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[edit] WP:MOS subguideline, anyone?

Imo, this guideline could be far more usefully handled and improved if it where a dedicated WP:MOS subguideline. The applicable policy (WP:V) appropriately handles the required minimum threshold, while this page could explain various scenarious in greater detail than a policy, including the ideal case, or how to proceed in the many suboptimal cases where high quality sources are not easily available etcpp. User:Dorftrottel 14:52, February 15, 2008

[edit] Economical with the truth

There's an interesting article in The Economist this week. This says that prominent papers in leading journals are quite likely to be wrong and suggests why this happens. Two passages are quite shocking:

...incorrect research partly on a study of 49 papers in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists. They were, in other words, well-regarded research. But he found that, within only a few years, almost a third of the papers had been refuted by other studies.

There also seems to be a bias towards publishing positive results. For instance, a study earlier this year found that among the studies submitted to America’s Food and Drug Administration about the effectiveness of antidepressants, almost all of those with positive results were published, whereas very few of those with negative results were.

This has some implications for our guideline which seems to overrate such sources:

Academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources...

This is a bold claim and yet it is not supported by any sources and, if this were an article, would be attacked as weasely OR. Since we now have sources indicating that academic peer-review is no guarantee of accuracy, we should adjust our guideline accordingly.

Colonel Warden (talk) 09:25, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Henry H. Bauer's "filter" (diagram page 45) is a pretty good model. In Bauer's model, the worth of journal articles can be discerned from the presence or absence of future textbook citations. --Firefly322 (talk) 11:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The sad truth is that there's no guarantee of the reliability of any source. I'd advise caution with any source under 5 years old, for the reasons given in the Economist article. Even fequency of citation is not always a good guide, for exmaple Ruben & colleagues' articles on dinosaur respiration are generally cited and then ignored (see Physiology of dinosaurs). -- Philcha (talk) 13:35, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the statement is still valid. We do not say that academic, peer-reviewed sources are always reliable... simply that they are usually the most reliable. While a specific article from an academic, peer-reviewed publication may end up being flawed, as a class they are still more reliable than any other type of source.

Remember that no article in Wikipedia is ever "finished". Wikipeida articles are meant to evolve. When new scholarship on a subject is published, our articles may need to be edited to reflect that new scholarship. If the sources that we rely on are discredited, the article needs to be edited to reflect that fact. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

The actual paper being discussed is Neal S. Young*, John P. A. Ioannidis, Omar Al-Ubaydli,"Why Current Publication Practices May Distort Science" in PLoS Medicine v.5 no. 10, article e2 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050201 open access link]; that's a some shortened summary, the full version is at [1] (The Economist paper shows dramatically the limitations of using even good magazines and newspapers--their article, as usual in such cases, gives no exact references to the actual published work.) I'll make a more detailed comment later, but but I want to make a general one quickly:

Of course most published findings are eventually proven false. That's the basis of the scientific method, that research will be repeated and corrected and refined and developed. Knowledge is not static. The scientific method requires subsequent analysis. At Wikipedia we do not try to do the necessary analysis of primary journal publication, but just report it in the context of analysis published elsewhere. Among the places this is done, is in subsequent journal publication itself in primary journals--most primary articles analyze the previous literature, not just cite it. There is no clear separation between primary and secondary publication in science. And our general rule is that RS is not a matter of yes or no, but a spectrum. And all the inaccuracies of publication in academic research are magnified and distorted in subsequent popular and textbook presentation. DGG (talk) 16:20, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Many thanks for the link to the actual paper. About the only relevant economic concept they don't explicitly mention is that leading journals are positional goods, but they make the point well enough any way. The critique diminishes the gap in reliability between scientific and other publications, and for exactly the personal and economic reasons that affect reliability of non-scientific publications. -- Philcha (talk) 16:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Opinion pieces from news organisations

The guideline currently reads: Opinion pieces are only reliable for statements as to the opinion of their authors, not for statements of fact. I suggest this part of the guideline should discourage the uncritical derivation of factual assertions from opinion pieces, rather than say that they are never reliable.

For example, if a fact is asserted in an op-ed piece in a major newspaper such as the New York Times or Guardian, it is as likely to be accurate as anything reported anywhere else in the paper. (Unless the article is obviously aiming for humorous or absurd effect, of course.)

For example, it could read: Opinion pieces are often only reliable for statements as to the opinion of the authors, not for statements of fact, and should not be used as sources of fact unless there is no other source and the news organisation in question is a highly reputable one. (Others can doubtless word this better, it's off the top of my head.)

Views? Barnabypage (talk) 10:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

I very much disagree. News articles are (presumably) fact checked by the editorial staff of the paper, and if the reporter gets a fact wrong the paper is held accountable. The paper will issue a retraction or correction. The same is not true for an op-ed piece. The term "op-ed" means "opinion-editorial"... ie what is written is someone's opinion. Op-ed pieces are not given the same level of scrutiny that news articles are given.

The key here is that the reliability of an op-ed piece depends on its author. Let's take an example: Suppose US Vice President Dick Chaney wrote an op-ed piece stating that the "surge" in Iraq was highly successful. Is this a reliable statement of fact? That probably depends on the reader's political views and whether they trust Vice President Chaney. Some people will say it is reliable, but others will say it isn't. We can not definitively say "The surge in Iraq was highly successful <cite to op-ed piece>" However, what we can say with reliability is that this was Vice President Chaney's opinion on the subject. We can definitivly say: "According to Vice President Dick Chaney, the surge was highly successful <cite to op-ed piece>". Blueboar (talk) 14:58, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

What's frustrating about this is now I'm editing an article where statements by govt employees or academic experts given in Congressional testimony or in speeches are considered unassailable statements of facts, while an op-ed by the same individuals stating the same facts - or those by others of equal stature refuting those facts - is NOT considering WP:RS!!

So there are a lot of inconsistencies in WP:V and WP:RS that should be clarified on those pages so people don't have to keep running to the noticeboard.

As I know from having put together this selectionof most of the discussions of important general and political oriented sources in WP:RS/noticeboard archives. Carol Moore 15:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Carol, You missinterpret the guideline. Nowhere does it say that an Op-ed piece is unreliable. It says it IS reliable... as an opinion. Instead of saying "blah blah blah is true" you have to say "According to govt employee X, blah blah blah is true". Also, I certainly would not treat a statement by a govt. employee as an unassailable statement of fact... even if it was included in Congressional testimony. I would state that as an opinion as well and say: "In his testimony before congress, Govt. Employee X stated:... <cite to congressional Testimony>." Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Blueboar - I think it depends on the kind of fact. I agree that, in your example, Cheney's assertion of success should be treated as an individual opinion rather than a fact - almost by its nature it's a subjective judgement, whoever makes it. However, if Cheney's same article asserted "the coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003", would there be any reason to trust that less than a news article in the same publication saying the same thing? Virtually no - if any - publications formally fact-check news stories these days, so the editing process for an op-ed piece is not much different from that for a news article (as far as accuracy goes).

Incidentally, "op-ed" comes from "opposite editorial", not "opinion editorial". Irrelevant to the subject at hand but a potentially useful bit of trivia. ;) Barnabypage (talk) 15:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Something like "the coalition invaded Iraq in March 2003" can probably be cited to something more reliable than an op-ed piece. If not, I would definitely question whether it is, in fact, accurate. For example, suppose that there were covert forces in Iraq as early as February. Is Chaney still accurate in his statement? That depends on what he meant by "invaded".

The point is, a statement in an op-ed piece may be accurate, or it may be inaccurate. We have no way to know unless we check it against other sources... in which case, we should use those other sources instead of the op-ed piece. If the only source for information is an op-ed column, we have to treat the information as opinion and not as fact. Blueboar (talk) 16:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

In reference to "if the reporter gets a fact wrong the paper is held accountable," in what way is it held accountable that an opinion columnist (or even a blogger) would not be? Libel laws are binding on them both. Isn't reputation really the strongest safeguard in place here? If one gets a reputation for writing/publishing untruths, there will be harmful ramifications; people will begin to disregard that source and publicly expose it for disseminating falsehoods. Simultaneous movement (talk) 00:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Bing Bing, give this guy an award. That was well stated!BcRIPster (talk) 20:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd disagree, as such a basis of "reliability" would be extremely dangerous. It would place the burden of proving (un)reliability on those seeking to remove information, if we allowed anyone to claim that a source is always reliable in the absence of proof to the contrary. Preventing such a system is why sources need a "reputation for fact checking and accuracy," and why blogs and opinion pieces are presumed unreliable for controversial facts (with the burden for assuming otherwise on those seeking to include). Someguy1221 (talk) 22:43, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

In principle that sounds fine - the problem, I think (which is partly why I raised this point in the first place), is that in reality most news reports from most "reliable sources" - including most highly-regarded newspapers - are NOT fact-checked to any greater extent than opinion pieces are. The reporter's facts are taken by editors at face value in the same way as an opinion writer's are, unless there is a powerful reason to give them extra scrutiny. Is it therefore consistent to disallow opinion pieces in those particular publications while allowing news reports that are no more - or less - reliable? Barnabypage (talk) 16:36, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] As blogs and other self-published sources become more dominant vis-a-vis what we consider currently reliable sources, this guideline may become problematic

I think we are beginning to see mainstream news organizations being eschewed more and more in favor of self-published sources. We also see that the newspaper industry is becoming increasingly oligopolistic, as more and more local papers are bought up by regional firms; and we see large media conglomerates taking control of the TV industry as well. I was told by a local TV station director recently that local TV as we know it is probably going to go away in the next 15 years.

In short, mainstream news is a particular market, shrinking in importance, that is being dominated by an ever-smaller group of companies. The ascendancy of blogs thus becomes beneficial in adequately covering local and niche phenomena and viewpoints. Yet, we lose the advantage of having blogs if we don't allow their content to be covered on Wikipedia.

I would support a softening of WP:RS to simply say that in the event of a dispute, the mainstream news organizations' content will be given greater weight than that of blogs. Or we might even get rid of the arbitrary distinction altogether. Many blogs potentially have as much readership and respect as small-circulation newspapers, so why necessarily favor the former? Newspapers get their facts wrong all the time.

Facts that are suspect can still be removed in the course of the normal editing process. I think the current WP:RS is simply going to become less and less viable in the future. We are already seeing some problems, as WP:RS results in the set of includable articles on Wikipedia becoming smaller and smaller.

Another thing to consider is that WP:RS could result in coverage biased toward government (the biggest publisher of all) and big business, rather than the grassroots (which produces a lot of self-published content).

Also, the theory behind using the mainstream media as our sources is that there is someone doing fact-checking, or who can punish a reporter who gets the facts wrong. Don't we have our own editorial processes, though, for reverting incorrect information and blocking those who deliberately introduce wrong information? Our guidelines are suited toward covering "scholarly" topics (i.e. whatever the government and/or other powerful interests have deemed worthy of funding and publishing a study/report on), and certain fictional content such as The Simpsons, but not toward covering many other topics. Simultaneous movement (talk) 19:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Blogs are a very tricky subject... there are some blogs that have won journalism awards, and have a earned a reputation for accuracy and reliability. On the other hand, there are blogs that have not. I agree that we should take a new look at this issue. I think we should continue to set a very high bar, but it is time to allow certain blogs.

I see two criteria that would make a blog reliable... 1) News Blogs that have won major journalism awards. These should be treated the same as any other form of journalism, and should thus be reliable. 2) Personal blogs of recognized experts in their field of expertize. Here we would allow the blog due to the reputation of the blogger. I see no real difference between a self-published book or webpage that is written by recognized expert in some subject (which we would allow), and a blog written by that same expert (which at the moment we don't allow). The fact that he or she writes in blog format does not really change the reliability of what he or she writes.

I would continue to disallow the vast majority of blogs. Blueboar (talk) 20:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I still have reservations about the second point, but I'm not sure it can be contained within this guideline. While making the few, exceptional journalistic blogs on par with a good newspaper is all well and good (hopefully they are still clear to distingish news from opinions), I've always seen the expert personal blogs as potentially problematic. And this concern revolves around the issues of notability and undue weight. If we say that the personal blog of an expert is a reliable source, that opens the door to everything a single individual writes being potentially notable and significant without passing through any kind of review. Even confining the reliability to posts inside the expert's actual field, many experts possess extremely controversial viewpoints they couldn't hope to pass peer review, while they still do work inside the mainstream. So I would support making clear that blogs that have received major journalistic awards, or have been widely and favorably cited by sources of established reliability are themselves reliable, I think the expert part should stay confined as it is presently in self-published sources. Someguy1221 (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

I oppose weakening our standards for sourcing. Blogs might someday be accepted. Right now, they're generally not, and we can Ignore All Rules in the meantime.

I'm also astonished to find that an editor with fewer than 50 edits (all in the last five days) is trying to re-write policy on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:11, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Comment on the content, not the contributor. WP:BOLD, WP:CCC. -- The Red Pen of Doom 21:49, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Note that a footnote in /Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published_sources which explicitly mentions blogs reads: "Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g., "Jane Smith has suggested ..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources. Carol Moore 23:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc

Online vs offline, new media, vs old media is really not the issue here. The issue is whether a source is "generally regarded as trustworthy or authoritative in relation to the subject at hand. How reliable a source is depends on context. As a rule of thumb, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." A self-published source, by definition has only one person - the author - supposedly checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing. Dlabtot (talk) 23:50, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Theoretically – but the blogs can act as fact-checkers over one another and over big media. There are some highly-regarded lay scholars out there. In any event, in a news organization or scholarly publication, there always has to be an editor(s) who has the final say in deciding what gets published; and quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Reputation can play an important role as well in deterring both blogs and more mainstream publications from posting untrue information. If many highly-respected bloggers are saying the same thing, isn't that as good as an editorial review process? Simultaneous movement (talk) 00:00, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Highly-respected by whom? A multitude of self-published sources could perhaps be considered the equivalent of a mob. This policy already describes 'reliable sources' as those with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Whether or not a particular source meets that criteria is an editorial judgement arrived at through consensus. Dlabtot (talk) 01:05, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

And who says that all of those bloggers aren't just copying each other? The temptation to copy from other published articles is a problem in traditional media -- see this column for an example -- but in my experience it's not just rampant, but expected, in new media. The mere fact that one person invented something and one hundred others copied it does not make it accurate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

So then, why do we consider traditional media a reliable source? Just because, if we didn't, we would have no sources at all and therefore no encyclopedia? I just don't see a reason for saying that blogs, as a category, are to be considered unreliable. Who knows how much fact-checking a traditional newspaper editor actually does of their stories - are we not simply relying on the potential for the reporter to be punished after the fact for untruths, and that there is therefore a tendency for reporters to be accurate? But the same kind of incentives can exist in the blogosphere. Wikipedia theoretically doesn't have any fact-checking either, as anyone can post anything. But in practice it's highly accurate. Likewise, if in the blogosphere, someone posts factual inaccuracies, it will tend to be corrected (in the blogosphere as a whole, and sometimes even on that particular blog) as others post blog entries refuting them. Thus, if someone cites an untrue statement from a blog in a Wikipedia article, then someone else should be able to readily come up with refuting statements from blogs. And in some cases, it's just self-evident what the truth is, and the blog is cited so that it doesn't fall under WP:NOR. In any event, the fact that a blog is cited lets the reader reach his own conclusion, "Hmm, I'm not sure if I'm going to trust this statement..." Simultaneous movement (talk) 01:42, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

"So then, why do we consider traditional media a reliable source?" What are you talking about? Nowhere in this policy does it say or imply that traditional media is a reliable source. Dlabtot (talk) 01:49, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

We necessarily land inside a region of circular logic. A reliable source has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, but how is that reputation determined? We typically go with favorable citations or awards from other reliable sources. But what establishes those? SM, the solution is and has been to consider certain sources to simply be reliable, such as major newspapers, magazines, and journals that aren't known for publishing rumors, gossip and other crap. How they treat other sources can be used to build outwards from there. Deciding to throw WP:RS out the window (and that's pretty close to what we'd be doing, since anyone can make a blog post saying anything they damn well please) just complicates things, such as making notability completely meaningless, and making the neutral point of view impossible to determine, except via attrition of edit warriors. Someguy1221 (talk) 03:31, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

It comes down to an editorial judgement, which on WP is arrived at through consensus. Dlabtot (talk) 03:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Except when a wikicop decides to delete something purely because it's only records about notability come from blogs.BcRIPster (talk) 04:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Exactly the point. Policy/guidelines are supposed to result from consensus having gone a certain way so many times, so consistently that we figure for expediency's sake, we might as well give people the power to revert/delete something without bringing it to the talk page first, and simply citing WP:(insert acronym here). Then again, I guess I can always WP:IAR! I think I'll start making greater use of that. Simultaneous movement (talk) 05:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, your bias in favor of blogs demonstrates your abysmal ignorance of the information industry. Try researching a senior thesis sometime at a major research university and you might actually learn something.

First of all, WP:RS reflects respect for the filtering function which professional editors perform. Of course, most of them do a terrible job (I am thinking about the notorious incident documented in the book Burning Down My Master's House) but the knowledge that someone else is going to be reading one's work product before it gets published does have an impact on ethical professional journalists. In contrast, too many blogs are written in stream-of-consciousness style by inexperienced writers.

Second, unlike the vast majority of fly-by-night blogs, practically all reputable newspapers, periodicals and journals are regularly archived by a large number of databases that are maintained by huge corporations (Reed Elsevier, Thomson Reuters, Cengage, ProQuest, et al.) who make breadth, availability, reliability and accuracy (in the sense that their databases accurately reproduce what was published on a given date) their main selling points. A factual assertion whose only source is a blog depends on the availability of the blog's underlying Web server, which may be operated by some fly-by-night dot-com startup that could go broke and disappear tomorrow (as actually happened to many Web sites back in 2001). And if the blog wasn't captured at some point by the Internet Archive, then it's as if the blog never existed. In contrast, the giant information corporations have so many paying subscribers (in the form of governments, libraries, corporations, private investigators, law firms, and so on) that they will probably last as long as our current civilization. Even if any one corporation goes bankrupt, its brethren will be happy to sweep up its databases out of bankruptcy and merge them into their own.

Third, there are so many mediocre clowns desperately trying to eke out a living in the vicious publish-or-perish world of academia that every little subculture and fad has some little community of academics publishing peer-reviewed articles about it. It's just a matter of going to a decent academic library and running a proper search! In my experience, the vast majority of Wikipedia editors who have historically proposed loosening the requirements of WP:RS, WP:N, and/or WP:NPOV have never actually done research at a decent library and become aware of the huge number of published resources out there. And if you actually live in an area with a decent tax base, your public library should allow for remote access from home to its database subscriptions. For example, thanks to my local public library (one of the most highly respected in the United States) I can access ProQuest eLibrary and InfoTrac OneFile from anywhere I can get an Internet connection. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:10, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Even peer-reviewed journal articles often get it wrong. On 9th October 2008 The Economist published an article Publish and be wrong describing how almost a third of 49 papers in leading journals that had been cited by more than 1,000 other scientists had been refuted by other studies within a few years. The risk was highest in papers that made spectacular claims, which for commercial reasons are the most likely to be published.

And that's in the "hard" sciences. In some social sciences and in the arts there's no objective testing of theories and it's hard to tell the difference between a decent theory and high-flown rubbish - check out the Sokal affair, where a physicist conned a postmodern cultural studies journal into publishing a spoof article.

The top-end news and public affairs mags all have ideological biases - for example The Economist is quite open about its preference for free-market solutions, and New Statesman is openly socialist. But others may be less open about their biases.

Once you get into popular culture topics, the current definition of WP:RS becomes highly questionable because of its corporatist bias. To take an area that I'm familiar with, the big-name computer game mags contain mainly reviews of specific games, written under very tight deadlines and subject to commercial pressures to adjust their comments on games published by major advertisers. One result of this is that they sometimes get their facts wrong about the games under review. Strategy guides are no better, see Alan Emrich's criticisms. All the thoughtful stuff is in self-published blogs, some run by well-known designers & developers and some by knowledgeable enthusiasts. But in the current formulation of WP:RS the big name mags are assumed to be reliable, as are the strategy guides, while the self-published comments of people like Emrich or Soren Johnson are assumed to be less reliable.

WP:RS at present is OK for the "hard" sciences, a grey area for "soft" sciences and public affairs, and full of holes for popular culture. -- Philcha (talk) 12:09, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm getting that "we're talking past each other" feeling. You're not responding to the issues I raised. You're focusing on bias but I am focusing on range, depth, and availability. It sounds like you are not familiar with the huge number of academic journals out there as opposed to general magazines (a situation which I was in before I went to college and learned just how many mountains of published stuff are out there). And unlike many blogs, the materials in libraries will be preserved there and will remain publicly accessible for the indefinite foreseeable future (unless our civilization ends, but that's the risk constantly overhanging the entire academic enterprise). Many blogs will not (just read Philip Kaplan's book F'd Companies to understand how many dot-coms are no longer with us).

Yes, publishers and editors do a lousy job, especially at the non-peer-reviewed journals (keep in mind the cultural studies journal in the Sokal affair was not peer reviewed at the time). But for people publishing to respectable journals, knowing that's one work will undergo peer review does have some effect on those who care about their reputation and integrity. In contrast, blogs have no controls at all so it's just garbage in, garbage out (the old GIGO motto). --Coolcaesar (talk) 20:02, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Coolcaesar, sorry for missing your last post. The thing that keeps academic journals fairly credible is the Darwinian competion of ideas - otherwise peer-review would degenerate into censorship and politicking, especially where new paradigms are involved. This Darwinian competion of ideas is far stronger in the sciences than in other academic fields, but still lets a lot of dubious material through.

I'm familiar with peer-reviewed journals - my main interest is paleontology with some overspill into zoology, see for example Kimberella, Small shelly fauna, Opabinia, Spider (all GA), Mollusc (currently being reviewed for GA) and others in the pipeline.

Another of my main interests is chess, and reliability of sources is a much more complex issue there - particularly in chess history, where books by (ex-)GMs are unreliable and the best work is all online, because chess history is not a lucrative business. If you can point me to some peer-reviewed sources on chess history, as opposed to Freudian theorising about the Oedipal reasons why Paul Morphy was so eager to play Howard Staunton (another of "my" GAs), I'll be grateful.

Ditto if you can point to peer-reviewed sources on computer games (the actual games and genres, not sociological studies about who plays them and what social problems they might cause). -- Philcha (talk) 15:36, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

In response to the OP - just like any other source, blogs that have a reputation for fact checking / peer review, are likely to meet consensus as being reliable sources - but the blog needs to pass those hurdles. And currently there are precious few blogs who meet that criteria and so there is little lost in having a blanket ban on blogs.-- The Red Pen of Doom 12:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Blanket bans are intolerant and often misguided. There are examples of admins saying this ban applies to any site that has comments. This is absurd, but so are the admins who say it.

Regardless, what most who support this language don't understand is they are banning a technology; you are not banning what you think you are banning. This is like the scopes monkey trial, and you believe the earth is flat. Slipgrid (talk) 13:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

The Scopes Trial had nothing to do with the earth being flat.

Yes, we're banning a particular medium. We're banning it because nearly all blogs are just the modern electronic version of a personal diary and are therefore not properly considered to be published. The point behind the ban is to block the 99% of blog-based sources that we would all agree are wretched sources for any facts.

If/when you encounter a particularly good source that "just happens" to use blogging software, the editors on a page can agree to use it under WP:IAR. If you run into a complaint, you can take it to WP:RSN, where this question will be decided on the actual merits of the actual source instead of according to the marketing category for the software. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:01, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

That second paragraph seems reasonable although the first paragraph is clearly inflammatory, and I don't think he was saying that Scopes was about flat Earth, his analogy was just poorly written.

The key issue here is that many of us are of the belief that Blogs are no more disreputable than corporate media. I find arguments like "Well the NYTimes is an authority because I can go back and read their issues from 100 years ago" have little merit when you realize after just looking at the varied events of the last 10 years in the U.S. that t is a hopeless biased to the pre-conceived notions or personal political agendas of the editorial staff. Besides if someone is going to throw out about transient web sites that are going to be gone because they aren't archived, there are two easy fixes for that: 1) Submit the site you've found to the IA for indexing, and 2) donate money to the IA to improve their capabilities so they can index more.

More than anything the Internet has proven beyond all doubt that the "journalist" writing for a dead tree format is no more reliable than a modern journalist in many cases and that editorial review is commonly no more than a glorified spell-checking/grammar-checking/ratings viability check.BcRIPster (talk) 20:17, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edit war

To all the editors that have been tediously warring over the wording at ==Self-published sources== for the last several days: Please knock it off. Proposals will be accepted on this talk page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:09, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Since no one has responded here and the edit-war seems to have stopped, perhaps everyone involved is more or less satisfied with the current wording. I think it is perplexing for an inexperienced user to see a reference deleted on grounds that it is an "unreliable source" when it was only being used to cite an opinion, which is why we should point out here that a better explanation is appreciated even if not required. The current version notes that it is helpful to refer to WP:SELFQUEST, but I would add that it is helpful to specifically note how the source was being used inappropriately. PSWG1920 (talk) 21:33, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Interwiki translation guidance

Interwiki translation guidance is found in Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style#Other-language_wikipedias, which now appears to frown on quoting interwiki sites in translations, but none-the-less accommodates translations by providing a format and telling one to cite it as a reference. The germane text is quoted below:

"Wikipedia is not a reliable source. When you use an article from a different-language Wikipedia as a reference, it belongs in the reference section. Use an external link rather than an interwiki link to avoid an unnecessary self-reference:

"* Citau les fonts from the Catalan-language Wikipedia. Retrieved on December 27, 2004.

"If you are getting some or all of your references second-hand, because you translated all or part of an article from a different-language Wikipedia, you may want to start your reference section (or part of it) with something like this (from Paragraph 175):

"*Much of the content of this article comes from the equivalent German-language wikipedia article. Retrieved on September 30, 2004. The following references are cited by that German-language article:

"followed by a list of that different-language article's references."

I'd be interested in arguments for and against use of interwiki references. Should we prohibit them, allow them as an option, or encourage them, and why?

Skål - Williamborg (Bill) 16:37, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Just a few thoughts. One option is to use the edit summary ("Translated from the German wikipedia article xxx", or similar). That will make clear that the first version of the article is translated from an interwiki source, presumably from the version that existed on that interwiki that specific date. This is also important for GFDL attribution, as far as I understand it, and it "will stay forever", as long as the article exists. Any online references from the source article may also be checked and eventually used in the translated article, if applicable. Inline citations are preferable, because they are most robust to later modification of article content. Foreign language references are no problem, and English references can always be added later. Offline references are more problematic, but books and articles may possibly be listed in a "Further reading" section. Oceanh (talk) 00:48, 23 October 2008 (UTC).

[edit] Plaques at historical sites

I am using a plaque that I have taken a photo of and uploaded to the commons as a source for an article. I have submitted this article for GA review and the reviewer says such a source is unreliable. I disagree, why is a plaque less reliable than any other published source, especially since it is at the site itself. The plaque in question is at [2]. What is everyone else's opinion? Zeus1234 (talk) 23:08, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

I suggest posting your question at WP:RSN, which is dedicated to answering such questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:02, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Media bias exposed

Media bias exposed: "[http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Story?id=6099188&page=1 Media's Presidential Bias and Decline; Columnist Michael Malone Looks at Slanted Election Coverage and the Reasons Why," By MICHAEL S. MALONE, Oct. 24, 2008. --LegitimateAndEvenCompelling (talk) 13:33, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a proposal for improving this guideline on reliable sources, or is it just for general information? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

I asked a simmilar question below. The bias inherent in mass media sources is not in question. There needs to be major amendments in many of WP policies such as verifiability, notability, original research and reliable sources. We need to exclude biased and unreliable sources of inforamtion such as many in mass media published sources and make provisions for unpublished sources of information and means by which editors can contribute original verifyable research. This is holding WP back in terms of important information that is excluded and popular information of questionable integrity that is included. For any of these policies to even suggest that they are not concerned with truth, only verifiability, is a huge factor contributing to systemic bias on WP. WP must be concerned with all information, both specific and broad of varying degrees of significance with the utmost importance placed on truth, fact and reality rather than hiding behind policies such as these to escape difficult discussion and work to create a truly reliable and factual, all-inclusive encyclopedia. Why aim so low WP editors? Things can be so much better. Nick carson (talk) 04:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Let's have the entire discussion below, in one place. There's no reason to split it up all over the page; it will just confuse people. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:45, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] DYK proposed rule change

There have been incidents of questionable sources used to support DYK hooks. A change has been proposed to the DYK rules to address this. Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#Proposed_rule_change. Thank you. Kablammo (talk) 16:02, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Self-published sources

I don't understand the push to include this wording. WP:SELFPUB is pretty clear. What is wrong with a simple edit summary that says: "Removed per WP:SELFPUB" ? Why should it be necessary for an editor to have to re-explain a policy every time he or she makes an edit according to policy? Why make it more difficult for editors to follow policy? Dlabtot (talk) 18:28, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The current wording says it is "helpful", not that it is required. And it would not be difficult to do so; you could simply cite the number of the

restriction you believe it violates. PSWG1920 (talk) 18:32, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that it is 'helpful', for the reasons I stated above. Quite the opposite. Dlabtot (talk) 19:04, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I dont see the usefullness either since selfpublished sources are only able to be used in very circumscribed ways. (An I am not really sure what is being referred to by "simply cite the number of the restriction". There is nothing useful here or in Self-published sources which is "numbered".)-- The Red Pen of Doom 18:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

The restrictions of WP:SELFQUEST are numbered, 1 to 7. And pointing out which is specifically violated can help inexperienced users. PSWG1920 (talk) 18:50, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I am not seeing how that would be any more helpful than understanding that self pub in general are not appropriate. Most attempts to use self published sources violate at least 6 of the 7. And the most important part of self pub "may only be used as sources about themselves" isnt numbered at all.-- The Red Pen of Doom 18:59, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Let me briefly explain my history here. Several months ago, an editor deleted a bunch of references in an article I was working on, noting that the sources were self-published and labeling them as unreliable. This perplexed me a bit since they were only being used to show the viewpoints of the writers. I found WP:SELFANDQUEST (then known only as WP:SELFPUB), pointed it out, and asked him to note which of the restrictions he felt were violated in each case (which could have easily been done in the edit summaries.) He refused to do so. Although I now see that he was probably correct in most or all of those deletions (but for reasons which are still not clearly articulated by any policy or guideline), this experience really affected me negatively as a new user. I'm trying to help others avoid that. PSWG1920 (talk) 19:29, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Red Pen, I doubt that I'd find it very helpful for you to explain how I violated SELFPUB. Probably, the only thing I'd need was "Hey, did you realize that this source was self-published?"

But it's not reasonable for us to assume that a newbie editor knows that this policy even exists, much less that it applies. If you just say "violates SELFPUB," many newbie editors will give up in frustration. These editors would likely benefit from education, and it doesn't hurt us to encourage explanations. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:22, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

I can't see any reason that wouldn't apply to every policy. Should every revert require a explanation of policy, rather than a link to the actual policy? The policies themselves, with wording honed by a large number of editors, and representing a broad consensus, seem to to be better explanations than anything that could be put into an edit summary. Dlabtot (talk) 01:24, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

As long as the edit summary points to the relevant policy or policy section, that should be enough. If further explanation is needed, the editor who wants to add the source can ask for clarification on the talk page. Blueboar (talk) 03:18, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Dlabtot, I do some clean up of external links. I think that an edit summary like "Rm link to internet discussion forum per WP:ELNO #10" is a sufficient explanation. You can click the link, find #10, and see for yourself that internet discussion forums are to be avoided. By contrast, an explanation like "Rm links per WP:External links" is noticeably less specific and less useful -- and WP:External links#Maintenance_and_review briefly encourages explanations. The primary reason for the explanations is WP:BITE: external links are often added by newbies that honestly don't know any better.

I see a similar situation here. SELFPUB is violated primarily by incorrigible POVers and newbies. We can WP:AGF by assuming that they are all newbies who didn't know any better. But "Deleted per WP:SELFPUB" is not so helpful -- particularly when the confused newbie sees that the use of self-published and questionable sources is allowed. There's a lot of nuance in this policy. I think it would be much more helpful for the newbie to get an explanation, like "This is a WP:SELFPUBlished source. We can only use it to say that 'John Smith says that'..."

And -- do you actually think that the occasional "try to explain" encouragement will hurt anything? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mass media sources as reliable / Reliable unpublished sources

Many sources of information that comply with this policy and may be very well known and established may not be entirely accurate or truly reliable and may be subject to bias. What provisions are there for this in this policy, if any? Also, why does this policy persist with excluding independent and unpublisised material and information? There are many significant, important, notable, influential and even popular, writings, musicians, films, etc that may not have the financial means to gain mas media attention to be publisised in order to comply with this policy and as such WP inevitably excluse vital information of encyclopedic importance. Nick carson (talk) 04:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Unpublished materials are excluded because it is impossible for anyone to figure out what an unpublished source actually says. For example: I kept a diary briefly when I was about ten years old. In it, it says that my brother is a toad. Shall we use that as a source for anything, even for the fact that the statement was made? How would you possibly find out whether or not I just made that up? (I did, by the way. It doubtless contained similar complaints, but the diary itself was probably tossed in the trash twenty years ago, so I have no actual idea what was in it.)

As for the rest: It's apparently your personal opinion that mass media is horribly biased. Your view is not widely shared. The consensus is that while the mass media makes mistakes, and has certain fairly well understood limitations, it's much better than most of the alternatives when dealing with current events: e.g., what happened, when did it happened, who did it, where did it happen.

You might want to consider this fact: this policy does not hold the mass media up as the single best source for anything and everything. It's pretty weak for most scientific and medical details. I understand that people writing about philosophy and religions have similar complaints. "Published" does not just mean "in a mainstream newspaper," and other good reliable sources are not excluded merely because we permit the inclusion of mainstream media where appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:33, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It goes without saying that in the case of unpublished material, guidelines (just like this policy) would have to be established to determine if that source was reliable. For example; your diary would not as it can be proven not to be true that your brother is not and was not a toad by simple observation alone. What about all the information out there that is notable, important, significant and has never been the subject matter of any published material? Nick carson (talk) 06:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Nick, what you are talking about goes against one of the core policies of Wikipedia... information that we include in Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. From your comments here and at other policy pages, it seems as if you have a problem with several of our core policies. Perhaps you would be more at home editing some other wiki. Blueboar (talk) 14:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Nick, you still haven't explained how you would find out whether or not such a statement was even made in my old diary. Using unpublished sources lets any liar put down anything he wants, and add a completely fictional reference. How would you ever figure out that it was a made-up reference? You wouldn't be able to prove that my diary didn't contain a statement about my brother's slimier qualities. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Firstly, a 10-year-old's old diary would most likely not be notable, even under what I am suggesting, so it's not a good example to discuss. Please understand that I am not suggesting that information on WP should not be verifiable, rather, I'm asking questions and trying to generate discussion to include alternative forms of verifiable information.

It's also important to remember that not everyone who contributes information baed on OR is lying, be it intentionally or unintentionally, and to assume the worst case is a slack way of dealing with problems, the fact that this model is accepted in many facets of society means little in the way of its quality.

In addition, as I have explained in other discussions; It would be apathetic of me to avoid such problems by leaving Wikipedia. I wouldn't be asking these questions if I didn't genuinely think there were better ways these policies could be structured. What I would like to see is some discussion regarding these questions rather than witness the acceptance of these policies as absolute. Surely they are subject to progression and amendment? Nick carson (talk) 10:28, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

← There are sources that can be considered reliable in the overall sense and sources that can be considered reliable in the narrow, subject specific sense. One example of a "overall" would be Time magazine. An example of a "Narrow, subject specific" would be Fangoria. It can be broken down further as well to localized publications such as the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times or down to area specific publications such as the LA Weekly, The Village Voice or the Detroit Free Press. There are numerous publications that can be used for sources of information, both for fact verification and to aid in establishing notability of a subject. As an example, if a musical artist appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone it would be fairly easy to establish that artists notability. If an artist was mentioned in the "Hype Monitor", that is only online and part of the The Rolling Stone New Music Blog, than not so much. But if that same band had a cover story or featured article in a magazine such as Flipside, BAM, Ink Disease or Ben Is Dead notability could be established as well. There are obvious reasons why self published sources such as press release and websites should not be used. Also the ability to use an official website to verify something such as a tour date is fine. Using a list of live dates from any source to establish notability should not be done. Soundvisions1 (talk) 00:59, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Are all scientific journals reliable?

How does one go about deciding if a scientific journal is a reliable source? With a bit of money, what stops anyone starting a "Journal of Hocus Pocus" and trying to look genuine - especially if there are financial stakes? I ask because some articles cite the Journal of Essential Oil Research described here as a "Trade magazine [...] devoted to the publication of essential oil research and analysis." Could someone please advise? Thanks. pgr94 (talk) 19:24, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Institute for Scientific Information is the most high profile of a couple groups that measure journal impact. They have inclusion criteria for scientific publishing that often serve as a useful baseline for deciding whether a publication is really scientific journal. See their Master Journal List. In this case the Journal of Essential Oil Research does meet their criteria [3], while something like Energy and Environment (a mouth piece for global warming skeptics) does not. Of course being recognized by the ISI does not necessarily make a journal good (there are lots of low-quality journals), but it does suggest that it is not crap. Dragons flight (talk) 19:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply Dragons flight. I'm glad I checked here first! pgr94 (talk) 20:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Third party link appears to go to unrelated page

I was reviewing the RS guidelines and wanted to learn more about what "third-party" means. As best I can tell, WP:RS does not define the term. However, at WP:RS#Overview it does link to Wikipedia:No_original_research#Primary.2C_secondary_and_tertiary_sources. Superficially this seems related, but upon consideration they seem unrelated. I'm interested in "third-party" (and presumably related terms like "first-party"). The linked page talks about primary, secondary, and tertiary sources. Just a simple difference in language and "third-party" is the same as "tertiary source?" Maybe, but I can't reconcile WP:RS telling me "Wikipedia articles should use reliable, third-party, published sources." and WP:NOR telling me "Wikipedia articles should rely mainly on published reliable secondary sources and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources." As such, they cannot be the same thing. So 1) I believe the link in question should be removed, as it is likely to lead to confusion. Any objections? 2) Could someone direct me to a guideline or policy that does define third-party? (If one exists, I would obviously replace the link instead of removing it.) Thank you for any assistance. — Alan De Smet | Talk 23:12, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

A third party source would be one that is not connected to the topic of the article. As an example, if you were writing an article on the history of Mickey Mouse, the Disney website would not be a third party source, but a book written by an expert on cartoons would be. Blueboar (talk) 23:29, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

That's my intuitive understanding, but I was hoping for something a bit more formal. I remain interested in a more formal guideline or policy that defines it if anyone can direct me to one. Meanwhile, I've been bold and removed the link that is likely to cause confusion and doesn't really doesn't add anything. I'd normally be hesitant to edit such a widely referenced guideline, but I don't think eliminating a link is terribly risky. — Alan De Smet | Talk 06:29, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

See wikt:third party, second definition. See also the first definition here and the second definition here. And if that is an adequate explanation for you, then please add the Wiktionary link to the article, because this is the third or fourth time recently that someone's assumed that the word relates to some special Wikipedia-specific definition instead of the plain old definition that you'll find in any dictionary of the English language. Otherwise, please try to help us understand what would be more useful to you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:06, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

My apologies, upon reflection I was unclear, probably because I hadn't sorted it out well in my head. Your comment has helped me sort it out a bit, thank you. I think I can now express the area I still see as undefined. Is third-party relative to the subject of the article or the claim being cited? By way of example, obviously in the Academy Award article, the official site at http://www.oscars.org/ would be first-party and not what we're looking for. But would a link to the 2006 awards on the official site be an appropriate citation in the article Happy Feet for the claim, "Happy Feet won an Academy Award for best animated feature film of the year?" My guess is yes, because the Academy Awards are third-party to the subject of the article, the film Happy Feet. (And it certainly seems a good citation, as no one can be more official than the Awards. All any other source can do is repeat what the Academy announced.) But an alternate interpretation is that the Academy's site is first-party to the claim itself, and thus is a bad citation. I'm asking because my understanding was the former, but another editor believes the latter is correct. (It's actually a different topic, but it is about a group that issues awards. If you're really curious this is the discussion.) Upon having my belief challenged, I sought out the relevant guidelines to learn if one of us was operating under a mistaken understanding, but I'm not finding a clear answer either way. Thanks for your time! — Alan De Smet | Talk 02:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

If you are editing the article Happy Feet... then I would say that oscars.com is a legitimate third party source for the statement "Happy Feet won an Acadamy award for best animated feature film" (the first party source would be the official website of the movie, or its production company). While I suppose oscar.com might be considered a primary source for who won an Oscar, this is a perfect example of the appropriate use of such a source. Blueboar (talk) 17:29, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

The reliability of (any) sources are (always) determined relative to the specific claim being cited. Our mantra that "no source is universally reliable" means that no source is universally independent, universally third-party, universally accurate, universally neutral, etc. The appropriateness of a source is only evaluated in relationship to how it's being used. A source that is being used to support a single sentence does not need to bear the burden of the entire article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

I'm interpreting your first sentence as being "Third-party is considered relative to the claim being cited." So if I understand you, WhatamIdoing, the "Happy Feet won an Oscar" example I gave above would be a bad citation. Assuming I got that right, I appreciate your point of view. But it appears to be different from what Blueboar (and admittedly I) would expect. Thus my desire for a more formal definition in a guideline or policy. I'm not currently finding a formal definition, so I suspect that one does not exist. I think Wikipedia would benefit from such a definition, although I expect hashing out consensus to make such a change would require more than just the three of us. (That mantra is new to me. &hl=en&filter=0 It doesn't appear to be especially used on Wikipedia. If by "our" you mean Wikipedians as a whole, I'm not sure I'd call it "our mantra." Still, I like it. It's a good, memorable summary of an important idea.) — Alan De Smet | Talk 06:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

There are different ways of saying it, but it's a constant theme at RSN. All the entries that begin with "Is my source reliable?" get a reply along the lines of "It depends on how you're using it." No source is universally reliable is just a more formal way of expressing it.

While I consider the Academy Awards website to be an authoritative source for who won what, it's clearly not a third-party source for that information. The people giving the award are the first party in that award-giving exercise, and the people receiving the award are the second party. The fact that a first-party source could be reliable, and even more authoritative than a third-party source, is one of the reasons that we permit the use of first-party sources in limited ways. Does that clarify my position? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:42, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that clarifies your position... and I think what you say here is correct. While the bulk of Wikipedia should be cited to independant third party sources, a first party source might be reliable (indeed, in some circumstances, it may even be the most reliable source) and may be cited, with limitations. Blueboar (talk) 13:23, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Blueboar and WhatamIdoing for your time and thought! — Alan De Smet | Talk 23:43, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A discussion regarding the primary source or secondary source classification of highway maps

Wikipedia talk:No original research#Regarding maps being "primary sources" according to this policy --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Internet Movie Database as a Reliable Source

Over a year ago, an attempt was made to set a policy on the situations in which IMDb could be used as a reliable source (if any). The discussion is here WP:CIMDB. A heated debate on this has just started up again. Anyone wanting to contribute is invited to do so: here. GDallimore (Talk) 11:22, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] consesus documents are more reliable than journal articles, this policy should reflect that

Reports written by consensus bodies like the National Academies of Sciences are much more forceful and should be taken into account much more than any individual journal article. In addition, review articles represent a document on "the accepted state of the art" written, often at the invitation of the editor, by an acknowledged expert in an area. These too are far more reliable than an individual article.

Why doesn't this policy recognize this? PDBailey (talk) 02:20, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

It isn't that this guideline (it isn't a policy) does not recognize this... its that it concerns itself with a more basic issue... explaining what is and is not considered reliable. Since the different types of sources you list (individual journal articles, review artices and reports writen by consensus bodies) are all considered reliable, there is no need to discuss which are more reliable than the others. Obviously, for any given article, we hope that editors will use the most reliable sources that apply. Blueboar (talk) 04:18, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

And when they conflict? i.e. Peter Duesberg has had some success getting articles published claiming that HIV does not cause AIDS, but that doesn't mean much in light of consensus at places like CDC and NIH. PDBailey (talk) 14:19, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

That's why we have core policies like neutral point of view and what Wikipedia is not. See WP:NPOV and WP:NOT. If someone wants to push a fringe view and improperly imply that it is an accepted view, their edits can be challenged and reverted under the principle that Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:53, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

I think what you are saying is that it is so obvious, it does not require saying. I guess I can understand that, especially given the desire to keep the length of the policies to a minimum. PDBailey (talk) 19:30, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

Actually, we are saying exactly the opposite... It is so not-obvious that we can not make a rule on it. We are saying that determining which sources are more reliable than others in any specific field is a matter of editorial judgement best determined by those who are knowlegible about that field, and so can not be legislated by policy... When two sources disagree, and both are reliable, then we discuss what all sides in the debate have to say. However, we also trust our editors to determine how much weight to give to each viewpoint (see WP:NPOV and especially its subsection on Undue Weight. You may also want to see WP:FRINGE which seems to apply in your case.) Blueboar (talk) 20:22, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

One of my cases is actually Radiation hormesis, where I argue the National Academies of Sciences represents the most forceful consensus, defining what is main stream. My co-editor argues that hormesis is not fringe. I have argued essentially this same thing many times. When there is an important policy question, I think the scientific consensus is defined by NAS, not a bunch of people getting little journal articles published, most of which will be debunked, buy only after the four year queue of the journal finally allows the publication. PDBailey (talk) 02:29, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that it may not be possible to come up with a generic rule as you wish. If one simply said "consensus body reports are more reliable than journal articles", then what is to stop someone using that to promote the opinions of a blatantly biased (or thoroughly discredited or disrespected) consensus body? If it were to be specified as "national consensus body", then what would happen were the consensus bodies of different countries disagree? As such, these decisions must be left to those editors with the most knowledge of a field. Unfortunately, you are right though - there are major problems with this approach and its interaction with the greater wikipedia system. LinaMishima (talk) 04:06, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

I often leave radiation hormesis alone for several months and then come back to find it a huge list of articles, mostly in questionable journals, and when I try to bring the article back to some semblance of NPOV I end up in an edit war with the most recent editor who has read some articles on the topic and now things that it is a suppressed truth. The other editors who edit the page are mostly in agreement with them (this topic is such a non-starter for the main stream, who would want to edit it?) and then every time I have to argue that the United Nations and US Congresses consensus bodies are not filled with hacks. I would argue this policy is badly needed, but I might be alone in having these types of problems, and maybe radiation hormesis isn't an important article to have be accurate. In response to your complaint I would say that bodies that consensus are official and commissioned by a state or the UN have more weight than those that are ad hoc. PDBailey (talk) 13:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

You are certainly not alone with this problem - I was once involved in the mess that is (was?) homeopathy, and I know full well the problems that questionable sources being promoted can bring. The problem is that there is a risk that a UN commissioned group could go off on a tangent not supported by the rest of the scientific community, or that a state commissioned group would only write to benefit its state. As such, a general rule really could cause more harm than good, even though it might help in the short term with a specific article. Sadly there is little advice I can give other than to work on getting WP:FRINGE to monitor the article. I admit, it is tempting to offer to monitor the woo myself, however I no longer actively edit on a regular enough basis to offer much support (and I know exactly how damn depressing it can get :( ). Perhaps look to see if there is a specific editing group in existance (or create one, spanning other articles with good anti-woo editors) to guide your articles, and get them to agree (as it would consist of people with knowledge of the field) on rankings for sources. LinaMishima (talk) 14:41, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

If you have not seen it... check out Wikipedia:Scientific consensus, a very good essay that deals with some of these issues. Blueboar (talk) 14:46, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

That's brilliant, thanks for the link! I've created the shortcut WP:SCICON, since that essay looks to be rather useful, and a good summary of arbcon decisions on the matter (and I remember shortcuts better :P). LinaMishima (talk) 14:52, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Reference library category

In order to help facilitate easier location of potential sources of offline information to help verify the notability of article subjects and contents, I have created Category:WikiProject reference libraries and placed into it all of the reference library pages of which I am aware. Please add more project reference libraries to this category if you know of more. Additionally, feel free to create new reference library pages for any particular project as well. They can be very useful. ···日本穣^{? · Talk to Nihonjoe} 20:04, 21 November 2008 (UTC)