Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Perennial sources list

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. (non-admin closure) WormEater13 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Perennial sources list

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Note: This is not about deleting the non-article page Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources which has nearly the same name as the article about it, To lessen confusion I will refer to the non-article page as WP:RSP.

WP:CIRC is unfixably violated. The policy is "Also, do not use websites mirroring Wikipedia content or publications relying on material from Wikipedia as sources." -- and of course any publication that is quoting WP:RSP or WP:RSN is doing exactly that. We must look at "An exception is allowed when Wikipedia itself is being discussed in the article." which arguably includes WP:RSP (though it's just an essay-class page not Wikipedia itself); however, in that case WP:CIRC says the sources must be considered primary sources and WP:PRIMARY says "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them."

Wikipedia:Notability is not as clear as it might appear. I see cited articles with little or no mention of WP:RSP, for example this Jewish Journal article doesn't mention it, this Slate article doesn't mention it, this USA Today article vaguely mentions a "list" without naming it, this CNBC article was written in 2017 before WP:RSP came into existence in 2018, this wired article has a sentence with a link to it but thinks it's a "guide to sources". To some extent this happens because much (or in my opinion "most") of the article is not about WP:RSP but about WP:RSN discussions. So a count of cites and subtopics would be deceptive, although I'm admitting there are several that indeed mention WP:RSP.

WP:SOAPBOX is inevitable. A glance at the history pages will show that some contributors have also contributed to WP:RSP, and a glance at the article will show it contains hurrah wording like "community-maintained", "significant news coverage", without direct links to criticisms of the WP:RSN rulings even when talking about them (for example "Though the Daily Mail strongly contested this decision" does not and can not cite the Daily Mail without violating policy) (for example "the list was criticized by American conservative group Media Research Center" does not cite Media Research Center which is listed as generally unreliable on WP:RSP).

I will not object if the article's defenders canvass by posting to places related to WP:RSP, but hope any closer will be 100% uninvolved. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:24, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Internet-related deletion discussions. Let'srun (talk) 20:04, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Websites-related deletion discussions. Stockhausenfan (talk) 20:16, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. The general notability guideline (WP:GNG) is satisfied by the cited academic sources, most prominently:
1. Baigutanova, Aitolkyn; Myung, Jaehyeon; Saez-Trumper, Diego; Chou, Ai-Jou; Redi, Miriam; Jung, Changwook; Cha, Meeyoung (30 April 2023). "Longitudinal Assessment of Reference Quality on Wikipedia". WWW '23: Proceedings of the ACM Web Conference 2023. Association of Computing Machinery. pp. 2831–2839. arXiv:2303.05227. doi:10.1145/3543507.3583218. Archived from the original on 5 March 2025. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
2. Thomas, Paul A. (30 July 2024). "Evaluating Sources". The Information Behavior of Wikipedia Fan Editors: A Digital (Auto)Ethnography. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 55–71. ISBN 978-1-6669-4194-4. Archived from the original on 20 January 2025. Retrieved 20 May 2025 – via Google Books.
3. Steinsson, Sverrir (February 2024). "Rule Ambiguity, Institutional Clashes, and Population Loss: How Wikipedia Became the Last Good Place on the Internet". American Political Science Review. 118 (1): 235–251. doi:10.1017/S0003055423000138. Archived from the original on 1 May 2025. Retrieved 14 May 2025.
It appears that a WP:BEFORE search had not been conducted before the deletion nomination was submitted, as the above sources are already cited in the article, as well as "Why Wikipedia Is Much More Effective Than Facebook at Fighting Fake News" from Haaretz (RSP entry).
On the other hand, the article currently does not directly cite WP:RSP even once. The intent of the WP:CIRC policy is not to exclude external coverage of Wikipedia from article space. As you note, WP:CIRC does state: "An exception is allowed when Wikipedia itself is being discussed in the article". There is an entire Category:Wikipedia content category consisting of articles, including the one being nominated for deletion, that do not violate WP:CIRC because they rely on citations of external coverage from independent reliable sources instead of circular citations of Wikipedia itself. When a media outlet examines a decision made by the Wikipedia community and the impact of that decision, the outlet "provides thought and reflection based on primary sources", which makes its coverage a secondary source. The bulk of the citations in the nominated article are such secondary sources.
If you have a problem with any of the language in the article, feel free to discuss it on the article talk page. A couple of phrases that you dislike do not justify the deletion of the article. — Newslinger talk 21:14, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Any closer will arguably not be 100% uninvolved since they will be a Wikipedian. But keep per Newslinger. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 04:37, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per Newslinger. The nomination is fundamentally mistaken: news coverage of Wikipedia and mirrors/forks of Wikipedia are entirely different kinds of things. jlwoodwa (talk) 05:25, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note This AfD was originally at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Reliable sources/Perennial sources as the article was originally at Reliable sources/Perennial sourcesReliable sources/Perennial sources. However, the RM discussion was closed without opposition on the same day and the article was moved to Perennial sources list. Therefore I have decided to move the AfD as well instead of keeping the RM open. – robertsky (talk) 15:24, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: Per Newslinger and Jlwoodwa. Mirroring Wikipedia directly, and reporting, commentating or studying Wikipedia's contents are different things. —CX Zoom[he/him] ^{(let's talk • {C•X})} 19:56, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: Coverage from Wired (WP:WIRED) and USA TODAY (WP:USATODAY) clearly make this notable. Also, as CX Zoom said, Mirroring Wikipedia directly, and reporting, commentating or studying Wikipedia's contents are different things.. Thegoofhere (talk) 14:14, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Keep for all the reasons argued above but mostly, for me, bc this bit was the linchpin (IMHO) of M. Talbot's recent Wikipedia feature in the New Yorker The “bombshell” was that Wikipedia maintains what the Post described as “a blacklist” of sources. But the list it apparently refers to is neither a blacklist nor a secret. You can find it, along with many discussions between editors, under the entry “Wikipedia: Reliable sources/Perennial sources.” jengod (talk) 00:06, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Keep This is, at its core, a content dispute. Deletion is not cleanup. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 06:43, 2 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.