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RfC: Channel NewsAsia (CNA) and other Mediacorp-affiliated media

Latest comment: 18 days ago21 comments7 people in discussion

Channel NewsAsia (CNA) is one of two major news outlets in Singapore, the other being The Straits Times. How should we consider its reliability?

channelnewsasia.com

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.

ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:08, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Survey (CNA)

Option 1: Given some growing consensus to elevate The Straits Times to WP:GREL similar to how WP:ALJAZEERA and WP:SCMP are treated, I will consider it a reliable source, though with considerations similarly applied for The Straits Times given Singapore's limited press freedoms. In fact, CNA, being a mediacorp news outlet, could be considered a state-owned news outlet given Mediacorp is owned by Temasek Holdings - the investment arm of the Government of Singapore. However, compared to The Straits Times, it's considered more reputable particularly due to its documentaries. It was considered broadcaster of the year at Berlin World Media Festivals and New York Festivals, global gold for Best News Website at Digital Media Awards Worldwide 2022 and having outstanding reporting on climate change at Asiavision Awards. A Reuters survey in 2024 also showed that CNA remains the most trusted brand among Singaporeans. Also from accessing its usage across Wikipedia, it seems CNA has been used for various topics. --ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 06:08, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1: CNA should be WP:GREL. While owned by Mediacorp, CNA has demonstrated a greater degree of journalistic independence than The Straits Times. It has positioned itself more as an international news outlet rather than a local one, similar to NHK World-Japan, BBC News, France 24 and Deutsche Welle (DW). Its international coverage is widely regarded as reliable, balanced and professional. While some caution may still be advisable when evaluating CNA's domestic political coverage as with any national outlet, its international reporting is fully reliable and on par with established sources with international recognition for its credibility. Aleain (talk) 06:42, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1: Per above. I have personally always found CNA more neutral than ST, especially with their international reporting. By extension, I have also found Today to have similar levels of neutrality to CNA. For some context on Today, it is also owned by Mediacorp and was merged into CNA in 2024. – actuall7 (talk | contrib) 08:25, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 2 I still have doubts about this RFC, but will add a comment anyway. The situation in Singapore remains the same, as noted by Reporters Without Borders[1], and especially given the passing of the Protection From Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Bill[2]. CNA is a trusted and respected news organisation[3], but editors need to take into account the local situation when dealing with anything related to the government or ruling party. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:06, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Singapore's media landscape may not mirror that of countries with a freer press, but that does not make CNA unreliable. Option 2 suggests that CNA spreads false statements like fake vote counts or baseless attacks on opposition figures, which is simply untrue. CNA has earned international recognition for a reason, and there is no evidence of it engaging in outright disinformation. While CNA is highly cautious on local politics, it does not cross into the kind of state propaganda seen in fully authoritarian countries where reliable sources such as SCMP and Al Jazeera are based in. Aleain (talk) 03:11, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 2 doesn't suggest they spread false statements or anything such, it states that additional considerations apply which is the case. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:41, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
WP:MREL, which Option 2 refers to, alludes to a grey area between sources that are generally reliable and those that are not. Has CNA engaged in consistent patterns of poor fact checking, inaccuracies or widespread errors in its areas of expertise that would exclude it from meeting the standard of a generally reliable source under WP:GREL? Aleain (talk) 08:30, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
There is a grey area when it comes to the situation in Singapore, and shown by the sources linked. In those areas additional considerations apply as per my comments. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:08, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Bad RfC. Rather than how should we consider its reliability, we should consider the reliability of a source (which is not just the publisher), in a context, for a Wikipedia article, if disputed, with no check-one-of-four forms. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
RfC Close/Withdraw No WP:RFCBEFORE here. Adding the comment that I doubt the GREL status of this for anything to do with the govt. Mediacorp is a monopolistic broadcaster directly owned, controlled and funded by the sovereign fund Temasek itself mired in controversy around appointments of close relatives of the top Singaporean political brass. Gotitbro (talk) 09:47, 29 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
It seems you may not be fully informed on the topic and are making a quick remark without engaging meaningfully with the discussion. While Mediacorp is owned by Temasek Holdings, a government-linked investment firm, that alone does not compromise CNA's editorial integrity. CNA has its own editorial team and regularly produces journalism that is regionally and internationally recognised. It covers a wide range of issues, including those critical of government policy. Dismissing it purely based on ownership reflects a shallow understanding of media ecosystems and ignores CNA's track record of factual and balanced reporting. Aleain (talk) 08:24, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
My vote for this was mainly a procedural one to close neither in affirmation nor in disagreement on the basis that RfCs need a prior infructuous discussion which isn't the case here. A remark/comment was appened, and labelled as such, but neither was it rash, shallow nor made on mere analysis of ownership. Your assumption in that regard is incorrect. I am well aware of the Singaporean media environment, its self-censorship, PAP presurres and intransgencies [I lay the same in the Straits Times discussion above]. Neither the CNA nor the Mediacorp are alien to these.

Politics and Change in Singapore and Hong Kong: Containing Contention by Stephan Ortmann (2009, Routledge):

Finally, unlike Hong Kong, Singapore's ruling elite controls nearly all of the major external means of communication. The leading English-language newspaper, the pro-government Straits Times, is owned by the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which is closely linked to the government. The other major media company. MediaCorp, a government-linked corporation, has a monopoly over freely available terrestrial television stations and owns the only freely distributed daily tabloid, Today. There are virtually no alter-native voices in Singapore's media landscape, which means that the govern-ment possesses a strong ability to control the masses. Prominent party members have, furthermore, published autobiographies, monographs, and other commemorative books, which are widely available in Singapore book-stores. This stands in contrast to the opposition, which has difficulty getting its books and magazines published. The PAP has also used the mainstream media to broadcast documentaries which are biased in favor of the ruling elite.

Fake News and Elections in Southeast Asia: Impact on Democracy and Human Rights by James Gomez, Robin Ramcharan (2022, Taylor & Francis):

Control of broadcast and print media has also been achieved through the total control of Mediacorp via Temasek volding a government investment firm headed by the prime minister's wife, Ho Ching - as well as via the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act (NPPA), where government approved management are given "200 times the voting power of ordinary shareholders", leading to pervasive self-censorship, and the use of domestic media to orchestrare "coverage [that] clearly favors the PAP and "misrepresents[s]" its opponents. In 2021, Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 160th in terms of press freedom, only 17 places alove China and 19 places above North Korea.

But what about CNA itself, let us turn to the enwiki article on it:

CNA has been criticised for its pro-government bias in Singapore. In its 12th biennial report released on 2 September 2009, Pace stipulated that "the broadcaster was adopting a conservative and careful approach in its reports and programmes", while being labelled as the "voice of the Government".

Broadcast media is also generally less reliable than print media. Even if we were to rate CNA GREL, I don't see why we should anyhow, that would come with a giant caveat of exempting that status for any local or political coverage.

PS: Comparisons between Singaporean government controlled media and other outlets such as Al Jazeera and SCMP have been made in the Straits Times discussion above. But I ask those making such comparisons to read Al Jazeera Media Network#Editorial independence. Though I also believe there is evidence for a revisit of SCMP's status at RSP. Gotitbro (talk) 10:54, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1 CNA fits into the "soft approach" broadcasters Martelanc et al identified [4] in the typology of state-backed external services built for their UNESCO study in the 1970s. The state affiliation, therefore, shouldn't be questioned in its reporting on matters external to the home country and we should default to simply determining if it crests some basic standard of USEBYOTHERS which, as far as I can tell, it does. Insofar as its reporting on the home country goes, the state affiliation itself shouldn't be questioned unless there's evidence (beyond ownership) to support such questions which, as far as I can tell, there is not. It may incorporate or exhibit unique framing in its reporting but that, by itself, is insufficient to question the veracity of the underlying claims. Chetsford (talk) 07:00, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion (CNA)

Is there any WP:RFCBEFORE for this? It appears to have been opened out of nowhere. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:34, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

In truth, I thought RSNs/RfCs are for discussions for all widely-used sources being used, and I opened this RfC more to also add CNA on the RSP list following the re-evaluation of Straits Times reliability. But an admin off-wiki pointed out to me, if there hadn't been issues, please don't bring them up. So, honestly, I apologise if this is out of process or anything. Let's say I misunderstood the assignment.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 11:45, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
Both the noticeboard header and the edit notice explicitly ask you not to do this. Unless there has been prior disagreement and discussion this should proby be closed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:36, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I don't think this should be closed. The discussion about The Straits Times and CNA is closely linked since they are part of the same country and media environment. CNA is widely used in articles relating to Singapore and the greater Southeast Asian region, and its reliability was already raised on this noticeboard here. If we don't deal with this now, when will we? The same debates are bound to come up again soon so it's better to get everything cleared up. Aleain (talk) 13:44, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
The issue is that noone who may object to CNA's use can know to comment in this RFC, because they have yet to raise any objection. This feels uncomfortably like pre-approval. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:51, 26 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
I had previously attempted to ascertain CNA's reliability more than a month ago on WikiProject Singapore, but unfortunately there was little response. I believe there had been sufficient visibility on both the WikiProject and this noticeboard for a reasonable amount of time to allow for a range of perspectives on CNA. Aleain (talk) 01:25, 27 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

This was never setup correctly, and so was archived early. I've restored it from the archive and added the {{rfc}} template per WP:RFCOPEN. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:39, 7 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

RfC: Simple Flying

Latest comment: 8 days ago22 comments9 people in discussion

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Media, the arts, and architecture

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Is Simple Flying [5] from 2024 and later ...

Option 1: Generally reliable
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

Is Simple Flying prior to 2024 ...

Option 1: Generally reliable
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

Chetsford (talk) 06:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Survey (Simple Flying)

Option 2 (2024+), Option 3 (2023-) ... Recent reporting seems to be fine for non-BLP content on aviation-related matters that doesn't make extraordinary claims or assert information inconsistent with other sources; older reporting may be problematic. Simple Flying passes WP:USEBYOTHERS as it's widely cited by, for example, The Kansas City Star, [6] the Miami Herald, [7] WBOY-TV, [8] USA Today, [9] CNN, [10] WJLA-TV, [11] Fortune, [12] The Week, [13] and scores of others. It has multiple reporters, indicating a gatekeeping process, and it hasn't been negatively checked by fact-checking websites like PolitiFact, Snopes, etc. On the other hand, their reporters all seem to be generalists without specific expertise in aviation journalism, almost all of the USEBYOTHERS has occurred in the last two years, and some basic factual errors were noticed in the years immediately after it went online (2019-2022). Chetsford (talk) 06:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Option 2 (2024+) I tend to evaluate depending on what the edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and think no evaluation without that can be really valid except Option 2 to say that you cannot skip the context of what article content is involved. In lack of a specific edit and specific cite, I can only say I would tend to not use it on a basis of low WEIGHT of readers . Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:45, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
~~Option 3~~ Option 4 (all years) - If WP:UBO is the only evidence that Simple Flying's reliability may have improved, then I'm going to have to oppose any change at this time. - ZLEA ^T|C 05:03, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Changed to option 4 per Avgeekamfot. - ZLEA ^T|C 20:03, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Option 3 (all years) - Based on AndyTheGrump's research, this is a churnalism outfit that makes schoolboy errors and who's links by other sources can probably be attributed to journalists in a hurry.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 22:33, 8 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 3 (all years) - My experience with SF is that, while some factual information may be buried in their stories, much of it is just farming content for social media consumption. Announcements of new routes, etc., might be factual (even if they're just re-prints of corporate press releases), but there are too many instances of factually incorrect statements included in their reporting. Considering this, it's best that they be considered "generally unreliable" and articles should avoid citing them, especially if other sources exist. I think it's also a bad idea to apply the rubric that reliable sources cite SF here, considering the authors of those otherwise RS are likely not aviation specialists and might be inclined to believe whatever they read on sites like this. nf utvol (talk) 16:33, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 4 (all years) - I've consistently reviewed additions of Simple Flying as a source since the prior consensus emerged and support fully depreciating it. It is not currently used on Wikipedia but it is added a few times a week. I'm interested in aviation so I often read articles from Simple Flying and often find inaccuracies. It's only really useful as an aggregator of events but completely useless for facts. Depreciating would save a lot of time. Avgeekamfot (talk) 19:57, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion (Simple Flying)

This site has been the subject of two previous discussions here and is frequently added (and removed) from articles. Chetsford (talk) 06:40, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply
For reference those discussions were:
WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 421#SimpleFlying.com
and
WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 423#SimpleFlying revisit.
Simple Flying is a Valnet publication[14]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:22, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why is this RfC distinguishing between '2024 and later' and 'prior to 2024'? Has something of significance changed? If so, we need to be told what it is, and be given evidence that it matters. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:32, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I have the same question. I am unaware of any changes after 2024 that would impact their reliability (which, for the record, is not exactly stellar). nf utvol (talk) 16:46, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Same here. What changed in 2024 that might change its reliability? - ZLEA _T\^C 17:28, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

As I said above, virtually every example of WP:UBO I can find is 2024 or later. Why that is I can't say, but it probably doesn't matter. Wikipedians generally don't have the capacity to engage in correct evaluation of the veracity of online sources; a best practice would require evaluation of at least two constructed weeks of content for every six months evaluated. In the absence of this individualized ability, we do (or should) rely on on what RS do to ascertain the reliability of any given source. RS, in this case and as far as I can tell, seem to have adopted an observable pattern of use that preferences 2024 and later. (Perhaps others will notice a different pattern or no pattern at all, though, in which case they can normalize their opinions between the two time periods.) Chetsford (talk) 17:47, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

As has been explained below, UBO isn't enough to evaluate the reliability of a source. In addition to the factual reporting problem, WP:Simple Flying states that the source has engag[ed] in plagiarism and churnalism. Therefore, I'm going to have to oppose any change in its reliability rating unless and until it can be shown that all of its issues have improved. - ZLEA _T\^C 23:36, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I thought I'd take a look at what content Simple Flying currently has on its website. An article entitled How Many P‑47 Thunderbolts Were Built? [15] has just been published, and since I know a little about the P-47, that seemed worth further inspection. And I have to say, I'm far from impressed. The article is repetitive and badly written (e.g. "Thunderbolts destroyed upwards of 7,000 Axis aircraft, with around half of that number being on the ground and more than half being in air-to-air combat." which requires rather unorthodox mathematics) and gives a distinctly unfinished impression - assuming that an LLM wasn't involved somewhere, which seems at least possible. If this is at all typical of Simple Flying's output, I'd have to query why we'd want to cite it at all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

Another example of sloppy writing, from February this year: "Supermarine built a number of seaplanes, including the Seafire (a naval version of the Spitfire)" [16] Either the writer doesn't understand what a seaplane is - a float-equipped aeroplane operating from water rather than land - or he has done zero research into the Seafire, which most definitely wasn't equipped with floats, being instead a modification of the Spitfire design, equipped with a tailhook etc for operation from aircraft carriers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:18, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I should probably nominate this bit of insightful writing for the annual internet stating-the-obvious prize (I assume there is one. If not, there should be.), From Why The Boeing 747 Has Four Engines (published 4 days ago) .[17] "The Boeing 747 has four engines because that is what it was designed with. It was designed with four engines because, in the 1960s, four engines were considered optimal given the engines available, the need for power, and the range requirements." AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:39, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't have much familiarity with aviation but I have to agree with Andy here. This site to an outsider looks like a bit of a content farm, even if it isn't necessarily written entirely by AI. The sheer volume of articles being put out per day by the same contributors, as well as the SEO-bait content Andy highlighted is cause for concern. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:59, 31 July 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't presuppose any knowledge or ability to judge what sources are reliable. I can only go by what reliable sources indicate are reliable. Chetsford (talk) 01:54, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Evaluation of the reliability of sources (in general, or for specific content) by Wikipedia contributors is a routine process - it is the purpose of this noticeboard. One does not require any particular specialist skill to recognise bad writing, and only minimal knowledge to recognise the sort of obvious error that a legitimate aviation journalist shouldn't be making. And no, WP:UBO isn't some sort of trump card for negating such assessment. It is evidence to take into consideration, alongside other considerations, that is all. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:08, 1 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I started an essay which some other editors have helpfully contributed to on this outlet which may be helpful for editors as they participate at WP:Simple Flying. Avgeekamfot (talk) 19:59, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

National Post on Israel/Palestine

Latest comment: 1 day ago58 comments18 people in discussion

I am being proactive here because I think we need to treat a source as unreliable for Israel / Palestine and that source is the National Post. They recently published an article claiming that Anas Al-Sharif was a "Hamas terror cell leader" and that he was "posing as an Al Jazeera journalist." [18] Al-Sharif's death is so recent that WP:BLP would still apply to him but what's concerning here is this is being reported as news rather than opinion despite the fact that Al Jazeera has stated that Al-Sharif was, in fact, a journalist. This has been widely confirmed in other sources [19] [20] [21] [22]. In light of this obvious factual error around a recently deceased person I think it's evident that National Post cannot be trusted to report accurate news, at least regarding the Israel / Palestine situation. Frankly this is such an egregious violation of journalistic ethics that I think it casts doubt upon the outlet's reliability as a source at all. Simonm223 (talk) 16:13, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

You should point an ongoing trend of unreliable articles, not just a single article that you disliked. Cambalachero (talk) 16:32, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is not a matter of me disliking it. This is a matter of it being grossly inaccurate. Simonm223 (talk) 16:38, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

National Post says X, Al Jazeera says not-X. National Post may be mistaken about a breaking-news item and if so it's up to the folks editing the Wikipedia article (if one exists) to evaluate the sources. I don't think what the OP thinks. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:40, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

In such a situation, I would recommend deferring to sources like Reuters [23] A prominent Al Jazeera journalist, who had previously been threatened by Israel, was killed along with four colleagues in an Israeli airstrike in an attack condemned by journalists and rights groups. As far as our evaluation of National Post, it's a bad look at the moment to be reiterating this narrative in the face of Reuters and CBC's coverage to the contrary (looking online quickly, AP and CNN are also calling him a journalist without qualification or attribution) and apparent lack of other RS backing its narrative, but I'd agree that it's too soon to jump to a general indictment of the source; the story will develop as further coverage is published, and they may yet make a correction. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 16:47, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Then again, if we're picking things out, his bio says, "worked for a Hamas media team before the Gaza war," Sir Joseph ^(talk) 21:18, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

(edit conflict)Echoing what Gulutzan and Rosguill said above - while I have my concerns about the NP (they often remind me far too much of the New York Post), Al Jazeera themselves have been acknowledged as a sometimes-biased outlet (see WP:RSP) and probably shouldn’t be the primary source used to dispute claims about one of their own employees. Utilize other more independent, sources (like the Reuters article above) to back your argument up.

And similarly to Camalbachero, a repeated pattern of inaccuracies is needed to establish unreliability. The Kip ^(contribs) 17:02, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The article is syndicated content from the Jewish News Syndicate, not native NP reporting. There is limited previous discussion about the reliability of the JNS. Note also the distinction between agencies reporting what the IDF claims versus stating facts in their own voice. --Animalparty! (talk) 17:25, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This appears to be more about the JNS, which has a rabid pro-Israel stance. Though it should be noted that NP isn't any better in that regard but I question its GREL status in the first place. It would appear that it often lets opinion drive even its regular news coverage. Gotitbro (talk) 20:56, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Simonm223, the National Post has updated the headline to: "Israeli strike in Gaza slays Anas al-Sharif, who Israel says posed as an 'Al Jazeera' journalist while directing rocket attacks for Hamas." Therefore, this discussion can now be considered resolved and no longer relevant. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 20:06, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The situation is really clear here. Outlets like the Guardian, El Pais and Repubblicca refer to al-Shariff as a journalist, but report that Israel has made a claim that he was the leader of a Hamas cell without any evidence. As of now, we should report that he was a journalist and include that the IDF have made an unsubstantiated claim that he was a member of Hamas in the section on his death.

Eventually we are likely to be unable to use a lot of sources on I/P due to genocide denial, but that's a question for another day.Boynamedsue (talk) 17:59, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Alaexis_¿question? 16:38, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The article was corrected: see current version vs. archive of original version. The correction was undisclosed. — Newslinger talk 19:41, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Interestingly, the JNS article retains the old content. National Post has updated the byline from "Jewish News Service" to "National Post Wire Services" and adds a statement at the bottom reading "— With files from Jewish News Syndicate and The Associated Press". I guess we'll see if they do further due diligence cleaning this up (that the current article is still at a url that reads .../idf-kills-hamas-terror-cell-leader-posing-as-al-jazeera-journalist is also sloppy, I would imagine the most proper thing to do would be to move the page to a new url and redirect the old url to the new one) _signed,Rosguill ^talk 19:50, 11 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

More likely the allegations of genocide will end once the war is over and a full assessment can be done. But I would agree that almost all sources are biased in some way on the IP conflict. Even the more mainstream sources have published Hamas or Gaza "government" claims without evidence, and later were forced to retract them. Metallurgist (talk) 19:02, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is not an "obvious factual error." Al-Sharif definitely worked for a Hamas media organisation ([24]). As to him being a cell leader, no RS have said that he definitely wasn't one. They did say that the evidence they had did not prove it, which is a different thing. A person man be a journalist and a militant at different times. Alaexis_¿question? 16:37, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

A person can be both a journalist and a militant—not just at different times of day, but even in the very same moment. Someone might collect intelligence for a militant operation while simultaneously conducting what appears to be a journalistic investigation. In fact, even democratic countries have frequently employed spies who posed as journalists, or journalists who served as spies.[1] This is likely even more common under authoritarian regimes such as Hamas’ rule in Gaza. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 17:54, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Had worked, in the least. CNN has established that, before the war in Gaza, Al-Sharif worked for a Hamas media team in the strip. In an audio recording from several months ago, Al-Sharif could be heard criticizing the stance adopted by the Hamas negotiating team. (Emphasis mine.) It isn't clear if he was with Hamas during the conflict, thus it still might be an error, though it would not be as bad as it was claimed initially. --Super Goku V (talk) 23:43, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

That he at one time "worked for a Hamas media team" (whatever that means) doesn't lend credence to the claim that he was a "Hamas terror cell leader" or that he was "posing as an Al Jazeera journalist." (He indisputably was an Al Jazeera journalist and no RS say he was a terrorist.)

It's worse than an "obvious factual error" - it's an obvious slander of a murdered journalist. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:12, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't believe that it lends credence to the claims that he was a "terror cell leader", but my understanding was that when this was started, there were no proven ties while there has been at least a proven tie. My main point is that it can still be an error as his ties or non-ties to Hamas during the war are not clear. Only his ties before the war are clear and they do not current support the "terror cell leader" claim. Does that help clarify what I am trying to say? --Super Goku V (talk) 00:46, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

"My main point is that it can still be an error" - I'm not sure how anyone can think it's an error or being done in good faith. It's clearly misinformation/propaganda of the worst kind.

The JNS article (still unretracted [25]) is headlined "IDF kills Hamas terror cell leader posing as ‘Al Jazeera’ journalist", and its first sentence states as a fact that Al-Sharif "posed as a journalist for the Qatari Al Jazeera network but was actively serving as the head of a Hamas terrorist cell." This article denies that he was even a journalist at all. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 02:57, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

IOHANNVSVERVS, my use of the word error is literally from how this discussion started: In light of this obvious factual error around a recently deceased person I think it's evident that National Post cannot be trusted to report accurate news, at least regarding the Israel / Palestine situation. (EM.) If my use of the word error is the problem, then I will change it in all of my comments if you want me to. At the absolute simplest, it can still be incorrect, but not completely and fully to the degree as it was originally claimed. It can still be bad. It can still be terrible. It just currently, in my personal opinion, as bad as it was initially claimed. If we have more evidence or proof come in, for or against this, then my opinion can change on the matter.

Finally, I don't care about the JNS; I care about the National Post. This was started about the National Post and that is what I am focusing on. JNS can be discussed for a restriction on I-P content if we need to. --Super Goku V (talk) 03:25, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

But if the JNS is not reliable and the NP is amplifying/copying/reproducing their articles doesn't that affect the reiability of the NP? (I'm genuinely not sure how this works) IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:33, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the part regarding "amplifying/copying/reproducing their articles", that refers to SYNDICATION. While this was a syndicated story at the beginning, the situation has changed since this started. Let me quote from each article as they currently are to compare:

TNP: The Israel Defense Forces killed Anas al-Sharif, who Israel says posed as a journalist for the Qatari Al Jazeera network but was actively serving as the head of a Hamas terrorist cell.
JSN: The Israel Defense Forces killed Anas al-Sharif, who posed as a journalist for the Qatari Al Jazeera network but was actively serving as the head of a Hamas terrorist cell.
TNP: The IDF previously released intelligence and recovered many documents in Gaza that it says shows al-Sharif’s “military” role within Hamas. These materials include personnel rosters, records of terrorist training courses, phone directories and salary documents, all substantiating his alleged involvement as a combatant and commander in Hamas.
JSN: The IDF previously released intelligence and recovered many documents in Gaza that confirmed al-Sharif’s “military” role within Hamas. These materials include personnel rosters, records of terrorist training courses, phone directories and salary documents, all substantiating his involvement as a combatant and commander in Hamas.
TNP: Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF, posted pictures on X on Sunday showing al-Sharif taking a selfie with Hamas terror leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Khalil al-Hayya. “Only a terrorist sits in the gatherings of terrorists,” Adraee wrote. The Committee to Protect Journalists and others described the death of al-Sharif and others as retribution against those documenting the war in Gaza. Israel’s military asserted that al-Sharif had led a Hamas cell — an allegation that Al Jazeera and al-Sharif previously dismissed as baseless.
JSN: Col. Avichay Adraee, head of the Arab Media Branch in the IDF, posted pictures on X on Sunday showing al-Sharif taking a selfie with Hamas terror leaders, including Yahya Sinwar and Khalil al-Hayya. “Only a terrorist sits in the gatherings of terrorists,” Adraee wrote. (End of paragraph)
TNP: Five of the journalists killed in an Israeli airstrike on Sunday were Al Jazeera staffers. The military has previously said it targeted individuals it described as Hamas terrorists posing as reporters. (New paragraph) The strike came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists of being members of the militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a July 24 video, Adraee attacked Al Jazeera and accused al-Sharif of being part of Hamas’ military wing.
JSN: (Paragraphs do not exist.)

The article by the National Post is no longer an exact copy of the Jewish News Syndicate article. It seems as though writers for the National Post have modified the original syndicated copy. This is part of the reason why I am just trying to focus on the National Press. --Super Goku V (talk) 04:37, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@IOHANNVSVERVS, what you've written is simply false. Nowhere the "article denies that he was even a journalist." They call him a journalist here, for example The strike came less than a year after Israeli army officials first accused al-Sharif and other Al Jazeera journalists. Alaexis_¿question? 10:08, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@IOHANNVSVERVS Credence exists on a spectrum rather than as a simple yes-or-no matter. Therefore, although his undisputed past work for Hamas’s media team does not, by itself, prove that he was currently a Hamas militant, it still lends more weight to that claim than if we had no such information about his background. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 09:22, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

There is simply no legitimate claim that he was a militant, and no one is making that claim except for the IDF who killed him. It couldn't be more obvious misinformation/propaganda.

That years ago he worked for a "Hamas media team" (whatever that means, as the nature of the work done is not specified) is not relevant to the absurd allegation he was any sort of lawful combatant when he was killed.

For more context see some excerpts from this article:

In July, Irene Khan, the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, said, "I am deeply alarmed by repeated threats and accusations of the Israeli army against Anas al-Sharif, the last surviving journalist of Al Jazeera in northern Gaza."

That same month, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international press freedom NGO, warned that al-Sharif was being subjected to a "smear campaign by the Israeli military." [...] CPJ published a statement [...] saying that "Israel's pattern of labeling journalists as militants without providing credible evidence raises serious questions about its intent and respect for press freedom. Journalists are civilians and must never be targeted."

Martin Roux of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) told DW there had been "a smear campaign" to justify the killing of al-Sharif. He said al-Sharif was [...] a prominent Al Jazeera journalist."

IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 20:54, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The claim that he was a member of Hamas’s military wing at present, may turn out to be false, but it isn’t "absurd". It is not at all implausible that someone could be both a journalist and a combatant, and the use of journalists as spies is hardly uncommon in many parts of the world. For example, consider the case of Abdullah Al-Jamal, a journalist who was found to have held a hostage in his family home [1][2]. That said, all of this is getting off-topic. Even if we assume the allegation against Al-Sharif was entirely baseless, the National Post corrected it almost immediately after publication. All reliable sources make mistakes at times; what matters is how they respond - whether they promptly issue corrections, as the National Post did here, or whether they double down, as some of the other RS outlets I’ve mentioned have occasionally done. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 09:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The National Post should not be considered reliable for anything controversial, it is more or less propaganda along the lines of the New York Post as someone made comparison to. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:15, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

We actually have an article on a hoax started by the National Post: 2006 Iranian sumptuary law hoax. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:17, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also from the National Post Wiki page "In a 2021 academic study on the presentation of the subject of climate change in 17 mainstream media outlets in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the National Post came out as the worst in terms of its misrepresentation of the scientific consensus on the impact of anthropogenic climate change." IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 23:27, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Again, this article was by Jewish News Syndicate, not the National Post. But since you've found a controversy or two, I guess you're also in favor of downgrading the New York Times because of List of The New York Times controversies. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:11, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are you arguing that the National Post is reliable? Are you familiar with the paper? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 00:13, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Please see the 2024 discussion. I agree with the consensus view the NP is generally reliable, with a conservative bias. --Animalparty! (talk) 00:29, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I’m familiar with the National Post and consider it generally reliable. A source can’t be dismissed solely because of a few controversies. Many sources listed as generally reliable in WP:RSP have faced multiple controversies and accusations over the years, e.g.: Al Jazeera controversies, Criticism of Amnesty International, BBC controversies, The Intercept#Controversies, List of The New York Times controversies, NPR controversies etc. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 09:39, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for educating me, @Animalparty and @EntropyReducingGuy, I'm not the most experienced editor.

I think I see what you mean now. That the NP is generally reliable for facts in its news reporting articles (which exclude its opinion pieces). Thoughts on my comment below[26] distinguishing between factual reliability and reliability in determining weight/relevance/dueness of information? IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:03, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Also relevant is this quotation of the National Post's editor-in-chief Rob Roberts: "You know, the staff understand our mission. Conrad Black founded the National Post as an explicitly Zionist newspaper"[27] -IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 03:21, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

How is it relevant? At best this could indicate a bias. Many other reliable sources are biased one way or another without that affecting their reliability. Alaexis_¿question? 10:04, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I note the comment comes in an article about the paper getting an award for integrity, not usually an indicator of general unreliability. Zionism =\= unreliability. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:58, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The article cited is a wire service article pulled from JNS and AP. Its also attributing the claims to the Israeli military, not stating them as fact. So, this is not enough to consider them unreliable. Metallurgist (talk) 18:58, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I support classifying NP as unreliable on I/P related topics. This goes beyond unreliability (like poor fact checking, etc.) into publishing fairly egregious WP:LIBEL. The original article from JNS declares al-Sharif the head of Hamas terrorist cell without attributing that claim to the Israeli military (contra Metallurgist above). That the NP relied on JNS without any fact checking and then updated their article (likely in response to criticism) to attribute the claim to the IDF without disclosing the correction is further evidence of a poor reputation for checking the facts [and] lack meaningful editorial oversight per WP:NOTRS. NP has a noted history of publishing JNS material [28] despite its explicitly stated pro-Israel bias. I have no opinion on NP's reliability outside this subject area.EvansHallBear (talk) 19:12, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I would support it being considered reliable for facts but unreliable for determining relevance/weight/dueness of information in the Israel-Palestine topic area. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 19:44, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Given that you specifically mentioned relevance, weight, and dueness, is there something specific that you feel NP is reliable for within the I-P area? Just want to make sure here. --Super Goku V (talk) 21:36, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

EvansHallBear said that they supported having NP as unreliable for I-P. You replied and specifically mentioned unreliable for relevance, weight, and dueness for I-P. It implied to me that you might be considering NP as reliable for something in the I-P area. I wasn't 100% sure if you were saying that NP would be reliable for facts in the I-P area (per I would support it being considered reliable for facts), if you were saying that NP was reliable for facts outside the I-P area and that there might be something else that NP was reliable for in the I-P area, or if you were meaning that NP is totally unreliable for I-P. --Super Goku V (talk) 22:37, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I meant reliable for facts in general including I-P. IOHANNVSVERVS (talk) 22:53, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

There are no shortage of WP:RS on either side of the I/P debate from Al Jazeera to Times of Israel that can be used for basic facts. I see no reason to thread the needle on NP, which is basically operating as IDF propaganda through its republishing of JNS articles. EvansHallBear (talk) 21:47, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand the distinction you make between Al-Jazeera and National Post. Many people think that Al Jazeera is operating as Hamas propaganda EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 10:42, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was referring to NP, not JNS. Metallurgist (talk) 21:09, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

As was I: original NP article EvansHallBear (talk) 21:19, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just to mention, Jewish News Syndicate content generally appears at a frequency of once a week or more. They are the authors of ten other stories since July 2nd, per their author page. --Super Goku V (talk) 22:40, 15 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Question: are newly-commenting editors coming merely to vent about the National Post in general, aghast that conservative news outlets have the temerity to exist, while neglecting the original context in which it was cited? The very top of this notice board, in big bold text, states Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context! Below that, in slightly smaller text, it states Context is important: supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. To recap: on 11 August, the NP originally reproduced a syndicated article from the Jewish News Syndicate, largely or entirely unedited. Shortly thereafter, the NP updated the article on its own website with additional reporting. This is in fact a good thing and a sign of reliability: per WP:NEWSORG: Signals that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy are the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest. Breaking news from any outlet should be treated with caution per WP:RSBREAKING, as breaking reports are very likely to change or be clarified as more facts emerge. We also don't use headlines, nor url codes, as reliable sources, per WP:HEADLINES. The question people seem to be overlooking is: is this one article in the NP still reliable for the claims within, especially after it has been updated? Is anyone looking to cite this particular National Post article, or the original JNS article, in any article???? The reliability of the National Post has been repeatedly discussed previously and found to be generally reliable; see WP:NATIONALPOST and this 2024 discussion. Whether you personally love it or hate it, it's considered generally reliable per WP:RSPS. That of course doesn't mean it is guaranteed to be free from error or misrepresentation. And yes, many sources have notable bias: all of you are probably fine with sources whose biases match your own views, but biased does not equal unreliable. The JNS and NP may well be biased regarding the Arab–Israeli conflict: per WP:ALJAZEERA, so is Al Jazeera. See also WP:THENATION and WP:MOTHERJONES. This thread has descended into bellyaching about the National Post in general, which is counter-productive unless specific claims about specific articles in context are raised. --Animalparty! (talk) 03:38, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

aghast that conservative news outlets have the temerity to exist, while neglecting the original context in which it was cited This is quite a WP:STRAWMAN! That an I-P issue is drawing new editors is hardly surprising. Almost all the comments I've seen are focusing exclusively on the context of the National Post reporting on this specific item.

I agree that a recap is in order: The IDF assassinated a well-known Al Jazeera journalist and made the extraordinary claim that he was a leader of a Hamas terrorist cell. This has been clear since the beginning so it's not WP:RSBREAKING where initial reports are wrong. Most high quality RS attributed the claims to the IDF and said they have not been independently verified. See for example, the BBC: [29] Even the pro-Israel Times of Israel, which largely reiterated IDF claims, attributed them to the IDF from the beginning and noted Al Jazeera's denials: [30]. The National Post however states the IDF claims as a proven fact and dismisses Al Jazeera's response as, " the media network’s efforts to distance itself from his activities."

This was not an innocent mistake in a rapidly evolving situation, but incredibly irresponsible journalism. That they later stealthily updated their article as outrage over the killing of a journalist grew without noting the correction or acknowledging the initial error is not exculpating. This is also not just an issue of bias, as I showed with the pro-Israel TOI appropriately attributing the claims, as we'd expect a WP:RS to do. The 2024 discussion focused on NP's coverage of climate change, COVID, and Canadian politics. So it's not germane to reliability on I-P.

Given that claims of terrorist links can get people killed, we cannot in good conscience amplify sources like the National Post that make such claims haphazardly and without basic journalistic oversight. EvansHallBear (talk) 16:30, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, while NP obviously failed twice (using the story and then correcting it without notice), the real issue for us is whether the wireservice is reliable, (in our policies, it says the wire service is responsible, which means that it should be the one cited, and it would be "via=NP" in the cite). So, if this is to move on, we would have to address that wire service. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:55, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Seems to me that a case for general unreliability or unreliability for I/P related facts, against either JNS or NP, needs more than this one case. If that’s our issue, we should file this as a data point against both (NP less so as it corrected, albeit without notice) and move on.

If the question is about whether to use it for this story, we have obviously better sources and no reason to use this one, so should move on. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:04, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The only thing that concerns me about this response is the question of filing this as a data point against both in that noticeboard conversations are quite a difficult place to maintain a non-fragmented archive of such failings. I'd be happier if we had some sort of repository of such failures as I think there's more than few newspapers and wire services we'd be more hesitant to treat as reliable if we had a method of bringing up a comprehensive history of their failure-events. Simonm223 (talk) 16:06, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

You can file this discussion in the Perennial source listing, and annotate the discussion (erroneous use of JNS, and correction without notice, or some such). Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:31, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

@Simonm223 For each media outlet you can create a list\table of incidents in a template that is attached to the talk page of that media outlet article. EntropyReducingGuy(We can talk, but I reply with intended delay)💧♾️➡❄️📚 16:40, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

RfC: Meduza

Latest comment: 5 days ago9 comments7 people in discussion

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Over 3,000 citations on en.wiki. Run by Russian dissidents, considered GREL on ru.wiki (ru:Википедия:Часто используемые источники). Previous discussion: 1, 2, 3, 4

meduza.io

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.

Numberguy6 (talk) 20:49, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Survey (Meduza)

Option 1. An expert quoted in this NYT article calls it one of the "leading independent Russian-language media outlets.” Also, there is WP:USEBYOTHERS, for example [31]. They were outlawed in Russia and naturally are a bit biased against the current Russian government but it doesn't mean that they are unreliable. Alaexis_¿question? 16:24, 14 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1. Highly reliable and respected. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:11, 17 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1 per WP:UBO. - Amigao (talk) 18:57, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Option 1. UBO[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]

one of the most robust independent Russian news sources[41]

Flagship independent Russian media organization, at least looking at readership[42]

Extensive article here[43]:

Meduza began as mainly a news aggregator but evolved rapidly into one of the leading Russophone news portals, providing extensive analytical reports about social, political, and cultural life in the RF and the wider world to audiences living both in and outside of the country. Its revenue is not based on subscriptions, but advertising, and it is therefore freely available to all users. Mixing news with lifestyle advice, Meduza models itself on The New York Times, a Western liberal media outlet, not Fox, the Daily Telegraph, or similar conservative networks available in the RF online.
the distinctiveness of Meduza’s position lies in it being simultaneously and in an intertwined way ‘Russian’ and ‘global’.
Meduza’s own developmental strategy is to extricate itself over time from its reliance on handouts from oligarchs, whatever their agenda, and to become economically independent ("oligarchs" e.g Khodorkovsky)
In group of outlets critical of the Kremlin, especially of its political authoritarianism and illiberal social policies...but that are not involved in political mobilization as such...their critical stance in relation to what goes on in the RF politically, socially, and otherwise is first and foremost a professional rather than a political position
Meduza is to some degree distinctive in that it pitches its own opposition to false, biased, and prejudiced information not only in the context of the RF itself, but also as a response to the global crisis of quality journalism

Etc and etc Placeholderer (talk) 08:11, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Option 1, per Alaexis and Placeholderer. --12:46, 20 August 2025 (UTC)
Option 1, per above. One of an increasingly smaller handful of outlets in Russia that isn’t directly under Putin’s thumb. The Kip ^(contribs) 05:13, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion (Meduza)

Has there been any prior discussions? Per the header and edit notice RFCs shouldn't be opened unless the source has been previously discussed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:29, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes. There are links to four previous discussions. Numberguy6 (talk) 22:34, 12 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorry not sure how I missed that, apparently I need better glasses. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 08:08, 13 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Politico spreading misinformation

Latest comment: 4 days ago11 comments9 people in discussion

Moved from Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources § Politico spreading misinformation

– Aaron Liu (talk) 02:36, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

OP has been informed that the appropriate place to challenge the status of a source is WP:RSN. Schazjmd (talk) 16:03, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

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.

Hi, Thanks to @Einsof and @AG202, it was revealed that Politico is spreading far-right misinformation. Please label Politico as a source not to be trusted. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/20/mamdanis-social-media-savvy-comes-at-a-cost-00464117 Árvízfúró Tükörtűrőgép (talk) 13:35, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The relevant discussion appears to be Talk:Zohran_Mamdani#Abolishing_private_property, and your summary here does not match what those two users actually said. I see no basis to deprecate Politico. MrOllie (talk) 13:43, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Then just deprecate Politico based on the far-right propaganda they published Árvízfúró Tükörtűrőgép (talk) 15:59, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Per the edit notice: To discuss the reliability of a source, please start or join a discussion on the reliable sources noticeboard (WP:RSN). [...] This talk page is for discussing the maintenance of the list itself, and arguments posted here will not be taken into consideration. There is no need to entertain this discussion thus recommend archiving. CNC (talk) 13:58, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

So you prefer that Politico spread the Kremlin's disinformation? Árvízfúró Tükörtűrőgép (talk) 15:59, 16 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

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 discussion can resume now that it's been moved to the noticeboard page. Are there any incorrect or misleading claims in the Politico article "Mamdani's social media savvy comes at a cost"? I don't see anything obviously wrong at a first glance, and none of the content resembles "far-right propaganda" or "the Kremlin's disinformation", as claimed. As far as I can tell, Politico's analysis here is reliable. — Newslinger talk 18:12, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Mamdabni was asked to choose between the current housing crisis or 'the abolition of private property'. His political opponents and sources that are opposed to him have tried to make a big deal out of his answer. The Politico piece is reporting on the situation, including that this is something being amplified by 'right-leaning news outfits and influencers'. So this seems a long way from "spreading far-right misinformation" as stated by the OP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:48, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Recommend closure of this section until OP can formulate an accurate description of the Talk page discussion in question and quote specific claims that they are basing this request on.

Until then, this is just wasting everyone’s time. MilesVorkosigan (talk) 00:46, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree the Politico piece is far from right-wing propaganda or disinformation. It's a fairly straightforward piece of media analysis about the discourse and coverage elsewhere. It's not making the claims it discusses nor repeating them as factual or reasonable. --MYCETEAE 🍄‍🟫—talk 00:02, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

BYU Studies

Latest comment: 4 days ago12 comments7 people in discussion

As it has come up in a deletion discussion, I support considering BYU Studies deprecated except when used to verify what Mormons believe. The journal describes itself as publishing "scholarship that is informed by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ" and that "Submissions are invited from all scholars who seek truth 'by study and also by faith'" [44]. It does not appear publications are subject to non-LDS peer review and its articles function as apologia. This is not an equivalent to the Mormon Studies Review. ~ Pbritti (talk) 03:20, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Isn't the issue independence rather than reliability, if this was a journal published by the Holy See commenting on Catholic dogma would it be independent? It would certainly be reliable for the beliefs of the Catholic church, but I'm not sure it would be completely independent. There's also how BYU Studies describe themselves "BYU Studies publishes scholarship that is aligned with the purposes of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the mission of his Church."[45], that's not a statement of impartiality nor one that would seemingly allow for critical inquiry. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:57, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Deprecation is a pretty big step; is there reason to think it publishes misinformation / disinformation / etc? That said, I think the main question is - is there any reason to think it has a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy? If not (and I don't really see any indication of that; I agree that simply being published in JSTOR is insufficient) then it's not a RS. Most of the debates over using it are likely to be in the context of using it as a source for Mormonism, and therefore focus on WP:INDEPENDENT or WP:PRIMARY or WP:DUE; but if it's not a RS then WP:ABOUTSELF becomes the only way it can be used, which introduces restrictions regarding anything unduly self-serving, among other things. Anyway, for deletion discussions in particularly I think it trivially fails INDEPENDENT and is therefore not usable as an indicator of notability for the WP:GNG or anything whose rules are similar. IMHO "in-house" publications like this should generally get a critical eye to see if they actually have a reputation sufficient to support them as an RS - any organization can publish stuff proclaiming their perspective, but if it doesn't have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy then it's only usable via WP:ABOUTSELF. --Aquillion (talk) 15:09, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I could see restrictions and cautions re BYU scholarship related specifically to Mormonism, but BYU produces scholarship in other fields, and can be considered reliable in those areas. Blueboar (talk) 15:33, 19 August 2025 (UTC) My mistake… I thought this was about any scholarship from BYU… but it is just about one journal they publish. Never mind. Blueboar (talk) 15:42, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
In general I support your statement that BYU Studies should generally only be used in the context of ABOUTSELF broadly construed. Deprecation doesn't really seem to fit the argument though... I think what you're describing is more additional considerations apply or generally unreliable. I second ActivelyDisinterested's point that in the context of the AfD independence or a lack thereof is the primary issue not notability per say. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:45, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I agree on this framing. The restriction to ABOUTSELF is approximately what I'm referring to, and you're absolutely right about the independence being the most pertinent aspect in the AfD. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
This is not a good idea. It would lead to deprecating most canon law journals like The Jurist (journal), respected Catholic theology journals like Communio and Concilium (journal), journals like New Blackfriars, most Catholic media. Jahaza (talk) 15:48, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
CUA's journals are subject to external scrutiny and rigorous academic standards not present in this BYU journal. This is an extraordinary case and not analogous to other journals on religious matters from sectarian universities. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:50, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
According to our article, The Jurist doesn't have an editorial board other than the CUA canon law faculty, all of whom are required to hold a nihil obstat from Congregation for Catholic Education. Jahaza (talk) 16:16, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Lets take a step back, I don't think that Pbritti is arguing for Wikipedia:DEPRECATION so lets not get hung up on that word. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:20, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

No, those aren't necessarily the same. There's really two entirely separate issues to consider for BYU Studies - first, whether it's independent (and therefore usable for WP:GNG), and second, whether it's a WP:RS. Unless I'm missing something, Concilium is definitely WP:INDEPENDENT - they and their publisher are not institutionally connected to the Catholic Church. Just glancing at its article, say, Concilium earning the Herbert Haag Prize for Freedom in the Church for 2015 in particular sticks out (although that sort of thing isn't necessary; the important thing is that they're not part of an organization that the church directly controls.) Jurist and New Blackfriars are probably not independent by this logic - eg. Jurist is published by the Catholic University of America, a Pontifical university ultimately controlled by the Catholic Church itself. That doesn't necessarily mean they're not WP:RSes, it just means we have to attribute them and make their affiliation clear in-text when talking about stuff related to the church, and can't use them for a few specific things (like the GNG). For WP:RS the question is whether they have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which isn't really directly connected to whether they're a religious publication; we'd have to dig into each one individually, but it doesn't really have anything to do with whether BYU Studies is an RS. --Aquillion (talk) 17:19, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The consensus at WP:LDS/RS is that this source is non-independent, with an "additional considerations" rating for reliability. The summary is as follows:

A peer-reviewed journal that generally meets academic standards. However, some articles may be tilted to favor institutional narratives of the LDS Church, as the journal self-describes as "scholarship informed by the restored gospel of Jesus Christ," i.e., the Latter-day Saint tradition. This is most true for articles in ancient Book of Mormon studies, the premise of which does not cohere with the scholarly archaeological community's broader consensus on archaeology of the Americas. Articles on other subjects (history, sociology, etc.) tend to meet a higher standard of reliability.

Left guide (talk) 06:58, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

ArXiv.org preprint being repetitively added

Latest comment: 14 hours ago24 comments16 people in discussion

This source [46], an ArXiv preprint, has recently been added to Anthropic Bias, Superintelligence, Philosophy of artificial intelligence, Animal consciousness, Anthropic principle, Vertiginous question, Artificial consciousness, Technological singularity, and Fermi paradox. Example texts of what it's being used to source:

The question of why we exist as humans has implications within the field of anthropics. Toby Pereira has proposed a principle in anthropics called the super-strong self sampling assumption (SSSSA), which is a variant of the strong self-sampling assumption proposed by Nick Bostrom in the book Anthropic Bias. The SSSSA asserts that the probability of a conscious observer existing as a particular being is weighted toward the "size" of that being in cognitive terms. Since non-human animals vastly outnumber humans, this begs the question of why we happen to find ourselves as humans, since it is statistically far more likely to exist as a non-human animal if animals are conscious. The answer according to the SSSSA is that humans take up a disproportionate amount of consciousness-space. However, following this logic, this begs the question of why we don't find ourselves as superintelligent beings, since they would have an even larger cognitive size and share of consciousness-space if they existed. This may be evidence against the existence of future artificial consciousness and conscious superintelligent AI.^[1] Diff
One argument based on the anthropic principle argues against the future existence of future conscious superintelligent AI. A variation of the self-sampling assumption (SSA) introduced in the book Anthropic Bias is the super-strong self sampling assumption (SSSSA), which weights the probability of existing as a given observer-moment according to their "size" in cognitive terms. Since non-human animals vastly outnumber humans and humans only form a tiny fraction of conscious observers on Earth, this begs the question of why we happen to find ourselves as humans rather than as non-human animals. The answer proposed by the SSSSA is that a human mind takes up a larger share of "consciousness-space" than the mind of a non-human animal. If existing as a human is a typical observer-moment, it can be argued that this is evidence against the existence of future conscious superintelligence, since conscious superintelligence would take up a far larger portion of consciousness-space than a human mind and would imply that human observer-moments are far more atypical.^[2] Diff
Toby Pereira has argued against the existence of future conscious superintelligence based on anthropic reasoning. Pereira proposes a variant of Bostrom's original SSSA called the super-strong self sampling assumption (SSSSA). The SSSSA asserts that the probability of a conscious observer existing as a particular being is weighted toward the "size" of that being in cognitive terms. The SSSSA is also related to the question of animal consciousness. If non-human animals are conscious, humans only form a tiny fraction of all conscious beings on earth. This begs the question of why we happen to find ourselves as humans rather than animals, since a given conscious observer finding themselves as a human would seem to be statistically extremely improbable. The answer provided by the SSSSA is that humans take up a disproportionate amount of "consciousness-space". However, following this logic, this begs the question of why we don't find ourselves as superintelligent beings, since they would form an even larger share of consciousness-space. Pereira argues that this is evidence against the existence of future conscious superintelligent AI.^[3] Diff

References

^ Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.
^ Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.
^ Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.

This seems to me both unreliable and UNDUE. I removed the instance at Fermi paradox, but since it's recent, possibly ongoing, is affecting multiple articles, and seems to be linked to one editor, I thought this might be a centralized place to have it reviewed by others. Geogene (talk) 18:17, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Notified FTNB [47] Geogene (talk) 18:32, 19 August 2025 (UTC) Reply

Not making an argument for the reliablity of pre-prints, but what exactly is fringe about the anthropic principle? TarnishedPath^talk 04:54, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

This isn't about the anthropic principle, it's about Pereira's argument. Elestrophe (talk) 23:29, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't see a good reason to cite an 8-year-old

preprint (RSP entry) that has not been subsequently published in a peer-reviewed academic journal. "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence" is a self-published source, and I can't find any evidence that the author Toby Pereira is a subject-matter expert (in general, or as defined in WP:SPS). Pereira does not seem to disclose any information about who he is, other than his name, in any of his four indexed publications (all of which are preprints on arXiv). This preprint is unreliable, and so are Pereira's other preprints. — Newslinger talk 18:37, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Alexey Turchin has cited Pereira in multiple articles he has written. Turchin cites Pereira in this article on Boltzmann brains and this article on quantum immortality. He also lists Pereira's SSSSA in this LessWrong post. ImmortalRationalist (talk) 19:21, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

A peer-reviewed article citing a preprint does not automatically make that preprint reliable, as the preprint itself has not passed peer review. Peer-reviewed articles can cite all kinds of information, including unreliable and self-published sources. The fact that a self-published eprint in PhilPapers (philarchive.org) and a self-published blog post on LessWrong mentions a preprint does not make the preprint reliable, either. Google Scholar finds that the preprint has only been cited five times, with only two of those citations being peer-reviewed publications. — Newslinger talk 19:49, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

ArXiv is basically a hosting site, making the works effectively selfpublished. For selfpublished works you should look for the author having been previously published in the relevant field by other reliable sources, see WP:EXPERTSPS for the policy. A few cites and a mention on a website wouldn't be enough. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:06, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Turchin is a crank anyway. All these longtermist people are a walled garden - they cite each other a lot but nobody outside of their very insular bubble gives any consideration to their drivel. Simonm223 (talk) 16:39, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

One of the two citations mentioned is in the Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies, which is an outlet of a transhumanist group, not a mainstream journal. So, there's really not a lot indicating that this preprint had any influence. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 04:47, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hard to see how this is due. If the preprint was highly cited/influential I could maybe see a case for making an exception, but it's obviously pretty obscure and has made little impact on the field. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:31, 19 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Unreliable, undue, and possibly fringe as well. The claims are extraordinary on their face, and this arxiv preprint is certainly not enough to justify them. Elestrophe (talk) 06:47, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Good catch. Let me just point out that ImmortalRationalist, who commented above, is the editor responsible for all these additions. Also let me point out -and some will say that it doesn't matter to this discussion, but I disagree- that Since non-human animals vastly outnumber humans, this begs the question of why we happen to find ourselves as humans, since it is statistically far more likely to exist as a non-human animal if animals are conscious. is a ridiculously fallacious statistical reasoning and anyone who writes such nonsense is unlikely to be a reliable source for anything. VdSV9•♫ 12:58, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Fringe, if not complete bollocks. Certainly doesn't belong in any article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Bostrom represents the very worst of the "thought-puzzle in an abstract void" style of philosophy and this paper seems to be... like... a bad retelling of one of Bostrom's thought puzzles. Simonm223 (talk) 16:37, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The bar for submitting a preprint is exceedingly low. There's no editorial oversight, no peer-review, no authorial qualifications required. Unless such a pre-print can be shown to have been accepted into a peer-reviewed journal as-is, it is not a reliable source per our accepted criteria. Full stop. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 13:13, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Actually arXiv does have some editorial oversight [48], but it is pretty minimalist. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 13:36, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I think we can all agree that the editorial oversight on arXiv is insufficient to meet the bar for it not constituting a repository of WP:SPS. I've removed this patently unreliable source from a couple of articles. It should be removed from all others. Simonm223 (talk) 14:54, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not full stop. It's not automatically not reliable; it's just self-published. The consideration is whether it was produced by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. Citation counts are another helpful indicator (on top of subject-matter expertise) -- there are a lot of widely cited white papers and other non-peer-reviewed sources on arxiv produced by experts. Trying to find information about the author, the best I could find was a twitter profile. Candidate for Braintree in the 2015 UK general election, philosopher and comedian. Author of Stuff and Consciousness: Connecting Matter and Mind. - As far as I can tell, none of the boxes are checked for publication, for author expertise, or for citations. So same conclusion, with more words. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 16:38, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
I have to concur with Rhododendrites. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:44, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I agree it's completely undue per WP:SPSPREPRINT. The list of articles citing this preprint is [49] Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:56, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Probably worth figuring out who added it and looking at their other edits for unusual low-profile publications added to multiple articles ... — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 17:02, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
These were all added by ImmortalRationalist, who commented above. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:10, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'll also chime in to agree that this is not one of the small fraction of arXiv preprints that are suitable sources for Wikipedia. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 04:40, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Master thesis

Latest comment: 4 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

This source is a master thesis from the University of Padova. According to WP:Thesis: Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence.” Because such sources also often aim to question or revise existing knowledge, concerns arise when the thesis is cited a significant number of times in the article of Voisava Kastrioti. For instance, the last two sentences of the article’s "Early life" section rely exclusively on the thesis and present claims about the historical person’s birthplace and name that differ from those in other sources. Azor (talk). 19:48, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Obviously no. Other sourcing is more preferable Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:17, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's not a great source, but I'd suggest trying to replace it rather than instantly removing it, since the stuff cited doesn't (at a glance) seem terribly controversial or exceptional. One thing that might be useful is to check the thesis' own sources and replace it with stuff from them when possible, assuming they're WP:RSes themselves. --Aquillion (talk) 21:42, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
That seems like a great approach, Aquillion. Thank you both. I’ll check the thesis’ references and see if RS can be used instead. Azor (talk). 07:18, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

In addition to the sources in the thesis, check for other works by the author. In my area it was typical for thesis contents to be made mostly from previously published journal/conference work. Springee (talk) 11:49, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the tip. I'll see what can be done. I've also added templates to the article for the time being in case editors familiar with the article may be able to help. Azor (talk). 22:28, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

CCTV and CRI english for Angus Tung

Latest comment: 3 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

Hi, I'm trying to reference Angus Tung. There are two news articles in the EL section, are any of them usable? One is CCTV, the other is CRI. I see on WP:RSP that CCTV international has been deprecated, does it fall under that? CCTV CRI ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 23:01, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The RfC only covered CGTN and no other CCTV properties, and since CGTN only existed after 2016 the articles wouldn't be covered under the deprecation from my understanding. This also doesn't seem like a controversial subject where the Chinese government has a stake in, so I would say they are usable. Jumpytoo Talk 17:45, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

CTGN being deprecated doesn't cover CCTV as far as I understand. As always, use CCP-controlled outlets with caution and common sense. They're probably fine for uncontroversial facts, but as WP:XINHUA says, don't use it in areas where the government of China may have a reason to use it for propaganda or disinformation, like Tibet or Uyghurs. Hemiauchenia (talk) 19:22, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well Angus Tung is Taiwanese, but I see, should be fine for basic stuff then. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:14, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

There has been some confusion in multiple discussions on this noticeboard regarding what the "CCTV International" in the parentheses of the China Global Television Network (CGTN) perennial sources entry refers to. CCTV International is the former name of CGTN, and all CCTV International channels were rebranded to CGTN as of 1 January 2017. China Central Television (CCTV) channels that are not under CGTN are not deprecated. The List of China Media Group channels article shows which channels are and are not under CGTN; the Foreign channels section is the only part of the list that contains CGTN channels.

I've updated the CGTN perennial sources entry in Special:Diff/1307406010 to list noticeboard discussions after the 2020 request for comment, note that CCTV International is CGTN's former name, and clarify that CCTV channels outside of CGTN are not deprecated. — Newslinger talk 11:45, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The article under discussion, "Angus Tung freshens up folk music" (2006), is part of the Culture Express news program, which was originally broadcast on CCTV-9, the name used by an English-language channel that was later renamed to CGTN and CGTN Documentary in the 1 January 2017 rebranding, carrying Culture Express with it. Since this article is actually part of CCTV International (the precursor of CGTN), and not merely a CCTV channel that is unconnected to CGTN, whether the article should be considered deprecated is a good question. — Newslinger talk 13:33, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Old books

Latest comment: 4 days ago6 comments5 people in discussion

A book that was written in the 1890s, can it be used as a source on Wikipedia, and are there guidelines and rules on whether or not to use it on Wikipedia? اکانزانا (talk) 15:33, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

In addition, the subject of the book is about political geography and anthropologyاکانزانا (talk)

With that additional context I think we're much more clearly in the realm of "no" Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:52, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Without any more context the answer is "it depends" but in general is almost certainly no... A source that old would have very limited uses if any. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:36, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Some guidelines at WP:OLDSOURCES. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:37, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

If in an historical context, almost certainly so. For instance, Lorimer's 1915 Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf is generally pretty much academically considered as sovereign for the historical information it gives up to its date of publication, even if its tone is at times disputed. But as HEB points out, context is everything here. Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:48, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It really does depend on context. For sourcing when a railway line was built and why, that's probably fine, unless contradicted by a newer source. For a discussion of the politics of the era, probably not. Mackensen (talk) 15:56, 21 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks to all the friends who commented in this section and guided me, I will open the issue further to reach a better result A seven-volume book titled historical and geographical words by Ahmad Rifat Efendi Yaghluqchizadeh, which was written more than a hundred years ago, but a user on Wikipedia wants to comment on geographical areas by citing this book and publish a map that is contrary to other modern maps and even other historical maps

This map introduces Kurdistan, one of Iran's provinces, West Azerbaijan, with reference to the mentioned book, which is contrary to today's political geography and even historical books. Is it possible to comment on today's political geography only by citing this bookاکانزانا (talk)

Arianism

Latest comment: 4 days ago3 comments3 people in discussion

This is about [50]. Please chime in. tgeorgescu (talk) 01:28, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

kingdomtruther.com is obviously not an WP:RS. Self-published source, the author listed on the "About" page is Todd Edwards, who, according to LinkedIn does not have the necessary qualifications to be considered an expert. Site actively publishes conspiracy theories, including Holocaust denialism and The Great Reset.

blog.judahgabriel.com, is, as the URL says, a blog, which is once again a WP:SPS. Better than kingdomtruther.com, but not what I would consider an RS since it's just a blog.

The Standing For Truth debate is between two Youtubers, and falls under WP:RSPYT. Same goes for the other debate from The Gospel Truth. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 01:50, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I apologize for adding these sources to the page. I am not affiliated with any of the people behind these sources and only added them out of good faith. I appreciate the correction. TorahRight (talk) 02:03, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Rudolf Steiner (Cambridge Scholars Publishing)

Latest comment: 2 days ago9 comments3 people in discussion

This is about Redwood, Thomas (2022). The Philosophy of Rudolf Steiner (PDF). Cambridge Scholars. p. 110. ISBN 978-1-5275-8310-8.

My tool marks Cambridge Scholars in red and says it's predatory. Please chime in.

From previous threads at RSN, it seems it should not get knee-jerk removed. tgeorgescu (talk) 02:21, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

From searching the archives, the most extensive discussion about this publisher was at WP:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 381#Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Left guide (talk) 06:50, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Anyway, his point is corroborated by Joseph A. Schwarcz, so we might say he is reliable for the claim which is made. tgeorgescu (talk) 09:16, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just as reliable authors can publish in predatory journals, they could also decide to publish through Cambridge Scholars. The green, yellow, red system itself, and the scripts that highlight links using it, is not on its own a reason to ever remove a source. At best they simply show the previous consensus of other editors.
Editors own good judgement is always required in the specific context of a sources use. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:14, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Redwood's book is apologetics. But according to the criterion of embarrassment, his statement is reliable. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:54, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The use in Rudolf Steiner is for a large quote from Redwood. Has he published previously on philosophy or Steiner something that shows this work should be considered reliable and his opinion due? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:05, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I am prepared to remove it, if that is the consensus. But Lachman's book makes the same point: Steiner is almost totally ignored in the mainstream academia. And Leijenhorst makes the same point for when Steiner was alive. Pattberg agrees. tgeorgescu (talk) 14:57, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Due to Cambridge Scholars business model the author really needs to have something to show they are reliable, without it I would suggest using a different source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:10, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Okay, I have removed it. tgeorgescu (talk) 16:09, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Consejo Minero

Latest comment: 3 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

Consejo Minero is an industry organization or guild grouping major mining companies operating in Chile. I found their website [51] quite useful to obtain basic information on different mines and processing plants (production, year of start of operations, number of employees). I have created more than 15 articles using its website as one of various sources and never found any serious issues with it. At most I found that some companies that have mines in which the produce has declined in recent times have not updated the information since 2021 or 2022. Looking at Google Scholar it seems that information provided by Consejo Minero (website and reports) is often cited and trusted by academic works discussing the mining industry. On the other hand, at least one academic source (thesis) characterize the organization as lobby organization, which is arguably true. How should we consider the reliability of its web content and reports? Ingminatacam (talk) 19:50, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

They should probably be considered primary, that is to say to treat them as if the details come straight from mine/processing plant owners. So reliable but with caution of any details that would be overly self-serving to the companies involved. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:08, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Jagannath

Latest comment: 20 hours ago5 comments3 people in discussion

I am unable to tell whether this source falls under scholarly source or news (or blog): mainstreamweekly.net. There is an editorial board, but the editors are not all scholars and there is no indication of a peer-review process.

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.

Also, this specific article [52] describes Vivekananda's view on the Jagannath temple. However, is one person's view/observation a reliable source to describe the historical origin of Jagannath? Swirlymarigold (talk) 20:54, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

what is the context for this? If it’s not widely used or causing disputes it’s really hard to justify rating this. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:15, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Can I suggest removing the rating options, these are only used in RFCs (which this is not). They only cause confusion in any replies.
The context for your question appears to be is "Did Ambedkar Appreciate Puri's Jagannath?" by A K Biswas (Obit.) reliable for "Swami Vivekananda in his book Lectures from Colombo to Almora mentioned that Jagannath temple was once a Buddhist temple." Biswas gives a citation for his claim, Swami Vivekananda in 'The Sages of India' in The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Vol 3, p. 264, looking that up the full quote from Swami Vivekanada is "There was a book written a year or two ago by a Russian gentleman, who claimed to have found out a very curious life of Jesus Christ, and in one part of the book he says that Christ went to the temple of Jagannath to study with the Brahmins, but became disgusted with their exclusiveness and their idols, and so he went to the Lamas of Tibet instead, became perfect, and went home. To any man who knows anything about Indian history, that very statement proves that the whole thing was a fraud, because the temple of Jagannath is an old Buddhistic temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised them. We shall have to do many things like that yet. That is Jagannath, and there was not one Brahmin there then, and yet we are told that Jesus Christ came to study with the Brahmins there. So says our great Russian archaeologist."
A lot of what mainstreamweekly.net publishes appears to be opinion, so some caution should be used, but I don't see why this shouldn't be considered reliable for the claim of what Swami Vivekananda said about Jagannath. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:06, 22 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you @ActivelyDisinterested and @Bluethricecreamman.

This was my first time posting on a noticeboard so this feedback is definitely helpful for how to structure future posts when needed.

@ActivelyDisinterested, I appreciate your perspective that the source is reliable for what Swami Vivekananda has to say about Jagannath. I agree with that. The fact that Swami Vivekananda said what is quoted is verifiable. However, I am wondering if this quote can be used as a reliable source for the historical origin of Jagannath from a scholarly perspective. Swirlymarigold (talk) 17:11, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The question there is no longer reliability but NPOV, in particular WP:DUE. Whether Swami Vivekananda statement should be included depends on secondary sources, does it represent a significant viewpoint about the template and do secondary sources consider the comments by Swami Vivekananda notable. That's a question that can only be answered by an editor with subject matter knowledge of the temple and any controversy about it's history, unfortunately it's not something I can answer. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:20, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Grey Dynamics

Latest comment: 2 days ago5 comments3 people in discussion

Wanted to ask here to make sure this one is reliable for an article I'm drafting at my sandbox about Zaslon, a highly secretive Russian special forces unit akin to that of the United States' Delta Force. The source I'm asking about is Grey Dynamics (homepage), which seems to be a private intelligence company providing intelligence (primarily military intelligence) to government agencies among others (some listed clients are the US Department of Defense, the Royal United Services Institute, the European Union, and Brunel University. They also seemingly publish articles, like the one on Zaslon I'm using for my article. On their "Our Story" page, they say they have "experienced intelligence collectors and analysts, many with backgrounds in intelligence services, military, law enforcement, and academia". Though the numerous claims of reliability seem trustworthy to me, and what they say about Zaslon falls in line with what others have reported, I've also noticed a few questionable things like sourcing images from Twitter users and linking to a YouTube creator with an "accompanying video" in the same article. I wasn't able to find much of what other sources said about Grey Dynamics, so I'm not sure. – Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 02:34, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

[53] is a company that focuses on intelligence advising and reporting. I think this is usable but it depends on what claim this would be used for. Not much to work off but WP:TRADES may be relevant. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:19, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Deprecate and blacklist -- Entirely unusable. There's no indication this is actually a real company; no public reporting on any of their contracts or clients. It appears to be something someone just made up. They're absolutely outright lying if they're claiming to be a DoD contractor -- their names appear nowhere in any contractor database I've been able to find. They do not publish the identities of any of their editorial team or leadership; nor any way to verify their expertise of their authors (who appear to be just random volunteers interested in what they believe to be "OSINT" -- not actually real analysts). Large portions appear to be LLM generated, citogenesis, or even just fabricated; this includes incredibly highly classified information that only a few people in the world would know sourced simply to "trust me, bro." They do exactly zero original source reporting of their own; they are a news aggregator and per WP:NEWSAGG As with newspaper reprints, the original content creator is responsible for accuracy and reliability should be judged based on the original source. Direct links to the original source should be preferred over the aggregator's link. Given that they 1) have no usable original reporting of their own, and 2) that any unsourced links they aggregate are unusable as failing WP:V and 3) that for any sourced links they use, our policy states we should use the non-aggregated source; there are exactly zero scenarios in which we would want to use their content. Therefore, they should be deprecated and blacklisted. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 20:35, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

For instance, here's the LinkedIn profile of the CEO of the company, who self-describes as a "HUMINT researcher". As you can see, he has no military or intelligence agency experience whatsoever, indicating this is likely a fabrication as well. In fact the only topically relevant credential he has is a self-pursued Coursera course on "Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice" from a decade ago. This is such a tainted source, we should be URL blacklisting it, not just deprecating. ⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 20:39, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds pretty clear-cut that this is entirely unusable, so I'm supporting too. Blanked the draft because there's no chance it's happening. Thanks for your help. – Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 22:01, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Japanese Regional Newspaper?

Latest comment: 1 day ago9 comments5 people in discussion

I wanted to expand WP:JAPAN/RS and wanted to see what you guys think of the following sources:

Chunichi Shimbun (link) (Aichi Prefecture/Chubu Region) including Tokyo Shimbun (link) - One of the largest Newspaper companies in Japan.
Hokkaido Shimbun (link) - Second largest regional newspaper by circulation
Chugoku Shimbun (link)
Nishinippon Shimbun (link) (Kyushu)
Kahoku Shimpō (link) Tohoku
Shikoku Shimbun (link)

I'm also asking for accessment of reliability of prefectural newspapers such Okinawa Times and Iwate Nippo and more. I also uses them alot so this is also useful for me. Thanks Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 12:22, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are these being challenged by anyone? Which article and what claim are these being used for? Ramos1990 (talk) 20:11, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not necessarily, but I just want to see if there is problems with these sources. Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 23:31, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Newspapers are usually reliable, but local newspaper often report on minor events, and things that only have local coverage might be WP:UNDUE for inclusion in Wikipedia articles. Siawase (talk) 11:38, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see, Thanks @Siawase:. Only one question, Can we use them as as source for a national event (i.e. a heatwave) to report on what is it's impact on said region/prefecture? Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 12:04, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

As far as reliability goes, I don't see a problem. Whether coverage is WP:DUE or not would have to be determined on a case by case basis, but common sense should get you pretty far with that. Siawase (talk) 17:22, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

WP:NEWSORG likely applies. I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be reliable unless there's any evidence to the contrary. Left guide (talk) 06:02, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan. Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 13:23, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reliable. No different than the national newspapers. Also, I'd call it a stretch to say that only having local coverage is undue weight since reliability is usually not impacted by the work's audience. Just handle them the same way WP:LOCAL, WP:LOCALCORP, and WP:NOTNEWS handle newspapers in general. ミラP@Miraclepine 19:59, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Hope not hate

Latest comment: 2 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Is hopenothate an acceptable source to use on the Paul Marshall (investor) article

which contained climate denialism, which called for "mass expulsions" of immigrants, and which predicted civil war "once the Muslims get to 15–20%". https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/02/22/revealed-the-shocking-tweets-of-gb-news-co-owner-sir-paul-marshall/ Halbared (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Per WP:RSP there is no general consensus on Hope not Hate and it should be evaluated on a case by case basis.

In this case, given that what this article is about, being an investigative journalist report, and after request for comment, being acknowledged to be true by the BLP in question from the representative statement - ”After HOPE not hate approached Mr Marshall for comment, every tweet and almost 300 likes were removed from the account over the following 48 hours, and a representative for Marshall issued the following statement:..” it would appear that yes, in this case we can probably consider the article to be reliable, but it being an investigative report, it is WP:Primary, so care has to be taken on what to include, unless we have another secondary source that refers to the organizations report, and statements made should be attributed to the organization. Raladic (talk) 14:46, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Reliable with WP:INTEXT attribution, whether any particular report is due for inclusion may depend on secondary sources (as an example the Guardian article mentioning this particular report[54]). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:17, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

For attributed opinion (which is certainly all it could be used for) the question is often more WP:DUE than WP:RS. That said, it's usually better to cite things like that via secondary WP:RSes when possible. For the quote in particular, it is usually easy to search for other sources; a quick search turns up [55][56] - I don't know anything about those sources, but they might be better. Hope Not Hate's report on him is also mentioned in [57][58][59]. So I would look over those, figure out which are best, and rely on them, rather than Hope Not Hate directly; this addresses both the WP:RS and WP:DUE issues. Note that in-text attribution (to Hope Not Hate) is still needed when relying on things that the secondary sources attribute, although some of those sources say other things that aren't attributed. There is also some academic coverage, although I didn't look to closely at it ([60] [61]) - it might be worth going over those and seeing what they say, if anything. FWIW the WP:USEBYOTHERS in those implies Hope Not Hate might be reliable and that this is WP:DUE, but it still makes more sense to cite that secondary coverage IMHO. --Aquillion (talk) 20:41, 23 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

German government sources as self-published?

Latest comment: 1 day ago3 comments3 people in discussion

I hope this is the right place to ask about this. An editor on the page Socialist Equality Party (Germany) claims that sources of the German government, specifically the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung and Verfassungsschutz, may count as WP:ABOUTSELF when reporting about political parties. This would have implications for a lot more articles. The reliability can certainly be debated on a case-by-case basis since these are politically operated and motivated publications but such a discussion hasn't taken place thus far from what I can tell. I also especially don't see the case for WP:ABOUTSELF applying. Though even if it did, shouldn't the sources still suffice for minor things like membership numbers? I'd be happy about anything that helps clear this up as I couldn't find a direct policy about this. Frijfuhs (talk) 12:59, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

For membership numbers, it should be fine unless there's a valid reason to believe they have a vested interest to exaggerate, in which case attribution would be more appropriate, or better yet an independent source if possible. As for the rest, what specific (types of) claims are these sources being used for? Left guide (talk) 06:25, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Government sources would often be WP:PRIMARY and have bias concerns, and some of the time in-text attribution would be appropriate. But in this case I don't see how WP:ABOUTSELF would apply. The sources aren't published by the party, they are published by the government. Siawase (talk) 07:04, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup § Publifye AS

Latest comment: 2 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject AI Cleanup § Publifye AS. Kovcszaln6 (talk) 13:37, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Draft:Alexander Ziwahatan are the 3 sources reliable sources?

Latest comment: 1 day ago3 comments3 people in discussion

[62] - there are a lot of Nexus awards, I'm not sure if these are notable.

Democrat Digest written by a "Democrat Digest contributor". I can't find anything not written by a contributor, but I might have missed something.

[63] "Repoublican digest" looks like a clone. Doug Weller talk 15:52, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

No. Phil Bridger (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Both the digests are the same company, Global Operations Group, and the specific articles are advertorials. The byline for both is "(insert version) Digest Contributor", and both have the same description "This article features branded content from a third party. Opinions in this article do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of (insert version) Digest". -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:25, 24 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science

Latest comment: 2 hours ago4 comments3 people in discussion

On the Talk:Dead Internet theory, an article titled "The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media" has been brought up by another editor (@Qualie). I've been watching this source for a while, but it was previously just a pre-print. Now that it is published, it looks like it could potentially have some weight to a long standing dispute over the lede sentence, specifically because the articles authors redefine the Dead Internet Theory in the context of social media. The journal it is in, Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science, is named like many predatory ones I've seen, but I'm not seeing it on any specific lists. When I attempted to introduce it into article space, the predatory journal warning popped up. Coming here for some 3rd party guidance, as this article would be really useful if it proves reliable. If we don't use it, I suspect it will be brought up quite a bit, and I would like to have a discussion I can point to when it is brought up users wanting to change the articles lede. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 02:52, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

According to this it is a Science Domain journal which is in the list of predatory publishers. Jumpytoo Talk 02:19, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, that is really unfortunate to hear. The article would have been very useful to us if reliable, and I'm not looking forward to it being brought up in the future talk page discussions... GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 03:54, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'd like to note for future editors stumbling upon this that according to undetectable.ai, the article is 95% AI-generated. Ironic. Amberkitten (talk) 11:32, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Muzumdar, Prathamesh; Cheemalapati, Sumanth; RamiReddy, Srikanth Reddy; Singh, Kuldeep; Kurian, George; Muley, Apoorva (2025). "The Dead Internet Theory: A Survey on Artificial Interactions and the Future of Social Media". Asian Journal of Research in Computer Science. 18 (1): 67–73. doi:10.9734/ajrcos/2025/v18i1549. Retrieved 25 August 2025.

Shūkanshi (Japanese tabloids)

Latest comment: 6 hours ago3 comments3 people in discussion

Shūkanshis (can be called Japanese tabloids) are widely known for their sensational headlines and gossip regarding BLPs both policitians and celebrities. I notice that these sources are widely used across multiple BLPs. Friday (1 1 1 ), Shūkan Bunshun (1 ), Shūkan Shinchō (1 ), Weekly Asahi Geinō (1 ) are probably the most infamous ones involving in multiple controveries and as far as I know these sources can be compared to Daily Mail. Josei Seven (1 ) a couple of issues with the Imperial Family. Shūkan Gendai (1 ), i personally use this only for articles other than BLPs as it seems reliable for general topics other than articles for BLPs as there is a bit of controveries against it. Josei Jishin (1 ), no major issue mentioned on the article (both en and ja). I'm surprise on how many articles this sources uses, I want to know if my assumptions are correct. I also don't know if I should merge this discussion with my discussion above. Thanks Warm Regards, Miminity (Talk?) (me contribs) 11:03, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

The guidance at WP:RSP#Tabloids may be of relevance and value. Left guide (talk) 15:05, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Probably better to keep this discussion separate as tabloids are very different from local newspapers. I'm not sure where these outlets fall on a scale of needing to be deprecated and WP:TMZ. But in most cases it would probably be best to replace with better sources, especially in BLP articles, or delete the material where better sources can not be found. A recurring issue with material only found in these types of outlets is that it is often WP:REDFLAG, in which case better sources need to be used, or it's so trivial it's not WP:DUE anyway. Siawase (talk) 06:49, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Playbill.com

Latest comment: 4 hours ago4 comments3 people in discussion

Are Playbill's online news articles reliable sources of information? The specific context in which I was wondering about this was an article about employment at a university that I was considering using for L Morgan Lee.

There are over 10,000 uses of it currently, which leads me to believe other editors have not identified any issues with it, but in the poking around I did I found next to no information about their editorial policies, or any clarification on if the editorial policies vary between the website and physical magazine. In a search of the archives, I did not find previous discussion about this. Apologies if the answer is obvious, but I'd rather be safe than sorry going forward. NovaHyperion^talk 23:42, 25 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

See Playbill. It's probably fine. Mackensen (talk) 01:17, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

It should be fine for this use. Playbill is essentially promotional in nature, so I would limit its use to uncontroversial facts. John M Baker (talk) 06:52, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Okay, thank you both! The promotional nature of the site did concern me, which is why I was concerned they might lower editorial standards for online articles. I would not even consider using their news for controversial claims and I do not think most of their articles present such claims, so it seems pretty okay to use for straightforward facts. As I said, better safe than sorry, and thanks again! NovaHyperion^talk 09:28, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Two sources

Latest comment: 3 hours ago1 comment1 person in discussion

According to Wikipedia:Verifiability's "because this project is in English, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when they are available and of equal quality and relevance" and "A recent source is better than an old one", I wanted to know Wikipedia's opinion on this sources Ушницкий 2011, Золхоев 2014 (both in Russian language).

First "because this project is in English, English-language sources are preferred over non-English ones when they are available and of equal quality and relevance": majority of English sources (and even non English sources) consider Keraites as Turkic on there hand Ушницкий 2011 claims majority consider Keraites as Mongolic but when you look at reference and source he use in his work, again majority of the reference he used lean towards Turkic orgin for Keraites. There is also several other error in his work like for example he consider khitans a likely Para-Mongolic speaking tribes as Mongolic (Khitans spoke the now-extinct Khitan language, a Para-Mongolic language related to the Mongolic languages).

Second "A recent source is better than an old one": even Золхоев 2014 (as I said before also in Russian) which is a newer source wrote majority of scholars and researchers consider Keraites as Turkic. Bezartanha (talk) 09:39, 26 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

Add topic

[1] Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.

[2] Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.

[3] Pereira, Toby (2017). "An Anthropic Argument against the Future Existence of Superintelligent Artificial Intelligence". doi:10.48550/arXiv.1705.03078.

[1]

[2]

[3]

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