Revision as of 23:20, 11 July 2020 edit FactOrOpinion (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 5,494 edits updated the references for the Berkeley and Princeton quotes, as the quotes were no longer available at the cited URLs, added archived copies to references, updated the publication date for the Princeton quote ← Previous edit		Revision as of 23:56, 11 July 2020 edit undo FactOrOpinion (talk \| contribs) Extended confirmed users 5,494 edits →Self-published doesn't mean a source is automatically invalid: deleted sentence about Joy of Cooking and 50 Shades of Grey, as it doesn’t make sense to focus on titles alone without a context/claim; added other examples where a SPS might be the best or only source and reintroduced Joy of Cooking there Next edit →
Line 97: ===Self-published doesn't mean a source is automatically invalid=== Self-published works are sometimes acceptable as sources, so self-publication is not, and should not be, a bit of jargon used by Wikipedians to automatically dismiss a source as "bad" or "unreliable" or "unusable". While many self-published sources happen to be unreliable, the mere fact that it is self-published does not prove this~~. There are many [[bestseller]]s that are or were [[self-published]] works, such as ''[[The Joy of Cooking]]'' and some all-time bestsellers like ''[[Fifty Shades of Grey]]''~~. A self-published source can be [[Wikipedia:Independent sources\|independent]], authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, and expert-approved. Self-published sources <em>can</em> be reliable, and they <em>can</em> be used (but not for [[WP:IS\|third-party]] claims about living people). Sometimes, a self-published source is even the best possible source, ~~such~~or asamong ~~when~~the best sources. For example: * If you are supporting a direct quotation~~. In such cases~~, the original document is the best source because the original document will be free of any errors or misquotations introduced by subsequent sources. * A self-published source by an expert may become an authoritative reference for a claim, as with the best-selling self-published book ''The Joy of Cooking'' as a source for claims about cooking techniques. * A self-published source by an expert may include a significant opinion that hasn’t yet appeared in a non-self-published source. ~~Properly~~Conversely, properly published sources are not always "good" or "reliable" or "usable", either. Being properly published does not ~~mean~~guarantee that the source is independent, authoritative, high-quality, accurate, fact-checked, expert-approved, or subject to editorial control. Properly published sources can be unreliable, biased, and self-serving. According to our content guideline on identifying reliable sources, a reliable source has the following characteristics:

Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works: Difference between revisions