascribes an ongoing rate of 45,000 deaths per month to the aftermath of the war. A perhaps more nuanced analysis is in

thank you Fifelfoo (talk) 22:34, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Todd Compton's self-published paper on the Romney family

1. Compton, Todd (May, 2012), Mitt Romney's Polygamous Heritage, Todd Compton {{citation}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
2. Romney family
3. As an external link to the most comprehensive scholarly paper available on the subject.

Rationale:

wp:SELFPUB: "Self-published expert sources may be considered reliable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications."

Compton is an award-winning scholar in the relevant field, hence, per our guideliens, his self-published monograph on the Romney family's roots should be considered reliable esp. for non-controversial assertions.--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 20:27, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

The standard of publication of historical works is much higher than the standard of publication of other works, and scholars publishing in non-edited or non-reviewed forms are seen to be deliberately avoiding review. This work looks standard if lacking in content, the reason review appears to have been avoided is that it isn't worth publishing (the claims are ordinary, the focus of the object isn't illuminating, the methodology is standard). As such I'd suggest it be used as an external link. Actually, given the appalling coatrack that Romney family is, which utterly fails to discuss narrative accounts, please use it in the article with my blessing on an SPS exemption to introduce some narrative history from standard accounts. That article should be in list space. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:21, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

(ec)1. It is self-published. 2. the assertion that he is an award-winning scholar (in what field?) is a possible issue. 3. The assertions are considered controversial by at least one editor. "Todd Compton" has zero mentions in the NYT archives, which seems to raise doubts on my part. In fact, Awards from the "Mormon History Association" are, IMO, considered "minor awards" and insufficient to grant him "expert" status for a self-published source. Even if they are listed in his Misplaced Pages article. With the reference being a SPS from the ... Mormon History Association! Sorry the "award-winning" claim is a teensy bit weak. Thus he is not an "expert in the field" per Misplaced Pages guidelines (awards from minor organizations are generally ignored), he does not qualify as an academic for a year teaching at a university, and the nature of the "third party publishers" is a valid issue - the main book under his name as author was printed by "Signature Books" which is a special interest publisher promoting Mormon studies. It does not qualify as an "academic publisher" alas. And the articles show he is primarily a "theology person" which is a problem with using his person website. Google News archives show he was employed by the Deseret News , but that is about it for notability in any news reports. Cheers. Collect (talk) 22:25, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't mean to reject your assessment, but it gave me pause and so I reconsidered my own. The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal is a peer reviewed religious history journal, The Journal of Mormon History is scholarly (but seemingly not peer reviewed), Utah Historical Quarterly is peer reviewed and scholarly, and he has a PhD in a field that teaches appropriate historical analysis techniques. Three or four journal articles in scholarly historical journals is adequately convincing for expertise for me, especially as the articles were LDS / schismatic LDS individual biography in the period in question. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:55, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

I note that Todd Compton's piece has extensive footnotes with many, many, many sources given. Even if there is doubt about the piece, many of the sources it lists can be used. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:05, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

• Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL - Scholars often work to expand their reach or to counteract being pigeonholed by getting credentials from outside of their own culture and/or by studying things tangentially related to it. That said, I think that "ghettoization" isn't something Misplaced Pages should engage in lightly--eg by impugning major awards within some subdiscipline as being of little prestige. If the discipline itself is valid, its awards are too. And that applies equally to Mormon studies, Jewish studies (eg, awards presented by the American Jewish Historical Society), Adventist movement studies, Pentacostal studies, Islam-in-America studies...I dunno: New Zealand's rural "South Island" studies. Whatever!--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 23:53, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL - Patent (institutional) wp:BIAS:

1. "...the main book under his name as author was printed by "Signature Books" which is a special interest publisher promoting studies. It does not qualify as an 'academic publisher' alas."
2. "...the main book under his name as author was printed by "Signature Books" which is a special interest publisher promoting studies. It does not qualify as an 'academic publisher' alas."
3. "...the main book under his name as author was printed by "Signature Books" which is a special interest publisher promoting studies. It does not qualify as an 'academic publisher' alas."

Not only that, but Collect conveniently leaves out books published by

• Center for Hellenic Studies/Harvard University Press (2006), and
• Utah State University Press (2003).

Futhermore, he has published extensively in scholarly journals (and, by the way, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is peer reviewed).--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:11, 7 June 2012 (UTC)--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:34, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Snippets from a feature article about Mormon studies perhaps of interest:

Although Mormon studies is a fast-growing academic discipline, Mr. Quinn -- a former professor at Mormon-run Brigham Young University and the author of six books on Mormon history -- can't find a job. In 2004, he was the leading candidate for openings at two state universities. Both rejected him. ... ... Supporting himself on research grants and fellowships, Mr. Quinn cemented his scholarly reputation by publishing four books on Mormon history between 1994 and 1998, including a two-volume study of the church's interactions with politics and American society. In 1999, he began pursuing a full-time faculty job, to no avail. Few secular schools at the time sought a specialist in Mormonism. ... ... Robert Newman, dean of humanities at Utah, says the history department decided against hiring Mr. Quinn because his research presentation wasn't strong enough and most of his books weren't published by university presses. Utah eventually downgraded the opening to an assistant professorship and filled it with . Arizona State University's department of religious studies recommended to the university administration that Mr. Quinn be offered a one-year appointment for 2004-05. It was starting a doctoral-degree program with a focus on religion in the Americas. Aware that Mr. Quinn was controversial, the faculty took pains to stress to administrators that his scholarship was first-rate, says Tracy Fessenden, a professor of American religions. --- Apr. 6, 2006 WSJ

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:30, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

"Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought ... Articles are peer reviewed. ... Journal of Mormon History ... Articles are peer reviewed, generally of strong scholaraly caliber...."---THE EMERGENCE OF MORMON STUDIES IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES by Armand L. Mauss – from American Sociology of Religion: Histories, Volume 13 of Religion and the Social Order (BRILL, 2007).

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 00:48, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

"Outside of Utah and Illinois, very few other university presses have taken on Mormon-related books, as will be apparent from a glance down the bibliography at the end of this chapter. Most prominent among those that have is Oxford University Press, which has recently published several such books, but the University of Oklahoma Press has recently also decided to expand its Mormon list. Of the commercial presses, by far the most important one in Mormon Studies is Signature Books, based in Salt Lake City, which has produced a number of distinguished scholarly works about Mormons, both in history and in current issues, since its inception in 1980. Some of its books have been quite critical, at least implicitly, of traditional Mormon truth-claims, policies, or practices, which have made it less appealing to both authors and readers of a more orthodox bent. Nevertheless, it is the single most prolific commercial publisher of scholarly work on the Mormons. Greg Kofford Books of Salt Lake City also specializes in Mormon Studies, but it is a much newer and smaller operation and primarily a specialized publisher of limited editions of important works that might not otherwise be published. So far it has published works in history and theology, with little or nothing of a social-scientific kind."---Mauss (ibid.)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 15:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

"We now see a proliferation of books on both nineteenth-century Mormon polgyny (Compton, 1997;...)"---Mauss (ibid.)

--Hodgdon's secret garden (talk) 21:19, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

The only issue with Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought is that The Journal of Mormon History appears to have taken over any historical publishing that occurred in Dialogue, many many year ago. Dialogue publications in the 1990s, when considering expertise as a historian, aren't as significant as The Journal of Mormon History publications. (Dialogue may be the perfect place to demonstrate expertise in other disciplines, but I especially noted this fact regarding historical publications when researching my responses.) Fifelfoo (talk) 01:16, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

proboxing-fans.com

1. Source being used: http://www.proboxing-fans.com/timothy-bradley-and-the-1-million-worry-free-drug-testing-guarantee_060412/
2. Article: USANA Health Sciences
3. Content: Here is the diff being offered by User:Boydbastian  : diff

User Boydbastian is an insider with the company of the article. He brought to the communities attention that their "Athlete Guarantee Program" has evolved since its inception with the RS we currently have from Toledo Blade. The article above is an interview with Timothy Bradley about this weekend's Bradley vs. Pacquiano boxing match. On the surface, the source seems to have editorial oversight: http://www.proboxing-fans.com/about/writers/ - However, this source has been vehemently contested by the primary editor of this article as non-RS, SPS, and even went so far to say the company, Boydbastian, or myself must have paid this reporter to post an article that is "clearly promotional in nature".

If you'd like to read the entire talk banter it is here.

I'd like to get a read from the community on this source, and whether or not this is RS for Boxing news, which the news site appears to me to be.  Leef5   00:50, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

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

There is no evidence of editorial oversight at the link Leef5 provided, and Leef5 has already been given more than ample reason why the source fails (badly) to meet WP:RS. It's a self-published, blatantly promotional piece from a blog site operated by the author of the article (Jake Emen), who also happens to be a marketing and SEO hack writer. The source fails on multiple counts, obviously. Curiously, this article was published 2 days after edits proposed by Boydbastian, a USANA insider (Communications and Marketing Strategist) with an acknowledged COI, were rejected because there were no sources to support the suggested revisions. Suddenly, poof, this self-published promotional article appears 2 days later, addressing all of the contentious text proposed by the USANA insider Boydbastian, and now Leef5 is playing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT by failing to acknowledge the obvious inadequacies of the source and bypassing comment on on the talk page. Leef5 is an experienced enough editor (largely through his promotionally-slanted editing of various multi-level marketing articles; mainly USANA and Amway), to know that this source doesn't fly. At best this is tendentious/disruptive editing; at worst it's collusion/COI/gaming the system. Rhode Island Red (talk) 02:25, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure why you thought it was necessary to repeat the same arguments you listed in the talk diff I posted, and then attempt to discredit my contributions as an editor by accusing me of having a promotional-slant in editing MLM articles. Since you consistently negative POV push on MLM articles, I guess I could see how adding neutral material to articles that aren't outright negative, could be seen that way by you.

Let's stay on topic please to get a community read from other than you or I. The timing of the articles is because the match is this weekend, not some conspiracy theory. It also appears BoxingScene.com has also covered this topic from a different angle with an interview with the trainer a month ago. http://www.boxingscene.com/bradleys-trainer-wanted-peterson-whip-khans-ass--52675 - again, with editorial oversight: http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/view.php?pg=team  Leef5   14:40, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

It was necessary to repeat the arguments because you never responded to them the first time they were laid out for you on the Talk page, even though those arguments make it plainly evident that the source is not RS by a longshot. Instead of conceding the point, or at least making an attempt at a rebuttal, you just ignored the facts and came here. Seems like a waste of resources to me. It has nothing to do with resisting the addition of "neutral material" as you put it. It is simply a case of rejecting a source that is clearly non-RS, self-published, and promotional in nature. Rhode Island Red (talk) 15:04, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thank you - I appreciate any independent community feedback.  Leef5   23:58, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not clear on why there is a problem taking the information directly from Usana's website. It seems the information is right there, plainly written and the site is RS for its statement of facts about its own company programs. Why are you even looking at other sites for this info? -- Despayre   01:44, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Aleph Melbourne

Is this source reliable for this statement: "A response condemning this statement was made by the Jewish website Aleph Melbourne." To see the article, contested edit, and the statement being "condemned" click here: Freikorp (talk) 12:24, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you can use this site for that specific statement. That doesn't speak to any WP:WEIGHT issues it may have though. -- Despayre   15:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks again. Freikorp (talk) 10:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Prog Sphere music website

Prog Sphere is a growing online progressive music magazine with thousands of hits every week. We update every day with new CD reviews as well as interviews, album and concert reviews, and other music related content. We are covering vast field of music genres ranging from progressive rock, progressive metal, jazz fusion, stoner rock, to psychedelic, space rock and its related subgenres.

We consider that we are a reliable source of informations that could be used on Misplaced Pages, as we bring the "ontopic" material that is reliable and is the point of interest.

Any thoughts?

To support what statement in what article? By the way, the pages take forever to load. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:04, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I would suggest reading a little bit on this page to see what websites pass and fail, and to take a thorough read all the way through WP:RS to see what Misplaced Pages requires from websites to qualify as RS sites. As Itsmejudith alludes to above, no site is going to be RS for everything, but if you're looking to be generally RS for general music issues, you are going to need to have expertise listed, have that expertise on the byline providing content, have an editorial oversight policy listed, support claims with sources, etc. None of which is explained on your "About" page (also doesn't indicate how long you've been running this site). I also don't see any link to contributors bios to indicate that their opinions are relevant, they need credentials. As WP:RS states, Misplaced Pages should only use "published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". I think that could be a tough hurdle for your website right now, unless your editors all have years of experience in other relevant areas in this field. I hope that helps. -- Despayre   15:16, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Names of Istanbul

Euzen (talk · contribs) has been slowly edit-warring for several weeks to push an outdated, naive folk etymology into the Names of Istanbul article , , , , . This is sourced to a mid-19th century work by a Greek writer called Scarlatos Byzantios, the author of a Greek dictionary and a book on the history of Constantinople. Byzantios, while still occasionally quoted on matters of general history, is utterly outdated with respect to his linguistics: he had no knwledge of what in his lifetime was the emerging modern academic discipline of historical linguistics, and continued the centuries-old practice of guesswork "etymologies" that were essentially made up on the spot, on the basis of chance resemblances with any modern word in any language a writer cared to think of. Moreover, in his days, there had not been any serious study of Balkan placename histories yet. The foundational works on Thracian, Illyrian and other similar substrate languages in SE European toponyms were written only in the 20th century. The current academic consensus is that the name in question here (Lygos), just like most other old toponyms in the area, is of Thracian origin. Byzantios in 1851 could not possibly have had anything pertinent to say about this, because the whole discipline on which such judgments are based was not yet developed.

Euzen clearly isn't willing to listen, and I frankly have no patience to discuss furthern with him. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:07, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Your argument is convincing. I would tend to agree with you, assuming what you say is accurate. TimidGuy (talk) 11:32, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Fut.Perf. is right that etymologies developed before the mid 19th century cannot be taken as accurate. We should report the modern consensus, and, if necessary, any current disagreements among specialists; we should not cite older speculation as if it were equally valid. Andrew Dalby 12:19, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to exclude all folk etymologies (the nature of which are somewhat mischaracterised by FPAS as 'made up on the spot') just because they don't match up with current scholarship. Historical understandings and culturally rooted interpretations of these names would seem to have just as much a place in the article as the current scholarly analysis as long as they are flagged appropriately (this can easily be done) and as long as they were influential or widely accepted in their own time (I think Euzen would have to show that this is not just some etymology but one that had some significance in the past). As a non-etymologist reader of this article I would be equally interested to read this information if it had some historical significance as I would be to read the current scholarly take on things. BothHandsBlack (talk) 12:42, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree that superceded old pseudo-etymologies might be mentioned if they were of lasting influence or otherwise significant, but we don't have any evidence that this was the case here; only this one source, in which the claim is merely made in passing, was brought forward. "Flagging" it as outdated is also problematic, since it would easily cross the line into OR: this belongs to the class of fringe claims that are so fring-y and so insignificant that modern sources don't even bother to refute them. As such, the only feasible way of treating it seems to be to ignore it, as even mentioning it would mean giving undue weight. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:51, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

If there is no reason to think that it was significant even in its own time then I would agree that it should be excluded. BothHandsBlack (talk) 13:01, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

On the other side, I agree that if an etymological speculation has been really influential in the past -- if it made history, so to speak -- it is worth mentioning on those grounds. (Forgive me for being pedantic, though -- this is not folk etymology. The name's confusing, but folk etymology is a totally different thing.) Andrew Dalby 11:12, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Searching for the name "Scarlatos Byzantios" in Google, brings up a whopping 542 hits, almost all of which seem to be self-references, nothing indicating notability (please note that google hits of themselves are *not* indicators of what should and should not be used on WP, that's not what I'm saying here). There does not appear to be much literature or scholarly work that I can find that uses Scarlatos Byzantios as a reference either. I think there are big problems with WP:WEIGHT and WP:FRINGE, and more importantly for this board, I think it fails on WP:HISTRS grounds, which applies to your article. Also sounds like a little bit of WP:IDHT might be going on too. -- Despayre   15:37, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

For those who believe that Fut.Perf's concern is purely linguistic and not at all ethnic: The ref. to Sc.Byzantios's doesn't say that "this is THE etymology" but "according to". F.P., with all his linguistic fervour, or anyone else, did not supply any other etymology of the name Lygos. Besides, this is not exactly an "etymology", as the name is identical with it's assumed source. I had added to the article (see discussion) one more reference, linking the name Lygos with the root of other names like Lygii, Ligures and Lugdunum (EYÜPSULTAN SYMPOSIA I - VIII : SELECTED ARTICLES p. 221.) published by an internationally accepted contemporary Turk professor. However, this publication doesn't support the view that Fut.Perf. likes, that Byzantium is of "Thracian" origin and connects it with a homeric word. Unfortunately, this online publication obviously has been attacked by hackers who added a nonsense, that some christian saints of 4th c. are ... muslims. That was perfect for F.P. who erase the reference to the name. At the same time he (F.P.) promotes as a source a Popist priest who's job was to promote Unia in the Balkans (a church referring to a certain nation of the Balkans, who's national mythology absorbs most of F.P's interest) () and who (Janin) does not give his sources supporting a "thracian etymology" of Lygos. For those who don't know, there are no "Thracian" texts and no serious scientist would claim that he knows about Thracian language(s) any more than some isolated names and words. Just for the history, Unia's only opponent is the Greek Orthodox Christians of the Balkans.
N.B. All the above said, I have no bad feelings for F.B. We both know that "Our names is our souls" as Odysseas Elytis said.  :) --Euzen (talk) 16:32, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Yes, work on pre-Roman and pre-Greek etymologies is bound to stray towards speculation, is likely to be controversial, may be swayed by national feelings, and is highly specialised. All the more reason for us to limit ourselves to citing modern scholarship (including controversies). Andrew Dalby 18:58, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Knights Templar

Not to make a major discussion out of a military order, however, if I do, pardon me.

I had a minor discussion with User:Yopie and the user believes it is fringe to use theories, however, there are many uses of theories to show about the Templar facts, and has deleted my book source when I had the right to use the book source of "Henry Dunant un die Templer". If deleting the main theory, then why didn't the user have the right to delete the theory of Knights Templar (freemasony) since it can be a major fringe, due to its theoretical definition of investigation between the Knights Templar and freemasonry. I was just about to edit a possible theory with the shriners, who are met with speculation with the Templars and the Red Cross Movement, from whom, Henry Dunant, was indeed a freemason. If theoretical sources are aloud to legends for military orders vanished for many centuries, then please explain Yopie why delete a possible theory of many theories, when the theory of above mine is also part fringed, the section called Knights Templar (Freemasonry), theorizing with Free Masons and Templars(possible X and Y), although, they suggest they are not from the Templar movement.

My main paragraph and source was used on this article:

There are similarities between the Committee of the Red Cross and the Knights Templar. Since, the creation of the Red Cross movement, Henry Dunant, the founder of the Committee, was a freemason in Switzerland, where it was rumored some of the knights had fled to the highlands of Switzerland and helped the villagers by blending with the civilians, to escape persecution from Pope Clement V and King Philip IV. It is a possible theory the movement still shows their presence by helping the wounded, meek, sick, and for other needs around the world.

Source Book from very few known:

| last = Quellmalz | first = Alfred | title = "Henri Dunant und die Templer" | publisher = Gebietsleitung d. Tempelgesellschaft, | year= 1964 | location = Stuttgart, Germany | pages = 62 | isbn = 978-3639064797

GoShow (........)

If you were going to use Quellmalz as a source on this, you'd need to show that Quellmalz has a record of publication in this subject area with academic publishers or peer-reviewed journals, or that his book has been reviewed and cited by other scholars. Andrew Dalby 11:29, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

One major problem is that the name "Knights Templar" has been used by so many individuals and groups who have not the slightest connection with the Masonic groups or witht he historis Knights Templar -- which means that every "nut case" who says the two words can end up in articles on the Knights Templar <g>. As for the link to the IRC, one significant problem is that one person with the posited link to freemasons does not make any sort of a case that the large group which absolutely included non-Masons was a secret societ of Knights Templar. Amazingly enough, the idea of helping others was not restricted to that group. The word "fringe" is thus properly applied. Collect (talk) 11:53, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

That explains alot for the proper word of "fringe" ideas used in the section for the theories of Shriners and Knights Templar (Freemasonry).-- GoShow (........)16:37, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Source for the history of science

Hello! This is a question I originally posted at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85, but I was pointed here.

I'm looking to determine the reliability of this source. It seems to be unavailable on the Internet, but it is used in a number of places, including History of scientific method and Book of Optics. The claims it is making seem quite dubious, e.g. (paraphrased) "Alhazen's scientific approach resembled the modern scientific method." These two particular articles also contain a numbered procedure for the scientific method (hypothesis, test, etc) and give this as the source - but I'm pretty sure that's a much more recent innovation, and the two lists are not consistent with each other.

This is the answer I already received:

"Searching suggests there is no article here on the author (Bradley Steffens), and according to Google Books, that author has written on a wide range of topics: origin of the printing press, animal rights, San Francisco earthquake, cartoonists, Emily Dickinson, censorship, addiction, working mothers, J.K. Rowling, the Loch Ness monster, and quite a lot more. It looks like this bio describes the author. Based on that, it appears the author has no training in a field that would make him an authority on Alhazen (Ibn al-Haytham) or the history of science. More opinions may be available at WP:RSN. Johnuniq (talk) 10:25, 8 June 2012 (UTC)"

Thanks a lot! Arc de Ciel (talk) 23:18, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Unless there is evidence of the author's expertise in this subject area, I would agree with the opinion you quote from Johnuniq. The work cannot be treated as reliable. Andrew Dalby 11:59, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Allmusic.com

There is an abundance of cites to allmusic.com at The Beatles, is this self-published website a WP:RS? — GabeMc (talk) 23:55, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

• Yes. See All Media Guide and Allmusic. Allmusic is published by a company with hundreds of employees, and its data has been licensed by well-known companies such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. See for details. It's not a "self-published website" in the way that I would normally expect to see that term used. It's a reliable source. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 03:43, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

John Griswold's Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories

A section of work (see here for the removed info) was recently removed from the List of James Bond novels and stories article as it was "based entirely on self-published source", in line with WP:SPS. The section was entirely based on one work, Griswold, John (2006). Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories. AuthorHouse. ISBN 978-1-4259-3100-1. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help) The publisher is the self-publisher AuthorHouse, (Wikilink; weblink). I think a decision on the reliability of this source could assist; a partial discussion has taken place before moving over to here. The Griswold book goes a little further than the usual self-published sources and deserves to be classed as "reliable" for the following reasons:

• The book appears on the list of reference books for Ian Fleming Publications. Ian Fleming Publications is Ian Fleming's family company, holders of the copyright to all Fleming's works, still connected to the Fleming family and the people who license the Bond name to Eon Productions, the people who bring us all the Bond films. They are, therefore, the official repository of all matters relating to Ian Fleming and James Bond.
• The preface for the Griswold book is written by Andrew Lycett, author of the Ian Fleming biography (Lycett, Andrew (1996). Ian Fleming. London: Phoenix. ISBN 978-1-85799-783-5. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help));
• One of the forwards was written by Zoe Watkins, from the Fleming copyright holders, Ian Fleming Publications;
• The second forward was written by Raymond Benson, continuation author of Bond novels from 1997 to 2003 and writer of The James Bond Bedside Companion Benson, Raymond (1988). The James Bond Bedside Companion. London: Boxtree Ltd. ISBN 978-1-85283-233-9. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help).
• The book has also been cited in academic works, such as Biddulph, Edward "Bond Was Not a Gourmet": An Archaeology of James Bond's Diet Source: Food, Culture and Society: An International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research, Volume 12, Number 2, June 2009 , pp. 131-149(19) (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2752/155280109X368688)

These are all without looking at a number of references used by the mainstream fansites, MI6-hq.com and commanderbond.net. Short of an endorsement from a beyond-the-grave Fleming himself, I'm not sure what else is needed to verify the credibility of the book. - SchroCat (^ • @) 09:11, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

The introduction to the removed text begins, "Independent scholar John Griswold constructed a "high-level chronology of James Bond's life"". It can't be denied that John Griswold's book is a reliable source for that statement. So this is not a reliability question at all. It's a notability and fair use question: is John Griswold's construction sufficiently notable for us to base our whole table on it, and are we using his work fairly if we do that?

Those are not questions for this board, but I'd say you have begun to show, with citations above, that his work is notable. Andrew Dalby 09:55, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

I guess one question I would have pertains to the forwards written. We should not presume that the forewords were offered out of the gushing eagerness of the writers, but rather because of a shared connection to the written material and (far more likely) renumeration for such. Were these forewords endorsements of the contents or indebtedness tot he material within? I put those in quotation marks because that refers precisely to the definition of such. If, for instance the person writing the foreword is simply comparing their material to that of Griswold, it isn't an endorsement. Neither is it if the foreword writer talks only about Bond. More than a few people claim to have pored over this book at length. Perhaps they could tell us more about the forwards, and we can better assess the reliability/notability/ fair use triple-threat. - Jack Sebastian (talk) 17:59, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

The Zeitgeist Movement

Is this piece in the Ventura County Reporter a reliable source for support of any aspect/ section of The Zeitgeist Movement? (For example in support of a brief discussion of the movement's key/ core ideas, etc.)

Thanks and regards, IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 23:00, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

mytalk.com.au (a division of Fairfax Media) and 'Independent Australia' (http://www.independentaustralia.net/)

1. With regards to mytalk.com.au: it is a domain owned and operated by Fairfax Media, and hosted on Fairfax Media servers. Its primary use appears to be for the use of its journalists and on-air 'personalities'. Fairfax Media is the publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald and radio station 2UE. Please also note the whois of the domain: http://whois.domaintools.com/mytalk.com.au I am using it to source a JPG photograph in The Craig Thomson Affair article, which highlights inconsistencies in the alleged evidence against him. It was removed as an 'unreliable source', however Senator George Brandis thought the photo was good enough to submit to the NSW Police in his letter of 23 August 2011 to the NSW Police Commissioner and use as his "Annexure A"; please see - which admittedly is from mytalk.com.au. As mytalk.com.au is itself an annexure of Fairfax Media, and they were a defendant in the defamation case of the article's subject, I believe the JPG should be restored (and the Brandis letter may be added) for the purposes of the article at issue. That said, I will restore the JPG in order to provide a balance to the article which it currently lacks. 2. With regards to 'Independent Australia' (http://www.independentaustralia.net/): if this can be considered by Misplaced Pages as a reliable source, I intend to link to certain documents from this source in The Craig Thomson Affair. I am reluctant however to reference some articles from the site itself, as some articles are clearly opinion pieces and are thus not the neutral reportage of news. Question: can IA be considered as a reliable source? 121.216.230.139 (talk) 05:15, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

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