Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard

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• Daily Mail fakes own historical front pages --Guy Macon (talk)

Quote from WP:DAILYMAIL: "The Daily Mail may have been more reliable historically"

We need to modify our handling of old pages from The Daily Mail to say that care must be taken to cite the original historical material and watch out for modern, edited versions. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:23, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Christ on a stick, what is wrong with them? This is exactly why some of us do not think the "discouragement" goes far enough.Slatersteven (talk) 15:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Strongly suggest removing the text "Some editors regard the Daily Mail as reliable historically, so old articles may be used in a historical context" from WP:RSP, or cautioning also that they literally fake their own historical articles. Never trust the DM - David Gerard (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That's bizarre. Instead of using their own historical material, they took the trouble to invent fakes that look "old-timey" (and they buried a vaguely-worded disclaimer four pages down). Do they think that slightly yellowed images won't bring in the clicks? Is fabrication simply their instinctive course of action? In any case, I support David Gerard's suggestion. XOR'easter (talk) 19:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I could formulate a rewording ... but idiots try to drive trucks through anything that looks like an exception. So I'd suggest this behaviour is egregious enough to remove the sentence. If people want to argue it case by case they can show they went to a microfilm archive or something, 'cos we literally can't trust the online version or reprints not to make stuff up - David Gerard (talk) 22:27, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

That would be my take, There are archive versions not held by the Daily Myth. Thus any use if the DM must be independent of the DM.Slatersteven (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@XOR'easter:, in this case BoingBoing seems to be insinuating that the Mail may have been trying to make themselves look less pro-Nazi, so there is a motive beyond a contempt for journalistic integrity. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 23:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

To be fair it looks more like a case of "our readers are so shallow they cannot understand anything not couched in modern terms and style". What I do not understand is why bother to make so much effort to create a "Fakesimalie". They could have done a "Yay for us 70 years ago" without "faking" a front page so totally (such as "for King and Empire").Slatersteven (talk) 09:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Remove wording. This is yet another reason why we cannot trust this source. buidhe 01:10, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Done.[1] --Guy Macon (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I would rather this had been given more time for wider feedback, not that I disagree.Slatersteven (talk) 12:53, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

• I am tempted to revert that for 2 main reasons: 1. The inclusion there is the result of two RFC's. The wording is a summary of those RFC outcomes. By changing the wording fundementally in that manner, it no longer reflects the RFC. What that change does is prohibit (at least that is what it will be taken to do) all uses of Daily Mail historical material. It certainly needs a bigger discussion than the brief one here. 2. Its using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The Daily Mail despite its more recent faults has plenty of decent reporting over the decades previous. We cite the original publication, not The Daily Mail's reworked version of it. A more appropriate response would be adding wording to ensure the material cited has been verified from copies of the orignal. We take it on good faith anyway that written sources we dont have access to say what the editor says they do, and any editor using this as an excuse to misrepresent sources would be rumbled pretty quickly. Only in death does duty end (talk) 23:07, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Personally I would we rather used a nuclear bomb over such blatant crappyness, but I get your point, and said as much myself early on. Yes I would rather you reverted and this was made a formal RFC to overturn the last two.Slatersteven (talk) 09:04, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

See [2].

Looks like I need to start a new Daily Mail RfC in order to make any changes to the Daily mail entry in the perennial sources list. --Guy Macon (talk) 09:51, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

See below - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

So we are using a situation source (Boing Boing) to determine the RSP entry of the Daily Mail, that seems rather odd. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 11:58, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It would if that were an accurate summary of the above. Fortunately, it isn't - David Gerard (talk) 12:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

That is an accurate summary of the above and additionally there's no proof. According to a source as good as boingboing.net The Times (apparently the May 2 1945 New York Times is meant) said "London newspapers received the announcement of Hitler's death just as the early editions were going to press but the second editions went 'all-out' on the news, with long obituaries of Hitler and biographical sketches of Doenitz ...". Thus the copy with the label "4A.M. Edition" might well greatly differ from what ends up in archives, and layout might greatly differ too if the early-morning audience was more inclined to visuals. The boingboing.net accusation is far more plausible but in the absence of a reliable source, or a copy of a "4A.M. edition" that differs from the picture, it's not established fact. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:53, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

The term for it is historical negationism which has an illustrious history of practitioners. It is beyond the pale given it is an attempt to rewrite their own history as Nazi sympathizers. -- GreenC 13:20, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

RFC: Remove "reliable historically" sentence from WP:RSPDM summary

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

---

The WP:RSP summary on the Daily Mail includes the sentence "Some editors regard the Daily Mail as reliable historically, so old articles may be used in a historical context". However, the Daily Mail also presents altered versions of its historical content, as documented above. (At the bottom of the altered content was a small single-sentence disclaimer noting it had been "specially edited and adapted" - which was not noticed by many members of the general public.) This leaves readily available historical versions of Daily Mail content questionable - as well as its untrustworthiness per the 2017 WP:DAILYMAIL RFC and its 2019 ratification, the site dailymail.co.uk appears not to be trustworthy about the Daily Mail's own past content.

Suggested options:

1. Remove the "reliable historically" sentence from the summary on WP:RSP
2. Add a qualifier: "Note that dailymail.co.uk is not trustworthy as a source of past content that was printed in the Daily Mail."
3. Do nothing
4. Something else

10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Suggested action on WP:RSPDM

• Remove the sentence - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove as the material they did publish might be reliable, they are just not reliable for having published it. But if it is reliable someone else would have written about it. Thus (and given the possibly of accidental or deliberate abuse) I have to change to remove, if they cannot be trusted over what they themselves have published they cannot be trusted over anything.Slatersteven (talk) 10:14, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove per David Gerard's reasoning below. As a secondary consideration, we should be discoraging use of historical newspaper sources anyway. buidhe 10:39, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove, with the caveat that the print edition may pass, so a print archive might be acceptable? Guy (help!) 11:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

So (in essence) remove and add qualifier?Slatersteven (talk) 11:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't even add suggested ways to use the DM, they'll be taken as blanket permissions - David Gerard (talk) 12:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't look likely to pass, but an official WP consensus opinion that dailymail.co.uk is not a reliable source for the content of the Daily Mail would certainly be interesting - David Gerard (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

• Remove the qualifier, per Slatersteven, and also the notion that these sort of qualifiers confuse the situation. --Jayron32 14:29, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier (though perhaps not needed as obvious). If the dailymail is unreliable, that may extend to their own historical content. But if you pull a dailymail piece off a microfilm archive or online archives not run by the mail ([3], [4]) then there shouldn't be any problem in that regard.--Hippeus (talk) 14:32, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• In my opinion, the best answer is [A] just remove all mention of historical from the Daily mail entry of RSPDM, and [B] have the closing summary of the RfC you are reading now specifically mention that a microfilm archive or online archives not run by The Daily Mail is as good or as bad as the source where you read it. Having this subtlety in the RSPDM will indeed lead to misuse. Having it in the RfC closing summary will allow any editor to use the historical page (assuming that her local library's microfilm collection or www.historic-newspapers.co.uk are reliable sources for what was printed all of those years ago; if some other source starts faking historical newspaper pages we will deal with that specific source in the usual way). So I !vote Remove. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Bad RfC I will not say "support" or "oppose" because that might suggest respect for the WP:RSP essay-class page, which I do not have. It is in fact quite easy to see document images for back copies of the Daily Mail via Gale. (I did so for the May 2 1945 front page via my local library site for free, I assume that others have good library sites too.) WP:DAILYMAIL makes it clear that editors have a right to use such material in some circumstances, regardless what people say in this thread. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove the sentence, and add a statement that historical content on dailymail.co.uk may have been significantly modified from its original version. XOR'easter (talk) 00:08, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier It is possible to trust archives that were archived by trusted sources such as a national library, at the time of publication. Trustworthy archives exist as evidenced by the original BoingBoing post that found the original. -- GreenC 13:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
• Something else - Clarify, do not make false statements. PRESERVE the indication of where there is good content of Daily Mail. I do not see support given re their current print about history, but if you need precision that the good is historical items not current items about history, it should per WP:BATHWATER clarify the good is older published work. These might not be readily available elsewhere, as there simply isn’t much historical sources, and if the guide indicates the previously acknowledged good data is bad, then it’s just a case of the guide is giving false information. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:17, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

• There is certainly good content from the Daily Mail... but there is no indication of which content that is. The OP didn't point out the old content is good, but that it cannot be trusted. They aren't going to put warnings on their stories saying, "This content is okay, the rest is a bit dodgy." It's just not going to happen. This is how these papers compete with each other. They wind up people who otherwise like to believe they don't want to be informed about reality, but warned about reality. They aren't worried about Wikipedia. They are worried about Facebook and Twitter. It feels like they are being thrown out. They aren't even here. They've little to no interest in what this site represents. They just want to make a splash in the pond, not write an encyclopaedia. ~ R.T.G 10:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• Add the reality, or what is the point? Anything less is just covering it up more. ~ R.T.G 10:08, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier that the Daily Mail may change their historical content, making it unreliable. Best practice would be to use another source, or link to a reliable archiving service. LK (talk) 01:19, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
• Remove per nom, or add a qualifier as the second-best option: since they're faking their own historical content, they're not a reliable source even for that. As for the idea of saying that historical content can be cited if one finds and cites the original in a library (and not the current Daily Mail's provably unreliable claims of what the original was)... under what circumstances is a (say) 1951 edition of the Daily Mail going to be both a and also the only reliable source we can find for something, anyway, and under what circumstance is information only reported in one so old edition of them going to be WP:DUE (or, in the case of an article as a whole, WP:NOTABLE)? I think, if anyone is trying to leave open some use of the Daily Mail as acceptable, I'd like there to be a concrete example of that being necessary and not just a contrived hypothetical. (Off-topic, discussing using very old documents as sources makes me think of Chizerots, which has three sources, from 1870, 1909, and 2008 respectively, discussing how "the most beautiful" among them is a "type [that] seems more Arabian than Berberic".) -sche (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
• Add a qualifier. The fact that the Dailymail online cannot be trusted for archives for its past copies does not make their past copies inherently less reliable. You can still find physical copies that can be used for archives. If someone can provide actual evidence of the Daily Mail publishing false stories historically that can be justify the removal of this section. However, that is not the case this situation just makes finding archives of the Daily Mail harder which does not affect reliablity. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 09:25, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Remove. The Daily Mail has never been a trustworthy publication. There is zero reason to ever source anything to it. Anything notable to include will be sourced elsewhere, and anything that only ever appeared on the Daily Mail is likely fake. No qualifiers; there's absolutely nothing usable about it. oknazevad (talk) 17:10, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

  Do you have any evidence that suggests this? How do you know say a 1905 archive copy of the Daily Mail is "likely fake"? Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 23:36, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Remove. In addition to the above, the clause as currently written also invites debate about what counts as "old", which isn't great in terms of guidance. The Perennial Sources page already has "Context matters" in the lead, and "generally prohibited" within the Daily Mail section, both of which already invite wiggle room for instances in which an old edition may be the best source. CMD (talk) 15:08, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• Why are we discussing this - To be honest, this looks like Guy Macon returning, yet again, to this topic on which he has been so vocal for so long ("burn it, burn it with fire!"). We get it, you hate the DM, but what is the actual article-content issue being discussed here? None is presented. FOARP (talk) 10:40, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Clearly you failed to notice the fact that my explanation as to why we are discussing this has been in this thread fo over a month, so let me repeat it for you.

Let's talk about the basic error in thinking that led us here. Again and again I see people claiming that they "just know" that:

• The Daily Mail wouldn't lie about a direct quote,
• wouldn't fabricate an interview,
• wouldn't lie about whether the person who's name is on the top of an editorial is the author who actually wrote those words,
• wouldn't lie if that "author" has a sufficiently famous name,
• wouldn't lie if doing so would result in a lawsuit or fine,
• wouldn't lie about material being original and not plagiarized with a few errors thrown in to make better clickbait,
• etc., etc.

Those who "just know" that there are times when the Daily Mail isn't lying expect the rest of us to find, not just multiple examples of The Daily Mail lying. but examples of them lying in every conceivable situation.

Last month I had no idea that The Daily Mail might lie about the contents of their own historical pages but I knew from experience that they lie in all situations. Now I have an example of them lying in this new specific situation.

I am getting sick and tired of playing Whac-A-Mole. At what point do we simply conclude that those who "just know" that The Daily Mail doesn't lie in some situations "know" no such thing and that The Daily Mail will lie about ANYTHING? --Guy Macon (talk) 09:50, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, every argument made about how the Daily Mail is sometimes reliable has been shown to be flawed. It is ridiculous we have this every time the Daily Mail is source or removed "but its reliable for this one thing". It just cannot be trusted for anything ever, at any time.Slatersteven (talk) 10:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy, you're not playing Whack-a-mole. There is no actual content issue presented here, just a bunch of hypotheticals. You're proposing overturning RFCs that you were the biggest proponent of because you don't think they go far enough. FOARP (talk) 10:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Add qualifier; perhaps a note that the dead tree version can be relied on as a historical document of the time. Although that might be hard to "police". (In which case, just Remove, as I doubt we would be losing much in the long-term.)——Serial ^# 10:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion on WP:RSPDM

I think we should just remove the sentence. It's ill-defined and not well supported in the RFCs themselves - when, precisely, was the DM not terrible? By what measure? - and IMO, encrusting a qualifier with further qualifiers is not clear. And qualifiers have historically been used by editors who want to use bad content as an excuse to add otherwise-unusable content - David Gerard (talk) 10:08, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking that there are things they are notable for (such as the photo of St Pauls), but then if its notable others would have noted it, we don't need to use the (well this) Daily Myth).Slatersteven (talk) 10:19, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

If the result here is "Remove", it would probably also make sense to include an explanation that prevents this from being interpreted as contradicting the original conclusions. Maybe something like, "The original WP:DAILYMAIL RfC left open the possibility that it may have been more reliable historically, but a subsequent RfC [link to this discussion] determined..." Sunrise (talk) 12:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

certainly - it'll be linked as a third listed RFC, link it from WP:DAILYMAIL which is the 2017 RFC ... there will be various sensible ways to handle it. The present text has been modified in uncontroversial ways before, e.g. I noted other "dailymail" domains which aren't the DM, and dailymail.com used to be a proper newspaper, the Charleston Daily Mail, which is in fact used as a source in Wikipedia, before the DM bought it from them - David Gerard (talk) 14:19, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

certainly not - that would modify the closed and archived WP:DAILYMAIL RfC even though the subject here (read the topic, read the questions) is not about that, and even if it were it would not be legitimate here. If you want to overturn what the closers concluded in WP:DAILYMAIL your recourse is WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I think WP:RSPDM in general is not as well written as it could be, and undermines itself in significant ways. In particular, it does not cite its sources or attempt to justify its objections. In order to find those sources we are presumably expected to trawl through a total of 45 separate discussions.

The Daily Mail is a well-established newspaper with relatively wide circulation. It is well known that it is biased, and it is also well-known to be disliked by precisely the sort of demographic that (one would assume) would edit Wikipedia. Given the zeal with which the DM is removed, it is quite easy for someone not intimately involved in the debate to conclude that the issue is not so much that the DM is unreliable, but that editors who denounce it do so for POV reasons. Particularly when the text being removed is something inherently subjective (e.g. a movie review) or where it is used as an example with explicit attribution (e.g. in a section on press coverage of an event).

It might therefore be useful to augment WP:RSPDM and WP:DAILYMAIL with a new essay, putting the reasons for our attitude to the DM and giving appropriate examples so that editors less familiar with the history can catch up and understand why it is being removed. Kahastok talk 15:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

No, that's nonsense. The DM has similar politics to the Times and the Telegraph, but - and this is the key point - those behave rather more like papers of record that aren't given to fabrication.

The primary objection that Wikipedia-type people have to the DM is that they are repeated, habitual liars who make stuff up, and are extensively documented as doing so. Do you really not understand that that's the problem? - David Gerard (talk) 22:24, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I suppose it's probably too much to expect you to actually read what I wrote before writing an abusive response. Kahastok talk 10:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Seems just silly, RSP is lazy and obviously a blanket statement will be sometimes flawed by giving false conclusions. Instead of examining specifics of an item in context per RS, or dealing with Mail had some bits accepted as RS, this just further pursues the false dichotomy of everything published by X is bad in every way or everything published by X is perfect in every way. Silly. The real question should be at what point are we to just ignore the WP:RSP supplement entry in favor of using the senior guidance WP:RS and/or get actual specific judgement of WP:RSN instead ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:33, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

As this RfC has elapsed, I've submitted a request for closure at WP:RFCL § Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#RFC: Remove "reliable historically" sentence from WP:RSPDM summary. — Newslinger talk 06:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Topsy-turvy logic - If I get the logic here, it's that the RFCs "proved" that the DM is a bad source that should be banned, but the proposers disagree with what the RFCs say now because they didn't "prove" that it was ever good. No, if you want to re-open this issue then you reopen the whole issue of the DM ban, you challenge the whole of the analysis of the RFCs, not just the parts you agree with. You want to over-turn an old RFC that basically banned a source (lets not kid ourselves that this isn't what happened or how it's being used - see the eradication campaign details below) because it didn't go far enough, when there was quite a lot of opinion voiced at both RFCs (dozens of editors in both RFCs - many more than have thus far spoken in favour of further extending the ban) that actually it was going too far, you cannot pretend that this ban is uncontroversial except for the parts you think didn't go far enough and that opposition to it never existed. The oppose votes in the previous RFCs must be taken into account here. FOARP (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Additional RfC Question: Under what conditions can we trust The Daily Mail?

(Background discussion moved from section above. See below for the actual additional RfC question)

Let's talk about the basic error in thinking that led us here. Again and again I see people claiming that they "just know" that:

• The Daily Mail wouldn't lie about a direct quote,
• wouldn't fabricate an interview,
• wouldn't lie about whether the person who's name is on the top of an editorial is the author who actually wrote those words,
• wouldn't lie if that "author" has a sufficiently famous name,
• wouldn't lie if doing so would result in a lawsuit or fine,
• wouldn't lie about material being original and not plagiarized with a few errors thrown in to make better clickbait,
• etc., etc.

Those who "just know" that there are times when the Daily Mail isn't lying expect the rest of us to find, not just multiple examples of The Daily Mail lying. but examples of them lying in every conceivable situation. Last week I had no idea that The Daily Mail might lie about the contents of their own historical pages but I knew from experience that they lie in all situations. Now I have an example of them lying in this new specific situation. I am getting sick and tired of playing Whac-A-Mole. At what point do we simply conclude that those who "just know" that The Daily Mail doesn't lie in some situations "know" no such thing and that The Daily Mail will lie about ANYTHING? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:55, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

You will of course believe that this is precisely a problem I keep hitting in DM removals. "Surely it's reliable for his words!" No, why would you think that, it's the DM - David Gerard (talk) 17:17, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Based upon the above, I propose the following:

There are no situations where the post-1960 Daily Mail is reliable for anything. See below for claims about itself.

• If TDM publishes an interview, that does not establish that the interview happened or even that the person interviewed or the person doing the interviewing actually exists.
• If TDM publishes material under a byline, that does not establish that the person named wrote it, even if the person s famous or a paid TDM contributor. TDM can and will fabricate any material and publish it under any byline.
• If TDM publishes material, that does not establish that TDM has the right to publish it or that it was not plagiarized from another publication. All material published by TDM should be treated as a possible copyright violation.
• If TDM plagiarizes material from another publication, that does not establish that TDM did not edit it, introducing false information.
• Regarding using TDM as a source about itself, we can write "On [Date] The Daily Mail wrote X", but we cannot use any internet page controlled by TDM as a source for that claim. TDM cannot be trusted to not silently edit pages it publishes without changing the date or indicating that the page was edited. We should instead cite the Internet Archive Wayback Machine snapshot for that page. For printed pages, we need to cite a source that TDM cannot modify, such as an independent online archive or a library's microfilm collection.
• (added on 19:54, 8 May 2020 (UTC)) In particular, the dailymail.co.uk website must never be used as a citation for anything, including claims about the contents of the dailymail.co.uk website or the print version of The Daily Mail. We are not to assume that what we read on any dailymail.co.uk page is the same as what was there yesterday, nor are we to assume that the content will be the same tomorrow, nor are we to assume that there will be any indication that a page was edited. We also are not to assume that users in different locations or using different browsers will see the same content.
• Even in situations where we have yet to catch TDM publishing false information, TDM is not to be trusted.

Note: I picked post-1960 because 1960 was when David English started his career at TDM. If anyone has evidence of TDM fabricating material before then, we can change the cutoff date. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Additional RfC Question Discussion

• Support as proposer. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:53, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support As it is becoming clear that they cannot even really be trusted for their own opinions.Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• The "1960" date - or any other date, or possible or impossible excuse - will absolutely be taken as a green light for open slather on filling Wikipedia with DM cites - I base this claim on the spectacular examples of DM fans trying to find loopholes in the words "generally prohibited", including one earlier today who claimed that "generally prohibited" didn't mean completely prohibited, therefore his use was probably good.

So I would not support listing a date without strong support for the DM ever having been good at any previous time - that is, clear positive evidence, rather than a lack of negative evidence.

Examples of all the things they do would probably be good too.

I would also explicitly note that the dailymail.co.uk website (by name) literally cannot be trusted as a source for the contents of the Daily Mail, amazing as that sounds - David Gerard (talk) 17:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Point well taken. I just removed the "post-1960" wording. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:41, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

I also added a paragraph covering the possibility of TDM serving up different content to different users. There are documented cases of e-commerce sites giving you a high price if you are using an iPhone and a low price if you are using Windows XP, higher for Beverly Hills and lower for Barstow, etc. It would be technically possible for TDM to serve up different content regarding, say, Brexit to UK, US, and EU readers, and really hard for us to detect them doing so. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:07, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

See below for what DM advocates are like in practice. I could do with backup here from those who can actually read policy - David Gerard (talk) 23:34, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

• Support without the post-1960 wording - David Gerard (talk) 19:46, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support without the post-1960 wording, per above. Let's not waste any more time on this garbage source. buidhe 20:37, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
  • BTW, if people really want to get rid of DM references - talk on WP:RSN doesn't have any effect against dedicated DM warriors (and there really are dedicated DM warriors). The refs need to be got rid of, one edit at a time, and their removal defended (using literally our actual policies). This search is a good start - just start at the top and work down, judging usage and removing or replacing per the RFCs. If a few people even did ten a day, that would help improve Wikipedia greatly - David Gerard (talk) 20:43, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - please respect the seniority in guidance of RS and RSN, and a comment section within a RFC is not a valid RFC. What is in RSP is just some editors opinionating and phrasing, not necessarily a summary or strong consensus of views. If it was wrong in this case is just another example of such is imperfect and limited. I have always found the RSP idea simply too dogmatic and plainly a lazy and silly premise that there can be a perfect dichotomy of all-perfect or all-wrong that applies to all content of a publisher for all time. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:45, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support It's important that we highlight the level of fabrication we're dealing with here, to help good-faith editors understand why the usual exceptions for attributed quotes aren't applicable to DM. –dlthewave ☎ 02:24, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
• Support without 1960 wording. There are zero places where the Daily Mail can be trusted. They're as bad as the National Enquirer. oknazevad (talk) 17:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
• Neutral - I'm of the mind that inclusion of content cited to any news or political source or advocacy should be determined on a case by case basis. I just now saw this YouTube video by Dr. John Campbell, who describes himself as a senior lecturer in nursing studies at the University of Cumbria. Maybe JzG can provide further insight. The only reason I included that link is because at 1:12 into the video, Campbell shows us an article that was published in The Daily Mail's news section. I don't know enough about the TDM to comment beyond neutral, and am simply not comfortable participating in RfCs about topics I know little to nothing about. I typically need more to go on than the opinions of colleagues, although I do take their views into consideration. I prefer having my own hands-on/eyes-on experience before making final decisions. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, the issue here is that we are not qualified to tell if a specific story in the Mail is bollocks or not. So we have to rely on a third party to validate it, and in most cases we'd then cite the third party instead. You simply can't trust the Mail. Maybe the new editor will change that, but with Dacre as ultimate boss still, it seems unlikely. Guy (help!) 18:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support. You have to go really narrow to define a time when the Mail was ever dependable, and you have to start multiplying by j to find a time when it was ever not a rabble-rouser. In particular, any link to the Daily Mail necessarily monetises the "sidebar of shame", which I think Wikipedia really just should not do, out of respect for the reader. Guy (help!) 18:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this unique to the DM?

Do other news sources do this? If so, we probably need to address it at the policy (WP:RS or WP:V) level. Blueboar (talk) 13:59, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Ish, I seem to recall that mock newspapers are common enough, but something tells me they are rather more obvious about not being genuine. But yes I can see this may need to be more general.Slatersteven (talk) 14:12, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

We would have to find a source that [A] Is willing to lie about/fake anything at any time, and [B] has been around for over 100 years. Infowars will lie about anything but nobody is going to believe a claim that something was published by Infowars in 1917. The New York Times might say "we published X in 1917" but they haven't shown themselves to be willing to lie about anything and everything. As far as I can tell, there is only one source that fits both [A] and [B]. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Mmm, the NYT flaws are something RSP supposedly should note, (e.g. they have a thing on for Trump,) and RSP supposedly was/is to capture RSN discussions, not go off and try to evaluate 100 years of publishing where there is no article usage in question. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 19:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Typically you'll see a scan or image and then the actual original text as text - you won't see the actual thing the DM did, which was to say in the headline:

Read history as it happened: Extraordinary Daily Mail pages from the day Adolf Hitler died 70 years ago this week

and then - as a tiny text box in the bottom right corner of the fourth cover image:

SPECIALLY adapted and edited from the original Daily Mail editions of May 2, 1945 and April 30, 1945

without even the original images. And with the text of the articles changed from the 1945 text.

If you wanted to claim this is something that other newspapers do, requiring a general solution, I think you'd need to first provide evidence of other papers doing this - David Gerard (talk) 17:21, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

No this is totally not unique. If you are from the USA, hear this, people know in the UK and Ireland that the tabloids are sensationalist. Sensationalism is not a dirty word in the newspaper media over here. All national sized newspapers are openly biased in one way or another. The least sensational is the London Times (not the Irish Times, the Irish-only national papers are almost as bad as the British ones). This does not mean they are like the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News. That is not what a tabloid is over here. The newspapers are all walking the sensationalist line over here. Like your TV news. Ours is the other way around. Our TV news is almost impeccable. Newspaper news used to feature a teenage girl with her boobs out every day. Get it. Understand. It's not a secret. Our TV news over here is like your National Geographic. They are impeccable, documentary style, highly esteemed. Our newspapers are like, boobs out, SPLASH SHOCK EVERY SINGLE DAY HEADLINES, every single day. You can rely on them for daily gambling news. Newspapers here are the actual authority on that. One of the less popular daily tabloids, the Daily Sport, is nothing but gambling and boobs. There have been sitcoms about British tabloids since maybe forty years ago. They are not ashamed of what they are. It is simply what they are. ZOMG LET ME ASK YOU AGAIN CAN I HEAR THIS RIGHT???? Yes. Just like that. It has muted over the years, but it is still obvious. They run conflicting stories, they sensationalise, *they are often an important informative part of culture*... not simply nonsense like the Weekly World News, always based in fact... but that is as far as they can be surely trusted. If they say a bomb went off, you can be sure one went off... If they say the sky has fallen down, yes, get your umbrella out. Do they receive letters from Elvis on Pluto... no that is not what people are saying about them. Can you trust them to word and check facts as an impeccable source of information? No!! They are sensationalist. They actually try to walk the line between being honourable and being in court. They are not ashamed of that. They exhibit personality, bias, seriously... people do not respect them at all... people love them... You've watched or seen Japanese gameshows, and thought, maybe a lot of the Japanese are actually crazy, right? But RTG... how is newspaper culture supposed to compare to crazy Japanese gameshows??? Well... we can't do Jerry Springer and Oprah like you can... can we. It's like having a different accent. We stress different words. We have different attitudes about different individual things. Overall, it's pretty much the same insofar as it can be. It's like getting to know a different city. It might be north-south. It might be east-west, or it might be none of the above. ~ R.T.G 17:34, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Re "Our TV news over here is like your National Geographic. They are impeccable, documentary style, highly esteemed", see [5] and [6]. I'm just saying. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:02, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, well you can't win them all, but the non-regional newspaper press defaults to popular sensationalism, not impeccable documentarianism. We rely on these sensationalist journals because they are popular and free on the internet, but they are off the cuff, and that is not what Wikipedia is trying to be. Good grief, did I delete the part where I pointed out that we have "newsagents" instead of "drugstores"? Newspapers are very useful to culture over here to inform people of incidents and events in the world around them, but they exist to sensationalise. ~ R.T.G 14:25, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I just saw this discussion while trying to figure out what provoked the sudden onslaught against conservative RS and whole publications that led to the creation of WP:RS/Perennial. It has been consuming a great deal of our time and energy, and I'm not quite convinced that it's all for the good of the project. I don't know anything about the DM or which way it leans but I found the information provided by RTG rather enlightening. I was a bit taken back by the Skeptical Inquirer link that Guy Macon provided to counter RTG's opinion of NatGeo, so I did some research which quickly led me to this NYTimes article. I will also add the following: “Scientific results are always provisional, susceptible to being overturned by some future experiment or observation. Scientists rarely proclaim an absolute truth or absolute certainty. Uncertainty is inevitable at the frontiers of knowledge.” ~ National Geographic Magazine I'm of the mind that as editors of an encyclopedia, we should not let our biases be the determining factor in the sources we choose to cite. No source is perfect - in fact, I don't know of anything manmade that is perfect which is why we are always striving for perfection, and I see that as a good thing. It is when we stop striving and focus only on dismantling and destroying that concerns me. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:04, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You are now at the stage of positing a conspiracy theory against "conservative" sources (actually against sources extensively documented as engaging in fabrication), and seem to be getting to the stage of WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS and trying to out-post your perceived opponents. I urge you to reconsider whether this is the page for that sort of editing behaviour - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

User:RTG Agree, at least for recent history. Newspapers in the U.K. were more restrained and respectful before the 1970s. In the United States, for many years mentions have noted that television news switched to being entertainment and sensationalizing, and newspapers reliability and neutrality were in decline in the 1990s as another ‘death of truth’. Newspapers seem to largely be BIASED, going past individual specialties (e.g. Wall Street Journal covers business) into catering to their local market or playing to a subscriber audience. (e.g. NYT runs anti-Trump, Washington Examiner runs pro-Trump). In some ways that makes it easier for WP to find the POVs, but in general it is a WP issue as editors proclaim EVERYthing from NYT is not just RS but also TRUTH and WEIGHT because NYT said so — or proclaim EVERYthing from Mail is FALSE so not RS and large WEIGHT POVs get obliterated. Seems like 80% or so of what U.K. population sees is deemed non-existent right now. Unless it’s BBC or London Times, it just isn’t acknowledged to exist. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 20:15, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what there is to be done about that. It seems maybe even dangerous, not to have any biases in media at all, and that is because the people themselves cannot be strictly trusted. The people themselves are no more worried about their information services building an encyclopaedia than the Daily Mail is. I struggle with it. What is the popular meme? Even if you tell the people the best thing to do they won't do it. Jimbo Wales has been trying to start a people-driven news service for years. The current iteration is https://wt.social/ ~ R.T.G 11:50, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

• It is not unique to the DM, but the reason we have these sorts of discussion (as I said way back in the original RFC) is that they have a specific combination of prominence and unreliability that is comparatively rare. We can't individually depreciate or ban every single unreliable source; the purpose of these centralized RFCs is to address a situation where a source that is patiently unreliable in any context where we would want to use it is, nonetheless, being extensively used by some editors who try to insist it is reliable. I don't think we can address that in a sweeping sense at a policy level because whatever category we create or define, a source's defenders will insist it doesn't fall into it. When there's a significant disagreement over the facts as they relate to a specific source, and it's leading to constant issues over whether / where it can be used on Wikipedia, a centralized discussion like this is really the only option. --Aquillion (talk) 15:25, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

• The issue is we're dealing with this is an emotive way ("Burn it! Burn it with fire!" to quote the leading advocate of these bans) stripped of any context. Let me give an example of a situation in which it is perfectly OK (in my view) to quote the Daily Mail in article: the film A Welcome to Britain, which taught WW2 US GIs about the UK was shown to a number of British newspaper critics who gave commentary on it. This included a reviewer from the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail reviewer's commentary (as a writer for a widely-selling newspaper) is obviously relevant to quote, alongside other commentary, in the article, as to how it was received. FOARP (talk) 09:01, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, think of it as a Venn diagram. There are sources which present themselves as engaging in serious journalism, and there are sources that routinely make shit up, and the intersection is the Daily Mail. Guy (help!) 18:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

dailymail.co.uk reversion: eyes wanted

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

---

Problem at For Your Eyes Only (short story collection) - see reversion with dismissive edit summaries, ignoring obvious policy issues, and personal attacks on Talk:For Your Eyes Only (short story collection). More eyes needed.

I'll flag more of these in this section as they come up - I assure you, this is an absolutely typical example of the genre: ignore all policy and guidelines, dive straight into the personal attacks - David Gerard (talk) 22:56, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Stop being a disruptive little edit warrior and stop with the outright lies. If you’d bothered to read the bloody message on the talk page, you’ll see that I said I would replace the source. Stop being such a dramah monger. - SchroCat (talk) 23:16, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Please desist in your personal attacks - these are a violation of the policy WP:NPA. I believe my claims are fully supported by the material in the history and on the talk page - you reverted against policy and strong consensus, and made personal attacks. You also responded to citation of policy with citation of essays. Have you considered following Wikipedia hard policy, such as WP:BURDEN? - David Gerard (talk) 23:22, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

No personal attacks, and stop being so disruptive. I have said I will find a replacement in the morning (I first said it about 5 or 6 posts ago, but you've ignored it and kept disruptively pressing your point). Take your little crusade elsewhere until I've had the chance to look properly. It's 12:40am and I'm off to bed, but (for the nth time), I will look again in the morning. In the meantime, reflect that there are ways and means of doing things, and you are not doing things terribly well. - SchroCat (talk) 23:39, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

www.dailymail.co.uk is not an acceptable source. You say you have a better source? Then use that source. Do not re-insert any citation to The Daily Mail. Also, please don't make obviously false claims like "No personal attacks" when 23 minutes earlier you posted a personal attack ("Stop being a disruptive little edit warrior... Stop being such a dramah monger.") --Guy Macon (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

FFS... You really don't bother reading what people say, do you? "You say you have a better source?" I've not said that at all. On several occasions I have said that I will look for one,after a night's sleep. If you are looking for the best way to piss people off with your little crusade, you've found it: an inflexible approach of edit warring to instantly remove information that has been in place for several years, without allowing a few hours for that information to,be replaced? Get a fucking sense of perspective. As to the supposed PAs: I have given a fair description of your approach to this situation. Now back the fuck off for a few hours to allow for a search for a new source. - SchroCat (talk) 04:10, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Or you know, you get a sense of perspective and re-read WP:BATTLEGROUND/WP:CIVIL. Leave the unreliably sourced information out until you have reliable source to back it up. Like everywhere else on Wikipedia. The world will not end if those passages are missing from the article for a few hours. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. SchroCat, I don't even need to leave this thread to see you ignoring policy and being combative and disruptive. Guy Macon clearly read what you wrote, he fucking quoted your personal attacks! If "dramah monger" really does fall under WP:SPADE, then it would be perfectly reasonable for the rest of us to suggest that you're the one starting the drama as if out of some sense of blind entitlement, and being a hypocrite in expecting others to give you a few hours to bring in a replacement source instead of just letting the page not have that information during that time. Ian.thomson (talk) 05:26, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• He obviously didn't read it, given what I've said, but if you want to back up a disruptive process by using personal attacks to call me a hypocrite with a "sense of blind entitlement". then I guess the blindness is thick on the ground here and the PAs are fine to throw around. As I said on the talk page, the information has been in the article for several years, and to a source that is not banned (and yes, Headbomb, the world will also not end if those passages remain in the article for a few hours while an alternative is sought - particularly as some was removed and some left with a cn tag - no logic there at all. And I'll let you strike your sentence saying the information was "unreliably sourced": it wasn't). I had acknowledged that I was going to look for an alternative source, and yet that still gives someone the right to edit war, rather than a few hours grace to find an alternative? Common sense has been replaced with the crusading zeal way too much. You lot have an apexcellent way of pissing people off by not bothering with common sense and choosing the most inflexible and disruptive path that inconveniences readers. - SchroCat (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

BTW, I've struck the lie in the title: I am not an advocate for the Mail and never have been. I voted in favour of the ban of the source and I'm glad to see it being removed, but it's the manner and method of that removal that is disruptive. Find a different way to deal with it, rather than edit warring and then calling me a "DM advocate". (That also falls under NPA, but I don't expect anyone will bother with leaving stupidity messages to warn Gerard about civility with name calling). - SchroCat (talk) 05:54, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Looking at the 2017 RFC and 2019 RFC, I don't see you on either. Did you change usernames? - David Gerard (talk) 19:56, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment This edit removed a reference to the Mail on Sunday. Has the Daily Mail ban been extended to the Mail on Sunday? While they have the same owner they are editorially distinct as far as I am aware. From what I recall of the discussion all the evidence of falsified stories/quotes related exclusively to The Daily Mail title and its online presence. Betty Logan (talk) 06:38, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Neither WP:DAILYMAIL or WP:DAILYMAIL2 covered the Mail on Sunday and there has been no RfC since then that would mean the source is unsuitable. Nice to know the disapprobation of the above (not to say the edit warring and grief) has been over the illicit removal of information cited to a source that is not deprecated. - SchroCat (talk) 07:06, 9 May 2020 (UTC) p.s. I've tweaked the title again to reflect the reality. - SchroCat (talk) 07:09, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat,

• Did you make this edit?[7]
• Did that edit add the source www.dailymail.co.uk?
• Did you also add "work=Daily Mail" in that same edit?
• Is www.dailymail.co.uk the URL for The Daily Mail?
• Did I revert you with this edit?[8]
• Was my edit summary in any way unclear?
• Did you then edit war to re-insert the source www.dailymail.co.uk?[9] again?

These are simple questions. You should be able to provide yes or no answers to each of them, but please do feel free to explain, in detail, why your edits actually added (and were reverted for adding) The Daily Mail] but you are now claiming[10][11]that they only added The Mail on Sunday? --Guy Macon (talk) 08:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Was this or this removing a banned source? Yes or no? Did this whole annoying mess start with the boundaries of WP:DAILYMAIL and WP:DAILYMAIL2 being pushed to delete information removed from a legitimate source? Why, when you removed the www.dailymail.co.uk source (rightly), do you feel it suitable to edit war to delete information cited to a legitimate source? These are simple questions. You should be able to provide answers to each of them.

And again, it comes down not just to the removal of information (some of which was removed illegitimately, some legitimately), but in the crass and inflexible way it was done. As the information has been there for over a decade, was it urgent that it was removed immediately, even after I had said I would look for an alternative after a night's sleep? Again, this is a simple question. You should be able to provide an answer for it. - SchroCat (talk) 09:04, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

A less easy to answer question is how many illicit removals have been made of information sourced to the Mail on Sunday? I do hope that a concerted effort is made to replace the information that should not have been removed. - SchroCat (talk) 09:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Evasion noted. I will take your refusal to give a straight answer as an admission that in this edit[12] you did indeed insert a citation to The Daily Mail. Again, please stop claiming that you only added a citation to The Mail on Sunday.

Re "Why, when you removed the www.dailymail.co.uk source (rightly), do you feel it suitable to edit war to delete information cited to a legitimate source?" First ONE REVERT IS NOT EDIT WARRING. Please retract your false accusation and apologize. Second, I am not required to carefully examine your edits and remove only those portions that violate Wikipedia policy. It is your responsibility to make edits that follow policy. If someone reverts an edit of yours that contains a policy violation along with other material, It is your job to create a new edit that only contains non-violating material. Instead you purposely re-inserted the citation to www.dailymail.co.uk -- a citation that you yourself admit is not allowed. --Guy Macon (talk) 11:15, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

"One revert is not edit warring": yes it is, despite the shouty caps and bolding, if there has been a back-and-forth a couple of times and you join in, then you were as guilty of edit warring and me and Gerard. So no, no retraction, and certainly no apology. As you seem to be trying to avoid any responsibility for removing information cited to a legitimate source, there is little I can (or wish) to say or do. But you keep telling yourself you are perfect and I am the bad guy, if that's the way you want to go. You were in the wrong for some of these actions. Your evasion on the question of how much legitimate information has been removed is noted. No surprises. I'm off; I'll leave you to have The Last Word - I'm sure you'll enjoy that. - SchroCat (talk) 11:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

And again you misrepresent Wikipedia policy. WP:EW says "An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other's contributions... What edit warring is: Wikipedia encourages editors to be bold, but while a potentially controversial change may be made to find out whether it is opposed, another editor may revert it. This may be the beginning of a bold, revert, discuss (BRD) cycle. An edit war only arises if the situation develops into a series of back-and-forth reverts." (emphasis added). Making false accusations against other editors is a form of personal attack. I think it is becoming clear that your behavior is something that needs to be dealt with at WP:ANI. Given the previous blocks in your block log for edit warring and personal attacks, an indefinite block is likely. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I misrepresent nothing. I was actually blocked for undertaking one revert in an edit war between two others, so feel free to take that case up on my behalf. And if you honestly think that going to ANI is a beneficial step, crack on and do just that. Or is it an empty threat and a way to raise my block log? Don't ping me to this page again, I really have no desire to discuss anyone so willfully obtuse who refuses to acknowledge that they have erred even in the slightest (I have admitted it, by the way: it's just you who are trying to evade any sense of doing anything wrong.) - SchroCat (talk) 12:31, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

• Follow-up comment I think there are two issues that emerge from this discussion:

1. It appears that Mail on Sunday is not proscribed by either RFC, and as such citations to it should not be removed without further discussion.
2. There is then the manner in which the sources to The Daily Mail are being culled. While a consensus exists to remove it as source I cannot honestly say this edit exemplifies good practice. The problem with The Daily Mail is that it is untrustworthy, but much of what they report is still accurate. This was acknowledged in the RFC, and one of the arguments advanced by editors in favour of a ban was that an alternative source could be located for credible claims in most cases. Unfortunately this solution is being thwarted by an aggressive culling campaign. This edit removed legitimate encyclopedic information, which is probably to the detriment of the article. In the case of non-controversial claims that are not about living people would it not be better practice to simply remove the source and replace it with a {{citation needed}} tag? While SchroCat technically shouldn't have restored the source I get the sense from him that what he was really doing was restoring the information, and he eventually located alternative sources. Is this not the most desirable outcome?

Betty Logan (talk) 19:40, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Betty Logan, the Mail is deprecated. That means it's untrustworthy. If something is only in the mail, we can't use it; if it is in another source as well, use that instead. Don't use the Daily Mail as a source. Or any tabloid, for that matter. The print edition of the MoS may be considered reliable case by case. But is still a tabloid so a better source is always preferred.

I have two particular problems with the Mail as a source for Wikipedia. The first is how it's used, which is often for trivia, especially salacious trivia (that's their speciality, google "all grown up"). The second, and related, is the notorious "sidebar of shame". I have a serious problem with linking to any site carrying that kind of bullshit from any Wikipedia article. Guy (help!) 10:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So a "quality broadsheet", e.g. The Times, The Daily Telegraph, etc., which quotes the Daily Mail as it's sole source would be acceptable? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:42, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Martinevans123, yes. They can be expected to have fact-checked it. But calling the Telegraph a "quality broadsheet" is a bit of a stretch these days. Guy (help!) 11:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

How would you describe it? Next on the list to be a banned? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, no-one is claiming that the Mail should be retained as a source. Two RfCs (in which I voted to ban its use both times) have confirmed that. What we are talking about is two different things here: 1. Much of this grief started because Gerard edit warred to remove a citation from the hard copy Mail on Sunday. That should not have been removed, and he has still to account for that. 2. The process when information from the Damily Mail or dailymail.co.uk is flawed. In this case the information has been in the article for over a decade, and yet it was suddenly necessary to delete it immediately without providing an adequate window to find a replacement? No. That's just dumb. It doesn't help our readers and it annoys the crap out of people. I said on the article talk page right at the start that I would find a replacement, but this was ignored, and the edit warring continued. How does that help anyone? As it was, the information was finally left in the article overnight (UK time) until I was able to find a replacement in the morning. I cannot see any benefit in the inflexible, unthinking immeditate removal-without-the-option approach. The information is still in the article, and all now connected to a reliable source (two sources at one point). The best outcome has been achieved despite the fervour for the inflexible and immediate approach. - SchroCat (talk) 10:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I had always assumed that anyone removing a DM source was supposed to search for an alternative source, or add a {{cn}}, or both. Not just remove both DM and the info itself wholesale in one edit. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not recall that ever being said, and will make more work as at some point the unsourced material might have to be removed (per wP:v.Slatersteven (talk) 11:05, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As opposed to "make more work" by having to search for the info and a fresh source all over again? Isn't one expected to search for a better source for information sourced to any unreliable source? Isn't that normal procedure? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Tagging with {{Deprecated source}} would also have had the desired effect of highlighting the problem. If such a tag had been left on there for a day or so, that would also have avoided all the kerfuffle; as it is there has been a lot more work invoved because someone edit warred to remove a source that is entirely legitimate`. - SchroCat (talk) 11:07, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

True, but it is a users choice if they wish to remove badly sourced information or tag it. There is no policy that even implies you should add back badly sourced information. We gain nothing with tags all over the pace saying "bad source" "dodgy information" "BorisJophnsonsaidit", we do however (I would argue) lose. Wikipedia has a reputation for unreliability. If our articles are littered with crap even we think is unreliable that image is hardly going to improve.Slatersteven (talk) 11:14, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

I certainly wasn't suggesting we "add back badly sourced information". Quite the reverse. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Martinevans123, no, the onus is on the person including content to find reliable sources. It's an instance of BRD. There have been attempts to claim this by people who fundamentally oppose the entire idea of deprecation, but it's not policy. Guy (help!) 11:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Some of this information was added when the DM was still considered to be WP:RS? Martinevans123 (talk) 11:35, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So? If it is now a dodgy source its a dodgy source.Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

So Guy said "the onus is on the person including content to find reliable sources". I'm just saying that when it was originally added the person may well have been justified in using the DM as a reliable source. A person just removing the source now isn't adding anything. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:09, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

No they are removing something we now know cannot be trusted for information. What Guy said applies just as much to wanting to add information back (or indeed retaining information). This is why the DM was deprecated, because of its massive over use. We now have to clean up that mess.Slatersteven (talk) 12:16, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

But there is absolutely no need to do it in such an inflexible and disruptive way. When Gerard removed a legitimate source and edit warred on it, there was no mess to clean up. When two editors decided to delete information supported by the Press Association and a Scottish newspaper, we're crossing a line between responsible housekeeping and disruptive editing. The orginal title of this section was "‎DM advocate". I'd rather be called a cunt that a DM advocate, but such is the mindset of a small group of zealots that anyone who asks for an 8-hour moritorium on removal is the subject of abuse and lies. Your call on whether you think this is an ideal pathway for the inhabitants of the RS board to behave, but I suggest the approach needs a rethink. - SchroCat (talk) 12:24, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

We seem to be talking at cross purposes. It looks to me to be a rather odd case of WP:BRD. I'm just suggesting that removing material and a DM source wholesale, without any attempt to find an alternative source, might do more harm than good. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:37, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

True, but wp:brd is clear that once material, has been removed it is down to those who wish to include it to make a case at talk, not just add it back with a change of source (you are right, by the way, the new sources should have been enough as far as I can see). Thus (whilst) the DM part of this debate is about RS, the rest is not.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah. So all those instances where I've followed David Gerard round and re-added stuff with a good source (and which he's consistently thanked me for), I should have instead taken to the Talk page? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:47, 10 May 2020 (UTC) And it's not like I've really "followed him round" at all. I've seen his standard edit summary about DM pop up in my watchlist and when I've gone to look at the deletion I've thought "oh that looks like a very reasonable claim, there must be at least one other RS source that supports that...."

That's taking a misreading of BRD too far for any common sense approach. If the source is being challenged, then replacing the source is sufficient, even if that is just replacing exactly the same information, including qquotes. - SchroCat (talk) 12:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

We also have wP:agf, I have no idea abvout this case but I have had trouble finding sources others have found. You are assuming no effort was made.Slatersteven (talk) 12:52, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

A more useful edit summary might say "I've looked for a better source and I can't find one, so am removing"? Martinevans123 (talk) 13:00, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Three things: firstly, I was talking in general about providing a different source when material is challenged. (Don't forget that the verification policy says that @Material that fails verification may be tagged with {{failed verification}} or removed". There is, written into policy, a way that information does not have to be unthkingly removed as a matter of course. It can be tagged for a short period to allow for a replacement to be made. Secondly, If it is removed, there really is no reason to have to discuss replacing it with an alternative source on the talk page. Replacing the information with a new source is entirely appropriate. Thirdly, it seems that a few people have said they can't find the information (although raising AGF is a bit of a straw man here). I found it in two sources and Sarah SV found two sources using variants of the quote made to different journalists; I also found another variant on the official Bond site. Just because the person desparately removing as many DM sources as quickly as possoble didn't find an alternative (and yes, that does pre-suppose they bothered looking), it doesn't mean the infomation isn't there to those who know how to look for things properly. - SchroCat (talk) 13:01, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat, Oh, so David's actions resulted in better sourcing. So we're good then. Shall I close this? Guy (help!) 11:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, may as well gloss over the removing of a legitimate source and the sub-standard way people are demanding the immediate removal without thought to the loss of legitimate information. The lack of flexibility is always a given when a crusade is in progress. - SchroCat (talk) 11:49, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we please only discuss the DM, anything else just confuses the issue.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As long as we are clear that the Mail on Sunday (paper version, not online) should not have been removed. At. All. Neither should the other sources. Part of the problem is that I have seen no comment from Gerard to acknowledge that they were wrong to remove it in the first place and doubly wrong to edit war to remove it a second time. I hope this disruptive approach is not something that is going to be repeated. In terms of the DM info, allowing a short moritorium on finding a new source seems to be a common sense way of approaching this, rather than such an inflexible approach that is currently in favour. - SchroCat (talk) 12:44, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

This RFC is about the daily mail, only the DM and just the DM. If you have other RS issues start a new thread. If you have issue about user conduct this is not then place.Slatersteven (talk)

Actually this sub-thread is (currently) titled "dailymail.co.uk reversion: eyes wanted". Since its opening post it has been nothing to do with the RfC (as such it should never have been a sub-thread of the RfC in the first place; the topic of discussion has not essentially changed since the first post, given we are still discussing matters relating to the opening post). We can change it from a sub-thread to a full thread if you prefer? - SchroCat (talk) 13:10, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

As this is not (and does not appear to be) an RS issue, but rather an issue over user conduct this is not the right venue anyway.Slatersteven (talk) 13:13, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Very true. Once has to question way it was opened in the first place, and why a personal attack was used as the original title. Never mind - but I really don't have high hopes that this has made any difference, and will not be surprised when it inevitably happens again. - SchroCat (talk) 13:19, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Another unreliable source? (www.dailymail.co.uk and www.mi6-hq.com)

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

---

In this edit,[13] SchroCat (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) replaced a citation to [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] with a citation to [ www.mi6-hq.com ]

[14] says "We are a not-for-profit fan website, maintained by men and women passionate about the subject."

[15] says "Want to join a community of Bond experts that has been growing since 1998? MI6 is made more diverse, engaging and current thanks to it's regular contributions by guest authors. We are constantly on the look out for authors, photographers, artists, videographer, podcaster or reviewers, all with a passion for James Bond in print or on the screen. If you have an original idea for a feature, or some tidbit to share, please get in touch with our team."

So, generally reliable or self-published fan site?

The quote "it relates to the fact that if you don't have that Quantum of Solace in a relationship" comes from [ www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-510171/Live-Let-Dye-Daniel-Craig-turns-clock-darkened-hair-007-photocall.html ] (25 January 2008). mi6-hq.com published it at [16] on 30 January 2008. This highlights one of the problems with replacing citations to The Daily Mail; if you search for other sources that say what DM said, you find a bunch of low-quality sources that pretty much parrot what was on the DM page a few days earlier. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:22, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Pretty obviously not an RS, no - David Gerard (talk) 22:25, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

I am getting the usual insults and refusal to follow Wikipedia policies at Talk:For Your Eyes Only (short story collection)#Replacing one unreliable source with another? (www.dailymail.co.uk and www.mi6-hq.com). Normally I would report this at ANI, but I am still recovering from my recent Cardiac Arrest and I don't think the stress would be good for me. Would someone else here be willing to file it? --Guy Macon (talk) 23:30, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

It gets worse and worse. He now claims that in the last few days you went to a library, found not just one but two sources that by an amazing coincidence just happen to contain the exact same quote from The Daily Mail that he edit warred to keep in, and yet for some inexplicable reason he cannot remember who Daniel Craig said it to or when he said it. Meanwhile, the person he says authored the source (Noah Sherna) doesn't seem to exist, but in yet another amazing coincidence, Sherna Noah writes for The Daily Mail.[17] --Guy Macon (talk) 01:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Don't lie. I have claimed nothing of the sort. I have also made no comment on who Craig said it to, so I am unsure where these falsehoods come from. I have advised exactly how you can verify the source, so try reading what I have said properly and use the link provided. - SchroCat (talk) 01:48, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, Sherna Noah works for the Press Association. The Guardian also has a version of the same quote; I've left it on the talk page. It appears to be the same point made during an interview with a different reporter. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:08, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, someone needs to read WP:FANSITE. Guy (help!) 10:21, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, no they don't. Macon needs to ensure he posts all the facts and 1. doesn't miss out key points (like two other reliable sources were added shortly afterwards), and 2. he doesn't lie, like he has above (I did not claim I went to the library and I did not say anything about who Craig was talking to; feel free to look at the article talk page to find out where I have said either of those things. They are entirely false). BTW, FANSITE shortcuts to Wikipedia:External links, which isn't the guideline you are after - you mean WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites. - SchroCat (talk) 10:50, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

SchroCat, mi6-hq.com isn't a fansite, then? Someone should tell the person who maintains it. Wikipedia isn't a fansite either. These articles would mostly be improved by being about half as long. Guy (help!) 11:25, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy, that's not what I said. I was pointing out the link you provided, to FANSITES, actually discusses the addition of fansites in external links, not within articles. The pertinent link on this occasion WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites. - SchroCat (talk) 11:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

When you tell a person to verify a sources by going to a library, meanwhile refusing to say where you checked the source, a reasonable person would conclude that you checked it in a library. (later you decided to reveal that you checked in using an online source). When you repeatedly refuse to answer the simple question of where and when Daniel Craig said that, a reasonable person would conclude that you most likely can't answer the question. When you quote WP:UGC, claiming that it allows use of fansites (the actual wording is "Content from websites whose content is largely user-generated is also generally unacceptable") a reasonable person would assume that you are either incapable or unwilling to follow Wikipedia's rules (something we have already seen with Wikipedia's rules againstr personal attacks). When you repeatedly claim that if you make an edit that violates Wikipedia's sourcing policies, the person reverting you is somehow required to carefully search your edit for any portions that don't violate Wikipedia's policies, and you just flat out ignore it when you are told again and again that there exists no such requirement, a reasonable person would assume that you are either incapable or unwilling to even discuss whether you are following Wikipedia's rules.

This all started with you edit warring to retain [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] as a source and with David Gerard asking you to follow our rules.[18] and correctly identifying [19] that your behavior is typical of someone who fights to keep The Daily mail as a source. Your subsequent behavior here has demonstrated that he was right. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

"When you tell a person to verify a sources by going to a library": I didn't. I told you to go to THE library - the one we have on WP. I even fucking linked it for you. If you're not able to click on the link despite it being handed to you a second time, I do begin to wonder just why you are being so obtuse. Other inaccuracies here include "you quote WP:UGC, claiming that it allows use of fansites": you'll have to read what I said a little more closely. I said "WP:UGC, which advises against, but it certainly doesn't provide a blanket ban against all such sites", and actually there is some deliberate leeway in the wording of the guideline (for example, if such a site was being written by one individual who was a published expert in the area, then it would be a point for discussion). "incapable or unwilling to follow Wikipedia's rules" another tedious PA you like to throw out, and hopelessly wrong too, ditto the link to IDHT - all tiresomly inaccurate.

More nonsense follows; "This all started with you edit warring to retain [ www.dailymail.co.uk ] as a source". Again, that's a straight lie. This started when Gerard removed a reference from the paper version of the Mail on Sunday. A legitimate source. I'll keep repeating that a legitimate source was removed until it finally sinks in and you stop telling porkies. "your behavior is typical of someone who fights to keep The Daily mail as a source" Another straight out falsehood. I don't know how many times I have had to say that I support the ban on the Mail (that I voted for twice) and the idea it should be removed: it's the crass and inflexible way it is being done that it disruptive. Now, if you're done with trolling and telling lies, I'll leave you to it. There is nothing contructive to be had in listening to more falsehoods from you - you appear to be in competition with the Mail to see how many inaccuracies you can cram into each line. - SchroCat (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

[self-reverted] --Guy Macon (talk) 16:38, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, this is thoroughly out of order. SchroCat, it would be better not even to respond. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:51, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

• I have already asked you once not to ping me to this page. Stop. You are behaving like the worst sort of disruptive troll. Stop. - SchroCat (talk) 16:41, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
• mi6-hq.com? Is that Mike Corley? Guy (help!) 10:20, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Mike Corely appears to be focused on conspiracy theories involving MI5 persecution. I don't think he has much interest in James Bond, but of course mi6-hq.com is a fansite where anonymous users can post content, so you never know. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

Can we please not discus 15 different sources in one thread?Slatersteven (talk) 15:34, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

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

Daily Mail: The halving

In Q3 2018, there were 27,336 uses of the Daily Mail as a reference on Wikipedia. At this moment, there are 13,630.

The cleanup of the backlog of bad sources continues. Please use a search something like this one, and help improve Wikipedia. If a few people can each do even ten a day, that'll make Wikipedia a noticeably better place - David Gerard (talk) 21:13, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Daily Mail: It's below 10,000

This deprecated source's backlog has less than 10,000 entries remaining! Your assistance is most welcomed - start at the top of this list (or wherever you like really), and see if you can knock off five - David Gerard (talk) 19:20, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be sensible to remove the cited information when you remove the citation, if you doubt its validity? It doesn't make Wikipedia a better place if you replace thousands of inline citations with "citation needed" templates. It's my understanding that MailOnline citations can continue to be used, for non controversial info. Sionk (talk) 23:58, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

I can assure you that editors have insisted on every possible response as the one and only sensible thing to do about deprecated sites: do nothing, add a tag, replace with a tag, do nothing unless you can replace the cite, remove the info, etc., etc., etc. But it completely varies case by case. It literally always depends and requires editorial judgement - David Gerard (talk) 00:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

most pleased to see others joining in with this, even if I can't work out who it is :-) Number as of this moment: 8,145 - David Gerard (talk) 15:24, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

7,646. Holy crap, we're knocking down this awful backlog - David Gerard (talk) 07:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Pride.com

There was a discussion back in January on the talk page of the article for ContraPoints, in which the reliability of Pride.com was briefly discussed. In the discussion, I asserted that the reliability of the website should probably be taken on a case-by-case basis. The site is said to prominently feature user-submitted content, but it also has an editorial director, and features content by established figures. For example, Jessie Earl, who has also written for The Advocate, has written articles for Pride.com. Fellow editor Bilorv agreed that the Pride.com article used on the ContraPoints page was an acceptable source in that case. However, I'd like more editors to weigh in, so perhaps a consensus regarding the site's status as generally reliable, generally unreliable, or marginally reliable could be listed at WP:RSP. This is my first time starting a discussion on this noticeboard, so I hope I'm doing this correctly. —Matthew - (talk) 13:28, 21 June 2020 (UTC) 16:39, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

• Marginally reliable or generally unreliable per discussion below, pending further information. Similar to Buzzfeed in style, which is categorised as "marginally reliable" on RSP. Potentially usable when the article in question is authored by a journalist known for their work at respectable publications. — Bilorv (talk) 18:46, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
• Whatever Buzzfeed is - see Discussion section for explanation. Loki (talk) 02:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable on case by case basis. Loads of accomplished LGBTQ writers and editors thrown out of work as the news publishing world has contracted now submit independent articles exactly in this way. The standards have not dropped as much as the paychecks have disappeared. Gleeanon409 (talk) 01:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

@MatthewHoobin: Do you know what the process of having an article published on Pride.com involves? Do all articles have to be reviewed by an editor before being published, or can people just post content on demand, similar to Medium.com? Are there published editorial guidelines? Kaldari (talk) 19:28, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping, Matthew. For this to be a formal RfC, I think you need a template at the top of the section with the right category: {{rfc|media}}. You might want to move these comments into a discussion subsection after adding that. As for the source, I'm not even sure Pride.com has an about page. Learning more about its editorial policies would be good, but my inkling is that it's like Buzzfeed, where our consensus is "yellow" and begins Editors find the quality of BuzzFeed articles to be highly inconsistent. I think articles are only usable when written by a journalist known for writing for other respectable sources. A lot of their content wouldn't be usable by WP:NOTNEWS, yet more would be better sourced elsewhere and that leaves its main uses as reviews of TV/film/whatever made by significant critics and special cases, so far as I can see. — Bilorv (talk) 22:08, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Pride.com does seem reminiscent of Buzzfeed in its presentation. I haven't been able to find an About page on the website either. I've tried reaching out to Here Media, the company that owns Pride.com, via email to ask if they have any publicly available editorial guidelines. Hopefully they do and we just haven't been able to find them. The key term there is "publicly available" or "published", because if I get an email response just telling me about their editorial guidelines without providing me with any links, that won't be much help. —Matthew - (talk) 17:23, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

If you look in the sidebars, the Advocate is part of the same publishing company as Pride.com: Pride Publishing Inc. That company appears to be these people. That would normally lead me to the conclusion that the editorial policies are the same (and since the Advocate is reliable, so is Pride.com). However, if we take a look at the page describing all their "brands", the Advocate and Pride.com are described in very different language. Overall, I think I'd agree to categorize them the same as Buzzfeed based on how they're described there. Loki (talk) 02:45, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies. — Newslinger talk 01:07, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Facebook

Should Facebook be subject to a warn edit filter, and/or added to User:XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList, which reverts the use of a source in <ref>...</ref> tags (Note: Does not include external links) for unregistered and new users under 7 days old (Per the IMDb discussion on this noticeboard) to discourage misuse? Facebook is currently cited over 60,000 times on Wikipedia per facebook.com  . Facebook is currently described at RS/P as "Facebook is considered generally unreliable because it is a self-published source with no editorial oversight." 15 specific Facebook pages are currently on the MediaWiki:Spam-blacklist. Facebook is also specifically cited at Wikipedia:Reliable Sources as an example of "unacceptable user-generated sites" Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Facebook)

Please state clearly if you support or oppose the use of an edit filter, XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList, or both

• Oppose as it is acceptable for self source of minor details such as date of birth, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 17:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

That's odd. My facebook page has my date oif birth wrong. Thank goodness it isn't being used as a source for my date of birth. -Roxy the elfin dog . wooF 17:22, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atlantic306: is this an oppose for XLinkBot/RevertReferencesList, which only reverts the use of sources in references for unregistered and new users with less than 7 day old accounts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support warn edit filter and XlinkBot Facebook is almost entirely user generated content, and is extensively used in WP:BLP articles, which require high quality sourcing, which Facebook falls far below. While I agree that it may be useful in limited WP:ABOUTSELF circumstances, Facebook links should be used only with caution by experienced editors and preventing new users from using Facebook would help curb problematic usage. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:15, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support per Hemiauchenia - Admittedly I've used Facebook I believe twice here so extreme caution should be used with it and I agree with Hemiauchenia only experienced editors should be able to add it and even then if should only be added if necessary and in exceptional circumstance. –Davey2010^Talk 20:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose since I oppose the use of edit filters in principle. Debresser (talk) 21:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both—the cases where Facebook should be cited are very rare, inexpienced users are most likely to misuse. I think the helpful effects outweigh the harms from this filter. buidhe 22:03, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support - I wouldn't spam-filter it (yet), it has its uses, but an edit filter is definitely appropriate. Do we have an edit filter as yet that completely blocks additions by IPs and non-autoconfirmed users? - David Gerard (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose setting such an edit filter to disallow. Support setting it to warn. Oppose the bot because it sounds needlessly bitey. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:31, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose bot. When I saw this, I immediately thought of a potential use — a notable person who has a Facebook account but doesn't have anything close to an official website. In general, I believe it would be 100% appropriate to link that person's Facebook site: either the person doesn't care about his privacy and makes lots of stuff visible, or he does care and restricts what's online. With this in mind, bots shouldn't go around removing newly-added Facebook links, since a likely good-use situation exists. Maybe do a filter that warns and tags, but new users can still be productive in this kind of setting, so at most we ought to warn them that it's a bad idea most of the time, and make it so someone can easily go around checking such edits. Nyttend (talk) 00:41, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support: It is a social media website in which people can claim anything without any verifiability and others would believe them. Even its owner has admitted the spread of fake news and hoaxes over it and has done little to curb it. A website with such content should not be allowed here. Also if it is listed on WP:RS as unreliable, allowing to use it will give users and readers the impression that we don't follow our own policies. I disagree with Nyttend over a notable person having only a Facebook account. Even if they do, they can create a LinkedIn profile which would be more acceptable. Fully agree with David Gerald about an IP filter. IPs are mostly the cause of vandalism here and I've seen only a few IPs who contribute something worthwhile. They should be encouraged to create an account none-the-less. It is not like you have to pay to create an account. One can stay anonymous under an account as well. I also support the bot only if it warns the user after it removes the Facebook link from the article. If the User continues, they can be warned from an actual user and then reported at WP:ANI for disruptive editing.U¹ _quattro TALK 01:00, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support blacklisting - unless anyone can prove that Facebook is reliable enough. Not only is it unreliable due to the nature of content monitoring, but it is also being overrun by conspiracy theorists and fake-news-wielding communalists (people who discriminate by religion) in the USA and India respectively. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 02:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose both, Facebook is still a useful, albeit unreliable, source, and including a warning filter for everybody would create the presumption that it should never be used, which is just plain wrong. Automatic reversion is also a bad idea, as that is Bite-y and would harm content more than help it, since there are quite common legitimate reasons to cite Facebook. this is an absolutely awful idea. Specifically, it would decimate articles on politics, very often a person has an account on there which serves as a campaign website. Also, this is not even going into the fact that Facebook can function as a perfectly good primary source. Blacklisting Facebook or putting a filter on it is an absurd overreaction that would have horrible consequences for Wikipedia. Devonian Wombat (talk) 02:50, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  Devonian Wombat, eh? No it wouldn't. It would simply remind people before they add Facebook to check WP:SPS. Guy (help!) 08:34, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

  That’s a good reminder for me to double-check what the person making the proposal is actually saying. Devonian Wombat (talk) 10:48, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support warn+tag as MediaWiki:Tag-deprecated source, oppose bot as only humans can verify whether a Facebook link is appropriate. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:47, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support filter for new users, oppose bot as it would be biting to automatically remove content that new editors think that they have added. – Majavah ^{talk · edits} 06:21, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support this. A "warn" filter doesn't stop it being used, but it will remind people that citing Facebook groups and other such crap is a Bad Idea. Looking at filter logs for 869, the XLinkBot addition is also justified. Guy (help!) 08:33, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both. There are legitimate use cases for Facebook links — for example, I've seen professional organizations make announcements on their Facebook pages before/instead of their own websites — so we should allow such links in principle, but guard against them being introduced willy-nilly. XOR'easter (talk) 19:56, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support including blacklisting or any other restriction. There is nothing reliable about Facebook, as it applies to being a source. Any information can be fudged, verifying accounts is not easy (and in some cases, not possible). Nothing about it qualifies as a primary, secondary or tertiary source. From the perspective of sourcing, it is actually less reliable than a forum. Dennis Brown - 2¢ 00:33, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I think the reliability depends on who is posting on what on Facebook et al. For example WIN News posts news stories to their Facebook pages - example at "RUGBY UNION". Win News Sunshine Coast. Maroochydore: Win Television. 25 May 2020. Retrieved 26 May 2020. --RockerballAustralia (talk) 00:55, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

• I should've pointed out the stories are posted to those pages after they have been broadcast on TV. --RockerballAustralia (talk) 00:56, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose autorevert/blacklist, warning is ok I hate Facebook on many grounds but there is insufficient evidence given of these links being a bad enough problem to warrant interfering with editor judgment in such drastic ways. Per WP:PRIMARY, a self-published post usually isn't a good source; but per the same WP:PRIMARY, it sometimes is. Wikipedia should run on good judgment on these matters, rather than mechanized bots and filters. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 07:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support If the only good source for a claim is Facebook, then it is not notable enough. For discussing personal posts, it is not good enough per WP:BLP.--ReyHahn (talk) 16:47, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose both, but especially the bot, since auto-reversion is an extreme measure that should be reserved for specific, extreme cases. In general, I don't see any evidence of a problem requiring a solution here. An official Facebook page is not any more reliable than an organization or individual's website, but neither is it any less reliable. For the classic situation of notable person/organization using their Facebook page (alone) to post a noteworthy fact or statement, the best practice is what it always has been: to link to both the actual primary source and a reliable secondary source discussing it. But best practices aside, just as bad content is better than no content, bad sources are better than no sources. Quality is iterative, and any measure that discourages editors from providing the actual source where they found information is iterating us in the wrong direction. -- Visviva (talk) 20:36, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
• Warning may be helpful, automated removal or preventing of edits is opposed It's settled policy that there are limited situations in which specific material in Facebook might be acceptable as a source or external link. If editors want to change that policy then that should be done explicitly and clearly and not through the imposition of an edit filter or other technical means. ElKevbo (talk) 03:24, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both, and change the policy to get rid of this and other commercial "social media" apps completely, for multiple reasons. 1. Social media services are unreliable. 2. Social media services are not Web sites, they're apps: they won't load properly without running their non-free malware-spyware JavaScript, so anything sourced to them is unverifiable for everyone who cares about that; linking to them is incompatible with the Wikipedia idea of free culture. 3. Social media apps are inherently advertisements for their own services, making links to them spam. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/them)｜Talk｜Contributions 05:25, 6 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support edit filter. A spot check indicates that most of the existing citations to Facebook do not qualify under the WP:ABOUTSELF policy, and should not be used to support article content. — Newslinger talk 11:18, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

  Support both. Facebook does not exercise editorial oversight in any meaningful sense, which is why it qualifies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Facebook is a hotbed of misinformation and disinformation. Although Facebook is explicitly listed under the user-generated content guideline, many citations of Facebook that do not meet the requirements of WP:ABOUTSELF are added by editors who do not understand that Facebook is generally unreliable. Both of the proposed measures will help rectify this. — Newslinger talk 14:31, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose both per Visvisa. Facebook is fine in certain cases, such as WP:ABOUTSELF information, and statements by organizations. In my experience, municipal- and county-level officials and departments often release statements on Facebook first, and sometimes only on Facebook. I also want to add that we've already drifted way too far from being the encyclopedia anyone can edit. We don't have nearly as many active editors as we should. We don't want to be scaring newbies off - oftentimes excellent contributors start out with well-meaning but misguided edits. The last thing we need is even more hoops for newcomers to jump through. Lastly I want to object to Goldenshimmer's 2nd and 3rd reasons for supporting these proposals. Verifiability doesn't mean it has to be free on a noncommercial website with no tracking scripts. That would block off almost all of the Internet. In research for articles I've written I've used material from numerous local newspapers whose websites look like 2004 came to life on my screen, with obtrusive ads blocking almost all the content so that I have to use "inspect element" in order to actually read the text. Many widely used sources are behind paywalls - The Times of London, the Economist, etc (I don't count NYT/WaPo/etc because their paywalls are easily bypassed by pressing ESC at just the right time during pageload). Sources don't even have to be on the Internet - books are widely used, and often they are more reliable than Internet sources. Our primary goal isn't to promote free-software culture. Our goal is to build the world's largest collection of easily accessible knowledge using any tools available to us, regardless of our personal feelings on their profit model or use of javascript. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 05:32, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  CactusJack: 1. I think you misunderstood me: a Web site using tracking scripts doesn't necessarily make it inappropriate to use, mainly because of their ubiquity (as you point out). Rather, requiring these scripts to run is the issue. Most Web sites will work with such scripts blocked. Social media apps generally will not, and therein is the issue. — 2. I'm not sure why you bring up offline sources; I generally would consider them preferable to online-only sources because they have a longer lifespan and generally reliable access through libraries. — 3. Wikipedia's goal, at least as it presents itself, is first and foremost to promote free culture; it is "the free encyclopedia" after all — promoting free-software culture is an important part of free culture. —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/them)｜Talk｜Contributions 05:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support edit filter: occasionally better than nothing for basic information about public figures per WP:SPS. An edit filter should not discourage these genuine uses, but instead discourage the much more numerous poor uses. — Bilorv (Black Lives Matter) 12:47, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both. Especially when dealing with biographical articles about living persons, at very least a warning about the general unreliability of such self-published sources, and very likely a revert, is appropriate. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:08, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both. Not a reliable source, high probability information found there is factually inaccurate due to its reluctance to employ rigorous fact checking. Acousmana (talk) 19:03, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support edit filter, oppose bot. There are plenty of instances where Facebook is a reliable source for WP:ABOUTSELF type statements and some basic facts by organisations that are the subject of an article who have an official facebook page. I'm not aware there is any method of algorithmically determining what type of Facebook page is being cited from the URI. Thryduulf (talk) 13:15, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support edit filter on the grounds that, as others have observed, it may be an appropriate WP:SELFSOURCE for suitable material that isn't available anywhere else permissible, but in other cases it should be replaced with other sources or the material disincluded from the encyclopedia. Ralbegen (talk) 10:14, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both There are indeed some few legitimate uses (as there are also generally some legitimate uses for other sites which are on the bot list such as Youtube or others) but given the potential for spamming/misuse this seems like a good preventive measure. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Strong oppose both - The New York Times has a FB site. FB now has fact checkers and editorial oversight - they remove fake news. There are numberous business sites on FB, including cable & broadcast programs as well as digital publishers. I'm really concerned we're going overboard here. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Timely FYI from NBC affiliate WANDTV [20] "A Facebook page claiming to be Kohl's is fake, according to Kohl's. The fake page was created on Sunday...According to Kohl's this is a fake page and not associated with the company. They have reached out to Facebook to remove the spoof page." Today is Tuesday & at the time of me writing this comment, the fake Kohl's page is still active on Facebook (here [21]) It's likely that one of these days Facebook might get around to removing the fake Kohls page, but, it's still just anyone's guess as to when Facebook will remove it. BetsyRMadison (talk) 13:43, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support Both - Facebook is not a "news outlet," not a place for "reliable" information, and Facebook doesn't pretend to be either one of those things. In fact, Facebook doesn't pretend to be anything other than a giant blog whose mission is for people "to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them."[22] I underscore "to them" because the "to them" are individuals around the globe who litter Facebook with fake news, conspiracy theories, and propaganda; some of which is geared to incite violence and intentionally cause harm to public health. For example: "over 40% of the coronavirus-related misinformation it found on Facebook — which had already been debunked by fact-checking organizations working with the tech giant — remained on the platform despite the company being told by these organizations that the social media posts were false." [23] Like I said, Facebook doesn't even pretend to be a reliable source for information, so I do not recommend any encyclopedia using Facebook as a "reliable source." BetsyRMadison (talk) 13:26, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support both Nothing published in Facebook qualifies as a primary, secondary or tertiary source. While we use care even when using blogs, using only those connected to and fact checked by major news sources, I can't imagine why we'd want to use sources that in theory are no more accurate than Wikipedia. Some editors have suggested that Facebook is reliable for a few small facts that are not available elsewhere. Considering that we strive so hard to keep our encyclopedia factual, why should we risk our integrity for a few small facts? If we can't find it elsewhere we don't need it. Gandydancer (talk) 14:33, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support filter warning users of best practices, Oppose bot warning, most notable people and organizations worldwide use Facebook legitimately; for most, I believe, third-world users, Facebook *is* the Internet. Our view of social networking needs to evolve to welcome and transform Facebook citers into better Wikipedians. Gleeanon409 (talk) 11:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Constant attempts at scrubbing and obfuscation at Falun Gong articles: Falun Gong, Shen Yun, The Epoch Times, Li Hongzhi, New Tang Dynasty Television, etc.

Many of you here are no doubt familiar with The Epoch Times at this point, but far fewer editors are familiar with the broader organization behind this media entity. Here's a brief overview from a recent article from Los Angeles Magazine:

Both Shen Yun and Epoch Times are funded and operated by members of Falun Gong, a controversial spiritual group that was banned by China’s government in 1999 … Falun Gong melds traditional Taoist principles with occasionally bizarre pronouncements from its Chinese-born founder and leader, Li Hongzhi. Among other pronouncements, Li has claimed that aliens started invading human minds in the beginning of the 20th century, leading to mass corruption and the invention of computers. He has also denounced feminism and homosexuality and claimed he can walk through walls and levitate. But the central tenet of the group’s wide-ranging belief system is its fierce opposition to communism.

In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences. Over the years Shen Yun and Epoch Times, while nominally separate organizations, have operated in tandem in Falun Gong’s ongoing PR campaign against the Chinese government, taking directions from Li.

Despite its conservative agenda, Epoch Times took pains until recently to avoid wading into partisan U.S. politics. That all changed in June 2015 after Donald Trump descended on a golden escalator to announce his presidential candidacy, proclaiming that he “beat China all the time.” In Trump, Falun Gong saw more than just an ally—it saw a savior. As a former Epoch Times editor told NBC News, the group’s leaders “believe that Trump was sent by heaven to destroy the communist party.

Source: Braslow, Samuel. 2020. "Inside the Shadowy World of Shen Yun and Its Secret Pro-Trump Ties". Los Angeles Magazine. March 9, 2020. Online Archived 26 May 2020 at the Wayback Machine.

And according to NBC News:

The Epoch Media Group, along with Shen Yun, a dance troupe known for its ubiquitous advertising and unsettling performances, make up the outreach effort of Falun Gong, a relatively new spiritual practice that combines ancient Chinese meditative exercises, mysticism and often ultraconservative cultural worldviews. Falun Gong’s founder has referred to Epoch Media Group as “our media,” and the group’s practice heavily informs The Epoch Times’ coverage, according to former employees who spoke with NBC News.

The Epoch Times, digital production company NTD and the heavily advertised dance troupe Shen Yun make up the nonprofit network that Li calls “our media.” Financial documents paint a complicated picture of more than a dozen technically separate organizations that appear to share missions, money and executives. Though the source of their revenue is unclear, the most recent financial records from each organization paint a picture of an overall business thriving in the Trump era.

Source: Collins, Zadrozny & Ben Collins. 2019. "Trump, QAnon and an impending judgment day: Behind the Facebook-fueled rise of The Epoch Times". NBC News. August 20, 2019. Online Archived 23 August 2019 at the Wayback Machine.

This is also happening here in Germany:

In the United States, the Times bills itself as the newspaper that President Donald Trump views as “the most credible” and the only one he trusts. The U.S. version of the newspaper is a far tamer version than its German cousin, but it has won over fans in the far-right with its exhaustive coverage of “Spygate,” a theory pushed by the president who claims the FBI “spied” on his campaign and a “criminal deep state” sought to undermine his presidency. Revenues for the newspaper have doubled since Trump took office, according to the group’s tax filings.

Source: Hettena, Seth. 2019. "The Obscure Newspaper Fueling the Far-Right in Europe". New Republic. September 17, 2019. Online.

Anyway, currently quite a few Falun Gong articles—Falun Gong, Shen Yun, The Epoch Times, Li Hongzhi, New Tang Dynasty Television, Society of Classical Poets, and several more—are either in a state of either reading as essentially promotional pieces for the new religious movement or are the subject of daily attempts at scrubbing, like this attempt from today. This often occurs from single-subject, new accounts, or accounts with very new edit histories.

These articles could really use a lot of work with reliable sources outlining developments in these circles since 2016, particularly the topics mentioned in the quotes above. If nothing else, these articles all really need many more editors keeping an eye on them to ensure that they do not revert back to promotional pieces parroting the talking points of the organizations they outline. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:00, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I have a few comments below:

• User Bloodofox's edits on the FLG articles were not proper.

Bloodofox made a huge change to the lede of the Falun Gong article on May 18.[24] Other users（not me）tried to cancel the edit. Their reasons have nothing to do whether those sources were RS or not, but were as one user explained on the article talk page on 5 June:

"With respect to WP:BURDEN, a reminder that the lede section was very stable for years. It was substantially altered by Bloodofox beginning a few weeks ago. Legitimate concerns were raised regarding Bloodofox's edits with respect to WP:LEAD, WP:V, and WP:NPOV, including WP:WEIGHT. These concerns have been repeatedly raised, and never addressed. Instead, users have edit warred to enforce their preferred version, and repeatedly accused other editors of acting in bad faith. This is not a platform for activism, and it is not a battleground."

• User Bloodofox​​​​​​​ has misrepresented his own sources:

As I commented on the talk page on 5 June, NYT and NBC were misrepresented. Aside from that, the line "The Falun Gong administers a variety of extensions in the United States and abroad" and the line "The new religious movement also operates Shen Yun" Bloodofox added to the lead section of the article, also cannot be supported by any of the 6 sources provided , including these above 3 sources Bloodofox​​​​​​​ posted. But Bloodofox​​​​​​​ reverted any correction of his misrepresentations.

• Bloodofox​​​​​​​ is not supposed to copy the long paragraphs of his preferred sources on RSN. Plus the views from those sources are different views from other reliable sources. For example, reference a said "In 2000, John Tang and a group of Chinese Americans started The Epoch Times in his Atlanta, Georgia basement. ​​​​​​​", which was contrary to the LA Mag Think Blog source. Bloodofox removed many reliable sources [25] that say to the contrary to his views. Here are some of the deleted sources by Bloodofox.

• http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=56301%7Carchive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140223153614/http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=56301
• https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-21/what-is-the-falun-gong-movement-and-does-china-harvest-organs/9679690
• https://freedomhouse.org/report/2017/battle-china-spirit-falun-gong-religious-freedom
• https://web.archive.org/web/20140223153614/http://newsweekly.com.au/article.php?id=56301
• https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewelinaochab/2019/06/17/the-china-tribunal-pronounced-its-verdict-on-organ-harvesting-in-china/
• http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3340868/ns/world_news/t/falun-gong-thrives-us/

Based on NPOV, different views from different RS should be proportionally presented. Bloodofox seems to have a strong viewpoint on FLG related topics. He promoted his favorite sources, misrepresented those sources and deleted other correctly represented reliable sources that express views contrary to his. He should stop advocating his own views in Wikipedia and blocking others’ legitimate edits. Precious Stone 21:25, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

There are some issues with the sources listed above:

1. "Be The People News" is the personal website of conservative analyst Carol M. Swain, and the podcast episode is a non-independent interview of Dana Cheng, the co-founder and vice president of The Epoch Times (RSP entry).
2. Forbes.com contributor articles (RSP entry) are considered self-published and generally unreliable, unless the contributor's "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications". Can you link to where this is the case for Ewelina U. Ochab?
3. There is disagreement on whether the News Weekly is a reliable source. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 38 § Australian News Weekly. and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 288 § newsweekly.com.au for details.
4. Freedom House is a think tank, which is not necessarily unreliable, but should be attributed in-text for any controversial claims.

Can you clarify how the other sources are "contrary" to Bloodofox's proposed wording? — Newslinger talk 22:16, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for checking the details of these sources and letting me know some of them may not be reliable. Here is only one "contrary" example (there are a few other examples):

1. as Bloodofox posted in this RSN page above from the LA MAG City Think Blog

"In 2000, Li founded Epoch Times to disseminate Falun Gong talking points to American readers. Six years later he launched Shen Yun as another vehicle to promote his teachings to mainstream Western audiences."

.

2. But the NBC report Bloodofox used for other info said

“The publication had been founded nine years earlier in Georgia by John Tang, a Chinese American practitioner of Falun Gong and current president of New Tang Dynasty.The publication had been founded nine years earlier in Georgia by John Tang, a Chinese American practitioner of Falun Gong and current president of New Tang Dynasty.”

3. The SF Chronicle report said

"Shen Yun was formed in 2006 by followers of Falun Gong, which Li Hongzhi had founded in China in 1992 and drew on the tradition of qigong, in which breathing, meditation and movement foster good health or spiritual enlightenment."

.

(Please note in my post above, the Newsweekly source were typed twice, which was a typo I made on this RSN page - one time should be used for this SF Chronicle source - that was used in the article and was deleted by Bloodofox)

Bloodofox's info that Epochtimes and Shen Yun were founded or launched by Li is quite different with the NBC source and the SF Chronicle source, which said Epochtimes and Shen Yun were founded by John Tang in 2000 and by followers of Falun Gong in 2006 respectively. There are many other sources confirming such info. Precious Stone 03:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

I don’t see the conflict between sources you describe, they seem to be in almost complete agreement on the important details. Are you trying to argue that Shen Yun and The Epoch Times aren’t part of the FG movement? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:38, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Above shows the LA Mag City Think Blog info is contradictory with other sources. Aside from that, I have said to you many times that the line "The Falun Gong administers a variety of extensions in the United States and abroad..." and the line "The new religious movement also operates Shen Yun" Bloodofox added to the lead section of the article, also cannot be supported by any of the 6 sources provided. you disagree with me. it is simple, please follow WP:V, and show every one here.

All material in Wikipedia mainspace, including everything in articles, lists and captions, must be verifiable. All quotations, and any material whose venerability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material

.Precious Stone 21:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Contention in this topic area has been going on for years. See Talk:The Epoch Times/Archive 3#"Associated with" is vague, where Binksternet provides quite a few references that could still be useful. Such as: Author Lao Cheng-Wu says that the Epoch Times newspaper was originally the Epoch Times Weekly, a free-of-charge propaganda sheet which was published by the Falun Dafa Research Society, controlled by Falun Gong founder Li Hongzhi in Taiwan, before it was "restructured" to become the international newspaper that we know today.[26] and Professor Kevin J. O'Brien of the University of California at Berkeley writes that spokespersons of the Epoch Times have said the newspaper is not affiliated with the Falun Gong, but all the evidence demonstrates otherwise, that the newspaper's articles show a strong connection to the Falun Gong.[27] Mojoworker (talk) 19:46, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

This intractible dispute needs to go before the Abitration Committee, I don't see how it's going to get resolved otherwise. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps, but meanwhile there is a new RfC at Talk:Falun Gong#RfC on describing Falun Gong as a new religious movement. Doug Weller talk 09:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

We have got to remember the Persecution of Falun Gong. As in, if you are a member, they might kill you and sell your organs. So the flip side is that there could be Chinese Gov't efforts to put everything negative one can think of into Falun Gong-related articles. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:38, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Fox News

Which of the following best describes the reliability of the reporting of Fox News? (as separate from their cable pundits) foxnews.com   has been cited over 15,000 times on Wikipedia.

• Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting
• Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting
• Option 4: Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated as in the 2017 RfC of the Daily Mail

Additional questions:

• Does FOXNews.com have a separate reliability from their cable news reporting?
• Do local affiliate stations have a separate reliability to the main Fox News operation?
• Is Fox News reliable for US Politics?

The last RfC on Fox News was in 2010, Fox News is currently described at the RS/P as:

FOX News was determined by consensus to be generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG. The network consists of 12 news bureaus worldwide, including their New York headquarters. Several shows in the channel's news lineup include America's Newsroom, The Daily Briefing, Bill Hemmer Reports (replaced Shepard Smith), Special Report with Bret Baier, The Story with Martha MacCallum, and Chris Wallace anchoring Fox News Sunday. Some editors perceive FOX News to be a biased source whereas others do not; neither affects reliability of the source. Editors should always exercise caution when choosing sources, and treat talk show content hosted by political pundits as opinion pieces, avoid stating opinions in Wikivoice and use intext attribution as applicable. The Fox News website maintains a form for requesting corrections.

Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:20, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Responses (Fox News)

• Option2: In view of recent events, their reporting seems biased towards information discrediting the protests. However, their factual reporting of non politically charged subjects stays adequate. That being said, I noticed that they give a lot of weight to POTUS since it was revealed that he was a regular watcher. Being nearly the only network giving him interviews. Feynstein (talk) 18:33, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fox News is a standard WP:NEWSORG, yes it may contain a bias (most RSs do), but does not mean it is not reliable. Fox also issues corrections which further indicates fact-checking. At this point it is beating a dead horse unless some substantive evidence can be presented on the contrary. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 18:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 or 3 (lean towards 2), the quality of the core network’s reporting has declined over the last decade. Care must be taken though, most network affiliates (such as WTIC-TV) remain generally reliable sources and I want any downgrade to be clear about that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:54, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Options 1/2. Option 1 for straight news reporting. Fox News's straight news reporting is very different from their talk shows like Hannity, Ingraham, etc. Their news department's bias appears more in what things they choose to cover than in how they cover it. This bias doesn't make it unreliable - almost all news orgs have some form of bias. However, given the network's close ties with Donald Trump, I think option 2 is warranted for coverage of Trump in particular.
  I don't think any outcome of this RfC should apply to content produced by local bureaus affiliated with Fox. In my experience those bureaus are no more or less reliable than other local news bureaus. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 19:00, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Per User:Spy-cycle. Fox News does appropriate fact checking on their reports. This establishes reliability of their works in general and the fact that it is cited quite a lot means that most in wikipedia understand that it is a standard news organization. Furthermore, the others who say that it is not as reliable are going to argue based on subjective measures of not liking it with no empirical metrics. The fact that Fox News tends to have notable commentators like senators, representatives, etc that are notable right wing and left wing on shows like Tucker Carlson and Hannity's shows means they are not like Daily Mail. Also some heavy members of government like Mike Huckabee (ex governor and ex presidential candidate) and Jason Chaffetz (ex congress member) actually host some of the programs and this gives the network insider access to details on developing news. Furthermore, emotional reporting done by CNN and MSNBC does not demote them either. The point on reliability is not whether their stories end up to be true, it is do they have fact checking. Many news stories are developing so the details get confirmed and then rejected as time goes on and as more information emerges. CNN and MSNBC were wrong about Russian Collision, Muller Report, impeachment proceedings on Trump, and other stuff, but they would not be unreliable in Wikipedia's eyes either.Ramos1990 (talk) 19:22, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1, except for prime time "pundit" reporting about Trump. Speaking generally about, for example, articles posted to the website, Ad Fontes, an organization that analyzes and compares news sources, considers the website reliable. I agree with CactusJack. --Bsherr (talk) 19:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Bsherr:You might want to double check that source... They put Fox News in the “Red Rectangle: Nonesense damaging to public discourse“ [28] which is their lowest category, they rate it below Daily Mail and I see no indication that they endorse Fox New’s reliability (at most they say “Reliability scores for articles and shows are on a scale of 0-64. Scores above 24 are generally acceptable; scores above 32 are generally good.” while assigning Fox News a score of 26.75). Can you elaborate? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 21:01, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 - (less pundits) didn't we just have an RfC about Fox News a few months ago? Did the OP check to see before calling this RfC?? Fox News is as reliable a source as the other cable news networks that also host pundits. The news is reliable, the pundits are opinion. See the write-up at WP:RS/Perennial sources. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:53, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Adding links to demonstrate that Fox political commentary (not it's newscasts) is very much like that of all other mainstream media except with a conservative bias; the latter of which is not a valid reason to demote a RS anymore than it is valid to demote CNN for it's liberal bias. The US has a two-party system so biased opposition is expected. Pew Research demonstrates the stark partisan split of Fox News Channel viewers, noting that it is by far the most watched cable news channel. Pew states: Liberal Democrats are far more likely than conservative or moderate Democrats to say they distrust Fox news (77% vs. 48%). The Game of the Name, A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, The Rise and Fall of the Obama-Media Romance ^{16:10, 15 June 2020 (UTC)}

  Sidebar note to closer (for clarity) - I just want to distinguish between the political pundits that headline Fox News Channel's primetime line-up vs actual news reporting by Fox news anchors, such as Special Report w/Bret Baier, Fox News at Night w/Shannon Bream, Bill Hemmer Reports, America's Newsroom w/Ed Henry and Sandra Smith (reporter), Fox News Sunday w/Chris Wallace, etc. This RfC is supposed to be focused only on the newscasting, not the political commentary by political pundits on The Five, Hannity, Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Fox & Friends in the mornings, etc. but several of the iVotes indicate that the two have been conflated. CNN refers to their political pundit Don Lemon as a news journalist despite the fact that his show is not a newscast, rather it is biased political commentary not unlike the political pundits on Fox News Channel, and the same or similar applies to Wolf Blitzer, Chris Cuomo, Anderson Cooper, Jake Tapper, etc. none of whom anchor a newscast; rather they host commentary/opinion. We would not downgrade CNN News because of their political pundits. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:08, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3. You can track how Fox's news output has moved over the last three to four years from a right-leaning mainstream source to part of the conservative media bubble. It's extensively documented in Yochai Benkler's Network Propaganda, and you can track it over successive iterations of the Ad Fontes chart. You can also see it in specific events such as the departure of Shep Smith. It used to be that Fox talk shows were junk, and Fox news broadcasts and websites were OK. Not so any more. Example: "the amount of coverage Fox News devotes to [Antifa] is preposterous. A search for “antifa” on Fox News’ website from November 2016 to the present returns 668 results, while “homelessness” returns 587, and “OxyContin,” 140. “Permafrost” returns 69. A decentralized, leaderless activist group with no record of lethal violence in this country, antifa has been skilfully transmogrified by the conservative media into one of the gravest threats facing Americans in 2019" [29]. The wall of separation between reporting and opinion has long since been blown away, and Fox is now the media arm of the administration. On CO|VID-19 it has published outright misinformation "Tara Setmayer, a spring 2020 Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics and former Republican Party communications director, said what’s coming from Fox News and other pro-Trump media goes well beyond misinformation. Whether downplaying the views of government experts on COVID-19’s lethality, blaming China or philanthropist Bill Gates for its spread, or cheering shutdown protests funded by Republican political groups, it’s all part of “an active disinformation campaign,” she said, aimed at deflecting the president’s responsibility as he wages a reelection campaign." [30] I could go on. Fox has changed over the last three to four years, in a meaningful way, and we should recognise that. Guy (help!) 20:56, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  I do not know the reliablity of Yochai Benkler's "Network Propaganda", not listed at RSP so I cannot determine its usefulness in this discussion. The opinion of a Buzzfeed News journalist on how much coverage Fox News should give to Antifa compared to homelessness is irrelavent. We need to know whether these articles produced by Fox are reliable and fact checked (which as I explained above I believe they are) not what topics they do and do not cover. I cannot speak for the latter half of your comment since it is an offhand quote from Tara Setmaye as opposed to a multitude of RSs. It is possible Setmayer is true but was referring to the talk shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight which is more likely to be true as opposed to the website. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 21:24, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Benkler et al.'s Network Propaganda is a peer-reviewed Oxford University Press book.[31] Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  It doesn't matter for our purposes whether Fox covers various news events proportionally. What matters is whether specific news articles produced by Fox News are reliably accurate. If we were using Fox News coverage as an integrated whole to tell what current events are important based on their coverage, yes, that would be a problem, because they often selectively choose what topics to cover most heavily. But Fox's lack of coverage of the opioid crisis, for example, has no bearing on whether an individual Fox News article on homelessness, for example, is accurate. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 21:29, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  I'll just add a bit of clarity per an NPR interview with Benkler: INSKEEP: Benkler was drawing a picture of something we can't really see, how millions of people find and pass on information. He's a Harvard professor. He also works with the Open Society Foundations. Those are the pro-democracy groups funded by George Soros, the financier who has commonly backed Democrats in the United States. Does anyone have a link to the "peer review" so we can see who was on that panel? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 16:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment I agree with other commenters that the reliability of their cable pundits are separate from their news operation (I would consider the pundits to be generally unreliable considering their recent role in downplaying the Pandemic and for many other misleading and false statements made throughout the years). However their publication of a false story about Seth Rich working with Wikileaks was an egrigious error of judgement, which they (thankfully) subsequently retracted, which makes them much better than some sources (cough, OpIndia, cough). However, their decision to publish the story in the first place makes me question their editorial judgement. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:48, 7 June 2020 UTC)
• Concerns have been raised about other articles in Fox News by Malia Zimmerman, the author of the Seth Rich report, see The New Republic and Quartz

  That was Hannity - a pundit. Maddow does the same stuff only different topics. We've also endured 2 or 3 years of a Russian collusion nothingburger by left leaning sources. Our job is to bypass the speculation, conspiracy theories and biased opinion journalism regardless of who is publishing it - they all do. Stick to WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NEWSORG - the latter of which are now conglomerates. Wait for the historians and academics to give their retrospective accountings. There is no argument here that I've read that is not based in political opinion, and that is not a valid reason to declare the most watched cable news show unreliable. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Atsme:, While Hannity also spread the conspiracy theory, it was also reported on at foxnews.com, see this archive. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:01, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  That archived report was simply a news report - the big 3 also reported the incident. ABC reported it and criticized Fox "commentators", not Fox newscasters. Please state the facts accurately. Fox has criticized the networks as well for their misreporting of events. It goes back and forth. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:09, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, MSNBC is not reliable for factual reporting. Even though Maddow, unlike Hannity, does cite her sources. Guy (help!) 23:03, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Guy, do you frequently watch Hannity or Maddow? If my memory serves, they're on at the same time? From what I understand, Hannity actually interviews the sources on his show (radio talk-show, too). I can quickly recall Maddow's "self-defeating spectacle" per Slate over Trump's tax returns, and there are several such spectacles, not unlike Hannity's but guess who leads in the ratings for whatever reason? And what exactly determines "mainstream" - one's POV, or the ratings? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:24, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3 I would not trust anything I read on Wikipedia that was cited to Fox News content alone. They purposefully manipulate their content for political attention and have an obvious bias that should disqualify them from any use as a reference for even the most basic facts, especially when it comes to America and/or the rest of the world. GPinkerton (talk) 21:50, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, Fox News is politically biased to the extent that it affects their supposedly factual reporting. Take this article, front page of their website right now, about the New York Times, which is titled: Liberal paper's editorial page editor steps down amid fury over Cotton op-ed note that the actual article once you click on it is titled differently, meaning that they specifically had this title on their home page in order to drive up rage in place of actually reporting. This is just one example of many, Fox News is a right-wing propaganda outlet that is most certainly not reliable. I would not go so far as to call them unreliable, since as far as I know they have not published downright false information systematically, but I am changing my vote per comments below, any source which publishes climate change denial and Seth Rich conspiracy theories is not reliable. Having that green next to their name is a display in bothsidesism that is not reflected in reality. Devonian Wombat (talk) 22:18, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Which part of the headline was inaccurate? The NYT itself reported that its editorial page editor had resigned and that his resignation was connected to negative response to the publication of Tom Cotton's op-ed. [32] --Metropolitan90 (talk) 04:14, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
  • The New York Times is a left-wing paper. The headline you're referring to is completely accurate (if real). Many news organizations title their headlines differently on the main page than the actual article and usually it's to condense content or drum up clicks. CNN's front page is doing that right now. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 02:56, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, or, failing that, 2. No one, I hope, disputes that Fox is extremely WP:BIASED on anything to do with American politics (and I'll note that cites to it are often careless about the requirement for in-text attribution that that generally requires.) While such biased sources can be used provided their bias doesn't interfere with their fact-checking or accuracy, the issue with Fox is that the ideological mission it was founded for takes absolute priority over these things. ([33][34]) It has been covered as a case-study in propaganda ([35][36]) and as a leader in the shift towards market-driven sensationalism at the expense of accuracy. ([37][38]) More importantly for our purposes, these things have led to misleading or outright inaccurate coverage of many disparate topics, especially, though not limited to, climate change. ([39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]) Most recently (and perhaps most dangerously), Fox News' COVID-19 coverage has been notably inaccurate in a way that may have contributed to the severity of the epidemic in the US ([49][50][51]); this, I think, is the main reason to categorize it as a 3. It is true that the network is extremely popular and has high viewership, and it is true that a lot of what they cover is merely biased rather than misleading; additionally, it could be tempting to say that the network is only grossly, constantly misleading and inaccurate in a few specific contexts (eg. climate change), and that it's therefore unusable for those topics but still usable elsewhere. But I feel the recent wave of COVID-19 misinformation from the network provides clear evidence that Fox will freely publish inaccurate or misleading stories without warning, on any topic, the moment the people in charge decide that doing so is important to their core ideological mission and hand it down as part of the daily memo, even in situations where doing so is extremely dangerous. Trying to carve out only a few "unsafe" uses for it as a source is a bad idea because the underlying problem is systematic - while they are not incapable of fact-checking and accuracy, their ability to meet that standard is fatally compromised by a structure that places it completely subordinate to their ideological goals, and by ownership and leadership that have shown themselves to be entirely willing to disregard fact-checking and accuracy, even for extremely important topics, when they find it ideologically convenient to do so. --Aquillion (talk) 22:28, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Aquillion, please delete the sources that refer to the political commentary on Fox News Channel and not Fox News newcasts. This RfC is focused on the newscast, not the political commentary talk-shows. I went through several of your sources and they refer to the commentary, not the news. Thanks! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:44, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 for most purposes, option 3 for political and racial issues, based largely on the fact that the reputation of the network for bias would taint the reliability of Wikipedia articles citing it for those purposes. Fox just drew controversy for an issue where it posted a graphic of stock market gains tied to prominent murders of African-Americans. Moreover—and this is an aspect I really haven't seen raised before—option 2, at least, because some of their content appears to be undisclosed paid advertising. For example, in one period I saw numerous articles on Fox touting a "Black Rifle Coffee" company, so much so that I even started a draft article on the company. However, I quickly ran into a roadblock in finding that all other news reporting of any substance on the company was in pay-for-play churnalism venues. Upon further examination, it became apparent to me that the Fox pieces were written more like paid advertisements than objective news pieces, and contained objectively false characterizations of the notoriety of the company. There was no disclosure of any payment, so Fox is either in the pay-for-play reporting business, or they are allowing articles to be published that readily appear to be pay-for-play reporting. Either option is problematic for any news coverage that could potentially benefit a party with a pecuniary interest in how an article is presented, from a perspective of either financial or political gain. BD2412 T 22:41, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  BD2412, do you have a link to that controversy? I'm on island time and pretty much out of the loop in real-time. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:56, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Sure, covered here. Of course, Fox is hardly the first network to have to apologize for tone deaf coverage. BD2412 T 01:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you. You're right about apologies - back in January, CNN went silent when Andrew McCabe apologized for lying to investigators. Most recently, this apology by Brian Stelter with CNN who lied about ‘no sign of smoke or fire’. Do we downgrade CNN? I can provide numerous errors and ommissions for that network, as well as MSNBC, ABC, CBS & NBC. Did any other network besides Fox News report these things? We've already seen how the left-leaning stations & networks handled Reade-Biden sexual assault allegation vs how they handled Kavanaugh. WP garnered negative media attention over the left-leaning handling of it - don't you find that concerning? Being a biased source is not a valid reason to downgrade the most-watched news source (with right & left viewers) - to do so is strictly POV rather than being based on an equivalent analysis with other networks. WP policy requires NPOV - it's one of our core content policies - downgrading RS because we disagree with their POV is noncompliant with NPOV when choosing sources. Is the plan to downgrade all political news because it's all biased? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:36, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  I am actually somewhat more concerned that they may be promoting paid advertising as news. In retrospect, the thing that first struck me as suspicious about the "Black Rifle Coffee" story is that it appeared on the Fox website, then disappeared for a time, and then reappeared at intervals, a pattern more characteristic of an advertising campaign than a news story. BD2412 T 02:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  I don't see any paid advertising scheme there, but I do see insensitivity, and they apologized for taking it out of context, as well they should - somebody obviously wasn't thinking straight. There is no mention in that report about "Black Rifle Coffee" that I could find, so it seems to me that mentioning it with the S&P issue would be SYNTH with a splash of OR, wouldn't it? Newsrooms can be hectic, and you can rest assured it's a ripe environment for mistakes. The latter is why I have always stressed "exercise caution" when citing news sources today. The same FCC regulations that apply to broadcast news don't apply in the same manner to cable/internet news - they enjoy much more freedom because they're not using public airwaves, although none of them are totally immune from political pressure. If you haven't read my op-ed in The Signpost this month, please do.<— shameless advertising, not paid advertising. 😉 ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  SYNTH and OR are not really applicable, as we are not discussing whether to include such assertions in an article. Whether we are dealing with shameless advertising or paid advertising, the ultimate effect is that they published claims about the subject that led me to believe that it was a notable subject, and those claims turned out to be inaccurate. BD2412 T 18:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

*Option 3 they call Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham news. Shows that they don't separate factual reporting from opinions. They promote conspiracy theories with no basis and call it news. Smith0124 (talk) 00:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Striking sockpuppet vote and comment. Humanengr (talk) 00:32, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Smith0124, there's a difference between opinion & talk shows and straight news reporting. Fox's talk shows are as much of a crapshoot, w.r.t. political affairs, as all other mainstream media. ProcrasinatingReader (talk) 00:20, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 per Atsme with a bit of the Option 2 caution suggested by Cactus Jack. I personally think this RfC should be closed since the intent seems to be to ask the same question over and over again until finally someone will close with the answer a group of editors has been hunting for. Springee (talk) 01:01, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 While Fox News Channel was founded to provide a forum for U.S. conservative opinion, it has always provided a professional news service. I don't see that the fact they provide right wing commentary detracts from that. Many of their talk show hosts came from other cable news networks: Glenn Beck, Geraldo Rivera, Lou Dobbs, while Megyn Kelly moved from Fox to NBC. All news by the way is biased since editorial discretion is required in choosing stories to present. For example, Fox News covered the sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden long before other legacy media did. But that has nothing to do with the accuracy of their reporting, merely that their emphasis is different. TFD (talk) 02:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3. The following text is in regards to the news reporting division at Fox News (not its prime talk shows and commentators). Academic sources widely consider Fox News as a propaganda outlet, including in its straight news reporting which is often misleading, hypes up non-stories and gets things egregiously wrong all the time. I'll keep the focus primarily on two issues rather than to just list every egregiously wrong thing that Fox News has done: (i) Fox News' climate change denial propaganda and (ii) the intentional promotion of Seth Rich conspiracy theories to divert attention from a negative news cycle for Trump.

  (I) Climate change. Peer-reviewed research has widely described Fox News as a major platform for climate change denial. According to the fact-checking website Climate Feedback, Fox News is part of "a network of unreliable outlets for climate news."

  • Bill Sammon, the Fox News Washington managing editor, instructed Fox News journalists to dispute the scientific consensus on climate change: "A leaked email from the managing editor of Fox News Washington, Bill Sammon, during the Copenhagen climate summit in 2009 reveals Fox’s sceptical policy towards climate change. Sammon advised Fox journalists to “refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question”." Page 174 of Marisol Sandoval. "From Corporate to Social Media: Critical Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility in Media and Communication Industries". Routledge.
  • Bret Baier, a straight-news anchor pushing climate denial propaganda -“In February 2010, a paper on sea level rise that had previously been published in Nature Geosciences was formally withdrawn by the authors because of an error they had identified subsequently in their calculations. Fox News announced the development in this vein: “More Questions About Validity of Global Warming Theory.” In fact, the error in the calculations had led the authors to projections of future sea level rise that were too low!" Page 223 of Michael E. Mann. “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines.”
  • Bill Hemmer, a straight-news anchor: Promotion of Climategate falsehoods: "“This particular falsehood had been promoted recently by venues such as Fox News , e.g., Bill Hemmer on Fox’s America’s Newsroom, December 3, 2009: “Recently leaked emails reveal that scientists use, quote, ‘tricks’ to hide evidence of a decline in global temperatures over the past, say, few decades." Page 353 of Michael E. Mann. “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches From the Front Lines.”

  (II) Murder of Seth Rich conspiracy (i.e. "Russia didn't hack the DNC"). On May 16, 2017, a day when other news organizations were extensively covering Donald Trump's revelation of classified information to Russia, Fox News ran a lead story about a private investigator's uncorroborated claims about the murder of Seth Rich, a DNC staffer. The Fox News story reported that the private investigator had uncovered evidence that Rich was in contact with Wikileaks and that law enforcement were covering it up. The story was in the context of right-wing conspiracy theories that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party had Seth Rich killed because he was the source of the DNC leaks. U.S. intelligence agencies determined Russia was the source of the leaks. In reporting the investigator's claims, the Fox News report reignited right-wing conspiracy theories about the killing. The Fox News story fell apart within hours because other news organizations did the basic journalistic legwork to confirm aspects of the story that Fox News intentionally opted not to do. Furthermore, other news organizations quickly revealed the investigator was a Donald Trump supporter and had according to NBC News "developed a reputation for making outlandish claims, such as one appearance on Fox News in 2007 in which he warned that underground networks of pink pistol-toting lesbian gangs were raping young women." Later that same day, the private investigator said he had no evidence that Rich had contacted Wikileaks. The investigator claimed he only learned about the possible existence of the evidence from the Fox News reporter herself. Even though other news organizations had quickly found the story to be erroneous and the story had complete fallen apart within hours, Fox News chose merely to alter the contents of its story and its headline, but did not issue corrections.  It took Fox News a week to retract the story. Unlike normal news organizations, Fox News did not bother to publicly explain what went wrong in its reporting. The reporter behind the fabricated story, Malia Zimmermann, may still be working at Fox News (that's at least what her Twitter bio says) despite having egregiously fabricated a story – Fox News can't show the basic transparency of clarifying whether she is still working behind the scenes on Fox News stories.

  Note that as soon as the Fox News story appeared, editors on the Murder of Seth Rich page fought hard to include it in the article. Editors on the talk page argued that Fox News was considered "generally reliable" (this includes one editor who is voting for Option 1 in this very RfC). This is precisely why Option 1 is unacceptable. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  • And note that I argued against inclusion on the basis that the story had not been widely reported. Also note that you argued vociferously to include a misleading story about Rep. Tulsi Gabbard that had only been reported in one news source (NBC) and I argued against inclusion for the same reason. But that is the nature of investigative reporting. One news source presents something that a source told them and the rest of the media either pick up the story or they don't. Are we going to ban NBC News too on the basis that they are biased in favor of establishment Democrats? TFD (talk) 03:16, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • As soon as one other RS reported "According to Fox News...", you said "Fantastic! Let's include this batshit insane conspiracy theory in the article."[52] I have no idea what your Gabbard commentary is about. On the Murder of Seth Rich article, I had to spend hours re-writing and fixing the article, and preventing editors such as yourself from lending credibility to a deranged conspiracy theory on one of the most read websites in the world and preventing editors such as yourself from imposing more harm on a murder victim's family. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:32, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Your climate change points are not any proof against RS. Point 1 doesn't mean anything because that isn't reflected in any actual stories we can point to, nor is it a requirement for WP in reporting on CC stories that the news source has assert climate change is real in every story about climate change. Unless the source is spinning every climate change story in full outright denial mode, that doesn't make them unreliable (At worst, judging the latest CC stories they have run [53], [54], [55] they play just a bit into "skeptic" but they do not let that taint how they report the basic facts of these climate change reports, only just throwing in a para "skeptics say these there may be no climate change" langauge" somewhere. That's not wrong nor touches anything about their RSness. Your point two is using the headline of a story which is never considered reliable so we ignore that. On 3, its clearly misunderstanding the language of the emails as applied to the data per [56] (eg even that book gets the context wrong). So no, none of that proves Fox is not an RS. I wouldn't use them for CC news data only because I don't believe their bias would be helpful and other sources are tons better in terms of the basic science that is involved like NYTimes, but that doesn't rule it out.
  • On the whole thing with Rich, the "news" part of Fox that reported on the conspiracy was simply reporting it existed (that the Fox opinion desk side were going all crazy over it) and gave insight from the other side's denial nothing happened like that. Did they chase it down as well as the NYTimes or others? No. Is that a requirement for an RS? No (like the answer to the CC #1 above). All we are looking for is editorial control and fact-checking, which they did some. Not as extensive, and likely they were rushing to print (again, they have a bias) . And key to all that: They Redacted the story within the week [57] . Editorial control. That's all that matters for the RS factor. Now, that editors rushed to want to add it, that's a problem that we are not enforcing BLP, NOTNEWS, and RECENTISM especially with controversial claims from biased RSes. --Masem (t) 03:24, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • It was the news division that was behind the Seth Rich story! It was a Fox News scoop – not commentary by Sean Hannity. There would have been nothing for the opinion desk side of Fox News to get crazy over if not for the fabricated story by the straight news division. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 as long as we are clear we are not talking about their opinion or talk shows, but only their news programs or news portions of their websites which have been repeated shown to follow the expected editorial control we expect of RSes, biases notwithstanding. Bias does not discount a reliable source, though it is fair to raise the question (like this) if a bias has affected the reliability of a source. Their talk shows should be treated only as RSOPINION and used only when DUE is appropriate. I also point out as noted below this has been asked at least 3-4 times in a non-formal RFC (which is NOT required to include on RS/P) and the weight of those discussions be considered in this. --Masem (t) 03:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • How can the news division of Fox News be considered reliable when its reporters are instructed to promote climate change denial and when said straight-news reporters act upon these instructions and tell brazen falsehoods about climate change? Snooganssnoogans (talk) 03:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Their reporters don't lie about climate change, but they give too much time to climate change deniers. Similarly, ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and the broadsheets gave way too much coverage to misleading pundits falsely claiming that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, in fact manipulating public opinion in favor of what would be a devastating military adventure. TFD (talk) 03:23, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Do you have any examples of this that aren't over a decade old? If so, please provide them. Ten years is a long time in the politics and media world. 10 years ago Mitt Romney was the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting; today he's one of the most vocal critics of the Republican president. 10 years ago Breitbart News was a generic conservative commentary site; nowadays it's a hard-right propaganda outlet. The layman's consensus in the US around climate change is much, much stronger than it was a decade ago. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 03:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Fox News, Nov 2018[58]: "NASA warns long cold winter could hit space in months bringing record low temperatures" – A complete misrepresentation of the science in order to promote a global cooling narrative.[59]
      • Fox News, Oct 2019[60]: "Explosion in Antarctic sea ice levels may cause another ice age" – A complete misrepresentation of the science in order to promote a global cooling narrative.[61].
      • Fox News, Feb 2017[62]: "Federal scientist cooked climate change books ahead of Obama presentation, whistle blower charges" – Giving credence to the dumb ravings of a climate change denier[63]. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 04:11, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
        • The Nov 2018 was a mistake several outlets made per Poynter and per Poyner "Like Metro, Fox and The Sun have also since corrected their stories." Editorial control. So not proof.
        • Oct 2019 story: As per Climate Feedback: "The Fox News article has been corrected..." Editorial control. though the fact they don't check with scientists of the work behind a paper before publishing the results of a paper is not great journalism but that's not a requirement under RS.
        • Feb 2017, this one is a bit different. If you read Fox's article, all claims of it are directly attributed to other sources and none to their own; the slowdown claim is from the whistleblower, and of course Daily Mail and Washington Times are used as other sources of information. Now, red flags go up in that I would not touch this story for use in any CC related article, but I stress that in terms of an RS, its not wrong. It doesn't go out of its way to say "this is bad understanding of a graph" but thats again, not a requirement of an RS, and in terms of discussion if someone said "We need to use this article", I would suspect that UNDUE factors from other less biased sources would be there. But again, nothing about that article says anything against being an RS. Just a biased source for CC claims. --Masem (t) 04:38, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
          • All the sources that also happened to make Fox News's "mistake" were sources which are considered generally unreliable or which have been deprecated (does the fact that The Sun sometimes runs corrections make it a reliable source with thorough editorial control? No, of course not). That's a clue as to what company Fox News belongs in. And it's entirely consistent with the existing academic literature on the broader network of right-wing disinformation that Fox News sits smack in the middle of. Snooganssnoogans (talk) 05:22, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Just like CNN and MSNBC and all the other cable news channels, they have a news show and a talking head show. Their news is reliable, just as most of the other RS, even if they don't share the same bias as CNN or MSNBC. Sir Joseph ^(talk) 03:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Baloney, this is the old false equivalence claim. Fox doesn't even try to be neutral, their biases are displayed on their sleeves for anyone to see. CNN and MSNBC keep their news operations separate from the opinion operations, but at Fox, it's all one bag -- that's precisely and entirely what Roger Ailes intended to create. You could see it in his programming on the pre-Fox "America's Talking" channel (that became MSNBC after they kicked Ailes out). His purpose has always been to create a conservative-leaning "news" channel which would counter the bias he perceived in CNN. He wasn't shy about declaring this, and the result is the biased, unreliable Fox News we have today. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not really commenting in the poll, but it’s worth pointing out that there is a substantial difference between Fox News TV and foxnews.com. The former can have some decent reporting depending on the reporter and anchor (also some real crap as has already been pointed out.) Foxnews.com makes the Daily Mail look like the New York Times, though. TonyBallioni (talk) 05:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 for the most part. Fox News is reliable enough for run-of-the-mill news, but not for news regarding politics or anything connected to politics. They do not maintain a Chinese wall between their news operation and their opinion operations, and are blatantly biased in favor of Trump and the Republican Party, and against anything perceived to be liberal or (God forbid!) socialist. I have no opinion about the local stations, but would suggest that the owned-and-operated stations are more likely to hew to the Murdoch/Ailes model, while the affiliates would be independent operations. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 for the core news reporting (though there can always be exceptions), and option 4 for the pundits, talk shows, and opinion pieces. I fully agree with GPinkerton's and BD2412's assessments of Fox's lack of editorial diligence, and Aquillion has highlighted only a fraction of their misinformation campaign. Even setting my political bias aside, I do not trust their capability to report statements of fact. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 06:14, 08 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 per JzG. Having read Network Propaganda, this is conclusively proven. Because you cannot rely on self-correction of mistakes, every piece from Fox News needs to be independently verified by the user and therefore citing Fox News ends up being an act of original research. There will be still things one can source to Fox News, for instance "Fox News thinks" or "Murdoch told on Fox News that". For right-wing perspectives one can always cite other prolific media like The Hill which, while clearly politically tinted, tends to be more matter-of-fact (for now). Nemo 08:31, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Standard WP:NEWSORG with oversight. Yes it may have political leanings, but so does The Guardian, CNN and the majority of other media outlets. Yet I don't see them getting the same treatment as this. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 I'd normally try to stay away from US politics as toxic but feel obliged to respond to RfC's listed at WP:CENT. I nominated the two most recent stories listed as blurbs at WP:ITN and so am familiar with their details. Looking at the coverage of these on Fox News ([64], [65]), this seems shallow but accurate and generally unexceptional. Andrew🐉(talk) 10:37, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 meets WP:NEWSORG with oversight just like CNN and MSNBC.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 11:03, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 mostly, Option 2 at best for core news reporting. Fox News has consistently peddled inaccurate/fake news, whether an hierarchical structure of a news organisation exists is irrelevant. Fox News also lacks the journalistic tradition of correcting their mistakes publicly in most cases - to state how widespread it is, I found an example in the last one day alone, WTVQ. For pundits and opinion pieces (Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity, et al.) it should strictly be Option 4 due their nature of sensationalizing news reporting and often making biased and inaccurate reporting. --qedk (t 愛 c) 14:55, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 - It either meets RS standards or not. Their core news department does meet WP:NEWSORG from what I can tell. Pundits and opinions should be handled by WP:NEWSBLOG. I think it is important for people to realize the distinction here and I think that is what is being missed by some. PackMecEng (talk) 15:25, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 One of the only major conservative news outlets, it is a source for reliable news. Just like CNN is considered reliable even though both news sites have a bias and tend to lead towards their political standing. It would be a shame to not count Fox news as reliable. Csar00 (talk) 15:50, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 It meets WP:NEWSORG. Fox News being a WP:BIASED does not severely affect it's reliability; it is not WP:QUESTIONABLE since it's not an "extremist". Now in the COVID-19 pandemic, eh a small difference in its reliability. Taking hydroxychloriquine is not recommended, warned Neil Cavuto to Fox News Viewers. Well then.
  .@FoxNews is no longer the same. We miss the great Roger Ailes. You have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before. Looking for a new outlet! Donald J. Trump 4:59, 19 May 2020 (UTC).
  That is enough to show that Fox News doesn't have bias that affects it's reliability. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 16:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 for the news programming, Option 2 or 3 for the pundit programming. Nothing has really changed since the last RFC on this. Note- I would have the same opinion if we were discussing CNN or MSNBC. The problem is that too many of our editors have difficulty differentiating between news reporting, news analysis, and news commentary/opinion. Each needs to be handled differently. Blueboar (talk) 17:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2. I think everyone here acknowledges Fox has a conservative bias. That alone is not enough to deem the network unreliable or to deprecate it, unless we also take a hard look at MSNBC. Calidum 18:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment A lot of responses in this thread so far are simply "reliable per NEWSORG" without any justification. I would like to present another story, the false claim that Omar Mateen had been radicalised by Marcus Dwayne Robertson. From The New Republic:

  Since [Malia] Zimmerman joined Fox News in 2015, Fox News has repeatedly picked up her reporting and used it to legitimize the larger counter-narratives that form Fox News’s fevered worldview. These stories touched on alleged issues like voter fraud, gun confiscation, the Benghazi terrorist attack, the unmasking of Trump transition officials in confidential documents, and the murder of Seth Rich. Fox News has repeatedly picked up Zimmerman’s reporting and used it to legitimize the larger counter-narratives that form Fox News’s fevered worldview. In June 2016, shortly after the attack on the gay nightclub Pulse in Orlando that killed 49 people, Zimmerman reported that the shooter, Omar Mateen, had been radicalized by an imam and ex-con named Marcus Dwayne Robertson.

Citing anonymous law enforcement sources, Zimmerman alleged that Robertson had been “rounded up” in the wake of the attack and that Mateen had been radicalized while attending an online seminary run by Robertson. But Robertson and Mateen had never met. Furthermore, Robertson had never been “rounded up” by anyone. That didn’t stop Fox News from running with the story—or other outlets, including The Daily Beast, from picking it up—until it was finally debunked. Robertson was forced to defend himself on Greta Van Susteren’s Fox News show On the Record. As reporter David Gauvey Herbert wrote in Quartz his explanation satisfied Susteren. But the damage was done. Zimmerman’s shadowy unnamed sources—whom Herbert and others have been unable to identify—fingered a man who had nothing to do with the terror attack and upended his life. Robertson lost his job and faced a barrage of death threats, despite having no connection to Mateen.

The story, which is still online has not been corrected or retracted. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:26, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Why should it be retracted? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Maybe retracted is the wrong word, but there's no update on the story to indicate that the claims are no longer considered true. The only update on the story was adding Omar Mateen to the death count. Hemiauchenia (talk)

What claims? Please provide a link to the source that supports what you're saying because I don't know what you're talking about. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

"or other outlets, including The Daily Beast, from picking it up" Would you argue that the other sources should be downgraded as well as Fox? I note that The Daily Beast was this year upgraded to a green source on PERENNIAL, should we reverse that? NPalgan2 (talk) 19:49, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

The problem with bad news stories is that they are like anecdotes, they don't tell you the hit rate. I don't think having reported a news story that later turns out to be incorrect is necessarily an issue of reliability, I mean look at the whole Covington thing. As the Perennial sources entry indicates, "Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons" Which is inline with them covering this story, as it involves BLPs. I would consider the Daily Beast a significantly lower quality source than something like the NYT or WashPo, and if something is being covered in the Daily Beast but not those would have to make a judgement if its use was appropriate. I called this RfC simply to get a new concensus on how reliable Fox News is, not because I have a vendetta against Fox News or conservatives. I would be happy to see Fox News retain its generally reliable rating at the end of this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2 There is clear bias in how they report certain things, and which things they report and which they don't. For instance, I believe they're the only news organization anyone would consider legitimate at all that tried to discuss the Michael Flynn "unmasking" issue as anything other than a right-wing conspiracy theory. They are okay on some factual matters, but we should use caution when citing Fox News. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:39, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Limited option 2 - Option 2 is very broad, so I'm going to say that Fox News is problematic on a significant amount of US political reporting. Outside of that, their flaw rate certainly is no worse that others that sources we consider generally reliable (which certainly doesn't require perfection by any means). That political reporting (reasonably construed) is not always flawed, but an appreciable amount is. As noted above, this is often on what is notreported (or not covered in depth) - this can make their reporting lack context, but may, or may not, mitigate on accuracy concerns about what is present. Nosebagbear (talk) 18:57, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3, certainly for anything related to science, politics, or COVID per Snoogans and also concerned about native advertising per BD2412. buidhe 19:16, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 on news reporting. I note that they use a considerable amount of AP content. Obviously does not apply to commentary.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:44, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Somewhere between Option 1 and Option 2 for their straight reporting with the usual sanity checks - newsorgs are only the first draft of history, but is the news side of Fox really so much worse than its peers? Certainly the Seth Rich article (three years ago) was a grotesque lapse of judgment, what of CNN letting Chris Cuomo lob softballs at his brother rather than press him on his atrocious response to the coronavirus? NPalgan2 (talk) 19:50, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  NPalgan2, please avoid the whataboutism and keep an eye on your own POV. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:53, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Muboshgu, the whataboutism link you provided is to a WP article, not WP:PAG. On WP, the closest PAG I could find is the essay Wikipedia:Other stuff exists, which is both useful and useless, depending on context. The essay states: When used correctly, these comparisons are important as the encyclopedia should be consistent in the content that it provides or excludes. I'm of the mind that this is one of those instances where consistency is important. Some of the comments in this discussion remind me of The Atlantic article. I'm of the mind that when either side of an argument is silenced or intimidated into silence, it leads to a homogenous community that is incompatible with NPOV. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:57, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  A "whataboutism" is nevertheless an argument that should not be used and should be called out for what it is. I don't think we're using Cuomo on Cuomo interviews as anything other than an occasional source of amusement. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:51, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 and Comment. FOX News has had a front-row seat at the White House Press Briefing Room along with NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN for a very long time reporting on the activities of multiple presidencies, both Democrat and Republican. I believe that FOX News should be treated *the same way* as NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN. Also, to the OP User:Hemiauchenia, in the interest of transparency, could you please fill out your User Page with some information about yourself? Thank you. History DMZ ^{(talk)+(ping)} 20:13, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  History DMZ, Please do not ask editors to post personal information. It is not required to post political opinions either. Please respect WP:PRIVACY. buidhe 20:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Buidhe, I never asked for *personal* information. I asked for *some* information. That can be userboxes, a short introduction, etc. Please don't put words in my mouth that I didn't speak. But to be clear, NO personal information was asked of the OP. Cordially, History DMZ ^{(talk)+(ping)} 20:34, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  History DMZ, I can tell you that I don't really care for Hemiauchenia, despite the fact my account is named after it, having never edited the article. I do think the article (alongside that of Paleolama) are in need of serious work though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:41, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Hemiauchenia, thank you for your cordial and humorous reply. Perhaps what you just shared is TMI for some lol. But seriously, it wouldn't hurt if you introduced yourself a little to the community through your user page. It's *optional* of course. Cheers, History DMZ ^{(talk)+(ping)} 20:52, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  History DMZ, The White House gave press passes to Infowars and OANN. That means literally nothing. Guy (help!) 12:19, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  JzG, The Obama White House (2009-2017), whom I voted into office and hold no bias for or against, gave *front-row* press passes to FOX News and sat them next to NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN. That means a lot. Cordially, History DMZ ^{(talk)+(ping)} 18:02, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  @History DMZ: that was then. They have totally changed because of Trump. It's a symbiotic relationship made in hell. They have moved from ordinary right-wing RS, to extreme right-wing allies of Russian propaganda defending Trump, no matter what, and we know he lies constantly. -- Valjean (talk) 05:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 Far more reliable than its cable competitors such as the pathetic CNN or MSNBC that are little more than 24/7 coverage of "we hate Trump". Considering all the poorly worded tones of once reliable sources such as the NYTimes, the WaPo, BBC and simliar mostly print based news entities, FoxNews appears as reliable as as them overall. Since we shy away from posting news opinion pieces in most BLPs we also do so with cable based pundit commentary, or at least we should.--MONGO (talk) 20:43, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, with Option 3 for political content. Speaking as a journalist, Fox News's news coverage, while better than its opinions commentary, still flouts the professional standards of the industry, and this has worsened since the prior RfC. The Seth Rich example (Poynter headline: "Fox News’s retraction is a woefully inadequate response to its colossal mistake") is just one of many. While it does often publish decent enough content, I agree with Nemo that anything we cite to it would have to be confirmed somewhere else more reliable, at which point it is no longer functioning as a source. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:46, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 - Opinion, punditry, and headlines aside, their straight news stuff is fine. Like SJ says, on par with CNN, MSNBC, or any other cable news. (Well, better actually than some cable news, like OANN and Newsmax.) I agree with Masem's comments above that making mistakes and correcting them later is not a sign of unreliability. I think it's quite the opposite in fact. Fox News is not a top-tier source and can usually be replaced by a better source, but it's an RS, when used properly. By the way, we just did this last year. [66] Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 20:48, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1- How many more of these discussions do we need to have. Sure I understand that consensus can change, but having the same exact discussion every other month just because there is a group of people who hate Fox News is a massive waste of time. It is at least as reliable as its competitor CNN and we haven't banned that as a source yet.--Rusf10 (talk) 23:20, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Reliable. Elizium23 (talk) 23:27, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Per Atsme. Shinealittlelight (talk) 00:05, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 As far as actual factual reporting they seem to do about as well as most NewsOrgs. They post their corrections which are easy to call out. Not a huge fan of what they choose to write about but that doesn't make it unreliable. The Punditry is hot garbage but then most punditry isn't reliable anyway.AlmostFrancis (talk) 00:13, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Options 1 to 4. The news department will generally get "sky is blue" type facts right. They still get all the way over into reporting debunked information, which is sometimes called out by other members of the team, but not always.

Are they "reliable for US Politics"? Hell no. Ask yourself if their reporting deviates from what all other mainstream news sources report. If someone can't see that there is a huge difference between their reporting and the reporting from the rest of mainstream media, they are blind. If they do see the difference, and still consider Fox News generally reliable for US politics, they don't know what's really happening, are buying the GOP party line without thinking, and don't know how to vet sources for reliability. Note that such people consistently hate fact-checking sources.

Keep in mind that research shows that Watching Only Fox News Makes You Less Informed Than Watching No News At All

Fox News was created by Roger Ailes to be a voice for the GOP, not a real "news" station. It's their propaganda channel. With the arrival of Trump, they have gone from normal right-wing (which can be opinionated, but still reliable) to extreme right-wing (which, like extreme left-wing, are not reliable) and often repeat Russian talking points, the exact same ones being pushed by RT and Sputnik, which are Russian propaganda channels. That is very worrying.-- Valjean (talk) 00:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Valjean, for the sake of academic clarity - two FDU professors that were involved in the original New Jersey and later international polling (your link above), Peter J. Woolley and Dan Cassino, explained the misleading results by the news media as follows: "Does Fox News make you dumb? No, but that was the headline generated by news aggregators re-reporting research by Fairleigh Dickinson University‘s PublicMind." They closed with the following statement: We never said, nor meant to say, that Fox viewers are dumb — or MSNBC viewers for that matter. They’re no better or worse than the average respondents. Clearly, anyone who is dumb and watching TV was dumb when he or she sat down in front of the tube. Some news sources just don’t help matters any. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:55, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

To ^Atsme - Results from the 2012 Fairleigh Dickinson University (FDU) survey that Valjean reported on (above) found that "Fox News viewers were less informed about current events than people who didn't follow the news at all." [67] That's the result of their study. So it's best to avoid getting hung-up on a headline & instead focus on the results of the study. BetsyRMadison (talk) 20:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 2. Great to be here. Lots of folks out there are saying Option 1 and many are saying Option 3, but I like Option 2. In my experience, the reliability of the "News Division" of Fox News has gone down over recent years. I don't think enough people here are talking about that. For me, since Shepard Smith left,^[68] their standards have started to lax. According to Brian Stelter, Smith wasn't the only person in the News Division to leave, and he reported that Fox News executives are mainly trying to head the company away from prioritizing actual journalism in their coverage.^[69] Regardless, it is certainly clear that they have changed in some way over time.^[70]
  While writing this comment, I did some digging. I wanted a reliable source to tell me how other reliable sources think things are. It's easy to get caught up in your own perceptions of things, so I wanted something outside my own biases. What I found was this article. It's answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  It's not clear, and no one knows for sure. We can debate it all we want, but we're never going to get a satisfactory answer out of this question besides (to me) Option 2. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 02:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• It keeps coming up, because it's such a hard case. Ultimately, I land [close enough to] Option 2 for the news. Certainly the pundits/talk shows can range anywhere from option 2-4, depending, but the news content is ok for a lot of subjects. I think where it's hardest is when it comes to story selection and word choice. Fox doesn't regularly simply get it wrong and doesn't often contradict other sources on the basic facts, but will cover some things that don't get any traction elsewhere and is more likely to use particular kinds of language to cover those stories (like one they've gotten some flack for in the past is "thug" -- for which they're certainly not the only one, of course). Not sure if that should factor in to RSP -- just seemed worth mentioning — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 04:18, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, generally. Mostly per all of the above. I'd also add that Fox tends to be a good source in terms of determining what the Republican Party's stance on an issue is. This is roughly in line with my opinion on the merits of including Xinhua or CGTN as a barometer of the "official stance" of the CCP. OhKayeSierra (talk) 04:40, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2: The arguments that Fox News is generally reliable because of WP:NEWSORG aren't convincing. This specific part of the RS content guideline reflects general consensus for the entire class of sources that are news organizations, and the following are not the same:
  • generally considered to be reliable (from WP:NEWSORG, bolding mine)
  • considered to be generally reliable (an apparently common interpretation here)
  When it comes to an RfC to determine the consensus on the individual reliability of a particular news organization, it's a very weak argument to just say that Fox News is a news organization and then point to the massively general group of news organizations. We need to identify whether the particular news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy
  There is problematic journalism by Fox News, which is elaborated by (among others): JzG and Aquillion regarding misinformation and inaccuracies, Snooganssnoogans and Aquillion regarding climate change and conspiracy theories, Aquillion regarding academic studies on the priority given to ideology, and Sdkb and MJL regarding general journalistic standards.
  Fox News does have editorial oversight, yes, but the existence of an editorial team doesn't guarantee reliability. The quality and standards of that editorial process is not at the same level expected of a generally reliable source (bolding mine):

  The source has a reputation for fact-checking, accuracy, and error-correction, often in the form of a strong editorial team.

  The historical level of journalism over the past decade requires editors to pay significant attention to individual articles, in many contexts, before they can be used as references. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:05, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) (Standard disclaimer of I'mabout their opinion/commentary, which is a solid "4", but just the actual news...) Either 3 or 4 overall, and its questionable assessment of appropriate weight means it absolutely should not be used in assessing WP:DUE; probably 2 for the basic facts themselves. I don't think it's the worst offender in regular use on ENWP; it tends to get basic facts right more than it gets them wrong (admittedly a shamefully low bar to set); it strikes me as only a dull roar of awfulness surrounded by a sea of utter journalistic tripe. I'd rank it substantially below "real" reporting — Reuters, AP, NYT — but a bit above all the tabloid-y rags like Huffington Post, Daily Beast, Washington Examiner, Complex, etc. By all means let's ditch Fox, but let's also take care of the tabloid infestation while we're at it! —{{u|Goldenshimmer}} (they/them)｜Talk｜Contributions 06:01, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 per JzG, Devonian Wombat, Aquillion, Snooganssnoogans, etc. Gamaliel (talk) 12:13, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 1/2 My feelings mirror that of BD2412 for national programming fairly closely. I live in a very small television market, but I would have to say Option 1 for local affiliate news programming. My local station, WEUX contracts with the NBC affiliate for news programming. -- Dolotta (talk) 15:12, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: Respectable WP:NEWSORG with editorial control no different then NYT --Shrike (talk) 17:03, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Shrike, oh, I can think of some differences :-) Levivich ^{[dubious – discuss]} 18:12, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• I haven't done any investigation of the issue myself, but just looking at this thread, the points put forward by User:Masem are a lot more convincing than any of the points set out by those arguing against (many of which bring up things which aren't relevant to reliability). --Yair rand (talk) 21:02, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2/3. I think by now it is clear that the pundit shows are not included in this analysis. That said, Fox has shown a top-to-bottom willingness to slant coverage, to use misleading headlines, chyrons, tickers, etc., to give mouthpieces for despicable views a platform, to present conspiracy theories as facts, etc. WP:NEWSORG does not apply when a source has a well-established pattern and editorial direction that allows rumors and untruths (NB:untruths are different from usual journalistic mistruths) to be reported as facts. This is not merely bias. Unfortunately, a blanket statement about which of those options applies is impossible because the reliability varies depending on context, story subject, and even time slot. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:31, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 Per Aquillion, Snooganssnoogans, and Guy. Everyday non-political/scientific event reporting is fine, but their record in fact-checking and explicit error correction is unacceptable. JoelleJay (talk) 23:49, 9 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. treat the same as CNN, NYT, etc. As with any source, my first check is whether or not they have a corrections process and/or policy. They do. [71] Sure, they have gotten stories wrong, and corrected themselves, but then again they didn't treat us to 2 years of Russia Hoax, either. Their bias seems to be less of an issue than with, for example, CNN, which has broadcast 10 interviews of Andrew Cuomo by Chris Cuomo [72]. Additionally, the inclusion of Fox as a "gold-standard" source would give Wikipedia some sorely-needed political diversity in its "gold standard" sourcing on US politics, something we lack if we treat it any less than CNN, NYT, etc. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:55, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
  • @Adoring nanny: "they didn't treat us to 2 years of Russia Hoax, either". Therein lies the rub. Editors who think that Fox News constant pushing of the completely false conspiracy theory that the proven fact that Russia interfered in the election to help Trump win (that is the narrative from all RS) is a "Russia hoax" have swallowed the kool-aid served daily by Fox News. No wonder the votes for Option 1. They actually see that there is a huge difference between the counterfactual narrative pushed by Fox News, RT, Sputnik, Breitbart, Bongino, and all other fringe sources, and the factual narrative documented by all mainstream sources (IOW the ones we consider RS), and seeing that difference, they still believe the false conspiracy theories because they have been deceived into believing Trump's lie that mainstream media are fake news. No wonder we have this problem. They don't know how to vet sources. Fox Fake News is treated by them as equal to CNN, ABC, BBC, etc. No, there is a world of difference. -- Valjean (talk) 05:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
    • The hoax is the assertion that Trump colluded with the Russians. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
      • @Adoring nanny: that's not the only part denied by Fox News, but, just to keep the terminology correct, the Mueller Report was not able to collect enough evidence (because of Trump's proven obstruction of the investigation) to prove "conspiracy"/"coordination", but did describe numerous examples of what could be considered collusion/co-operation/invitation/facilitation, which is not a crime, just disloyal to the interests of the United States. Trump and Fox News still attempt to deny/downplay that Russia interfered, and the term "Russia hoax" includes that, not just the part about collusion/no collusion. Trump has still not done anything to prevent the current disruption of the elections and has stated he would accept foreign interference to help him, and that he might not even notify the FBI, which would make him vulnerable to blackmail by foreign bad actors like Russia. -- Valjean (talk) 16:35, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
        • MR. CLAPPER: Well, no, it's not. I never saw any direct empirical evidence that the Trump campaign or someone in it was plotting/conspiring with the Russians to meddle with the election [73]. So Fox was right about that all along. A fine example of why we need them as a first-class source. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:32, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
          • You seem to be ignoring the difference between "conspiracy" and co-operation/collusion. Mueller describes the Trump campaign's actions quite well as "the two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests." The Trump campaign did take myriad proven "actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests", but without evidence of a formal written or spoken agreement, conspiracy could not be proven, even if everything done, and the results of those actions, indicated that such an understanding existed, regardless of whether a formal "agreement" existed. Conspirators usually avoid leaving such evidence.

Starting in 2015, EIGHT foreign allied intelligence agencies reported to the FBI that numerous Trump campaign members and associates were secretly meeting with known Russian intelligence agents (who were being monitored). The campaign lied about all these contacts. Their conversations were so worrying and a threat to American democracy that those intelligence agencies reported their findings to the FBI (and maybe CIA). The Trump campaign was deeply involved with Russian intelligence, and we saw the results. That's collusion (or unproven conspiracy), no matter how it's defined. Fox News will not tell you any of that, but RS do, and our articles here do.

There is a huge difference in the coverage by Fox News and mainstream news. Fox News paints Trump and his campaign as innocent victims of a witch hunt, when all the suspicion was actually justified and a result of the campaign's own actions. Trump's continued refusals to condemn the interference and constant cozying up to Putin doesn't help. Now he's threatening to withdraw American troops from Germany, which is a nice gift to Putin.

The Steele Dossier alleged “a well-developed conspiracy of co-operation". Well guess what. Even though the "conspiracy" was not proven, what actually happened was loads of proven "co-operation". Fox News ignores what actually happened and focuses on what was not proven. How convenient. Trump is still "co-operating" with Putin, and that's very wrong. -- Valjean (talk) 00:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

There is zero requirement that a RS tell a complete story. Obviously we give more credibility to the sources that have routinely shown commitment to tell the full story and follow up as needed (NYTimes) but plenty of other high-quality RSes will go to press with 3/4ths of the story and may update as the go along or the like (like CNN). Omission by choice of part of the story is also acceptable but of course this might depends on what's omitted and why. If a story involves a rumor about X and the publication doesn't even attempt to reach X to ask about it, that's iffy, while when a source does try to reach out to X and gets no response, they'll say that. Fox will omit parts of stories, this is not in doubt, and this leads to their bias, but it doesn't change their reliability in a big-picture sense. I would say that if a source is making so many omissions in a story to make it swiss cheese and or to actually make it swing a totally different way by omission of essential details, then we'd have a problem but that's not what Fox does. --Masem (t) 00:50, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, I agree with everything except the last part. Fox News consistently ignores or downplays anything that is negative about Trump. That's classic pseudoscientific "journalism", because it's agenda-driven reporting. It's not real journalism. It's propaganda. They paint a totally different picture than the picture painted by all the mainstream sources, and that is not by accident. It's not a bug that they ignore "essential details" and end up pushing counterfactual narratives. They do it so egregiously that Shep Smith and Wallace were constantly having to call out the others. That's problematic. -- Valjean (talk) 00:57, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Ahem, on their front page as of right now we have Pence criticized after meeting with packed room of trump campaign staff ignoring social distancing guidelines, with a big photo on their main page. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:31, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, they actually document how Democrats criticize Pence. Nothing new about that. Now find examples of them criticizing Trump and you'll have examples of the exception that proves the rule, IOW proof that they rarely do it themselves. Such examples do exist, and they are remarkable, showing that they exceptionally rise to the standards of proper journalism they routinely violate. -- Valjean (talk) 02:03, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

From what I've read throughout this RfC, the opposition to FN is not convincing. Journalistic opinion in the media has become the norm as I've already demonstrated in this month's Signpost Op-Ed. Fox News has covered stories that others in MSM have refused to cover...at least until they basically had no choice but to cover it...Tara Reade comes to mind. As editors, we are responsible for encyclopedic content - not political rhetoric and speculation. Going back and forth over a RS not publishing what we expect per our POV vs another RS publishing what aligns with our POV - despite it being pure speculation in many cases (such as the Steele dossier and the Russian collusion conspiracy theory) - is what RECENTISM actually prevents from being included in our encyclopedia, and helps avoid the criticism we've been seeing in the media regarding WP having a leftist slant when our articles should be touted as being neutral. This problem is growing and it needs resolution for the sake of the project. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:56, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:Recentism doesn't prevent the inclusion of that content, although I have repeatedly seen it invoked in that context with the meaning that "we will prevent anything negative about Trump from being included until we see RS reporting only positive content about him, and only then will we allow it." That version of "recentism" is not according to policy. No, we use RS as they appear en masse (IOW when multiple RS report something), and we don't wait until our preferred version appears in RS. What we do is document what RS say now (sometimes waiting a few days to avoid violating "recentism"), and we update and revise content if the narrative and details in RS change, and that is what has been happening with that content you mention. The multiple attempts to completely delete the Steele dossier article have always been against multiple existing policies and have revealed a politically-driven agenda, not a policy-based agenda. -- Valjean (talk) 00:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

While we arguably can use the present attitudes of the press en masse and change as time goes along, as you suggest, this is what leads to at least 50% of the problems in the AP2 ArbCom discretionary area because editors are rushing to include the latest commentary about a topic. We'd have a lot smoother editing process overall if NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM were considered to avoid the rush to include media commentary until we have a better idea of how to frame everything about it and the long-term picture. Yes, ultimately we'd get to the same place but one is far less strive-ridden, and deals with things like the issues around Fox's bias, for example. We are writing for the long-term , not the short term (that's Wikinews if you really want that). and that means avoiding certain material that may be readily available in the press "now" until we now how best to write about it "later" from more academic more distant sources. --Masem (t) 22:08, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Treat the same as The New York Times? This is not a serious !vote and should not be afforded any weight. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:01, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Political diversity is not a factor for reliability. Using extreme neo-Nazi and anarchist blogs would also be politically diverse, but that's irrelevant to their (un-)reliability. — MarkH₂₁^talk 06:40, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• No, but it does show how treating Fox as somehow more biased than (for example) CNN, we harm Wikipedia. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:20, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 as a standard American news org. Obviously they have pundits and talkshows, and common sense must be used just like with any source. In his 2014 book Partisan Journalism: A History of Media Bias in the United States, Virginia Tech media professor Jim A. Kuypers wrote that partisan journalism is a very widespread and old phenomenon in the mainstream US news. I would not muddy the waters between reliable and opinionated sources further, and strongly oppose popularity contests of singling out news orgs from a partisan media field for this reason. --Pudeo (talk) 08:50, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2: This is my first time participating in something like this, so weight it accordingly, but I found more persuasive arguments in favour of anything less than Option 1 which is mainly citing WP:NEWSORG or bothsideism, among other flawed rationales (see the Russia hoax claim or the argument that, along with other news outlets, Fox had the front-row seat at the White House Press Briefing Room; InfoWars and other unreliable news outlets have been invited too). Certainly, I disagree with the current wording of Some editors perceive FOX News to be a biased source whereas others do not; neither affects reliability of the source which should probably reflect the change in recent years to Most editors consider Fox a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons like The Daily Beast (I do not have any opinion yet on whether it should be demoted, I trust the consensus; and I do not think that we should demote it just to compensate for a possible demotion of Fox as a bothsideism). The difference between the two is that, as MarkH21 put it, Fox may now considered to be generally reliable which is different from generally considered to be reliable for the green box and the overcited NEWSORG. I also agree with Goldenshimmer assessment that Fox is closer to the Huffington Post (which is currently yellow) and others mentioned than the AP, The New York Times and Reuters which, if anything and like Wikipedia (for those who claim Wikipedia to have a left bias), have a centrist bias rather than left bias, at best centre-left and mainly on socio-cultural issues. Finally, if we are going to prefer those sources over Fox anyway and we need those sources to confirm whether Fox was reliable or not on a case-by-case analysis, we are already following Option 2.--Davide King (talk) 11:13, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 as generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG for factual reporting. Talking head punditry stuff is rarely used in articles and where used is attributed as it should be. an important news source which expands into subject areas other NEWSORGs may not. -- Netoholic @ 16:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 - the discussion here is convincing me that this is a terrible source even for news. Option 2 as second choice. If a local affiliate has a news story that's worth noting, it'll be in less tainted sources - David Gerard (talk) 19:55, 10 June 2020 (UTC) Changing this to Option 4, given the deliberate fabrication of news story photos - deliberate fabrication is deprecation material - David Gerard (talk) 10:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 I would be fine with option 1 also, but from the discussion it seems that there are "additional considerations" as to the division between reporting and editorials. I prefer option 2 because it allows us to make that distinction clear since unlike many other news organizations brought up, their editorials are generally not reliable for information. — Wug·a·po·des​ 00:04, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3: better sources are available w/o the risk of running into misinformation or conspiracy theories. If Fox is the only media org covering a certain issue, then it's probably undue anyway. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2: Local affiliate stations are generally reliable, but the Fox News Network has reliability problems when it comes to certain topics such as climate change[74] and the Trump Administration[75]. I would favor deprecating it as a reliable source for topics on which it has demonstrated a history of misleading coverage. Kaldari (talk) 03:33, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 generally reliable as a news org. Yes, they have pundits with a bias that most Wikipedians don't share, but this isn't about that. LEPRICAVARK (talk) 13:30, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4 FACT: Ofcom in the UK are unlikely to award a licence to Fox News as they are not impartial: "British media regulator Ofcom has concluded that Fox News programs featuring Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson violated the U.K.’s broadcasting code by breaching impartiality rules...Sky dropped Fox News from its UK lineup in August, but Ofcom has continued to investigate complaints about shows that aired before the channel went dark. The regulator said Monday that both “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and “Hannity” broke the rules on the “due impartiality” expected of news coverage in Britain. SethWhales ^talk 20:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

@Seth Whales: The RfC specifically mentions "as separate from their cable pundits" to avoid confusion and to solely focus on Fox News general reporting. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity both fall under the "Cable pundit" classification, and there's no way that anything from their programmes should be cited in wikivoice to begin with, only as attributed opinion under specific circumstances where the comments were found to be independently notable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:18, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• The "pundits" and any "news coverage" are inseparable. They may show the same television pictures, but it is the commentary that is all important that goes with it. I remain Option 4 SethWhales ^talk 20:42, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. We're beating a dead horse at this point, and I think it's time to drop the stick. Yes, Fox is biased. So is almost every other major US news outlet, like NYT, NBC, and CNN. Fox is a standard WP:NEWSORG. JOEBRO64 21:28, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fox has its biases, as do all of the networks and the NY Times and WaPo etc. But it is a generally reliable source when reporting factual stories. I realize that Fox's editorial biases are unpopular around here but this never ending attempt to blacklist Fox is getting old. It reminds me of the old expression "the voting shall continue until the correct result is returned." And I for one am concerned about what appears to be an insidious drift towards creating an ideological bubble into which all sources to be considered RS must fall. There is already widespread suspicion among conservatives of a leftwing bias on the project. These endless attacks on Fox News only add fuel to that fire. -Ad Orientem (talk) 22:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per numerous arguments showing that Fox News meets all WP:RS criteria for editorial oversight. All news sources have bias, and as long as we distinguish opinion from reporting, Fox is no different from CNN. — JFG ^talk 22:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 I think that Masem is correct. As far as the news programs go, they are perfectly comparable to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, CBC and other news sources that Wikipedia already uses all the time. Talrolande (talk) 01:18, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Ad Orientem. This sort of partisanship is disgusting. Chris Troutman (talk) 01:26, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 FoxNews definitely meets WP:NEWSORG; and while biased so too are CNN, The Guardian, NYT, MSNBC, etc. but they are allowed. I fear this RfC would be used to get around WP:NPOV. The solution to bias in reporting by a right leaning source is to simply add text sourced to a left leaning source and vice versa. If we go down the slippery slope of banning major right leaning news sources then we will bias our content and gain a reputation of censorship and partisanship and then our article quality will deteriorate and we will be seen to be a biased source that fewer people take seriously. Finally, FoxNews does an enormous amount of reporting on neutral non political matters. Conclusion: right leaning sources are just as welcome as left leaning sources on the NPOV encyclopedia that anyone can edit.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 01:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment: Yes, every other news outlets may have a bias (certainly more centrist bias than the often overused left bias; The Canary and Occupy Democrats are red) but not all biases are the same and they do not affect factual reporting, whether Fox's bias seems to be stronger that it affects its reporting more often that all those news outlets mentioned and this is something to consider. So clearly, if bothsideism is the best rationale one can offer for Option 1 as it is the most cited along with WP:NEWSORG, I am not impressed. There are better more right-leaning sources anyway. A change from Some editors perceive FOX News to be a biased source whereas others do not; neither affects reliability of the source to Most editors consider Fox a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons (even while remaining green) seems to be at least warranted.--Davide King (talk) 08:02, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Either Option 1 or Option 4 - Every single thing said above in terms of Fox being a WP:NEWSORG is also true of the Daily Mail, the Daily Mail also has an editorial team, it also covers actual news stories, it also has a front-row seat at various events. It also shares all of the DM's vices in terms of tabloidism. The DM ban (let's not try to pretend that it is anything but a ban) was an example of primarily US-based editors finding it easy to deprecate the media of another country, this RFC shows that many of them are not capable of applying the same standards to a source closer to home. Therefore, either Fox is generally reliable as a WP:NEWSORG (but so, within the limits of tabloidism, is the DM) or Fox should be deprecated along with the DM. Personally, I deplore these RFCs on general reliability of WP:NEWSORGs in countries where media can generally operate freely, and think them no better than popularity contests pillorying "bad" media, completely detached from the actual contexts in which editors actually wish to use these sources. FOARP (talk) 09:38, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1, with a little bit of 2 for US politics. Yes, they have editorial bias, so does pretty much every news outlet. I'm aware that elements of the "woke brigade" want to rule them out of existence. That's not Wikipedia's role. Stifle (talk) 10:57, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Question: why isn't this decision based on existing academic research instead of opinion Rather than base this decision on opinion it would be helpful to bring in academic studies of media reliability, many professional researchers have spent years collecting evidence on this question. That would give us something to work from and also provide information on if Wikipedia should separate reliability of the website and the TV channel or by subject, e.g Fox News is currently being sued for “knowingly disseminated false, erroneous, and incomplete information”. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, I suggest it makes sense to decide what reliable sources are through in depth analysis which many people have already done. John Cummings (talk) 12:31, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • FWIW, that lawsuit has been summarily dismissed, and Fox's side was baced by a trade org that includes CNN and MSNBC in supporting First Amendment speech. --Masem (t) 12:43, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2: I see a lot of good pieces of evidence above, including the Business Insider report, the Ofcom finding and MJL's comment. I would like to add to the discussion the fact that we are a global encyclopedia and America's "left-wing" and "right-wing" are not that of the world. We here in Europe might find some things said on CNN to be right-wing-only talking points. Those afraid that we may have listed too many left-wing sources as reliable and too many right-wing sources as unreliable might do well to remember that this is a nationality-specific claim. I'd like to suggest some general principles: biased for international reporting, where Fox's Overton window may be wildly off; biased for U.S. politics (including reports on protests and human rights movements); generally factually accurate for events that are not capital P political; use only with care for business-related content (per BD2412's very worrying comment); treat pundits as WP:SPS. Some are discussing Fox's climate change denial but no news media is suitable for scientific content in this way anyway; it is, however, something to bear in mind for e.g. climate change protest coverage, or coverage of a person's views on a scientific issue. — Bilorv (Black Lives Matter) 12:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 This is the type of thing that needs to be decided on a case by case basis. If, for example, someone was writing/editing an article about say, a plane crash for example, and a Fox News segment about that crash stated the names of the pilots, there would be no reason to assume that that information is made up. This is true of any news station. Empirical claims about objective facts made by a prominent news station are unlikely to have been fabricated. As far as other kinds of claims are concerned, any news station, not just Fox, should be taken with a grain of salt, and only be used as a source if the individual editor makes a judgement call to include it. A Google Scholar search for 'Fox News bias' brings a number of studies, but so does the same search for CNN. Media outlets in general are designed to appeal to a target audience, and are not designed to be entirely factual. According to mediabiasfactcheck.com, Fox and CNN are equally biased. It's not a question of which station is being used as a source, it's just about whether or not a better source can be found. Peer reviewed journals will always take precedence over news stations, regardless of the station. --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 15:27, 12 June 2020 (UTC) + strikethrough in response to following comment ​ --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 02:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  Puzzledvegetable, WP:MBFC is rated generally unreliable and self-published. It's not a good source for the reliability of other sources. buidhe 17:54, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 The news programs on Fox News are as reliable as the news programs on other cable news channels, such as CNN and MSNBC. I'm going to be very blunt and just state the obvious: Fox News is not much liked around here (on Wikipedia) because of the political slant of the commentary in its opinion shows. That does not render the factual reporting on its news programs any more unreliable than the news reporting on CNN or MSNBC (which, I note, also have a very heavy slant in their opinion programs, albeit a slant that many more Wikipedians feel comfortable with). The commentary programs on Fox News are obviously unreliable for statements of fact, just like the commentary from any opinion column is unreliable for statements of fact. The factual reporting in news articles on foxnews.com is generally reliable. There are political biases in which stories Fox News chooses to cover, just as there are political biases in which stories CNN and MSNBC choose to cover. And for certain categories of information, I would consider all three generally unreliable (e.g., WP:MEDRS content). Why am I comparing Fox News to CNN and MSNBC? Because those two channels are very comparable to Fox News - they're cable news channels with strong political biases and a clear partisan affiliation. Yet I don't think we'll see many calls for them to be considered unreliable, because their political biases better align with the views of most Wikipedians. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Like -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Like - ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:23, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Like - Urgal (talk) 07:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4. I'd like everyone to see this article from The Seattle Times that shows Fox News digitally altering images to misrepresent the current situation in Seattle. This is not their first act of news manipulation and far from the last. SounderBruce 05:26, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
  • As noted below: photos like headlines and other material around an article should not be taken as the work of the reporters or editorial desk and should not be used to judge the reliability of the content. Bias, absolutely. --Masem (t) 05:43, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

  Interesting. Now before FOX news gets deprecated, Jan 2019, Seattle FOX affiliate KCPQ (Q13 FOX) altered a video of Trump. One of the additional questions to this RfC is Do local affiliate stations have a separate reliability to the main Fox News operation? Possibly not, but most likely not when reporting national news since affiliates use their national news affiliation. {{reply to|Can I Log In}}'s talk page! 18:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3: A 2015 fact-check of Fox News pundits by punditfact found that "about 60 percent of the claims checked have been rated Mostly False or worse". In terms of international affairs, Fox News always restates the American government positions uncritically, presenting the administrations' propaganda as facts. An example of this is its coverage of the assassination of Qassem Soleimani in January 2020. [76] [77]. Mottezen (talk) 07:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Comparing Fox News to CNN or MSNBC is not an argument. Only Fox News is being discussed here. Mottezen (talk) 07:49, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 34 FFS, if they are doing a daily mirror and faking photos that should be a no there and then. That was not "The Colin the Conservative show" that was Fox news (you know the people who fought for lies to be counted as free speech). Sorry that pushes them over into 3 for me, and its borderline 4.Slatersteven (talk) 09:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 We can't honestly separate out the propagandistic tactics like digitially faking images just because the reporters might not be involved. Whoever makes the decision, whoever implements the dirty work, that's the content they choose to show the world. By their fruits shall ye know them. XOR'easter (talk) 16:11, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 at least and preferably Option 4 Reporting rumor as fact and not even bothering to delinieate between the two as well as faking pics and editing other videos to distort what happned is beyond the pale. MarnetteD|Talk 17:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 a news organisation that recieves talking points from a Republican adminstration that pedals in conspiracy theories an obsfucation. Acousmana (talk) 18:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1. It's my understanding that the news stories reported by Fox News can normally also be confirmed by reporting in other sources whose reliability is less controversial. For example, the lead story currently on FoxNews.com is "Seattle police chief and mayor at loggerheads over handling of George Floyd protests, autonomous area". For comparison, see the article on KOMO-TV's website (the Seattle ABC network affiliate), "Mayor Durkan, SPD Chief Best put on united front in public, but tensions remain". The Fox News article may emphasize certain aspects of the story more than other news sources might, but that does not make it inaccurate. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 20:59, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

  That's pretty much the opposite of how it goes with a site given to fabrication, like Fox News - the non-fabricated stories also being findable in non-fabricating news sites was part of the justification to deprecate the WP:DAILYMAIL - David Gerard (talk) 21:35, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

  No evidence has been presented of Fox News fabricating the news parts of stories from the news desk. Reporting that has been fixed via errate, yes (but that's eexpect), and tclear evidence of bias due to which angle they take in cover but which does not eliminate a source from being an RS. But intentional fabrication that has never been corrected or addressed , like there was with the DM and Brietbart cases, has yet to be shown. --Masem (t) 21:47, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Masem: Fox News fabricated quotes of John Kerry in 2004, see these stories in The Guardian and The New York Times Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:52, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Which, as your ref points out, Fox apologized and corrected, expected of RSes when mistakes are made. We're talking cases where , in the situation of DM, they falsified quotes and when challenged, said nothing, and didn't change anything. It was obvious DM wanted to keep the fabrication. Now, we can play the hypothetical thought game if Fox "intentionally" used the misattributed quotes with plans to revoke later if they were challenged, but we can't make that presumption without further evidence of this. There's nothing to objectively doubt their rational of "fatique" that lead to the misuse of those quotes. --Masem (t) 22:00, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

There was also that ridiculous case in which the Daily Mail had two articles prepared for the Amanda Knox verdict before the verdict was even announced and accidentally published the wrong one, complete with fabricated quotes, events, and everything. I don't think Fox can even get close to that. JOEBRO64 22:27, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1. Photos and headlines should not be relied upon regardless of the source. Furthermore Fox's talk shows/opinion pieces are already treated differently than its core news reporting, which is generally reliable.--Tdl1060 (talk) 22:30, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 generally but Option 3 for all politics and science subjects Fox News pundits/opinion pieces should not be considered reliable and should be deprecated across the board (they don't appear to be used all that much), but given the deterioration of the reliability of Fox News over the last ten years and the linked examples of editorial direction to downplay science and support Trump's lies, all Fox News citations about science or politics should be attributed in-text at a minimum ie "According to Fox News,...". Based on their demonstrated bias, the weight given to Fox News news reports should be significantly reduced. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:20, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4 FOX News's coverage of the Seattle protests has been fake news at best. Their article of armed gunmen in the Autonomous Zone had Photoshopped images, as exposed in a CNN Business expose . While it is photos, the photoshopped headline was significant enough to be outed in another media outlet, and therefore should be taken into consideration for being fully deprecated. BrythonLexi (talk) 13:16, 14 June 2020 (UTC) — BrythonLexi (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• Option 3: Per Aquillion, Snooganssnoogans, and Guy and others. The is media bias and then the is fake news and clearly unreliable for factual reporting such as the seattle protests, covid-19 and the riduclous reporting that turned the Birmingham, the UKs second largest city into muslim controlled no-go area . The news service needs to clean up its act if we are going to treat with confidence as a reliable source. ~ BOD ~ ^TALK 16:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 5: If inclusion in WP hinges on whether reporting by a single NEWSORG is reliable then you've already failed. Remove and replace where acadmeic sources are more appropriate, cede AP2 to the POV pushers—readers can't trust that content anyway—and wait until editors start listening to Masem. fiveby(zero) 17:02, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 for news, Option 2/3 for commentary depending on which pundit is involved. The weight/focus given to certain topics is perhaps not agreeable; but looking at articles individually, nothing suggests a lack of editorial control which would jeopardize editorial control, as Masem points out. When readers look at citations to Fox News articles, they are looking at individual news articles, not the network/website as a whole. feminist | freedom isn't free 02:30, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 for news and politics, Option 3 for science-related matters. Ten years ago, I would have selected Option 3 for the entire news organization, but the last decade has witnessed a slow but steady decline in reporting standards across the Western world, so in that sense, Fox is no longer any better or worse than other major networks such as CNN or MSNBC in terms of reliability and impartiality. That being said, I don't think Fox should generally be considered a WP:RS when it comes to science-related matters, given that it has consistently provided a platform to climate change deniers and often runs stories suggesting that climate change is not caused by human activity. Amanuensis Balkanicus (talk) 05:13, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 for news and politics. They were the only major media to cover the Tara Reid situation while the others tried to bury it. Fox has a clear conservative bias, but as mentioned above, there is no such thing as bias-free political reporting. It needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis.Jacona (talk) 15:50, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Odd, as we do not even use Fox news in her bio, so what is this "situation" that is so important we do not mention in?Slatersteven (talk) 16:02, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Their Tara Reade reporting is actually a reason to NOT use Fox News. They immediately jumped on the situation (a BLP and NOTNEWS violation here), without getting more clarity on the subject, because they will immediately grab and exaggerate anything that smears Biden and helps Trump. That's their reflex and job, to smear, not report news accurately. That's why they were the first to write much about it.

Other RS were more circumspect and cautious, waiting for more clarity and evidence. Fox News was acting like the National Enquirer, and lots of what they originally wrote is now seen to be outdated and wrong. Of all sources, Fox News and the National Enquirer are the types we should wait a long time with before using. Fox News should be deprecated, just like the Enquirer.

In fact, try comparing how Fox News ignored and downplayed Trump's boasting/confession of his habit and methodology of non-consensually sexually assaulting women, and their ignoring and downplaying of all the credible allegations by numerous women who experienced that and did not want it, and then compare their reporting on Tara Reade. That comparison shows they are not "news" but "propaganda". -- Valjean (talk) 16:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Ohh, Tara Reade Mmmmmm, the story that was being " not ignored" as early as 2019 by "not Fox news".Slatersteven (talk) 16:24, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Valjean, what Tara Reade reporting from Fox is now seen to be outdated and wrong? petrarchan47คุก 22:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Valjean Sorry, Valjean, when you have a chance could you please enlighten us regarding the alleged shoddy reporting from Fox. Given the focus of this RfC, your statement and support for it are highly relevant and will significantly effect my !Vote. Thanks, petrarchan47คุก 19:20, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47 so sorry for this late reply. I get a lot of notifications and yours dropped through the cracks, so to speak, so thanks for the ping. My concern was with their biased coverage of the story as it developed, which is part of their pattern, a feature, not a bug. They were pretty breathless in their support of Reade in the beginning, and unlike mainstream sources, they did not properly cover all the compromising information that later surfaced which destroyed her credibility. That had to come from mainstream media which looks at all sides of a story. This type of extremely biased coverage from Fox News makes sense, as they are Trump's main propaganda station (but OANN is taking over that role) and thus will also push anything which tarnishes Biden, but not do the same with anything that tarnishes Trump.

Their bias is no longer just the type of ordinary bias which most news sources have, but, since their slide to the extreme right-wing in the last eight years (their strong racist reaction to Obama seemed to trigger it), it affects their reliability. The bias of a news source is not a reason to oppose its use, but extreme bias does affect accuracy, and that is of concern. They have become quite extreme, and their web and TV versions are now rated as slightly more and slightly less reliable than Breitbart, which is above InfoWars, but that's still pretty bad. They have slid down from the previous version of the most accurate media bias chart available. -- Valjean (talk) 23:48, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I was hoping for actual sources to support your claim that Foxs reporting is "now seen to be outdated and wrong". Wrong? Citation needed. Oudated? You'll need a source for that too. Opinions carry no weight. Some people have assumed that if she lied elsewhere, and if her ex-landlords don't like her, she and all the corroboration somehow vanish. If she lied to get into law school, then she wasn't assaulted in '93? I've seen no RS assert this. You have claimed Fox engaged in innacurate reporting in the Reade case. This is a serious claim made in a formal request for comment, I request that if you can't show an example of false Reade reporting, please strike your comment (given the venue). I also disagree with your assessment of their coverage, and note you've provided no examples. Many of your claims require a comparison to make sense. I would invite you to compare CNN's coverage of Kavanaugh with Foxs Reade coverage (that's breathless). I would also invite you to compare Fox with NYT. Both sides are partisan and report in ways that serve their interests. Banning or downgrading only one side violates WP:NPOV. petrarchan47คุก 02:20, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 for news; any punditry should be Didn't mean to hit publish; waiting on response from Valjean above... petrarchan47คุก 19:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• 3.7 -- It is a propaganda outlet which occasionally broadcasts news. EllenCT (talk) 20:54, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly what I have concluded about the NYT, and I have proof. Many editors have mentioned that really there are no corporate media outlets that aren't partisan nowadays. Should we downgrade them all? Won't eradicating all sources from one side of the equation result in a horribly biased encyclopedia? petrarchan47คุก 19:25, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3: In 2015, President Reagan's former domestic policy advisor, Bruce Bartlett, published his detailed analysis of Fox News wherein Bartlett concludes Fox News is a "Propaganda Machine." [78]. In his analysis, Barlett reports on several studies that found "Fox viewers are misinformed" and are "more likely to have factually untrue beliefs than those who receive their news from mainstream sources." In my view, even if you look only at their alleged 'news shows," Fox is a propaganda outlet. For example, on their alleged 'news shows:'
  

• Just last week Fox News finally removed their "digitally altered video" of their coverage of the protests in Seattle after they admitted the cities in their video were not of Seattle at all. [79] [80] [81]. Fox News' "deceitful tactic was called out by The Seattle Times. The local newspaper reported that when it asked Fox News about the images, the network removed them. Fox News' depiction of the demonstration mirrors much of right-wing media's attempt to portray it as menacing." [82]
  
• On Fox News Special Report w/Bret Baier: Bret Baier displayed a racist graphic alleging that the Stock Market gets a big boost when black men are murdered or beaten to near death. After criticism, Bret Baier actually had the racist-nerve to justify producing his racist graphic but did apologize for airing his racist graphic “It was used to illustrate market reactions to historic periods of civil unrest and should have never aired." [83] [84]
  
• Fox News' Martha MacCallum: On the rapidly spreading, deadly coronavirus, Martha MacCallum told her Fox viewers that re-opening the U.S. economy is more important than mitigating the spread of coronavirus, [85]  Recently Marth MacCallum told her viewers that the May job's report is vindication for all of Trump supporters who protested with their assault weapons against state's that shut-down to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. [86] In mid-May, Martha MacCallum cut away from coronavirus coverage to pushTrump's Obamagate conspiracy onto her Fox viewers. 
  
• Fox News' Bill Hemmer: On the 2018 midterms, to his Fox viewers, Bill Hemmer equated Democrat voters to Saddam Hussein supporters when Hemmer compared Democratic voter turnout in the midterm elections to “Saddam Hussein numbers.” [87] In a March 25, 2020 interview, Bill Hemmer did not challenge Trump and did not correct Trump's lies for Fox viewers when Trump as on Hemmer's show lying and misrepresenting facts about the coronavirus. [88].
  ***
• Fox News' Ed Henry: When the public learned of the whistleblower report against Trump, Ed Henry told his Fox viewers that the whistleblower was acting with “political bias” against Trump. [89] Ed Henry recently told his Fox viewers that other media were spreading lies about Trump tear-gassing peaceful protesters in DC for a photo-op. Ed Henry said, “We should also point out though that some of the reporting from a couple nights ago was false, which is that there was all of this talk that really spun this up into a controversy, that pepper spray and whatnot was used,” [90]
  
• Fox News' Shannon Bream pushed anti-Transgender propaganda to her Fox viewers and did not challenge two of her guests when they  "made false and dangerous claims that protections for transgender people put other Americans at risk." [91] Other times, Shannon Bream 'misgenders' and stigmatizes transgender athletes to her Fox viewers and described JayCee Cooper as a  “biological male, now identifying as female”  and described NCAA track & field runner CeeCee Telfer as “a biological male who now identifies as a woman.”  
  
• Fox News' Sandra Smith:  During Sandra Smith's interview of K.T. McFarland, McFarland equated Rep. Adam Schiff to Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbles.  Instead of telling her Fox viewers to ignore McFarland for equating a Jewish man to Hitler's propagandist, Sandra Smith simply said, "K.T McFarland, great to have you on this morning, thanks so much." [92] Sandra Smith lied to her Fox viewers and falsely claimed that Trump wants key witnesses like Mick Mulvaney and John Bolton to testify in the Impeachment hearings even though Trump blocked them and all witnesses from testifying during the entire impeachment process. [93]

Based off these examples, and more that I did not put here, Option 3 is my choice BetsyRMadison (talk) 17:59, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Your list of critical opinions above that you used as the reason to demote a generally RS needs to be cited to generally reliable sources or better, not biased opinions published in questionable or biased sources like HuffPo, Mediaite, Glaad, Daily Caller, Media Matters, and a few competitor sources. Also, the criticism and commentary you added about the photo illlustration and photoshopped images is noncompliant with WP:RECENTISM and WP:BREAKING, especially considering the images were retracted by Fox which is a sign of credibility. The same applies to the graph that was used without context - apologies were made by two Fox news anchors including Bret Baier. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:02, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

More examples here. François Robere (talk) 10:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

These are primarily examples of Fox having incorrect opinions rather than incorrect facts. Having an opinion that it's more important to open the economy than it is to contain the coronavirus doesn't make a source unreliable. Neither is comparing your political opponents to Saddam Hussein or Nazis. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 06:07, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

No, they're not? I explicitly addressed conspiracy theories, false equivalences on scientific consensus, misleading graphics, and ethical problems affecting their news dept, and much of it is backed not by "primary examples", but by expert opinions, analyses and even studies. François Robere (talk) 10:59, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Options 2, 3 and 4. At the very least Fox News news needs to be marked as a biased source and all content needs to be carefully considered through this lens, so option 2 should apply across the board. They should be regarded as deprecated for US political content (fairly broadly interpeted) including climate change, race relations in the United States and gun control in the United States, except for WP:ABOUTSELF references. Option 3 should apply for content that is peripherally or indirectly related to US politics, including UK politics. Thryduulf (talk) 18:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fox News is about as reliable as the New York Times or CNN. It is important to distinguish their talk shows and general reporting. The general reporting is much more reliable than the opinion pieces and the talk shows. The talk shows and opinion pieces are about as reliable as the New York Times opinion pieces. Scorpions13256 (talk) 18:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. As the history of Fox News as an organization demonstrates, it was invented, designed, developed, and produced with the sole purpose of undermining the practice of journalism due to its fundamental belief that reality has a liberal bias. You can read this for yourself in any number of historical works about the organization. The idea for Fox News came out of the conservative right-wing’s disgust with how Nixon was treated by the press. Vowing that they would never allow facts and evidence to interfere with reality ever again, Fox was created as a parallel world, where conservative facts replaced “liberal” ones, mostly by engaging in open distortion, fabrication, and wholesale lying. The fact that they sometimes regurgitate Associated Press stories does not save them from their fate or wipe the slate clean. Fox is not a news organization. It has never been fair and balanced. It has never been the slightest bit interested in reporting and letting the audience decide. It is a giant lie, and has operated as a liar, from the day it opened its doors. It exists solely to undermine truth, to impede the rule of law based on the body of observable facts, data, and evidence, and to constrain the democratic impulse of informing the electorate for which journalism as a practice and a discipline takes its role as a function of a responsible citizen. There is no other option than option 4. Viriditas (talk) 22:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, or failing that Option 3. At best, Fox is a highly partisan source which misrepresents through distortion and selectivity. At worst, it publishes outright falsehoods. The problem here is not that Fox is right-leaning, but that is a purveyor of bad journalism. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 23:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 for straight "sky is blue" reporting, Option 3 for most pundits, Option 4 for certain folks including but not limited to Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity. In other words, it's a case by case basis. We can't apply a one-size fits all. Heck, for straight sports reporting without editorial commentary (their horse racing is decent), they are almost to Option 1 (much as I really hate to admit it). And I say all of the above as a known US liberal Democrat. JMO. But the thing I'm seeing here is a lot of people starting to personalize this discussion, and that's inappropriate Montanabw^(talk) 16:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or Option 2 - the television news offered by Fox and similar outlets is not reliable for anything but opinion. However Fox News stories online should generally be expected to be reliable for fact, understanding that Fox in general has a pro-Republican bias. This RfC is a great example of Perennial Sources List mission creep: no longer providing commentary or guidance on wholly unreliable sources, and instead serving as an excuse to deprecate news sources with undesirable political opinion. This leads me to think we need to look hard at the perennial sources list and what exactly it’s being used for. -Darouet (talk) 03:00, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2, generally - Their reporting is mostly factual (apart from their punditry), but especially when it comes to international affairs, it is sloppy on the details, and therefore not completely reliable. See this article for an example. TucanHolmes (talk) 14:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• I'd say Option 2 - Fox News is a conservative news channel. According to NewsGuard (the browser extension), Fox News struggles in "gather[ing] and present[ing] information responsibly" and "handl[ing] the difference between news and opinion responsibly". So yes, Fox News is generally reliable, but it is important to read the article first for bias before using it. They are not wrong - they just sometimes are misleading. Of course, we have slip-ups every now and then, so we should still be careful when drawing news from just one source and content forks. Aasim 20:46, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 I would really like to see this rating changed. A source can put a lot of bias into an article simply by the choice of wording. For example, in one article Fox said a politician was having an "extramarital affair" when in truth he had been estranged and not lived with his wife for over ten years. Or perhaps here: [94] where they report on a new Montana oil pipeline and out of the blue they throw in the fact that in a neighboring state the government spent $38 million policing protests over that pipeline (Dakota Access). Fox does this sort of manipulation in environmental articles and they do it in their political articles as well. And BTW, I'm not going to argue with any editor that insists that other outlets are biased as well. I have found Fox to be much worse. Gandydancer (talk) 03:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I think it would have been helpful to have mentioned that these two examples are only from my previous week of work here, not because they are the most egregious ones I have seen. I also should have noted that the political example was about two Democrats, one black and the other black/Indian. The Montana pipeline is from a search of a few days ago as I was attempting to update the Dakota Access Pipeline and related articles. Gandydancer (talk) 18:22, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Mixed, depends on a whole lot of things.
  The TV news doesn't usually lie and on matters that aren't of interest to US conservatives, I'd generally believe what it says. On matters of interest to US conservatives such as climate change or gun control, it still doesn't lie, but it has problems with agenda setting and it misleads by omission. Like all the US news media I've ever seen, its foreign coverage is dismal, but I don't think that's bias; US journalists rarely understand the rest of the world.
  The website is significantly less reliable than the news. Again this is not usually untruth so much as topic choice, omission and framing, but unlike the TV news, editors on this page have been able to cite clear examples of faked photos on the website.
  The pundits and talking heads are a disgrace. They should never be used as sources for anything other than Fox News' opinion.—S Marshall T/C 15:43, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I would take it a step further... I don’t think the views of the pundits and other talking heads should be used for anything other than for their own opinions. Sean Hannity’s views are different from Tucker Carlsons, which are both different from Greg Gutfeld’s. So we can not say which represents the views of “Fox News”. We should attribute to Hannity, Carlson, or Gutfeld. Blueboar (talk) 16:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Fox News decides who its pundits are, so Fox News needs to accept responsibility for what they say. I feel that it's right to blame the speaker and absolve the platform if, and only if, the platform doesn't choose the speaker.—S Marshall T/C 17:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• But WHICH speaker represents the views of the platform? The various pundits and talking heads often hold wildly different (and sometimes diametrically opposing) views. Blueboar (talk) 18:49, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 4, a view mandated by consideration of a high-quality academic study: Benkler Y, Faris R and Roberts H (2018) Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Sustained deliberate distortion is the Fox business model. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 18:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Much of the opinion-related stuff is absolutely gross, but this is only discussing the news-collecting portion, not commentary. We can judge whether something is straight-up reporting or incendiary blathering just like we do with any other source. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 01:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3. The previous arguments for Option 3 are cogent and persuasive, noting especially the climate denial nonsense, the assessments by Politifact and Media Bias Fact Check, the emotionally loaded headlines, their propensity for commentary from biased pundits, their recent coronavirus misinformation, and all the other Fox News controversies. Binksternet (talk) 01:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 or 2 It is true that it's a conservative news agency, but we cannot deny the fact that it has several reporters and is a well-established organization that can be trusted when it comes to straight coverage of the news and events. If we were to rule it out because it's too conservative, then CNN's credibility can also be questioned because it might be considered too liberal. I wouldn't necessarily trust other info presented by Fox though, such as their talk shows or political analysis programs but that's separate from news reporting. Keivan.f^Talk 03:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Fox certainly has its partisan leaning, but the same can be said of other major news agencies. The media in general has shown a lack of impartiality since 2016, taking one side or the other instead of remaining neutral. If anything, the conservative bias of Fox is a counterweight to the majority of the media, which is left-leaning. Much of the "disinformation" cited above is about current, controversial topics in which there's a notable dissenting minority opinion. Strong disagreement with their views does not disqualify them as RS. Xcalibur (talk) 07:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 No 100% unbiased human being has ever lived on this planet. The grounds on which the credibility of this outlet has been criticized could also be applied on others. MS 会話 07:39, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 Yeah, sure, op-eds about american politics and the partisan lean of the network are to be taken with a grain of salt, with the considerations of WP:BIASEDSOURCES when appropriate, but Fox is still far from the level of shittiness at Breitbart or the like, and this doesn't seem to affect factual reporting that much. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:30, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4. That doesn't mean that Fox is unreliable for everything, but only that it's hard to know when they're reliable unless it's corroborated by a better source, and in that case we should be using the better source rather than Fox. NightHeron (talk) 15:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1 is correct here. We need to make a distinction between opinion and fact; and most of the responses here that are anti-Fox News are trying to classify it as unreliable because they have the wrong opinions, not because of a belief that Fox News reports incorrect facts. Emotionally loaded headlines and biased pundits don't make a source unreliable. Neither does sometimes having the facts wrong about the coronavirus pandemic, a rapidly developing situation. CNN reported that "Masks can't stop the coronavirus in the US, but hysteria has led to bulk-buying, price-gouging and serious fear for the future" [95]. Remember when Chris Cuomo explicitly said that it's illegal to possess the DNC emails leaked by wikileaks? [96] Or when CNN promoted strange rumours about Melania Trump's whereabouts? [97] Here's a recent article where CNN promotes unsubstantiated rumours about Donald Trump's health. [98] Let's not forget that they falsely declared Kim Jong-Un dead. Heck we have a whole article about CNN controversies, but nobody is trying to deprecate it. The vast majority of the people voting (because we all know this is a vote no matter how much we try to pretend it's not) here are complaining because Fox News doesn't share their opinions on contentious matters. This proposal is pretty clear evidence of Wikipedia's strong left-wing bias and deprecating Fox News while allowing left-wing media sources like CNN or MSNBC will further entrench this bias in articles. And no, this isn't a false equivalency. CNN's and MSNBC's news coverage is incredibly biased much like Fox News. The fact they claim not to be biased while Fox News doesn't (as much) is meaningless. If this proposal does go through (and it's pretty obvious it'll end up as Option 2 as the closing admins will interpret a lack of consensus as that instead of doing the proper thing and keeping the previous consensus) I'll likely start another for CNN despite it being obvious what the outcome of that will be. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 03:25, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3: I don't have a lot of patience with a news source that constantly spreads propaganda for (at least it looks suspiciously like) whoever pays them the most. Case in point they've been caught fabricating photos of the BLM protests to make them seem more violent and dangerous just a few weeks ago. If it's anything even remotely politics related, I wouldn't trust them as far as I can kick them --Licks-rocks (talk) 09:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3: Just recently they fabricated pictures from BLM protests to suggest violence and vandalism,[99] which joins on dozens of other incidents of them publishing misleading or downright false information. It's true that they also have some strictly factual reporting, but you can't disentwine that from the rest of the site (or the network, for that matter); the meaning of "generally reliable" is "generally trustworthy". If you have to sift to find the parts that you can trust, then it's not "generally reliable". François Robere (talk) 09:57, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3 > 4 > 2 > 1: I think it's reasonably clear that Fox News is not as reliable as other major news networks. Besides all the strong arguments given before, I would vote against considering Fox reliable based on the shenanigans they do with graphs alone. I mean, look at this! That didn't even air on a pundit show, that aired on Fox Business! Loki (talk) 19:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 3: Per the rather abysmal record on climate change and other contentious topics. AmbivalentUnequivocality (talk) 01:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1: they arent any more biased than any other major news outlet Urgal (talk) 07:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 1, though I wish all the news shows would draw a brighter line between news and opinion (perhaps by always saying it’s one or the other at the bottom of the screen). Hemmer, Baier, Roberts, Breem, McCallum, et al. clearly try very hard to be objective, and largely succeed. Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:33, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

• Option 1 to 4 per Valjean, and per all the people !voting option 1 we may as well depreciate all other sources while we're at it. I'll go start the other RfCs, shall I? Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Option 2 with Option 3 being a close second choice. There is substantial evidence that Fox News often bends the truth to fit their pervasive bias, but to be fair, so does CNN, although to a lesser extent. This seems to be a growing problem that mirrors (or causes) polarization within U.S. society. I think both of these sources (and many others) are best avoided if we want to write good encyclopedic content from a neutral perspective. WP:RSP should reflect that Fox News is a sketchy source that should be avoided in favor of better sources, but it should not be deprecated. - MrX 🖋 11:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• Defective question It's missing the most plausible answer which is that all of the 4 listed options are invalid over-generalizations.North8000 (talk) 13:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Fox News)

• US media landscape has changed a lot since 2010, and not to the better. That being said, I am interested to see what concrete examples of inaccuracies on Fox's part that can be found. Talk shows on any network should never be cited for facts imo. buidhe 20:08, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I don't think lack of factual falsehoods makes a source reliable. Remember that the coverage of something in RS is also used for determining WP:WEIGHT in Wikipedia so if a fact collection is sufficiently biased or omits relevant info due to agenda pushing, it can end up tilting what we call the NPOV if we treat the fact selection as neutral. Facts themselves can also be distorted without being stated falsely outright, and the nature of agenda pushing is to do that. This is goes beyond Fox News. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 21:26, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

If factual accuracy is not the metric, then what is? If WP:RS is not about reliability, there's a danger that the policy will end up being used to remove sources simply because they cover issues that editors don't want to be included on Wikipedia. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• The local affiliates will make this a really tricky one - David Gerard (talk) 20:11, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• I agree with Buidhe, my opinion is that the RfC from 2010 was outdated, as I agree that the US media landscape has changed greatly since 2010. Fox News tends to discussed a lot, so I thought it was worth opening a proper RfC to settle the issue. One of the main controversies about the factual accuracy of Fox News since 2010 revolves around the now retracted false claims that Seth Rich was in contact with Wikileaks back in 2017, see this archive of the original Fox News article and these Politifact and Snopes articles, there are allergations that some of the quotes for the story were fabricated. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:25, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• Newslinger, please remind me again - wasn't the purpose of WP:RS/Perennial sources to avoid multiple time-sink RfCs? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:05, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  The purpose of the perennial sources list is to index past discussions on this noticeboard. The previous uninterrupted RfC on Fox News is from 2010, a decade ago. As noted in the "Controversially classified sources" notice at the top of WT:RSP, Fox News and the Southern Poverty Law Center (RSP entry) are the only sources whose entries were subjected to edit warring since the list was created, and based on that, I had been expecting RfCs on these sources for some time. — Newslinger talk 22:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Well, if this is a "real" RfC, the projects and wider community need to be informed. Who is in charge of doing that? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:00, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  adding - Newslinger - this RfC is malformed because it doesn't separate the pundit shows from the actual news, and it doesn't say anything about it being Fox cable or Fox broadcast. 01:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  This RfC is not malformed. The RfC statement includes the text "(as separate from their cable pundits)", which clarifies that it refers to the Fox News (news and website) entry. (If the statement didn't include the text, the RfC would cover both the Fox News (news and website) and the Fox News (talk shows) entries.) In my experience, notifying WikiProjects of discussions on this noticeboard about mainstream American news sources tends not to make a difference in participation, but you or anyone else can notify related projects if you wish to do so. — Newslinger talk 01:18, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Newslinger - it doesn't specifically state FoxNews (cable/satellite) vs FoxNews network affiliate broadcast stations. The latter are subject to FCC regulations that are different from networks and satellite transmitted news. I see David Gerard also mentioned it above. Oh, and thank you for adding this RfC to WP:CENT. My concern is the continuous partisan push (for years now) to downgrade this RS because of its conservative bias while keeping only center-left and left leaning biased sources. It appears the arguments are based primarily on POV opposition rather than factual news reporting. A network like Fox News doesn't become a most watched political news station whose viewership is bipartisan by being unreliably biased. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  No problem. It looks like Hemiauchenia has inserted an additional question into the RfC statement that specifically asks about affiliate stations. As a general rule of thumb, RSP entries for television channels only refer to the main channel, and not to any affiliate stations of the parent company's television network. For Fox, the Fox News entry is scoped to Fox News, and the stations listed in List of Fox television affiliates (by U.S. state) are out of scope. If an affiliate station becomes controversial enough to meet the inclusion criteria on its own, it would receive a separate entry on RSP. I trust the community and the closers (preferably a panel of closers) to reach the right decision. — Newslinger talk 05:35, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Actually, the most effective way to publicize this RfC is to list it on the centralized discussion template, which would put this RfC on the same level of vetting as the ones for the Daily Mail (RSP entry) and Quackwatch (RSP entry). I've added this RfC to the template. — Newslinger talk 05:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Atsme: I'm not sure what your point is, the last RfC on Fox News really was in 2010. Fox News is also listed at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources as one of the most controversial sources on the list (alongside SPLC, which has never had a RfC) and recommends opening a new one. There have not been any recent-discussion on the general reliability of Fox News, so I thought it was worth having this discussion as a reference for subsequent discussions about Fox News's reliability, a lot has changed since 2010, especially with the election of Donald Trump, so I think it is worth doing. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:16, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 237#Is Fox News a WP:RS 2018 RfC ^{update per below: Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_238#Fox_News_reliability_RfC 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)}
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 257#Fox News 2019 Discussion
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 276#Reboot to specifically address Fox News (talk shows) Oct 2019
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 287#Fox News, 9/11 topic March 2020
  • And there were several other discussions in 2020 that point editors back to eariler discussions. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:48, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

    Atsme, WP:CCC. We're likely to see the Mail off the list at some point if the new editor continues to make progress. In the same way, Fox has changed over time and the March discussion was narrowly focused. Guy (help!) 22:04, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

    @Atsme: I don’t see an RfC in the 2018 post in Archive 237? — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:02, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    I think it might be Archive 238 Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_238#Fox_News_reliability_RfC. PackMecEng (talk) 05:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Thank you for finding that, PackMecEng. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:07, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Ah, thanks! It seems to have been limited in scope and then withdrawn, so there really hasn’t been a full RS RfC since 2010. — MarkH₂₁^talk 05:14, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

    Looks like, though the discussion that spawned that 2018 RFC had quite the participation. PackMecEng (talk) 05:17, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: Fair enough, the issue is that none of these were actually properly formatted as a RfC, though the 237 and 257 Archive discussions are substantial, I apologise for not checking thoroughly. By formatting this as a proper RfC, hopefully we can end the endless cyclical discussions about Fox News. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:57, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• Also, even the Daily Mail being depreciated has not stopped endless discussions about it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

  Apples and oranges. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 22:02, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think we need to keep in mind that the Wikipedia policy of reliable sources is editorial oversight. Fox News does fact checking like any other major news organization, but the end result is always disputable on significance and implications (just like CNNs or MSNBC's reporting). News organisations create narratives that often times are not real or are exaggerated (for example ideas like government collision or broad racism or social justice are not perceived in the same way by these organizations). But keep in mind that "truth" and "facts" on events that come out of any news organization will carry bias since they tend to interpret little facts like a case of police brutality and then extrapolate it to abstractions like racism or harassment and so on. When it comes to these mega interpretations, there is very little truth since there is no such thing as an organization that determines the truth of an interpretation. If Fox News has been discussed multiple times back to back recently then this is a closed debate.Ramos1990 (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
• There is always a comment that we are talking about Fox news anchors “as separate from their cable pundits”. Firstly, the latter is what everyone watches and thinks of as Fox News. But there is another point we keep avoiding (at least as far as I’ve seen); and that is Fox broadcast versus the Fox website. The Fox website is cited heavily in WP. But, the site is embarrassing to read. The main stories are nearly always political attacks. If there is no news, they will go back and run stories about Benghazi and Lewinsky. O3000 (talk) 01:30, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Let's not make this about one topic, and whether a RS believes it 100% or not, or whether or not they choose to publish opposing views. That does not make them unreliable - it makes them opposition to one POV. We need diversity - not a single POV - and attempting to eliminate all opposition to a single scientific belief when there are others is censorship. This isn't a case of the world is round, not yet, anyway, so we give DUE to prevailing science theory and also include what the opposition believes (if it is also based on scientific theory). Science can factually and steadfastly state a lot of things as fact, just not questionable predictions which deserve mention. As long as there is scientific controversy, we include it - we don't have to believe it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 14:42, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• The references here have been moved to #References (Fox News), as the {{reflist-talk}} template captures all references above the template, including ones added in newer comments. Atsme's comment below was made when the references template looked like this: Special:Diff/961474909 § Discussion (Fox News). The {{reflist-talk}} template was originally in the bottom of the Responses section, then moved to the bottom of this Discussion section, and now finally to its own References section. — Newslinger talk 05:21, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  The references above are either not reliable or not up-to-date (WP:RECENTISM) if they say Fox didn't retract the Seth Rich story - (and that is part of the reason this RfC needs an experienced closer who is not politically biased). See the NYTimes article which states: Fox News on Tuesday retracted a story linking the murder of a Democratic National Committee staff member with the email hacks that aided President Trump’s campaign, effectively quashing a conspiracy theory that had taken hold across the right-wing news media. It goes on to say (most importantly) that: "it also underscored a schism between the network’s news-gathering operation and one of its biggest stars: the conservative commentator Sean Hannity". Again, the news portion of FOX is a reliable source but like other cable news, the pundits are opinion. Oh, and The Washington Times did apologize and retract per this Vox article. I find the allegations that Fox News did something irreversibly wrong to be very disconcerting, and I do hope the closer of this RfC takes those misrepresentations into consideration. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

• The elephant in the room is that we always are coming back to Fox NEws because editors on all sides willing ignore NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM, rushing to put in breaking stories and commentary, or what I've seen called "hyperjournalism" (its gotten worse with how we've covered COVID) We can be up to date, but our up to the minute coverage should stick to bare facts and have nearly no coverage of anything controversial until that story has had a chance to go through the news cycle a few times (eg like the Rich story, or as an opposite example, the Covington MAGA hat kid from last year which has ended with egg on the WaPost and others' faces) We shouldn't be including any commentary from journalists or experts unless its actually part of the story (eg Trump's comments on mail-in ballots leading to Twitter's fact check leading to Trumps EO on Section 230 fully qualifies in the article on Section 230). But we have both new and experienced editors going around rushing to fill these in as soon as they happen. Now, I agree that short term, if I was pulling info from NYTimes in the short term compared to Fox News, I'd have less a concern, but if we were properly waiting until the "long term" (a few news cycles out), it is much much easier to realize that we can treat Fox News (the news desk, not the pundits) as an RS, but that with information from the multiple news cycles, we have a way to apply UNDUE appropriate to know if actually need to include them. Most of that time, that is "no", as they are usually repeating the same basic story from other good sources. This is in contrast to Daily Mail or Breitbart that under the same conditions, we'd have NOTHING usable because we simply outright cannot trust their material. This is how we can justify Fox as an RS but still respect that it's probably not going to be used often due to UNDUE, but we need more editors aware that respecting the principles of NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM will avoid having Fox being pushed as hard as a source (since ideally, we won't be seeing as much liberal opinion as quickly as possible either). --Masem (t) 19:21, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Masem, that's a very good point. Guy (help!) 12:22, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  With all due respect to Masem, I would have equal concern over the coverage by the NYTimes considering their spin, mistakes and bad judgment calls when publishing material from anonymous sources that turned out to not be accurate throughout the left's Russian collusion conspiracy theory that was promoted by MSM based on the Steele dossier and false information provided to the FISA court. We should have waited per WP:RECENTISM. We cannot put 100% of our trust in online headlines and the instant news that follows those headlines, regardless of who is publishing it. The NYTimes' own executive editor brought to light the "unmistakeable anti-Trump" coverage. Perhaps WP editors who are anti-Trump themselves do not see anything wrong with the NYTimes being anti-Trump, and therein the problem lies. It is unequivocal bias, the same as it was when the right disliked Obama because it is politically motivated partisanship. In my Signpost Op-Ed this month, I added a link to the discussion with Ted Koppel who did an excellent job explaining the problem. It is real, and it does exist in internet, cable, broadcast and print political news media because we are dealing with a different era in journalism. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

  Oh, I don't disagree that RECENTISM should apply equally to all sources and better to wait to add to judge when we have a better concept of the full picture, have most corrections in place, etc. For example, apparently the NYTimes took the analysis of Bolivia's elections possible fraud at face value that lead to Morales' loss (NYTimes was not the only thing going on). Now obviously, WP wasn't a part of that, but I mean, that situation or the MAGA Hat cases are examples that our most trusted sources can still be wrong in the short term. But were I to bet on which source would be less wrong in the short term, between the NYTimes and Fox? My money is on NYTimes. --Masem (t) 22:07, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Hemiauchenia: This edit has had this effect because it has taken the RfC statement beyond the bounds of brevity. Please amend the statement (not necessarily that line) to be less verbose, so that it will once again be listed on the RfC boards. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:05, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Redrose64: Sorry about that, is the amended version better below the word limit? Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thank you Yes, it's displaying properly now. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 09:43, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

• An additional comment: some of the views expressed in the discussion seem to equate finding Fox unreliable with having a liberal bias. I would point out that there are many much more serious and factually reliable conservative news sources, such as National Review, The Federalist, The Bulwark, The American Conservative, and Reason, to name a few. None of these will exhibit characteristics such as the tabloid tone and shock headline attributes of Fox. BD2412 T 04:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Please don't call Reason conservative. They favor legalization of all drugs (including crystal meth and heroin) legalization of prostitution, zero restrictions on immigration -- 100% open borders with no border patrol or DEA -- immediate closure of every US military base outside the US, no tariffs or trade restrictions, and equal marriage rights for gays. Those are not positions conservatives support. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Whether you consider Reason conservative is entirely based on whether you consider American Libertarianism a branch of conservatism. Personally, I would say so. Being within the loosely defined blocs of Liberal and Conservative certainly does not imply universal agreement. Devonian Wombat (talk) 07:21, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  @Guy Macon: Reason is unquestionably conservative with respect to fiscal and economic policy, and minimizing government intervention. There is, of course, variation within conservatism that deviates from those principles in the service of empowering government to maintain notions of traditionalism, but the specific positions taken are highly liquid. Incidentally, opposition to gay marriage is no longer really a conservative position. Republicans are now just as likely to support gay marriage as to oppose it (including President Trump, an unwavering gay marriage supporter, for which he has been given little credit). Fox News itself has been called out by activists for becoming too pro-gay marriage. BD2412 T 15:13, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Slightly off-topic, but the American Tea Party movement is a good example of strong fiscal conservatism with neutrality on social conservatism. There's a bit of detail on this at Social conservatism in the United States#Electoral politics. Here in the United Kingdom, the Conservative Premiership of David Cameron legalised same-sex marriage, amongst other non-socially-conservative things. Capewearer (talk) 16:36, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• While they overlap in some areas, no reasonable person considers US Libertarianism to be a branch of US conservatism. Again, legalizing heroin, opening up the borders, defunding the police, and solving the problem of prayer in government schools by getting rid of the government schools are not positions that are widely popular among any branch of US conservatism. I could also argue that abolishing the income tax, removing all restrictions on firearms, and closing down the FDA and FCC are not positions that are widely popular among any branch of US liberalism.

Related: World's Smallest Political Quiz.

Please note that I hold US Libertarians in the same low regard as I hold US Democrats, US Republicans, and US Greens. The greens and libertarians just haven't had the opportunity to disappoint us yet. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm...so basically, you don't like US politics. Here on Bonaire, my needs align more with the Blue party. In the US, I'm up and down... and still cling (does that make me a Klingon?) to the values of JFK, as best I can recall. I'm just not that into it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:45, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• BD2412, Oops. The Federalist just got banned from Google's ad platform due to publishing disinformation about BLM. [100] Guy (help!) 20:19, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  • That is actually not what that article says (ZeroHedge was banned, while The Federalist was merely warned, apparently over "comments"), but even so, The Federalist remains some number of levels more reliable than Fox News. BD2412 T 20:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    BD2412, a low bar indeed... Guy (help!) 21:09, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    Guy, Zero Hedge is unreliable, we already know that - they said the protests were fake, and had already demonetized that part of their site (probably a video). The Federalist case was different - they were simply warned about monetizing race-related content which Google deems a violation of their monetization policy. NBC News stated: "The Federalist published an article claiming the media had been lying about looting and violence during the protests. All Google is doing is appeasing a British nonprofit group and preventing Google customers from earning clickbait revenue from Google placed ads. Look at the NBC misleading headline: Google bans two websites from its ad platform over protest articles - so what does it all actually mean? Google told The Federalist to demonitize (probably page ads and video) which means no clickbait ad revenue from Google for that content. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:04, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    Atsme, that's a very idiosyncratic presentation. No, they are not "appeasing" anybody. They have policies, a pressure group noted that the Federalist was violating those policies, and that Zero Hedge was publishing fake news while violating those polices. Google checked, agreed, and took action.

    Early reports conflated the two. Most have now been updated to correctly reflect the different actions taken. Guy (help!) 23:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Exactly - "Early reports conflated..." - that's why we have WP:RECENTISM & NOTNEWS, and why this RfC and the comments that conflate politcal commentary with Fox News are just plain wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atsme (talk • contribs) 08:32, June 17, 2020 (UTC)

• Comment - It's an example of a massive double-standard on here that the UK-based Daily Mail was effectively banned but primarily US-based editors on here feel unable to apply the same logic to Fox News, which shares all of the DM's vices and virtues. FOARP (talk) 09:29, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
  • DM - and to be fair on the US - Breitbart - has been shown to actually falsify information to get the story they want. Fox News (the news side) may bias and swing a story's details to tell a specific angle to a story but we don't have yet anywhere close to the massive scale of falsification. (Misreporting with later redactions do not count because that we expect out of an RS). --Masem (t) 12:46, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
    • And it turns out that Fox has been fabricating too - David Gerard (talk) 15:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• They all do it, David. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo - left-leaning media are not unlike the right because they are all spewing political commentary right on their front pages. CNN chooses to call their pundits "news journalists". The first sentence in the Don Lemon lead tells our readers that he is "an American television journalist" whereas Sean Hannity is "an American talk show host and conservative political commentator." Now look at Rachel Maddow - "an American television news program host and liberal political commentator." Wolf Blitzer, another inaccurate description of a political commentator vs journalist or newscaster/news anchor. Politico's Jack Shafer was on target when he wrote: "Singling out Blitzer for a thrashing does not exonerate the other cable news anchors—their crimes remain under investigation. The Situation Room and other less-bad CNN prime-time programs—Erin Burnett Outfront, Anderson Cooper 360° and CNN Tonight With Don Lemon—churn through their time slots lighting news fuses that promise fireworks but often deliver duds. Once you start viewing these CNN programs as talk shows about the news in which hosts interview reporters, “specialists” and newsmakers, and not as news programs, per se, your journalistic expectations recede." Fox News Channel defines their political commentators correctly and keep those shows separate from the news, but based on some of the comments above, several editors are still conflating the two, perhaps because they are not well-versed in the operations of television networks. I think PEW nailed it with their June 2018 survey, Between Factual and Opinion Statements in the News. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 02:54, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• As you've been told several times, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a convincing argument at Wikipedia. We're talking about this thing, not other things - David Gerard (talk) 08:19, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• As you've been told several times... - wow, David, that sounds awfully bullyish. I'm not some child who has to be told anything. I welcome reminders - none of us are perfect - and you can certainly disagree with my position, but unless you can quote a policy that forbids such use of comparisons, you're just stating opinion, and I will continue to use comparisons to demonstrate the need for consistency in support of NPOV when making decisions as important as this one, and to overcome political bias in the decision-making process, perceived or otherwise. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is about article notability, content, etc. We're discussing something much more general here - whether a major news source should be excluded. It is very important for decisions on which sources are considered reliable to be consistent. What appears to me to be happening is that people are trying to exclude Fox News for its failings, while ignoring the failings of equivalent news sources (CNN & MSNBC) that have very similar failings. The inconsistency appears to me to be politically motivated. I'm no fan of any of the cable news channels - they are all guilty of the same sorts of sensationalism and partisanship. However, if we're going to declare Fox News unreliable, we really have to declare CNN and MSNBC to also be unreliable. If we aren't consistent, then it looks very much like WP:RS is being applied only when it's politically convenient. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The statement above ignores a fundamental difference: "... trying to exclude Fox News for its failings, while ignoring the failings of equivalent news sources (CNN & MSNBC) that have very similar failings."

For CNN & MSNBC, such "failings" are a "bug", IOW exceptional errors they immediately correct. For Fox News, such "failings" are a "feature" of their modus operandi. Unless called out on a large scale by myriad other major sources, they will not correct the error, and other extreme right-wing media do the same. That is a major difference between left-wing media and right-wing media. The left uses fact-checkers and corrects errors, whereas the right ignores fact-checkers, attacks fact-checkers (Trump told his supporters to not believe fact-checkers), and persistently uses propaganda as a tool, even when it has been proven to be false/fake.

Fox News is no longer just a right-wing RS we can use. It has slid to the far-right (CNN is considered slightly right-wing by the rest of the world) and is focused as a tool of Trump, with a "Trump-Fox News feedback loop" (search that term) that is documented as a phenomenon. Here is just one article. There are many. -- Valjean (talk) 18:58, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Your argument is similar to others, all of which have been successfully disputed throughout this discussion. The oppose iVotes appear to be very partisan in nature, and have failed to produce any evidence that supports downgrading Fox News as a generally RS. Our own WP article describes our left bias, Ideological bias on Wikipedia#Bias in Wikipedia content in relation to US politics, and that is what we need to fix and what I believe we are doing now to preserve and maintain a NPOV for the benefit of the project overall. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Atsme, no, they do not fabricate stuff. They may spin, and they may make mistakes. Fox News has been literally photoshopping a guy with a gun into images of otherwise peaceful protests. That is fake news. Guy (help!) 20:21, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• JzG, they actually do, including the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize winning stories. Remember Janet Cooke and The Washington Post who returned their Pulitzer? Do the research, Guy. You once told me I was naive - uhm, no. It's not me. After over 35 years in & out of newsrooms, tv studios, post production, artwork & layouts, typesetting - I am not the least bit hesitant in telling it like it is while backing it up with RS to support my position which I just did. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atsme, this is exactly the problem. A reporter at NYT faked reports (quite common). This was detected by the Times and he was pushed out. With the Fox pictures, they are still defending them and there has been no action, that we know of, against those responsible.

  And then there's the false and misleading stories on COVID-19, and climate change, and the many other instances.

  You can excuse thema ll away one by one if you like, but in the end the pattern is clear and systemic and entirely in line with the academic research that shows Fox News to have joined FNC in using an agenda-driven, not fact-driven, model. Guy (help!) 21:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Guy, my views align more closely with Masem. I'm not making any excuses - I'm simply stating facts. After reading your essay, I'm of the mind that we will probably find ourselves in disagreement more often than not so I'm going to leave it there. I've got plenty of work to do helping to reduce the AfC/NPP backlog which keeps growing. Happy editing! ^Atsme _Talk 📧 13:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

There's no evidence yet - and I'd love to be proven wrong - of the news content (not headlines, not photos) coming from the reporters and checked by the editors out of the Fox news side of intentional/malicious fabrication as was clearly shown on the DM/Brietbart cases. That would be a slam dunk in closing this against the use of Fox News. But everything listed above that is claim of Fox fabrication is either being due to Fox's bias (not fabrication but presenting in a specific angle which RS does not judge but cautions about when NPOV comes along), corrected stories (of which we can play mind games of whether these were intentional or not until pointed out), or simply outside of the news-desk editorial content, like the Seattle picture stuff. I'm trying to be the devil's advocate (literally, almost) here - There's a lot of personal and other reasons that people want to see Fox News demoted from reliable, and I would tend to agree that net result, but we need to prove the case out on this, otherwise, any weak rational can come back to bite us in the future ("You demote Fox for fake headlines, CNN has done fake headlines..." type logic). And that's why I'm point out that even with Fox news still considered reliable, UNDUE drives away from its use as a source when other sources covering the same event exist. --Masem (t) 13:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• I am of the same opinion as Jimmy Wales on this..."You shouldn't really use Wikipedia as the sole source for anything, ever. You shouldn't use anything as the sole source for anything, in my view." Wikipedia is an Anglo-American encyclopedia, and so it values western opinions/references/sources and denounces other news agencies as "government controlled/funded", when it is clear that American and British journalists either toe the line and use government press releases as fact, or they are ostracised. What I am saying is that every editor must be careful, what they are publishing, for instance, Bolivian coup. Every western news organisation shouted out "election fraud", only for MIT to state (months later) "There is not any statistical evidence of fraud that we can find,” wrote John Curiel and Jack R Williams, both from MIT, adding that the conclusions of an audit by the Organization of American States “would appear deeply flawed”.. My message, be very sceptical of western news agents (BBC, CNN, Fox), as much as eastern news agents from China or Russia.SethWhales ^talk 15:35, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

  +1 - I'm on the same page, Seth Whales. As several of us have repeated over and over again, comply with WP:RECENTISM, WP:NOTNEWS and exercise caution toward all news sources in today's clickbait environment, especially political news which in and of itself is subject to the biases of the authors/journalists/publishers. If we had been adhering to our PAGs, this issue never would have been brought up, much less noticed - it would have disappeared in the anus of internet history. Correction was made/published by the news source - end of story. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:40, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Deprecate Fox News for AMPol2. We don't save a source because only two out of a dozen+ of its hosts are good. When it's accurate, other sources should be used. Speaking only of Fox News, not its talking heads, with the exception of Shep Smith (consistently good, but no longer at Fox) and Chris Wallace (he occasionally dares to do the right thing), Fox News should be deprecated for politics. Those two hosts are the rare exception that proves the rule. The other hosts in the newsroom are generally unreliable.

Fox employees leaving the company have described the "newsroom" (not just any room) as "an extension of the Trump White House."[101] The situation is worse now, to the point where the influence of Fox News and Fox & Friends on Trump and the GOP cannot be ignored. The tail is wagging the dog:

"Fox News is no longer the propaganda arm of the Republican Party. The Republican Party is the legislative arm of Fox News." -- David Atkins, Washington Monthly

Deprecate it for AMPol2, which is not a total ban. When Wallace and others are accurate, they can still be used for politics, but we only know that by comparing them with other sources, so we should generally use those sources. (The rest of the hosts should be blacklisted for politics.) -- Valjean (talk) 15:37, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• A lot of people seem to be citing Politifact's ratings on Fox News to prove that they are not reliable. They claim that 60% of Politifact's ratings for Fox News are completely or partially false. This is not a good way of analyzing the reliability of a news source, because it is very clear that Politifact websites doesn't factcheck absolutely everything Fox News reports. Also, I heard an editor say that 44% of Politifact's ratings for NBC are completely or partially false. If Politifact's ratings are the reason that you think Fox News is unreliable, you should also think NBC is unreliable. Scorpions13256 (talk) 20:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I would remind editors we are discussing Fox news, Just Fox news. Whataboutism is not a valid argument.Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Picture manipulation by Fox?

Just saw this tweet, claiming blatant photo manipulation by the Fox News site. It's 2am here - is anyone here familiar with the originals? If true, this sort of practice would rule out Option 1 - David Gerard (talk) 00:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

@David Gerard and David Gerard: here's another source:

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fox-news-runs-digitally-altered-images-in-coverage-of-seattles-protests-capitol-hill-autonomous-zone/

BTW, your comment ended up in the wrong section, so I moved it here. I hope you don't mind. -- Valjean (talk) 03:50, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

David Gerard, there have been several examples of this in the past, a few of which can be found in the article Fox News controversies, though there are a few others that didn’t get enough coverage to be due there. I sort of agree that this should preclude Option 1 to some extent, as this isn’t a regular occurrence from other outlets, but it happens periodically with some degree of regularity with Fox. I would presume a lot of people are !voting “Option 1“ based on the Fox News of a decade ago, or are simply unaware of these kinds of things. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 04:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I mean, pictures shouldn't be considered as part of the story written by the byline of the author of the article. That's some guy trying to illustrate the paper, and just like headlines and anything else outside the article should not be taken as representative of what passes the editorial desk. It is clear example of the bias that Fox will try to do which, as I've commented below, usually makes their covers just unnecessary to include when other more RSes are covering the same thing if we are taking cautious steps in applying NOT#NEWS and RECENTISM. --Masem (t) 04:28, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't buy this excuse. Making stuff up is making stuff up. OK, headlines should be disregarded and not cited—for example, I have seen a false headline in a very reliable paper (Times of Israel), albeit it was quickly fixed. Deliberately falsifying images, however, is falsification and my standard for deprecation is "deliberately and consistently reports falsehoods." buidhe 06:04, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

It was a montage - most people familiar with images can see that...but it appears Fox competitors are scraping the barrel to find fault. Life goes on. It's not half as bad as publishing images of children in cages and falsely claiming it was Trump when the photos were from the Obama administration, and worse, promoting a presidential nominee who lied about it. Again, as I've stated above - exercise caution, comply with WP:RECENTISM and wait for the retrospective from historians and academics. We need to stop with the Twitter feed - it's unreliable - and stop breaking news - WP:NOTNEWS. Follow our PAGs and we'll be fine. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:25, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Come off it. They're blatantly and intentionally lying. This is beyond the pale. Stop apologizing for liars. oknazevad (talk) 15:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

A “montage”? Is any other reliable source characterizing it this way except Fox News itself? Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 15:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The desk jockies that write headlines for CNN and other sites are just as bad in terms of writing clickbait titles (there's a whole case around Lawrence Lessig and the NYTimes just over a bad headline, despite the article content being legit). [102]. (Whether that suit will develop into anything we don't know, just the point that headlines are written without the care of the body of the articles). This happens across the board, but since we don't use headlines or pictures or picture captures as "reliable" because of the fact they are written outside the editorial process, this type of manipulation should not be counted against the reliability of the reporters and editors above the Fox News desk. Bias of the overall work, heck yes. --Masem (t) 17:19, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

The more respectable and reliable conservative sources that I mentioned in the previous section—e.g., National Review, The The Federalist, The Bulwark, The American Conservative, and you can throw in The Wall Street Journal—wouldn't be caught dead engaging in tabloid practices like this. Considering the fact that Fox's prominent posting of this panic-inducing image coincided with one of the worst stock market drops of the year, I would think that Wikipedia should definitely avoid linking to such content. Perhaps the best solution would be some means of examining potential uses of Fox as a source on a case by case basis, with a consensus-based process to vet individual news articles for propriety before using them. BD2412 T 17:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree those sources would not manipulate photos like that, but again, we're looking to what is usable by WP, the article content, not the photos or headlines. That they do that type of manipulation should put up a big caution that they are biased outside the newsdesk and thus when applying UNDUE for inclusion, that weighs heavily against them. That's how you apply consensus on a case-by-case basis without eliminating the use of Fox for most other topics where there are few issues with their reporting, and without applying "not reliable for X topics" which always get plagued with debate if that's used. I know it seems earlier just to say Fox is not an RS, but the evidence is not there for that... But we have ways to work around the problems of its bias as long as consensus-based processes build on NPOV are used on case-by-case. --Masem (t) 17:45, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

- Please...see our WP article Photo manipulation##Use_in_journalism. I would think the montage was used to depict different events in one image, such as the protestors in the images published by The Detroit News which shows armed protestors. Armed - with guns. First of all, Tucker Carlson, the subject of the tweet in this particular discussion, is not a newscaster, rather he is a pundit so why are we having this discussion at all, David Gerard? Hannity is also a pundit and he also addressed the gun toting protestors. There are pictures in the article I linked to with the caption Armed men weapons in the Senate gallery on Thursday, April 30. (Photo: Craig Mauger, The Detroit News) but there are also other images with gun toting protestors. Are you saying there were no guns, and the image is a false depiction of the protest? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:46, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Please...see our WP article Photo manipulation##Use_in_journalism which is a subsection of the section "Political and ethical issues", and links to Photojournalism#Ethical,_legal,_and_social_considerations. You're providing evidence against your own position here. Photomanipulation in this manner is a deprecation offense - David Gerard (talk) 17:57, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

What newscast used the image? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found the retraction which states: Editor’s Note: A FoxNews.com home page photo collage which originally accompanied this story included multiple scenes from Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone” and of wreckage following recent riots. The collage did not clearly delineate between these images, and has since been replaced. In addition, a recent slideshow depicting scenes from Seattle mistakenly included a picture from St. Paul, Minnesota. Fox News regrets these errors. If you're talking about deprecating based on that, then a whole lot of once considered RS are going down with it, including the AP, [103], and so is LA Times, National Archives, well...here's a short list. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:33, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Even their "correction" was false. It was not a collage. It was a photo-shopped image inserting a weapon carrying person into the image to push a false narrative that the POTUS is pushing. O3000 (talk) 19:22, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

The correction was not false - and what "false narrative" is POTUS pushing? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:08, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• All of them - of all major networks, despite claims to the contrary by others, FOX is the only one whose main network coverage is specifically regularly factually inaccurate. While MSNBC or CNN may have programs that are informed by a Talking Head, or their news and op-ed can become amalgamated because modern reporting has become that way inclined (with US media in particular), FOX is the only news source that openly leads with journalists that aren't journalists, repeating conspiracy theories from the internet in live bulletin and stories that are not listed as opinion. This isn't a Tucked Carlson issue, this is objectively bad journalism across the board with terrible editorial decisions being made - the kind of decisions that lead to Piers Morgan losing his job in the UK, but lead to very little in the US other than defence of the behaviour because of WHATABOUTISM because of the perception that the largely centrist position of reality is to the left of the general perception of the average conservative American. As Colbert once said, "reality has a well known liberal bias". FOX is the only mainstream network where it is clear that entire topics are handled by partisan groups that are different to the core journalists that they actually have in their employ. It's why they can challenge the president for factual inaccuracies on Monday and appear legitimate, but still be publishing their own factual inaccuracies for days after until surreptitiously changing their articles without indicating what has been later altered. Most reliable networks publish their "corrections" openly. FOX is well documented for failing to do so, and often allowing their affiliates to continue using the incorrect versions of events in their broadcasts even while amending their incorrect news articles. Koncorde (talk) 05:22, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• This isn't necessarily an issue that's exclusive to Fox. MSNBC, for instance, has been caught deceptively editing recordings to portray figures in an unflattering light. Take this, when they deliberately presented Mitt Romney comments out of context, or this, when they spliced together George Zimmerman's 911 call to make it sound like he was racist. JOEBRO64 12:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Two wrongs do not make a right, and this is a rather more incendiary situation than Zimmerman's.Slatersteven (talk) 12:05, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
    • ...what? Why should we treat Fox differently than other outlets that are guilty of similar manipulation? MSNBC was just caught last month doing it again with William Barr; it's been a recurring issue with that network for years. As some users, like Ad Orientem, Atsme, and Thucydides411, said above, I think some editors are treating Fox differently because it has a political slant they don't agree with. JOEBRO64 14:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
      • I can only speak to my perspective on this, but I think part of the issue here is the frequency with which both this issue arises, and the frequency with which there are multiple factual errors in their reporting, and how skewed the presentation is, including “news” programs such as Bret Baier. As well as the general reluctancy to highlight omissions and errors. It happens more often with Fox than with most other mainstream sources. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 15:01, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Because faking pictures of people carrying guns at a time when there are troops (even if they are Saturday afternoon ones) paroling the streets of some cities and the president calling for the army to intervene is rather more serious in its potential repercussions and thus should have been dealt with with far more care. Also Otherstuffdoesnotesxist is an invalid an argument as wp:otherstuff. As well as (as I already said) just because wee do not prohibit X does not mean we should not prohibit Y (rather its an argument for also prohibiting X). And to add, this is fox news, not commentary or chat shows. One of the argument is has always been "But its not Fox news that does it", guess what...it does. Moreover No its not because they are right wing, its because this had the potential to inflame a very very dangerous situation (and , by the way, the Daily Mirror is not right wing).Slatersteven (talk) 15:02, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

      TheJoebro64, MSNBC is an opinion broadcaster. We've long recognised the difference between Fox News and FNC; in the same way, we recognise the difference between NBC and MSNBC. The difference here is that there are multiple images, and they were used by Fox News, not FNC, to promote a false narrative around the Seattle protests. If Fox had put their hands up, we might be able to have a conversation aboutt hat, but their apology amounts to "sorry we got caught". They have not acknowledged the underlying problem, still less undertaken to do anything about it. Guy (help!) 09:06, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  TheJoebro64, If there's a pattern of MSNBC doing this I would also support it being rated generally unreliable at an RFC. buidhe 16:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Speaking as a journalist, the manipulation is an egregious violation of photojournalism ethics, and the lack of a proper retraction that acknowledges that the original images were manipulated makes the issue massively worse. This is a perfect example of why option 1 is unacceptable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:21, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Apparently not just one image, and not just run in one segment, and so obvious they had to know [[104]].Slatersteven (talk) 17:55, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, this is an absolute slam dunk. Literal fake news. Guy (help!) 09:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Here [[105]] is the edited report where they have removed the image, note they do not actually admit it was faked. So no they are not owning up to it.Slatersteven (talk) 18:08, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Retraction statement: Fox News in a statement said it "regrets these errors," specifically for not clearly delineating between the images. Can we move on? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

That is not a retraction, they do not say "we used fake imagery" do they?Slatersteven (talk) 18:16, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

IN fact I would go further, by not admitting the picture was fake they are (in effect) saying it was genuine.Slatersteven (talk) 18:19, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, don't go too far - see my comment above. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:37, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I would, the image was a cut and paste job, and they stand by its authenticity by not admitting it was faked.Slatersteven (talk) 19:12, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

That "retraction" does not acknowledge that the original imagery was manipulated. This makes the error far worse, not better. So no, we should absolutely not "move on" — this is a clear current example of the kinds of problems Fox News has. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

There is little question that the final image - the armed person in front of the Seattle shot - was designed to manipulate the reader to think that the SAZ was being patrolled by armed militia-like people. But is the image itself "manipulated" ? Adding a clearly second image atop a first ("count the pixels" may seem trite but the cut-off elbow is an obvious sign this wasn't anywhere close to trying to be a pixel-perfect digital manipulation) I will agree with what is said from the NPPA in Seattle Times' report [106] that they needed to have marked that from an ethical standpoint, which is the key problem here when we talk about bias; even if they had that statement, that's still a very biased combination of elements designed to manipulation the average reader's thinking. Other sources have done this before: File:OJ_Simpson_Newsweek_TIME.png the infamous case of Time darkening the photo of OJ for example. This is why we ignore headlines, section titles, photos, and other incidental materials as part of what we consider "reliable" for any reliable source, because that's a whole different editorial team from the people writing and editing the news, all designed to draw the reader's eye, for any work. I will still argue that this bias from Fox can be used in most problematic cases to eliminate it as a source when UNDUE is taken into account, but no need to touch it as an RS source (from its news desk, obviously not from its opinion side) --Masem (t) 19:54, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) WaPo stated: "The misleading material spliced a June 10 photograph of an armed man at the Seattle protests with different photographs — one also from June 10, of a sign reading, “You Are Now Entering Free Cap Hill,” and others from images captured May 30 of a shattered storefront and other unrest downtown." The retraction is self-explanatory but WaPo further stated that Fox News explained there is an "editor’s note appended to three online articles" which I've already provided. In this case, the man with the gun was standing in front of a car at CHAZ on June 10th during the Seattle protests (the David Ryder image). His image was digitally copied, and photoshopped into the Fox montage and into another image to show him standing beside the CHAZ sign. That is typically handled by a separate dept. such as artwork & layout for the website. That's where online publications can get in trouble unlike newsprint which afforded the publishers more time to prep and check, and even then it wasn't 100% foolproof. The image of the man with the gun is real per the Seattle Times: The June 10 photo of an unidentified man with a gun standing in front of a car in CHAZ was taken by Seattle freelance photographer David Ryder, who distributed the photo through Getty Images. Fox News retracted it as responsible news networks are expected to do. It's a done deal. Somebody is probably going to be fired or moved to another dept., which is typically what happens in such cases. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:28, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

And what about the image of him also standing in front of a smashed shop, how did they explain that? Or the one oh the same bloke, in the same stance standing next to a free zone sigh?Slatersteven (talk) 10:23, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You keep repeating the same thinig over and over - look at the Seattle Times article - it is explained in detail with the photos. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

[[107]] "Fox News is one such media outlet that published a series of articles on how the Seattle 'autonomous zone' has armed guards and local businesses are being threatened with extortion, and how the Seattle Police has been urged to take back control from "brazen, anti-cop anarchists." "One image shows the armed man standing in front of what appears to be a smashed retail store".Slatersteven (talk) 17:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

However, social media users were quick to notice that the images in all the Fox News articles had one thing in common – they all featured the same armed white individual wearing a bulletproof vest and holding an assault weapon. After some digging, users discovered that Fox News had photoshopped the image of the armed guard into all of its images to portray a more "dangerous" situation in the self-declared autonomous zone."

• Seems to me this is rather serious. We have the POTUS claiming that antifa is involved with the demonstrations and declaring that antifa is a terrorist group. We have the Seattle police saying this might spread to other cities. Then, Fox publishes a fake photo seemingly supporting Trump’s claims. All of this together pushes an image of the country under siege by armed terrorists starting a violent revolution. This is in a heated atmosphere, in a country with guys with AK47s waiting for a race war. O3000 (talk) 20:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Photos are ALREADY considered unreliable for use as a source. Blueboar (talk) 20:29, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, yes (although I can't actually find a guideline to that effect). But, suppose a source fakes a photo of Trump starting the fire behind the church that he held a bible in front of. Would you continue to support such a source as reliable? Headlines are often exaggerated. But, actually faking a photo to push a conspiracy theory favorable to the POTUS that a "news" source has consistently supported is beyond the pale. We have to draw a line somewhere. O3000 (talk) 00:19, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Its not about using the photograph(S)it is the fact that it was a lie broadcast on fox news (and other parts of the Fox empire). Its the fact it shows they make shit up.Slatersteven (talk) 10:26, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

I just read this entire thread and carefully looked at the webpages/images referenced. The obvious "lying by Photoshop" and the weaselly retraction that failed to acknowledge that they lied by Photoshop made me change my opinion of Fox News from "Use with care" to "Generally unreliable for facts, events, interviews and quotes." Those images shown at [108] raise the question: if Fox News is willing to mislead me about where a particular person carrying a gun and wearing a green mask was standing, how can I trust anything else they present to me? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

So let's now declare that all RSes that uses clickbait and misleading headlines be also "generally unreliable" which is all of them including the NYTimes, if you go that direction. Pictures, like headlines, are not part of the reliable content we are judging or can use in WP. This is why we have that line being drawn. --Masem (t) 13:17, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

This was not a headline, click bait or otherwise, it was included in multiple programs across Fox.Slatersteven (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

It is still part of the content outside of control of the actual editorial control of the news desk. Its stuff we as editors can't use as part of a topic. If we want to make reliable sources be responsible and reliable for all content they publish - headlines, photos, etc. - so be it, but that would affect many "normally RS" sources which I don't think is the goal here. --Masem (t) 13:55, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

What Fox news has no control over what photos they include in a news broadcast? Christ I could not view the Seattle time article and so assumed the picture I could see was a mock up by the Seattle times because it was such an obvious fake. When I saw in fact what I assumed was a joke at foxes expense was actually what they had tried to use (not once but multiple times) I had no choice but to change my choice. Sorry but "no one even thought "this looks a bit off" better not use it" becasue "well its not MY job to think" is not a defence.Slatersteven (talk) 14:01, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Consider what parts of a Fox News broadcast we'd use within articles presuming they were reliable - we can only use what is said by the anchors and any quoted text from video interviews or news clips. What's said by the anchors is copyproofed text from the news department, which is what we're looking at here, and nothing implies that the clips and interviews are being tampered with (outside of cutting them to show Fox's bias). Now, if Fox News was playing with splicing or deepfake game with interviews during those segments, that the equivalent of the DM falsification that we can work from to deprecate Fox. --Masem (t) 14:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

"President thingywobble was not seen at a press interview" cue fake picture of President thingywobble shaking hands with a child rapist "and the white house has not answered our request for clarification of where he it", yes a picture can be used to mislead whilst the words do not, its called a dog whistle. This is my last word here, we should not use news organisations that actually fake content, not even dishonestly edit, actually fake it.Slatersteven (talk) 14:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, that might carry some weight if the news desk had issued a statement and demanded disciplinary action against the person responsible. Not seeing any evidence of that.

This lends credence to the theory that Shep Smith was the canary in the mine. Guy (help!) 21:22, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Again, devils advocate here: when other RSes have screws up like this like Time's OJ picture/etc. have we expected them to call out the person responsible? RS demands editorial control which, even as a stretch here because the photo side is outside the news department, still happened, but does it require appropriate disciplinary action? There's clearly a huge weight of bias to want to tip Fox news into deprecation, and certainly enough of these things that it would seem easiest to be done with it by doing so, but we're going to have people come back to this case and use arguments we're setting here against other RSes to argument for their deprecation over and over and over again, so lets make sure that we are doing it.

The other route, which is circular but would be a lot easier to say why Fox needs to be deprecated, is to modify RS to not only talk about editorial control, but where appropriate, particularly for a mainstream source, adherence for journalistic ethics. Of which the list of misdeeds by Fox (from its news team) starts to grow incredibly long, while leaving little of our main RS untouched. It might take a way a few other sources that are biased that don't show ethics (which I would sort of demand/expect in the AP2 field if we went that way) but I would guess at the benefit of putting Fox into the deprecated category this would be an acceptable loss, to speak --Masem (t) 21:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

On the question of where we talk about headlines not being an RS, Wikipedia:A headline is not a reliable source this essay came out of discussion last month [109] that we all agreed headlines were not RSes from past discussions we never really codified that. --Masem (t) 13:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Rushing to judgment on the basis of one recent incident (in which Fox News issued corrections) would be very unwise. Letting momentary outrage drive long-term decisions on which sources are reliable would be very short-sighted. Based on this rationale, we could have banned any number of reliable sources. In December 2016, the Washington Post ran a false story about Russia supposedly hacking into a utility grid in Vermont. The story was widely reprinted and caused a good deal of panic before it turned out to be completely false - one laptop that was not connected to the utility's control systems had malware that's widely available to hackers online. The Washington Post issued a half-way correction to the story (mentioning that the computer wasn't attached to the utility's control systems, but not mentioning that the malware isn't connected to Russia), but kept the misleading title in place. The Washington Post acted irresponsibly by running a dubious story that aligns with their political outlook, but which a bit of research would have shown to be completely unsupported, and then failed to fully correct the story. Yet it would be really short-sighted to use this one instance to rule that the Washington Post is not a reliable source. I'm sure that there wouldn't be a widespread call by Wikipedians to rule out the Washington Post anyways, because the Washington Post's editorial slant aligns much better with the views of most Wikipedians than that of Fox News does. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

You could always nominate it and see.Slatersteven (talk) 14:29, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I don't see how that WaPo story was "false". They correctly reported what officials said. I don't see how WaPo faked anything and they made no claims in their own voice. A far cry from digitally altering a photo, and claiming another was from a different city. And let us not pretend this was "one recent incident". Fox is on this page on a regular basis. O3000 (talk) 14:34, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

That's a bit like when Fox News makes absurd statements, phrased as a question. The Washington Post's article repeatedly says that Russia hacked the utility, but appends some version of "officials say." In fact, I recall arguing with editors at Russian interference in the 2016 United States election (including some of those who have responded to me here) back around that time about these very sorts of claims. There were many editors were insisting that these sorts of claims had to be stated in Wikivoice, because the US intelligence agencies are reliable, and also arguing against interpreting many of these statements as claims made by officials - but rather as claims made by the Washington Post and other newspapers. For example, take this sentence in the Washington Post article:

The penetration may have been designed to disrupt the utility’s operations or as a test by the Russians to see whether they could penetrate a portion of the grid.

That sentence appears to state, as a fact, that the penetration occurred, and back then, I'm sure those generally arguing for inclusion of as much Russiagate material as possible would have argued that that statement should be interpreted factually (for an example, take a look at this discussion).

The Washington Post's article spawned a whole spate of articles in other news sources, with titles directly stating that Russia had hacked the utility. BBC: "'Russia hacking code' found on Vermont utility computer". Reuters: "Russian hackers penetrated Vermont electric utility - Washington Post". Politico: "Vermont utility confirms system breach by Russians". NBC News: "Vermont Electricity Department Finds Malware Linked to Russian Hackers". Boston Globe: "Vermont utility finds malware code attributed to Russians". The Washington Post did not do basic due diligence on the claims made by the officials, and those claims were debunked by others within days, leading to the Washington Post to correct some - but not all - of the false claims made in the article. If you were only to read that one Washington Post article and the editor's note at the top, you would not know that the malware involved is widely available to hackers - not just Russian state hackers.

In other words, the Washington Post uncritically presented the claims of government officials, and appeared to repeat their claims in its own voice in places. That led to widespread coverage claiming - as a fact - that Russia had hacked the utility. The story then fell apart after basic inspection, which the Washington Post had failed to do before running the article, and the Washington Post never fully corrected the article. But that one incident (and it's not the only from that time involving the Washington Post, including the infamous "PropOrNot" article) should not lead the Washington Post to be listed as unreliable. Making decisions based on individual stories like this - especially in the heat of the moment - is bad practice. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:38, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Surely WaPo is not responsible for what is published in other sources. The WaPo article appears to be correct as it repeatedly attributes, as they should. O3000 (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

In the sentence I quoted above, they did not clearly attribute the statement. But more than that, the Washington Post failed to do even basic verification of what the government officials were telling it, and the story collapsed within days, once other news agencies approached the story with greater rigor. Yet the Washington Post never fully corrected the article. I don't see how you can view this as anything other than a failure to live up to basic journalistic practices. -Thucydides411 (talk) 13:36, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides, that argument is an example of the kind of dumbfoundingly vacuous cherrypicking that is at the core of this RfC. Are we ready to have editors falsely and routinely hold WaPo's 150+ year record on a par with Fox? Just about every website posts at least a sizable percentage of fact. Today it is Sunday. It may rain next week. If that's your best shot, we are never going to reach consensus above option 3. Please try to make comments that do not deny the central issue. SPECIFICO talk 15:53, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: That's a great demonstration of a particularly egregious failure on the part of the Washington Post. On the other hand @SPECIFICO:, your reply is, to use your own words, "an example of the kind of dumbfoundingly vacuous" approaches some editors take towards civility, which is not only required by policy here but also useful in life. Surely there's no need to scrape the bottom of the barrel. -Darouet (talk) 03:17, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Correct me if I'm wrong, but it is getting closer to election time in the US, right? I'm of the mind that the upcoming election might be part of the reason for the repeated attempts to eliminate Fox News as a generally RS, and with such vengeance vehemence in a try-and-try again effort to reach what has been an elusive result. I have provided the following quote as an aside to the fact that Fox News has been the #1 rated cable news channel for 18 consecutive years, much to the dismay of their competitors and political opposition; many of whom continue to throw stones at Fox News from glass houses. I would have cited the NYTimes or WaPo instead of Forbes for Fox's rating but lo and behold they did not publish even a blurb about it, which speaks volumes as to why we should not eliminate or downgrade all of our RS, like Forbes and the Washington Times, based purely on political bias. Anyway, the following is quoted from a literature review in the International Journal on Digital Libraries. It made me go "Hmmm..." so I thought it was important to share it as part of this discussion in the event political bias might be a factor in this RfC, unknowing or otherwise, and if it is, then at least now we are better able to understand why:

"Not all frame analyses focus on the text of news articles. For instance, DellaVigna and Kaplan analyzed the gradual adoption of cable TV of Fox News between 1996 and 2000 to show that Fox News had a “significant impact” on the presidential elections. Essentially, the study analyzed whether a district had already adopted the Fox News channel, and what the election result was. The results revealed that the Republican party had an increased vote share in those towns that had adopted Fox News."

^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:25, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme, this is an odd edit. The study you linked to does indeed say that Fox has had an undue effect on elections. It also stated that Fox was significantly slanted and that Fox viewers were the most uninformed about the Iraq War. So yes, we are trying to reduce dependence on an unreliable source as per guidelines. So yes, it is getting closer to election time in the US, right? But, your claim that those efforts to stop using a bad source is based upon “vengeance“ is a violation of AGF and CIV and completely ignores that they simply don’t like usage of bad sources, while you think you are on the side of goodness to continue usage of a source your own citation criticizes so heavily. O3000 (talk) 00:44, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing that to my attention. I corrected it - that was not the word I originally intended to use. I'm actually done here. Happy editing. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Lately I've noticed a tendency to appeal to dictionaries in cases like these. O3000 you might like to look at the definition of "with a vengeance" to understand how (at least in modern English) this is an impersonal expression. A lot of people are having trouble identifying what is and isn't civil these days. I've noticed it seems to depend a lot more on status than on fact. Not sure if that's what happened here, but I thought it was worth providing some expert testimony from a trusted source. -- SashiRolls ^{🌿 · 🍥} 05:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme already changed the wording. O3000 (talk) 14:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

OK how about this [[110]]?Slatersteven (talk) 18:25, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Or [[111]] "Fox altering the images without any disclaimer was “terribly misleading.”".Slatersteven (talk) 11:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Further evidence of recent malign behaviour by Fox News

Comment I came here to point out the self-same doctored fake news story as the one discussed above after having voted (above, option 3) some time ago. The Fox News fake-photo debacle is one of a long line of disgraceful truth-evasion on behalf of Fox's editorial standards. They are the American Sputnik, and I have great difficulty understanding why so many people disagree with/are blind to/ignorant of/overlook this. (Delete as appropriate.) Here, though, is yet another instance of Fox`s child catcher level of nefariousness: described by this article In short, the now-famous recent incident of CNN journalists arrested live on air is twisted by Fox into an attack article on its less far-right competitor by: seeking to bury the wholly self-explanatory video of the incident; using the anchor's script smarmily and baselessly to malign CNN journalists; and, to finish: a heavy dusting of their standard line that "the liberal [non-Fox] media is disobedient/disingenuous/violent/non-white/guilty of unAmerican activities". It is unthinkable that such an organization can be considered a reliable source for anything related to news, politics, America, or anything else important or potentially controversial. And I don't for a minute buy this alleged firewall between their newsroom and their pundits. They choose the pundits, they pay them, broadcast them, and embed their opinions in videos on their news articles of FoxNews.com GPinkerton (talk) 13:09, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Studies on the reliability of Fox News

General (Fox News)

• The Fox “News” Lie: Fox's “news” side pushed misinformation every day for four months straight, Media Matters.
• Fairleigh Dickinson University: What you know depends on whatyou watch:Current events knowledgeacross popular news sources. Found that study participants who watched Fox News we less informed than people who watched no news [112].
• Nelson, Jacob L. (January 23, 2019). "What is Fox News? Researchers want to know". Columbia Journalism Review.
• Benkler Y, Faris R and Roberts H (2018) Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. Oxford University Press.

Climate change (Fox News)

• Science or Spin?: Assessing the Accuracy of Cable News Coverage of Climate Science, Union of Concerned Scientistis 93% of global warming coverage by the Fox News Channel was misleading
• Climate-Challenged Society, Oxford University Press. popular media outlets in the US that make no pretense of balance objectivity in their attempts to advance denial, such as Fox News
• https://www.citizen.org/article/foxic-fox-news-networks-dangerous-climate-denial-2019/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=52dbcd4f-2756-4284-973a-7fe06c039cd5 Public Citizen: Fox News Network’s Dangerous Climate Denial 2019] Of the 247 segments, 212 or 86% were dismissive of the climate crisis, cast warming and its consequences in doubt or employed fear mongering when discussing climate solutions. and “Tucker Carlson Tonight” ran the most climate denial segments with 41 or approximately seven per month, followed by “Hannity” with 32 and “The Five” with 29

COVID-19 (Fox News)

• How Right-Leaning Media Coverage of COVID-19 Facilitated the Spread of Misinformation in the Early Stages of the Pandemic, Oklahoma State University, University of Pennsylvania, Carleton College In this paper, we report the results of an automated content analysis showing that right-leaning news outlets (e.g., Fox News, Breitbart) were more than 2.5 times more likely than mainstream outlets to discuss COVID-19 misinformation during the early stages of the U.S. pandemic response.

No Go Zone anti-Muslim conspiracy theory (Fox News)

• No-Go Zone Conspiracy Theory, Georgetown University Bridge “there are actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where non-Muslims just simply don’t go in;” (at the time of the interview, Birmingham’s population was 80% non-Muslim). — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Cummings (talk • contribs) 10:07, June 14, 2020 (UTC)

Discussion 2 (Fox News)

• Comment - I previously hatted this discussion and it was reverted. The reason for my action was because this entire section is irrelevant to the scope of the RfC, and a waste of editors' valuable time. The first source, which is a biased progressive opinion source, briefly mentions the Fox newscast bias, and goes on and on about the Fox News Channel's talk-shows and political commentary that has nothing at all to do with the Fox News Channel's newscasts. Every other source/analysis/poll included after that first source are irrelevant to the RfC because the scope encompasses only the Fox News Channel's political commentary and talk-show pundits, not the newscasts. Hopefully this explanation will save editors from wasting any of their valuable time on off-topic opinions that have no relevance to the RfC. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 03:05, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Given that you've started literally positing a conspiracy against "conservative" sources operating on this page, at this stage you're WP:RIGHTINGGREATWRONGS and probably aren't someone who should be telling anyone else what to post - David Gerard (talk) 15:33, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
    • @David Gerard: I agree. The constant accusations of editorial bias is a personal attack and must be stopped (for some reason the accuser(s) don't realize their own bias can be seen as the reason they are defending Fox News.... How odd! They shouldn't cast stones.):

"Using someone's political affiliations as an ad hominem means of dismissing or discrediting their views, such as accusing them of being left-wing or right-wing, is also forbidden. Editors are allowed to have personal political POV, as long as it does not negatively affect their editing and discussions."

It is the lack of accuracy and pushing of political and scientific pseudoscience, IOW pushing counterfactual content and narratives, that is the reason we don't like Fox News. Hey, someone in the news media has to do this propaganda job (that's the nature of the beast), and instead of leaving this job to the most extreme right-wing sources, Fox News has joined the fray after Trump's rise to power (which happened largely because of them as his propaganda voice). Editorial bias has nothing to do with our opposition to Fox News's inaccuracy. That is their own doing. -- Valjean (talk) 15:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

I've stated several times now that I do not consider any of the cable news channels particularly reliable, and though it's completely irrelevant, I'll just mention that my political biases are extremely different from those of Fox News. However, it does appear clear to me that the reason why there is a push to exclude Fox News specifically as a source - as opposed to CNN and MSNBC, which are on a very comparable level of overall reliability and political bias/partisanship - is because the bias that Fox News exhibits does not align with the views of most Wikipedians. Wikipedia should have a consistent policy on reliable sources, which means that either all three major American cable news channels are reliable, or all three are unreliable. Taking an inconsistent, politically biased approach to WP:RS will just serve to tilt articles. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Since you clearly missed the nuance, let me spell it out for you, Fox News has been inaccurate on multiple occasions. They made their platform available to pundits who have been wrong on multiple occasions. I recommend either you read the comments carefully to avoid making blatantly pointless accusations or just not say anything that might be viewed as accusatory. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

You have to distinguish between opinion (e.g., pundits) and news articles. Politically motivated reporting is not a peculiarity of Fox News, however - CNN recently ran an interview with Susan Rice in which she claimed the violence at protests over the killing of George Floyd might be instigated by Russia: [113]. All three major American cable news channels (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC) are questionable, and should be handled similarly. Treating the news articles on their websites as reliable is a reasonable policy. Opinion articles and opinion shows are definitely not reliable. It would be reasonable to class broadcast news reports on all three channels are unreliable (as opposed to articles on their websites), in my opinion. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, have a quick look at the Ad Fontes chart. https://www.adfontesmedia.com/ - notice that it distinguishes CNN.com from CNN Cable, and Fox News from FNC. We also make this distinction. We distinguish NBC from MSNBC, because, yes, we all know that cable infotainment is not the same as real news.

Fox News (as opposed to FNC) has been considered reliable up to now. What's changed is not us, it's Fox News. It's now rated less reliable and more biased than the Daily Mail.

Fox now blurs the line between its editorial agenda and its news reporting. The canary in the mine was Shep Smith. The doctored images of Seattle were on Fox News, not FNC. Fox has changed. Guy (help!) 16:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

What makes Ad Fontes reliable? The doctored images of Seattle were on Fox News. Fox News issued a correction, which is one of the things we look for in reliable sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:51, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411: You've several times repeated your assertion, All three major American cable news channels (Fox News, CNN and MSNBC) are questionable, and should be handled similarly. without giving any reasons or explaining why they should not be differentiated based on the evidence under discussion. Can you give us several examples, instances of Fox making an error biased against Trump and the Right and then issuing a correction? Or is it all the other way -- Right-leaning bias in prime time and then a correction buried elsewhere? Thank you. SPECIFICO talk 18:27, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Thucydides411, no they did not. They mumbled something about the home-page photos “did not clearly delineate” the splicing together of multiple images from different locations. That's a "sorry we got caught". In a responsible news org, the editor would have been fired or at least disciplined. Guy (help!) 20:26, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "mumbled." They posted written corrections at the top of the articles and changed the images. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:05, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Lets all lay of the PA's, and assume good faith.Slatersteven (talk) 09:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree, Slatersteven. Let's stick to the facts as follows: WaPo returned a Pulitzer because of a fabricated story they published, and so did the NYTimes. See this diff for the links to the stories. Why haven't we demoted or even deprecated those 2 sources considering they were actually reporting the news, and not opinion or political analysis? For news & statements of fact, they cannot be trusted after those two major screw-ups. How can we ever trust them again, especially after the past 3 years of them pushing a Russian collusion story - using anonymous sources and unverified material - misleading their readers/audiences - and winning more Pulitizers for getting it wrong? Fox News Channel was one of few who did not promote the Russian collusion story - the talk-shows (political commentary) investigated it and found zero collusion. They got it right and everybody got it wrong. They also got the 2016 election right - but that was analysis/opinion/commentary not news. Shepard Smith was a Fox news anchor and he stated: “The Fox News poll did have President Trump losing the popular vote to Hillary Clinton and the Fox News poll was accurate,” he said. Of course, factually he was accurate because that is what the poll stated, but the polling prediction was wrong. We may not agree with what they're reporting, or their POV, but that doesn't make them unreliable. And yes, they're biased - so are all the others. A Fox News Channel employee recently made a bad decision in art & layout when they used photoshopped images as artwork to depict a scene and enhance a story, and for that you want to demote the entire Fox News Channel as unreliable? How often has ABC screwed up and aired fake photos? And CBS, and on and on. What the broadcast did was actually news. What Fox did was garnishments - art depictions on their website. Deadlines cause mistakes and that is why we should closely adhere to RECENTISM & NOTNEWS. If we had, this would not be an issue because it was quickly removed. No...Fox News is not anymore unreliable than any of the other news channels. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 21:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Your point is fifty long comments now. Many are the same thing rephrased (like propping up instances of center-left journalists who've been wrong, like it's a 1:1 exchange of "bad Cillizza tweet" to "X claims Hillary killed Seth Rich" articles.) There's no reason be so passive aggressive and smarmy. As the OP mentioned, the vote favors Fox News and my understanding is nothing will change. Your criteria is a blank check that performs terribly as a discriminator function, which is part of why others were criticizing you. Thanks to User:Snooganssnoogans for the janitorial work, it's appreciated. Wunderkiwi (talk) 02:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

^^^Note to closer: This user has 13 total edits.^^^ ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

^^^Note to Atsme: I'm new, I know. That's why I chose not to vote and just left a comment instead.^^^ Please respond to my content rather than my edit count. We've already established that it's simple to rack that number up on talk pages. Wunderkiwi (talk) 01:40, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Good work on the And you are lynching Negroes argument. This RfC is about Fox News so all you could really do was to prove how other journalistic institutions got it wrong in some instances instead of proving the arguments wrong about how Fox News has diminished in their role as a source of reliable journalism. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:53, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK, please explain your comment and to whom you've directed it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:05, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme: It's very clearly directed at your arguments in the wall of text (which is something you already knew given your talk page posting, so let's not be ingenuine here). There's nothing to explain, I recommend you read the wikilinked page and understand what I was saying, if you still don't, the second sentence of my paragraph is simple enough to explain that kind of argument. --qedk (t 愛 c) 12:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I am offended by your comment, or that you would even use such a racist analogy. Fox News Channel is currently rated as a generally reliable source - and until proven otherwise, that is how it stands, and from what I'm seeing in the iVotes, it will remain a generally reliable source whether we like it or not. Your insult and use of lynching is unbecomming an administrator. You should be desysopped for making such a comment on this noticeboard. The sentiment that has been displayed here about conservatives and racist comments like yours do not belong here. I advise you to strike your racist comment. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 12:52, 18 June 2020 (UTC) *Adding references verifying the word "Negro", singular or plural, is considered a racial slur: University World News, Public Opinion Quarterly, AP style, Slate, WaPo, BMJ.^{21:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)}

I don't think you understand what's racist and what's not, and unfortunately I don't have the time or effort explaining the multitude of levels you're wrong on. I was not the one who came up with this analogy so perhaps you should take it up with Soviet propagandists who did and while you're at it, also understand why I said your argument was fallacious and calling people racist without a) any knowledge of their race or personal life, b) any evidentiary proof that they are racist, is the most offensive aspect about all of this. I'm going to leave this here and you can resume your name-calling if you please. --qedk (t 愛 c) 13:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK, I'm not following why you chose to say "Good work on the And you are lynching Negroes argument." "Good work on the Whataboutism argument" would have been less inflammatory. You're saying Atsme made a comment referencing racism on this page? I see references to racism in others' comments but I don't see references in Atsme's. Actually it's inflammatory to reference an article about Russian arguments; no need for denegrating Russians. I think this boils down to an "WP:OTHERSTUFF" argument. wbm1058 (talk) 15:44, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Answering because you pinged me, @Wbm1058:, I chose to say it because that was the basis of Atsme's argument. Maybe it would have been less colourful (commenting on arguments is not inflammatory) but it would also have been inaccurate, since Atsme's point was a variation of the tu quoque fallacy and borderline whataboutism. Similar to how the Soviets used the terminology to deflect criticism of their own wrongs, Atsme is using the wrongs of other journalistic institutions to deflect criticism of Fox News (which very ironically gives platform to racist pundits) — so no, it was not denigrating Russians either (that is how the catchphrase is used). I never said that Atsme made racist comments, I said that they (implicitly) labeled me a racist, racist comments like yours..., ...advise you to strike your racist comment..., which is again very ironic given my predisposition. I have always tried to comment on the content and not the contributor and in this case, I've also done the same. So to hear that I'm a racist and I made personal attacks, I'm baffled. In any case, Atsme is free to attack me in any way they deem necessary, I don't mind. Good day. --qedk (t 愛 c) 17:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK mentioned me in his comment above so for the record, I am replying to his false allegations and masked pretense that I was attacking him or labeling him a racist. Quite frankly, he is not telling the truth as evidenced in this very discussion, and he continued to cast aspersions against me in his reply to Wbm1058. I was going to let it go as of 15:45 on 18 June 2020 (UTC), until I came here this evening and read his appalling accusations about me which he made at 17:12, 18 June 2020 (UTC). What he said in this diff is what started it all, and it speaks volumes. He purposely picked that title and used those words inline to form an integral part of his sentence to me, And you are lynching Negroes; the wikilink simply served as a CYA for him because nothing I've done or said even comes close to what's in that article or his allegations. No - he framed it that way on purpose to imply that I'm racist, and he did it again in his comment above, wherein he obliquely implies that I'm racist for "deflecting criticism of Fox News (which very ironically gives platform to racist pundits)". QEDK is open to recall, and he should be recalled because of his behavior. ArbCom has desysopped admins for less egregious violations of CIVILITY. I have said all I need to say here in my defense against his false accusations and inexcusable behavior as an admin. Editors are welcome to provide further input on my UTP. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

So are you taking it to WP:AN, or somewhere else addressing your wish to get QEDK deadminned? Because WP:RSN is absolutely not the venue for this comment, and your behaviour appears very like an attempt to filibuster this discussion - David Gerard (talk) 23:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@Atsme:, your umbrage is misplaced. Your comments are the first ones that implied racism, with a direct frontal accusation of a racist attack on you, one which did not happen.

@QEDK: is correct when they stated: "I never said that Atsme made racist comments, I said that they (implicitly) labeled me a racist, racist comments like yours..., ...advise you to strike your racist comment...,.." I don't see them making any kind of racist comment or racist accusation against you. They used a famous example of the tu quoque fallacy, which you have been using, and also mentioned "borderline whataboutism", which you also use in your arguments. That was their point, and your response immediately derailed and deflected from their point by implying directly accusing them of accusing you of racism. I don't see it. You need to calm down and retract that accusation. We need less heat here. -- Valjean (talk) 04:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

QEDK doesn't want to discuss this on their talk page but they do want to talk about it here, so bring it on. In this edit you congratulated Atsme for her "good work on the And you are lynching Negroes argument." This is a specific type of tu quoque logical fallacy, which attempts to deflect criticism (of Fox News? of Atsme?) by referring to racial discrimination and lynching in the United States. You have congratulated (accused, assuming sarcasm) Atsme of deflection by referring to racial discrimination and/or lynching. I don't think you can point to a diff where she did that. Yes, you said that Atsme (implicitly) labeled something as racist. That's what someone making the "and you are lynching Negroes" argument does. That is what Atsme is very upset about. I'm still trying to assume good faith, that this was just tone-deafness on your part. "Overt racism, foolish racism, or tone deaf racism? Take your pick, it's still racism," (Fox & Friends draws ire). Please commit to never linking to that "and you are..." page ever again in a talk page discussion on Wikipedia. – wbm1058 (talk) 18:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Only I get to decide what arguments I use and what I do not, you or anyone else have no right to censor me (read WP:CENSORSHIP). It's offensive enough that you justify editors calling other editors racist (even if implicity) without proof but even more so when you use a public forum to shame me for tone-deafness when in reality, Atsme has repeatedly twisted my actual arguments to suit her agenda. Atsme has no authority to hat comments which oppose her viewpoint and you haven't seen me do the same to stifle her viewpoint, have you? I'm quite sure that if I did so, that would be immediately become a point of contention but it's absolutely fine because Atsme did it. If you don't want to respect other editors, that's fine, just don't play the "racist" card when you don't understand context. I have nothing but utter respect for most editors and this is the sort of thing that stretches that respect. So, I'll be straight with you - just because "you" think something is racist (or any arbitrary opinion) does not mean that's the reality. Similarly, just because Atsme was upset about me quoting a tu qoque catchphrase after she twisted my comment on her content to be an attack on herself - does not mean that's the reality. At any point of time, Atsme is more than welcome to begin a recall process or arbitration case against me instead of accosting me to trial at her talk page. And to be honest with you, I don't even want to discuss this anywhere but if I'm compelled to do so, I will. Best, qedk (t 愛 c) 19:05, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a quit while you are ahead situation. You don't seem to understand the deeply offensive concerns over what you said. You should of let the situation be defused and kept it under a hat. I suggest you re-hat this before someone else does. PackMecEng (talk) 19:04, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Since you clearly don't get it, citing a fallacy literally cannot be offensive, and just because the original catchphrase itself contains a word racist in modern contexts does not mean the comment itself can be or should be construed as racist. These are really basic things and just because Atsme twisted the intentions of my words has no bearing on how I meant it, in fact, I have repeatedly stated how the argument was used and how Atsme used it - Wikipedia is not WP:CENSORED ffs. Your definition of "ahead" is even more condescending - because I'm the one who gets attacked repeatedly and somehow I'm also the aggressor who is ahead. And please do hat your own comment (and only yours) since you believe that that is the correct way to defuse a situation, I have no qualms with your approach. Best, qedk (t 愛 c) 17:05, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, the everyone else is wrong and just don't understand me defense. Simple and worthless. Don't do that, it is a bad example for others. Listen, if everyone or even a large portion of people are saying you are wrong, perhaps you could take some introspective and consider their viewpoint and not just assume they do not know what they are talking about. So are you sure you will not reconsider the path you seem hell bend on going down here? You really seem to have an issue understanding what you are doing and why others have such an issue over your comments. PackMecEng (talk) 20:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, the everyone else is wrong and just don't understand me defense. Well no, I only said you are wrong. Again, maybe you're just bad at understanding. In any case, it's absolutely understandable for people to get swayed with Atsme's call to action, I've personally seen people defend her time after time even after she casts accusations and aspersions by truckloads (refer to Awilley's sanction et al.) - so, I don't care about getting chastised by her mates on the wiki. I also totally understand how the argument can be misconstrued, but it cannot be misconstrued after I explain my intent and usage, and the usage of the fallacy thereof, and after my apology for causing her distress. You also realize how quickly this shifted from being about Atsme's comment and more about mine? I wonder how, and no points for guessing the correct answer. You are more than welcome to continue this here but I won't be spending a second more of my time explaining myself to people when they have no intention of listening, so you have a g'day. I'm done. --qedk (t 愛 c) 21:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I can understand that, when you are wrong you really only have two choices. Double down or admit you are wrong and try to fix your mistake. It would of just been nice if you went the fixing your mistake route though rather than doubling down on the everyone is wrong but me. Oh well, perhaps it will be a learning experience for you in the future. Have a great day! PackMecEng (talk) 21:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

It's not "everyone", only a few allies. Others disagree with you, including myself. If you examine all the diffs, as I have done (just to be sure I didn't miss something), you'll find that there was never anything related to racist accusations on the page until Atsme did it herself and derailed the discussion by her bombshell reaction and essentially implying @QEDK: is a racist. QEDK could not have been accusing Atsme of anything related to racism with that link to the article (thus showing her reaction was unreasonable), and the very wording of QEDK's posting shows that the racial aspect of that article was not QEDK's focus. That is an article, FFS! QEDK was just using it as a well-known example of the same logical fallacy used by Atsme multiple times on this page (tu quoque). That was QEDK's point, and Atsme didn't see it, but took umbrage to it, which was not the right reaction.

Even after explanations by QEDK, myself, and others who understood QEDK's intentions, Atsme, Wbm1058 (who has totally misunderstood what happened), and yourself refuse to AGF. That's not right. Atsme has still not stricken the strong personal attack on QEDK of making "racist comments", IOW strongly implying they are racist. That's just wrong. She should have AGF and not resorted to personal attacks. She is the one who cast aspersions, not QEDK, and the over-the-top calls for desysopping are just beyond ridiculous. Our admins have a tough enough job as it is, without such personal attacks. -- Valjean (talk) 23:53, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

PackMecEng, please drop the stick. This side discussion should be hatted as not helping the discussion. O3000 (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah you are probably right, would you mind hatting it? PackMecEng (talk) 00:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Hah, wouldn't know where to start. Besides, I'm prob'ly too involved. O3000 (talk) 00:20, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm fine with it being hatted, but @QEDK: should also consent. -- Valjean (talk) 00:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Fox News: reliability in context

In the RfC responses above, the New York Times was invoked several times as something of a 'gold standard' RS. With that in mind, I ask editors to consider a comparison of Fox News with the following:

• New York Times: we were wrong on Iraq Sources for the Times reporting were the Pentagon and an embedded reporter named Chilabi. From Slate "Because the Times sets the news agenda for the press and the nation, Miller’s reporting had a great impact on the national debate over the wisdom of the Iraq invasion. If she was reliably wrong about Iraq’s WMD, she might have played a major role in encouraging the United States to attack a nation that posed it little threat."
• The NYT printed a false claim and has not corrected it after 10 months. Per Newslinger "Following up on my correction submission to The New York Times, I have not yet received a response from the NYT, and "Trump Shares Unfounded Fringe Theory About Epstein and Clintons" has not yet been amended". The claim serves to exonerate Clinton from ties to Epstein's island, and in so doing, smears victim Virginia Giuffre as a liar. (And since the recent Netflix special, Giuffre is no longer alone in her allegation.)
• The NYT printed an inaccurate statement from Joseph Backholm, one of Tara Reade's corroborators, and did not respond to a request for correction. So, if Backholm is interviewed again he can potentially be discredited for having changed his story. The Times (May 31) article has: Joseph Backholm, who said she had told him about an assault by an unnamed senator when they were students together. However, "Backholm says that Times inaccurately reported details he told them ("She didn’t provide any details and didn’t say it was a senator") Backholm texted back to Lerer."*. In a tweet dated May 26, Backholm stated she told me that while working in DC she had been sexually assaulted by "someone you would know."*
• The NYT stealth edited their investigative piece on the Tara Reade allegation against Joe Biden on behalf of the Biden campaign, removing a caveat from their summary.* According to Fox News, The Times originally reported: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable. The final sentence was removed because the Biden camp "thought the phrasing was awkward", per Ben Smith.*

I have yet to see anything comparable to these examples from Fox News. What am I missing? petrarchan47คุก 22:49, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Studies_on_the_reliability_of_Fox_News? --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 23:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

From what I've observed, editors are saying that Fox corrects their mistakes. Is this not true?

In your list, nothing even remotely compares with fake news that led to a deadly war.petrarchan47คุก 23:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan, your emphasis on the WMD and the New York Times seems besides the point. The vast majority of US news outlets, including Fox News, posted uncritical WMD coverage both before and after the invasion of Iraq. What sets the Times apart is that it issued a retraction, not the error itself which was also made by most of its peers. Newimpartial (talk) 23:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

All other news based their reporting on the NYT, who got it from 2 sources, one of them was the Pentagon. (Isn't this called propaganda?) "Jack Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate and he has been calling for a reexamination of Miller’s work for more than a year."* Less than impressive. petrarchan47คุก 03:01, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree that I emphasized it, in fact I personally find most egregious the Times lack of response to requests for correction, and the fact that they took editorial advice from the subject of a sexual assault 'investigation'.

Imagine if we discovered Fox News looked into one of the rape allegations against Donald Trump, and that after 19 days of diligent work, concluded that he had a pattern of behaviour worth noting... but then received a call from his office stating that he didn't like the way it sounded, so Fox edited their report exactly as Trump requested. Now imagine that they did this without alerting readers. This is exactly what NYT has done, and I am still waiting for a similar example regarding Fox. petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan47, they have a correction system in place, but it's used woefully inadequately (see e.g. [114][115][116]) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:40, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, thank you for this. "Inadequate" is actually a step up from what I've personally witnessed from the NYT, which is "non-existent". petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Read WP:Other stuff exists and drop this. This RfC is about Fox News, not the NYT. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 16:36, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, take it to the many folks who've previously invoked the NYT in the RfC above. As I stated, The NYT is being touted unquestioningly as somewhat of a 'gold standard' RS. One good way to gauge the RfC questions is by determining what exactly editors find to be a shining example of good practices, and then compare (in this case) Fox News to it. The NYT comparison is highly relevant. One might even ask, why is this RfC focused on Fox when we have worse, or comparable, behaviour from all similar news sources including the gold standard. petrarchan47คุก 19:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Maybe some people consider NYT a gold standard outlet, but Reuters and Associated Press are better sources imo. I don't think that the NYT's reliability should influence how we rate Fox News or vice versa. buidhe 22:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The only way to evaluate this is in context. At the Biden page, we recently had an RfC where the idea that 'if it isn't printed in the NYT specifically, it can't be added to the page', was used in !votes, and this went unchallenged for the most part. In practice, the NYT is indeed gold standard: the number of times NYT is cited on WP dwarfs that of all other news media ( PDF). If Fox is less problematic and (therefore) more reliable than NYT, then what are we doing here? petrarchan47คุก 02:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think that perhaps part of the hangup is the four levels of reliability offered in the initial post. I certainly don't think that Fox should be deprecated as a source (I have cited to Fox News stories many times myself), and I would agree that a lot of cable news/web news type sources would fall more into category 2 than category 1 in many cases. BD2412 T 22:07, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Right. But if we are to downgrade any of these sources, we should make sure to look at them all. By default, we are considering only Fox which is dangerous in that, as others have mentioned, they aren't less reliable than their counterparts and they often report stories that literally no other outlet (still considered RS on WP) are covering. The requirement for an additional source would often mean content simply can't be added, resulting in a great disservice to readers and a degradation of the project. petrarchan47คุก 02:47, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree that it should be done across the board because all of them in today's clickbait environment require caution. CNN & MSNBC are among the worst, so if Fox is considered a source to approach with caution, then CNN & MSNBC are a step below that. I have not seen any retractions about their biased innuendos and fictitious conspiracies, not even theories that could be supported - they used unverifiable allegations from anonymous sources nonetheless about Russia-Trump collusion, not to mention the FISA warrants that were questionably obtained, and they did this for at least 2 years. Please, convince me otherwise by showing me the retractions, and I'll consider changing my position. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 17:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Petrarchan, on the WMD, you are presumably aware than in 2005, Fox News watchers were found to be twice as likely to have been misled about the discovery of WMDs in Iraq than those reading print media, and in fact more likely to be so than those taking their news from any other source measured. (source) You don't think that had anything to do with Fox's reporting? Newimpartial (talk) 17:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Uhm, Newimpartial see CISSM, Media Coverage of Weapons of Mass Destruction, the Frontline story (2 parts), and The Intercept. There's plenty of blame to go around. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:18, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

My point was not that the NYT didn't disgrace themselves in that instance (they did), but concerning whether Fox News covered itself in glory by contrast (they didn't). Petrarchan was using WMD as an example of how the NYT could not be trusted, in comparison with Fox News, which is a load of high-quality fertilizer if I've ever smelled one (and oh, but I have). Newimpartial (talk) 00:18, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Clarification requested (Fox News)

This has been raised in passing above, but not clearly answered - what is the scope of this RFC? When we say “Fox News”, what are we referring to? Does it include the news programming of local Fox affiliates (such as WNEW in New York City)? Does it include the Fox Business cable channel (FBN)? What about Fox’s talk radio broadcasting? Or is the RFC limited to just the main cable news station and its associated website? Blueboar (talk) 15:25, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Local affiliates have separately operated newsrooms, so they're not under this discussion. This is about whether or not the cable news channel's news operations have let their bias undermine the reliability of their news coverage. (I say yes.) oknazevad (talk) 15:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Problem is... it isn’t as clear cut as that. The cable channel will often go to local affiliates for coverage of news events, since the locals have camera crews and reporters on scene. So would that reporting be ok or not? It’s on both local AND cable. Blueboar (talk) 18:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Blueboar: My main focus when calling the RfC was the parts of the Fox News operation that are citable on Wikipedia, i.e. primarily the website and the main cable channel. I added the affiliate question as a response to quieries, but as Newslinger pointed out above, affiliate stations generally are considered to have a separate reliability to the main news operation, and so I don't consider the RfC a vertict on the reliability of affiliate stations. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I also wish to address here why I opened the RfC in the first place. Ultimately including option 4 was not because I was intent on depreciating Fox News, but that the language I chose was a standard boilerplate that has been used in other RfCs. Generally reliable, unclear / additional considerations apply and generally unreliable is a useful standard for RfC, and provides some nuance in the discussion. It is far better than "should Fox News be depreciated" that had previously been proposed. There is overwhelming concensus in the RfC that Fox News shouldn't be depreciated, which I agree with. I should note that I generally don't edit the American politics area at all (check my edit history), and this wasn't an attempt to attack Fox News, I would be happy to see it retain its generally reliable status. The RfC is about arguments not simply a straight vote, so when the RfC is closed it will be decided based on the strength of arguments, so if the arguments against Fox News are bad (which I agree that some arguments in this RfC against Fox News are), then they will simply be discounted by the panel of closers. I think that this article in the Columbia Journalism Review "What is Fox News? Researchers want to know" in probably the most relevant piece to this RfC. It discusses many issues that have come up in this discussion, including the lack of research on the reporting of Fox News itself as opposed to the pundits. Calling this RfC has been a huge learning experience for me, and maybe doing some kind of pre-RfC that was done for Quackwatch would've been better in hindsight. Thanks for your understanding. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Request please could someone list the different 'parts' of Fox News, this would be helpful in differentiating different comments. John Cummings (talk) 14:08, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  John Cummings, I see it as:

  • Fox News;
  • Fox News Channel (FNC), the opinion broadcaster which accounts for most of what people think of as "Fox News" (Hannity etc);
  • Fox local affiliates

  Others may have different definitions. Guy (help!) 14:24, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  I see no evidance that "fox news" is a separate entity from Fox News.Slatersteven (talk) 14:28, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

I would break it down with;

1. FNC (the main cable news channel)
2. FBN (Fox Business Network - business news and commentary)
3. Local affiliates (each with a news division)
4. foxnews.com

These are all interconnected... for example: when a story is breaking, FNC may use local affiliate film crews and reporters to cover it (as they are on scene). That coverage may then get a synopsis posted to foxnews.com. Usually, it is the synopsis on foxnews.com that gets cited on Wikipedia, and not the broadcasted footage. Blueboar (talk) 15:10, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Local affiliates do lots of in-depth reporting which is never picked up by the main Fox entities either because its niche (most local content is) or because it isn’t “on brand” (most of the affiliates are significantly to the left of Fox News, that doesnt mean they’re left of center it just means they’re center-right or right, Fox News has drifted far-right). We should be using only the in-depth reporting of news organizations, wikipedia isn't for breaking news of the kind you would cut to a local affiliate for an on-the-scene report from. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Hypothetical consideration on Fox

I've mentioned about NOT#NEWS, RECENTISM, and how, if we waiting for news cycles to pass, how Fox likely would not be used under an UNDUE evaluation. I'd like to propose this idea as a consideration: if we actually waiting on rushing to add information on current event articles for like, say, a week (This is just hypothetical), then after that week, considering all sources that then cover events, how likely would we be using Fox News over other sources per UNDUE, or how likely Fox News (at the national level) is going to provide completely unique factual information that other sources will not have at all?

That is, in the long term development of any article, does Fox provide any unique content that cannot be sourced from other RSes or appropriate under UNDUE?

If that answer to that last question is mostly no: then I could see a completely fair option of saying that Fox News should be considered a source to avoid (not deprecated in the manner of DM) because its bias raises too many questions on reliability and we can wholly replace it with less biased sources that other give the same information, while leaving open for cases where Fox News may provide unique coverage, flagging that its political coverage should be immediately considered potentially tainted by bias.

if that answer is otherwise yes and Fox does have some long-term unique and useful content, then we've got the issue that we need to still consider Fox as an RS. --Masem (t) 18:18, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, it's a fair point. My preference is always for analytical reporting anyway, rather than blow-by-blow accounts of events as they happen. I suspect that the instances of in-depth analytical reporting cited to Fox is... low. I won't say it never happens, but most of the content appears to be focused on feeding the outrage machine for another hour. Guy (help!) 10:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm just looking at an option here that considers how much we actually really need to depend on Fox News as a necessary source that we really need to keep given the mass of difficulty of trying to define what part of it is actually reliable and that everything else tied to it seems to be a sinkhole of bad journalism. I do not want a solution that says "Fox News' newsdesk is not reliable", because that has yet to be shown and all arguments being setup for that will come back against other sources in the future if we're not careful, but we can point to the bias that affects its news reporting and ruins the rest of its "news programming" to the point that if we really don't need to use it because we can use other sources for the same information, then great. Not deprecated, just "source to avoid when possible". --Masem (t) 13:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

In other situations regarding low-quality sources, WP takes the strong position that anything notable will be covered in RS, so if your only source is low-quality, then it's not notable. Why not take the same strong position here? In other words, according to this, we never really need to rely on a single questionable source. NightHeron (talk) 13:42, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I suspect this is how many experienced editors already view Fox. We can't know that they aren't lying to us, except when their reporting is corroborated by more reliable sources, and that makes their use superfluous. I approach them as David Zurawik does Trump: "Let's just assume Trump's always lying and fact check him backward."

When they do have "completely unique factual information," it's often questionable and quickly debunked by more reliable sources, so we also ignore them in such situations. We treat them as a debunked source, but there are editors who do not do that, so we end up wasting lots of time dealing with such attempts because we can't yet just say "don't use Fox News, because a consensus has debunked it. If you want to use it, you'll have to back it up with multiple more reliable sources if you want us to accept your use of it." Such editors are time sinks because they constantly drink the Fox News koolaid and declare it delicious and just as good as other koolaid, while recognizing there is an enormous difference, IOW they prefer the poisoned koolaid. They can't have it both ways (recognize the difference and still declare both types equally good/bad), but they waste our time trying.

An official debunking would save us lots of time and effort in those situations. Most experienced editors already don't trust Fox News as a source for politics and science because Fox News's pushing of climate change denialism and their constant defenses and blind repetitions of Trump's proven lies as if they were fact, are all appalling breaches of everything we require from RS. Such failures flunk them for use as a RS. They fail DUE 99% of the time. -- Valjean (talk) 14:23, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

From a pragmatist's POV, Fox has reported important incidents that others have failed to report, and they have reported correctly when others have not, and that happens more frequently than we care to admit about today's clickbait political arena where news conglomerates & their echo chambers favor one particular party or candidate over another. And it may very well be that it's a candidate in the same party the news conglomerate supports. There is also the fact that we have individual newscasters with different biases or experienced newscasters that conceal their bias, so are we talking about newscasts or pundits? We have to make that distinction as well. Unlike the other cable sources, Fox News has newscasters from both parties, so that would be another consideration if we are using NPOV to guide our choices and we are actually writing for the opponent. It is not so easily cut and dried that we can just go POOF! and eliminate a generally reliable source because of systemic bias or policial POV. It has to be done on a case by case basis. If you believe FoxNews will not be cited often, then why are we even having this discussion? We can easily continue doing it case by case per WP:RS, WP:NOTNEWS, WP:NEWSORG, WP:RENCENTISM. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 15:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme: "Fox has reported important incidents that others have failed to report, and they have reported correctly when others have not." I don't doubt the first part, but can you give some examples that proved to be true, when everyone else was wrong (and everyone else then had to self-correct)? That is directly relevant to Wikipedia and its editors, because we should then alter lots of our articles if we haven't done it already.

The rest of us see the opposite being the case most of the time, and often Fox News does not come around. They just stay silent on the issue. That is their pattern. It's a feature, not a bug. They do it on purpose. They create talking points which all their talking heads and news hosts are required to use, and those talking points are often deceptive. We have seen myriad examples where Fox News was proven wrong by fact-checkers and where they ignored the facts reported by all the other major sources because those facts were inconvenient to their/GOP/Trump's agendas and not good for their base to really understand, thus keeping their base in the dark.

This partially explains why Fox News's viewers have been shown to be the poorest informed news viewers, compared to consumers of RS (and to those who consume no news at all). Fox News's viewers (and Trump) openly attack the most informative and accurate ones, like NPR and Colbert Report, which are rated to have the best-informed viewers, and those two sources constantly debunk the errors and false reporting from Fox News. Colbert uses humor and sarcasm to debunk and inform at the same time. -- Valjean (talk) 16:47, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

This is an important, I agree that there are stories that Fox uniquely picks up, but at the end of the day are they really stories that have long-term use to WP?

Keeping in mind that the mainstream slanted-left sources also frequently jump on stories that they cover broadly but end up going nowhere as well (a lot from earlier in Trump's presidency ), so Fox doing the same would not be a surprise to us. I'd rather see if Fox News (national level, not local stations) pick up on non-political stories that do have long-term value that no one else covers. I cannot at all conceive of any such cases right now, and having this cases would be the only reason to keep Fox as an RS over the weight of the other issues that Fox otherwise creates. Or, as I suggest, as long as we call Fox a source to avoid, not deprecated, and when these unique cases come up, that still allows Fox news to be used where appropriate, but still give strong reason to dismiss Fox in the midst of the most problematic cases of political hot-topics. --Masem (t) 17:15, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

(This to NightHeron's) I wouldn't necessarily classify Fox as "low quality", but the amount of burden that is brought by Fox News as a source, as clearly shown by this RFC, creates so many problems that rather than trying to fairly justify that it is still is an RS by our definition (a point I still contend is true), that it makes it a burdensome source that taints nearly every discussion that it comes into play that for the purposes of minimizing disruption on WP, is better to treat as a source to avoid, leaving wiggle room for reasonable use in unique cases where there's no issue with its presentation of material (read: outside political theater and climate change). Practically, it will be like blacklisting it, but rationally its a different approach to avoid having the arguments to be repeated for "we need to blacklist CNN because they did the same thing as Fox!" except that CNN carries none of the baggage that Fox News has. --Masem (t) 17:24, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

I have never used MSNBC as a source. I have used Fox as a source for articles unrelated to politics (broadly construed). I can find no reason to use them for politics. There are Fox articles that would seem not political, but are. For example, lately they’ve run multiple articles about obscure assaults by blacks unrelated to anything. (Example with expected racist comments[117]) There are about 2,400 aggravated assaults in the US per day (more than one a minute); yet they create entire articles about single such events not covered in other non-local sources. I find it bothersome to use such a source for anything even remotely political. O3000 (talk) 18:19, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

That's exactly the type of extra focus they give that we'd never cover as an encyclopedia. That's the type of articles that Fox covers that may be "true" but never will find a place here. --Masem (t) 18:29, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

There is no source that is totally unreliable, or reliable. In politics, some sources try to search out and highlight everything favorable or unfavorable about their preferred political positions, and will on occasion be the best and most reliable source. The opinion that anything covered by fox is necessarily either false or unimportant is thesort of extraordinary opinion that would need extraordinary evidence, . The view that many of the stories covered by Fox are less than fully reliable, or are relatively trivial , is a much more reasonable statement. There is good ground for caution with any news source I know in in contemporary (or for that matter, historical) American politics; there are especially good grounds for great caution with Fox in current national politics--but this applies much more to their editorial coverage or some of their columns. Readers expect to see information from all sides of an issue at Wikipedia , and if we do not use the best available sources on all sides we are rejecting NPOV, in favor of advocacy. It's a perfectly reasonable proposition that what is called for at these times is in fact advocacy against those positions favored by Fox-- and I would consider it praiseworthy for anyone who feels that way to do what they believe needful--but not in WP.

If they try to do it here, they're harming their own cause: the people who come here to read political articles are often those who do not yet have a firm position, and come here in the hope of finding truly unbiased information based on our reputation for NPOV. If they come, and find we emphasise only one side of a question, they're not likely to have much confidence in anything they see here. DGG ( talk ) 07:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

In terms of your last point, WP absolutely sucks in between the combination of our policies, practices and current editor makeup and behavior if one is looking to get NPOV on what the "big picture" is on a given ongoing controversial topic if that topic is in any of the big "ArbCom" areas (AP2, IP, etc.). UNDUE is, IMO, misused to try to capture the mainstream press's stance at the moment and eliminate most other views as fringe, when in actuality, we either shouldn't be covering any of those views in the short-term and wait for long-term retrospectives to give us a way to review with neutrality (the better and much easier solution to implement, which in the case of Fox News here, doesn't require us to keep them around), or we recognize that UNDUE should only be applied to evaluate the long-term presentation of sources, and when we're writing the articles while these controversial topics are ongoing, we need to include many more sources including Fox to provide the wider, more neutral picture. This latter, while more helpful to the reader, is also the route that is going to be rife with so much edit warring and disruption. It's just something WP is not well-suited for. (*assume my usual rant on NOTNEWS/RECENTISM applies here*) --Masem (t) 14:36, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, we have a great example of unique Fox reporting just this week: Fox unearthed an audio recording of Jimmy Kimmel (who's already under fire for wearing blackface) using the N-word six times when he was doing a Snoop Dogg impression. Nothing has really happened just yet, but stuff like that has the potential to ruin a celebrity's career. And if it does, that'd definitely be of long-term relevance when it comes to him. Of course, there's potential this won't amount to anything (and if it's proven that Fox fabricated this, which I consider highly unlikely, then I'd agree we should avoid citing the website), but I just wanted to point this out. EDIT: Kimmel just confirmed it's real. JOEBRO64 15:50, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

National Enquirer may come up with something. So, we wait until an RS publishes. As you have shown, that quickly happened giving us an RS to use. WP:NODEADLINE O3000 (talk) 00:47, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The National Enquirer has been first to break a story and turned out to be right multiple times. See 10 Times the National Enquirer Has Been Right: From Michael Jackson to OJ Simpson and 7 Stories The National Enquirer Actually Got Right. That doesn't make it a reliable source. Yes, they were the first to report that Steve Jobs was ill and the first to report that Rush Limbaugh was abusing pain killers, (both correct) but they were also the first to report that in 2016 Hillary Clinton had 6 months to live and the first to report that Prince was diagnosed with AIDS (both bullshit). As Pravda on the Checkout Line points out, "The best propagandists always remember to fold a dash of the plausible into the mix, and here the tabloids excel." When you see something in an unreliable source, you don't know whether it is like the Steve Jobs story or like the Prince story. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:17, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon and Objective3000, comparing Fox to the National Enquirer is a false equivalency. Fox is a legitimate news outlet that broadcasts real (albeit biased) news. The National Enquirer is a supermarket tabloid that publishes anything that will catch someone's eye. If I call the National Enquirer and tell them that Abraham Lincoln faked his death and is actually living it up in Cuba with Tupac and Hitler, then they'll probably publish it. JOEBRO64 12:35, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

You appear to have missed the point. You posted: we have a great example of unique Fox reporting just this week suggesting that as a reason for using Fox. We used National Enqiurer as an example why that’s not a good reason. Actually, it is easier to be first if you are sloppy as you don’t have to take the time to adequately verify. O3000 (talk) 12:47, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I am not "comparing Fox to the National Enquirer" and I don't believe Objective3000 is either. We addressed the specific invalid argument that, just because sometimes a publication has a scoop that turns out to be correct, that proves that it is a reliable source.

Again I ask, Regarding the images shown at [118], If Fox News is willing to purposely mislead me about where a particular person carrying a gun and wearing a green mask was standing, how can I trust anything else they present to me? (Also see [119] --Guy Macon (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

We know that for close to 3 years, Fox got the story right about Russian collusion, and WaPo and the NYTimes went home with Pulitzers...uhm, for getting it wrong? It appears viewers responded unfavorably to the poor news coverage by the big 3, CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo and NPR as indicated in this poll. It also demonstrates a stark partisan divide, especially as it relates to FoxNews getting the story right about the Russian collusion theories that were being spread/implied/spun by the other networks in an effort to lock-in their viewers who agreed with the Democrat's POV. The poll shows Republicans stuck with Fox but the credibility ratings for the other networks took a nose dive. It also appears Democrats disliked FoxNews even more for their accurate reporting about the concocted Russian collusion theory, but even their trusted stations took a nosedive. Masem, I'm of the mind that this poll obliquely speaks to your question about Fox exclusives, so I'd say "yes", that it is an important source. As I've said before, we still excercise caution and follow relevant PAGs, keeping in mind they all make mistakes but the sources that retract/correct should be given more weight. I'm calling it a night. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 01:09, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I know you believe all this from your TP. That's why you have difficulties on AP2 articles. O3000 (talk) 01:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

In what universe did Fox "get the story right about Russian collusion?" Some people clearly have an easy time hopping timelines, and I'm stuck in a crappy one with an impeached US president still in office, ceding world leadership to Russia and China while a respiratory virus runs rampant in the Americas and South Asia. How can I get to a timeline with dirigibles and competent political leadership? Newimpartial (talk) 01:49, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've not at all put any time into trying to follow the Russian interfere story outside of the broad strokes, but even just browsing sources, I'm trying to figure out how "Fox got it right" is there (all current sources have Fox at the center of this web of misinformation to get Trump elected, so...). Even if Fox did get something right, I'll get my NOTNEWS/RECENTISM soapbox out and point out that this is the type of story that in the long run to discuss how the story broke we should be relying on more academic sources like Columbia Journalism Review to know how things fall and who was "right", rather than trying to document at the start, and to that point, Fox again would become less likely as a source, or in my proposed "source to avoid" would still be used if its initial stories were deemed "correct" by scholarly sources. --Masem (t) 01:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: I can answer that question. (sarcasm alert) Fox News got "the story right" in the Fox News universe misinformation bubble. By contrast, RS apparently got it all wrong "for close to 3 years", and that's why we have articles here that are considered totally wrong because they are based on RS. In what universe does THAT thinking prevail? One that is not based on RS, but on conspiracy theories, such as the one described here: Russia investigation origins counter-narrative (actually a mashup of several conspiracy theories). In THAT universe, that article is wrong, and those conspiracy theories are considered true. It's a universe where the items described at Fox News controversies are considered actual facts, and not debunked nonsense. It's a universe where the fact, reported by RS (not just Fox News), that the FBI made errors in the FISA applications, suddenly invalidates all the proven facts regarding the Trump campaign's collusion/invitation/facilitation/lying/obstruction/favoring-Putin-rather-than-America/aiding-election-interference, etc. are therefore all wrong, did not happen, and are not true (and if true are okay), just because of some errors. Russia didn't interfere in the election, Trump didn't welcome that help, and it had no influence on why he won. That's the thinking in that universe. It's a strange universe, but if one can defend Fox News, one can also believe what's in the Fox News misinformation bubble. -- Valjean (talk) 06:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, *WaPo (op), *The Intercept, *WaPo graphics, New Yorker, *Guardian, *Fox News, *Boston Herald (op-ed), *50 media mistakes, etc. I imagine the Durham report will provide an interesting finale. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 06:52, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

To ^Atsme - It seems you've misrepresented the Morning Consult poll that you link. From the poll you linked:

1) Among all adults, Fox News came in below: NYTimes, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and Wall Street Journal,

2) The WaPo is not included in the poll so I don't why you mention it as being part of the poll,

3) The poll does not mention "Russian Collusion" at all (so it's unclear why you mention it as being part of the poll - it's not),

4) The poll shows that, even among GOP, the credibility of Fox News has declined,

5) On Coronavirus coverage, the poll shows that all adults (including GOP adults) distrust Fox News more than any other media listed and evaluate Fox News as having the "poorest" coverage of all media listed.

The Morning Consult attributes the decline in trust to Trump repeating the same lie, "Fake News" over & over & over for 4 years. Trump often repeats the same lies over & over, not just his lies about "Fake News. I will note here that "Repetition is an integral part of brainwashing." [120] Which reminds me that in 2015 Republican President Ronald Reagan's Domestic Policy Adviser Bruce Bartlett published his detailed analysis of Fox News wherein Bartlett concludes Fox News is a "Propaganda Machine." [121] In his analysis, Barlett reports on several studies that found "Fox viewers are misinformed" and are "more likely to have factually untrue beliefs than those who receive their news from mainstream sources." Bartlett says of Fox viewers, "it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth."

Finally, I notice that you've used questionable sources on this talk page such as: realclearpolitics, huffington post, bes-reporter.com, digitalethics.org, washingtonexaminer, and Fox News talking head Bernard Goldberg - so- I figure it's acceptable for me to include the link to Reagan's domestic policy advisor's analysis of Fox News. BetsyRMadison (talk) 19:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

In response to your misinterpretation and wall of text about what I was referring to by linking the poll, that isn't what I said, meant or intended. Try reading it again. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 19:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

You posit that Democrats distrust FoxNews because of Fox's "accurate reporting about the concocted Russian collusion theory", which is hyperpartisan flamebait (at best). Can you make at least a token effort to express your views without constant recourse to partisan talking points? They add a lot of heat and no light to the discussion. MastCell ^Talk 20:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

MastCell, in response to your question, I simply explained my views about the Morning Consult poll which demonstrates Democrat distrust in FoxNews. That's no surprise. The graph clearly indicates a partisan divide regarding the credibility of each source. I also just provided multiple sources for Masem that further support my position. You don't have to like it, but nothing I've said was derogatory or intended to be anything beyond what that poll and RS have already demonstrated. Why you singled me out, I don't know, but you wrongfully described my comment as "hyperpartisan flamebait (at best)", and said nothing about the derogatory comment by Valjean in this same discussion when he spoke about WP editors who consider FoxNews a generally RS, and I quote: Such editors are time sinks because they constantly drink the Fox News koolaid and declare it delicious and just as good as other koolaid, while recognizing there is an enormous difference, IOW they prefer the poisoned koolaid. That comment is noncompliant with WP:PA, specifically that "some comments are never acceptable", and the first bullet point states, Abusive, defamatory, or derogatory phrases based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, religious or political beliefs,..., (my bold underline). What are you going to say to him? ^Atsme _Talk 📧 09:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

References (Fox News)

Collapsed because these are references primarily to political pundits, like Sean Hannity on Fox News Channel, not Fox News. GQ headline reads Fox News Was Duped by a Seth Rich Conspiracy Pushed by Russian Intelligence. Fox News retracted the story from their news section but pundit Hannity continued. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 18:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

What's the point of viewing Fox News in isolation? They are the ones who provide the platform to people like Sean Hannity and hence they should be treated as the same entity, or atleast related. "Not Fox News" is an incorrect conclusion. --qedk (t 愛 c) 16:36, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, probably because this RfC is about Fox News which is separate from the Fox News Channel's talk-show commentary: Which of the following best describes the reliability of the reporting of Fox News? (as separate from their cable pundits) foxnews.com. It appears this RfC may have wasted a significant amount of our valuable time arguing with those editors who conflated the two and did not distinguish between factual newscasts by Fox News anchors and the channel's political talk-shows. I was concerned about that issue from the very beginning, and mentioned it to Newslinger. I'm afraid you may have just validated the reason for my concern. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 20:12, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

It was a drawn implication, hence I clarified my vote in each aspect of reliability, my point is simply to correct the notion of Fox News and pundits being separate entities when they function in conjunction. --qedk (t 愛 c) 20:48, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Atsme How are they separate? What other news organizations are only reliable at certain times of day? Do we have to specifically disbar "pundits" (regular employees, not mere guests) with other news outlets? Where do we disqualify such content under the BBC's head? GPinkerton (talk) 22:48, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Hi, GPinkerton - please see my sidebar note which follows my iVote in the RfC iVoting segment above. The scope of this RfC is strictly the newscasts, not the talk show entertainment on the Fox News Channel - two entirely different things. Think of it as you would an ABC broadcast on channel 8A which includes daytime & primetime talk shows, movies, series, and then there is "the news". Also, a few questions were added below the original RfC a day later, and should not be considered part of the actual RfC. I do hope editors have not been confused by it. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 23:08, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Also... (not Atsme’s point, but worth noting)... there is an analogy to print journalism, where we draw a distinction between the “op-Ed” (opinion) pages and other (news) sections of the paper. We can equate stuff like Hannity’s show to the op-Ed page. Blueboar (talk) 21:57, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the {{sources-talk}} template above captures citations in everyone's comments from this RfC, including comments posted after the ones above. — Newslinger talk 10:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Uncollapsed and moved to bottom (again). --qedk (t 愛 c) 16:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

References

Call for close (Fox News)

I say that we should all stop posting about Fox News, put is a request at WP:AN for an experienced and uninvolved admin to evaluate the consensus and post a closing summary, and get on with our lives. Everything that needs to be said has been said, and another 10,000 words will not change the result. If the participants are unwilling to wind this up, I ask that an uninvoled experienced editor move this to a seperate sunpage so that I can unwatch it without unwatching the rest of the noticeboard. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support close as nominator. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:13, 25 June 2020 (UTC)
• No opinion on when the RfC should be closed, but I recommend a panel closure to match the 2017 and 2019 Daily Mail RfCs and the 2019 Quackwatch RfC. — Newslinger talk 08:17, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: The Red Pill Movie

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Attribution needed for opinions. Most users agree that the The Red Pill Movie is not reliable on its own, described as a documentary film that is not subject to any quality or reliability standards with respect to the information presented. Users in support of its reliability did not provide clear examples to support the source based on Wikipedia guidelines.--ReyHahn (talk) 09:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

---

Is The Red Pill (2016), directed by Cassie Jaye, a reliable source for subjects related to the manosphere or the men's rights movement? — Newslinger talk 00:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

There's a discussion going on about this film, The Red Pill at the Manosphere article. I think the film is one sided, dishonest and begging the question. Having shared my opinion of the film, I'd like to know what other editors think, is this a reliable source for the manosphere or men's rights movement articles? Official site here: [122] Reviews here: [123] Cheers Bacondrum (talk) 23:55, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely not except for attributed opinion of people who are filmed. We should avoid citing films anyway as they are difficult to verify. buidhe 00:16, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable per my comments at the manosphere talk page. To repeat them here, the film been criticized for lack of accuracy: From the outset, Jaye’s film is tilted in favor of the MRAs she interviews and lacks a coherent argument, not due to her own internal conflict but because the film is built on a fundamental misunderstanding of the relevant terms, including “rights,” “patriarchy” and “feminism.” ([124]), and there is no indication it meets requirements at WP:RS that it be recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable party. GorillaWarfare (talk) 00:45, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Well I don't think that's a fair counter argument to say the doc 'misunderstand the terms'...it presents a challenge to the meaning of those terms, yes, but a debate cant really be dismissed as misunderstanding if the arguments are coherent enough. I'd say enough factual basis supports the doc to say it has merit — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.150.142 (talk) 02:06, 11 June 2020 (UTC)— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 76.109.150.142 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

  I am simply presenting one (of quite a few) sources that have taken issue with the accuracy of the film; it is not my criticism. GorillaWarfare (talk) 02:10, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thae LA Times article is a film review not an academic critique. Moreover the author doesn't seem to understand the issues from a factual view. In any case if it's a contest about what sources are reliable we certainly cannot rely on this opinion piece. Tony999 (talk) 07:42, 13 June 2020 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Tony999 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.

  I've presented it as just one example of many criticisms of this film's lack of factual accuracy (others found at The Red Pill#Critical response or a quick Google search). However I'm not sure I understand your objection—the film is certainly not an academic work, so why may only academic sources criticize it? GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:17, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable I'm familiar with the documentary mostly due to the author's TED talk. I suspect there is a lot of good information in it. However, I think it counts as basically self published. As such it can't be treated as a RS. A third party RS can reference it if it makes an important point and that would possibly make it DUE for inclusion but by itself, not a RS. Springee (talk) 00:58, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
• reliable The film interviews multiple feminists and doesn't treat them any differently to the MRAs, so it's hard to say it's biased. If anything, she started off being very biased against the MRAs by her own admission. We should not trust sources attacking the film for biased reasons. For example, The LA Times is known to be a very feminist outlet - so of course it would object to feminism being criticised. The point of the film is to actually investigate the movement - something very few people seem to do. If we are going to discard the film, then we also need to discard all other opinion pieces about the movement. TiggyTheTerrible (talk) 14:48, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Can you expand on how the film actually meets the policy requirements at WP:RS? GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:34, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Certainly. The film is published by a reputable mass-media cohttps://en.chped.com/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&action=edit&section=42mpany known as Gravitas Ventures, which is a part of Red Arrow Studios. It has also been vouched for by The Daily Telegraph, and Heat Street; the latter of which wrote an interesting piece on the reaction to the film. It may challenge the ideology of some commentators, but it is a valid and valuable source regarding what MRAs believe; it should be treated as a character study on the movement, at the very least. Especially since we now know that several of its most famous detractors didn't actually watch it before attacking it. TiggyTheTerrible (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

We have no evidence that documentaries from Gravitas should be regarded as reliable sources. This film appears to be more entertainment than journalism, and certainly not scholarly in any way. --Orange Mike | Talk 16:56, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources on these men's movements seem sparse, if I'm honest. Major news outlets seem to conflate the names of entirely different groups - as if they were basically factions of the same thing, or all in it together. As far as sources go, this is actually the most accurate one I've ever seen outside of that article I linked above. TiggyTheTerrible (talk) 18:31, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Agreed with Orangemike on the lack of support for Gravitas being a publisher that make its documentaries RSes. As for the sparsity of sourcing that you're claiming, that's absolutely not the case. I just listed off for you eight separate, peer-reviewed papers that are currently in use at the manosphere article, and that's not even counting the book sources. I added most of those myself, and I only have access to two academic databases; there are far more out there that others who have broader access could add. We absolutely do not need to resort to poor quality documentaries due to lack of other quality sourcing; there is plenty. You have claimed that this is "actually the most accurate [source] you've seen", which seems to mean it fits your own opinions on the MRM, not that it in any way meets the requirements of WP:RS. You have also just discounted one of the academic sources as "biased" because it does not match your own definition of the MRM, despite it being a peer-reviewed paper by a professor of sociology. I'm not sure you are in a good position to be determining the reliability of sources in this topic area at all. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:28, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, of your eight peer-reviewed papers only two are relevant and the only one I was able to read featured multiple misconceptions and ideological statements about men's rights groups and what they want. This should not be surprising as these are Gender Studies journals you linked to - which are absolutely notorious for the poor quality of their work. The whole field has been disenfranchised in at least one country because of it. There was a prank a little while ago where some academics managed to get prominent Gender Studies journals to print Mein Kamph by changing 'Jews' to 'men' and 'Aryans' to 'women'. TiggyTheTerrible (talk) 22:23, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

You wrote on the manosphere talk page that "Only two of those even mention the men's rights movement", which I assume is what you're referring to here when you mention only two of the journals being relevant. I'll copy what I said there: Well, this article is about the manosphere, not just the men's rights movement. Some of these sources focus on the MRM, some on other manosphere groups, and some on the manosphere as a whole. I'm not sure where your claim that only two of these sources mention the MRM is coming from, unless you're only reading the titles—I'm pretty sure that every single one of these papers discusses the MRM in some capacity.

If you really want to start a discussion that gender studies journals are wholly unreliable, you can start another discussion here at WP:RSN; I look forward to replying there to that absurd claim. Otherwise we will continue to follow WP:SCHOLARSHIP. I will note that the journal you're referring to with your mention of the Grievance studies affair is not among the academic sources used in this article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Could you please list what information that is being considered for inclusion if this is accepted as an RS in this situation? Arkon (talk) 19:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Information included is: who the men's rights movement are, the issues they are campaigning about, and the opposition they face. It's a good basic intro to what they say. TiggyTheTerrible (talk) 22:23, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Too vague for me to give a good opinion. Arkon (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

• I think the film is fine for attributed opinions and views of the films subjects, per WP:RSSELF and WP:ABOUTSELF, as long as those claims are not contentious. As far as I can see from the talkpage, the usage seems to be hypothetical. Can specific examples of sentences of where you would like to use the source be given? Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:42, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  As TiggyTheTerrible has said above, I believe they wish to reframe the entire article and the definitions of the "manosphere", "men's rights movement", etc. based on that documentary (which would contravene every other source in the article). This is what they did in their first edit to the page: [125]. As of yet TiggyTheTerrible has not been able to find a reliable source supporting their point of view, and so is trying to get this documentary accepted as a reliable source to rebut the much higher-quality sources used in the article's current form. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:05, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

  Not in Wikivoice, no. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:24, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  (Conversation about the scholarly sources moved to Talk:Manosphere#Scholarly sources. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:36, 11 June 2020 (UTC))

• Reliable Personally I think the documentary is rather surprisingly well done; it DID make me see the men's rights sphere in a different light- I still do think there are many flaws to be said, but I think the arguments were decent enough and well enough sourced. I watched it about a year ago, I remember jumping on google (lol and wiki) to fact check some of the things presented, and was surprised to see how much was true. I don't think it's all that one sided, nor dishonest. As for 'begging the question, I wouldn't agree...it used a lot of statistics and references to laws/government programs...one might disagree with the interpretation, but that's hardly assuming the truth of the conclusion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.109.150.142 (talk) 01:53, 11 June 2020 (UTC)— Note: An editor has expressed a concern that 76.109.150.142 (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)
• Attribute, do not use as proposed. It is certainly not more reliable than scholarly sources, and should 100% not be used for what TiggyTheTerrible is proposing, but it’s not plain wrong to the degree that it can not be used at all. Devonian Wombat (talk) 04:37, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable I don't understand why this is even up for debate? The documentary may present points of view that you and I may disagree with but it does not misrepresent anything. We may also both disagree with many Trans-Exclusive Radfems but we won't say that their documentaries are "unreliable" for citation in articles about Radical Feminism. hendrixski (talk) 04:45, 11 June 2020 (UTC) — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that hendrixski (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion. (diff)

• Comment Is there canvassing happening here? It's pretty odd for an IP with no other edits (76.109.150.142) and an editor who's not edited in a year (and only edited six times in the past decade) and never previously commented at RSN or at Talk:Manosphere (Hendrixski) to suddenly show up here and argue that the documentary is a reliable source. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:05, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  Update: just found that a canvassing request was posted on Reddit: "The Red Pill Movie is up for review as a source. Is it reliable? Why don't you tell them (politely)" GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:16, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

  I've upgraded this discussion to an RfC to request opinions from a broader section of the community. — Newslinger talk 00:19, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable except for quotes: It's a documentary that interviews many people relevant to the topic, and so it's reliable as a source for the views of the people in it. However, it's also a documentary by one person who we have no reason to expect any particular editorial rigor from. She directed it, she's the presenter, she appears to own the production company, and it was funded on Kickstarter so she doesn't even really have any pressure to fact-check it from funders. Regardless of any slant, that alone makes it not a reliable source: it's about as reliable as any YouTube video. Loki (talk) 03:48, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable except for quotes, as above. This is basically a self published source - 'Gravitas Ventures' is a film distributor, not a publisher, and would not have filled any kind of fact checking or editing role. - MrOllie (talk) 12:24, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable - The existence of the film is significant, barely, but this isn't the same thing as being reliable. Anything the movie says which is important, quote or not, can be better supported by more reliable sources. Grayfell (talk) 01:36, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable - laughably unreliable, I wouldn't even use it for statements about its own content unless that particular content was noteworthy by inclusion in an RS, in which case use that. AsLokiTheLiar says, this is on the level of a self-published YouTube video with production values - David Gerard (talk) 16:44, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable as a self-published source by someone who is not recognized as a subject-matter expert. Quotes from the film can be usable as opinion if covered by a third-party RS – basically per Springee. (Ironically, watching the film pushed me more towards feminism than vice versa, but that's beside the point.) feminist | freedom isn't free 17:46, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable of course not, there are much better available sources including scholarly ones. If an independent source considered more reliable mentions it in a particular context, it could be used to mention it. —PaleoNeonate – 07:14, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable - can use more reliable sources that talk about the film to the extent including mention of the film makes sense. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:30, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable seems about right here. Quite aside from issues of accuracy, there is an inherent tension between narrative pace and factual nuance. I hope we don't cite Michael Moore films either. Guy (help!) 15:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

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

Closure challenge

I have challenged the closure of this RfC at User talk:ReyHahn § Your closure of WP:RSN#RfC: The Red Pill Movie. — Newslinger talk 08:03, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

ReyHahn has amended the closing statement in Special:Diff/964053113 in response to my challenge. Thank you, ReyHahn. — Newslinger talk 09:42, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Murderpedia

This came off BLP/N, where murderpedia.org - what appears to be a site managed by one person - is used about 300 times presently on WP. [126]

For living persons, this immediately fails WP:BLPSPS. Furthermore, looking at any specific entry page, it is similar reposting key published articles about the killer/suspect from major sources, which also presents a copyvio problem when linking to them. BUT that does provide the benefit that we can replace these with the works that source cites directly. eg pulling up a random entry like [127] includes Wikipedia's entry and then a number of Times of India articles in full, which are the RIGHT sources to use instead.

So I would suggest this be a blacklisted source, and that we have these methodically removed in favor of the sources given on these pages. If this means tagging them as "deprecated" or with a tag to indicate they should be replaced and identifying the ease which they can be, so be it. --Masem (t) 15:50, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Yep, pretty much looks like an SPS, and a rather iffy one (Wikipedia as a source?). Yep, blacklist it.Slatersteven (talk) 15:52, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Support blacklisting per Masem's rationale. We should avoid linking to this site per WP:ELNEVER. buidhe 15:55, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with blacklisting this source, anything to do with murder and BLP's is extremely sensitive and needs far better sourcing than this. Also the COPYVIO is a serious issue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:58, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecate and blacklist - David Gerard (talk) 16:23, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Ditto everyone, thanks Masem for starting this here. --JBL (talk) 16:35, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

By the way: I guess it won't surprise anyone that the use of Murderpedia is often accompanied by the use of FindAGrave. I've been removing both when I see them. --JBL (talk) 21:09, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

For those of you who are into this kind of thing, Stephen Akinmurele has only two references: the multiple-copyright-violating Murderpedia, and the Daily Mail. --JBL (talk) 22:46, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Charming headline that Mail article ... GPinkerton (talk) 03:09, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Fortunately as I've hopefully explained, at least we know of 5 BBC articles that that specific article can at least be expanded with at minimum. But they do need to be added and sourced individually. --Masem (t) 03:42, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

• Blacklist. The site hosts copyright violations and its use frequently violates WP:BLPSPS. — Newslinger talk 03:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

  Newslinger, any examples on WP? I am completely up for this. Guy (help!) 13:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  ​Yes, I've just removed a few:

  1. Special:Diff/963540734 in Deaths in August 1998: The cited Murderpedia page is a copy of an old version of the Gary Evans (serial killer) Wikipedia article (circa Special:Permalink/241883008), reproduced without attribution. In this case, the Murderpedia citation was a circular reference.
  2. Special:Diff/963543737 in Robert Ben Rhoades: The cited PDF appears to be a university assignment, and fails WP:BLPSPS.
  3. Special:Diff/963544242 in East Jersey State Prison: The cited Murderpedia page reproduces an entry of An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers and an article from The New York Times without evidence of permission, which makes the citation a violation of WP:COPYLINK.
  4. Special:Diff/963544834 in Glen Edward Rogers: The cited Murderpedia page reproduces an entry from the self-published Mayhem.net and an Associated Press article without evidence of permission.
  5. Special:Diff/963545685 in Richard Angelo: The cited Murderpedia page reproduces an entry of An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers and a deleted version of the Richard Angelo Wikipedia article, which is itself a copyright violation of a biographical profile from About.com and contains an incorrect birth date.

  — Newslinger talk 11:45, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

  Thanks, Newslinger. I've been systematically removing it as an external link from articles one-by-one (so it's now down to 121 uses, from nearly 300). To be honest, its inclusion on an article is almost always a sign that the article is a garbage dump: mostly newsy, sensationalist "biographies" that are heavy on terrible sources and lurid details, but it would take an enormous committed effort to clean them up. After I'm done with external links, I'm going to move on to the ones where it's used as a cited reference, but that's a lot more work to clean up. I would definitely support blacklisting. --JBL (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Murderpedia is okay for research, but we shouldn't be sourcing articles to it. FindAGrave is okay, but shoud be moved to WikiData when found.--Auric talk 21:59, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
• Blacklist. Links to offsite copyright violations put WMF in legal jeopardy and are not permitted anywhere, including Talk pages, per WP:C. Guy (help!) 13:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Mustang

There is currently a discussion over at the talk page for the Mustang article over whether the following footnote should be included in the article.

According to Claire Henderson, an ethnohistorian at Laval Univeristy Lakota Sioux oral history and the reports of early European explorers of the Upper Missouri River, there is a hypothesis that Equus was not completely extirpated from North America, but that the northern Plains Indians had domesticated and preserved a Tarpan (Equus ferus ferus) like horse prior to the arrival of the Europeans. (Yvette Running Horse Collin pursued this idea further in her 2017 PhD thesis The Relationship Between the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and the Horse: Deconstructing a Eurocentric Myth). However, no physical evidence such as bones dating after 8000 B.C.E. and prior to 1500 A.D.E. have been found.

This relates to the "horse continuity theory" in the americas, the (fringe) idea that horses in Pleistocene North America are the ancestors of living mustangs, despite the lack of genetic or archaeological evidence. This theory is often found on self published pro-mustang websites and blogs. The first source is "The Aboriginal North American Horse" (which is also cited in the Horses in the United States article) a statement given in 1991 by Claire Henderson, an ethno-historian at Laval University (I have been unable to find any other information on her other than this story relating to the statement in the Chicago Tribune) the second is "The Relationship Between the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas and the Horse: Deconstructing a Eurocentric Myth" a 2017 PhD thesis by Yvette Running Horse Collin in Indigenous Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Both studies have the same issues, both are arguably WP:SPS, don't have any evidence backing up their claims, only reasons to cast doubt, and rely on the oral tradition of various elders, and oral history is notoriously unreliable for long timescales. The latter paper also includes these wild quotes, among others

In keeping with the traditions of my Plains Indian ancestors, my education began with a spiritual experience I had involving a gift from an Indigenous “medicine man and woman” who lived on a New Mexico Pueblo. During a time when I was in desperate need of healing, they gifted me with two horses - a red roan mare that had been trained (according to their People’s traditions) to protect others during spiritual battle - and her four-day-old paint foal. My education continued with a vision that I experienced from my Ancestors. I gained this initial knowledge through firsthand observation, the utilization of all of my senses, and other experiential learning methods. Thus, began my role as a participant-researcher.

Scientists have discovered that horses emit “alpha waves” – the same waves emitted by humans during prayer - and they are beginning to recognize that the emission of such waves can be beneficial in treating brain injuries

I honestly was at a bit of a loss which noticeboard to post this to. I think much of the oral history (as I mentioned on the talk page) stems from the fact that horses spread much earlier into the American interior than colonists, and considering the hundreds of years that have passed this could lead to the impression that they always had horses. My own view is that neither of these sources are reliable enough to cite as an authority, even for a minority view and that the footnote should be removed entirely. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:35, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

• Absolutely not These sources are reliable for oral history saying that it is true, but the WP:WEIGHT of such claims is nothing compared to actual scientific evidence. The content should be moved to an article dealing with oral history. buidhe 20:05, 14 June 2020 (UTC)
• No horses in America before Columbus. Definitely not. Oral history and visions of the ancestors emitting equine alpha waves is exactly what it sounds like. Plains Indians had horses before Europeans reached the upper Missouri, but that was centuries after 1492 and as everyone knows horses are faster than people. GPinkerton (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• Comment this out of context discussion by an editor who is creating some drama over at the article misses the point that the existing consensus of the long-standing editors of this article agree that is it a fringe theory. However, we put it in a small end footnote because it is something that occasionally keeps being added back in. We tossed it out for some time, but it was recently put back in again, in part because of the actions of the above editor who initially appeared at the article, apparently supporting the “non-extirpation” position. In other words, the note was added to debunk thentheory, not support it. Montanabw^(talk) 06:29, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Let's just wrap this up. As MBW said, the sources were not meant to validate the fringe theory, but to acknowledge the existence of it. I've revised the section to do what I think is better job of both acknowledging and de-bunking it.Lynn (SLW) (talk) 12:31, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

• Probably not - like any fringe theory (and in fact ALL content on ENWP) in order to be included in an article it requires a reliable source to discuss/acknowledge it. If there are no reliable sources that discuss it, then it doesnt go in an article. This is how all fringe theories are dealt with. If there are reliable sources that discuss it (and usually for fringe nonsense, dismiss it) then its acceptable to include it and what those realiable sources say about it. As there doesnt appear to be any argument about the reliability of the sources used, the fringe noticeboard is probably a better place to gain consensus on if it should be in the article or not. Only in death does duty end (talk) 12:49, 15 June 2020 (UTC)
• This is mythology not fact, on the face of it. Guy (help!) 10:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • Precisely. But thus a mention is in order, in context, which we are trying to do. There really isn't an editing dispute here. Montanabw^(talk) 18:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

    Montanabw, sure. Either way, not an RS question, but a content (WP:UNDUE) question, right? Guy (help!) 18:38, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

    • Pretty much. Horse taxonomy is a nightmare to sort out (pun intended). Montanabw^(talk) 04:25, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Usage of opinion articles on Epoch Times

I recently reverted a section on The Epoch Times (which itself is a deprecated source on WP) which cited three opinion articles on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's coverage of ET's peddling of conspiracy theories on COVID-19, which the editor has misrepresented as reports from Toronto Sun. Does these opinion articles constitute due weight on The Epoch Times article? [128][129][130]--PatCheng (talk) 09:02, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

You removed more than that. In the same edit you removed all of this, saying "Removed per WP:UNDUE. You cited several opinion columnists which fails WP:RS":

"On April 29, 2020 CBC reported that some Canadians was upset with Epoch Times's claim that China was behind the COVID-19. It described that the Epoch Times polarized people and advanced a conspiracy theory about the origin of the corona virus. The report noted an earlier version of the headline incorrectly stated "the Epoch Times claimed China made the virus as a bio-weapon". Since its publication, the CBC report's headline had been changed for three times. At the beginning, the headline included words 'racist and inflammatory', which was removed in the later versions of the headline.

"On May 1, 2020, an article on National Post defended the Epoch Times and argued that the corona virus did originate in China and reputable mainstream media outlets had reported the virus possibly escaped from a viral research lab in Wuhan. The article was titled with "Canada Need a better CBC". It commented that Epoch Times' suggestion that the virus could be accidentally released from a Wuhan lab does not justify CBC's hit piece and urged that Canada government should appoint serious leaders for CBC. The report said due to its extensive contacts in China, the Epoch Times has often led Western media in matters the China's Communist Party regime has tried to suppress, including the effort to cover up information about the coronavirus. The article also commented that China's Communist government quarantined Wuhan city but didn't inform WHO about the danger of COVID-19, which caused the world-wide pandemic later. Many governments in the world shared the same view with The Epoch Times that Chinese government was of "irresponsibility and dishonesty".

What's wrong with this source for instance?

And although this isn't NPOVN, I don't understand what was "undue". Doug Weller talk 09:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Doug Weller, we certainly should not be using Conrad Black, a convicted fraudster pardoned by Trump, writing in the National Review, as a primary source for opinion about the Epoch Times. Guy (help!) 16:02, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

[[@JzG: missed that. I agree entirely. We might use NR at times, but not that. Doug Weller talk 16:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The Conrad Black piece was in National Post not National Review. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:31, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

You don't understand how an article section detailing three opinion pieces is undue? The series of edits looks to be an improvement to the article. There is summary text in the COVID section for Some Canadians... CBC news piece. I'd argue PatCheng did not go far enough and Some columnists defended Epoch Times' coverage of COVID-19 and noted that criticism... citing the three columns is undue and should be removed. fiveby(zero) 15:38, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

References

Now the section has "It [i.e. Epoch Times] has promoted anti-China rhetoric and conspiracy theories around the coronavirus outbreak, for example through an 8-page special edition called "How the Chinese Communist Party Endangered the World", which was distributed unsolicited in April 2020 to mail customers in areas of USA, Canada, and Australia. [cite to CBC.ca][cite to msn.com]" The msn.com cite is worthless, it doesn't say that anyone received that particular edition. The cbc.ca cite is dubious for saying "anti-China rhetoric" because, as the opinion articles point out, the opinion of a woman in Kelowna plus an anonymous postal employee isn't the same as a fact. The cbc.ca cite is also poor support for saying "conspiracy theories" because it was apparently influenced by their headline (PatCheng removed "The earlier headline also incorrectly stated the Epoch Times claimed China made the virus as a bioweapon." and later removed the cite which showed the headline). I think therefore that the stuff which cites the CBC story doesn't belong in the article, but it is also workable to point out what others think of the CBC story. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:14, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Peter Gulutzan, plenty of sources for this (and it happened in the UK and Ireland, too): [131], [132], [133]. What are you challenging? The fact of it being distributed or the fact of it being anti-Chinese conspiracist claptrap? Guy (help!) 10:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy, I do not see a way that I could make it more clear without repeating. We'll see whether other people bother to read. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:40, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

The /opinion/ ones can probably be left-out, but the CBC April 29 article is a good source. Normally we don't need to include undue ET responses if independent sources don't also mention them. —PaleoNeonate – 06:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes - we don't need WP:MANDY-level denials not covered in third party sources. Guy (help!) 10:13, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello , I'd like share some view

1. There are also a lot of third-party media defending Epoch Times. Different views from reliable sources should be allowed in Wikipedia per WP:NPOV.-------Here are 3 examples: 1.True North: CBC article echoes Chinese Communist Party talking points、　2. CBC targets independent news outlet for 'racism' after it reports accurately on China、3. Exposing CBC's disgraceful story attacking anti-Communist China Epoch Times
2. "Weather Virus came/leak from Laboratory?" That's not "anti-Chinese conspiracy theory" but possibilityies for truth-finding. Chinese Communist Party CCP not equal to China. CCP is a Totalitarian regime , bad records on abusing biotech and genetic Engineering, persecute Chinese people, forcely harvests organs from living Chinese Prisoner of conscience for money.

1. Epochtimes's report did not say Covid-19 "a Chinese made bioweapon".' but maybe possibilities like leaking from China laboratory. and indeed, many mainstream media international or of Taiwan, even Hong Kong(also Pro-Beijing Madia) , also reported several possibilities. Taiwanese and Hongkongner are also Chinese people, That's irrelevant to anti-Chinese conspiracy.
2. Besides many mainstream media reported about Covid-19 and Wuhan laboratory, and wheather CCP have military biotech project.for example:
   1. 2020-6-14 Canadian scientist sent deadly viruses to Wuhan lab months before RCMP asked to investigate:Amir Attaran, a law professor and epidemiologist at the University of Ottawa said "It is suspicious. It is alarming. It is potentially life-threatening," said "We have a researcher who was removed by the RCMP from the highest security laboratory that Canada has for reasons that government is unwilling to disclose. The intelligence remains secret. But what we know is that before she was removed, she sent one of the deadliest viruses on Earth, and multiple varieties of it to maximize the genetic diversity and maximize what experimenters in China could do with it, to a laboratory in China that does dangerous gain of function experiments. And that has links to the Chinese military."
   2. 2020-06-04_Ex-head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove says coronavirus 'is man-made' and was 'released by accident' - after seeing 'important' scientific report
   3. Taiwan's mainstream Central News Agency(a public Media owned by all people):2020-04-25_俄專家支持病毒人造論 稱中國科學家做了瘋狂事Russian experts support the theory of virus artificiality, claiming that Chinese scientists did crazy things
   4. Hong Kong's mainstream pro-Beijing Media report:2020-06-09_挪威研究稱新冠病毒部分人工製造 獲前英情報主管撐Norwegian research says part of Covid-19virus artificially , this view supported by former British intelligence director
   5. more example can be listed, also many chinese-language media reported, even pro-Beijing media in Taiwan and Hong Kong also reported some. Many expert keep the possibilities,also the USA and UK Government, and ex-vicehead(lead fight 2003 SARS) of Taiwan's DOH(Department of Health).
   6. Some media reported that France expert or China ex-officer concerned about wheather ChineseCommunistParty use the P4-laboratory for what? for risky research? for bioweapon? Many assumptions and doubts comes form--- CCP's opaque and deny international and WHO expert a field investigation in china. Wetrace (talk) 05:03, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

      IDK about the others but WP:DAILYMAIL is not an acceptable source. buidhe 06:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

1. 1. Thank you. Sources above not including DailyMail. In fact, many Taiwan Mainstream reported about Virus possibilities with laboratory. Wetrace (talk) 11:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Wetrace, those don't come across as anything close to the quality of sources that criticise Epoch Times. It's also pretty clear why a popular Taiwanese site would support the Epoch Times' anti-CPC agenda. Guy (help!) 15:25, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

All of the sources Wetrace cited are simply speculating, and there is no consensus regarding the addition of such items. There are other sources which dispute the lab leakage claims. [134][135]. Also in this reverted edit [136] Wetrace promoted a fringe theory about Obamagate not being a conspiracy theory, citing an opinon article from National Review--PatCheng (talk) 11:34, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Hello, PatCheng,

1. How Virus spread? It can be discussion, not conspiracy. And indeed Chinese Communist Party's history was full of CCP's agenda and conspiracy against people and demoncracy, human rights.
2. It's not proper that your accusation of so-called "promote". One thing with several aspect to discussion, and many also from reliable sources. Wetrace (talk) 14:57, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Absolutely unreliable Why hasn't this been deprecated and blacklisted? Peddling conspiracy non-sense and the like is certainly not encouraging, and the entry at WP:RSP is quite unequivocal. What do sources do defend is that the virus originated in China (Bravo, Cpt. Obvious!), not the conspiracy theories about it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 14:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliability of sources on religious texts

There is a somewhat unusual situation at Homosexuality in India and Hinduism and LGBT topics concerning the inclusion of the following text (and variants thereof):

but Rigveda says regarding Samsara that Vikruti Evam Prakriti (perversity/diversity is what nature is all about, or, what seems unnatural is also natural), which some scholars believe recognizes the cyclical constancy of homosexual/transsexual dimensions of human life, like all forms of universal diversities.

As well as the following challenging text, which is not currently present in the article:

Hindus have many sacred texts and different communities give special importance to different texts. Even more so than in other religions, Hindus also foster disparate interpretations of the meaning of various texts. The Vedas, which form the foundation of Hinduism for many, do not refer explicitly to homosexuality, but some authors claim that the Rigveda says regarding Samsara that Vikruti Evam Prakriti (perversity/diversity is what nature is all about, or, what seems unnatural is also natural), although Monier-Williams does not attest either vikriti or prakriti in the text of the Rig Veda. Some writers believe this phrase recognizes the cyclical constancy of homosexual/transsexual dimensions of human life, like all forms of universal diversities, although academic Sanskritists like Jamison & Brereton do not accept the existence of the phrase in the text, as with Sastri in the revised Vedic concordance.

In summary, in the present version of the articles, there is text asserting that the Rig Veda, an ancient compendium of Sanskrit religious poetry, contains the line "vikruti evam prakriti", which is claimed to mean "what seems unnatural is also natural", which is alleged to be a statement about homosexuality. These statements are currently sourced to this article in a popular publication , and this academic source on religion and sexuality. This text is currently being challenged on the grounds that the line "vikruti evam prakriti" does not actually occur in the Rig Veda, in support of which a number of authoritative sources on Sanskrit and the Rig Veda, which do not accept the attestation of the line in the Rig Veda, are cited, as well as searchable databases of the raw text itself. Exclusion of the challenged line and/or inclusion of text suggesting that the challenged line does not exist in the Rig Veda are both currently being rejected on the grounds that the academic sources on Sanskrit and Rig Veda are "irrelevant" because they do not specifically deal with homosexuality.

So the questions are:

1. Are the sources cited in support of the existence of the phrase (a popular publication, and an academic work on religion and sexuality) reliable in the context of making a specific claim about the existence of a phrase in a specific religious text in a specific language, where the authors are not specialists on any of the religion, the language, or the work, and where no further citations are present in those sources attributing the claim to specialist works on Sanskrit or the Rig Veda?

1. Are the sources cited in opposition to the existence of the phrase (all academic works on Sanskrit and the Rig Veda, of which several of the most salient ones are cited, which document the entirety of the Vedic corpus, according to which not only the challenged line, but even the individual words within it, are not attested in the Rig Veda) unreliable and/or irrelevant in the context of the articles in question?

Hölderlin2019 (talk) 00:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

References

• The text is poorly written and looks very much like a novel synthesis. Guy (help!) 09:23, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• It is WP:OR, unless the reliable sources entirely support the text. D4iNa4 (talk) 08:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • You, being involved in the original discussion, should not opine here as a 'neutral' third party. See also the discussion at the arbitration page. Hölderlin2019 (talk) 09:12, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Crowdfunders

Should crowdfunding platforms be blacklisted, as petition sites are, with specific links whitelisted as needed? Guy (help!) 08:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Background

Petition sites are blacklisted, with specific links handled by whitelisting. This is due to widespread use of Wikipedia to promote petitions, often but certainly not always in good faith. Most uses of petition sites were of the form In (year), a petition was launched for (cause). Source: Link to the petition.

The same applies to crowdfunders, with the additional problem that they are not just asking for signatures, but actual money. Many of the links are (inevitably) to campaigns that have now ended, but even here, they are primary. Example:

On April 24th 2013 Braff started a Kickstarter campaign to finance "Wish I Was Here" which based on a script he wrote with his brother Adam Braff.

References

This was added on the day the kickstarter launched.

The scale of the problem is not small.

• gofundme.com   (123 references)
• indiegogo.com   (876 references)
• kickstarter.com   (2,973 references)

Opinions (Crowdfunders)

• Support as proposer. Guy (help!) 08:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support per Guy - David Gerard (talk) 09:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support – If the crowdfund is notable, then it should not be hard to find a secondary source as a reference. If there is no secondary source, then it is not notable and should not be mentioned. I also have a hard time imagining a situation in which these websites are necessary as a source for notable facts. (Perhaps as a source for self-published birth date on a BLP, but a request to whitelist will suffice in that situation.) --- C&C (Coffeeandcrumbs) 09:43, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support if crowdfund is not covered in secondary RS, we should not cover it either. buidhe 12:00, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support - We can mention the existence of a crowdfund if it is mentioned by independent reliable sources... but we should not link to it. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support I agree, these funding requests can become very political, very quickly. --- FULBERT (talk) 12:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support Agreed, a crowdfunding campaign on its own without secondary coverage does not establish notability. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support seems obvious to me. Springee (talk) 14:09, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support I agree crowdfunding sites should be blocked. They are like fundraising links. You would not allow PayPal pages or links to someone's ebay page. --Althecomputergal (talk) 15:42, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support: no brainer. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:12, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose as explained below. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:52, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose But I'll explain more below - we should not be using these sites for anything notability related or similar, but once a notability threshold is reached they are fair game as equivalent to primary sources for the projects backed. --Masem (t) 20:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Allow in external links for crowdfunding in relation to notable subjects, per Masem. BLPs who are supported by Patreon subscriptions, for example, ought to have their crowdfunding linked. EllenCT (talk) 20:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

  EllenCT, What? Why? Why on earth would we include a link that basically says "give this person money here"? We can link the official website, and leave them to do thier own panhandling. My monthly Patreon bill for subscribed content is in excess of $100, I'm not opposed to crowdfunding, but it's not our job to drive donations to the article subject. Guy (help!) 09:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose for closed campaigns as per Masem's rationale but deprecate links to live campaigns, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 22:18, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Citations of active crowdfunding campaigns violate WP:NOTPROMO, and should be substituted with reliable secondary sources. Citations of closed campaigns might be usable as primary sources when used to supplement reliable secondary sources, but those cases can be whitelisted as needed when there is consensus to use them. — Newslinger talk 02:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  I would support deprecation with an edit-filter set to "warn" as a second choice. — Newslinger talk 11:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Support - We can always whitelist a link if relevant and appropriate. But we should ensure the message warning that the site is blacklisted includes an explanation on how to appeal for whitelisting. Per Newslinger. RedBulbBlueBlood9911Talk 05:43, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Weak support, with the proviso that needed whitelisting be done without a lot of tooth-pulling. The main reason to cite one of these is for WP:ABOUTSELF purposes (e.g. that a crowdfunding proposal claimed something at a certain date, and we've quoted it; or that a certain crowdsourcing site has a policy that states X and we're writing about that). That can be handled by selective whitelisting. We could also do this for cases where the subject has no official webpage other than their Patreon or whatever. We don't block Amazon.com on the article about Amazon, despite the fact that following that link will lead you to a site at which you might agree to spend money. So "there's a shopping card form there" isn't really a rationale. Links to such pages frequently being added gratuitously as a fundraising mechanism, like posting survey links on WP as an input-generating means for them, is the actual problem to address.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  PS: I will add that these sites are not like PayPal, because they provide (primary-source) editorial content and are not simply a payment mechanism; they're even more valid to link for WP:PRIMARYSOURCE-valid purposes, in this regard, than would be Amazon.com or some other "web store".  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:39, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, I agree, the bar should be set low. Guy (help!) 14:59, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. If most additions of links to such pages are in good faith, a Daily Mail-style spamlist will be adequate. These sites are often enough useful that requiring editors to whitelist every legitimate use would be too much of a hassle. feminist | freedom isn't free 07:27, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Well-intentioned no doubt, this assumes secondary sources exist that parrot exactly the information we want to use, which obviously is not always true. This also seems to be a bad faith assumption that any use must be wrong, even for a live request.

  I have no problems with a warning filter that helpfully reminds editors about do’s or don’ts, but still allows the use. But I oppose basically banning their use especially when they are often the source of news. Gleeanon409 (talk) 11:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

• If there is no secondary source for a crowdfunder, then it is not significant. If there is a secondary source then use it and don't link the crowdfunder. This seems obvious to me. It's the approach we take for petitions, and it is working well for that. An edit filter or revert list will not work I think: revert lists can be overridden trivially by simply reinserting the link, an edit filter set to warn will be ignored, as is the case for blogs and self-published sources (e.g. filter 894, 1045), and if set to enforce, whitelisting of individual links is obscure. The blacklist / whitelist process is well suited to handling this issue. Guy (help!) 08:59, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
  • This seems pretty obvious and clear - David Gerard (talk) 09:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• AngelList (but see discussion below)
• ArtistShare
• Community Funded
• Crowd Supply
• DonorsChoose
• Experiment
• Fundable
• Fundly
• FundRazr
• GoFundMe
• Groundfloor
• Indiegogo
• InvestedIn
• JustGiving
• Kickstarter
• LaunchGood
• Lending Club
• MicroVentures
• Patreon
• Piggybackr
• RocketHub
• Seed&Spark
• Wefunder

I think I want to create CrowdFunderFunder, a crowdfunding site to collect donations for creating new crowdfunding sites. If it works out, CrowdFunderFunderFunder... --Guy Macon (talk) 14:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, but how will you fund that? Guy (help!) 15:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps the WMF will create wikifunding. They seem to be pretty good at that sort of thing... --Guy Macon (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• @Guy Macon: AngelList is not a crowdfunding site, it has information similar to Crunchbase and is more like Linkedin. --qedk (t 愛 c) 09:57, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. Would you be so kind as to look at Template:Crowdfunding platforms and remove any non-crowdfunding platforms you see??

{{Crowdfunding platforms}}--Guy Macon (talk) 12:24, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

for some reason, having this template expanded at the indent level was screwing up indents down the rest of the entire talk page, I've "nulled" out the expansion from above as a note. --Masem (t) 13:22, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• I disagree with the rapid sense to treat these like change.org (which I fully agree should be blacklisted) but I do agree with waving the huge flag on their frivolous use. Hundreds of projects attempt crowdfunding, few met their goal, and fewer still of those are WP:N-notable before they get completed. But there are more than a few exceptions of projects that have been announced first through things like Kickstarter that get attention through secondary sources that we have had articles on. And where I have found the crowdfunding sites sometimes useful is in that they serve as a primary source for some information not always captured by the secondary sources but needed to properly flesh out an article. (but not documenting EVERYTHING said on the funding page). This is no different from using a development blog hosted anywhere else for some of the finer details, as long as notability has clearly been shown and we're talking filling in some of the holes rather than building the entire page off that primary source. But again, this is under limited cases, and not the common situation that these links are used for which is the promotional spam without any sense of notability. --Masem (t) 20:34, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Masem. I took the time to look through a few dozen pages with these links to get a sense of how they're used. I removed a few clearly egregious cases, but in a reasonable minority of cases I see this pattern: a secondary source describes an event/item that underwent crowdfunding, and the crowdfunding reference is placed after the secondary reference. I can see from a user's perspective why this would be useful. Jlevi (talk) 22:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I think Masem has a good point. Look at Ogre (board game)#Kickstarter project as one example of a legitimate citation. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

If we have to spamlist it as opposed to blacklist (so that I have to press "accept my edit" twice to reduce the "change.org"-type additions, that's fine. I understand the clear concern of when these are being added as inappropriate promotional links and this is definitely a goal I back. And I would certainly make it a RS/P item as very situational as a primary source, not for notability, only to be used in moderation when trying to be comprehensive but not "complete". (I am speaker here as having backed video and board games through KS and others, and have once in a while used those sources here to add the odd missing detail, but not to do anything close to WP:NOT#GAMEGUIDE regurgitation which is the other side of caution when allowing these.) And of course, when talking about crowdfunding, the non-funding parts of these sites are authoritative, such as KS listing out its top projects by $ amount. --Masem (t) 23:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Masem, OK, but look at filter 1045 (blog) or filter 869 (deprecated source). Most editors are clicking through and making the edit anyway. And a mainspace filter will not prevent people spamming crowdfunders on talk pages. Guy (help!) 09:04, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, I looked at Ogre. I tried to find a secondary source for the content currently cited to Kickstarter. Turns out to be remarkably difficult. Which is kind of my point: the two main uses are (a) active campaigns added by obvious fans and (b) primary sources for trivia. Neither passes WP:RS.

Of course most kickstarter projects ship late, some never ship at all - we both agree I think that live campaigns should not be included. How do we police that? How do we stop it on Talk pages?

With petition sites, we do link (via whitelist) a few closed petitions that have received external coverage and where the content of the petition page is of specific interest. That is exactly what I am proposing here, in fact. But for the most part the primary source is either excessive detail or an active solicitation for support, which is inappropriate IMO. Guy (help!) 09:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

There is a factor here that not all crowdfunding sites are the same. Whereas I trying to make sure that Kickstarter or IndieGoGo pages are still open - because a key feature of most projects there is their running devblog/progress which is the information value we want - a site like Patreon or GoFundMe is all about getting you donation and rarely provides useful info or is about anything notable in the long run. (And as this question started, if any of those types of campaigns are actually of note, they will get secondary coverage). The Kickstarter/IndieGogo pages (and I think there's a few others like this) are the ones that are the basis typically for notable commercial products, which is a key difference here, and usually that's not going to be something "personal" that will get started. You still might have people spamming links during their open campaigns to get others to help support that, which is an issue but because these usually can't be started "on a whim" like a Patreon, GoFundMe, or change.org petition, they aren't as frequent or common. That might be a key distinction to think about here. --Masem (t) 13:43, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• Masem, crowdfunding is indeed a notable thing. We should certainly include it when mentioned by secondary sources. What we should not do is include links to crowdfunding projects, for exactly the same reason that we don't link to petitions. When I have gone through and found the original addition, almost all appear to have been added while the campaign was active. This seems to me to be a serious problem. Guy (help!) 09:00, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  Some crowdfunding projects gain notability while they are active in the month or so (And then you have something of the situation like Star Citizen which has been in a perpetual crowdfunding situation since 2013, but let's call that one the outlier). In some cases (and these are cases I've edited on so I can speak to it), these are easily tied to existing topics - the Mystery Science Theater 3000 revival passed its goal quickly but that was easy to already tie to a notable topic (the original show). Surprisingly at the end of the day, the only time I ended up linking to the kickstarter was to provide a snippet of information about the ORIGINAL show that we didn't have before that came during the project updates during the campaign period from the show's creator. A separate case would be the example of Broken Age which when it launched as a KS in Feb 2012 was just known as Double Fine Adventure, and at the time because one of the highest-funded projects and gained significant attention to a point that it was clearly notable whether or not it ended up being made (in part because the team behind it was already a known factor ( eg state of the article about 2 weeks after the start of funding) Now, at this point, we hadn't had to link to KS, the only link being the one in the External Link, because the secondary sources were covering it well, but my point is that can be crowdfunded projects that are notable or tied to notable topics that we may need to touch on the updated and informational pages that most crowdfunding sites use for keeping the crowdfunding supporters up-to-date on the project as primary sources. Additions where they are used to build out details that we would expect for contemporary works like development (conception, influences, behind-the-scenes, etc.) are useful, and this is where I'm worried the action here is potentially cutting those off. But in both cases, and in general, these were only included until after secondary sources established that crowdfunding was going on (and in the latter case, enough to establish independent notability). I fully agree that if first mention of any project is by the inclusion of the crowdfunding link, particularly while it is actively, is more an attempt to draw people to participate in it, not to use for informational purposes, but that's not the only use of crowdfunding sites for WP's purposes. --Masem (t) 13:18, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  To add and stress: the cases I only started adding significant information on the crowdfunding efforts in these examples and others was after the project was clearly past its target goal well before the end of the project (these two examples were within days of the start of the campaign) Obviously, this is a key factor for notability. --Masem (t) 13:32, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  Masem, I do not disagree at all. I just don't think we should be using the primary source, or indeed allowing users to publish links to crowdfunders on talk pages. The crowdfunder pages are SPS and primary and almost by definition promotional. Guy (help!) 14:13, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

  SPS nor primary sources are not immediately disallowed by any policy (though obviously can't be used in some situations like BLP), and whether the links are used in a promotional fashion or not all depends on context where it is being used. There are some of the crowdfunding sites that you listed like Patreon that I cannot see any other use but promotional in any article because of how that is setup, whereas a Kickstarter project's use is going to depend how its incorporated - just dropping a link off on talk and saying you should back this is clearly promotion, while dropping the link off and saying there's some details on the project's inspiration that can be added is a good use, and something we'd not want to block. Now I fully agree that I'd rather pull that info from a secondary/third-party source repeating the information from the crowdfunding page, but that's not always possible. --Masem (t) 14:42, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

• I have no problem with MENTIONING a crowdfunding campaign in an article. The concern is with LINKING to it. Linking seems promotional in nature rather than informational. Blueboar (talk) 12:48, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

It seems to me that linking to a crowdfunding campaign that...

• is closed and no longer accepts money, and
• is the origin of a product or service notable enough to have a Wikipedia article

...is not automatically promotional. --Guy Macon (talk) 13:49, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, well, it's primary and self-published, but it's also a marketing communication, isn't it? Guy (help!) 14:15, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Some certainly are. But the story in Ogre (board game)#Kickstarter project documenting how the game morphed from a tiny game in a zip lock bag that fits in your pocket to a massive box -- far larger than any board game I have ever seen -- because so many people donated is an interesting story, and the huge size (but not necessarily how it got that way) has been noted in multiple reviews of the game. Seeing as how they sold out of them and have no plans for making any more, it is hard to see how at this point that particular kickstarter page is promotional. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:55, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, yes, it's an interesting story. Is it covered in any secondary sources that make this point? Guy (help!) 15:21, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that the sourcing for game reviews won't be found in The New York Times or The Gauardian, there are many sources that comment on it being huge, but none really explain how it got that way.

OGRE reviews

"Back in December, I got my hands on a copy of the Designer’s Edition of Ogre. It weighed over twenty-five pounds, took hours to punch out and assemble all the hundreds of pieces, and took up more width on the couch than I do... It sat there for seven long months, taking up the entire laundry room, beckoning in the night like a green light flashing at the end of a pier. Why didn’t I play it? It really comes down to intimidation, or maybe the fact that I can hardly lift the thing without pulling my back, groin, biceps, and hamstrings."[137] "Back in 2013, Mr. Jackson crowdfunded a special 6th edition of Ogre and you better bet I was on board for that. It proposed to be the complete Ogre package, featuring virtually everything ever made for it and then some. This was to be the first Ogre release since the somewhat ill-considered miniatures version of the game, featuring these lovely little cardboard models and big, mounted board that were a far cry from the tiny little paper maps that I once enlarged and mounted on foamcore. Fan material, supplements, all of the official expansions...it was epic. But it was also unwieldy, excessive and gigantic. The box was enormous, and in it were hundreds of counters, terrain overlays, variant Ogres, highly specialized units, and enough units for both sides to play multiple concurrent games. You'd think that an Ogre fan would be delighted. I wasn't. I was disappointed that the 'Designer's Edition' completely lost sight of the compact, contained nature of the game and turned it into a sprawling mess. It felt like a burden to own. I found myself wishing that there was something of a "compact" Designer's Edition. "[138] " It’s too damned big. Yeah, I know big is the point with 6th Ed., but seriously now. With the counters punched out the box still weighs in at over thirty pounds and it’s got an enormous footprint. The only place I have that’s large enough to store it is either in the attic or on top of my wife’s dresser. Guess which she vetoed? It’s difficult to get down and while the carrying bag was good idea, the shoulder strap isn’t wide enough and the load digs into my shoulder terribly, so transporting it to other places to play is kind of a non-starter, unless I break down and buy a hand cart."[139] "What’s 28 pounds, takes 2 people to lift and is back from the 1970s with a vengeance? Steve Jackson Game’s OGRE of course! "[140]

--Guy Macon (talk) 20:26, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Owler

Does anyone have views on the reliability of Owler? Our article about the site explains that the content is crowdsourced, and I wonder whether it fails WP:USERGENERATED, which was also my concern when looked at the site itself. My query is prompted by this edit by Steinythefirst. Cordless Larry (talk) 12:41, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

I noticed this too, as the user has been using it as a (naked) ref for company stats on a lot of pages. I don't think that it meets guidelines for a reliable source; there's no provenance or verifiability of the data. I'm going to ask the user to stop adding it to pages until we work this out and decide if it should be removed from all pages. tedder (talk) 15:56, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Doesn't look as if it meets RS. Guy (help!) 16:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
• In general offering “competitive insights” doesn't mesh well with good journalistic practices, the crowdsourced part is just the icing on the cake and due to that I would consider them even less reliable than a normal business information service. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:17, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be agreement here then. Does anyone want to help with finding and removing references to this site? Cordless Larry (talk) 11:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Cordless Larry, I have quite the backlog, see my user page ;-) Guy (help!) 10:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Understood. I was hoping Steinythefirst might offer. Cordless Larry (talk) 15:09, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to start doing it, but there are a LOT of them. And yes, it'd be nice if Steinythefirst stepped in. tedder (talk) 23:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for this. I don't use Owler often, and when I have it has generally been around the competitors listing, not for basic company information. I was about to use it once more, but will refrain in this case. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 02:14, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Is it a problem that Wikipedia's own article on the Mail doesn't seem to justify depreciation as a source?

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

---

WP:NOTFORUM

Is it a problem for Wikipedia's editors that the Wikipedia article on the Daily Mail doesn't seem to support a claim that they are generally unreliable (without having to synthesise a conclusion from the disparate examples offered)? And worse, the claim that the Mail has been "widely criticized for its unreliability", appears to be misrepresentation at best, fabrication at worst, once you actually examine the sources given to support it (accepting one is an offline source that I cannot check right now. Brian K Horton (talk) 17:29, 16 June 2020 (UTC) If you have complaints about the Daily Mail article the best place to take them is Talk:Daily Mail. One of the reasons that the Daily Mail was depreciated was that it its use in Wikipedia:Biographies of living persons articles, which require high quality sourcing was unacceptable due to its sensationalism, and history of falsehoods. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:36, 16 June 2020 (UTC) This isn't a complaint about the article, nor was I seeking a reason for the depreciation, only an opinion on the dissonance between the article and "history of falsehoods", if indeed you even see one in this context. Do you see one? Brian K Horton (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC) NO as we are not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 17:37, 16 June 2020 (UTC) Interesting way to look at it. Doesn't really excuse deliberate acts however, only accidental or excusable failures to ensure Wikipedia is as reliable and neutral as it can be, in both its content and decision making, within the limitations of a volunteer workforce.Brian K Horton (talk) 20:46, 16 June 2020 (UTC) Its also not a question of the DM reliability so much as how an article is written. Remember Wikipedia is user written, so at any given time any given page may not be an accurate reflection of the subject. Nor can we police every article for accuracy, we rely on the competence of our fellow editors. All this shows is the DM article needs work.Slatersteven (talk) 09:03, 17 June 2020 (UTC) Also (unless the article has been significantly altered in the last 24 hours) there is plenty about its "unreliability, as well as printing of sensationalist and inaccurate scare stories of science and medical research, and for copyright violations".Slatersteven (talk) 09:06, 17 June 2020 (UTC) As the others have said, it is not our place to go into the evidence behind the scenes (that no RS I've seen discuss directly) of why WP decided to depreciate DM, but that did lead me to find and add Jimbo's support for this move [141]. But back to the key point, if you can find a RS that discusses specific points of the 2017 debate on the DM deprecation discussion , we can include those highlights, but most stories just said "WP deemes DM unusable" and that's how we have to present it to the mainspace. --Masem (t) 20:55, 16 June 2020 (UTC) You got the wrong end of the stick entirely. This is not about how the article covers the debate that led to depreciation, it is about the surprising lack of any other support of the claim in the article, and what this might say about the methodology and the people behind it. Brian K Horton (talk) 02:37, 17 June 2020 (UTC) No, I understand you want to have discussion of what sources and information that led the internal discussion to deprecate DM, but as I said, there's no external reliable sources that cover those deals, and we don't use WP as its own source here. The process is there if anyone wants to go review the history itself, it's not like it was conducted behind closed doors, we're just not going to incorporate it as an unreliable source into our article. --Masem (t) 03:10, 17 June 2020 (UTC) You haven't understood me at all. Not even a little bit. And I think I should know, it was me who asked the question after all. Brian K Horton (talk) 04:19, 17 June 2020 (UTC) If you’re not satisfied that the article Daily Mail covers its controversies and RS assessments of its journalistic standards, that’s an issue to raise at Talk:Daily Mail. If you believe that Daily Mail shouldn’t have been deprecated, that’s an entirely different matter. If neither apply and you just want to opine about its deprecation, then this discussion isn’t appropriate for WP. — MarkH21talk 04:31, 17 June 2020 (UTC) When assessing a publication's reliability on this noticeboard, editors are not limited to using content that is cited in the Wikipedia article on the publication. — Newslinger talk 01:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

DAILYMAIL is probably unsound, and should be revisited

Wikipedia is not a forum
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Accepting the apparent reality that even in matters as serious as blacklisting an entire source (with extremely limited exceptions of course), individual Wikipedia editors are allowed to lodge whatever reasoning they like, it seems clear that a consensus of Wikipedia editors is not valid, if "reasonable concerns" in summarising their views, were not addressed. It also seems clear that a reasonable concern registered at the time, and since, regarding DAILYMAIL, is that when such a decision concerns a publication as controversial as the Mail, it could have been influenced by bias. That bias doesn't have to be the result of deliberate malice, it can simply be an unconscious act. Although it is noteworthy that the proposer, who both set the tone (the Mail is "trash") and was the first to frame the debate as being only about the Mail, did submit a fraudulent case, and probably knowingly (it is easy for a publication to register zero ISPO complaints when they are not registered with IPSO). Despite the fact five people studied the first debate, and three studied the second, it appears none of them thought it wise to explain how they factored out the influence of bias, both their own and that of the participants. Quite the reverse, what they did do actually rewarded those who may only have been acting not only out of subconscious bias, but out of malice. If DAILYMAIL is not the product of bias, it would have been able to explain why the Mail was singled out. Reasons were offered, and they were countered. The conclusion is silent on who had the better case, other than to dismiss it as irrelevant. Why? If DAILYMAIL is not the product of bias, it would have offered a reason for why the vast majority of opinions are just that, opinion, and therefore why simply counting their heads, is relevant. And those few who did provide evidence for their claims, largely relied on unreliable or biased sources (even reliable newspapers will obviously be biased when it comes to even simple factual reporting on their rivals). If DAILYMAIL is not the product of bias, it would have offered a reason for why it does not contain, and apparently did not even seek, the highest quality sources and the soundest methodology. You do not even need to be a researcher to understand the flaws in using mere "examples" to establish a pattern, if you haven't considered things like confirmation bias, or statistical relevance, especially when comparing two things where examples of a thing will be present for both. This is elementary stuff. The Columbia Journalism Review is a thing, reliable experts in journalism studies are a thing, they know how to compare and contrast different sources using sound scientific methods, and these sort of high quality sources are used on this very noticeboard when deciding the reliability of other sources. So why not for DAILYMAIL? The same lack of care in that debate, seems to match the same lack of care shown by Wikipedia editors in how they have written their own article on the Daily Mail. And that does matter, given everything Wikipedia claims to be as a collective work, chiefly, unbiased. That article's claim of there being "widespread criticism for their unreliability" seems to be as unsupported by the evidence provided, as DAILYMAIL's claim that there is "widespread" evidence to support a finding of "generally unreliable". This lack of care for even the most basic of techniques for ensuring a decision isn't tainted by bias, was raised at the time. Circulation matters. Whether an example was retracted or is still disputed, matters. Whether an example led to official rebuke or even a Court judgement as opposed to just criticism in unreliable or biased sources, matters. Which of these examples concerned only the Mail, and which spoke to the unreliability of other sources, including those of the highest repute, matters. DAILYMAIL being silent on all these issues, absolutely suggests bias. This is no theoretical concern, the Mail have already succeeded in getting one media fact checker to withdraw a finding of "general unreliability" by simply reminding them they had not considered factors like circulation. If this noticeboard is anything to Wikipedia, it is apparently a fact checker of sorts. It certainly has precedence over individual debates about individual uses of a source. Worse than even a suspicion of bias, there are grounds to suspect the eight people didn't pay much attention to even basic pertinent details, as bizarre as that sounds. If the root causes of these alleged fabrications etc is not a single editor but matters of a corporate nature, as seems to be the implication of rejecting the idea that it isn't only all about Paul Dacre, and the lumping of the post-2006 print edition in with the online version, then why was it not spotted that DAILYMAIL can be read as passing no comment on The Mail On Sunday, as if this is a different source entirely? Counterfactual, at best. Neither does it seem to recognise that the owners of the Mail own other titles. If DAILYMAIL cannot be re-run, with both a neutral proposition that frames the terms of reference, and an explicit request that anyone who participates does their absolute level best, for the good of Wikipedia, to make absolutely sure their biases have been checked, then at the very least, some way needs to be found of clarifying or correcting the existing conclusion, to satisfy these concerns. I have done my best to understand this issue, having taken the many hours needed to read both the two part debate and the links provided. If this post is simply waved away, closed as NOTAFURM like my other concern, especially if it is only waved away on the basis that it is an unpopular opinion among Wikipedia editors, then I guess that is your right, but it won't satisfy anyone's concerns about bias, surely, not even Wikipedia editors who firmly believe DAILYMAIL is completely sound as an expression of consensus. Brian K Horton (talk) 11:46, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The Daily Mail (RSP entry) has been discussed in three separate RfCs, two of which were advertised as centralized discussions, in addition to 42 discussions on this noticeboard (not including the current discussion). The most recent RfC is currently located at the top of this page. Your 1,004-word comment does not advance any policy- or guideline-based arguments that have not already been covered in these past discussions. If you would like clarification on the closures of the past RfCs, please ask the closers directly. — Newslinger talk 11:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think you can even plausibly claim that everything thing I said has already been covered, given the speed of your response. Indeed, at least one thing I said couldn't possibly have been covered in past discussions, because it hadn't happened yet. I thought the policy based argument was obvious - a consensus is not valid, if reasonable concerns are not addressed. And while I don't know for sure, it would be odd for Wikipedia to have a policy that says ignoring a concern is the same as addressing it, but I can't rule it out I guess. Is there even an efficient way to contact seven different people here, without making the same post eight times? The noticeboard where they made their conclusions known seems like a perfectly reasonable place to have that eight-way discussion (even if it only leads to me being told seven times by seven different people that I haven't raised anything they haven't already addressed). Brian K Horton (talk) 12:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Your comment asserts that the decisions reached by the community in 3 RfCs and 42 discussions are wrong, but does not reference a single policy or guideline besides WP:NOTFORUM. — Newslinger talk 12:49, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

What part of "I thought the policy based argument was obvious - a consensus is not valid, if reasonable concerns are not addressed." was unclear? What part of "at least one thing I said couldn't possibly have been covered in past discussions, because it hadn't happened yet" was not clear? Brian K Horton (talk) 13:40, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Your comment accuses the community of "bias" rather than presenting any policy- or guideline-based defense of the Daily Mail. Practically speaking, if this is your best argument, it is highly unlikely that there would be consensus to hold a fourth RfC on the Daily Mail (which is the only way to overturn or modify the previous RfCs), especially considering that the third Daily Mail RfC was closed just two days ago. — Newslinger talk 14:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

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

The Siberian Times

The Siberian Times is an english language web news site founded in 2012, dedicated to the Siberian region. It has been cited around 120 times on wikipedia according to siberiantimes.com  . Mashable describes their reporting as: "These stories are allegedly real with a bit of hyperbole/Siberian fan fiction thrown in. According to Meduza, despite being edited by a Russian woman, the site is the brainchild of Will Stewart, who, as proprietor of East2West Limited, is responsible for the vast majority of the sensationalist and often false stories about Russia in the British tabloid press, including the Mail, Express etc. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:48, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Not an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 17:50, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

• Shady AF. Not reliable. Guy (help!) 10:03, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: An Phoblacht

Is anphoblacht.com   (369 uses—party organ of Sinn Féin) reliable? It is used as the only source to support content such as "In late May, a physical altercation between protestors and the police, involving more than 8,000 coal miners, involved demonstrations on a march to the federal capital, Madrid." (Anti-austerity movement in Spain) and "The bombing killed 12 bystanders and severely injured many more. Barrett was arrested with several others in a wide ranging sweep of sympathisers with the Irish Republican cause and was the only one found guilty." (in Michael Barrett (Fenian)) buidhe 09:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Responses (An Phoblacht)

• My personal opinion is that it's a republican propaganda outlet and should be: deprecated for anything related to the Troubles, generally unreliable for facts, attributed opinion is undue unless discussed by third party sources. buidhe 09:31, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Not an RS, as this is not an independent source but an actual party political publication.Slatersteven (talk) 09:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

• It's reliable as to the politics and strategy of the RM at that point in time, and for their own self-analysis, but not for external reporting. Certainly wrt the examples above, it seems unlikely that the information cited wouldn't be found in another reliable source. ——Serial ^# 09:41, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable as a source for official statements from Sinn Fein and for de facto official statements from the IRA (yes, I know they deny the connection, but they'd never have printed anything claiming to be an IRA statement without clearing it with the Army Council), but not as a source for news reporting in general. ‑ Iridescent 09:54, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
  • I disagree with the last part, if they deny any connection we cannot claim there is.Slatersteven (talk) 10:00, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

I would consider official statements from the IRA published in An Phoblach to fall under about self, Iridescent is 100% right when they say An Phoblacht wouldn’t publish an IRA statement which wasn’t legitimate... Lets just say their fact checking in this one regard is impeccable. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• Looks to be basically a SPS, reliable for attributed statements of the party but otherwise not so much. Guy (help!) 12:01, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• I’d say reliable for the views of Sinn Féin but only with attribution and not for much of anything beyond that. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 17:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable if used in accordance with WP:ABOUTSELF, and attribution may be needed depending on the content in question. I'd only use it with caution, and certainly not in Anti-austerity movement in Spain. FDW777 (talk) 18:13, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• It shouldn't be considered an independent news outlet; it's a political publication by a political party. They're reliable for statements about themselves and unreliable for factual reporting apart from IRA statements as other editors have brought up, although I wouldn't classify that as WP:ABOUTSELF since it's rather inflammatory to make claims that Sinn Fein is the IRA. Chess (talk) (please use {{ping|Chess}} on reply) 03:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• WP:ABOUTSELF for Sinn Fein and the (Provisional) IRA. There's no shortage of academic sources that take the link between the two as given [142] [143] [144] while claims to the contrary seem to be overwhelmingly from primary sources. --RaiderAspect (talk) 06:10, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

That's why seasoned observers tend to use the term "Republican Movement", as it avoids being forced to take an extreme ideological position (between the Adams/McGuinness narrative of there being two discrete organisations and the wholesale "Sinn Féin/IRA" enbundlement of Paisley. ——Serial ^# 12:36, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Electrek, one more time

Apologies for reviving discussion of Electrek again, but contrary to Lklundin's point that Electrek's staff are divested from Tesla in terms of investing, it was brought to my attention that Fred Lambert yesterday admitted some 30% of his stock portfolio is in Tesla: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EawUtBGXgAAZ0FJ?format=png&name=900x900. If the editor-in-chief of a publication is heavily invested in a company that his website is "reporting" about, that certainly calls into question whether the publication should be allowed to be considered a reliable source on Wikipedia. QRep2020 (talk) 17:37, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes I would say that is a COI.Slatersteven (talk) 17:39, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

As the one who noted Lambert's comment I would agree that Electrek has a serious COI issue with respect to Tesla reporting. This COI has been noted by other automotive sources. If we look at the Tesla page there are 37 citations to Lambert alone, 49 to Electrek. I suspect most are rather innocuous facts or announcements from Tesla (Tesla says they will do X). However, it is clear that Tesla has used sympathetic newsish sites like Electrek to make sure Tesla's preferred narrative goes out to the public. In the worst cases there have been accusations that "leaked" emails were deliberately feed to Electrek or others to bypass SEC laws relating to corporate dissemination of information. With such a COI it's hard to say if some news story is DUE because it was covered by Electrek or not (Tesla "paid" for their preferred story to run). Electreck hasn't been 100% on Tesla's side. They recently ran an article a critical article relating to Tesla quality. Also, Electrek is often quoted by non-critical news stories. As such I'm not sure how best to handle it. Clear COI but cited by others. Personally I would suggest going with a bit of a custom approach. I would trust it for basic statements of fact/quotes. I would assume their editorial judgement is effectively purchased thus treat the site more like a notable blog. As such reporting by Electrek shouldn't establish WEIGHT and the site shouldn't be used as a source of reliable commentary etc. Springee (talk) 18:47, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

To add some examples. Here is an example I think would be not OK. In the article Adam_Ruins_Everything, Electrek is cited by name as disputing one of Ruins' claims. I would say remove it as both UNDUE and not a RS. Conversely, this example could easily be sourced to a reliable publication [[145]]. Certainly we should minimize citations to this source but I would not condone removal without replacement in most cases. I haven't tried to review the large number of citations in Tesla specific articles. Those may be more problematic to handle. Springee (talk) 20:45, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Here's my outsider opinion, from someeone who is pretty familiar with Electrek and has been semi-closely following Tesla news for years now. Even if Electrek didn't have any COI with Tesla, they shouldn't be treated as an RS regardless. It's true that Electrek sometimes publishes articles critical of Tesla. However, I'm sure that when they do so, lots of other more reputable sources are reporting on similar things. IMO Electrek should only be used for truly basic information (on XX/YY/ZZZZ Tesla/Musk said ABC). Aside from that it should be attribution-only - no "Wikipedia voice". −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 03:39, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• I feel Springee’s “custom approach” is pretty brilliant and appropriate given the atypical circumstances. I think the publication at its core is a good one and the Tesla bias is their only real stumbling block (reliable sources describe them as a "notably pro-Tesla publication”[146]). Its also an issue that should be less problematic in the future when the electric car market is more diversified, this is such a big deal right now in COI terms because at the moment most electric car coverage can be summed up as “Tesla and the rest." Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:57, 18 June 2020 (UTC)
• Although my reasons are different, I agree that at this time Electrek is a poor source with regards to Tesla. With Frederic Lambert being the primary and by far the most prolific Electrek writer, our assessment must largely be based on his actions (as implied by QRep2020's opening statement). Lambert's relationship with Tesla and their CEO Elon Musk cannot simply be characterized as a pro-bias, instead it is complicated. On social media Musk has criticized Lambert's coverage of Tesla. Here is a recent example of Lambert's negative Tesla attitude (Tesla went as far as Earth moving works in three different US states while still negotiating the location for GF1. They had similar negotiations in China for GF3 - and someone like Lambert would surely know this, yet the tweet that 'Tulsa got played by Tesla' disregards this likely repeat of Tesla's apparently successful tactic). Along these lines I will now argue that the (self-)declaration of stock ownership - or lack thereof - is a poor predictor of a person's bias. Firstly, hypothetically someone like myself (or QRep2020 for argument's sake) could if asked answer truthfully that we do not own shares in e.g. Tesla. This means nothing. I could control a company that owns the shares, my spouse could own the shares or I could own them indirectly through a different investment vehicle. Or maybe I do own the shares, but earlier I took profits and unexpectedly their price went up so now that I bought them back I own much fewer shares - giving me a feeling of resentment towards the company for what I consider to be their premature success. Or maybe I own some shares, but only as a hedge of a much larger anti-investment (made maybe by my spouse or a company I control). We don't know what kind of sentiment if any Lambert's self-declared stock ownership gives him and the point is that we can't know. Further, the burden of proof regarding inappropriate trading of stocks is apparently very difficult to lift. Earlier this year a senator received a confidential briefing on COVID19 and allegedly proceeded to sell stocks expected to be affected by the pandemic. The probe whether this was an abuse of their office (amounting to insider trading) was dismissed. So if government agencies that can subpoena personal records cannot prove what seems as a clear conflict of interest, then I don't see what Wikipedia can hope to achieve with similar allegations. So my argument that at this time Electrek is a poor source regarding Tesla is instead based on what I believe actually matters, namely the accuracy of their reporting. Some years ago their reporting was accurate based on good sources. (I have not checked my 20k+ edits here, but I would not be surprised if years ago I myself have cited Electrek.) But here is a recent example of the opposite (from Lambert), that a Tesla Model 3 variant has a 100 kWh battery. If true, this would indeed be a sensation, since it would imply that Tesla have managed to increase the (at least volumetric) energy density of their battery pack by 33%. But on reflection the report makes no sense. Everyone knows that new technology is introduced not in the base model, but rather in a company's top model - whether or not that's a car - (which needs to differentiate itself to justify its higher price). Thus, Tesla could not be expected to market a base model with much a longer range than their top model. So the expected story should have been one of a Model S/X with a 133 kWh battery. The sensational story was based solely on information from a single, anonymous source on social media - and was quickly denied by Tesla's CEO after other media ran with the story. More damming for Electrek is that they appear to still have an unmodified version of their story, although their original, single, anonymous source have actually retracted their statement. Here is a second example: Years ago Tesla have provided several reasons why their cars do not have a vehicle-to-grid capability (regulatory, safety, component price in the 'game of pennies', battery needed for driving, etc.) So it is again sensational when Lambert (via Electrek) reports that Tesla has (quietly) added v2g capability to their Model 3 - a story again based not on information from Tesla, but rather on speculation based on info from someone outside of Tesla (this time a named source). As it turned out, the analysis is flawed and no actual V2G capability has been observed in Tesla's cars. Electrek did update their article with a link to the contradicting source, but they left their incorrect conclusions and baseless speculation in place. (The specific problem is that the power converter uses a - relatively inexpensive - uni-directional diode bridge, which would at the very least need to be replaced by more expensive - but similar looking - bi-directional Voltage_regulator#Switching_regulators). So while any given RS may be overall reliable in spite of the occasional inaccurate reporting, I will argue that at this time Lambert's (and by extension Electrek's) reporting on Tesla cannot simply be assumed to be reliable. As I evidently see things from the technical side, I will leave it to others (maybe Springee) to formulate a proposal for what kind of specific consequences Wikipedia should draw from this. Lklundin (talk) 10:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

RfC: Zero Hedge

Should Zero Hedge be deprecated as a source, with an edit filter set to warn editors who attempt to use it as a reference? — Newslinger talk 01:54, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Survey (Zero Hedge)

• Yes. Zero Hedge is well-known for disseminating conspiracy theories, and has a reputation for publishing false or fabricated information. — Newslinger talk 01:54, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes any source should be deprecated if it deliberately disseminates conspiracy theories, which ZH certainly does. buidhe 03:37, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, clearly and deliberately publishes conspiracy theories and blatant lies, so it should be deprecated. Devonian Wombat (talk) 04:17, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes - it promotes conspiracy theories and nonsense. It cannot be trusted to be a Wikipedia source - David Gerard (talk) 07:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes as per previous comments. It's original content is often completely untrue. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:59, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, obviously - but I thought it already was? This should be deprecated and systematically removed. Unlike the Daily Mail, ZeroHedge was always junk. Guy (help!) 10:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Leaning yes, though the option to just add it to WP:RSP could be viable (see below; there are only about 20 citations to it, and they don't seem to be problematic ones).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:09, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, it's already there. Guy (help!) 12:51, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  Okay, so what's the issue? Are people regularly citing it for nonsense? I don't really have an issue blacklisting it, as long as we selectively permit certain specific URLs for WP:ABOUTSELF citations as needed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  SMcCandlish, I think Newslinger wants to include it in a filter with a warn template, presumably Filter 869 (log) Guy (help!) 14:32, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, that's the standard practice and that's what I'm proposing here, unless there is consensus for some other measure. I would not oppose blacklisting, since there is precedent in globalresearch.ca (RSP entry) and InfoWars (RSP entry). — Newslinger talk 12:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

  Works for me, then.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  12:08, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Yes distorts kernels of truth, misrepresents, possible ties to dark money propaganda. -- GreenC 13:23, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes. I don't understand the argument that the problem has to get out of hand before addressing it. --Calton | Talk 23:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes, warn filter is helpful. Neutrality^talk 23:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes — might as well get out in front of the problem while it's still only sparsely used. XOR'easter (talk) 20:39, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes — nipped in the bud beats rampant use, which the warning may prevent. Lindenfall (talk) 17:32, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Yes - Any source that deliberately fabricates information like they do needs to be deprecated ASAP. Scorpions13256 (talk) 19:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion (Zero Hedge)

• There have been three previous discussions of Zero Hedge on this noticeboard:
  1. ZeroHedge Blog post by "Tyler Durden (2015)
  2. Zero Hedge (2018)
  3. rate "Zero Hedge" (2019)

Zero Hedge is currently used in 20 articles  . — Newslinger talk 01:54, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

20 citations seems a bit low for a full blown depreciation RfC, though I had thought about proposing this myself. Have zerohedge citations been previously removed? Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:04, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

COIBot reports that there were 1,149 link additions as of December 2017, although this includes non-English Wikipedias. With an Alexa rank of 1,627, Zero Hedge is a prominent website. — Newslinger talk 02:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• I agree with Hemiauchenia. ZH has some provocative stories and I suspect there is a lot of good information there but there is also a lot of conspiracy stuff. Regardless, I feel like we shouldn't deprecate unless there is a real problem with the source being used badly. It doesn't appear that is the case here. Perhaps just add them to RSP as not reliable and leave it at that. Springee (talk) 02:15, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • ZH has some provocative stories... Yes, all the falsehoods and conspiracy theories they push are very provocative, I'm sure. Not a standard for a reliable source.
  • ...and I suspect there is a lot of good information there. Wikipedia has standards higher than "suspect". You know, the whole "reliability" thing. --Calton | Talk 23:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • Not sure why you would bother replying to that. Its like you think I'm claiming it passes Wikipedia's RS when I'm clearly saying it doesn't. I'm sorry that wasn't clear for you. Springee (talk) 23:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
      • Why you think distorting my statement helps your case I don't know. Maybe, instead, you should pay attention to my noting how bringing up irrelevancies like how they have "provocative stories" and content-free opinions like "I suspect [emphasis added] there is a lot of good information there" is an obvious effort to undermine the obvious conclusion that Zero Hedge is garbage. --Calton | Talk 01:30, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
        • That is an illogical conclusion. You certainly went on a which hunt to find more than I put in there. I very clearly stated that ZH is not a RS. It absolutely does not pass WP:RS standards. Should have been end of the discussion. But you wanted to make an issue with something I said for who knows what reason. OK, you might feel that 100% of their stories are garbage. I've found at least some of their stories promoted by some very smart people in the finance world. Not smart people trying to get others to buy or sell but trying to get others to understand things the market or companies are doing. That doesn't mean they are reliable by Wikipedia standards or should ever be used as a RS even if they can be thought provoking/enlightening from time to time. I'm sorry my opinion was so problematic that you felt it was important to call out. Please keep our previous civility discussions/warnings in mind when doing so in the future. Springee (talk) 01:44, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• It's a conspiracy blog. There is non-nonsense content, but the good stuff is not original and the original stuff is very bad indeed. Shouldn't be used as a source for anything, including statements about itself - David Gerard (talk) 07:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
• I hate the entire concept of deprecation... context matters. So rather than a simple !vote, I would say it is Reliable when used as a primary source, but Not reliable when used as a secondary source. Blueboar (talk) 11:22, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
  • What's your evidence that it can even be trusted as a primary source? - David Gerard (talk) 11:28, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
    • EVERY source is reliable when used as a primary source... the problem isn’t reliability, it’s that there are very limited situations in which it is appropriate to use primary sources. The problem with deprecation is that it ignores the few rare instances when it IS appropriate. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)
      • We literally know that dailymail.co.uk can't be trusted for the contents of the Daily Mail, for example - David Gerard (talk) 23:38, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

      Blueboar, well, up to a point. I think I'd struggle to come up with a definition of reliable that encompasses whale.to. Guy (help!) 14:27, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

  Blueboar, in a sane world deprecation would not be needed: people would just not use crap sources. Seems we don't live in that world. There are still people trying to cite WorldNetDaily, and the essence of fake news sites is in any case to hide their fakeness so there are good faith errors as well as editors who simply don't understand what constitutes a reliable source. Guy (help!) 11:35, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

The question is: are there situations when it is appropriate to cite such sources? I say yes. They are very very limited, but they exist. Hence my opposition to deprecation as a concept. Blueboar (talk) 12:12, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Blueboar, actually that's a point in favour of deprecation (as opposed to blacklisting). Deprecation says that the source should be avoided unless there is clear consensus to include for some specific reason. That seems entirely consistent with your point here. Of course, people misinterpret it, and that's a valid criticism, but we should fix that by being really clear what we mean by deprecation.

It's my view that we should include an optional parameter in the root citation template for something like "consensus=", to record consensus to include otherwise unreliable sources. That would include the handful of self-published books that are agreed to be RS, as well as deprecated or generally unreliable websites. Guy (help!) 14:30, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I have seen deprecation in action. It has become a defacto blacklist. The concept is flawed. Blueboar (talk) 18:16, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this an argument about the reliability and usefulness of a purported information source, or some sort of misplaced free-speech argument? --Calton | Talk 23:02, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I have already said that I think it can be reliable when used as a primary source, but not as a secondary source. Thus, it should not be deprecated. Blueboar (talk) 00:52, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecation has been broadly recognized since WP:RSNRFC. For the few cases that a citation of Zero Hedge would be useful as a primary source, an editor can establish consensus to include the citation on the talk page of the article, and then add the citation to the article by clicking the "Publish changes" button after the warning message is displayed. Regardless of whether Zero Hedge is deprecated, it is highly unlikely for there to be consensus for citing Zero Hedge (outside of the Zero Hedge article), since the due weight policy assigns minimal weight to unreliable sources. — Newslinger talk 03:40, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

I have already said that I think it can be reliable when used as a primary source Since that statement applies, in general, to literally every single source of any quality whatsoever on Wikipedia, and you haven't cited any examples, counterfactuals, or possibilities regarding THIS source, I repeat: is this an argument about the reliability and usefulness of a -- this particular, the one being discussed -- purported information source, or some sort of misplaced free-speech argument? --Calton | Talk 01:35, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Royalcruft again

Some more problematic royalty sites, and a couple of specific questions.

1. rootsweb.ancestry.com   seems to be generally recognised as unreliable but there are nearly 8,000 references, does this need clarifying via RfC or should I just get on with removing them?
2. members.iinet.net.au   is widely used for personal royalty pages, this appears to be generic web hostiong of no objective authority? Over 900 references.
3. Some orders and titles are sourced to images of people wearing ribbons or other elements. That seems lik WP:OR. Sourcing "Order of X" to a Flickr image of someone wearing a sash is just wrong, IMO.
4. chiefacoins.com   looks like a personal site, does anyone know if it's RS?

No doubt there will be more... Guy (help!) 10:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

• iinet is just an ISP and that's just personal hosting. So unless the site is owned by a notable expert ... - David Gerard (talk) 11:29, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

@user:JzG where is the RFC you mention? Are you proposing to remove the text that the rootsweb.ancestry.com supports or just the citation? -- PBS (talk) 11:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

No specific RfC on ancestry.com AFAIK, but it's a "frequent flyer" ([147]) - sufficient that we have WP:ANCESTRY.COM as a shortcut to its "generally unreliable" listing at RSP. Its "unreliable" status predates WP:DAILYMAIL (goes back to 2015 or earlier). It's been known to be unreliable for so long that it's a puzzle why it's still so widely used and still being added. My intent would be to go to {{cn}} and leave the text unless it's obviously controversial. Guy (help!) 12:06, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the information.

In most cases I think that you need to give people time to find an alternative. You can do this by tagging the sources with {{unreliable source}} or {{Self-published source}} and also {{Better source needed}}. They are then dated and if no alternative sources are provided then after six months remove the text and the citation. See for example the template {{rayment}} where there is a dispute over whether Rayment can be use as a source because although Wikipedia undeniable it is usually accurate.

I have frequently run AWB to find and tag such sources. For example search on insource:/genealogy.euweb.cz/ and tagged them as such. So there are a bunch of unrliable sources that have been used as citation for more than 8 years where it is time for the citation to be removed and the text that they support. If such citations have not been tagged and you mass delete them then you are may run in to reverts under WP:V:

Whether and how quickly material should be initially removed for not having an inline citation to a reliable source depends on the material and the overall state of the article. In some cases, editors may object if you remove material without giving them time to provide references; consider adding a citation needed tag as an interim step

and if you persist in mass deletions be accuse of being disruptive (which whether true or not is an unpleasant tine sink).. Much better to tag them and then bag them. -- PBS (talk) 12:11, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

I do not think you should delete the citation and not the text. If the text is verifiable then find a source to replace the one you are deleting. Otherwise delete the text as well (see Wikipedia:Verifiability#footnote_6 "Zero information is preferred to misleading or false information"). If you do not want to do that then just leave the citation in place with the tags and let someone else sort it out. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

PBS, my normal approach (used for multiple sources including several vanity presses):

• Tag as {{deprecated inline}} or similar, dated.
• After at least 3 months, remove and either remove the content or tag {{cn}}.

It causes drama however you do it (just ask David Gerard). I have been told with equal confidence that (a) I must remove the content and the source; (b) I must WP:PRESERVE the content and tag {{cn}}; and (c) it is somehow my job to find a replacement source. In the end, the approach above seems to be mainly OK. Guy (help!) 12:49, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

[www.]rootsweb.ancestry.com / [www.]rootsweb.com (including subdomains home.rootsweb.com and sites.rootweb.com) should not be blanket blocked. It hosts a lot of legitimate material. It is one of the main ways to reference scans of various public records, and also has a searchable database of published obituaries (http://sites.rootsweb.com/~obituary/). Plus it provides the web hosting for various organizations such as the Canadian Military Heritage Project, Polish Genealogy Society, etc., some of which do not have their own domain names at which the same content can be reached. See list here: https://home.rootsweb.com/sites/siteDirectory. It unfortunately also hosts various WP:UGC family genealogy content; sometimes that's just how it goes, and we have to look at what is being cited and whether it is a legitimate source to use and is actually a source for what we say it is (which is diligence we should be doing anyway). However, some subsites and paths can definitely be blacklisted: wc.rootsweb.com (WorldConnect) is a site for people to post their personal genealogy database files (pure UGC); https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/ and what's under it is the way to get material into that system, and doesn't have anything at it anyone should cite here. Everything under https://www.ancestry.com/boards/ can also be blacklisted; this is their forum. On the other hand, https://www.ancestry.com/search/ is generally legit; it's databases of public records (with URLs usually in the form https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/... or https://www.ancestry.com/search/places/...; I'm not finding forum or other UGC material here. There may be some specific https://rootsweb.ancestry.com/... paths that can be blacklisted. This domain now redirects to rootsweb.com, and it's not clear exactly what in the older domain-and-path scheme corresponds to what in the new one; there may be entire trees under the original rootsweb.ancestry.com addressing that correspond to forums or UGC genealogies, which can be more narrowly blacklisted. www.ancestrycdn.com should be permitted; this is their content server for PDFs of records; it used to be c.ancestry.com, which is now dead, so various URLs that point to it will need updating (I just fixed some at William A. Spinks). Now that I think of it, the https://home.rootsweb.com/sites/siteDirectory list itself could be used to create a list of hosted websites for family UGC to blacklist; just remove the entries in that list that are to resource collections or to organizations. https://www.newspapers.com (operated by Ancestry) is fine; it's scans of news sources, and we use it. Their https://www.fold3.com/ site is also fine; it's a database of US military and related records; not UGC. http://freepages.rootsweb.com/ can be blacklisted; this is their domain for individuals to host their own random webpages. https://mailinglists.rootsweb.com/ AKA https://lists.rootsweb.com/ can be blacklisted, since the lists it archives are all UGC. https://wiki.rootsweb.com is probably okay; it no longer has a public login function or a means of requesting write access; it appears to be solely edited by their staff, and just consists of bibliographic information like this, and a gazetteer of places and their genealogy associations, like this. FindAGrave is also run by them, and I think we're already blacklisting it.

Similar sites (not run by Ancestry): https://www.worldgenweb.org/ appears non-problematic; it is not a combined database of the UGC genealogy material submitted, but simply an index of genealogy resources arranged nationally (I'm not sure it would be useful as a source for anything, but it's not the kind of thing we need to blacklist). http://www.usgenweb.com/ is fine; it's just the site about the organization and doesn't provide any UGC itself. https://www.familysearch.org/wiki looks blacklistable; it's a user-editable wiki. However, some other things at that domain are not, including the records database at https://www.familysearch.org/search/; I'm not sure if any records found that way will actually have that "search" in the URL (like they do at the Ancestry.com site), but the only UGC I know of for certain there will be .../wiki/... material (I joined the site, and confirm that anyone can edit, after a trivial application process). WeRelate.org is an open public wiki, so should be blacklisted, though we might need to make a specific exception for certain pages for WP:ABOUTSELF citation reasons. There's been discussion for several years of making that a WMF project. WikiTree.com is exactly the same kind of open wiki. https://www.GenUKI.org.uk/ will need some more detailed scrutiny; much of it is UGC stuff, but parts of it are not (public records scans, UK & Ireland placename database, etc., plus staff-written editorial content on genealogy research). The UGC material (forums, publicly editable wiki content, mailing list archives, personal family trees, etc.) can probably be isolated to specific directory paths, but I don't have all day for this. https://forebears.io/ was another site like this, but appears to be defunct. https://www.geni.com/ is another one, and like GenUKI appears to be a mix of UGC and staff editorial content which will need to be split up by path, so we only blacklist the UGC. Same with https://www.geneanet.org/ (AKA en.geneanet.org, de.geneanet.org, etc.). We also need to keep in mind that any page containing a blacklisted link will be impossible to save again, for any edit, until someone tracks down the offending link. This can be very confusing for non-expert editors, who think something is wrong with the material they inserted themselves in their own edit.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:36, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, thanks, that's excellent! Does

((freepages|lists|mailinglists|wc)\.rootsweb\.com|ancestry\.com/(family\-tree|boards)|genealogy\.euweb\.cz)

look right to you? Guy (help!) 14:21, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

That's probably a good start (and I wasn't aware of some of that, like .euweb.cz, before this thread). I'm not sure if it's sensible to try to pack [www.]familysearch.org/wiki and [www.]werelate.org and [www.]wikitree.com (or specific trees of the latter two, if we want to permit their home and about pages) into the same rule, or do them separately. I've been away from this process for a long time, and am not certain what typical practice is now. The only stuff from Ancestry that maybe needs blacklisting that wouldn't be got-at by the above rule would be material under sites.rootsweb.com/ when it is neither a editorial resource (database, etc.) provided by them, nor an organizational website hosted by them; so, all the family genealogy subsites listed at https://home.rootsweb.com/sites/siteDirectory could be blocked. I would assume that would be a separate rule, since it's a lot of entries to pipe-separate.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@User:SMcCandlish and user:JzG this whole area is a wack a rat. It is so easy for new editors to find unreliable sources on the net not yet realising that they are Wikipeida unreliable. I haven't done much in this area for some years, but at the time I tagged most of them, and deleted many, and I have kept my notes (User:PBS/Notes#Better source needed which consist of bullet points:

• Wayback Machine (http://alternativeto.net/software/wayback-machine/) see also User:H3llBot

• Special:LinkSearch/thepeerage.com — External link search
• insource:/thepeerage.com/ OK if Lundy is used as source for WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT as Lndy normally cites a reliable source. Where he does (often citing a email exchange), then his site is unacceptable. The problem is following up the links and adding the reliable source takes time.

• See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage/Archive 10#Baroness of Douglas at AfD and Template_talk:Rayment#Reliability and {{Rayment}}
• See RS Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley website: Medieval Lands introduction v2.0. Updated 30 November 2010 {{Medieval Lands by Charles Cawley}} The project "involves extracting and analysing detailed information from primary sources, including contemporary chronicles, cartularies, necrologies and testaments." — The problem is Cawley uses a lot of primary sources and then draws inferences that if they were directly done by a Wikipedia editor would fail WP:PSTS and as an unrliable sources, it introduces this type of error into Wikipedia so WP:SAYWHEREYOUREADIT is often not appropriate on this site.
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 211#genealogy.euweb.cz and geneall.net
• insource:/genealogy.euweb.cz/ Genealogy.EU by Miroslav Marek Last updated: 17th March 2008 Genealogy.EU
• insource:/genealogics.org/
• David Beamish's Peerage Page insource:/www.peerages.info/
• insource:/angelfire.com/realm/ eg http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/gotha/luynes.html
• insource:/genealogy.euweb.cz/
• insource:/geneall.net/
• insource:/ww-person.com/
• insource:/wwperson.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/
• insource:/roglo.eu\/roglo/
• insource:/www.royaltyguide.nl/
• insource:/whttp://www.tudorplace.com.ar/

-- PBS (talk) 17:24, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

PBS, I am very ambivalent about that Rayment stuff. Guy (help!) 22:13, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Some people are (see my comment about Rayment earlier in this section -- 12:18, 19 June 2020). However as far as I can remember only in {{Rayment-hc-ie}} does he cite his sources and see Template talk:Rayment#Website domain expired. For them moment I would leave Rayment alone as there are far worse citations listed above over which there is little disagreement among established editors that they are Wikipedia unreliable and unlike Rayment have no saving graces. -- PBS (talk) 12:06, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Deprecated site question

Royalty fansites royalark.net and worldstatesmen.org are deprecated, but Davidelit comments on my Talk page that they "have information about Indonesian history such as the years of rule of the Sumatran sultanates and the flags of the constituent states of the United States of Indonesia that are very hard to find elsewhere". That seems to apply mainly top royalark, which has been used in many articles for this purpose (and as an inline link to flags and medals on which we have no articles, such as "Recipient of the Great Ramadan War Medal". I'm pretty sure these are not a qualified exception (royalark in particular was tagged as {{sps}} in some articles for years despite numerous additional references to royalark being added to the same article subsequent to tagging; this board was not the first place to notice the problem). What do people think?

This is a non-trivial cleanup exercise, there are thousands of links to these sites, but I am pretty confident they are a problem because I've found articles supporting claims to royal status and styles for countries that have been republics for half a century and more - in fact that's how I found them in the first place. Guy (help!) 07:29, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

If it isn't on any other website, maybe then it isn't worth including if it can't be properly sourced? Surely there are better sources covering Indonesian sultanates, perhaps in indonesian? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:11, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

(ec) I've removed a couple royalark Brunei sources and indeed it is very difficult to find replacement RS...probably because the subjects really aren't notable enough for their own articles. It's also rather challenging to track down the sources royalark attributes for some information, since the site was designed by what looks like a middle school HTML class in 2001. Just discovered the Ottoman dynasty page links to royalark 26 times... JoelleJay (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Also, what are we supposed to do with external links to royalark, wordpress, etc.? E.g. for Nobility JoelleJay (talk) 17:26, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

JoelleJay, nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Not even kidding: massive overlinking to royalark is so pervasive that it basically amounts to spam. Guy (help!) 10:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Each entry on Royal Ark lists sources, and is a perfectly reliable source in its field, Non-European royalty. If it was a published as a book instead there wouldn’t even be a question about it, but because it’s a website people get a bit snobby about it. I’ve not seen any suggestion that any content on there is unreliable or false, can someone give an example? The only reason JzG would seem to view it as unreliable is because it attributes titles to deposed royals which is a practice, I think is fair to say he throughly disapproves of, but is one which all serious academics/historians etc have done for centuries. - dwc lr (talk) 12:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

DWC LR, no they do not, and no it isn't (see WP:DEPS). I don't view it as unreliable because it attributes fictional titles, but because it is a one-man self-published source, and the sources it cites (when it does so) are often themselves equally unreliable. The fact that it also publishes fabulist nonsense is a reason for expediting cleanup, of course, but the underlying problems are much more serious. Guy (help!) 15:01, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

You can read the 20 days of discussion about its unreliable content that were mentioned during the RfC for deprecation. If it was published as a book, there would be the assumption of editorial oversight (unless it was self-published, in which case it would be equally unacceptable). JoelleJay (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Of course by Wikipedia’s standards it’s probably not a ‘Reliable Source’, I’m just saying it is a reliable and respected source in its field and I’ve seen it cited in books. You can also see from the acknowledgments respected persons who have assisted, Geoffrey Lewis (scholar), David Williamson to name two. Certainly in English very few resources are out there (as noted in this websites mission statement) that cover the non European royals (#BlackLivesMatter), certainly very few books. Burke’s published one in 1970s, and, as Royal Ark rightly rinses them for, there entry on Tunisia was contaminated by a bogus pretender. But the irony is on Wikipedia the bogus pretender could be inserted as credible as there may not be a ‘reliable source’ contradicting Burke’s one and only book and and I believe others like newspapers and perhaps other books were duped. But that’s the beauty and uniqueness of Wikipedia. - dwc lr (talk) 18:34, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

@DWC LR: can you provide the specific citations? Do you have any background information on Christopher Buyers, the owner of the website? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

The Allen James Fromherz edited book “The Gulf in World History” has cited Royal Ark for something [148]. Dr Annabel Teh Gallop, Lead Curator of Southeast Asian material at the British Library, writes in Malay Seal Inscriptions “The most important default source is The Royal Ark < RA > , an on - line resource on the genealogies of non - European royal families compiled by Christopher Buyers ”. As part of a book he seemed to review he is described as “Independent scholar Christopher Buyers (Indian maharajas), who maintains a comprehensive Web site, The Royal Ark: Royal and Ruling Houses of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas” - dwc lr (talk) 19:10, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

In "The First Sultan of Sarawak and His Links to Brunei and the Sambas Dynasty, 1599–1826: A Little-known Pre-Brooke History" by Ib Larsen in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society it states:

Christopher Buyers, in his ‘Royal Ark’, even has a date for the event [the visit of Radin Suleiman to Brunei to obtain the title of Sultan of Sarawak], 20 August 1630, although this date almost certainly is too early

Which does suggest that at least some of the information on the site is not entirely accurate. I can now sort-of understand the appeal of Royal Ark, particularly for information on Indonesia related topics because there is such a dearth of other available sources, but much of what Buyers cites is not easily accessible and therefore unverifiable. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:31, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Ottoman dynasty royalcruft

Ottoman dynasty has a Current line of succession section that begins

According to genealogies of the House of Osman, there would hypothetically be 24 princes now in the line of succession after Dündar I Ali II Osman VI, if the sultanate had not been abolished.

The refs for this and the following section include: 26 cites to royalark.net; 14 to Almanach de Gotha (2000); 5 to Burke's Peerage (1980); 22 to the "Official Ottoman Family Website"; and 49 to a "http://tarihvemedeniyet.org/" page designated "WP content", which is just a single, bare-bones image of a family tree.

Should this entire section be cut completely? JoelleJay (talk) 17:58, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that royalark.net and kindred sites have been deprecated. JoelleJay (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Just kill it, this looks very dubious since the Ottoman dynasty has not been in power for a century. buidhe 19:41, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

• Burke's Peerage is unquestionably a reliable source. The others, probably not. So there are likely sourcing issues. The line of succession for dynasties no longer in power is not an excluded topic for articles. But it needs adequate sourcing. Some royal dynasties have received extensive discussion of their theoretical line of succession, e.g. the Romanovs. -Ad Orientem (talk) 19:55, 20 June 2020 (UTC)
• No, the 2019 Almanach de Gotha provides the genealogy of the Imperial House of Osman, the Imperial Princes position in the line of succession is provided. - dwc lr (talk) 11:52, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• These articles and sections are largely based on the work of a handful of online amateurs and fabulists, reflected as if it were fact. We have a whole series of articles on fictional "grand dukes" of Austria. It needs cleaning up with some firmness. On the plus side, we renamed "list of current pretenders" to reflect the fact that most of them are not pretenders and virtually all inclusions were blatant WP:OR. Guy (help!) 14:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Worldometers.info

Interesting CNN article about Worldometers ( https://www.worldometers.info/ ):

• The Covid-19 pandemic has catapulted one mysterious data website to prominence, sowing confusion in international rankings

Cited twice on COVID-19 pandemic, Twice on COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory, six times on COVID-19 pandemic in Iraq, twelve times on Pandemic, and 219 times on all Wikipedia pages. Is it a reliable source? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

No, does not meet the standard of RS due to shady and obscure practices and having a reputation for INaccuracy rather than accuracy. buidhe 03:38, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

PS it was already deprecated at WP:COVID-19: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19/Archive_6#Not_using_Worldometer_as_a_source_in_all_COVID-19_related_pages and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19/Current consensus ("Refrain from using Worldometer (worldometers.info) as a source due to common errors being observed as noted on

Wikipedia:WikiProject COVID-19/Case Count Task Force#Common errors. Link 1, Link 2") buidhe 05:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, so *this* was the media inquiry that both I and MarioGom were contacted for! Personally I was contacted via Reddit while MarioGom was contacted via email. As far as I know, he responded while I didn't.

Thanks for leaving a talk page message notifying me about this, but I'm afraid that I can't participate further in this discussion beyond saying not to use WOMC on COVID–19 articles/templates **only**. Deepest apologies. Cheers, u|RayDeeUx (contribs | talk page) 19:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Ping User:RayDeeUx, User:MarioGom, User:Doc James. The CNN reporter should be told about the current discussion. You can send the contact info to me here; I won't mention your name to any reporter. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:15, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Guy Macon, now hang on a moment–why should we get CNN reporter(s) involved? They only know about this WOMC situation because of the thread mentioned at WP:WORLDOMETER. Not to offend them, but they don't know as much about the situation as we do. Cheers, u|RayDeeUx (contribs | talk page) 23:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Basic politeness. If a reporter reports on something (The Covid-19 pages deprecating Worldometers but only on those pages) and the situation changes drastically (RSNB deprecating Worldometers on all Wikipedia pages) it is polite to let them know in case they are working on a followup article. I wasn't expecting any input from CNN here. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:11, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

---

I would like to get some more input here at RSNB to supplement the WP:LOCALCON noted above.

I don't think it is a good source, but if I start removing citations, someone is sure to quote [ https://www.worldometers.info/about/ ]:

"Trusted Authority

Worldometer was voted as one of the best free reference websites by the American Library Association (ALA), the oldest and largest library association in the world.

Worldometer is a provider of global COVID-19 statistics for many caring people around the world. Our data is also trusted and used by the " UK Government, Johns Hopkins CSSE, the Government of Thailand, the Government of Pakistan, the Government of Sri Lanka, Government of Vietnam, Financial Times, The New York Times, Business Insider, BBC, and many others. :Over the past 15 years, our statistics have been requested by, and provided to: Oxford University Press, Wiley, Pearson, CERN, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), The Atlantic, BBC, Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology, Science Museum of Virginia, Morgan Stanley, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Dell, Kaspersky, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Amazon Alexa, Google Translate, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), the U2 concert, and many others.

Worldometer is cited as a source in over 10,000 published books and in more than 6,000 professional journal articles."

Compare the above advertising claims with the CNN article:

• "Some governments and respected institutions have chosen to trust a source about which little is known."
• "It’s not clear whether the company has paid staff vetting its data for accuracy or whether it relies solely on automation and crowdsourcing. "
• "Edouard Mathieu, the data manager for Our World in Data (OWID), an independent statistics website headquartered at Oxford University, [wtote} 'Their main focus seems to be having the latest number wherever it comes from, whether it’s reliable or not, whether it’s well-sourced or not,” he said. “We think people should be wary, especially media, policy-makers and decision-makers. This data is not as accurate as they think it is.' "
• "Visitors can report new Covid-19 numbers and data sources to the website – no name or email address required."

In my opinion, that last quote gives us our answer:

• Worldometers.info is unreliable and all citation to it should be removed. Any claim made in an otherwise-reliable source that lists Worldometers as the source should also be considered to be unreliable.

Thoughts? --Guy Macon (talk) 15:06, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• I would agree with this. However, many more people participated in the COVID-19 discussions, so that consensus is stronger than what you're likely to get here. buidhe 16:07, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• True, but I cannot apply that WP:LOCALCON decision anywhere other than on the Covod-19 pages. If you look at

[ https://en.chped.com/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&search=Worldometers ]

You will see that the source is used on a couple of hundred pages. Someone should not be able to anonymously post made-up numbers to worldometers.info and have those numbers appear on Wikipedia. There are 65,536 people who agree with me on this. (Source: worldometers.info) --Guy Macon (talk) 18:58, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• The quotes from the CNN article above are very concerning. If it's true that user-submitted numbers show up on the site without oversight, then it's absolutely not reliable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• Agree with Sdkb. Worrisome. I would err on the side of caution and consider this unreliable until we can confirm they have some kind of process and that this is not just user reported approximations (as it seems to be) + an aggregation of other sources (let's use those directly then). -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 09:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Unless something has changed in the past month or so, I recall that we stopped using WorldOMeters as a source because some editors on here found that it was double-counting some cases which increased the number of reported cases beyond what it actually was. I haven't kept up much with the data aggregating sites but I believe we're still using 1point3acres? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

..."We" meaning "the Covid-19 pages". Now the discussion is whether "we" as in "all of Wikipedia" should stop using WorldOMeters as a source. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:14, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Keeping track of coronavirus stats is only a part of WorldOMeters. Have other things like those noted on the live counters been found to be inaccurate? They list the sources used on this page. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:42, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

We don't have to play Whac-A-Mole with every different kind of statistic they provide. Unreliable is unreliable. Do they have a reputation for accuracy? No. Do they have a history of printing corrections and retractions? No. Do we know anything about them other than that their HQ is a private home? Not really. We have a reliable source that says "Their main focus seems to be having the latest number wherever it comes from, whether it’s reliable or not, whether it’s well-sourced or not. We think people should be wary, especially media, policy-makers and decision-makers. This data is not as accurate as they think it is".

Also, that's just too many statistics for a company being run out of a private home to verify.

If WorldOMeters provides a statistic and gives a source, we should check to see if that source contains the information WorldOMeters says it does, and if it does we should use that source. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:07, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• I did some poking around in probably April and decided Worldometers were aggregating data and drawing conclusions in ways that were almost certain to produce incorrect results except by sheer luck. Unless things have changed since then, no, unreliable. —valereee (talk) 11:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Not reliable per the issues raised by CNN (and we would not be needing this discussion at all if our COVID coverage complied with Wikipedia’s sourcing guidelines for biohealth content and Wikipedia’s policy that it is an encyclopedia, not a newspaper, and got out of the business of tracking newsy numbers). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:38, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

HKV.hr

The sources hkv.hr was mentioned in the 2019 Signpost article The Curious Case of Croatian Wikipedia, and I'm interested to hear thoughts on how the source can best be used on English Wikipedia. The article mentions hkv as a far-right source, and I haven't found any discussion of the source in English-language outlets. I see that it is a fairly small amount on English Wikipedia: hkv.hr  . On Croatian Wikipedia, it is used over 400 times, perhaps indicating that it is a reasonable source (though, given the Signpost article, perhaps not).

It is used to support claims ranging from damage to a cathedral in 1880 to historical treaties around Croatian unification to details on BLPs.

Is this source reliable (which, I would like to remind folks, is separate from bias)? To what extent is it biased? Are there any domains for which it is better or worse suited? (political, historical, social, etc)

Thanks for your thoughts! Jlevi (talk) 02:55, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Croatian WP doesn't count for anything and should be thrown out. HKV re-reports from the deprecated RT, such as a story currently on its front page: "Berlinski političari svjesno su desetljećima slali djecu da žive s PEDOFILIMA – otkriva novo izvješće Berlinske vlasti organizirale su poremećenu shemu kako bi djecu iz domova predale na skrb zloglasnim pedofilima, kaže se u novom izvješću. Zamislio ju je zloglasni zagovornik pederastije, podržavali su ju političari, i sve je tek nedavno završilo. (rt.com)" Which does not grant confidence in its accuracy. buidhe 03:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

  FYI GregorB buidhe 03:51, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation. HKV stands for "Hrvatsko kulturno vijeće" (Croatian Cultural Council). Nominally, it's a website covering culture and arts, but is actually used as a right-wing political platform, and the articles are permeated with such content.

By chance, yesterday I did some work expanding Petrovo Polje, Croatia, and was looking for sources on the Meštrović mausoleum in Otavice, Croatia. I found this. Ostensibly a field report about the mausoleum and its history, nearly one half of the content are various seemingly random rant-like tangents discussing antifascists, chetniks, lesbians (I'm not joking!), folk singers, NGOs, the European Union, all "usual suspects" according to the Croatian far right. So, while the article in question had some usable stuff, I decided against using it as a source and looked elsewhere.

Hkv.hr's content, when strictly discussing culture, is actually fairly good and seems reliable. For example, I found the series of articles on the Zagreb Cathedral (used also in the Josip Mihalović article) very good, and I added these as external links.[149] My conclusion is that hkv.hr may be used as a source, but discretion against grossly biased content would be advised. GregorB (talk) 19:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Another fringe book from Simon and Schuster

Two years ago I posted here this[150] mention of a book they published and here's another one.Secrets of Ancient America Archaeoastronomy and the Legacy of the Phoenicians, Celts, and Other Forgotten Explorers. The publisher page on him[151] says he has published in Ancient America, a racist journal of pseudohistory. It's also published by Bear and Company, a fringe publisher.[152] The book expands " upon the work of well-known diffusionists such as Barry Fell and Gunnar Thompson". Very disappointing, just shows that not all publishers get an automatic pass. Doug Weller talk 14:26, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• Nothing prevents a mainstream publisher from publishing a book on woo-woo topics. The goal of a publisher is to make money selling books, and if they can do so by selling books on woo-woo fringe topics they will. It is a sign that a fringe topic is POPULAR with the mainstream. Note: this popularity does NOT mean the fringe topic is ACCEPTED by the mainstream. Blueboar (talk) 14:47, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

  Blueboar, true, but there are some authors so batshit that virtually all publishers refuse to take them. G. Edward Griffin and Gary Null are both pretty much exclusively self-published, for example. Guy (help!) 14:54, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I think G. Edward Griffin and Gary Null both fall into the too nutty and not lucrative enough category, most mainstream publishers seem to be pretty accepting of even very fringe works if there are strong sales prospects... When sales prospects are minimal or have declined sharply suddenly they find ethics. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I thought only academic non-commercial publishers which were part of reputable institutions got an automatic pass? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 18:17, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

HEJ is correct, there's no reason to assume that just because something is printed on paper that it is automatically reliable or correct. buidhe 18:19, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Does nobody remember when Simon and Schuster were lined up to publish Milo Yiannopoulos's Dangerous? This is hardly suprising. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:22, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this going somewhere? I hope we are not playing the “guilt by association” game, and trying to argue that everything Simon and Schuster publishes is unreliable. Blueboar (talk) 18:57, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

No, but being published by Simon and Schuster, or any other member of the big 5 isn't a seal of reliability, nor really should it ever be taken as one. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:04, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• S&S has had a number of financial issues shall we say. Which has had a direct effect on the lack of qualms about stuff they publish. They will sell anything if it can make them money. So like almost everything, determining reliable sources need to be more than 'published by X'. Only in death does duty end (talk) 19:33, 21 June 2020 (UTC)
• I think it's a given that simply being published by a major publisher does not automatically make a book a WP:RS. It tends to push the presumption towards reliability when all else is equal, but the author, author's reputation, reputation of the individual book and so on all still matter. This is especially true when discussing sources that make WP:EXCEPTIONAL or WP:FRINGE claims, or in situations where the content is contradicted by higher-quality sources; a pop-culture "coffee table" book shouldn't be cited if it contradicts higher-quality academic sources or books by established subject-matter experts. --Aquillion (talk) 04:13, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

  Aquillion, yes, I think that is exactly correct. Guy (help!) 13:26, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Was S&S ever listed as a strictly academic publisher where all works would be peer reviewed? They certainly are a major publisher but I have to agree with comments like Aquillion's. Being a S&S publication doesn't mean it's a RS. Springee (talk) 04:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Is this a "peer-reviewed journal" or a promotional blog?

I removed a link to a website that claimed it was a "Peer reviewed open access journal" but did I do wrong?

My question concerns a Wordpress blog whose editor in chief Claude Spicher runs a pain clinic in Fribourg, Switzerland. The page header, however, claims that this blog is "An open-access e-journal for neuropathic pain]." Spicher and collaborators repeatedly use articles in this blog as sources for statements about a therapy invented by Spicher (somatosensory rehabilitation of pain, whose June 8 version cited papers published by the blog 4 times. Both that article and its recent duplicate Somatosensory rehabilitation of neuropathic pain are at AfD.)

The e-news website produces pdf "issues" that include research-format articles describing successful treatments using the Spicher method, ads for a 980 euro course on the method to be taught by Spicher, and other material. Are there a specific way to distinguish medical RS from a proprietary blog that publishes "issues" and claims to be a journal? HouseOfChange (talk) 16:37, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

I mean...a blog is a blog. No academic journal is hosted through a blog service. They have no editorial review (just "guest editors", which seem to include patients? and a continental philosophy expert...). There are no submission guidelines, or even a way to submit an article. They don't even claim to be peer-reviewed... JoelleJay (talk) 16:48, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

HouseOfChange, Being indexed in selective and legitimate databases for academic journals https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/451577_3 buidhe 16:50, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

There are peer-reviewed journals that use WordPress as a CMS. So you have to get into the quality of the "peer review" and the journal itself. This example looks ... not so great - David Gerard (talk) 18:41, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Are there many with "blog" in the url, though? JoelleJay (talk) 21:02, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• That's... differently credible. Not on any of the indexes as far as I can tell, no indication of who does this "peer review", not seeing any of the signs of legitimacy (DOI etc). The content is also nothing like a peer reviewed journal. I would go with "blatantly fake" myself, especially the specific article you removed. Guy (help!) 18:45, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

• The talk page has so many SPAs leaving (confusingly-formatted) comments promoting the technique to keep it from deletion. They didn't even try to disguise this effort! My favorite is the "Neutral Point of View" section, which includes this (slightly reformatted by me) exchange regarding COI between the founder of this method and an SPA he recruited:

  Declaration of interests
  Claude J. SPICHER, the main author of the page Somatosensory Rehabilitation of Pain, has no financial or other relationships that might lead to a conflict of interest Spicherc (talk) 14:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  perfect, (Nur Kesiktas MD PhD) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nur1812 (talk • contribs) 16:37, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

  AFAICT almost all of the SPAs with real names in their sig are either contributors to this blournal or run clinics as part of the parent org's "Somatosensory Rehabilitation Network" (Reseau de Rééducation Sensitive de la Douleur). JoelleJay (talk) 01:28, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Twitter

The citing of Twitter posts has become widespread with the ubiquity of the platform. However, social media are in essence self-publishing platforms, thus fail WP:PRIMARY. Simply looking at reference sections reveals that editors use these as they would use reliable secondary sources while forgetting their true nature; that's without mentioning the clutter it sometimes creates. Notable comments made on Twitter usually have an abundance of secondary sources (like all other happenings), so can be validly cited. Yet, there's now a template that apparently institutionalises citation of tweets. Let's discuss whether this practice should continue. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 12:40, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Context matters. A twitter post by a gobshit should not be used, but SPS allows for use of expert opinion.Slatersteven (talk) 12:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Slatersteven, weeeelllll, yes and no. I absolutely support exclusion of random opinions by random bloviators, however well-known (WP:GOBSHITE should absolutely be a thing) but I actually don't think Twitter should be used for anything at all if we can avoid it. We are supposed to be based on secondary sources, and virtually nothing posted on Twitter counts as a secondary source. I know this is tilting at windmills by now but there are vast areas of Wikipedia that are infested with blow by blow accounts of breaking news about insignificant crap drawn from the Twitter feeds of media personalities that are probably operated by their bloody PR anyway. Guy (help!) 14:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes it should not be a goto certainly. Twitter posts lack context often.Slatersteven (talk) 15:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd say to allow it in principle but avoid it wherever possible. For example, John C. Baez has a Twitter account, and mathematics or physics material that he posts there is technically permissible by WP:SPS. But even when there aren't BLP concerns or anything like that, the format is awkward, and if the only source for something is a tweet, then including it is probably giving it undue weight. XOR'easter (talk) 03:07, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

YouTube personality subscriber and viewing figures in BLPs

What is the standard practice for sourcing with respect to stated Youtube subscriber and viewing figures in BLPs? This is one example, see in particular the info box data. Is editorial reporting on Youtube figures WP:OR? Also, with respect to notability, do these figures matter? Acousmana (talk) 13:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The latter is easy, no. Notability is determined by third parties nothing you and commenting about it. As to the former, as I recall YouTube stats can be manipulated and this are not really an RS.Slatersteven (talk) 13:10, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

• Well they matter in the sense that's how streamers/content creators make their money. But it's not really relevant to notability except that someone with very high numbers will be more likely to have been mentioned in what we consider reliable sources. But in terms of listing the figures, it's either a reliable primary or secondary source, not OR. In that the figures will most often be sourced to the person's channel. But those numbers are not curated by them, but by the host. So while it's still primary, it's extremely unlikely to be fudged. They can of course be sourced to secondary sources, most articles about these influencers will mention their numbers, but those are rarely stable. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:16, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

OK so in the example given, we read in the lead: "...who is best known for his music-related YouTube channel The Needle Drop, which has gathered over 2.19 million subscribers." There is no discussion of this figure, or channel subscriptions generally, in the main body, but it is stated prominently in the lead as if something notable. I'm reading this statement as a synthetic construction, so therefore OR? no? Acousmana (talk) 13:32, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The lead is a summary of the body of the text. If it's not sourced and mentioned in the body, it shouldn't be in the lead. It shouldn't be a problem sourcing it, but it needs more than a passing mention in the infobox to be lead material. Only in death does duty end (talk) 13:36, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

The above, but that is not an RS issue, its a wp:weight issue. If he is know for something, independent third party RS would mention it, if they do not he is not known for it.Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the input, helps. Acousmana (talk) 13:51, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Not only are YouTube views/subscribers a weight issue, the numbers are also unreliable. Just do a google search on "buy youtube subscribers". --Guy Macon (talk) 07:15, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• I cautiously use them to note the changes in popularity. Buying views is disreputable so I’d need some notable evidence they are accused of doing so before assuming they do. And the subscribers/views are notable as it ranks them against all others in their category, it determines their earning potential and track record, and reliable sources regularly report these figures indicating they believe the metrics are notable. Gleeanon409 (talk) 10:47, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"changes in popularity" according to what reliable source? Everything you describe here is editorialising, it's OR. The other aspect to consider is that YouTube is NOT a publisher. So, the way I see it, if an editor is not consulting independent sources that discuss a subject's viewing and subscription figures, they should not be entering this data in an info box. Acousmana (talk) 12:26, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

There are also accuracy issues, almost literally the information will be out of date as you enter it. At no time will any snapshot of views or subscribers will be current, thus its only use would be historical (in Jan 2018 gitvonwommblenose had 1.8 m subscribers). But then others issue crop up as well.Slatersteven (talk) 12:33, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

For example: Singer X, had 20,000 subscribers in 2016; after their appearance on Foo’s Got Talent 2017 that rose to 230,000 subscribers, with their cover of “FooMerica the Beautiful” having the most views of any of their videos at 4.6 million as of June 2020. It really depends where reliable sources lead as to what you can report, but there are encyclopedic ways to do so. Gleeanon409 (talk) 12:47, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

"but there are encyclopedic ways to do so" - yeah like following the guidelines on sourcing and original research. Additionally, with respect to so called music journalism, very little of it is genuinely independent, either a record label's/artist's publicity department has made a pitch or they have enlisted an advertising agency that runs a music webzine (Fader for example) to do a write up. Acousmana (talk) 12:56, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Wow, someone’s a grumpy glum. Many reliable sources also quote YouTube metrics, and I would only use primary sources to supplement what those state. Not sure why anyone needs to use OR to report straight forward metrics. Gleeanon409 (talk) 13:09, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The Intercept and politics

Is The Intercept considered a reliable source in the context of political news? Its page on WP:RS/P only mentions that it is "generally reliable for news" but "is a biased source and its use may need to be attributed". The two discussions linked don't seem to cover its political reporting, with the first discussing it in a general manner and the second in reporting on science (in this case, the Amazon rainforest). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 17:43, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Edit: Just for clarification, this question is with regards to The Intercept as a source for political news specifically (whether it be government-related, election-related, etc.), not about its reliability in general news reporting. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:56, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Attribute for political reporting I would consider The Intercept to be a usable source for political reporting, but it should be attributed. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
• Not reliable Relevant data point. In 2011, in one private email, Neera Tanden (responding to an email titled "Re: Should Libya pay us back?") cited the US deficit, said "having oil rich countries partially pay us back doesn't seem crazy to me." Compare and contrast what Tanden said to what the Intercept claimed:[153] "Other emails [sic.] show Tanden arguing that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their oil revenues to repay the U.S." HouseOfChange (talk) 18:27, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Instead of quoting one email and assuming that it is the same as the "other emails" mentioned, did Tanden ever actually say that Greenwald got it wrong? You can see Tanden's response to the Intercept story in this article in Salon.[154] Second, even if you establish that Glenn Greenwald said one thing and Neera Tanden said another thing, on what basis do you conclude that Tanden is telling the truth and Greenwald is lying? --Guy Macon (talk) 01:43, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable with attribution Have the usual editorial controls and are frequently cited for their investigative reports. They tend to be a tad sketchy on source origins (not the rigor of like WaPost, but not completely back-alley sourcing) so would require attribution of anything contestable. The example by HouseOfChange to me looks like a common slight stretch of the truth that many other sources will do and nothing that raising any immediate flags (compared to Daily Mail falsification). --Masem (t) 20:22, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

It is falsification, and literally false, to transform one vague sentence in one email into multiple "emails" and "arguing that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions of their oil revenues." HouseOfChange (talk) 00:09, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Do you know how many emails there were for certain, particularly when one email is "private"? Perhaps the Intercept had access to additional emails. --Masem (t) 00:57, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

These were the stolen Podesta emails, and the Libya claims from Intercept were widely chewed over by their ecosystem. But the only evidence any of these folks ever brought forward to support those claims was that one email. So perhaps they had more secret evidence that they concealed but it seems unlikely. HouseOfChange (talk) 01:39, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

And you know that "These were the stolen Podesta emails"... how? The story simply says "The emails, provided to The Intercept by a source authorized to receive them..." You are accusing The Intercept of bald faced lying about there being multiple emails. Can you point to a source where Tanden claimed that there was only one? Or even a source that shows Tanden saying that The Intercept got it wrong instead of saying her internal private emails don't reflect the official CAP position? Evidence, please. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable for news, but with attribution for opinions - as with all sources that publish political opinions/analysis/commentary rather than simply reporting the news about an election, a natural disaster, double homicide, bridge collapse, etc. ^Atsme _Talk 📧 00:51, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Biased but reliable. Reliable for news, attribute for political reporting and opinion. --Guy Macon (talk) 01:46, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Generally reliable for political news with attribution. The Intercept has a reputation for high-quality investigative journalism, particularly with its stories based on leaked official documents, and has significantly contributed to the coverage of topics including the PRISM surveillance program, Operation Socialist, the Drone Papers, and other controversies related to international politics. The publication does explicitly declare a point of view, as it states that it is "dedicated to holding the powerful accountable through fearless, adversarial journalism", and I recommend in-text attribution on this basis. However, this point of view has not harmed The Intercept's reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. — Newslinger talk 05:07, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Question does the Intercept make a difference between factual news and opinion?--ReyHahn (talk) 09:55, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

  Yes, The Intercept's opinion pieces are placed under their "Voices" opinion section. If either _VOICES or the name of one of the publication's columnists is on the top-left of the page, it is an opinion piece. They ask for opinion pitches to be labeled explicitly. — Newslinger talk 10:42, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• Reliable for news but Requires attribution for comment, due to bias. It is open about its bias and has a record of strong factual reporting. I tend not to use it, though, because a reliable source presented in the context of a wrapper of biased commentary is not ideal. Guy (help!) 13:21, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
• Reliable and attribute for political reporting. The outlet has broken a number of important stories, and it has a solid history (and has issued retractions in the past, in a manner much clearer than other outlets). Jlevi (talk) 13:42, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources RfC at Falun Gong

There is an ongoing RfC about reliable sourcing and the phrase "new religious movement" over at Talk:Falun_Gong#RfC_on_describing_Falun_Gong_as_a_new_religious_movement. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:04, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

News Break

Should News Break (newsbreak.com) be deprecated? Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Rationale

• newsbreak.com  

News Break is an AI news aggregator - it applies no human review of articles, but gives (just) sufficient detail to allow them to be traced to the original source. News Break's algorithms have picked up sites such as Communities Digital News (see below). It also harvests Breitbart (seen in [155]). Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Opinions

1. Support deprecation: anything that's found on this site should be referenced back tot he original source instead. Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
2. Strong support for obvious reasons. This site serves no value on Wikipedia or anywhere else for that matter. Praxidicae (talk) 13:02, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Support. News Break only provides a snippet of the article, so there is no reason not to cite the original source instead. — Newslinger talk 15:31, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
4. Support No reason to use this source. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Support - no value, stick to the original source. Deprecate the link. Doug Weller talk 08:58, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Given that MSN is now also AI run, and it cited over 14,000 times on wikipedia per msn.com  , is MSN also worth having a depreciation discussion about? Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:54, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

msn.com has 100s of sub-domains. For example what the difference is between msnbc.msn.com and msnbc.com I am not sure. There are independently operating organizations within MSN. -- GreenC 20:31, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

MSNBC has been completely separate from MSN for over a decade. I noticed that we have over 1,000 links to Encarta per encarta.msn.com  , which has been defunct since 2009. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:35, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• They've only just switched to AI so existing refs are ok, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 00:00, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  Atlantic306, still an aggregator, though - every ref I have found is taken from another site. Everything from clickbait ad sites to college newspapers. Guy (help!) 12:42, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• I agree that citations of MSN are acceptable, although citing the original source is preferred over citing MSN or any other news aggregator or republisher. MSN can be useful if the original source has been taken down for some reason. When citing MSN in this way, I would name the original source as the work in the citation template, and use the via parameter for to attribute MSN as the location of the article being cited. The AI switch affects how articles are selected to be republished on MSN, but does not appear to affect the content of MSN's republished articles. — Newslinger talk 02:46, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Communities Digital News

Should Communities Digital News be blacklisted? Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

• commdiginews.com  

Have a look at this "journalist"'s contributions. Or this which is top of its politics feed right now: "What the lying liberal media falls to report is that the day before the rally, people in line were sent home due to a “curfew.” As attendees tried to enter the arena, they were met with anarchy and violence at the hands of George Soro’s funded mobs". Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Opinions

1. Support blacklisting as a fake news site, in the classic sense of the term. Guy (help!) 13:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
2. strong support This is just Breitbart light and by light, I mean the actual web design. Praxidicae (talk) 13:05, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
3. Blacklist. Yet Another Right Wing Conspiracy Theory Page. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
4. Support. Propaganda site. Add one more to the list: their article "Summertime 2020: The Top 30 Hottest Political Women" lists a male politician as a woman because "liberals have taught us that gender is just a social construct". — Newslinger talk 15:41, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
5. Blacklist. Pure BS propaganda. -- Valjean (talk) 19:24, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
6. Support Per above. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:27, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
7. Blacklist this is a no brainer. Fake news, propaganda. Doug Weller talk 08:59, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
8. Deprecate and blacklist and put it in a bin - David Gerard (talk) 10:13, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
9. Deprecate and blacklist - 52 citations to this website as of right now (I will go through and try to nuke some) is absolutely horrifying. Neutrality^talk 20:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Jacobin

What is the reliability of Jacobin, particularly on the issues of economic and political reporting? It's not currently listed at WP:RSP and a search through the archives didn't find any discussions on Jacobin specifically, usually only passing mentions. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 02:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

• It is a strongly biased opinion magazine, so usable for the attributed opinion of contributors. I would not consider it generally reliable for facts according to the usual test: If I read something in Jacobin and not any other source, I would not believe it was true without confirmation. buidhe 05:46, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
• While it is a Magazine that focuses particularly on economic and political reporting with a strong left/socialist bias, mediabiasfactcheck.com rates their factual reporting as "high", noting that "they have not failed a fact check" yet. Mottezen (talk) 06:57, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  Mottezen, WP:MBFC is not a reliable source. buidhe 08:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  Sure, but the commentary on the page I linked is way more inciteful than the 3 comments in this section that say it "it is not reliable enough for reporting facts in relation to economic and political news" or "Yellow-rated at best". No example or evidence were provided to show its so-called unreliability for these topics. Mottezen (talk) 17:36, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  No source is considered reliable by default. Supporters of a source being reliable must show that it has "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" per WP:RS. buidhe 17:51, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

  Good, now we return to my original comment. Mottezen (talk) 18:03, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

• Expressly and proudly partisan source. Not actually liars as far as I know, but I would use any other source. Yellow-rated at best, use attribution - David Gerard (talk) 10:12, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
• I suspect it is not reliable enough for reporting facts in relation to economic and political news, as articles on that topic would be opinion pieces. However, I think that some articles may be used for some specialist historical issues e.g. around the history of the left. This article, for example, is used in some of our historical WP articles on the history of anti-fascism, and seems solidly researched. This article is by an academic who has published a book on this historical topic, antisemitism among the Bolsheviks, which seems like it would be a reliable source for that sort of topic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:29, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
• It is pointless to go through tens of thousands of magaxines and determining which ones to add to the blacklist. Editors should have the basic skills to determine if a source is the best and most reliable for the article they are writing. That means, as User:Bobfrombrockley points out, we might want to use them as a source for topics that the mainstream media ignore and most readers are interested in. In my experience the only reason editors use alternative media for articles about major topics is if they contain information ignored in mainstream media. IOW information that lacks weight for inclusion. We shouldn't use rs to correct for errors not following weight. BTW most Jacobin articles are opinion pieces which are not reliable sources wherever they are published. TFD (talk) 20:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

This isn't a discussion to deprecate or blacklist Jacobin, only a discussion on its reliability (and perhaps how to list it at WP:RSP). Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 23:23, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree with the above, that Jacobin articles should be treated more like opinion pieces, and in using them (with attribution), the political orientation of the magazine should be borne in mind (e.g. views are representative of the type of people who don't think "Jacobin" is a pejorative). I don't think that completely precludes use, however, and even in opinion articles, the facts relied on may be correct. TheBlueCanoe 23:10, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. I don't see it as anything more than a socialist propaganda outlet. It's obviously going to lean to the left and thus it is too biased to be used. At best it could maybe be used only if accompanied by other sources that don't conform to its point of view, as a means of balancing said bias. SolarFlash^Discussion 23:37, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

A source being biased does not necessarily mean it's unreliable. Those two aspects are usually independent of each other, although in some cases they do correlate. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 01:25, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

It's clearly fact based, with a fact-checking process. It's connected to a peer-reviewed journal Catalyst and many of its contributors are academics. It also has fairly accomplished journalists writing for it. It's definitely ideologically driven though – but I suppose being ideological and also fact-based isn't necessarily a contradiction. I see it cited often in NYT and elsewhere. Dsakey1978 (talk) 03:43, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Generally reliable but not always due. The source is cited fairly widely in left-leaning sources, including plenty that are far more moderate than Jacobin itself. The outlet is described as one of the most important sources representing the young left. For that reason, it may be useful where that viewpoint should be represented. For instance, Slate describes it as, "the house organ of America’s far-left boomlet over the past decade", a NYT opinion describes it as "an influential publication among young leftists," and Vox notes that it "has in the past five years become the leading intellectual voice of the American left." In 2013, Wired describes it as an emerging "intellectual outlet" alongside The New Inquiry and the LA Review of Books. Again, articles don't always need this perspective. Where they do require that perspective, however, Jacobin is a good choice. Jlevi (talk) 12:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The Life of the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., by Samuel Drew

Source: The Life of the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D., by Samuel Drew, published 1818 by J. Soule and T. Mason for the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States Link: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Life_of_the_Rev_T_Coke_with_an_abstr/FjRfAAAAcAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA138 Article: George Washington and slavery

Seeking opinions on whether this work constitutes a reliable source generally on the subject of George Washington and slavery. My contention is that it fails pretty much all of the criteria in WP:IRS. It is near contemporaneous, having been published only 19 years after the death of Washington. It is dubious for having been written by a Methodist about a Methodist and for the Methodist Church, on the subject of slavery in the US when slavery was still legal and subject to significant opposition by the Methodists. Also of relevance is the fact that George Washington and slavery is currently a featured article, for which there is an expectation that sources should be high quality, per WP:WIAFA 1c. Thank you.Factotem (talk) 10:45, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I would say given its age it is dubious as a source for anything (after all if its worthy of inclusion why have not more modern sources taken it up?).Slatersteven (talk) 10:49, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I have removed it.[156] This source by Samuel Drew seems fine to me, but it's superfluous, and we don't need unnecessary controversy and drama here. Anythingyouwant (talk) 11:06, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Erroneous information posted

Hello, what do you do when deliberately misleading information is published about a living person? I have tried to edit, but been blocked. Thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paulsmith996 (talk • contribs)

I will reply on your talk page.Slatersteven (talk) 19:04, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

allaccess.com

I'm inclined to say this one is unreliable but I thought I'd get some opinions first, as it's always good to have a discussion for future editors to reference.

So, allaccess.com is owned by a company called "All Access Music Group, Inc." which is a privately held corporation formed in 1995 by President/Publisher Joel Denver and his wife and partner, VP/CFO & Operations Ria Denver. I can't find much about the company but according to this source [157] All Access Music Group "specializes in promotion and marketing efforts for all major record labels, and aggressive independent record labels as well as non-music clients including radio networks, syndicators, consultants and others interested in reaching key decision-makers" within the radio industry. Their LinkedIn profile refers to them as "the largest music promotion company in the United States" [158].

The website itself says All Access Music Group is "also a marketing partner with Mediabase, BigChampagne.com, PromoSuite, A&R Worldwide, Triton Digital, Dial Global, Citadel Media, Premiere Radio Networks, Westwood One, and many others." [159]

So, I think simply because the website is promotional in nature, it fails WP:RS. On top of that, I see no way to confirm the presence of editorial oversight and/or a reputation for fact-checking. Almost certainly unreliable but any thoughts? SolarFlash^Discussion 21:50, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable as it seems to be a glorified pr operation in my view Atlantic306 (talk)

There are over 4,000 uses. The interviews might be ok to use, but probably not the "top 40" and "future releases". Examples would help. --Hipal/Ronz (talk) 03:56, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Guardians of Democracy

I'm unsure if this article can be used as a reliable source for Timeline of the Donald Trump presidency (2020 Q2). The paragraph is located in June 1, and the exact sentence is:

After the press conference at the Rose Garden, Trump walks to the nearby St. John's Church, where an adjacent building had experienced a fire the previous night, in Lafayette Square for a photo op. In preparation for Trump's arrival, riot police and military police use tear gas and stun grenades to clear peaceful protesters assembled at the park.

It's from an independent news organization that I'm not familiar with, so I'm just checking. Thanks. Mgasparin (talk) 01:44, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't look usable to me. There's no mention of any editorial team on the website and all articles are anonymously credited to "Guardians of Democracy staff". Should be easy to find better sources for the St. John's Church affair. --RaiderAspect (talk) 05:18, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks like a blog that's run by an advocacy group. I see no signs of editorial control either. To my eye there's nothing in that source you won't be able to find on better sources. −−− Cactus Jack 🌵 05:23, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• No evidence this is a RS. Guy (help!) 12:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The BBC

Over at 2019 India–Pakistan border skirmishes a user has claimed the BBC is not an RS [[160]].Slatersteven (talk) 10:24, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I claim I am also a billionaire. Praxidicae (talk) 10:28, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

No other source reported this he/she says. Quite incorrect. FDW777 (talk) 10:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I deliberately did not use potentially biased sources, there were a few Indian newspapers denying this.Slatersteven (talk) 10:43, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

FDW777 I wouldn't really consider Deccan Chronicle an RS though. But yeah, the point still stands that there's no reason to believe BBC is unreliable in this context. Praxidicae (talk) 10:55, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

The editor concerned quotes this reference in an edit summary in an edit to their sandbox version of the article. I'd say there's nothing wrong with Indian media references (subject to reliability of course) for this point, since they are probably more likely than the BBC to have contacts at the Ministry of External Affairs. Whether the text really belongs in the article is another point, possible involving WP:RSBREAKING since it's not that unreasonable that a journalist's sources (apparently speaking off the record, since it's "said defence sources", "Indian military sources told NDTV" and "defence sources said on Wednesday") might not be completely honest due to it being a potentially ongoing military situation. But that's really a matter for the article's talk page anyway... FDW777 (talk) 11:02, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Just to elaborate on my previous point. The article doesn't need to have the whole "the Indians denied it, but then the Indian Ministry of External Affairs confirmed" it narrative. It can be just as simply stated along the lines of "Pakistan shot an Indian plane down". FDW777 (talk) 11:08, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• The RS question is dead easy: the BBC is reliable. The WP:UNDUE/significance question is separate. Guy (help!) 12:36, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Forbes.com contributor for Trollz (song)

Is "6ix9ine’s Persecution Complex Surrounding ‘TROLLZ’ Is Embarrassing—And Hypocritical" by Forbes.com contributor Bryan Rolli a reliable source for the Trollz (song) article? The article is the sole citation for the following text:

Following its release, Forbes's Bryan Rolli criticized 6ix9ine's "desperate attempts to inflate" sales, noticing "there are currently four different versions of the song available for download on iTunes (the original, an alternate edition, and clean versions of both), all discounted to 69 cents. 6ix9ine and Minaj are both selling a slew of music and merchandise bundles, including signed "TROLLZ" CDs, vinyl and hoodies". He also pointed out the three music videos: the official video and the lyric videos for both the original and alternate editions. Rolli concluded that 6ix9ine "exemplifies [the] willingness to forgive abusers because they're marketable".

— Newslinger talk 11:26, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

• Unreliable. As concluded in 11 previous discussions, Forbes.com non-staff contributors are the equivalent of self-published sources because they are not subject to sufficient editorial oversight. This lack of editorial oversight has been well-documented by the Columbia Journalism Review, the Poynter Institute, BuzzFeed News (RSP entry), and The Outline. For this particular case, Bryan Rolli is a non-notable freelance journalist that does not claim to have any academic credentials in the field of music (or music business), and is not a subject-matter expert. This case is exacerbated by the fact that the text in question includes claims regarding living people, which puts the text in violation of WP:BLPSPS. Use a reliable source, instead. — Newslinger talk 11:26, 25 June 2020 (UTC)