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Sourcing required in lists linking to other articles

Related to discussion at Talk:Comparison_of_heavy_lift_launch_systems#Citation_needed_flags_for_launch_numbers.2Fetc.

There is a group of 6 articles listing the different classes of rockets (according to the weight they can bring to orbit). Each rocket gets a line starting with a link to the article about it and the rest of the columns include different statistics about this rocket - such as weight uplift capability, number of successful launches, number of total launches (including failures), etc. - these stats are taken from the linked rocket article.

The problem is how such list/comparision articles should be sourced. So far, there are two opinions:

1. User:N2e - each individual data piece should have a [1] note after it with the source reference. Data pieces that don't have such note after them are tagged with [citation needed] and after 6 weeks can be deleted - even when at the individual rocket article (linked in the begin of each line of the list) there is an external source for this data. He cites WP:V/WP:BURDEN (OK) and WP:CIRCULAR (this is irrelevant as nobody claims that the data is backed up by "another wikipedia article", but by "external sources at directly linked wikipedia article")
2. User:Alinor (filing this question) - individual data pieces that are backed up by external sources at the directly linked individual rocket articles should not have [1] notes and all the sources from all rocket articles should not be copied over into the list/comparison article. Only data pieces that are not backed by external sources at the linked rocket article (if there are such data pieces) should be tagged with [citation needed] (and be deleted eventually).

At the discussion linked at the top you can see examples of N2e tagging with [citation needed] data piece sourced in the way described above and of N2e deleting such data piece. So far he doesn't dispute the sources in these examples as unreliable or anything like that - he just insists that somebody else should copy the sources to the list/comparision articles from the rocket articles after he has tagged/deleted the respective data pieces. Alinor (talk) 09:46, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Someone should absolutely copy the citations over. You shouldn't expect readers to have to go looking for references. Each article should be able to stand on its own, with its own list of references. Nightw 11:13, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Night w, unlike the other debate that you and I still haven't finished - where you question the data itself and where there are other things you considered as controversial - this case is different. There are no controversies or anything - it's just that the sources are at the linked pages. Alinor (talk) 11:25, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. Every claim that isn't considered common knowledge should be referenced to a reliable source wherever it appears. No matter how ordinary the claim, nor how lazy the editor who added the information is, there aren't any exemptions. Nightw 11:50, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there some established practice, recommendation, rule/policy or whatever over the issue of copying vs. not copying source over into summary lists? And if this noticeboard is not the right place to ask about this could someone point where should I ask? Alinor (talk) 07:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

yes there is somewhere. the reason is because of the nature of Wikipedia. Something that is as of today sourced on some other article page cannot be guaranteed to maintain that source on that article page as it is edited by freelance editors. Once it is removed from the other page for whatever reason, there is no way to know what other pages had been "using" that page for the reference. the fact and the verification belong on the same article page. Active Banana (^bananaphone 08:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:CIRCULAR depending upon the wikipedia article to source the list article, WP:CHALLENGE challenged material "requires an inline citation" - not "requires a citation on some wikipedia page". and more specifically WP:Source list "Lists, whether they are embedded lists or stand-alone lists, are encyclopedic content as are paragraphs and articles, and they are equally subject to Wikipedia's content policies such as Verifiability" Active Banana (^bananaphone 08:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

So, WP:CIRCULAR is irrelevant in this case.

The problem with applying WP:CHALLENGE is that N2e, the user putting the 'citation needed' flags is challenging almost all data pieces in the summary lists - without checking if they are sourced at the linked articles. So, sooner or later he will delete all data pieces - and then the lists will become useless. This seems as a sneaky way of avoiding AfD nomination.

WP:Source list is OK, along with WP:BURDEN and WP:V and this relates to your main argument above - that even if the data piece is sourced at the linked article today it may become unsourced after subsequent changes to the linked article. I agree with all that, and won't raise the issue if N2e was checking whether this is the case (a data piece lost sourcing because of changes to the linked article) - but he doesn't and insist that others should do this after his tagging and that unless others do it he will delete the data pieces tagged. I have given him 2 examples of sourced data pieces (that got deleted/tagged) months ago, but he just ignored these. Alinor (talk) 08:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

YES circular applies. You are using content in another wikipeida article as the basis/souurce for content in the list article. NO, N2e nor any other editor does not have to go looking anywhere else for sources. If xe challenges the content in the list article, AN INLINE CITATION IN THE LIST ARTICLE is required. Active Banana (^bananaphone 09:05, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

No, WP:CIRCULAR doesn't apply - I don't propose to use the Wikipedia content as basis/source - I propose that we use the EXTERNAL SOURCES referenced at the linked articles as basis/source. IMHO it's not a good practice to copy all sources from all linked articles in the summary/list. If a data piece isn't sourced at the linked article - then it should be challenged, tagged and eventually deleted. But if a data piece is backed by EXTERNAL SOURCES at the linked article - then I don't see it as beneficial to just copy these sources in the summary/list - this will only make it cluttered.

The key here is that these articles are not regular "List of ..." articles - these are summary/comparison articles that present content that is mostly already present in the individual rocket articles - it's just that in these summary articles the stats of the different rockets are presented side-by-side, for comparison purposes. Alinor (talk) 10:08, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Each article should have its own references. If you already have references to cite, 6 weeks seems like more than enough time to copy and paste the cites from one article to the next. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:12, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

There are references to cite - I gave the examples on the talk pages. But for the moment I have no intention to clean up after N2e who tags everything (is there such thing like "deletionist"?) I really think that if he is interested in having the citations copied in the article (as "challenger" of the data pieces) then he should first check before tagging. And even if he missed something - it's he who must copy the source/correct his wrong tag/deletion - when somebody points it out. He just ignored the sources I shown him. Alinor (talk) 06:42, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:V is quite clear that "any material challenged or likely to be challenged [must] be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation". That means in every single article. Jayjg ^(talk) 21:43, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Alinor, N2e has been involved with improving referencing in Wikipedia since before you were even editing. It might interest you to know that many editors, myself included, learned proper citation style from him. Given your own appalling laziness when it comes to citing sources, perhaps you should refrain from attacking him, and ask him for a lesson instead. Nightw 05:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not attacking anyone and I don't think we should engage in measurements about who edits since how long, whether you like N2e or me more, etc. I agree with some of his edits, but disagree with his application of this particular process of tag-wait-delete in this particular set of articles (that mostly summarize data pieces from other linked articles). Regarding my "laziness" - most of the things (if not all) that N2e tags/deletes were not added by me, for what it counts. If you refer to whether I use the exact citation style when I add sources (we had such discussion before) - I don't see this relevant here at all.

I just ask here about whether there is some specific policy for such articles that summarize data pieces from another articles. If there isn't - fine - I will let N2e delete/tag whatever he likes, even if it's backed by external sources at the linked articles.

I asked him to first check before tagging/deleting - and if he wants to improve referencing - to copy the sources. He refused. He even ignores the examples I gave him. That doesn't seem to me like improving, but like harming - albeit 'technically' supported by the WP:V, WP:CHALLENGE, WP:BURDEN. Anyway, that's just IMHO. Alinor (talk) 07:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not his responsibility to "check first" or to "copy the sources". The burden is on the editor who adds the information. If the information isn't added with a source, it'll be tagged as such. If the original editor and/or another editor don't want to see the information deleted, then it's their responsibility to add a citation. Otherwise, the information is free to be deleted. This is WP:V, which requires that "all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation", and which is "strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, sections of articles, and captions—without exception". Nightw 10:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it seems that there is no special policy for summarizing articles - can someone point me where should I make proposal for such change? Alinor (talk) 07:54, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

WT:V would be the place to do this. Nightw 10:47, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, here it is. Alinor (talk) 14:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

One reason why every article (list, ...) needs it own sources and shouldn't rely on linked articles for the sources is that when you create e.g. a Wikibook, you can include the list without the linked articles, which would mean that in the wikibook, you would have no means of providing or checking the sources (or to put it otherwise, you would force a creator of a wikibook to include all the linked articles in hiw wikibook if he wanted to include the list, which is often not what we want). Fram (talk) 10:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, it was already explained that this is not a RS noticeboard issue, but policy-change/editing process issue, so let's close it here. I copy below my suggestion to N2e. Alinor (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

From here: N2e, if you really want to improve the summarizing articles - would you agree to employ slightly different process: instead of "tag-wait-delete" use "tag-wait-check-delete"? (and if the "check" step reveals that the information is backed by external sources at the wikilinked article - then "copy" or "don't delete/continue wait")? Alinor (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

N2e, When I showed you the places where the claim is sourced you've just ignored these. That's part of the problem here. The other part is that it's pretty easy and straightforward to click on the wikilink and check for sources there. Even if current policy doesn't require that editors do this. Alinor (talk) 09:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Haaretz and Dershowitz

An editor is repeatedy removing two sentences from the Civilian casualty ratio article, with a claim of "unreleiable sources". One of these sentences is presented in the article as fact: "In 2007, Israel achieved a ratio of 1:30, or one civilian casualty for every thirty combatant casualties" - and sourced to an article by a well known military journalist, Amos Harel, writing in a mainstream newspaper (Haaretz). The other is an an opinion, attributed to its author - 'According to Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, "No army No army in history has ever had a better ratio of combatants to civilians killed in a comparable setting"'. Opinions on the reliability of these sources for those statements are requested. Two for the show (talk) 18:55, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Well done, you took it in! The reason for the RS objections, voiced by more than just me (here's the relevant talk page), is that Dershowitz is not an international monitoring agency, nor a reliable source for statistics, nor an academic specializing in international conflicts, is writing an op-ed, and is actually contradicting the Israeli Supreme Court which holds that people subject to targeted killingsare not combatants. Sources must be considered RS depending on the circumstances; this isn't in his area of expertise. This is just straight up wrong information. That brewcrewer keeps pushing to include information that he's even admitted is wrong is pretty hard to believe. If the argument is now that the source is reliable for Dershowitz's opinion than you can look at the undue weight arguments in the talk page. Simply put, why does the incorrect statement of a man with no expertise in the target area belong in the lead? It doesn't even meet lead policy, brewcrewer's just copy and pasted the same thing into the body.

As to Haaretz, please find where Amos Harel talks about a 30:1 combatant ratio. You can't. He doesn't. He talks about the terrorists to civilian ratios. That's not the same as a combatant to civilian casualty ratio; combatant has a very precise meaning in the laws of war and, as pointed out above, these are definitely not combatants and it's OR to construe them thus. Sol (talk) 19:29, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Any statistics would have to come from investigators who actually went into Gaza, or secondary sources quoting such investigators. It's unlikely that Dershowitz has either done one, or is doing the other. There is also the small matter of whether policemen are militants or whether they're part of the civilian infrastructure - I think the international consensus is settled in that regard. Templar98 (talk) 20:09, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

The Haaretz article does refer to the combatants as terrorists, but not exclusively. That is the Israeli view of the combatants, and not appropriate for NPOV. The word was juxtaposed to discriminate "civilians" and "innocent bystanders" from combatants. He also uses the word "gunman" as "In all the attacks of recent weeks, only gunmen were hurt, as confirmed by Palestinians. The rate of civilians hurt in these attacks in 2007 was 2-3 percent." Opportunidaddy (talk) 03:53, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Precisely. It doesn't call them combatants and they are not, according to the Israeli Supreme Court, combatants. Sol (talk) 06:24, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

The article is not about what the Israeli Supreme Court calls anyone. It is about the civilian-to-casualty ratio which is based on an international understanding of who is a civilian and who is not. It is likely that Harel did not specifically call them "combatants" so as not to confuse them with the protected class (privileged combatants). According to definition, these combatants would likely fall under the category of unprivileged combatant. Simply because Harel did not specifically use the word "combatant," did not mean he was intending to imply that these "gunmen" or "terrorists" were therefore civilians. Civilians who directly engage in hostilities ("gunmen")are understood to be combatants, if "unlawful" ones. Any honest reading of the article should make his meaning clear. Opportunidaddy (talk) 16:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This debate is about a sentence of two in the lead of an article. Leads are by their nature a brief summary of an article. To be a reliable source someone has to be reliable, if a person is publishing biased opinions that are inaccurate, or use weasel words without citing their sources, and we republish them without pointing that out the article is breaching NPOV. There may be a place in the article for this short paragraph, (particularly if there is a retort) but not in the lead. -- PBS (talk)

Dershowitz is a reliable source and cites sources in his academic work. He has made factual errors in his lifetime, but there is no academic that has not. He has been highly criticized, but also highly praised. D acknowledges his bias, but bias does not make a person's facts wrong. I don't know anything about the Harel fellow though. Opportunidaddy (talk) 03:59, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Dershowitz is a criminal law specialist who has taken on a role as an aggressive advocate for Israel. He is a reliable source only for his own opinion, and not for the truth of statements like the one cited. Jonathanwallace (talk) 04:16, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Dershowitz is also a supporter of torture, a supporter of mass-demolitions (pogroms by all the usual definitions) and seeks to blame all the Palestinians for one of their leaders fleeing to Berlin in the war. There are numerous specific allegations that he's falsified quotes, here's another one of many. Templar98 (talk) 14:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Dershowitz has a record of poor scholarship in his works on Israel. There are many more reliable Israel/Palestine scholars that can be used. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 15:37, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

@Jrtayloriv. What's your basis for saying that?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 22:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps his use of turnspeak. un☯mi 23:03, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so. A now debunked claim by his enemy of minor plagiarism does not detract from his long list of books on the subject published by academic publishers. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 16:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Nothing debunked about it - first ghit for "turnspeak" is at History News Network "On a note both humorous and pathetic, Peters, in From Time Immemorial and claiming to be inspired by George Orwell, coins the term "turnspeak" to signal the inversion of reality (pp. 173, 402). Dershowitz, apparently confounded by his massive borrowings from Peters, credits the term "turnspeak" to Orwell, accusing critics of Israel of "deliberately using George Orwell's `turnspeak'" (p. 57) and "Orwellian turnspeak" (p. 153). Is this scandalous scholarship, or is it plagiarism, or is it both?" Templar98 (talk) 17:59, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I must admit I am not too familiar with how his writings in those matters have been received, I note though that google brought me http://opiniojuris.org/2009/01/03/dershowitz-on-israel-and-proportionality/ where an actual expert on international law refers to Dershowitz's arguments as strawmen and ends with "I would simply add that talking about the facts without understanding the law is equally problematic, as Dershowitz’s editorial demonstrates." Clearly the man is not infallible, and he is likely out of his depth unless referring to US criminal law. un☯mi 19:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

One academic bashing another academic. Big deal. Would the other academic be considered a poor scholar if Dershowitz said as much about him?--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 05:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree with Unomi. Dershowitz and the Anti-Defamation League would deserve exactly the same consideration on issues pertaining to Israel--reliable for their own opinions, not as sources of objective fact.Jonathanwallace (talk) 10:47, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I may agree with that, but unfortunately editors seem intent on removing any mention of Dershowitz from the subject despite the fact that Dershowitz's article is directly on point regarding the article's subject matter. --brewcrewer (yada, yada) 05:22, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

You mean Dershowitz's op-ed. On a subject, international and domestic Israeli law, that he has no expertise in. For the purpose of including what you've called facts, not opinions, which are demonstrably wrong. Heller is an actual international law scholar (and OJ is worth reading), Dershowitz is not. Dershowitz has even declared himself the enemy of international law and voiced his intention to delegitimize it. Why would you want to include this? Sol (talk) 16:24, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

@ BrewCrew - being misled on the question of Dershowitz's plagiarism is no crime - but it's difficult to understand your defending him after you've been shown the evidence. The discredited Peters invented the word "turnspeak" and ascribed it to George Orwell and the book "1984" - much later Dershowitz does the same thing on the same topic. Templar98 (talk) 16:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is what matters as far as the wiki-RS policy: A) Source is wiki-reliable and the content was published on a wiki-reliable publisher. That both could have an error here and there in their vast body of work, most reliable sources have such errors as well and this does not negate their status as notable wiki-reliable sources. B) Source's pro-Israeli perspectives have no influence on the fact that he is considered a wiki-reliable source and his information was published by Haaretz, a wiki-reliable publisher. The information is not an opinion of who is right/wrong in the Arab-Israeli conflict but rather a statement of fact. Warm regards, Jaakobou^{Chalk Talk} 16:16, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Talk:Okanagan_Valley_(wine_region)#Sonoran_Desert_refs

How do you answer the assertion that every RS you provide from a variety of unrelated sources (be it newspaper, magazines, scholarly journals, published books, Royal BC Museum, etc) is unreliable because (according to another editor) they "ultimately ALL trace to the same (unreliable) source, namely the press kits of the Okanagan Wine Region, Nk'Mip Cellars, and the Osoyoos Tourism Board". Of course, this other editor is not providing any links or evidence of this collusion between sources like the The New York Times, Oxford Companion to Wine, Houston Chronicle, Toronto Sun, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, etc but he is adamant that these sources are not reliable because....well just because. I suppose the question really is....what is the burden of proof to establish that seemingly reliably sources aren't reliable? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:40, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

If you dno't realize that travel writers only copy over material from press releases, and why travel articles are not viable sources for scientific articles, or anything else than the taste of wine and the quality of bedding and where to buy knick-knacks, then you should find out. Even better - why not do as I suggested? - run this by the Science Editor of the New York Times, or any geography department that's NOT associated with the Okanagan or British Columbia, and see what kind of reply you are gonna get? Travel articles are NOT Reliable sources; that's even in WP:RS somewhere, I believe, as it's come up in relation to other articles where spurious information is provided and claimed to be authentic, when really it's just hype, sloppy information, or just confabulation and romanticizing, or just completely off the cuff. or are you gonna tell me the NYT Wine Guide editors make sure they vet their stuff through teh same paper's Science Editor? I highly doubt it - but why don't you write the Science Editor and ask? And while you're at it, ask the Geography Departments at any one of the dozens of universities between Osoyoos and the REAL Sonoran Desert?Skookum1 (talk) 00:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

New York Times and Houston Chronicle TRAVEL articles are NOT "reliable sources" for scientific/geographic matters, and it's a GIVEN that those travel writers are using press-release copy from the tourism/wine board circulating this FALSE geography; Only Osoyoos and the Okanagan Wine Region make the claim that the Sonoran Desert extends to Canada; this is not known to be part of any LEGITIMATE classification system and is not a designation shared or spoken of by any area in between Osoyoos and the actual Sonoran Desert. Reliable sources are reliable only if they are TRUE. And in this case, NONE of them are WP:Verifible sources because no other copy about the Sonoran Desert, save when google with "Osoyoos" or "Okanagan" (note Canadian spellling vs. US spelling "Okanogan") says ANYTHING about the Sonoran Desert extending into Canada. Dozens of US ecoregion and landform and geography pages for the intervening states and regions say anything that jibes with the unfortunately vast sources that you claim "prove" this, and you've actually asked me to find cites that, effectively, would say "the Okanagan/Osoyoos is not part of the Sonoran Desert", which is asking for a negative cite, and those aren't admissible even if something like that could be found. If there's not a Wikipedia guideline on WP:Bad science or WP:Bad geography, there should be. This campaign by Agne to impose the Osoyoos/Okanagan wine region's redefinition of North American geographical classifications is just that - a campaign, it has no basis in academic fact and no scientific relevance. I'll repeat again - sources which give un-factual information are NOT reliable sources, nor verifiable sources. Repeating a lie across hundreds of travel and wine guides and "biome" reports commissioned by the same wine region or its wineries does not establish a fact (that RBCM-published report is one of those...); it establishes that their press releases have had wide-ranging impact. It still does not make the Okanagan, the American Okanogan, the Columbia Plateau, the Great Basin, and the Mojave part of the Sonoran Desert, or mean that that term includes (because the wine region in BC says so) all those deserts, and the particular tiny patch of the Okanagan which is being promoted this way. It's NOT EVEN A DESERT - it's only shrub steppe, and not much different at all than lots of other areas of southern British Columbia which have pretty much the same climate and vegetation.Skookum1 (talk) 00:22, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

I've invited this editor to ask on the talkpages for the various state geography and various ecoregion, landform articles for the intervening regions, and to read their (extensive) sources....they're not interested in that, instead they want to bring the catfight here.....again, if there's no guideline on WP:CITE about bad geography, bad science, incorrect sources (no matter how numerous), there should be.Skookum1 (talk) 00:26, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

• Note Is there any univolved, 3rd party editor with experience in dealing with reliable sources available to comment? Outside objectivity would be greatly appreciated since, as you may surmise, Skookum and I have been going around circles and I would really like to find a compromise. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:33, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
  • OK. Travel articles and books are never reliable sources. They should not be cited in Wikipedia articles. A possible exception can perhaps be for certain basic, anodyne, uncontested information, but that would be it. Herostratus (talk) 01:09, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay...what about when only 4 of the 30+ reliable sources are travel articles/book and the rest are published wine text, atlas, scholarly journals, news articles, magazines, Royal BC Museum project pages, etc? I think the Canadian Journal of Environmental Education or books like Indigenous women: the right to a voice by Diana Vinding would scoff at the notion of being called "Travel articles" yet that is apparently what Skookum assumes any WP:RS that doesn't agree with him to be. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 05:33, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

To take two, "wine text" is going to depend on what the particular text is considered reliable for. Is it an authoritative text on geographical factors affecting wine production? Does it quote a scholarly source to back its assertion? And a book on indigenous women would not score highly as reliable on matters of specific geography - unless, say, it had been critically reviewed and praised for the accuracy thereof. The main idea here is to look at which specific sources are more likely to be authoritative on a specific issue as opposed to those that may be uncritically repeating information outside of their specialty. For instance, if Nature mentions in an article about a physicist that wide ties are out this year, they are pretty certainly reliable on the physics issues but potentially less so on ties. (I'm not fully arm's-length here, but I believe those are general principles of RS) What you want here are reputable sources about arid-ecosystem geography. The ideal is a review article published in a top-flight geographical or ecological journal. These represent peer-reviewed assessments of the current state of knowledge in the field. Well-rated textbooks are good too. It's important to separate the marketing memes promoted by the BC wine industry from actual geography. Franamax (talk) 07:28, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I was giving examples of the broad range of sources that quote the same material. There is no evidence, whatsoever, that the BC wine industry has "infiltrated" any of these sources as part of some marketing meme. In the 30+ sources I've listed on the talk page, the only one that I can find any connection to the BC wine industry is....the BC wine industry link of the British Columbia Wine Institute--and that ain't exactly a hidden relationship. That still leaves dozens of other unconnected sources. And the "wine text" mentioned are benchmark standards in the wine industry when it comes to reliability. The Oxford Companion to Wine is put out by Oxford University Press with over 50 contributors to the text ranging from Masters of Wine to PhD in various sciences that assisted in editing the text--in addition to the oversight and fact checking by the OUP staff. They're certainly not under the "spell" of the BC wine industry, if there is such a thing. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 00:29, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

A marketing meme is a marketing meme, as Franamax has pointed out; the pervasiveness of a false bit of geography as a result of marketing campaigns (including inviting newspaper travel and wine editors to come and have some wine and dinner, and giving them press copy so they don't actually have to write articles themselves) do NOT constitute "reliable sources". Your word-picking and ongoing gamesmanshhip continues to avoid the core issue; by ALL authoritative sources, such as the EPA, Britannica, etc, the Sonoran Desert does NOT extend into Canada. It's THAT simple, and no amount of inaccurate references you provide can change that FACT, nor any nit-picking of Franamax's very wise and experienced knowledge of "what is and isn't a reliable source". I did a thorough search of BC Government websites, and the only three times the phrase "Sonoran Desert" appeared in relation to BC were all exactly the same phrasing, "the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert, which extends from northern Mexico into Canada" (exactly); one was a tourism ministry blurb about the area, another was the local MLA saying it in the house, in relation to the wine industry, another was a legal case in which this local slogan/byline was cited as part of the description of the property under dispute. The only other mention of "Sonoran Desert" was in a Ministry of Environment master plan for Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, near Kelowna (not Osoyoos and not in teh South Okanagan), which said that the some of the same plants and animals found in the Sonoran Desert are also found on Okanagan Mountain; it did NOT say that the Okanagan was "part of the Sonoran Desert", not did it say that desert "extends from northern Mexico to Canada".

That the phrase, as stated just above, was also used verbatim in the article, since removed as a falsehood (but twice or three times re-inserted by you), constitutes in fact a form of "copyvio", except that widely-disseminated marketing information is not copyrighted. Your refusal to admit that the authoritative sources do NOT say what you claim is real and true, and taht you have in fact said that because they don't say it's NOT, explicitly, means that it is true....well, that's just not in the wiki-ballpark, not as a reliable source, not as a verifiable source, and not as a FACT. It is a claim, a widely-circulated one, but not factual in the slightest, and clearly related to a standard pharse (often verbatim, as noted, or in only slightly-adjusted wording) - a standard phrase rooted in publciations coming out of Osoyoos. If Franamax used the terms "spell" and "infiltrated", he was meaning only figuratively; you, on the other hand, have accused me of having a "conspiracy theory", as if it were a conspiracy; no, it has just been a blind, unwitting, but totally inaccurate repetition of material in local brochures and wine/resort-marketing promotions; it is not a fact, never will be, and never was.Skookum1 (talk) 07:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm interested why you think travel articles and books are never reliable sources. I would tend to think that the New York Times would stand by its travel articles as much as any other. I do, however, strongly debate the statement, "Reliable sources are reliable only if they are TRUE." It's very rare that we will take the word of an editor, even in all capital letters, over that of a reliable source. --GRuban (talk) 22:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I"m using the heavy emphatic because I've had to repeat that over and over and over, but it continues to be rejected despite the obvious non-factual nature of the widely-spread claim. Authoritative and verifiable sources have been very pointedly ignored, with the constant re-iteration of the refrain of so-called reliable sources which really aren't, because they're not true. That the preponderance of those sources use the neary-same, often verbatim, phrase, points to a common origin, and is not part of an official and scientific source, not from the BC government Ministry of Forests, not from the Ministry of Environment, not from the US Environmental Protection Agency, not from any mainstream document on the Sonoran Desert; not from the Brittanica, not from Merriam-Webster, and though I haven't looked I know it won't be in Funk & Wagnall's. AS for travel articles not being reliable sources; they are reliable sources (generally, but not always) for where hotels are, where ferry routes and train stations are, and so on, but they are not reliable sources for scientific information, or for geographic descriptions of this kind (especially when they are at odds with bona fide authoritative sources); that all those travel articles, and wine articles, use variations on the given phrase, and often exact quotes of the phrase "Osoyoos [or the South Okanagan, whichever] is part of the Sonoran Desert, which stretches from northern Mexico into Canada" and/or the phrase "Osoyoos is at the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert, which stretches from northern Mexico into Canada", and the well-known fact (and it is a fact, though you can say I have no proof of it and "my word isn't good enough" as no doubt you will) that travel and wine writers use prepared press copy from the places they visit underscores the verbatim repetition of the phrase, or its endless variation. The EPA, Environment Canada, BC Parks, BC Environment, BC Forestry, the Legislative Libraries etc etc make no mention of it, and in any serious academic document (not one related to the wine industry, as some commissioned papers clearly are, partly because they use "that phrase" again), the fact is that there is no desert at all in British Columbia. Nor is any part of Washington, Oregon, Nevada etc part of the Sonoran Desert, as they would have to be if this claim were true (which, again, it's not). The argument has been made that because authoritative sources do not say that it's not, therefore it's true....but that's a ridiculous statement as anyone who has a smidgin of logic knows. No doubt you'll now criticize me for using too many italics.....I looked at the page of the Osoyoos Desert Society, by the way, and it very explicitly says that the area is "not part of the Sonoran" and that it is not a desert; the claim originates in the wine industry and local tourism promotions, and is not in any valid, official, authoritative source of any kind. If necessary, I'll dig out the copy of Nk'mip's tour-traning document, which I had at one point (if I still have it) and I know that "northern tip" phrase is in it, and it's also explained that they hired a biologist or ecologist to do a study saying what they wanted it to say (about a particular 4 ha or so of ground, or less....); I don't have a care or I'd just drive down there (about an hour or hour-fifteen away) and just get another copy.....I'll repeat again, in different phrasing and without caps: "sources which have non-factual information are not reliable sources" - because they cannot be verifiable sources. it's pretty cut and dry, and I really think the lot of you should start looking at real maps, instead of drawing your own....Skookum1 (talk) 00:09, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Largely agreeing with Skookum1 here, but in particular words such as "never" should be used with care. Travel (and real estate, and automotive) sections in newspapers should be evaluated with great care, as they are often written by non-arm's length parties and/or the writing is based on non-arm's-length information. I'm sure the NY Times would stand by its travel articles in the sense of retracting false information which they thought needed to be retracted. I rather doubt though that they employ fact-checkers to ascertain desert boundaries, nor that they would publicly correct what from their standpoint is a very minor error. In these cases, more definitive sources must be sought out, and just one of these will match any number of random statements gathered from a Google search. For instance, the link Skookum1 provides just above, which on its face may seem less reliable, seems much more reasonable as representing expertise on ecosystem and geography issues. Now if that source were used to recommend the best wine in the area, mehh. Franamax (talk) 00:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the big issue here is that we have more than just "travel articles" making this claim (In the 30+ sources listed on the talk page only 4 could be definitively called "travel articles") and that even though Skookum has repeatedly said "the claim originates in the wine industry and local tourism promotions", he has actually offered up ZERO proof that the mountains of reliable sources provided ALL trace back to the BC wine industry and some sort of collusion. Zero, none. He gives us absolutely no reason to take that claim serious and furthermore, I'm starting to sense a troublesome WP:COI with Skookum here due to his ties to the Nk'mip tribe--one of the parties that he claim is spreading this "falsehood". Both here and else where, he makes reference to working for them in some capacity and he has given hints of some conflict during his experience there. Considering his vehemence in fighting this "conspiracy" and willingness to edit war over this claim, this may have a personal root that is interfering with his editorial discretion. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:01, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Boy, Agne, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel to engage in personal attacks aren't you? I worked there two days (they wanted me to cut my ponytail off and I wouldn't), and COI would only apply if I still worked there; that was back in early summer of 2007. What's your COI? Because you're certainly determined to support the wine industry's literature on this, rather than listen to logic or authoritative sources? At least I openly disclose mine....My "editorial discretion" is to do with truth and reality, and actual geography, not made-up bad juxtapositions of similar plants and animals constituting proof this is a "desert", which very pointedly it's not....you've lost on the issue, so now personal attacks of any kind are what's on your menu. What else have you got in the bottom of the barrel?Skookum1 (talk) 00:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Agne, bringing the character of the other editor into things usually means that you are running out of valid arguments. I looked at 8 or so of your 30+ references and they are almost all travel articles, buying-a-second-home articles, wine articles. Yes, these all do rely on press-release type information. I don't have my CG access any more, but based on what I know of the magazine, that looks like something from either the "CG Travel" supplement or the "Explorations" segment. Email me the fulltext, I'll be glad to ask Rick Boychuk (EinC) for the supporting sources. The J. of Envir. Educ. source is notes on the cover art of the journal, the cover! You can't throw a bunch of spaghetti against the wall and expect others to pick each piece off. The only remotely acceptable source I looked at was from RBC Museum, which calls it the Great Basin. Even the Osoyoos Desert Society goes to great lengths to specify it is not really a desert, only that many of the plants are similar. I'm not going through the rest of your list, please apply some critical thinking of your own and narrow it down to academic references which actually discuss geography and climate. You can send me fulltexts of the paywalled ones to evaluate. If you want to change your desired text to "often thought of as, but not really part of, the Sonoran Desert", then you have got a great set of sources there. Franamax (talk) 00:39, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Stating that someone may have a potential COI by referencing their own comments is not a personal attack and typically when people dismiss such observation as a "personal attack", it is normally because they don't have a valid argument to dismiss the concerns. Everyone has COI in some matter and it is not a statement of character. And Skookum, a COI is a conflict of interest and that conflict doesn't have to be due to current employment. Past employment, especially if that included an unfavorable experience can create an COI that can unduly influence the way you approach a subject. Your overly-aggressive approach to this article and willingness to launch baseless charges of some collusion between any reliable source that mentions the Okanagan Sonora and the Nk'mip/Osoyoos tribe (without any evidence that the many diverse and various sources all trace back to them) comes across as an irrational "conspiracy" theory. It's not unreasonable to wonder, based on your own comments if your past experience with the Nk'mip is unduly influence your editing on this subject. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 01:34, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Addressing only one portion of a response, the one which does not involve the purpose of this board (which as far as I can tell is not the COIN) is another sign that someone is running out of arguments by attempting to personalize the issue. Parroting other editor's wording is yet another sign. Can you specify which editor here mentioned "personal attack" before yourself? Suggesting that someone's personal experience is affecting their judgement is indeed bringing their character into the matter. More to the point, do you have a response to the concerns I've raised with weaknesses in your list of sources, which is why we're here? Or do you still expect the "there are 30+, it must be true" argument to carry the day? Which specific sources do you claim as reliable to support your "Sonoran Desert" wording with expertise in the field? Franamax (talk) 01:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Um...how about Skookum's last comment? That was the first interjection of the "PA card". But regardless, I agree that this is not COIN but re-reading Skookum's comments, in light of his admissions about his past involvement with Nk'mip have certainly helped me better understand his position, even if I disagree with his grossly unsubstantiated claim of every reliable source dealing with the Okanagan Sonoran to be unreliable because of some connection to Nk'mip/Osoyoos. As for your question of reliable sources, of the 30+ source listed I would start with the Royal BC Museum "(the northern edge of the Great Basin (also called the Sonoran or high desert)", the Oxford Companion to Wine, The Encyclopedic Atlas of Wine, Opus Vino for directly using in the wine article (using reliable, fact checked Wine Atlases in a wine article, whodathunk?). For other reliable sources on the Okanagan Sonora in general, I would view Canadian Geographic, the University of Winnipeg climate change paper, the University of Okanagan water systems paper, Canadian Journal of Environmental Education, the Condor Journal article on quail species in the Okanagan (which BTW was written in 1965 before the Nk'mip opened up their desert education center or there was a BC wine industry...but I guess "conspiracies" can be retro-active), etc. Should I go on? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

BTW, I will note that there is a world beyond Wikipedia that involve things like sick children and work teleconferences so I wouldn't be so quick to chastise for "Addressing only one portion of a response" and making far-fetched interpretations. Folks aren't always blessed with the time to craft 2000+ byte soliloquies on Wikipedia to fully cover every angle and this conversation certainly wasn't going away in the couple hours I needed to be away from the computer. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 03:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

We're verging on WP:TL;DR territory here, so I'll try to keep this short.(Sick children, ponytails, and Indian tribes? Please?) We have a number of sources usually considered reliable saying the Sonoran Desert extends into Canada. The response to that is that in this case "they're not reliable ... because they're not true", and proposes other reliable sources that give a different definition. Well, we very rarely make judgments like that here. When reliable sources disagree, we very rarely pick one to side with, we almost always write: "(some sources) say X[ref][ref][ref]; though (other sources) say Y[ref][ref][ref]", so the reader can see both sides. I strongly recommend that here, rather than making a judgment that we must know better than the New York Times travel writers. --GRuban (talk) 20:13, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

This is getting inane; aside from having words put in my mouth ("conspiracy", which is Agne's assertion that I've been advancing a "conspiracy theory") and that Franamax's observations about why "sources usually considered reliable" are not on topics in which they have no expertise are being consistently ignored, as are the authoritative sources (Britannica, the EPA, the BC MoF/MoE, etc), and there is the endless repetition of supposedly reliable sources which all say, in verbatim or nearly verbatim terms, the same un-scientific claim which defies all conventional or accepted meanings of Sonoran Desert. I have now been personally attacked (more than once, and in more than one way) and a spurious allegation of COI been made, based on two days' employment three years ago....sheesh!! - all in defence of a statement, which though widely repeated in travel and wine articles and badly-researched academic papers and other publications, is in no way true at all. It's not sufficient to equivocate and come up with "some reliable sources say this, while others say that", when there is no qualititative determination of the value of the sources which are advancing the non-scientific and a-factual claim that Agne is not just persistently advancing but also vociferously defending to the point of personal attacks. Wine and travel articles are not authoritative in any way, and Agne's consistent refusal to reckon with the authoritive sources I and others have provided, or even to refer to the Sonoran Desert article, other than to say that it should be changed to include this false definition, as if it were true....despite all authoritative information, and a host of other well-cited Wikipedia articles which show, rather explicitly, that it cannot be. Truth and untruth cannot be given equal weight in Wikipedia, no matter how many magazine articles on travel and wine repeat the untruth. It's that simple. But instead of going "OK, uh, I guess the authoritative sources have a point, and don't support what all these wine and travel articles and wine-industry sources have to say about geography, they're not geographers and must have made a mistake" - instead of that concession to teh truth, the escalation of personal attacks and non sequitur arguments and the continued refusal to acknowledge authoritative scientific sources.....this is getting beyond a reliable-sources article and is verging on a WP:ANI matter.....I've said all I can say, more than once, both here and on the wine region's talkpage, about the scientific truth of the matter and about the proper and true definition of the Sonoran Desert, but it is pointless to argue with a stone wall and someone determined to overlook reality in favour of something that is contrary to scientific consensus and the academic mainstream. Nothing is ever going to make Osoyoos part of the Sonoran Desert, ever....I don't even think wine grapes can grow in the Sonoran Desert (other than with extensive irrigation perhaps). The New York Times also refers to the Okanagan (not just Osoyoos) as "Canada's Sonoma"....does that make it part of the Sonoma Valley?? Spurious, if endless, sources which say an untruth are simply not valid, other than as curiosities and a widespread myth/mistake. There are no deserts in British Columbia of any kind. Period. The Sonoran Desert does not extend north of teh Mojave or the Great Basin, and does not include either, period. It's that simple. As for the COI allegation, that's ridiculous and nothing more than bottom-of-the-barrel wiki-lawyering in defense of the indefensible...I was senior geographer for the Canadian Mountain Encyclopedia for three years and more - does that mean I can't comment on or write mountain articles, or point out when it is in error about historical details/name origin? (some of which were my own errors, by the way). I'm from Lillooet and neighbouring Shalalth and am the site-owner of the Bridge River-Lillooet History and Scenic Archive - does that mean I shouldn't write anything on the Lillooet or Shalalth articles? I am widely-respected in Wikipedia - and elsewhere - for my knowledge of British Columbia geography and history and my work to bring order to them here for many years now; and am being accused of being a conspiracy theorist for pointing out that the widespread myth that Osoyoos is "the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert is patently untrue. I haven't even bothered to read Agne's recent replies, there's little point given the obstinacy and also ad hominem attacks which are increasingly disturbing and very un-Wikipedian......even bringing this here instead of containing the debate to the article's talkpage smacks of wiki-stalking.....I'm tired of this, I've said everything I can say, and know what the facts are....and I also know the difference between authoritative sources and "usually reliable" ones.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:21, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth; that is, whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true. That's a rather fundamental policy. We write about much more serious untruths all the time, from Piltdown man, to the Gleiwitz incident. So the fact that a Canadian tourism agency states rather strongly that British Columbia does, in fact, have a desert,[1] is important enough for us to write as much, whether or not if we think it is actually true. --GRuban (talk) 22:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Look again, GRuban - canada.com is NOT a Canadian tourism agency, it is a news agency and the home site for a specific chain of newspapers, e.g. the Vancouver Sun, the Vancouver Province and a whole bunch of others; it is just another travel article, with uncited claims from a non-verifiable (unstated) source.Skookum1 (talk) 23:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

As I've repeatedly noted on Talk:Okanagan Valley (wine), I am 100% open to a compromise of including the reliable sources that mention the Okanagan Sonoran with other sources (such as the desert.org) link that offers a dissenting view on the desert classification. Unfortunately I've been hesitant to edit the article because of Skookum's aggressive response to changes to his edits on the article, such as the lead. Perhaps that aggressiveness is just targeted towards me and hopefully he would respect another editor's attempt at instituting a compromise in the article. Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Oooo, that's a new term - "Okanagan Sonoran"....where'd you get that from? Sounds like OR to me....Skookum1 (talk) 23:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

How about talk page shorthand instead of writing "The northern extension of the Sonoran in the Okanagan" over and over again? WP:OR deals with article content, not discussion and not everybody wants to invest 3000+ bytes into each response. But, your red herring aside, would you respect another editor instituting a compromise of including the reliable sources in wine atlases along with the dissenting view from things like desert.org (keeping WP:UNDUE in mind, of course, this is a wine article and not a geography article)? Or will your response be similar to other changes to your edits? Agne^Cheese/^Wine 23:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Any article that makes a geographic statement must be accurate; if the wine industry cannot get its act together on proper geography, that's their problem and they should make amends. As to your insistence that I'm "evading" the idea of a compromise, this is just another example of you ignoring what you don't want to see, as I originally proposed that compromise, more than once, and said I'd wait and see on Carmw's compromise solution, now in sandbox incubation. What you are evading is the very pointed question of why you misrepresented the content of the academic link from the RBCM (actually there's three, two of which refer to Cranbrook, none to Osoyoos (if you aren't familiar with BC, look at where Cranbrook is....); misrepresenting sources is not just unreliability, it is dishonest; but maybe you just didn't read the cite, just quoted the link after searching for the same phrase/strings. As for the other two supposedly academic link, one, the Medical Post is a weekly newspaper for doctors, and is not even a medical journal, and medical journals would not be valid for geographic descriptions; even moreso because it's just a travel article. The Canadian Geographic link is a members-only Seattle college library site; a search of Canadian Geographic's own website turned up only an article on the REAL Sonoran Desert around Tucson; no mention of Canada at all; and the CG is NOT an academic magazine, it is a popular-geography magazine similar to National Geographic and the quote you gave from the article is clearly a travelogue, and uses the same old refrain from local tourism materials; "Canada's only desert" is clearly in error if your other "last but not least" citation, the RBCM, says that there is desert in Cranbrook. There is no "compromise" between non-academic sources like wine and travel articles (including the one in the Medical Post) and proper academic sources. Period. So why don't you answer why you misrepresented both the nature of these sources, and their contents?? And why don't you answer why you continue to ignore teh bulk of academic sources, cited on teh Sonoran Desert and other articles, which say nothing of the kind? Oh yeah, I remember, because "if they don't say it's explicitly not, therefore it is"....Skookum1 (talk) 07:40, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I just had a protracted and detailed discussion with the natural history curator/editor of the Royal British Columbia Museum, who is going to forward the articles in question (there are three and three only) to their authors for comment and clarification; his opinion is the plant-biologists may say one thing, geographers another, but he also pointed out that what seems most likely meant is that there are pockets of Sonoran-type conditions throughout the Intermontane West. He expects the authors to reply at length, i.e. in great detail, and concedes it may be necessary to amend the wordings so as to be more specific about what is meant and avoid confusion/extrapolation. NB of the three links on the Living Landscapes site:

• [2]
• [3]
• [4]

TWO of them talk about the Cranbrook District (meaning its Forest District, by the wording) as being at the "the northern edge of the Great Basin (also called the Sonoran or high desert, a sagebrush-dominated biome that runs from British Columbia to Baja California". NONE of the three links mention Osoyoos, OR the Okanagan at all. The term "Columbia Basin", which is the context of all three, in its British Columbia usage, does not include the Okanagan (even though in abstract geographic watershed terms, the Okanagan and Similkameen are part of the Columbia's basin, as is the Kettle River basin of the Boundary Country, which also is not in the BC meaning of "Columbia Basin", which is entirely between the Monashees and the Rockies only. I don't know how long it will be before I get replies from the authors, but will post them on the wine region talkpage (rather than here, as protracted content discussions are not the purpose of this talkpage. I will similarly take things up with the Canadian Geographic and other academic-oriented sites as time and phone bills permit....NB a search at the Canadian Encyclopedia, a not-always-authoritative source in my experience, particularly for historical content, does not make mention of the Sonoran Desert, nor does Environment Canada......Skookum1 (talk) 23:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not a geographer. Is it an exact science; is there a test that can be performed on a piece of land to determine whether it is or is not part of the Sonoran desert? Is it a science with a governing body that decides the borders of the Sonoran desert, and writes them down somewhere that we can look up? If not, then it sounds like there isn't an absolute truth, merely a concordance of the opinions of reliable sources. It is perfectly legitimate to write that certain mass media sources, such as newspapers, tourism agencies, and travel books, have claimed that the Sonoran desert extends to BC, while certain other sources, such as certain geographers, encyclopedias, etc, disagree. But it would take a lot to say that since the encyclopedias say X, we can't even mention that newspapers and travel books despite that continue to say Y. We don't even do that for evolution vs creationism. --GRuban (talk) 20:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The loose use of "reliable sources" here is getting quite annoying; magazine travelogues which mis-state geographic terminology cannot be given equal weight to proper definitions and real sources. Declaring that just because a source exists does not make it "reliable". Also the RBCM site's papers make it clear that it cannot be stated that Osoyoos alone is "at the northern tip of the Sonoran Desert etc etc" and that statement must, if all sources are to be taken into account and reported honestly (instead of misreprsentationally, as what's been done here so far), also mention the Cranbrook District; and NB the wording "Sonoran life-zone", or other variants on that, takes in Okanagan Mountain as per the Ministry of Environment's master-plan for the provincial park there...and the line "Canada's only desert" is entirely unsupported, given the number of places you'll find mentions of other places in BC being "desert towns", and the TNRD's designation of the northwest end/area of Kamloops Lake as the "Red Desert Country"....any statement which claims exclusivity for the Osoyoos/South Okanagan area as "the northern tip yada yada yada" (the refrain is consistent, and as noted nearly-always the same or close to) is not acceptable, given the RBCM sources about Cranbrook also being included in that botanical-science statement....travelogue articles and wine-writeups may say it, but they're not reliable sources in the slightest for geography. The misrepresentation of non-academic journals like the Canadian Geographic and the Medical Post as academic sources is also a serious issue here, given the tenor of the claims and obstinacy attached to their existence.Skookum1 (talk) 21:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Selected works

In the article about the Japanese art historian Ichimatsu Tanaka, Tanakasthename disputes one sentence here:

Ichimatsu's published writings encompass 228 works in 326 publications in 6 languages and 2,797 library holdings.<:ref>WorldCat Identities: Tanaka, Ichimatsu 1895-1983</ref>

For purposes of comparison and contrast at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Selected works, I suggested we consider a similar sentence in the "Selected works" section of the article about Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Ōe:

Kenzaburo's published writings encompass 699 works in 1,597 publications in 28 languages and 27,632 library holdings.<:ref>WorldCat Identities: Ōe, Kenzaburō 1935- </ref>

Tanakasthename's rejection was unambiguous here, arguing "I think the Oe example actually supports my original position that the inclusion of this data is terribly misleading, if not downright false."

We disagree because I construe WorldCat identities as a reliable source — not "terribly misleading" and not "downright false".

IMO, this kind of overview sentence provides a necessary and useful context for a dynamic list of selected works. I have added similar sentences in many articles, e.g., compare Japanese mathematics#Select mathematicians.

IMO, we don't know how to move beyond talking past each other. I hope this thread can become a constructive step in a process which helps mitigate an awkward impasse. --Tenmei (talk) 18:45, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

That is taking your personal search of worldcat as a primary source for the claim which I do not think is acceptable. In general you would want to source to a published piece of scholarly work that makes the claim of how many items Ichimatsu Tanaka created Active Banana (^bananaphone 00:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Please note here where I have indicated not my mistrust or lack of faith in WorldCat or WorldCat Identities itself, but rather this kind of use of the data available there, a statement that is quite contrary to the above summary of my stated positions. To summarize in my own words what I have said up to now, WorldCat is a network of library catalogs, a reliable source of information on the holdings of libraries worldwide, but NOT a reliable source of comprehensive information on writers' bodies of written works, the manner in which Tenmei has used it, seemingly on more than a few occasions. The data contained on WorldCat Identities is certainly not a pertinent source for the kind of statistical summary of an author's oeuvre that Tenmei has inserted into the Selected Works section of Ichimatsu Tanaka and elsewhere. Presumably, a non-expert turns to Wikipedia for reliable and verifiable information. The "data" that has been added to these pages based on unanalyzed search results from WorldCat Identifies, while technically "verifiable," is also verifiably misconstrued, and thus of little or no use to the reader of said pages. WorldCat has a million and one valuable uses for the academic and general community, but this is not one of them. To argue otherwise is ultimately to not understand what WorldCat is or from where the data found there comes. Tanakasthename (talk) 10:19, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "unanalyzed search results" may help us. The phrase is highlighted in blue above with the convenient device of hyperlinking to the original diff. In fact, the explicit data is summarized as part of the WorldCat Identities website. This short sentence is published and cited with an embedded hyperlink. The reliable source performs the process which can be described as "analysis" and the published results for Ichimatsu Tanaka are verifiable, including

• 2,797 library holdings
• 6 languages
• 326 publications
• 228 works

Which one or more of these numbers is unverified? Is there a claimed error? Is there a claim that these numbers are unwelcome in our wiki-project because they represent WP:Original research?

I don't understand what the problem is. Tanakasthename has not yet explained. This has nothing to do with "unanalyzed search results".

Tanakasthename may have a problem with those people who are identified as responsible here for the research results which are published here, but that is not our problem. I am unwilling to make it my problem. --Tenmei (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Active Banana misconstrues this dispute as something to do with "how many items Ichimatsu Tanaka created"; but that is a non-issue.

The WorldCat Identities project summarizes a writer's output in terms of a number of "works" in a number of "publications" in a number of "languages" and in a number of "library holdings". IMO, this reasonably provides a introductory foundation for the dynamic list which follows. This sentence becomes an introduction and an invitation to investigate further. Can you see that this is a quite different matter? --Tenmei (talk) 02:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Tanakasthename seems to explain that parsing issues about "reliable sources" is a non-issue. If so, perhaps another venue is preferred? Please consider Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Technically "verifiable" and verifiably misconstrued. --Tenmei (talk) 03:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Active Banana did not misconstrue the dispute. Although you, Tenmei, are a participant in this dispute, it seems it is you who has misconstrued it. Let me summarize.

The sentence you have added to multiple pages is as follows, which you have acknowledged: "Z's published writings encompass X works in X publications in X languages and X library holdings," where Z is the subject of the wiki article, and X is a number taken from WorldCat Identities. In the case of Ichimatsu Tanaka, the exact sentence readings: "Ichimatsu's published writings encompass 228 works in 326 publications in 6 languages and 2,797 library holdings."

1. The above four numbers come from a WorldCat Identities page accessed by a search of the name "Ichimatsu Tanaka." The number's Tenmei gives, are accurate, insofar as they can be found in the "Overview" section of each WorldCat Identities page. The numbers themselves are not a problem, as Tenmei pulls them directly from WorldCat and cites them properly.

2. While the numbers that Tenmei has found through his searches of WorldCat are a reliable source insofar as they As I have reiterated repeatedly over the course of this dispute, despite the fact that Tenmei has failed to acknowledge it, it is Tenmei's sentence itself ("Y's published writings encompass...") that is problematic. That understanding of the information, that the numbers found in WorldCat Identities may be used to make a claim such as the one being made ("Y's published writings encompass") is wrong. No where on WorldCat Identities does it say that the number's refer specifically to works that are "Ichimatsu Tanaka's published writings." Indeed, immediately below the place where Tenmei has culled these numbers is a graph of the "works" that WorldCat Identities has found in the search "Ichimatsu Tanaka." Within that graph are included not only works BY Ichimatsu Tanaka, but also works ABOUT Ichimatsu Tanaka, making Tenmei's sentence "Ichimatsu Tanaka's published writings encompass..." a patently false one.

3. Another argument that I have made previously that Tenmei has chosen to ignore is that the "publications" WorldCat includes in the total number (in the case of Ichimatsu Tanaka, 326 total "publications"), include publications that are verifiably not by (or even about) Ichimatsu Tanaka. Note that on the same WorldCat Identities page for Ichimatsu Tanaka, the following works is included.

El-Sayed, Mustafa, I. Tanaka, and I︠U︡. N. Molin. 1995. Ultrafast processes in chemistry and photobiology. A "chemistry for the 21st century" monograph. Oxford [England]: Cambridge, Mass.

You'll notice that WorldCat Identities has misinterpreted "I. Tanaka," one of the author's of this scientific publication as "Ichimatsu Tanaka," a Japanese art historian who had already been dead 12 years when this entirely unrelated scientific study was published. The inclusion of this single work alone discredits Tenmei's inclusion of the above sentence into the Ichimatsu Tanaka article, as well as variations of the sentence in many other articles. But, wait, there's more!

4. A simple analysis of the data from which the raw WorldCat Identities numbers come, will show that among the "works" associated with Ichimatsu Tanaka, are no less than 13 which actually identify the same work, the title, in Japanese, being "Hōryūji Kondō Hekiga Shū," written by Ichimatsu Tanaka and published in Tokyo by Benrido in 1951. The reasons why this single work has been counted 13 times are multiple. For example, in one entry, instead of using the given Japanese title of the work, whatever librarian entered the information at some point in the past, used instead a translated English title. In another case, the publication city is listed as Kyoto instead of Tokyo. At least 2 of the 13 "works" here are actually not the above work, but are actually review articles of the book. This kind of fact-checking could be done over and over to reduce the clearly false total number of works that Tenmei has added and for which he is arguing so forcefully.

5. Wikipedia:Verifiability states:

"Sources should directly support the information as it is presented in an article, and should be appropriate to the claims made."

The source, WorldCat Identities in this case, does not "directly support the information as it is presented in [the] article." To repeat, while the numbers themselves that Tenmei has cited are indeed accurate insofar as they can be found on WorldCat Identities, the sentence "Ichimatsu Tanaka's published writings encompass X, X, X, and X," is not directly supported by the source, because, as I have just shown, the works included therein include a large percentage of works that could not, in any way, be called "Ichimatsu Tanaka's published writings."

6. I cannot believe something so easy to prove wrong has become to contentious, but please, somebody with more experience than myself, a third-party, please offer your guidance. Active Banana has already done so above, but apparently Tenmei has deemed that third-party, who happens to be a highly experienced editor, invalid?

7. Let me state conclusively that I have no personal stake in WorldCat, OCLC, or WorldCat Identities, as Tenmei has suggested above. I am simply committed to accuracy. Tanakasthename (talk) 03:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Technically "verifiable" and verifiably misconstrued

The words of Tanakasthename in this sub-section heading are a credible complaint. Summarizing the issues and history of the complaint:

• A. One sentence was subject of critical scrutiny at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan#Selected works and Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Technically "verifiable" and verifiably misconstrued.
• B. The disputed sentence-template cited the WorldCat Identities overview summary of "works" and "publications" and "languages" and "library holdings" which had been derived from the evolving OCLC catalog. The statistical analysis was published online with the imprimatur of OCLC/WorldCat.
• C. Tanakasthename presented a conclusory argument, i.e., that "... unanalyzed search results from WorldCat Identities, while technically "verifiable," is also verifiably misconstrued ...."
• D. This "reliable sources" venue is not well-suited to address the concept of "technically 'verifiable'".
• E. The very high quality of Tanakasthename edits at Ichimatsu Tanaka has informed the unconventional attention which was given to this complaint.
• F. North8000 summarized succinctly here:

  "Tanakasthename is claiming that it fails a standard which is not a Wikipedia standard" and "Tanakasthename has not even raised a a WP-relevant challenge, much less supported such a challenge." (bold and italics added for emphasis)

• G. The very specific nature of this talk page venue plus North8000's good judgment did encourage Tanakasthename to present a 7-point analysis here which helped clarify the complaint.
• H. IMO, without North8000's significant contribution, the impasse would have persisted and we would have continued talking past each other.

Tanakasthename -- Thank you for investing both time and care. Our work together is an example of successful collaborative editing. This re-drafted sentence incorporates your fine-tuning perspective:

OCLC/WorldCat encompasses roughly 200+ works in 300+ publications in 6 languages and 2000+ library holdings in a statistical overview derived from writings by and about Ichimatsu.<:ref>WorldCat Identities: Tanaka, Ichimatsu 1895-1983</ref>

I will take it on myself to make changes in other articles with a similar sentence. --Tenmei (talk) 17:10, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Shakespeare Authorship Question site has questionable reliability sourcing in proposed article

I originally thought this issue was a NPOV issue, regarding the Shakespeare Authorship Question's peer-reviewed article by Tom Reedy, but have been advised that the RS Notice Board is more appropriate. I am a new editor and all these Notice Boards seem to apply. I had been met with obfuscation when I called for more neutral language. The ultimate root of the issue may be found in the article's selective sourcing, which then makes neutrality impossible.

In the lead paragraph of the article Shakespeare authorship question, it states "…all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians consider it a fringe belief with no hard evidence, and for the most part disregard it except to rebut or disparage the claims.[3]" As I understand it, this is a string of “exceptional claims”, requiring “exceptional” sourcing. My question concerns the sources supplied, and whether they are comprehensive enough to support the claims in question.

I would also like to ask whether WP:RS/AC is being followed, particularly "The statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view. Otherwise, individual opinions should be identified as those of particular, named sources."

The references cited in ref #3 are located here:[5]. To my eye, they seemed to me anecdotal, personal, rather than factual, and as personal statements could not be used to document the claim that "all but a few scholars" dismiss contrary scholarship as lacking hard evidence. For example, here are statements that are presented to justify the claim that Oxfordian or anti-Stratfordian theories are without foundation:

a)"Among editors of Shakespeare in the major publishing houses, none that I know questions the authorship of the Shakespeare canon ... ",

b)"I have never met anyone in an academic position like mine, in the Establishment, who entertained the slightest doubt as to Shakespeare's authorship of the general body of plays attributed to him. "

c)"any Shakespearean who reads a hundred pages on the authorship question inevitably realizes that nothing he can say will prevail with those persuaded to be persuaded otherwise."

d)"...in fact, antiStratfordism has remained a fringe belief system for its entire existence. Professional Shakespeare scholars mostly pay little attention to it, much as evolutionary biologists ignore creationists and astronomers dismiss UFO sightings."

As the presented sources seem to be speaking from a personal point of view respectively, the authoritative sounding 'All but a few' does not seem to be supported, and it amounts to a derogation which has no place in a neutral statement reliably sourced. And the one source containing the pejorative label of “fringe belief” does not discuss whether “all” scholars or any particular group of scholars have applied such a label, or whether this is just the individual opinion of the source, as referred to at WP:RS/AC.

Also there is the practical question, how is “a few” defined? Credentialed academics who have doubted the Stradfordian theory of Shakespearean authorship have been ostracized to the point that only one Ph.D. thesis has been successfully entered in the United States university system. There is no way of knowing what professional scholars might say if there weren't an unspoken but effective ban on expression in this subject area. This throws into doubt how few or how many literary professionals feel on the matter. The Declaration of Reasonable Doubt indicates there are far more than a numerical few.

Thus, how would such a strong series of claims, attempting to prove “all but a few Shakespeare scholars and literary historians” be justified as citable, short of a scientific poll or survey? The only survey we do know about does not support the language.[See http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/education/edlife/22shakespeare-survey.html]

Consequently I want to suggest alternate wording, such as:

"According to a N.Y. Times survey of American Shakespeare professors, 82% of those educators surveyed felt there is no good reason to question the traditional attribution."

The remaining 18% of approximately 20,000 professors, (that number according to D. Allen Carroll) 3,600, would not be a "few".

or possibly

"Most Shakespeare professors (61% in a recent NY Times survey) consider the contrary position of Oxfordian scholars a "theory without convincing evidence"?

The remainder, 39%, ~8,000, would not constitute a "few".

Then, in order to evaluate their opinions fairly, it would be a matter of finding out if they had read that contrary body of scholarship in order to make a scholarly judgment, versus those who had not read any.

I’m wondering if some such wording as I have suggested above would be better supported by the sources cited here, which are far more factual, and therefore more reliable, than the quotations presented by the article, and whether in turn the article would be rendered more neutral as a result of the greater specificity added?

I would appreciate input from uninvolved editors, as the recent talk page conversations by the article author and friends have devolved into constant sniping at criticisms and suggestions of any kind whatsoever. [[6]].

My previous contributions (except for an accepted minor expression or two) [[7]] have been ignored with prejudice. [[8]].

A lot of premature archiving is also going on before any conclusions are reached or agreements made. To be exact, there have been no departures from the original article's text. Is it the Wikipedia practice to archive after five days instead of the usual thirty before removing the current discussion from sight, when it is clearly a controversial subject? This contributes to the feeling of an ambition by the article author to establish what I would consider as factually dubious dogma as the official language on the Wikipedia site. In short, the situation a bit of a mess. That’s why we need help from uninvolved editors here. Thank you and with best wishes. Zweigenbaum (talk) 03:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• I don't know if this is significant to your argument either way, but I doubt there are 20,000 Shakespeare professors in the U.S. The New York Times survey you mention says that the College Board reports 1,340 four-year American colleges and universities that offer degrees in English literature. Of 637 schools randomly selected from that group, the survey compilers found Shakespeare professors ("the professor currently teaching a course on Shakespeare, or the professor who had most recently or most frequently taught one") at 556 of them. Assuming that the 637 schools randomly selected were representative, that would imply that 87.3% of the schools with degrees in English literature have Shakespeare professors, or about 1,170 of the whole group. There may be multiple Shakespeare professors at some schools, plus a few at schools that don't offer English literature degrees or two-year colleges, but I doubt one could find 20,000. To look at it another way, only 4 of 34 members of the Princeton English faculty evidence an interest in Shakespeare, and 3 of 49 members at Harvard. And there are lots of colleges with smaller English departments than those. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Zweigenbaum Thank you for the information. No, the 20,000 figure is not critical to my position or request for comments, or to the overall purpose of gaining greater reliabiity of sources and neutrality of tone in the Shakespeare Authorship Question. I used that number because D. Allen Carroll is a Stratfordian professor who opined at a public symposium on the topic in 2003, "In the interest of full disclosure, I am an academic, a member of what is called the 'Shakespeare Establishment', one of perhaps 20,000 in our land, professors mostly, who make their living, more or less by teaching, reading, and writing about Shakespeare--and some say, who participate in a dark conspiracy to suppress the truth about Shakespeare." (Tennessee Law Review,v. 71:2, page 278) So I took a figure offered by one respected guild member of the Stradfordian constituency by which to show an example of logical inconsistency in the conclusions expressed in the proposed article, in its first paragraph, as written by another member of that constituency. I assumed this should pass muster or at least avoid pretextual outrage among Stratfordians since he is one of their own and thus trustworthy to some extent; I do not know if his number corresponds to fact. If Carroll's calculation is exaggerated, I could make the same point with a lower or higher one, as the percentage is significant in either case, i.e., not a few, although I feel when seeking factuality here as elsewhere the utilization of what most or a few think should never be the prime determinant towards the goal. Such a utilization usually amounts to gratuitous conforming pressure upon the reader to be among the many as against "the few". It forces an effect rather than states a point and betrays an emotional drive behind the attempt.Zweigenbaum (talk) 09:22, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm uninvolved. (Well, except my very occasional reading of the matter in reliable newspapers had suggested there was some reason to attribute the plays to someone else. Or at least, had left me thinking this was a real live argument. Wasn't there a new and gorgeous theory proposing a well-travelled Jewess? She's not in there - why are there only 4 names if there are 170 possible other candidates?)

However, statements such as "theory without convincing evidence" and "no good reason to question", held by the majority of scholars (whatever "scholars" means) would suggest to me wholesale rejection of the alternative authorship theory. By all means have very interesting articles on these alternative theories, but the main article must not give them any credence whatsoever. The Shakespeare authorship question about strikes it right in the lead, first of all stating that it's all pretty fringe before saying there are other theories.

Later on, I'm not sure the authorship article is fair - statements such as "Anti-Stratfordian arguments share several characteristics.[21] They attempt to disqualify William Shakespeare as the author due to perceived inadequacies in his education or biography;[22] offer supporting arguments for a more acceptable substitute candidate; and postulate some type of conspiracy to protect the author's true identity, a conspiracy that also explains why no documentary evidence exists for any other candidate and why the historical records confirm Shakespeare's authorship.[23]" look to me over-broad and over-personal. Templar98 (talk) 14:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

French language video interview

Could an hour long video interview in French be considered RS for a historical figure?

Allegations are made that Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza was a rapist here - in "(French video)" . I can understand a little French and it seems that the video about the Congo does mention Brazza, but I have not had the patience to sit through an hour long video to hear and attempt to translate what he says, nor do I think it reasonable. But this does not seem to be an encyclopaedic approach. None of the other language versions of WP carries this allegation, although a discussion in the French version suggested that it might have been originally mentioned in the French satirical magazine le canard enchaine (but no-one has given a reference or link.) I have asked for better substantiation in the article's talk page, but without response from the editor who has placed these allegations. Brazza was a major historical figure and this allegation does not appear in any of the major references to African colonialism that I have seen - I feel that something more substantial is needed in order to substantiate such a revisionist claim. Am I right to remove such references? Ephebi (talk) 12:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

In the same way that book references need page numbers, it's not OK to draw potentially contentious information from a long video without indicating in which minute it appears. Also, while I don't know any of the people involved, it appears to me that such an interview can only be used for the interviewee's opinion, and even that only if it is notable. Hans Adler 13:38, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting one. Theophile Obenga, who made the allegations, is a San Francisco State professor from Congo, who seems to be WP:NOTABLE with extensive writings on Africa, archaeology and colonialism. I looked for a source other than the video, and found his allegations discussed in an essay published by Oxford, http://afraf.oxfordjournals.org/content/109/436/367.full?keytype=ref&ijkey=TalHYOsg7SzHRJc  :

According to Obenga, the Teke royal court has dissimulated a significant episode in the 1880 encounter between Brazza and Iloo: the explorer’s rape of a royal Teke princess, a virgin in charge of keeping the kingdom sacred fire. ‘If you want to celebrate somebody who has raped a Congolese woman, be my guest! . . . De Gaulle knew very well that Brazza had raped a woman, this is a documented fact, an established, a banal fact that people hide. . . . This is a fact established by oral tradition, a fact that tells about the destruction of the Bateke kingdom, the destruction of the King.’

This is sourced as follows:

Obenga, ‘De Brazza, faux “humaniste”’. See also the video of the interview, <www.video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=7116215169848427224>.

I will keep searching, and will also watch that video, and post results on the de Brazza talk page. My best guess right now: the rape allegation deserves a mention in the article in the format "African studies scholar Theophile Obenga opposed the Braazaville memorial on the grounds that...." I think the sources will be at least WP:RS for Obenga's opinion and interpretation of the historical record.

Also, please be aware of WP:3RR as you guys seem to be reverting each other a lot on the article page.Jonathanwallace (talk) 13:56, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

As Jonathan suggests, the solution is to cite the journal article. Florence Bernault, "Colonial Bones: The 2006 burial of Savorgnan de Brazza in the Congo", African Affairs Vol 109 Issue 436 pages 367-290. Bernault cites a number of other sources that may be useful in our article. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:06, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I made the change, eyes appreciated for wording etc. Jonathanwallace (talk) 17:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I did a bit of minor editing, seems good now. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:48, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Was Sarah Palin's "Death Panel" a reference to National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence

I have a problem. The Death Panel article is under a tight article probation and there are several editors there who, it seems to me, are using the probation to form a cabal to prevent changes which would restore balance to the article. Now an issue has arisen over a citation which to me is clearly not a RS even though it had at one time (apparently) been published.

I would not normally raise this here because to me, it seems so clearly an untrustworthy citation, but due to my having already received a ticking off by my fellow editors and others (including an Admin, and the fact that I have reverted this addition two or three times now (but not three times in the last 24) I am, possibly, in breach of the tight regulations at that article. I have risked doing this because I am fairly sure that this source is not reliable.

Here is the issue. Sarah Palin is on record for saying that when she was talking about Death Panels, she was referring to rationing which she thought would emerge from the Affordable Care Act, and in particular a body set up to control Medicare costs that was in that bill.

The Times newspaper it seems may have published a piece by a journalist claiming that Palin was talking about a British body known as NICE. Google it seems has the cache of the page, but as far as I can tell the link is not working. My guess is because the claim in that story is nonsense. Palin has not actually said that NICE was the target and in fact she has said something quite different. At least two editors, on an IP and the other a reguk editor has reverted my deletion of the claim that Palin was talking about NICE, the only evidence for which is the claim of the Times journalist. This is "The Times" and not "The New York Times"..

Here is the latest revert, this time by the IP editor who claims that the link is working.... But whether it is working or not, I fail to see how a journalist in London can claim to know what was in Palin's mind because it was several days before she clarified what she was talking about, failed initially to quell speculation that she was talking about provisions in the law for paid consultations in Medicare for living wills, and then settled on the IPAB (the new Medicare costs reduction board). It was NOT NICE despite what this journalist may (or may not) have written.

But in case I have missed a trick perhaps someone would be kind enough to cast a look and check it over.

Thanks Hauskalainen (talk) 00:46, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

There is a new inconsistency here too. Palin has NOT said the term death panel was a reference to NICE in but seemingly it IS allowed in WP because the editor using that reference rightly attributed the improbable reference. So the article is allowed to connect death panel with NICE even though it does not meet the definition we had of a death panel. Fast forward now to Palin's use of the is article is allowed because a source claimed . A few days ago Palin's recent use of the term blood libel to describe inflamed and allegedly inaccurate accusations made against her following the recent shootings. Suddenly the Palin crowd have managed to get OUT of the blood libel article Palin's use of that word which DID create huge news comments and which the fact that Palin had posted on her Facebook page a video of her using it. Palin clearly did use that term to accuse her opponents of attributing the shootin in Arizona to her. The Palinistas seem to have a lot of control here at Wikipedia.Hauskalainen (talk) 03:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't know anything about the blood libel issue, Hauskalainen, but I don't think this case here is the Palinistas at work. If you ask me, the implication that Palin was talking about NICE when she said "death panel" is not flattering to Palin, if you know anything about NICE. --FormerIP (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

An earlier revert of my delete here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_panel&diff=406909339&oldid=406908541

And another here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_panel&diff=406909339&oldid=406908541

And another here http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_panel&diff=406909339&oldid=406908541

and if you are very keen and want to look at another try this one http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Death_panel&diff=prev&oldid=406486821. Gratzer is well known for being less than honest with statistics, especially about the British and Canadian health care systems See http://www.factcheck.org/bogus_cancer_stats_again.html and even this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DII7v8yeRjs. I would say he is NOT a reliable source, especially about the health care system in the UK. He works for a pro free market institute which one suspects is paid to support the free market health care system and put down those that are the antithesis of this.

The Times link worked fine for me. The quote in it is: "Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, claimed it would lead to the creation of “death panels” — a reference to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the quango that determines which treatments are funded by the NHS." I would be slightly cautious in case the writer may be connecting dots a bit too readily, so wording is important and may be a matter for discussion. But its there quite clearly in an RS. --FormerIP (talk) 00:56, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

So only the The Times in London got to read her mind? And it seems got it wrong. When normally reliable sources get it wrong we accept that they got it wrong. We don't go on quoting them, unless the falsehood becomes itself reknown. Are you now implying that Palin was lying when she FAILED to come out publicly and say what The Times journalist (allegedly) told the world she was thinking? Come on, that really does not hold water!Hauskalainen (talk) 01:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Clearly, the source is offering an interpretation of Palin's words and there may be others. But it is attributed in the text, so it seems basically okay to me. Like I say, there may be need for other discussions about wording, weight and contradicting sources and wotnot, but in terms of RS I can't see the objection. --FormerIP (talk) 01:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I concur. We're not about truth, and the article text specifies that the Times reported that Palin meant the NICE, so I think the statement is well qualified. If other RSs claim Palin did not target the NICE, by all means include those as well to ensure balance, but the source seems reliable. -- (talk) 01:58, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

But I think you need to look again at how the reference is being used. The source is not being used to prove that a British journalist made a particular observation, it is being used to create a false hypothesis. That hypothesis is that Palin WAS referring to NICE when she made that statement. And she was not. It is no good cloaking a dubious source with a careful attribution which actually deceives the reader. The source is clearly NOT RELIABLE because (a) it is not what Palin was talking about and (b)she had no way of knowing what Palin was talking about anyway. The false hypothesis is based on a very very dubious piece of journalism. I am not arguing against WP:V or WP:TRUTH but in this case a WP:RS. This is not to say this journalist is not usually a RS. She may well be. But in this case she clearly got it wrong, and on THIS OCCASION, THIS REFERENCE is NOT reliable. How can it be?? Hauskalainen (talk) 03:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you may be confusing "reliable" with "wrong". It's a reliable source. It's made an interpretation of what Palin said. Reporting that interpretation in the article is OK as far as WP:RS goes. There may be other evidence that would show that the interpretation is seriously out, but that's a talkpage matter and someone would need to come up with the goods (incidentally, I don't see why it couldn't, in principle, be a reference to NICE and also to the IPAB). --FormerIP (talk) 03:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Hauskalainen you argue that a journalist had "no way of knowing" how to interpret a public statement by a politician? But this is what journalists normally do for a living, and politicians make their public statement with the intention that journalists will try to understand and interpret them. So "no way of knowing" seems a little stretched. Of course people get these things wrong, but very often journalists and people in general are successfully able to agree on the meaning of the words of other human beings.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 14:01, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

(outdent) Not at all. What Nuujinn is saying would be valid if the point of the text was to show that the journalist had said this thing. For example if Palin had complained about the article to the Press Complaints Commission. But it is not. Death Panel is a Palin term but she never connected it to NICE. If she had, we would have other sources for that. What we have here is wrongful use of a UNreliable source to get a claim into Wikipedia that Palin HAD made this connection. THAT IS WHAT IS WRONG. It clearly IS and unreliable source for connecting PALIN to NICE via DEATH PANEL. I urge Nuujinn to think again and would welcome comments from other RS reviewers too.Hauskalainen (talk) 14:06, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

As a passive, fairly disinterested third party, I will say that the source does appear reliable, but according to Palin was wrong. So maybe just put in a line right after that states what Palin said she was referring to?--3family6 (talk) 14:23, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd say there is nothing to indicate that the source is reliable in any way; it looks like speculation by an ill-informed reporter who was too provincial to realize that Palin never heard of NICE. --Orange Mike | Talk 19:30, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

@3family6: "according to Palin"? Does she say it was wrong? @Orange Mike. Who says she's never heard of NICE? The British system has been one of the the main points of comparison for both opponents and supporters of socialized health care, even referred to in US advertising by opponents. If she denys that's what she meant why is that denial not in the article? Paul B (talk) 19:43, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I will amend my above statement, as I do not know whether Palin has specified that the Times article was wrong. However, she has stated what she was referring to with the term "death panels," and as far as I know, the NICE wasn't included.--3family6 (talk) 20:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

And therein lies a solution. I regard the Times as a reliable source even though in this particular case, it very well may be wrong. The article clearly states that the Times made this claim--if Palin has clarified what she meant in other reliable sources, then document that, too, and let the reader decide. There is enough press scrutiny on Palin that there must be sufficient sources to balance this out. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:47, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Well I just had a read of Sarah Palin at [9], and it seems pretty clear that she means things like NICE and there's no if or buts about it and the Times was right. So I'll be very interested to see it written up to correct my current misunderstanding if that's what it is. Dmcq (talk) 09:49, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Where does she mention NICE in the article? She may have been referencing organizations like that, but there needs to be a reliable source that has been supported by Palin herself in order to say that she actually was referencing organizations like that. Like what was suggested above, both the (seemingly incorrect) Times article should be cited, but Palin's later clarification should also be cited.--3family6 (talk) 14:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I took this stab at the issue. Problem resolved? Jesanj (talk) 15:24, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Er... well as I recall it she said also that she was using hyperbole and that because she had heard that now an extra 30 or 40 million were going to be insured, the inevitable result was that health care would have to be rationed. We actually have three items that Palin has talked about I'm not sure which order they came in (the three being (1) the living wills funding provision, (2)the IPAB and (3) being the generalized "gosh. More insured people, so it will have to be rationed" argument - which completely ignores the fact that doctors are now going to have so much free time now that they will soon have a lot less time fighting with insurance companies over what is or is not essential coverage). The point is, that not ONE of these three stories she as had told herself or has allowed to be told in her name, actually mentions the British body which the British journalist, for no apparent reason, dreamt that Palin was talking about. A journalist that gets her facts wrong is not a reliable journalist in the case of this quotation. it is being dishonest to the reader if we allow this citation in without further explanation.. We know three things that Palin has definitely said, and one which she almost certainly did not say. That fourth one (about NICE) is not in fact attributable to NICE and should be removed. Hauskalainen (talk) 16:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I get the gist of your argument. And to a certain point I agree, perhaps we can exercise our editorial discretion to remove it, as we also have other 'death panel'–NICE assosications mentioned. But is that a WP:RS issue? On the other hand, journalists are allowed to interpret things in questionable manners and just because there is good reason for us to think it is wrong does that make it an unreliable source? Jesanj (talk) 16:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I took out your addition, Jesanj, because it just repeats material from elsewhere in the article. The claim of the sources that are being discussed here is essentially that Palin said that the AAHCR Act would create "Death Panels" which would, according to some commentators interpretation of her comments, have similarities to NICE. Pointing out that Palin has said that she was referring to the AAHCR Act does not go against the claim in any sense. --FormerIP (talk) 18:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I think your interpretation of The Sunday Times doesn't match the text. It says "Sarah Palin, the former vice-presidential candidate, claimed it would lead to the creation of 'death panels' — a reference to the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the quango that determines which treatments are funded by the NHS." They state it was a reference to NICE. Jesanj (talk) 19:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You might need to be more specific about how it doesn't match the text. What I'm saying is that there is no version of this in which Palin isn't referring to US healthcare reform. To give the impression that this it is a matter of "was she referring to AAHCR or was she referring to NICE?" presents a false dilemma. --FormerIP (talk) 19:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

No source is automatically reliable all the time. In this instance it appears that a normally reliable source made an interpretation of a comment that the speaker of the comment has later "clarified" was an incorrect interpretation of what she meant. Unless the incorrect interpretation itself becomes notable, we say "bad job normally reliable source" and we do not use their incorrect content. Active Banana (^bananaphone 19:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That's not the situation. Multiple sources make the link between healthcare reform and NICE. The Sunday Times is an RS which has made the link explicitly mentioning comments by Palin. Palin has made a statement which does not mention NICE and can't reasonably read as a clarification that she wan't talking about NICE. --FormerIP (talk) 19:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That fourth one (about NICE) is not in fact attributable to NICE, Hauskalainen, if I am following you correctly, and please excuse me if I am not, but it seems that you are arguing that because you have looked into the matter and have not found any other sources that claim that Palin was referring to NICE, and you know what she did say from other sources, therefore the Times article is wrong, and thus the Times article is not reliable. If that is the gist of your argument, I think you are falling into OR, since you are drawing conclusion about what really happened. I agree with 3family6 that the Time article should be cited, but that other sources should be used to clarify the situation and provide balance, and those are issues for the article's talk page. If Palin has, in effect, refuted what the Times article asserts, by all means document that thoroughly. But we cannot simply declare that because we believe a source that in general meets the criteria for reliable sources (and the Times clearly does), that an article is not reliable because we know it is wrong. I believe policy prohibits that action. In this particular case, I think I know how this happened since I dug around a bit, but my belief is not relevant, since I am not a reliable source. What we believe to be true does not matter, what matters is what a reliable source says, even if it is wrong. Even if we have reliable sources that directly refute the information in the Times article, we should document the disagreement--to do otherwise is to begin a downward march on a very slippery slope. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Youtube videos as source

Are videos of Eastern Orthodox baptisms, published on Youtube, reliable as sources that show that those baptisms do not always involve total submersion of the child or adult being baptized? Are they less reliable than books or articles that describe such baptisms? See the citations and a discussion on them. Esoglou (talk) 08:28, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

No. These videos are not subject to editorial control, and as such, are not reliable. Fifelfoo (talk) 08:52, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was that if the video came from an official channel (ie. a BBC News report coming from the official BBC Youtube channel) It was OK, but not if someone independant just uploaded it. The C of E. God Save The Queen! (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

The videos in question are personally recorded videos, not professional commentaries, not distributed through any official channels, and not accompanied by any authoritative narrative explaining that these are examples of normative Eastern Rite baptismal practice; the section of the article in question already cites a number of WP:RS describing normative Eastern Rite baptismal practice, and when Esoglou could not find any WP:RS which contradict the WP:RS already cited he turned to Youtube in an attempt to find something.--Taiwan boi (talk) 09:17, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

How do you respond to the objection that these numerous videos cannot have faked the way the baptism was carried out? No editorial control would have checked against such extremely unlikely fakery? Esoglou (talk) 09:07, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

• Making an inference from unreliably edited PRIMARY sources is ORIGINAL RESEARCH in Theology, Studies in Religion, or Sociology. We are Editors of an Encyclopaedia while editing wikipedia; we are not Theologians, Cultural Studies or Sociologist academics. Fifelfoo (talk) 09:09, 13 January 2011 (UTC)
• I presume that you know best. Esoglou (talk) 09:26, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you. Two independent editors of the article have already explained this to him.--Taiwan boi (talk) 09:16, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

CreativeSyria.com RS?

Apologies if this is come up before but I can't find a discussion on this in the archives. Would we consider CreativeSyria.com as reliable source. The source is being used in number of articles now. AgadaUrbanit (talk) 14:42, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Creative Syria is a website with a wide range of material. Could be very good for arts news and reviews. The piece you link to appears to be a signed current affairs essay, possibly reliable for the opinion of its author, depending on how notable the author is. Should be attributed if used. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:54, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, how about current usages: After Turkeys annexation of Alexandretta (or Hatay) in 1939, 60,000 mostly Christian and Alawites fled the area to Syria., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5?

Not reliable for ethnic/national/military history. There may be scholarly books or articles by the same author that could be used instead. Itsmejudith (talk) 15:24, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I concur with this -- I don't see any reason why scholarly sources shouldn't be used here. See for instance: [10]. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Creative Syria is not the source, its only published there, the source is Joshua Landis who is a professor at the University of Oklahoma [11]

"Joshua Landis Associate Professor, IAS Director of the Center of Middle East Studies

Joshua Landis is co-director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma and Associate Professor of Middle East studies at the University of Oklahoma’s School of international and Area Studies. He writes www.SyriaComment.com, a daily newsletter on Syrian politics that is widely consulted by officials in Washington, Europe, and Syria, and read by over 3,000 people daily.

He is a frequent analyst on TV and radio, having recently appeared on the PBS News Hour, the Charlie Rose Show, al-Jazeera, NPR, and the BBC. Last year, he was quoted in over 100 news stories, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Times Magazine. His book, Democracy in Syria, will appear in the coming year, and he is author of numerous articles.

He was educated at Princeton (PhD), Harvard (MA), and Swarthmore (BA). He has lived over 14 years in the Middle East; having been brought up in Beirut, he returned to the region in the 1980s to teach in Beirut and study at universities in Damascus, Cairo, and Istanbul. Most recently, he spent 2005 in Syria as a Senior Fulbright Research Fellow and lived several months in Damascus in 2007.

He teaches: Political Islam, International Relations in the Middle East, Islam, The Modern Middle East, Culture and Society in the Middle East, the US in the Middle East and other courses." --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 16:41, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

That's why I suggested looking for scholarly works by him. We have to distinguish between his research and his commentary. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

What makes his article not his research? How do you know he hasn't researched what he is saying? Would a man with this background be making up stuff? Same information can also be found at the Federal Research Division: "Fear of persecution actually prompted several thousand Arab Alevi to seek refuge in Syria following Hatay's incorporation into Turkey." [12]--Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 17:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not a research article. Academics report their research in scholarly journals and in books. That doesn't mean he's making it up, just that we can find a better source for the same information. Jtayloriv easily generated a list of scholarly articles for you to use. We need to use good sources for historical information. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:15, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

So what if its not in a journal or a book? Its from a reliable source (Joshua Landis), also see the FRD source above and another one talking about the same thing: "That year, the Turkish army moved in with French approval and expelled most of the province's Alawite Arabs and Armenians. A rigged referendum followed in 1939, and the province was annexed to Turkey." [13] --Supreme Deliciousness (talk) 17:22, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

"Would a man with this background be making up stuff?" Best almost-laugh of the day, and see the Alan Dershowitz discussion above. He's a Harvard law prof and, by consensus, not a reliable source on matters relating to Israel, terrorism, etc. Jonathanwallace (talk) 18:36, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

List of highest-grossing Telugu-language films

Currently, http://blonnet.com, http://www.idlebrain.com/index1.html and South Scope Magazine (http://southscope.in) are being quoted as definitive sources of box office figures for Telugu films in order to rank the list by gross income. Are any of these sources reliable in an encyclopaedic sense to provide definitive statements of box-office income? Thanks, Fæ (talk) 18:47, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Libertarianism, publisher reliability

Are these two publishers reliable for content on Libertarianism? I'm concerned that neither has apparent editorial control indicate they're not reliable for transmission of texts intact, invariant, etc. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:43, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Is LewRockwell.com ( About page) reliable for the accurate transmission (archival collation) of Walter Block's political writings as an archive?
   • Block, Walter (February 17, 2003). "The Non-Aggression Axiom of Libertarianism". Walter Block: Archives. http://www.lewrockwell.com/ : anti-state, anti-war, pro-market. {{cite web}}: External link in |publisher= (help)
2. Is Liberalia ( www.liberalia.com ) , which appears to claim to be a libertarian interational ( [http://www.liberalia.com/celebrating.htm example page, no pages found from head with content), a reliable source to publish the following political essay:
   • Machan, Tibor R. "Revisiting Anarchism and Government".

I don't see why we would need to use either of these sites when there are so many published scholarly works on the subject. -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Note: [14] has the Block book, and the Rockwell site appears to faithfully copy it, but the other cite is less problematic. Liberalia.com appears to be a formal organization, and, to the extent that publication of opinions is notable, the opinions expressed there are certainly usable. Note also that http://www.libertarian.nl/wp/2001/01/revisiting-anarchism-and-government/ contains the same material, and is certainly a valid Netherlandish source. There is, by the way, no reason to restrict "reliable" to "scholarly" in any WP policy. Collect (talk) 11:31, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Kilgour-Matas report, Yale PhD Thesis Source

Could you kindly comment on if a Yale University PhD Thesis would be a reliable source for the article Kilgour-Matas report? Some material sourced to it - "In April 2007, a Yale University student submitted a PhD thesis that evaluated the allegations and concluded that Falun Gong prisoners' organs were being harvested," to be specific - had been removed under the claim "PHD thesises are not reliable sources".[15]. Could you guys kindly look into the issue and please share your views on if the source may be used? Thanks in advance. Dilip rajeev (talk) 13:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

[16] is a docstoc.com. [17] shows a discussion thereon (the site you use is clearly not going to pass RS, I fear). The existence of the thesis is thus RS, and statements made in it attributed to the thesis author as his opinions. docstoc.com was not ruled to be "self-published" which would be the only real problem with a thesis. Collect (talk) 14:14, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

More generally, there are theses which are themselves cited in reliable sources; in those cases the theses may also be looked upon as being reliable. I'd have to read the report and see what sources are cited for the contention of organ harvesting; however, my personal opinion would be moot as a thesis generally speaking is not considered a reliable source, as already indicated. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 15:23, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

PhD theses are reliable sources.[18] However, I see nothing saying this is a PhD thesis. Also, being a reliable source does not mean that the conclusions reached are notable, and therefore it may not be acceptable on that ground. TFD (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It's extremely unlikely to be a PhD thesis. Among other things, the Meta-comments call it a "Senior paper", and neither the length nor the depth match expectations for a PhD thesis, even at Yale (*duck*). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Agreed; this doesn't have the usual format of a doctoral dissertation or thesis making it essential that evidence be provided proving that claim. ElKevbo (talk) 21:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Definitely too short to be a doctoral thesis. PЄTЄRS J VЄСRUМВА ►TALK 21:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Given it is a Yale PhD Thesis - is it acceptable? The conclusion of the economic analysis aligns with the finding of a report that won its authors Nobel Peace Prize nomination - and the thesis is cited by the same authors on their website. Please see: http://organharvestinvestigation.net/studies.htm . Dilip rajeev (talk) 13:17, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

A doctoral dissertation would be a reliable source. But this isn't a doctoral dissertation so it doesn't matter. ElKevbo (talk) 17:20, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree that this is very unlikely to be a doctoral thesis. It's difficult to say what it is, but it may just be an extra-curricular essay produced for publication on the internet. I don't think it can be taken as a reliable source without knowing the purpose for which it was produced. --FormerIP (talk) 18:51, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Which comes first, WP:V or WP:OR?

What happens when something is easily verifiable by anyone but there is no reliable source for it? Is it OR? At Derren Brown was the following:

• "For this reason, it was available only to practitioners through a password-protected "magicians only" area of his website; as of the redesign of his website in mid-2009, the magician-exclusive area has been made harder to find, but is still accessible. The clue to the password, which is "tenkai", tells you that the word itself begins with T and is a type of palming trick.[19]"

Much of this was removed as OR, the final stumbling block being the "password". Before continuing, it is necessary to point out that this is not a password in the traditional sense. The page deliberately gives clues to the password, which can then be found by a Google search or by looking here at Category:Card tricks. Entering the password takes you to a page where you can buy products offered by the site owner, a magician. The reason the password is required is that these items are supposedly only available to magicians but the site owner is publicly known for his ability to manipulate people and the password seems more a marketing ploy - by "restricting" sale of the object, it makes it more desirable (Marketing 101). The password is accurate, and can easily be verified by entering the password into the website. It was added by an IP on January 3,[20] and because I was able to verify it, I didn't remove it, I just copyedited the article to fix the citation.[21] So, since this is verifiable, does it stay or get removed as OR? --AussieLegend (talk) 14:45, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You apply them in combination; along with other guidelines such as WP:IINFO and WP:NOTHOWTO and come up with the question: Is that really encyclopedic content that belongs int the article? Active Banana (^bananaphone 14:48, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe so, but the question remains, does it constitute OR if it's easily verifiable? --AussieLegend (talk) 15:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It's more the other way around... it constitutes OR if it isn't verifiable (the ease of verifiability is a different issue). That said, it is possible to have OR that is based upon verifiable information... it is still OR if you are the first to analyze or interpret the information in a particular way, or the first to draw a particular conclusion from the verifiable information. The idea is that Wikipedia should not be the first place to publish the analysis or conclusion. In your case... while the pieces of the puzzle are all easily discoverable, it does not sound like anyone has published the solution before. Therefore, it would be OR for us to do so. Blueboar (talk) 16:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I think I am saying the same thing in a different way but my understanding is that if something is not obvious at more or less "first sight" to a normal editor working on the article, then putting the conclusions together counts as "research". There will always be a grey area, but if there is a riddle/puzzle then pretty much by definition I think that to solve it requires non obvious thinking - or else it is a pretty bad riddle/puzzle. If the solution is deliberately as obvious as 2+2=4 for some reason then I guess we start getting close to the grey area? But that does not appear to be relevant to the case described above.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 16:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

@Blueboar - I sort of understand what you're saying but... "it constitutes OR if it isn't verifiable" - well it is, I verified that the password was correct, which is why I didn't delete the addition. "Therefore, it would be OR for us to do so." - I agree, but if I can verify that a claim made by somebody else is true, is it really OR? If it is, that surely would make a lot of images OR. For example, File:ForsterNSWAus2.JPG claims to be an image of Forster, New South Wales. I can't verify that it is and I can't find a similar image published by a reliable source so isn't that image OR?

It is OR if it has not been published elsewhere. Blueboar (talk) 18:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

It can't be that cut and dried as that would make most images created by Wikipedians OR. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:17, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

True, Blueboar perhaps stated that too simply. Obviously not everything on Wikipedia is published elsewhere, but what is not should be just an obvious extension of what is, such as rewordings or summaries. But I think it can not be denied that leaves a big grey area. However, I am skeptical about this case being in the brighter side of that grey area as it is normally interpreted.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

@Andrew Lancaster - How obvious does it have to be though? I follow the link to the source, put in the "password" and voila! it works. The claim in the article is confirmed. That seems pretty obvious.

I don't really have an issue with OR generally, as it's usually pretty obvious when something is OR. For example, "as of the redesign of his website in mid-2009, the magician-exclusive area has been made harder to find" is not supported by the citation and isn't verifiable but the password issue is different. --AussieLegend (talk) 16:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this may be the relevant policy content: "Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reliably published may be used in Wikipedia, but only with care, because it is easy to misuse them. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify" (emph added) Active Banana (^bananaphone 17:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, unless the password is published by a reliable source, doing the lookup of the palming trick that begins with a T is original research, and testing the password is an experiment, and thus also OR. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:05, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

The claim that the password is "tenkai" isn't a primary source and testing the password is essentially what anyone does when they verify any source added to Wikipedia. --AussieLegend (talk) 18:20, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

What source asserts that that password is "tenkai"? The link provided does not. If that's your source, it's "A", and you're then looking at Google or WP to find palming techniques that begin with "t", then that's "B". And if you are next drawing the conclusion that the password is "tenkai", that's "C" and you've just violated WP:SYNTH. That you then test your conclusion at the web site is also OR, since you're performing an experiment to verify your research. What you need is a reliable source that says "the password to http://derrenbrown.co.uk/devilspicturebook2/store.php is "tenkai". --Nuujinn (talk) 20:42, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

As I explained in the first post of this discusssion, the claim was added by an IP on January 3,[22] and because I was able to verify it, I didn't remove it, I just copyedited the article to fix the citation.[23] I didn't do any research. I just checked to see whether the claim was correct by going to the source. --AussieLegend (talk) 02:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, so I would say the IP engaged in SYNTH, and you did an experiment to verify. I think it's still OR, and that what you need is a reliable source that says "the password to http://derrenbrown.co.uk/devilspicturebook2/store.php is "tenkai". --Nuujinn (talk) 02:53, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

I might be taking a slightly different approach to others here. I think that the logic of saying a password is verifiable is not necessarily wrong in itself. I think if someone wrote "The Times on date z could be accessed using url etc" this would be ok I think. But I think that the concern here goes beyond that because what is being sourced is not just "one password which works on website x is y".--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:12, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Three websites

• http://www.obsessedwithfilm.com/
• http://www.project-blu.com/
• http://www.411mania.com/

The question of the reliability of these sources has been raised at at good article candidate. They all look borderline to me, but I admit this isn't necessarily something I know a great amount about. Thoughts? J Milburn (talk) 22:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Internet Explorer Mobile

Can this comment from the IE for Windows Phone Team Weblog be used as a source in the Internet Explorer Mobile article? As per WP:NEWSBLOG posts left by readers may never be used as sources, but can this be used since it seems to be a comment made by the blogger?

Because it was removed as an unreliable source, it is now replaced by this article by wpcentral. wpcentral however uses this mobiletechworld article as a source, and mobiletechworld uses the first blog comment as its source, so after going through 2 other sites we end up with the same source so this isn't any more reliable. --Chris Ssk _talk 22:51, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Chris Ssk: Yes, you can cite it as a primary source. WP:RS only bars comments by readers, not the author of the blog. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:55, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Flags of the World

The Flags of the World website has plain straight up nonsense and totally false claims posted on it, in addition to numerous spelling errors and horrific grammar.

an example of plainly ridiculous claims, if not outright lies and outrageous grammar and spelling is found on the FTOW's page on the Xibei San Ma (China)

is not a reliable source since it is self published, and in addition to that, it is full of misinformation claiming that Ma Hongkui fled to turkey (in reality, he fled to taiwan, then the united states, he had zero connections with turkey). And ma bufang never proclaimed himself sultan. And the Qinghai was not ruled by Ma Bufang until 1937, the website says 1911, in addition, the grammer on the website is horrific, an example here- "together with his brother Ma Buqing, and has the power until 1950 when it fell to Saudi Arabia because of the communist advance." (would anyone mind explaining how the province "fell to Saudi Arabia", if the communists took over it?)

On the Ma Hongkui article, i have sources, books and news articles which explicitly say he fled to and lived in the united states , he did not set one foot in turkey. Go look at the references on the article. In fact, i'll post them right here, which say Ma Hung-kwei (old romanization for Ma Hongkui) fled to formosa, and then to San Francisco in the USA.[24][25][26][27]

In addition, his entries at the rulers . org website note that he moved to america, not turkey

On the FTOW website, it claims Ma Hongbin was proclaimed sultan of ningxia in 1912. since reliable sources on the Ma Hongbin article note he was a suboordinate commader in his uncle Ma Fuxiang's army, how he got promoted to sultan? His entry at the rulers website indicate he was a military officer, never a "sultan", of a "sultanate", which never existed in real life. NO entries for "ma hongbin sultan" come up on google books if you just type in "ma hongbin", numerous sources will say he was a provincial governor and general, and say nothing about sultan

the entry contains numerous spelling errors, like Taso Tsung Tang, which should be Zuo Zongtang, "first months of 1878 chine completed the conquest", should be, "first months of 1878 china completed the conquest", "Tu Wen Hsiao", should be Du Wenxiu or Tu Wen Hsiu, according to proper chinse romanization

this whole sentence from the entry is just atrocious in spelling and grammar- "Yakub Beg was born in Kokand and was send to East Turkestan by Kokand Khan acompanying to burzurg Khan kodja in 1865 and with conquered the last Chinese positions"

Also this totally made up, non existent claim was posted on the FTOW entry- "The last sultanate that I know of is Kweichow - that seems that has a white flag. The sultanate also was born from a Muslim revolt directed by the sect of White Lotus."

I didn't know that the Buddhist White Lotus sect was really into directing muslim revolts, especially in alleged "sultanate" of Guizhou province (kweichow is another romanization of Guizhou), which never existed.Дунгане (talk) 05:46, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

the reason im bringing this up, is because a certain user thinks that Flags of the World Website is a reliable source, offering no evidence at all that it is reliable

You are complaining about a Wikipedia article about a volunteer-run Yahoo mailing list on flag information. Here on the WP:RSN noticeboard, we usually discuss questions of whether the source is reliable for a particular assertion made in another article. A search revealed numerous Wikipedia articles which link to just one of the list's mirror sites, http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/, including Australian Aboriginal Flag, Six Flags Over Texas, Flag of Baltimore, Maryland.

"Flags of the World" does not appear to be reliable for historical information on countries and their flags, because it is a volunteer-run mailing list which anyone can join without proving qualifications. It would therefore seem to fall under the following language in WP:RS: "

For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. This includes any website whose content is largely user-generated...

Jonathanwallace (talk) 11:03, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

As i said, a User:Kintetsubuffalo claimed Flags of the world was reliable at Talk:Flag of Tibet, to advance his position regarding the article Flag of Tibet, i request a third party user go to the Talk page and make it clear that it is totally unreliable.Дунгане (talk) 18:42, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Not in citation given

About this source - it includes it in a "Countries with which the PLO maintains diplomatic relations: ...Swaziland...Vanuautu..." and the next paragraph is "The following states, while they do not recognize the State of Palestine, allow the PLO to maintain a regional office: ..." While this arrangement may imply that the first list contains states that do recognize SoP - this is not written in the source (it writes about PLO diplomatic relations - and as we have multiple examples, including the this Australia source [28], this isn't the same as to recognize SoP). Also the list of states that 'PLO maintains diplomatic relations with' includes Austria and Vatican City - and we have sources showing that these don't recognize SoP (see here and here) - so we should not just assume that the first paragraph lists states that recognize SoP - this isn't written in the source itself and such assumption by us contradicts the Austria and Vatican City MFA pages.

I added 'not in citation given' tags [29], but Night w removed these with explanation "implication is obvious". We should not make "obvious assumptions" about what a source has not written, but maybe should have written - and use such interpretations to contradict information from official MFA pages of Austria and the Vatican City.

The source is useful to show PLO diplomatic relations (elsewhere in the article) - as is written in it, but I think that we should not use this list of PLO diplomatic relations for "XXX recognizes SoP", because this isn't written there. Alinor (talk) 11:32, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Is this book by an IT specialist a reliable source for a history article?

The edit in question is [30]. The editor has justified it at Talk:Filipa Moniz Perestrelo. The author is has written several books on Columbus but is not a professional historian but an IT analyst. There may be a COI here also of some sort as the editor keeps pushing Rosa's work. Dougweller (talk) 21:36, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Dougweller just because a person works at some job does not mean they are not qualified or degreed in other fields. Rosa has been invited to talk at places many other historians of Columbus never went. He was invited professor Jesús Varela, Director del Centro de Estudios de Iberoamérica - University of Valladolid http://colombo-o-novo.blogspot.com/2010/10/esposa-de-colon-comendadora-de-santiago.html and invited by Professor Consuelo Varela at Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos CSIC, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Ciencia e Investigación, Spanish National Research Council, Science Scientific in Seville. http://colombo-o-novo.blogspot.com/2009/10/lancamento-do-colombo-portugues-em.html Both of these are leading professors in the history of Columbus and neither has come out against Rosa's research but in fact appear to support it. In the 5 years his books have been out, I am not aware of one historian that has refuted it. Plus the guy is fluent in four or five different languages which is not indicative of your typical IT tech.Colon-el-Nuevo (talk)

• Please supply a full citation, as indicated at the top of this page. Of particular interest for reliability is the name of the publisher. Fifelfoo (talk) 12:56, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

For the claim "A document at the Torre do Tombo archives lists Filipa Moniz as one of the twelve comendadoras and member of the steering committee of the Monastery of All Saints." I don't see why we can't use the primary source. Ie. the document itself. Taemyr (talk) 13:29, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• The original research policy. Such judgements are not simple nor trivial, and wikipedia editors are not acting as historians when they are encyclopaedia editors. Fifelfoo (talk) 13:50, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

It wouold not be OR if the sources actuly has him on that list in that role.Slatersteven (talk) 14:09, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• Yes, actually, it would. Archival material is not in any way reliable without the interpretation of historians. Fifelfoo (talk) 14:13, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

Primary sources may be used, but with care. Nor is there an OR issue if a user is just repeatinf what the promary source says. It only becomes OR is only an issue of interpriation comes in to it.Slatersteven (talk) 14:19, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

• All historical material requires interpretation, archival material especially so. Organisations ritualistically and routinely lie to themselves about the most basic things, and, documents do not exist in isolated from the context of a wide range of other documents which need to be read simultaneously. Users repeating primary material in historical articles is original research: users are not capable of the professional expertise required when they are acting as users; and, users who are capable of exercising such expertise can neither evidence their capacity to wikipedia as users nor ought they to do so. Fifelfoo (talk) 14:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, interpretation is not about reporting what a text says it’s about what you think a text says. Thus just repeating it does not involve interpretation (thus dos not involve OR). If the text was saying that he was “therefore…” it does not it just repeats (without any extrapolation) what is contained. Thus I could say that “according to the big book of things what I did “Peranious went shopping in Tuesday” If on page 9999 it said “I went shopping on Tuesday”, I am merely repeating what the primary source said. If I said “Peranious went shopping regularly” or “Peranious went out and brought a big cake” that would be OR. That does not seem to be the case here.Slatersteven (talk) 14:51, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

But how do we know whether the document at the Torre do Tombo archives is itself reliable? For that we need expert opinion in a secondary source. But back to the OP's question--has the book in question by the IT professional received critical review by professional historians or in reliable sources such as a major newspaper or magazine? Has the book been citied in works by other historians? Being fluent in multiple languages does not indicate expertise in this area, nor does not receiving attention from reliable sources. But if the book has been cited by scholars, I think we could accept it, but perhaps with qualifications. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:30, 16 January 2011 (UTC)