Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard: Difference between revisions
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::Yeah, their bias is clear in my opinion, and pretty undisputed as far as I can tell; they are right-wing and Zionist (in the literal sense of the word). However, considering the debate we just had on EMHRM, I would think that they should be in the same category; they both have bias and some questionable statements, but NGO Monitor is cited by RS and should therefore be considered equal or better (but obviously attribution is still required). [[User:FortunateSons|FortunateSons]] ([[User talk:FortunateSons|talk]]) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC) |
::Yeah, their bias is clear in my opinion, and pretty undisputed as far as I can tell; they are right-wing and Zionist (in the literal sense of the word). However, considering the debate we just had on EMHRM, I would think that they should be in the same category; they both have bias and some questionable statements, but NGO Monitor is cited by RS and should therefore be considered equal or better (but obviously attribution is still required). [[User:FortunateSons|FortunateSons]] ([[User talk:FortunateSons|talk]]) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC) |
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:::Putting a respectable NGO and NGO monitor in the same basket? Don't think so. Monitor is a trash operation spewing out endless Israeli propaganda, one merely has to look at the complete crap they wrote in respect of [[2021 ban of Palestinian human rights organizations|6 NGOs declared illegal by Israel]] and for which Israel was widely condemned. Extreme bias makes the source unusable. I would accept the equally biased views of its founder as a source because they theoretically qualify as an expert and at least then we have a name attached to an opinion, can form a judgement of it. [[User:Selfstudier|Selfstudier]] ([[User talk:Selfstudier|talk]]) 13:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC) |
:::Putting a respectable NGO and NGO monitor in the same basket? Don't think so. Monitor is a trash operation spewing out endless Israeli propaganda, one merely has to look at the complete crap they wrote in respect of [[2021 ban of Palestinian human rights organizations|6 NGOs declared illegal by Israel]] and for which Israel was widely condemned. Extreme bias makes the source unusable. I would accept the equally biased views of its founder as a source because they theoretically qualify as an expert and at least then we have a name attached to an opinion, can form a judgement of it. [[User:Selfstudier|Selfstudier]] ([[User talk:Selfstudier|talk]]) 13:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC) |
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:::I see no reason to use them. They are more akin to one of those think tanks employed to say global warming isn't happening and it is too late to do anythng about it and it is good for agriculture and it is a Chinese plot. [[User:NadVolum|NadVolum]] ([[User talk:NadVolum|talk]]) 13:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC) |
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== Unreliable source used in article in Mridul Wadhwa == |
== Unreliable source used in article in Mridul Wadhwa == |
Revision as of 13:31, 21 January 2024
Welcome — ask about reliability of sources in context! | ||||||||
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Two branches of the same tree: OW-JP-AH and WCE-WRD/WCD
Operation World, Joshua Project and Asia Harvest
Asia Harvest (https://www.asiaharvest.org/) is an American Christian missionary organisation focusing on Asia and especially on China. They produce extremely detailed (and overestimated) fantasy statistics about Christians for each one of the smallest administrative divisions of the country.
Let's take, for example, the purported 2020 statistics for Shanghai (https://www.asiaharvest.org/christians-in-china-stats/shanghai). As you can see, they extrapolate absolute numbers on the basis of the very same percentage values for the total population numbers of most of the districts, and then the resulting numbers are divided according to the various statistical subcategories. Amongst the numbers in the tens of subcategories, they cite sources for only three of them, and they are some journals (probably missionary journals) dated to 1990, 1991 and 1992, while the general data are presented as being dated to 2020. The source for some of the totals is, otherwise, Operation World (https://operationworld.org/), "the definitive volume of prayer information about the world", associated with the Joshua Project, which is already classified as unreliable in the WP:RSP list.
I propose that Asia Harvest and Operation World be added to the Joshua Project entry in the WP:RSP list. Besides, on the Wikipedia article about Operation World it is written that the subject is related to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the predecessor of what is now published as the World Christian Database and World Religion Database, themselves thoroughly discussed in 2018 and 2022-2023, and listed in WP:RSP. Æo (talk) 18:09, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- I ping Erp who raised doubts about the extreme precision of WCD/WRD data in the abovementioned 2022-2023 discussion, since the same argument applies to this case. Æo (talk) 18:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
Besides, on the Wikipedia article about Operation World it is written that the subject is related to the World Christian Encyclopedia, the predecessor of what is now published as the World Christian Database and World Religion Database, themselves thoroughly discussed in 2018 and 2022-2023
- The meaning of this point is somewhat lost on me. According to the close of the linked 2023 discussion,
There is no consensus to deprecate these sources
(bolding added). If consider Asia Harvest or Operation World is/are affiliated with/comparable to the WCE as a source, that would suggest not deprecating them, but instead merely advising editors to use them with prudence while favoring, where available, stronger, more certainly reliable sources. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:43, 1 January 2024 (UTC)- They are clearly not the very same as the WRD/WCD (which is nonetheless questionable, and this is why it is in the perennial sources' list and the closing statement also says that there is rough consensus to attribute it and prefer better sources), at least according to what I have been able to find, although they cross-reference to each other (it is unclear to what extent). Asia Harvest and Operation World are on the other hand directly related to the Joshua Project, which is classifed as unreliable in the perennial sources' list:
The Joshua Project is an ethnological database created to support Christian missions. It is considered to be generally unreliable due to the lack of any academic recognition or an adequate editorial process. The Joshua Project provides a list of sources from which they gather their data, many of which are related evangelical groups and they too should not be used for ethnological data as they are questionable sources.
. Æo (talk) 19:41, 1 January 2024 (UTC) - Addendum:
- In The Ethos of Operation World we can read the following statement:
We pray that these statistics and prayer points present a reasonably balanced account of what God is doing in our world and of the challenges facing us as we press on to complete the Great Commission. Apart from Operation World, only the World Christian Database/World Religions Database shares our ambition (folly?) in attempting so massive a task as compiling a comprehensive body of data relating to the world’s religions, denominations, and churches, as well as to the progress of the Great Commission.
. Here, Operation World and the WRD/WCD are clearly defined as confessional, evangelical entities working together for the "progress of the Great Commission", which is unclear whether it refers to the doctrinal concept or to the American fellowship of evangelical groups which disbanded in 2020. - In this paper by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, some of whose members are also the editors of the WRD/WCD, on pp. 16-17 the methodologies of the latter are compared to those of Operation World.
- In The Ethos of Operation World we can read the following statement:
- Æo (talk) 20:16, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- Apologies for this, but you seem to be saying two different things simultaneously. First you say that
They are clearly not the very same
(bolding added); then you say theyare clearly defined as confessional, evangelical entities working together
(bolding added). Are they together, or are they not; and in either case, why is that a reason for depreciation of Asia Harvest (which is the source I thought was under discussion). - In any case, it is not so clear to this reader as it is to you. The Ethos statement does not seem like evidence of organizational collaboration. Rather, it reads as an observation that they share a field of study: both are attempts at
compiling a comprehensive body of data relating to the world’s religions, denominations, and churches
. To use another example, both Michael Burlingame and Ronald White shared theambition (folly?) in attempting so massive a task as
narrating the life of Abraham Lincoln in single-volume biographies. But they were not collaborators. - As for the "Christianity in its Global Context, 1970–2020" document, the comparison drawn is moreover a contrast, pointing out how Operation World's definitions of "evangelical" inflate their numbers compared to the World Christian Database.
- Finally, simply as a note, you emphasize connections between GCTS faculty and the World Christian Database but have left out how World Christian Database is published by Brill, an academic publisher that employs editorial and peer review. (Likewise, World Christian Encyclopedia was published by Oxford University Press, also an academic publisher that employs editorial and peer review.) That, plus their relative contemporaneity (as both were published in the twenty-first century) instills a great deal of confidence in WCD and WCE as sources.
- In any case, this has been a digression. The posted discussion at hand pertains to Asia Harvest and Operation World, which have different publishers and different traits. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:45, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- It is ascertained that WCE and OW originated as two branches of the same tree, and that they maintain some connections, as hinted to in the statement above about the "Great Commission" and underlined especially in the sentence in that paper Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background which I have quoted below (17:04, January 2 addendum):
There has been a long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information among Operation World ... and the World Christian Encyclopedia
. This is what I meant, and I am still investigating to find further, clearer evidences. Besides, AH and OW appear to be related as well, given that the few references showed by AH are mostly to OW statistics, and in turn OW is clearly connected to the Joshua Project (they are authored/edited by the same person, Patrick Johnstone), which is acknowledged to be a completely unreliable source. - Amongst the many discussions about the JP, read this 2008 one, which was particularly animated (and which highlights that already back then there were strange waves of spamming of this type of sources, as I myself noticed more recently); some quotes:
[JP is] a very aggressive evangelistic project. ... Linking or even mentioning this project on this kind of scale should be considered as fundamentalist Christian spam.
(Jeroenvrp);All links to the Joshua Project should be deleted immediately and without question. The information on the site is often original research and totally incorrect. It is not a reliable source at all. The fact that someone can't find alternative information on Google is no excuse: get out of your chair and head to a library.
(Caniago);Here is another example which illustrates the sort of disinformation they are spreading. They invented a whole range sub-ethnic groups of the Javanese ethnic group, yet there are no published academic sources (in books or peer reviewed papers) which mention these sub-ethnic groups at all. There are a plethora of other examples of their disinformation if you compare their website against reliable sources.
(Caniago);The project site is not an academic source. ... The Joshua Project has an religious agenda. Anyone should agree on that. This is very clear on the site and not even that, it is also very offensive. Not only for people of these ethnic groups, but for anyone who condemn these kind of aggressive evangelisation practices. I even find it very scary how they present the data (e.g. see the column "Progress Scale"). It's like: "evangelism meets the Borg". ... The data on the Joshua Project is unreliable, like others before me have proved. ... Information from the English Wikipedia is easily translated to other Wikipedia projects. Although people who translate should double check these kind of sources, unfortunately sources like the Joshua Project are spreading like a virus to those other projects. That's why I am here now, because I noticed the Joshua Project was listed as a source on the Dutch Wikipedia and learned that they came from here. So know your responsibility! ... To conclude this: I am not accusing individual Wikipedians for "fundamentalist Christian spamming". No, what I mean that on a larger scale it's "fundamentalist Christian spamming".
(Jeroenvrp);There are no cases where there Josuha project is the best source of data. A bunch of evangelical missionaries are the last people who can be trusted to present non-biased reliable ethnic data; the examples we have given proven the case.
(Caniago). - Regarding the fact that some of the sources we are discussing here (WCE and its successors) have been published by renowned publishing houses, this does not make them reliable. This was already pointed out in the 2022-2023 discussion. The "peer review" and "editorial process" is very often carried out by people belonging to the very same agenda and organisations (those American evangelical organisations). Take for instance the paper Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background that I quoted below: it was written by D. A. Miller, peer reviewed/edited/co-authored by Patrick Johnstone of the WEC International, and published on the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion founded by Rodney Stark (known for his publications which were very supportive of Christianity); the journal's editorial board includes Massimo Introvigne, whose CESNUR and related publications are themselves currently listed as unreliable in the WP:RSP list (and I personally consider CESNUR, or at least some of its publications, as much more reliable than the sources we are discussing here). Regarding the fact, and the problem, that the WCE and its successors have been published as seemingly academic resources, there are some further considerations expressed in a recent critical essay which I will cite and quote in a separate section below (cf. #World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database). Æo (talk) 00:06, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would agree that CESNUR and its related publications are more reliable than the assessment listed on Wikipedia's current Perennial Sources page would suggest. I think the generally unreliable characterization is inaccurate and that the academic field of religious studies has a much more favorable impression of CESNUR than Wikipedia's Perennial Sources page does.
- Patrick Johnstone was not a peer reviewer of "Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census". Blind peer review means the reviewer is anonymous. Johnstone and Duane Miller are listed co-authors of the paper. The two peer reviewers would have been two other scholars whose identities neither of us know.
- Your impression that renowned publishing houses like Brill and Oxford University Press are somehow being subverted by a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus of the field of religious demography stretches this editor's credulity. The peer review process is more robust than that.
- That information is shared between World and WCE does not necessarily make one unreliable merely because the other is. Different sources can use the same raw data to arrive at different conclusions, such as how WCE and Operation World arrive at quite different total numbers, projections, etc.
- In any case, I think that an earlier comment in this discussion from Erp rings true: for this particular discussion,
we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable
. There is not a consensus between us about WCE or WCD or WRD. Maybe there can yet be a consensus between us about Asia Harvest and Operation World. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 00:49, 3 January 2024 (UTC)- Yes. I agree with P-Makoto: "Your impression that renowned publishing houses like Brill and Oxford University Press are somehow being subverted by a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus of the field of religious demography stretches this editor's credulity. The peer review process is more robust than that." There is no evidence that the process is somehow compromised and is just speculation. Borders on conspiracy theory actually. In fact they show divergence of data too per already quoted differences in numbers in the sources. They are not equivalent or the same. I also agree that
we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable
. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:12, 3 January 2024 (UTC) - P-Makoto, I never wrote about "a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus" and are trying to subvert academic publishers. Apart from this, you wrote that
the Ethos statement does not seem like evidence of organizational collaboration
, but the statement in the Miller & Johnstone paper clearly tells us abouta long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information
. Also re-read Erp's comment below, with an excerpt from the Operation World book (2010 edition, p. 25) telling us that... the Joshua Project List, the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information, which is both fuel for prayer and data for mission strategy
, and on that page the discourse of the author is general, about the shared project in which OW, the JP and the WCE are all actors. In my opinion, there is enough evidence to affirm that the WCE and the OW, and their affiliated projects, are still closely related. The discussion about the WCE and its successors, however, continues below (cf. #World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database). Æo (talk) 18:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)- Regarding
P-Makoto, I never wrote about
: - You wrote that
Regarding the fact that some of the sources we are discussing here (WCE and its successors) have been published by renowned publishing houses, this does not make them reliable. This was already pointed out in the 2022-2023 discussion. The "peer review" and "editorial process" is very often carried out by people belonging to the very same agenda and organisations (those American evangelical organisations)
(bolding added). P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:11, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding
- Yes. I agree with P-Makoto: "Your impression that renowned publishing houses like Brill and Oxford University Press are somehow being subverted by a conspiracy of Evangelical authors who defy the consensus of the field of religious demography stretches this editor's credulity. The peer review process is more robust than that." There is no evidence that the process is somehow compromised and is just speculation. Borders on conspiracy theory actually. In fact they show divergence of data too per already quoted differences in numbers in the sources. They are not equivalent or the same. I also agree that
- It is ascertained that WCE and OW originated as two branches of the same tree, and that they maintain some connections, as hinted to in the statement above about the "Great Commission" and underlined especially in the sentence in that paper Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background which I have quoted below (17:04, January 2 addendum):
- Apologies for this, but you seem to be saying two different things simultaneously. First you say that
- They are clearly not the very same as the WRD/WCD (which is nonetheless questionable, and this is why it is in the perennial sources' list and the closing statement also says that there is rough consensus to attribute it and prefer better sources), at least according to what I have been able to find, although they cross-reference to each other (it is unclear to what extent). Asia Harvest and Operation World are on the other hand directly related to the Joshua Project, which is classifed as unreliable in the perennial sources' list:
- The next question is the reliability of "Operation World", multiple editions by Patrick Johnstone and Jason Mandryk with the latest being the 7th edition, published 2010, plus a web site. It is explicitly a prayer guide and does not seem to be peer reviewed. I note in reference to the Joshua Project that Operation World's website states: "The Joshua Project is our default site for people group information." https://operationworld.org/prayer-resources/helpful-resources/ Looking at the google preview of the book has "...Joshua Project List, the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information" Given the dependence of "Operation World" on Joshua Project a "Generally unreliable source" and lack of peer review for the work itself, I would say Operation World must also be listed as "Generally unreliable source". Erp (talk) 20:13, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, and the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed as well, given its connection with Asia Harvest/Operation World. In Darrell L. Bock (2013), The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith, A Call to Action: Bibliographic Resources, p. 32, we read:
These two books come from the same stable. While up to the mid-1990s the databases behind Operation World and the World Christian Encyclopedia were virtually identical, they began to diverge in the 1990s, partly because Operation World took a more generous definition of the word 'evangelical'. In 2010, World Christian Encyclopedia said there were 300 million evangelicals worldwide, whereas Operation World said there were 550 million...
. On the same page, the World Religion Database/World Christian Database and the Atlas of Global Christianity are identified as the continuations of the World Christian Encyclopedia, while The Future of Global Christianity is identified as built on the database of Operation World. Other minor publications associated with them (listed on the same page) are: World Christian Trends – AD 30-2200, World Churches Handbook, Global Religious Trends 2010 to 2020, Megatrends and the Persecuted Church, Global Restrictions on Religion, Global Pentecostalism, The New Faces of Christianity, The Next Christendom, Barna Updates (https://www.barna.org), and Global Mapping International (https://www.gmi.org). Ultimately, they are all affiliated with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization, the same who launched the 10/40 window concept. Æo (talk) 21:17, 1 January 2024 (UTC)- The assessment of the World Religion Database and World Christianity Database strikes me as a separate question. If they are re-assessed, I would encourage re-assessing them "upward" rather than "downward". The source you cite, Cape Town Commitment, even identifies how the two sources are different:
Operate World took a more generous definition of the word 'evangelical'. In 2010, World Christian Encyclopedia said there were 300 million evangelicals worldwide, whereas Operation World said there were 550 million
. You speak of WCE/WRD/WCDs'connection with Asia Harvest/Operation World
; however, what seems to be demonstrated is their disconnection; if Operation World and Asia Harvest are overstating, WRD/WCD/WCE apparently are holding back in comparison. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:23, 2 January 2024 (UTC)- I don't think that the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed "upwards"; their problems, which are still different from those of the AH/OW discussed here, were pointed out and thoroughly discussed with extensive quotes from critical sources in the specific 2022-2023 discussion. AH/OW and WCD/WRD are ultimately two branches of the same tree, dedicated to "the progress of the Great Commission" (cf. above), and this does not mean that if one of the two branches is unreliable the other is reliable, and vice versa. Both of them have problems, albeit differentiated. Æo (talk) 01:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- There appears to not be consensus between us. The specified 2022-2023 discussion also had extensive references from laudatory sources which reviewed the Encyclopedia positively. I developed an impression that the listing of WRD/WCD/WCE as "additional considerations" may have been excessive and not the right call.
- But that would be a discussion different from that of the present one about Asia Harvest. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 03:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable. Given that Operation World depends on the already listed as generally unreliable, Joshua Project, and Asia Harvest depends on Operation World that both should also be listed as generally unreliable. In addition neither seem to be peer reviewed. Does anyone disagree? Erp (talk) 03:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Before leaping to "Generally Unreliable", may I ask whether "Additional Considerations" would be appropriate, and if you do not think so, why not?
- I would note that peer review, while a gold standard, is not Wikipedia's only standard. Many sources subject only to editorial review and not peer review (newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses) are accepted on Wikipedia, so the lack of peer review is not itself necessarily a point against. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 06:19, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- P-Makoto, True. Your observations are accurate with respect to the additional comments you have brought up. Indeed the jump to generally unreliable is why the RFC for WRD/WCD/WCE failed depreciation petty badly across the board. The academic sources did not support such a claim. Context matters to what Asia Harvest is being used on. Also numbers on China are hard to pin down. All polls are estimates for that. Ramos1990 (talk) 08:20, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Erp that AH/OW should be classified as "generally unreliable" given the precedent represented by the related Joshua Project. The latter was the subject of eleven discussions on this noticeboard, and it was decidedly assessed as unreliable; just read how editors commented here and here, for instance:
...some argue based on the idea that they wouldn't have any reason to give inaccurate figures. This isn't a useful argument. There's also strong opposition to using them as a source. According to their list of data sources, a solid majority of their sources are just other evangelical groups... They shouldn't be ranked beside census counts as equivalent... They should be considered unusable due to a lack of verifiable methodology and recognition for statistical or academic contribution, even when setting aside all questions of advocacy and bias.
(Elaqueate);We have no idea where they get their data, it's not part of their primary mission, and there's no significant penalty to them for errors, so I see no reason to consider them as a reliable source for population statistics.
(Mangoe);I looked at the source, and I believe you. It's a hobby site by three random religious enthusiasts. Certainly not a reliable source for population data.
(Alsee). Regarding the use of non-academic sources ("newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses"), P-Makoto, yes, I think they should be eschewed and I always try to eschew them when I contribute to Wikipedia. Besides, other considerations apply in this specific case, given that we are dealing with a field of information, statistics, for which there are official censuses and statistical institutions which provide "hard data" — i.e. precise numerical results which constitute "facts" subject to minimal interpretation —, and even in the case we need "soft data" — i.e. unofficial and not always accurate data —, there are still impartial and reliable survey agencies to rely upon. In said field of information, we do not need WP:SPECULATIONs produced by organisations with blatant agendas of evangelism, proselytism or propaganda through unclear methodologies (in our case the methodologies are declared, indeed: word of mouth from priests, pastors and other church staff). Æo (talk) 14:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC) - Addendum: Here other users expressed other clear evaluations of the quality of the JP:
Religious advocacy group, cites unreliable data sources.
(PaleoNeonate);Publishes false or fabricated information, and should be deprecated. You cannot trust any of that website's claimed population numbers for ethnic groups even to an order of magnitude.
(anonymous IP);Very obviously unreliable. Attempting to use it as a source is absurd.
(Tayi Arajakate). The use of the Joshua Project on Wikipedia even caused the creation of an article about a non-existing ethnic group: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jawa Pesisir Lor. Æo (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2024 (UTC)Regarding the use of non-academic sources ("newspapers, magazines, nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses"), P-Makoto, yes, I think they should be eschewed and I always try to eschew them when I contribute to Wikipedia.
- As individual editors, we all I suppose have the option to hold ourselves to higher standards than Wikipedia's; however, it is not consensus to, as a project, eschew newspapers, magazines, and nonfiction books published with non-academic but still reputable presses for being such. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:29, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think we should concentrate on whether Asia Harvest and/or Operation World are reliable. Given that Operation World depends on the already listed as generally unreliable, Joshua Project, and Asia Harvest depends on Operation World that both should also be listed as generally unreliable. In addition neither seem to be peer reviewed. Does anyone disagree? Erp (talk) 03:38, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think that the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed "upwards"; their problems, which are still different from those of the AH/OW discussed here, were pointed out and thoroughly discussed with extensive quotes from critical sources in the specific 2022-2023 discussion. AH/OW and WCD/WRD are ultimately two branches of the same tree, dedicated to "the progress of the Great Commission" (cf. above), and this does not mean that if one of the two branches is unreliable the other is reliable, and vice versa. Both of them have problems, albeit differentiated. Æo (talk) 01:48, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- The assessment of the World Religion Database and World Christianity Database strikes me as a separate question. If they are re-assessed, I would encourage re-assessing them "upward" rather than "downward". The source you cite, Cape Town Commitment, even identifies how the two sources are different:
- I agree, and the WRD/WCD should be re-assessed as well, given its connection with Asia Harvest/Operation World. In Darrell L. Bock (2013), The Cape Town Commitment: A Confession of Faith, A Call to Action: Bibliographic Resources, p. 32, we read:
- Looking at https://www.asiaharvest.org/christians-in-china-stats/china Multiple sources, I initially thought the TSPM and CPA figures were accurate since they are possibly official government sources (these are registered and recognized churches) except notes 3 and 4 indicate that the registered protestant number is from a 2010 survey that found 23 million registered protestants and that the numbers were adjusted to include non-adults and presumably the decade since. The number has been adjusted to 39,776,275 for 2020. In addition the table apparently took the 2010 Operation World figures of 86,910,600 protestants in 2010 (unregistered House Church and TSPM) and apparently projected forward to 2020 and got 109,650,630 (split between the 39,776,275 registered and 69,874,355 unregistered (note the increasing specificity during the data manipulation). I decided to look at what might be the overall source "2020, Hattaway, The China Chronicles, no page number given" which seems to be a 7 book series "The China Chronicles" by Paul Hattaway and published, by as far as I can see, "Asia Harvest" an organization Hattaway co-founded with his wife. I'm guessing he or his organization is also responsible for this table published on their website. Both count as self-published and not at all peer reviewed. They might accurately cite other sources. Erp (talk) 19:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC)
- Here we can read that the book Operation China by Paul Hattaway has
<...a foreword by Patrick Johnstone, author of the best-selling Operation World, who "I have relied much on the information in 'Operation China' during compilation of the section on China for the latest edition of 'Operation World'. May this unique book go a long way to focus prayer on the need for the gospel among these peoples.'>
. Patrick Johnstone is mentioned in your comment above (20:13, January 1). AH and OW are definitely related. Æo (talk) 02:00, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Here we can read that the book Operation China by Paul Hattaway has
- I found 54+ references to "Asia Harvest" in Wikipedia. A lot have to do with descriptions of people/languages where Asia Harvest in turn is citing another source (I suspect the "Encyclopedic Dictionary of Chinese Linguistics" for at least some which is a 1991 work in Chinese [Zhongguo yu yan xue da ci dian 中国语言学大辞典]). My guess is that Asia Harvest was used by wiki editors because it has translated some of the information into English. I suspect editors would be better off for a comprehensive work relying on Ethnologue (which has some faults but is generally accepted by scholars) though it does require a subscription. Glottolog is also useful especially for references to works on a language (less so for numbers of speakers).
- Operation World is also cited (oddly enough mostly in articles about Baháʼí such as Baháʼí_Faith_in_Nigeria) which has "Estimates of membership vary widely - a 2001 estimate by Operation World showed 1000 Baháʼís in 2001 while the Association of Religion Data Archives (relying on World Christian Encyclopedia) estimated some 38,172 Baháʼís." Another source had about 15,000 in 2000 (Lee, Anthony A. (2011). The Baha'i faith in Africa: establishing a new religious movement, 1952-1962. Studies of religion in Africa. Leiden ; Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-22600-5., page 107, itself citing an unpublished article). I'm inclined to go with the peer reviewed book. Erp (talk) 05:05, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Duane Miller's Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census (n.b. edited by Patrick Johnstone, WEC International), questioned on this noticeboard in 2017, was built on Operation World and Joshua Project data. On pp. 3-4 we find further details about their parent organisations (as of 2015) and author:
The results of this massive, multidecade data collection effort were eventually made available in the form of the religious data on the Operation World website, which is hosted by Global Mapping International, and the ethnolinguistic data on the interactive website of the Joshua Project, for which Johnstone was a senior editor. Therefore additional details on the sources of our information can be found at the website of the Joshua Project, which is currently managed by the U.S. Center for World Missions.
. If my understanding is correct, based on our previous findings, Johnstone was ultimately behind both Operation World and the Joshua Project. Æo (talk) 16:23, 2 January 2024 (UTC) - Addendum: Let's keep this secondary, as suggested above, but on the same p. 3 we read:
There has been a long history of close collaboration and mutual sharing of information among Operation World, the Summer Institute of Linguistics, and the World Christian Encyclopedia.
. Æo (talk) 17:04, 2 January 2024 (UTC)- The Miller and Johnstone source clearly supports that Operation World is a reliable source by the way. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Johnstone is the editor/author of the OW and JP themselves. Therefore, that paper is a completely unreliable source. Besides, in the 2017 discussion one of the commentators correctly pointed out that the study misused the word "census" (which has a very precise meaning) in its title, misleading readers to think that the statistics presented were really from a census, when they were not:
The author declares that he has published "a global census": the problem is that a census is "an official enumeration of the population, with details as to age, sex, occupation, etc.". So no, it's clearly not a census of any kind. Far from that.
(AlessandroDe). Æo (talk) 19:46, 3 January 2024 (UTC) - Heartily disagree, you can't point to a walled garden as evidence of reliability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:27, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Johnstone is the editor/author of the OW and JP themselves. Therefore, that paper is a completely unreliable source. Besides, in the 2017 discussion one of the commentators correctly pointed out that the study misused the word "census" (which has a very precise meaning) in its title, misleading readers to think that the statistics presented were really from a census, when they were not:
- The Miller and Johnstone source clearly supports that Operation World is a reliable source by the way. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:08, 2 January 2024 (UTC)
- Duane Miller's Believers in Christ from a Muslim Background: A Global Census (n.b. edited by Patrick Johnstone, WEC International), questioned on this noticeboard in 2017, was built on Operation World and Joshua Project data. On pp. 3-4 we find further details about their parent organisations (as of 2015) and author:
- Agreed with AEo and Erp, these publications should really just be grouped together in one GUNREL entry here. They're all interdependent and interrelated using the same evangelical propagandizing. JoelleJay (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- @JoelleJay: I agree that they should be grouped as a single WP:GUNREL entry. Would you also support a deprecation? I decided to open this discussion since a few days ago I noticed that the OW-JP, through AH, is still being spammed throughout various articles without attention to its problematic nature and classification as unreliable in the perennial sources' list. This has been ongoing since the 2000s, unfortunately, and even on other Wikipedias, as the user Jeroenvrp from the Dutch Wikipedia complained in the comment quoted above from 2008:
unfortunately sources like the Joshua Project are spreading like a virus
. This is why I think that, perhaps, it is time for the further step of deprecation. - Also, what is your opinion about the related World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database discussed below? Æo (talk) 01:43, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- @JoelleJay: I agree that they should be grouped as a single WP:GUNREL entry. Would you also support a deprecation? I decided to open this discussion since a few days ago I noticed that the OW-JP, through AH, is still being spammed throughout various articles without attention to its problematic nature and classification as unreliable in the perennial sources' list. This has been ongoing since the 2000s, unfortunately, and even on other Wikipedias, as the user Jeroenvrp from the Dutch Wikipedia complained in the comment quoted above from 2008:
- Grouping all three together under a single GUNREL entry seems straightforward enough, its a compact ecosystem and all of them are generally unreliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:42, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is worthwhile to open a new RfC for the deprecation of the OW-JP-AH datasets. Back in 2021, Alaexis, who opened that year's RfC, which resulted in the classification of the JP as "unreliable", complained that it was
still being used
. Things have not changed since; just take a look at these September 2023 additions (of OW-JP data via AH), complete with a map (and this is not the only case).--Æo (talk) 21:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC: OW-JP-AH
|
The #Operation World, Joshua Project and Asia Harvest are databases of religion demographics related to the Christian missionary movement. OW and the JP are both edited by the Christian missionary Patrick Johnstone, while AH, which reproduces OW-JP statistics for Asia and China, is edited by the Christian missionary Paul Hattaway. The JP has been the subject of more than ten discussions on this noticeboard, with almost all comments finding it completely unreliable. The latest discussion with RfC in 2021 decided its inclusion in the perennial sources' list as a generally unreliable source. Despite this, it is still widely used throughout Wikipedia (cf. 1), and its associated projects OW and AH are also widely used (cf. 3, 4), and this was already a matter of complaint in the previous discussions.
Should the JP, and its associated projects OW and AH, be WP:DEPRECATED? Answer yes or no.
Æo (talk) 17:30, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, it's time to deprecate them. The JP was categorised as unreliable in the perennial sources' list with a 2021 RfC, after more than ten discussions on this noticeboard in which comments were almost universally unanimous on the serious unreliability of the source. Despite its classification as unreliable, it, and its related projects OW and AH, continue to be used uncritically in various Wikipedia articles.--Æo (talk) 17:37, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, unreliable sources, frequently discussed. 2A02:1810:BC3A:D800:A050:6C5A:A34E:91A2 (talk) 11:30, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database
Our latest discussion about the World Christian Encyclopedia and its successors, the World Religion Database and World Christian Database, currently also presenting their statistics through the platform of the Association of Religion Data Archives, was in late 2022-early 2023. As demonstrated in the section above (see comments 20:13, 1 January by Erp; 20:16, 1 January addendum by Æo; 17:04, 2 January addendum by Æo; 18:39, 3 January by Æo), the WCE and its successors have some connection and/or collaborate and share information with Patrick Johnstone's Operation World and Joshua Project and their network (incl. Paul Hattaway's Asia Harvest, et al.), and ultimately the WCE and OW branched out around the mid 1990s from the same statistical database, and they all seem to be affiliated with the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization (see comment 21:17, 1 January by Æo).
A new critical essay about the WCE and its successors, which adds to those already mentioned in the foregoing 2022-2023 discussion, was published right last year: Adam Stewart's Problematizing the Statistical Study of Global Pentecostalism: An Evaluation of David B. Barrett's Research Methodology, in Michael Wilkinson & Jörg Haustein's The Pentecostal World (Routledge, 2023, pp. 457-471). It criticises the methodologies of David B. Barrett, a Welsh Anglican priest and the creator of the WCE, which were used to compile the WCE itself. Todd M. Johnson and Gina A. Zurlo, who are also mentioned in the essay and are the theorists and directors of "Global Christianity" studies at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, are otherwise the continuators of the WCE in the form of the WRD/WCD.
Within the essay, the author elaborates: <... what I call the “Pentecostal growth paradigm,” initially promulgated by David B. Barrett, and now ubiquitous within the field of Pentecostal studies, as well as four common critiques of the paradigm ... the complicated typology conceptualized by Barrett in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in order to classify and measure Pentecostals around the world ... the – very limited – information that Barrett provides regarding the data collection techniques that he used to gather the data contained in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia ... the construct validity threats contained within Barrett’s typology of Pentecostalism and data collection techniques, which, I argue, provide sufficient evidence to substantiate previous claims that the Pentecostal growth paradigm lacks the methodological rigor required to provide valid research results ...>
(p. 457).
Other quotes:
- pp. 457-458: Stewart explains that some Christian authors have pushed for:
<... a trend of steadily increasing estimates of global Pentecostal adherence ranging anywhere from 250 to 694 million ... The genealogy of this authorial ritual can be traced back to David B. Barrett’s original attempt to enumerate all of the various forms of global Christianity published in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia in 1982, which, he argued, revealed the substantial numerical growth of Pentecostalism between 1968 and 1981. This is confirmed by Johnson who writes that “virtually all estimates for the number of Pentecostals in the world are related to Barrett’s initial detailed work”. Barrett persisted in this project for another two decades, which was continued by his closest academic successors, namely, Todd M. Johnson and, more recently, Gina A. Zurlo, who continue to record the ostensibly boundless growth of Pentecostalism around the world, a perspective which I refer to here as the Pentecostal growth paradigm ...>
; - p. 458: He explains that such a paradigm was adopted and fueled by church leaders:
<... who flaunted estimates of Pentecostal growth in an attempt to legitimate their particular religious organizations, proselytistic efforts, beliefs, and/or practices. Non-Pentecostal scholars of Pentecostalism, of course, also played no small role in reifying the Pentecostal growth paradigm. Estimates of the dramatic numerical growth of Pentecostalism served “to legitimate their work among their disciplinary peers who largely understood Pentecostalism as either a social compensatory mechanism for the poor, uneducated, and oppressed or – from the opposite perspective – an oppressive form of cultural imperialism that homogenizes vulnerable poor and uneducated global populations” ...>
, and explains that<Some scholars of Pentecostalism – even when sometimes citing the continually ballooning estimates of global Pentecostalism themselves – are critical of the Pentecostal growth paradigm, and, especially, of Barrett’s contribution to this discourse. In my review of the academic literature, I detect four common critiques of the Pentecostal growth paradigm. First are concerns that Barrett’s early research methodology might not have been sufficiently sophisticated to provide valid results. Second is the charge that Barrett’s use of the three waves metaphor carries an ahistorical, Americentric, and teleological bias ... Third, is a more specific critique closely related to the more general second critique, which asserts that, although the increasing prevalence of Pentecostal adherence around the world is not seriously debated by scholars of Pentecostalism, a significant portion of increasing Pentecostal growth estimates are the result of definitional sprawl rather than an increase in the actual number of adherents ...>
; - p. 459: He cites, amongst others:
<Allan Anderson, who has characterized Barrett’s estimates of global Pentecostalism as, variously, “wild guesses,” “debatable,” “inaccurate or inflated,” “considerably inflated,” “wildly speculative” “controversial and undoubtedly inflated,” “inflated wild guesses,” and “statistical speculations” ...>
; - p. 463:
<Barrett’s description of the data collection techniques that he used in order to gather the data contained in the frst edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia was incredibly short – just two paragraphs ... Another notable characteristic of the data collection techniques employed by Barrett is a very liberal approach to estimation. He wrote, for instance, “The word ‘approximately’ is the operative word in this survey; absolute precision and accuracy are not to be expected, nor in fact are they necessary for practical working purposes. This means that although the tables and other statistics may help readers who want specific individual figures, they are mainly designed to give the general-order picture set in the total national and global context. To this end, where detailed local statistics compiled from grass-roots sources have not been available or were incomplete, the tables supply general-order estimates provided by persons familiar with the local statistical situation.” Barrett even admits to extrapolating estimates of the total national populations of those Christian organizations that largely recorded only either child (e.g., Catholics who mainly record baptized infants) or adult (e.g., Baptists who mainly record confessing adults) adherents. He explained, “the missing figure … has been estimated and added either by the churches themselves or the editors.” Barrett explained, for instance, that he estimated the total number of Catholic adherents within a country “by multiplying total affiliated Catholics (baptized plus catechumens) by the national figure for the percentage of the population over 14 years old”.>
; - p. 464: Stewart comments that:
<... his [Barrett's] cavalier approach to data collection and estimation raise significant red flags regarding the validity of his work.>
; - p. 467:
<The presence of significant monomethod bias represents a catastrophic failure of Barrett’s research design, which, as a result, does not meet the minimum standards of valid social scientific research. In addition to this more fundamental construct validity threat, the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia also contains evidence of five other threats to construct validity relating to data collection techniques, namely, reactivity to the experimental situation, experimenter expectancies, attention and contact with participants, cues of the experimental situation, and timing of measurement.>
; - p. 468, Stewart concludes:
Unfortunately, the research methodology employed by Barrett – specifically his typology of Pentecostalism and data collection techniques – was simply too flawed in order to provide valid social scientific research results that can be trusted and longitudinally or geographically compared. My analysis confirms Anderson’s claim that, “Scholars should no longer assume that there are some 600 million pentecostals in the world without further qualification”>.
I have also found further older papers containing negative critiques of the WCE and its successors:
- Marta Reynal-Querol & José G. Montalvo's A Theory of Religious Conflict and its Effect on Growth (Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, 2000). On p. 10 we read: <For the sake of comparison we also collected data directly from the World Christian Encyclopedia (WCE) using its division of groups. This data set has the advantage of being a time series, providing information for 1970, 1975 and 1980. However, as we pointed out before, this source has several shortcomings. ... Comparing to the other source of information we realize the data is biased towards Christian religion. ... The distribution of religious groups between 1970 and 1980 does not change in many countries. There are only about seventeen countries that present change in proportions. But those changes occur in countries where there is double practice and they usually imply an increase in the percentage of Christians ... Because of these reasons we take the data coming from the WCE with a lot of caution.>.
- Andrew McKinnon's "Christians, Muslims and Traditional Worshippers in Nigeria: Estimating the Relative Proportions from Eleven Nationally Representative Social Surveys", Review of Religious Research, 63(2): 303-315 (Sage, 2021). In it we read: <... those assessments that make use of multiple sources of data, such as the World Christian Database (WCD), have not tended to make their calculations publicly transparent, nor clarified how they have squared the differences between contrasting indicators.>; <Figures in the most recent edition of The World Christian Encyclopedia (Johnson and Zurlo 2020) draw on figures assembled and updated as part of the World Christian Database (WCD) ... None of the particular calculations are provided, nor is there any accounting for methodological decisions in any particular case; neither transparency nor replicability are in evidence, which makes social scientific evaluation of how they reached their conclusions impossible.>; <... they also note that the Database does seem to overestimate the Christian identification, and expressed concern about what appears to be uncritical acceptance of figures provided by religious groups of their membership. With reference to one denomination in Nigeria McKinnon (2020) has recently found evidence that supports the criticisms offered by Hsu et al (2008). WCD estimates for Anglican identification in Nigeria were found to be dramatically over-estimated due to The Church of Nigeria's un-evidenced membership claims.>
--Æo (talk) 18:48, 3 January 2024 (UTC)
- I see that Wilkinson & Haustein argue there are meaningful flaws in the methodology of Barrett and WCE. This criticism in a reliable source of the demographic methodology and technique is the first indication to me that there is substantial reason to be cautious about using these sources. (I remain unconvinced that the socioreligious affiliations of certain authors and editors is as much reason for alarm as you have seemed to imply.)
- With Wilkinson & Haustein's detailed criticism focusing on Pentecostal demographics, would we say that additional considerations must be taken when citing WCE for specifically Pentecostal demographics?
- For now, I will pause my earlier musing that WCE/WRD/WCD could be re-assessed to "Generally reliable" and would consent to them being left listed as "Additional considerations". I would suggest the description in the table be changed to emphasize that the reason for such an assessment is that reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require "further qualification". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:25, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Context matters here.
- These databases are global debases from academic publishers and they provide useful data that others simply do not have. All major undertakings like this will have some methodological issues and no survey or census is immune to it. No survey or census is definitive on religion. All provide pieces of the puzzle. Two examples one on another global demographic attempt and another on a country:
- Actual estimates on the "atheism" demographics show how multiple surveys do not agree on the numbers or method per each country or globally. There are many reasons why this would be the case - countries vary in understanding of religion and diverse methods each one contains. For example you would think that determining atheist rates is easy (yes/no) but its more complicated. Zuckerman's study (Cambridge Companion to Atheism) [1] states "Determining what percentage of a given society believes in God – or doesn’t -- is fraught with methodological hurdles. First: low response rates; most people do not respond to surveys, and response rates of lower than 50% cannot be generalized to the wider society. Secondly: non-random samples. If the sample is not randomly selected – i.e., every member of the given population has an equal chance of being chosen -- it is non-generalizable. Third: adverse political/cultural climates. In totalitarian countries where atheism is governmentally promulgated and risks are present for citizens viewed as disloyal, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they do believe in God. Conversely, in societies where religion is enforced by the government and risks are present for citizens viewed as non-believers, individuals will be reluctant to admit that they don’t believe in Allah, regardless of whether anonymity is “guaranteed.” Even in democratic societies without governmental coercion, individuals often feel that it is necessary to say that are religious, simply because such a response is socially desirable or culturally appropriate."
- At the end he had to sift through a grip of surveys his estimate ranges from 500 million 750 million atheists worldwide from this paper. Pretty wide range. His country by country ranges are complex in p. 15-17 using numerous databases. WCE and even Operation World are used in a few without issues by Zuckerman.
- Even the census data can show wide divergence with other surveys in other countries like Britain. Voas and Bruce (2004) "Research note: The 2001 census and christian identification in Britain" [2] state "Results from the 2001 population census suggest that nearly 72% of people in England and Wales may be identified as Christian. This figure is substantially higher than the proportion found by the British Social Attitudes survey and other national studies. It is also higher than the broad estimates of the size of the ‘Christian community’ previously produced by the Christian Research Association, the leading source of religious statistics in the UK (Brierley, 2003:2.2)." And even note issues with census data collection ”Another problem seems more serious. Unlike opinion polls which ask questions directly of respondents, census forms are generally completed by one individual on behalf of the entire household. There is no rule about who should take responsibility, but typically it is the head of household or at least a senior member of it."
- On the WCE, The Andrew McKinnon's source does state The editors of the World Christian Encyclopedia provide reasonable methodological reflections on the different sources upon which scholars may draw in order to estimate the different religious populations of the world, as well as some of the issues that crop up as one tries to reconcile sources that disagree (Johnson and Zurlo 2020: 897–914)."
- And the Marta Reynal-Querol & José G. Montalvo source does say ”For the sake of comparison we also collected data directly from the World Christian Enciclopedia (WCE) using its division of groups. This data set has the advantage of being a time series, providing information for 1970, 1975 and 1980.”
- Other sources like Hsu et al. 2008 deal with methodology directly and state [3] state "Scholars have raised questions about the WCD's estimates categories, and potential bias, but the data have not yet been systematically assessed. We test the reliability of the WCD by comparing its religious composition estimates to four other data sources (World Values Survey, Pew Global Assessment Project,CIA World Factbook, and the U.S. Department of State), finding that estimates are highly correlated....Religious composition estimates in the WCD are generally plausible and consistent with other data sets."
- For WRD "Given the limitations of censuses, including incomplete and irregular global coverage, potential political bias swaying the findings and the absences of many religious groups from censuses, any religious demographic analysis must consult multiple sources.[4] They state their sources which include census and surveys as well and say they are transparent to the scholarly community p. 1. Ramos1990 (talk) 15:05, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- Ramos,
- Regarding your claim that
these databases are global debases from academic publishers and they provide useful data that others simply do not have
: this is simply false; there are statistics produced by national censuses, national statistical institutes, and independent reliable survey organisations. Regarding your claim thatno survey or census is definitive on religion
: censuses are official countings of the characteristics of the whole population of a country, and in the case they have any shortcomings there are other surveys produced by national statistical organisations or independent reliable survey organisations. "Independent reliable" organisations necessarily means non-confessional, non-missionary, non-evangelistic, while "survey" organisations necessarily means that they actually conduct polls among populations. The WCE/WRD/WCD, given the evidence, is neither the first, nor the second thing. - Regarding Zuckerman's study of worldwide atheism, I do not understand what it has to do with the case being discussed here: Zuckerman does not claim that his study is a census, and in any case I would not use it in Wikipedia articles in place of census statistics. Regarding Voas & Bruce's research, I also don't understand what it has to do with our case: statistics from the British Social Attitudes Survey and the Christian Research Association have never been given precedence either in Wikipedia or elsewhere over census statistics. I think that the 2001 British census finding that 72% of the population identified themselves as Christian was correct, and in any case their number has shrunken to 59% by the 2011 census, and to 46% by the 2021 census; I trust that these are the correct proportions of self-identifying Christians within the British population in the three census periods.
- Regarding your excerpt from McKinnon's paper, it continues with the sentence that I already quoted above:
None of the particular calculations are provided, nor is there any accounting for methodological decisions in any particular case; neither transparency nor replicability are in evidence, which makes social scientific evaluation of how they reached their conclusions impossible.
. - Regarding your excerpt from Reynal-Querol & Montalvo's paper, it continues with the following conclusions, also already partially quoted above:
However, as we pointed out before, this source has several shortcomings. First, and probably the most important, the data does not consider the possibility of double practice, very common in Sub Saharan Africa and Latin America countries. Comparing to the other source of information we realize the data is biased towards Christian religion. A clear example is the case of Kenya in which the distribution of religions is considered to be similar to Spain or Italy. The distribution of religious groups between 1970 and 1980 does not change in many countries. There are only about seventeen countries that present change in proportions. But those changes occur in countries where there is double practice and they usually imply an increase in the percentage of Christians and a reduction in the size of animist followers. Because of these reasons we take the data coming from the WCE with a lot of caution.
. - Regarding Hsu et al., their full paper can be read here, it was already widely quoted in the 2022-2023 discussion and it is mostly critical of the WCE/WRD/WCD. I hope it is not necessary to repeat the same findings already explained in the 2022-2023 discussion. However, your quote is missing the following parts:
... however, the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries. ... we find that WCD estimates of American Christian groups are generally higher than those based on surveys and denominational statistics. ... the WCD counts tiny religious minorities, classifies some Muslim groups within the neoreligionist and ethnoreligionist categories, and has higher numbers of nonreligious.
(p. 680); the conclusions about correlation with other datasets:... the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y - x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world.
(p. 684); and the final conclusions:We find some evidence for the three main criticisms directed at the WCD regarding estimation, ambiguous religious categories, and bias. The WCD consistently gives a higher estimate for percent Christian in comparison to other cross-national data sets. ... We also found evidence of overestimation when we compared WCD data on American denominational adherence to American survey data such as ARIS, due in part to inclusion of children, and perhaps also to uncritical acceptance of estimates from religious institutions. ... we find the WCD likely underestimates percent Muslim in former Communist countries and countries with popular syncretistic and traditional religions. ... Data on percent nonreligious are not highly correlated among the five data sets.
. - Regarding the WRD's own methodology paper, it is a self-published source (n.b. Brian J. Grim is another member of the Gordon-Conwell team) and it is quite simply false that they use census statistics; their data definitely do not correspond to the statistics provided by censuses. This is obvious and anyone can demonstrate it, given that census statistics are public and accessible to anyone. Stewart's paper (p. 463) also mentions census statistics dated 1900 to the 1970s, which are obviously obsolete, and some improbable
unpublished data from “unprocessed” or “incomplete” national censuses
. Æo (talk) 17:00, 4 January 2024 (UTC) - Addendum: We must also remember and underline another important, critical point, which is that WCE/WRD/WCD data are speculative projections (WP:CRYSTAL) ranging from 1900 to 2050, not even survey outcomes, actually. Æo (talk) 17:28, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- P-Makoto, I would agree with your proposal to add that "reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require further qualification" to the description in the table.
- I would not restrict the scope of the source to Pentecostalism alone, however, owing to the fuzzy definition of Pentecostalism itself (cf. Stewart) and to the fact that its alleged 600+ million adherents, purported by the sources being discussed here, add a lot to the overall number of Protestants and Christians worldwide, and also owing to the fact that (cf. Stewart; Reynal-Querol & Montalvo; McKinnon) this demographic "athorial ritual" (as Stewart calls it) apparently originated among Anglicans and also involves the overestimation, and often self-overestimation, of the populations of other Christian denominations, including Anglicans themselves and Catholics, and therefore of Christians as a whole.
- I would also agree with your proposal that the source be kept in the "additional considerations" category; otherwise, if other users think it would be more appropriate to downgrade it to the "generally unreliable" or even "deprecated" category (given the continuous spam campaigns of which they are, and will likely continue to be, the subject), I would agree with them. Æo (talk) 18:02, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would not agree with downgrading the sources under discussion to "Generally unreliable" or "Deprecated". I have proposed neither, and I oppose both.
- You would not restrict the scope of the source to Pentecostalism. But why then does the author make Pentecostalism and the "Pentecostal growth paradigm" the scope of the argument? I would be more comfortable being cautious about how far we extrapolate those conclusions.
- To clarify, I do not mean to simply add "reliable sources have criticized the sources on methodological grounds and that the demographic conclusions require further qualification" to the description in the table. Rather, I would propose replacing the present description in the table with such a sentence. The current description of editors considering the source WP:PARTISAN etc. is based on editor assessments, rather than reliable secondary sources. There is not consensus on whether or not the sources are partisan. But perhaps there can be consensus that a reliable source has said that the projections require further qualification and have methodological flaws. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:22, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- P-Makoto,
- I agree the depreciation is unreasonable. But I certainly would question the Petacostal paper when Hsu et al. 2008 [5] clearly does an actual wider assessment and concludes "To address the criticisms mentioned above, we compare the religious composition estimates in the WCD to four other cross-national data sets on religious composition (two survey-based data sets and two government-sponsored data sets): the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department). In our analysis, we find support for some of the criticisms made by reviewers, but on the whole we find that WCD estimates are generally consistent with other data sets. The WCD is highly correlated with the other data sets, estimates for percent Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu; however, the WCD does have higher estimates of percent Christian within countries." and "In sum, we find that the WCD religious composition data are highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates. For cross-national studies, the WCD may be more useful than other sources of data because of the inclusion of the largest number of countries, different time periods, and information on all, even small, religious groups.”
- Additionally, Hsu 2008 also explicitly says "We ran correlations of the five data sets with each other on the percentage of adherents to the major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) as well as the nonreligious (Table 2). The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable.
- Also I think that there are methodological issues with other sources like census data as is exemplified with Britain. Many countries do not even have religion questions on the census either. But no one tries to depreciate those sources. It seems too much to require more from WCE than other sources when the evidence shows it is reliable and consistent with other databases on the whole.
- I think removing partisan and leaving the wording as is for in text attribution makes more sense for middle ground on the table.
- Also these databases are respected by diversity of scholars and authoritative sources such as scholars of Islam (e.g. The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies (2022)), scholars of nonreligion / irreligion (e.g. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7 (2016)), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007)), Pew Research Center's uses it in own methodology and database (see Pew's methodology, The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020)) and also Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022), Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe (2022)
- - Woodberry, Robert D. (2010). "World Religion Database: Impressive - but Improvable" [6] - "Despite these criticisms, we can appreciate the editors’ achievement in applying a relatively consistent methodology across the world. Furthermore, the WRD estimates are highly correlated with other cross-national estimates of religious distribution, a conclusion supported by an article by Becky Hsu and others." and also "Still, despite my criticisms, I will eagerly use these data in my research. I do not know of any better data available on such a broad scale and am amazed at the editors’ ability to provide even tentative estimates of religious distribution by province and people group."
- - Brierley, Peter. (2010). "World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief!" [7] - "The WRD is a truly remarkable resource for researchers, Christian workers, church leaders, religious academics, and any others wanting to see how the various religions of the world impact both the global and the local scenes. It is always easy to criticize any grand compilation of statistical material by looking at the detail in one particular corner and declaring, "That number doesn't seem right." The sheer scope of this database, however, is incredible, and the fact that it exists and can be extended even further and updated as time goes forward in the framework of a respected university deserves huge applause for those responsible for it. Praise where praise is due, even if I am about to critique it."
- If it is good for demographers it certainly good for Wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Ramos1990 Those are old sources. Have you evidence the situation is the same 13 or more years later? Doug Weller talk 15:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hi. Well, not sure if you looked at the Handbooks I linked, but some are from the 2020s. For example here is an extract of an authoritative source The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020):"The 2010 Pew Report is notable in terms of its comprehensive research design. Pew utilizes demographic sources from the World Religion Database as well as extensive survey data for nineteen African states. This mixed methods design of both quantitative and qualitative sources is important because it provides a substantive way to ground truth our understanding of religious affiliations and attitudes. Published demographic data alone on religion is usually drawn from censuses which can be fraught with design problems, but Pew utilizes field tested, empirical observations." Ramos1990 (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you realise that that book is discussing the Pew Research Center, and that the WRD is just mentioned in a note about the sources upon which the Pew builds its estimates? The book is neither citing the WRD directly nor discussing it. And the Pew's own criteria about its use of WRD data have already been quoted in my <19:44, 6 January> comment below. Æo (talk) 21:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- It does not need to. It merely incudes it as part of its positive assessment of the quantitative (WRD) and qualitative (survey data) combination. It certainly does not support your view at all (that is its worthless and useless). Pew's methodology page does not either. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you realise that that book is discussing the Pew Research Center, and that the WRD is just mentioned in a note about the sources upon which the Pew builds its estimates? The book is neither citing the WRD directly nor discussing it. And the Pew's own criteria about its use of WRD data have already been quoted in my <19:44, 6 January> comment below. Æo (talk) 21:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hi. Well, not sure if you looked at the Handbooks I linked, but some are from the 2020s. For example here is an extract of an authoritative source The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020):"The 2010 Pew Report is notable in terms of its comprehensive research design. Pew utilizes demographic sources from the World Religion Database as well as extensive survey data for nineteen African states. This mixed methods design of both quantitative and qualitative sources is important because it provides a substantive way to ground truth our understanding of religious affiliations and attitudes. Published demographic data alone on religion is usually drawn from censuses which can be fraught with design problems, but Pew utilizes field tested, empirical observations." Ramos1990 (talk) 18:58, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Ramos1990 Those are old sources. Have you evidence the situation is the same 13 or more years later? Doug Weller talk 15:29, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- P-Makoto,
- In my opinion the outcome of the previous community consensus should not be altered, and Firefangledfeather's closing summary should be kept, with its reference to WP:PARTISAN, or WP:BIASED, and WP:CRYSTAL, and just altered to add your new sentence, possibly also adding Stewart's conclusion that the source
lacks the methodological rigor required to provide valid research results
, and a reference to the fact that these results systematically overestimate Christianity (as found by all the critical papers quoted above) and underestimate other religions (as found by Hsu et al.). Regarding WP:BIASED, I think that it is important to keep it because in my view it is quite clear that the source is biased; for me, the relationship that it has with the OW-JP, its origins as a Christian missionary project, the fact that it is edited by the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (which, by the way, is itself directly related to Billy Graham and his Lausanne Movement), are all indicators of a clear bias, and in any case, this is clearly stated by Reynal-Querol & Montalvo where they wrotewe realize the data is biased towards Christian religion
. - Moreover, in his essay, p. 459, Stewart further explains that
Barrett directly addresses and emphatically rejects what he calls the “folly of triumphalism” ... Despite this assurance, Barrett’s occupation as a missionary, stated belief that all of the world would be evangelized by the end of the twentieth century, and, not least of all, his development of a “theology of Christian enumeration” that explains the purpose of his work as helping “the followers of Christ to discern at what points to commit their resources in order to implement their commission” serve to make this, probably, the least debatable criticism ... The particular strength of this last critique might also possibly explain why, in his recent dismissal of the critiques commonly levied against Barrett’s work, Johnson [of the GCTS] elects not to address the accusation of triumphalism.
. - The previous quote adds to both the problem of non-neutrality, bias, of the source and to the question of the scope of the source. In his own words, Barrett theorised a "theology of Christian enumeration", not of Pentecostal enumeration. Furthermore, Stewart on p. 460 is clear when he writes that:
To describe Barrett’s enumeration of Pentecostals – let alone of Christians as a whole – in the first edition of the World Christian Encyclopedia as confusing would be a drastic understatement. Guiding the entire work is Barrett’s conceptualization of Christianity ...
; and again on p. 466:Barrett's ... collection techniques in order to enumerate Pentecostals and other Christians around the world
. Therefore, Barret's project affects Christianity as a whole, and not merely Pentecostalism. Stewart clept it "Pentecostal growth paradigm" apparently because such a paradigm was... adopted and more widely disseminated by Pentecostal clergy and scholars – mostly in the Global North ...
(p. 458). This is probably a reference to the OW and its affiliated networks; I remind that the book Operation World (2010, p. 25) declares that... the World Christian Encyclopedia and a handful of other resources are at the heart of this information ...
. - Of course you have not proposed to classify the source as "generally unreliable" or "deprecated", I did not mean that, but I would propose it if any other users agreed, since this would help stem the ongoing spam of this source throughout Wikipedia (which has continued despite its addition to the perennial sources' list last year). Æo (talk) 00:08, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- If it is good for demographers it certainly good for Wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:08, 4 January 2024 (UTC)
Considering the discussion here, which is very quite long, I concur with the original 2022-2023 consensus against depreciation of these sources. They are definitely used by academic researchers and the sources presented do verify that they are good for use in Wikipedia. Robert D. Woodberry's confirmation of Hsu findings of general reliability across 4 datasets are certainly notable here as multiple sources converge on overall reliability. Keeping in mind that there are many problems with all sources including census data (WRD methodology states that only about half of the world's censuses even ask about religion and that this is declining further) certainly means that many other sources need to be used by default. This is verifiable in the US, which has nothing on religion for so many decades. And numerous other nations have removed such questions for privacy and expense reasons.
I do see room for BOTH (World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database) and numerous other databases to be used on Wikipedia. After all, these are all just estimates at the end and the Pentecostal and Atheism examples here exhibit the need to use multiple sources to make some sense of adherents (upper and lower estimates). I will say that polls, surveys, etc also fail to predict verifiable things like political elections [8] so I can only imagine the difficulty in religion demographics.
I think a good median on the perennial table is to keep the wording as is minus "The methodology of these sources has been questioned as WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL." since these pass on comparison with multiple other datasets. Twice with this noticeboard by the same proposer AEO. The wording would sound neutral, very basic, inclusive, and not too specific. "Preference" does not mean "removal" or "prohibited". It allows coexistence of sources. Thus I think this is reasonable. desmay (talk) 01:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
After all, these are all just estimates
– No, there are precise statistics from censuses and national surveys, possibly integrated by other good-quality statistics from independent neutral survey organisations, for most countries. We do not need speculative projections from non-neutral organisations of Christian evangelism. But this has already been widely discussed. The WCE/WRD/WCD are regularly spammed on Wikipedia and this causes a lot of nuisance for editors in the field of religion statistics like me, Erp and others (see here, here, etc.).... polls, surveys, etc also fail to predict verifiable things like political elections so I can only imagine the difficulty in religion demographics
– Actually, I think that a cultural identifier such as religion is much more verifiable and measurable than fleeting opinions such as political votes.Twice with this noticeboard by the same proposer AEO
– I did not open the 2022-2023 discussion myself, and, in any case, what is the problem? I also opened a discussion about WP:STATISTA last year, which resulted in its categorisation as WP:GUNREL. I read a lot, I noticed that the WCE/WRD/WCD were still being spammed throughout Wikipedia, I found new evidence of their problematic nature (the new papers presented in this discussion), and therefore I decided to open this new discussion. Æo (talk) 02:14, 5 January 2024 (UTC)- Taking in what has been said so far, at this time, for WRD/WCD/WCE, I am inclined to support user desmay's recommendations. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 05:17, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Me too. I think it is a balanced recommendation. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:40, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have to partially correct what I expressed in my <00:08, 5 January> previous comment, given that the clause with a reference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL was not present in Firefangledfeather's original closing summary, but was added by Folly Mox when they created the entry in the perennial sources' list. Yet, the new evidence (Stewart et al.) introduced with the present discussion fully justifies Folly Mox's addition, and I continue to support P-Makoto's original proposal to add a further sentence as expressed in her <10:25, 4 January> comment, and my own proposal of further additions and of category re-assessment as expressed in my <00:08, 5 January> comment, rather than desmay's proposal to return to the original closing summary. Æo (talk) 15:52, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- I placed the entry at the RSP table because I had to do some citation repair regarding these sources, I think at List of religious populations. I've found that most places these are cited in articles seem to be infoboxes and tables, which don't lend themselves easily to additional explanations about methodology etc. My sample may not reflect the total citation population.The words I used in the entry at RSP (the only one I've ever added) were probably intended to be a summary of the close of the lengthy enormous discussion. I have no objection to the wording being changed if I've misconstrued the conversation or the close. I'm not sure if I see Firefangledfeathers bluelinked above, so courtesy ping in case they have input. Folly Mox (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
I continue to support P-Makoto's original proposal to add a further sentence
- I believe this misrepresentation is accidental on Æo's part, but it is a misrepresentation of me. It was never my original proposal to add a sentence. It was my proposal that the description in the table
be changed
(bolding added), which I later clarified toreplacing the present description in the table
(bolding addeed). Any proposal which merely adds a sentence about a reliable source identifying methodological flaws while retaining thereference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL
would be contrary to my original position in this discussion. Such a proposal originates from someone other than myself; I suppose it would be best described as Æo's proposal, inspired by an inadvertent misunderstanding of my proposal. - Additionally, my current position (as I expressed in this diff), is support of desmay's proposal:
keep the wording as is minus "The methodology of these sources has been questioned as WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL."
- I think the reference to WP:PARTISAN and WP:CRYSTAL in the table as it exists is not a consensus assessment by editors. See statements in the above discussion from myself, desmay, and Ramos1990 for examples of editor expressing consideration of the WRD, WCD, and WCE to be academically valid.
- It is also not consensus that the sources are unquestionable; Æo and Erp have made clear their impression of the sources as unreliable.
- "Additional considersations" seems to be an appropriate assessment, inasmuch as there is not consensus for "Generally reliable" or "Generally unreliable". P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:11, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agree that the close of the RFC by Firefalgledfeathers did not include partisan and crystal phrase. Since Folly Mox is ok with restoring the close wording. We can remove that phrase. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Let's not rush things. The discussion has only been open for a few days, and few people have taken part in it as of today. Moreover, Folly Mox has written that they would have
no objection to the wording being changed
if they hadmisconstrued the conversation or the close
. And I think they have not misconstrued the essence of the 2022-2023 conversation. Æo (talk) 22:29, 5 January 2024 (UTC)- Folly Mox: "The words I used in the entry at RSP (the only one I've ever added) were probably intended to be a summary of the close of the lengthy enormous discussion." and pinged closer Firefalgledfeathers. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:55, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Let's not rush things. The discussion has only been open for a few days, and few people have taken part in it as of today. Moreover, Folly Mox has written that they would have
- P-Makoto,
- Apologies. I originally misunderstood your use of the word "change" as implying a change by addition and not by replacement, but your clarification in your <21:22, 4 January> comment was already very clear. What I meant with my previous message is that I would support the addition of the
clause formulated in your original proposal
, together with other critical considerations, to the current description formulated by Folly Mox, keeping the latter as it is. Also notice that other users took part, and expressed their opinions, in the 2022-2023 discussion. - I opened the present discussion to provide further evidence, from new critical essays, about the questionability of the sources under discussion; let's focus on the merits of the new evidence provided, rather than on quibbles about the current description in the perennial sources' list. Æo (talk) 22:13, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have considered the new evidence presented. Seeing the new evidence presented prompted my earlier expressed decision to withdraw my suggestion to re-assess WRD/WCD/WCE as "Generally reliable" to instead support their assessment as "Additional considerations" (see my comment containing
For now, I will pause my earlier musing that WCE/WRD/WCD could be re-assessed to "Generally reliable" and would consent to them being left listed as "Additional considerations"
. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have considered the new evidence presented. Seeing the new evidence presented prompted my earlier expressed decision to withdraw my suggestion to re-assess WRD/WCD/WCE as "Generally reliable" to instead support their assessment as "Additional considerations" (see my comment containing
- Agree that the close of the RFC by Firefalgledfeathers did not include partisan and crystal phrase. Since Folly Mox is ok with restoring the close wording. We can remove that phrase. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would suggest:
There is no consensus on the reliability of these data sources. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources. Some editors questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan.
- The order and tone matches many other "no consensus" RSP listings. The partisan issue was discussed more thoroughly than the point about their projections, but I wouldn't strenuously fight against including a short mention of the latter. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 01:53, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- User:Firefangledfeathers, I am not sure this captures everything form both sides because multiple editors are also not convinced of partisan and multiple editors think the methodology is appropriate and consistent with multiple databases (sources and quotes for those provided too). Even in the original RFC you closed, the same thing happened (most said "No" to depreciation 10 vs 5). Ramos1990 (talk) 02:25, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- As you look through RSP, you don't see a lot of "... but others disagreed". I think we just briefly state the most impactful concern, so that it's considered in future discussions when evaluating the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- On second thought, I'd support including a brief statement about one strength of the sources. The one that stands out the most to me in the prior discussion is that these data sources are so commonly cited by high-quality sources. Something like:
Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:38, 6 January 2024 (UTC)There is no consensus on the reliability of these data sources. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources. Some editors noted that data from these sources is commonly used by high-quality publications, while others questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan.
- Thank you for that! I support this balanced version. It captures both sides and the sources that were used in this discussion and the RFC you closed. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking the time to hear out some thoughts on this, and to reword the description. This version has improvement that I appreciate. I am inclined to suggest rephrasing "commonly used by high quality publications" to instead say "numerous high-quality publications"? It's a subtle difference, but there are high quality publications in topics unrelated to religious demographics that don't use these sources, so to say a source is commonly cited in high quality publications feels not quite on the mark. Saying that editors have noted that they are used in numerous high-quality publications, that seems fair and demonstrably true. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Works for me. Not looking to make this change too soon, so you (and any others) should feel free to suggest changes or propose alternatives. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- P-Makoto, works for me too. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:19, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Firefangledfeathers: I continue the discussion, with an alternative proposal, further below. Æo (talk) 19:46, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Works for me. Not looking to make this change too soon, so you (and any others) should feel free to suggest changes or propose alternatives. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:52, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for taking the time to hear out some thoughts on this, and to reword the description. This version has improvement that I appreciate. I am inclined to suggest rephrasing "commonly used by high quality publications" to instead say "numerous high-quality publications"? It's a subtle difference, but there are high quality publications in topics unrelated to religious demographics that don't use these sources, so to say a source is commonly cited in high quality publications feels not quite on the mark. Saying that editors have noted that they are used in numerous high-quality publications, that seems fair and demonstrably true. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 04:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for that! I support this balanced version. It captures both sides and the sources that were used in this discussion and the RFC you closed. Ramos1990 (talk) 02:45, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- On second thought, I'd support including a brief statement about one strength of the sources. The one that stands out the most to me in the prior discussion is that these data sources are so commonly cited by high-quality sources. Something like:
- As you look through RSP, you don't see a lot of "... but others disagreed". I think we just briefly state the most impactful concern, so that it's considered in future discussions when evaluating the source. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- User:Firefangledfeathers, I am not sure this captures everything form both sides because multiple editors are also not convinced of partisan and multiple editors think the methodology is appropriate and consistent with multiple databases (sources and quotes for those provided too). Even in the original RFC you closed, the same thing happened (most said "No" to depreciation 10 vs 5). Ramos1990 (talk) 02:25, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- I placed the entry at the RSP table because I had to do some citation repair regarding these sources, I think at List of religious populations. I've found that most places these are cited in articles seem to be infoboxes and tables, which don't lend themselves easily to additional explanations about methodology etc. My sample may not reflect the total citation population.The words I used in the entry at RSP (the only one I've ever added) were probably intended to be a summary of the close of the lengthy enormous discussion. I have no objection to the wording being changed if I've misconstrued the conversation or the close. I'm not sure if I see Firefangledfeathers bluelinked above, so courtesy ping in case they have input. Folly Mox (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm leaning in agreement with AEo here, that the summary by FFF should be retained and editors cautioned about using these as sources. The issues over methodology are compounded by the real concern of religious advocacy/promotion/bias raised by Stewart and others. I'm also of the opinion that the very limited use of WRD by Pew Research is rather telling: they opt to cite it (as one among several databases) only in circumstances where basically no census/survey or granular data exist, rather than incorporating WRD reports into all of their estimates. JoelleJay (talk) 22:00, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pew uses WRD for 57 countries at least. That is a good chunk. Considering that they use "large scale demographic surveys" for 43 countries, and "general population surveys" for 42 countries, it is quite useful to complete the picture for their global estimates. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
- Look at which countries though... It is a rather limited use. I would not lean on Pew to establish reliability for this source, I'd find someone who actually endorses it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I have multiple academic sources in purple and stuff like recent Handbooks above on it. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:24, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- But those 57 countries comprise only 5% of the population covered. JoelleJay (talk) 18:47, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Religious demography is about studying different countries and the beliefs of the people there. I am sure you will agree that each country is a different culture with diverse beliefs and histories and that these people matter - no matter how much on a global scale they are. Approximately 4.6 billion people live in ten countries, representing around 57% of the world's population [9]. I don't think that looking at only 10 out of 232 countries are representative of the cultures of the the remaining 222. China and India alone are 38% of the world population (~3 billion). Besides if you you calculate 5% out 8 billion, its 400,000,000 people from 57 nations with diverse cultures, histories, and beliefs. That is substantial and researchers do not just throw their hands up and ignore them. Most of nonreligion research focuses in Western nonreligious populations (Europe (12%), North America (5%)), but the overwhelming majority of the nonreligious are in Asia and in particular China alone (76%) from Pew. I don't think North America should be ignored just because it is 5% of the global nonreligious population. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's 5% of the population because for that 5% Pew couldn't find any other sources besides WRD and some other databases. If WRD was being treated as completely reliable by Pew they would incorporate WRD data into the other 95% of their estimates. JoelleJay (talk) 23:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pew does not go by % people. It goes by Countries (25% of their countries used WRD, whereas large surveys (18%), general surveys (18%), and census (38%)). Good coverage. Each country has different understanding of religion and instruments of measure are diverse. You can read Pew's methodology to see that they say they used multiple quantitative and multiple qualitative sources for each country. Its inevitable because all sources are limited. Pew says "variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results". So adjustments need to be made (e.g. one source may have some data and but another source may have the missing data, but needs a third source to refine everything). In general there are 3 broad categories for religion (belief, belonging, and behavior). Some sources may have affiliation data, but not belief, or they may have belief data, but low sampling or poor wording. To keep it short, see Zuckerman in purple text, where he shows examples of massive hurdles to get a usable count on the number of atheists in any given country. Sometimes researches use more math to standardize (weighted or non-weighted). In any case, WRD is a database and it collects sources and is just one tool, among others, that researchers of every stripe do use. You can see the WRD methodology. It is available, not hidden. Also it used on continental Europe [10] by others. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- In the methodology you linked previously, Pew says
Together, censuses or surveys provided estimates for 175 countries representing 95% of the world’s population. In the remaining 57 countries, representing 5% of the world’s population, the primary sources for the religious-composition estimates include population registers and institutional membership statistics reported in the World Religion Database and other sources.
JoelleJay (talk) 03:44, 8 January 2024 (UTC)- Pew breaks it down further "Censuses were the primary source for Pew Forum religious composition estimates in 90 countries, which together cover 45% of all people in the world. Large-scale demographic surveys were the primary sources for an additional 43 countries, representing 12% of the global population. General population surveys were the primary source of data for an additional 42 countries, representing 37% of the global population." With 57 countries for WRD, they covered more countries than large scale demographic surveys (43 countries), and general population surveys (42 countries). Population wise, large scale demographic surveys (43 countries) was 12% of the global population, which is very comparable to WRD. Of course % of people covered is irrelevant because each country has different practices and beliefs, histories (religious beliefs from China and India do not reflect most of the world despite them being 38% of the global population.) It would be odd to dismiss 57 countries out of 232, 43 countries out of 232, 42 countries out of 232, or 90 out of 232. They also state "Pew Forum researchers acquired and analyzed religious composition information from about 2,500 data sources, including censuses, demographic surveys, general population surveys and other studies – the largest project of its kind to date." Though I can see where you are coming from, I am afraid the view that there should be 1 magical super source that applies to all 232 countries is not quite possible. They had more than 10 times 232 sources analyzed and mathematically adjusted to come up with their final product for just 232 countries. Ramos1990 (talk) 05:57, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- In the methodology you linked previously, Pew says
- Pew does not go by % people. It goes by Countries (25% of their countries used WRD, whereas large surveys (18%), general surveys (18%), and census (38%)). Good coverage. Each country has different understanding of religion and instruments of measure are diverse. You can read Pew's methodology to see that they say they used multiple quantitative and multiple qualitative sources for each country. Its inevitable because all sources are limited. Pew says "variation in methods among censuses and surveys (including sampling, question wording, response categories and period of data collection) can lead to variation in results". So adjustments need to be made (e.g. one source may have some data and but another source may have the missing data, but needs a third source to refine everything). In general there are 3 broad categories for religion (belief, belonging, and behavior). Some sources may have affiliation data, but not belief, or they may have belief data, but low sampling or poor wording. To keep it short, see Zuckerman in purple text, where he shows examples of massive hurdles to get a usable count on the number of atheists in any given country. Sometimes researches use more math to standardize (weighted or non-weighted). In any case, WRD is a database and it collects sources and is just one tool, among others, that researchers of every stripe do use. You can see the WRD methodology. It is available, not hidden. Also it used on continental Europe [10] by others. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's 5% of the population because for that 5% Pew couldn't find any other sources besides WRD and some other databases. If WRD was being treated as completely reliable by Pew they would incorporate WRD data into the other 95% of their estimates. JoelleJay (talk) 23:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Religious demography is about studying different countries and the beliefs of the people there. I am sure you will agree that each country is a different culture with diverse beliefs and histories and that these people matter - no matter how much on a global scale they are. Approximately 4.6 billion people live in ten countries, representing around 57% of the world's population [9]. I don't think that looking at only 10 out of 232 countries are representative of the cultures of the the remaining 222. China and India alone are 38% of the world population (~3 billion). Besides if you you calculate 5% out 8 billion, its 400,000,000 people from 57 nations with diverse cultures, histories, and beliefs. That is substantial and researchers do not just throw their hands up and ignore them. Most of nonreligion research focuses in Western nonreligious populations (Europe (12%), North America (5%)), but the overwhelming majority of the nonreligious are in Asia and in particular China alone (76%) from Pew. I don't think North America should be ignored just because it is 5% of the global nonreligious population. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Look at which countries though... It is a rather limited use. I would not lean on Pew to establish reliability for this source, I'd find someone who actually endorses it. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 04:47, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am in agreement with the proposal put forth by Firefangledfeathers and P-Makoto. It is neutral and on point. desmay (talk) 14:23, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pew uses WRD for 57 countries at least. That is a good chunk. Considering that they use "large scale demographic surveys" for 43 countries, and "general population surveys" for 42 countries, it is quite useful to complete the picture for their global estimates. Ramos1990 (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
In her comments, Ramos quoted the abstract from Brierley's World Religion Database: Detail Beyond Belief! (2010) emphasising the author's seemingly positive evaluation of the source. However, reading through the essay one finds that in the conclusions the author points out that: ... This illustrates the dilemma for the compilers of the WCE and WRD. The Church of England may claim 26 million people, roughly the number living in the UK who have been baptized in the church either as infants or adults. The WRD treats this as their official source. However, not all of these now regard themselves as belonging to the Church of England and so did not tick the "Christian" box on the census form. Result? The WRD puts the Christian percent as 81 percent, the census as 72 percent, with the difference virtually entirely in the group of people who have left (as other research has shown). Which source should the WRD trust or use? This is their statistical nightmare, and the WRD in this instance opts for denominational information and does not judge between the two (though perhaps it should). This perhaps explains why some highly erudite commentators, such as Philip Jenkins, whose books on the world Christian scene have been so powerful and helpful, criticize the numbers in the WCE (and doubtless will those found in the WRD). Jenkins sometimes uses the CIA data instead, but there is no guarantee that that is more reliable.
. This was written in 2010 with the data from the 2001 British census in mind; fourteen years later, things have not changed: compare WRD UK 2020 data with the 2021 UK census data.
The strength
of the database, according to Brierley, merely consists in its unprecedented ... attempt on a worldwide basis to compile numbers for the different religions in a broadly compatible manner for each country.
. Moreover, Brierley also concludes that: ... Christian and religious commentators have no option but to use it, despite hang-ups on definitions and individual numbers. ... These figures are not just for academic reflection and analysis but for strategic use and application.
"Strategic use and application" refers to Christian mission, since Brierly is a Christian minister and/or missionary himself.
Ramos also quoted from Woodberry's World Religion Database: Impressive—but Improvable (2010); on the first page of the paper (unfortunately, I can't access the full text) we read: ... the editors seem to have constructed their estimates of religious distribution primarily from surveys of denominations and missionaries, not from censuses or representative surveys of individuals. Denominations, however, typically overestimate the number of members they have, and liturgical (and state-sponsored) denominations generally count anyone who has ever been baptized as a member—even infant baptisms of people who no longer claim Christian identity or attend church.
.
There is also another paper of the same series, Arles' World Religion Database: Realities and Concerns (2010), but I can't access its full text.
Brierley's, Woodberry's and Arles' papers were all published on the International Bulletin of Missionary Research, and Brierley, Arles and probably Woodberry as well, are/were Christian ministers and/or missionaries, and therefore I think it is important to underline that these papers belong to the Christian missionary environment to which the WCE/WRD/WCD itself belongs. Such papers are missionary sources which recommend the use of another missionary source, highlighting its strength as an unprecedented attempt to quantify the world's religious populations, while at the same time criticising its flaws. Other "high-quality publications" might be uncritical in their use of the WCE/WRD/WCD, and indeed essays like those of Brierley, Woodberry, Arles, and also Hsu et al., Stewart, and the others already discussed, were published precisely to warn against the uncritical use of such sources.
Liedhegener & Odermatt's Religious Affiliation in Europe (2013), already quoted in the 2022-2023 discussion, pointed out that (p. 9) the WCE/WRD/WCD ... is not an unproblematic source, because its data, gathered originally from the World Christian Encyclopedia, result mostly from country reports prepared by American missionaries. Therefore, a systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity is a major, although controversial point of criticism.
.
As pointed out by JoelleJay hereabove, the Pew Research Center itself is very cautious in its use of WCE/WRD/WCD data, also considering that Pew mostly bases its studies on its own (real) surveys. On p. 53 of Pew's The Global Religious Landscape (2010) we read about their criteria for their use of WRD data: In cases where censuses and surveys lacked sufficient detail on minority groups, the estimates also drew on estimates provided by the World Religion Database, which takes into account other sources of information on religious affiliation, including statistical reports from religious groups themselves.
.
Folly Mox, in their <18:55, 5 January> comment, correctly warned that the WCE/WRD/WCD are still widely cited throughout Wikipedia in a great number of articles, mostly in infoboxes and tables and without further explanation about their nature, methodology and probable bias. This has been going on for years: many articles still uncritically report WCE/WRD/WCD data referenced to the ARDA or Gordon-Conwell websites; many of them are articles about countries and the data are reproduced directly in the country infobox, passed off as 2020 data despite the fact that they are speculative projections. Therefore, I think that it would be important that WP:CRYSTAL be mentioned in the description in the perennial sources' list.
That being said, my proposal for the description in the perennial sources' list is the following one:
There is no consensus on the reliability of these sources of data about religious populations, and concerns have been raised that they may be WP:BIASED and that they are WP:SPECULATIVE projections. Rough consensus developed that the sources should be used with in-text attribution and to prefer the use of stronger sources (e.g. censuses and national surveys). While these data sources have been used in some high-quality publications, others have questioned their methodology and consider them to be partisan, and especially prone to an overestimation of Christianity.
Æo (talk) 19:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- The RFC that Æo opened on this in 2022-2023 already had all of this commentary and MORE, and after all of that Firefangledfeathers was able to come up with a balanced closure wording to take into consideration ALL sides. I would say that Firefangledfeathers proposed wording, and P-Makoto's adjustment, is certainly very balanced and NPOV again and to the point. We should go with that as Firefangledfeathers is an uninvolved editor.
- I also would just like to note that AEO seems to be an aggressive POV pusher against WCE/WRD/WCD sources. Seems to have an obsession to get these removed from wikipedia at any cost. To the point that he opened the 2022-2023 RFC and attempted to close it himself after the results were not in his favor (10 "No" vs 4 "Yes" - his count) with such biased wording emphasizing his view point and the minority and ignoring the majorities views (see here [11]). I thought that this opening and closing was unethical (conflict of interest) and requested an involved editor (see here [12]), which turned out to be Firefangledfeathers. His closure was much more balanced and at least took into consideration everyone's views (majority and minoirty) (see here [13]). As such, I do not trust AEO's POV pushing biased wording.
- Based on this, I trust the uninvolved editor Firefangledfeathers balanced NPOV wording and P-Makoto's adjustment.
- Addendum: Plus all of these quibbles were taken into account in Hsu 2008 - the only source to empirically assess these databases with 4 others: the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department) and found "The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable". Also about half or less of all countries in the world even ask about religion at all in any census. With inconsistent wording and on voluntary basis too. You have to use other sources by default to compensate. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Actually, the only quote in my comment above that I have recovered from the 2022-2023 discussion is the quote from Liedhegener & Odermatt. Brierley's and Woodberry's texts were not quoted directly back then, except for their abstracts, and therefore my argument above provides new evidence and perspectives. Everything else in your message constitutes an ad hominem WP:PA (and I already forgave you for last year's identical one). What I have written hereabove is just my proposal building upon Firefangledfeather's one, takes into consideration all the views which have been expressed by both critical essays and editors in our discussions, and in any case I am not going to close the discussion myself. Æo (talk) 21:28, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Addendum regarding your addendum with the quote from Hsu et al. and the consideration about census data: the WVS is not a survey specifically about religion, and it is a survey of relatively small samples (of few thousands in about 100 countries); the CIA and the US SD are not survey organisations, they collect data from some other sources (cf. Brierley himself where he states that it is not guaranteed that the CIA website is reliable); the Pew's own views are quoted in my comment above.
You have to use other sources by default to compensate
— yes, there is plenty of neutral statistical sources to fill gaps where we don't have data from censuses and surveys from national statistical organisations, and therefore we don't need the WCE/WRD/WCD or any other sources produced by Christian missionaries. Æo (talk) 22:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)- I also noticed the following recently. The ARDA page for the Republic of the Congo https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/national-profiles?u=58c#IRFDEMOG has the WRD estimates as Christians making up 89.32% of the population and then breaks the Christians down as unaffiliated 9.97%, Orthodox 0.01%, Catholic 61.62%, Protestants 11.42%, and Independents 10.87%. Unfortunately adding the subdivisions up yields 93.89% which is considerably more than 89.32%. Also 89.32% fits better with the figures for other religions so it is the 93.89% that is wrong probably at least in part by overestimating the percentage of Catholics (other sources claim Catholics at 32% or 55% [taken from the State Department religious freedom report https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/republic-of-the-congo/ which also states which 2012 government sources it got the figures from [a census and a survey]). The 2022 State department report had 47.3% Catholic and used a 2010 Pew Research Center report. The WRD database itself, which I have access to, lists 89.32% as Christian. Finding the subcategories took some work but it shows that the Christian subdivisions overlap (i.e., some people are counted in two or more Christian groups though not which groups overlap, my guess is many of those who were baptized Catholic and became something else later are counted in both which would explain why the Catholic figure is so high). However this is a guess because nowhere I can find does WRD describe their methodology (And ARDA dropped the overlap category). The list of what I assume is the sources for WRD for the Congo includes the 1960 and 2007 censuses and a 2005 survey but not apparently the 2012 government census and survey. A check on Angola also shows the double counted category missing on the ARDA listing of WRD results though it does show in the actual WRD database; however, most wiki editors do not have access to the latter. Note stuff like simple pie charts require no overlap in their data. This is even when assuming the WRD data is otherwise good data which I don't. So one can make a pie chart for the Congo using WRD data for the major religious categories (Christian, Muslim,...) but not one trying to show Catholic, Protestants, etc as well because the numbers will add up to more than 100%. Erp (talk) 01:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hey Erp. Hope you are doing well! Glad you were able to use WRD data on the Religion in Republic of Congo page. Yep, that is demography. Did you see Voas and Bruce (2004) "Research note: The 2001 census and christian identification in Britain" [14]? According to them, the British census may have overestimated Christians (71.7%) vs a common British Social Attitudes survey (54.2%). Aren't they all British who took both? Why the difference? The way a question is asked, the way a person interprets and responds play a role in differences we see in the numbers. Its more complicated with sub-divisions like denominations like "Catholic" or "Pentecostal". So I expect the variation on "Catholic" you mentioned (61.62%, 47.3%, 32%, 55%). Makes sense. With all of these numbers, it is best to let experts do the calculations than us wikieditors. They know how to use these databases better than us. In particular, sociologists of religion. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I used it in the Congo article only because the previous editor used it and I didn't want to make too radical a change in one step. First show that the WRD data is inconsistent with itself so drop the Christian subdivisions which at least removes the inconsistencies. Then look for better sources. I'm not sure there is any really authoritative source in this case so it might be better to remove the pie chart (pie charts look nice but they lend the patina of authoritativeness which may be misleading) and discuss the different sources in the article (note some editors use multiple pie charts but that clutters up the article).
- And yes how the questions are asked will affect the answers and how the survey or census is done (only resident citizens, all residents, only those with land lines...). However, the WRD isn't doing surveys or taking a census instead it is more a meta study using multiple sources (surveys, censuses, self-reported numbers, other projections) then projecting. My objections to it are several. First, it isn't clear what its sources are. The actual WRD data has a section called "Survey List" which I'm assuming is the list of sources; I have noticed in some cases that later sources than those on the list exist. Second, nothing describes the methodology it is using for a particular country; how is it calculating the projections when did it last update the projections (one can take a stab by looking at the latest item in the "Survey List" for when it likely last updated). Third there is no indication of how accurate they feel they are. Every percentage is to 4 significant digits (or counts to the individual person even when the sources aren't that precise, such as 386 people practicing Chinese Folk Religions and 237 Buddhists in the Republic of the Congo but no Daoists or Confucionists) even when that level of precision is impossible given the sources (projections should not become more precise then the sources). Another fault though common to many other sources is little account for religious syncretism such as in countries like Japan where many practice both Buddhism and Shintoism. Less important there are the oddities of definitions which make them seem not exactly neutral (for instance Confucianists have to be non-Chinese which might explain how they only get 1.8 million Confucianists in China). On another note given the use of the World Religion Database in Wikipedia for better or for worst, it is high time it had its own article complete with critiques from reliable sources so the reader can have some chance of evaluating it. Erp (talk) 16:06, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I don't know what the standard is in social science but in my field metastudy results should be reproducible by others, not shrouded in methodological mystery. That's another big knock on the WRD. JoelleJay (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hey Erp. Hope you are doing well! Glad you were able to use WRD data on the Religion in Republic of Congo page. Yep, that is demography. Did you see Voas and Bruce (2004) "Research note: The 2001 census and christian identification in Britain" [14]? According to them, the British census may have overestimated Christians (71.7%) vs a common British Social Attitudes survey (54.2%). Aren't they all British who took both? Why the difference? The way a question is asked, the way a person interprets and responds play a role in differences we see in the numbers. Its more complicated with sub-divisions like denominations like "Catholic" or "Pentecostal". So I expect the variation on "Catholic" you mentioned (61.62%, 47.3%, 32%, 55%). Makes sense. With all of these numbers, it is best to let experts do the calculations than us wikieditors. They know how to use these databases better than us. In particular, sociologists of religion. Ramos1990 (talk) 03:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I also noticed the following recently. The ARDA page for the Republic of the Congo https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/national-profiles?u=58c#IRFDEMOG has the WRD estimates as Christians making up 89.32% of the population and then breaks the Christians down as unaffiliated 9.97%, Orthodox 0.01%, Catholic 61.62%, Protestants 11.42%, and Independents 10.87%. Unfortunately adding the subdivisions up yields 93.89% which is considerably more than 89.32%. Also 89.32% fits better with the figures for other religions so it is the 93.89% that is wrong probably at least in part by overestimating the percentage of Catholics (other sources claim Catholics at 32% or 55% [taken from the State Department religious freedom report https://www.state.gov/reports/2021-report-on-international-religious-freedom/republic-of-the-congo/ which also states which 2012 government sources it got the figures from [a census and a survey]). The 2022 State department report had 47.3% Catholic and used a 2010 Pew Research Center report. The WRD database itself, which I have access to, lists 89.32% as Christian. Finding the subcategories took some work but it shows that the Christian subdivisions overlap (i.e., some people are counted in two or more Christian groups though not which groups overlap, my guess is many of those who were baptized Catholic and became something else later are counted in both which would explain why the Catholic figure is so high). However this is a guess because nowhere I can find does WRD describe their methodology (And ARDA dropped the overlap category). The list of what I assume is the sources for WRD for the Congo includes the 1960 and 2007 censuses and a 2005 survey but not apparently the 2012 government census and survey. A check on Angola also shows the double counted category missing on the ARDA listing of WRD results though it does show in the actual WRD database; however, most wiki editors do not have access to the latter. Note stuff like simple pie charts require no overlap in their data. This is even when assuming the WRD data is otherwise good data which I don't. So one can make a pie chart for the Congo using WRD data for the major religious categories (Christian, Muslim,...) but not one trying to show Catholic, Protestants, etc as well because the numbers will add up to more than 100%. Erp (talk) 01:12, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Addendum: Plus all of these quibbles were taken into account in Hsu 2008 - the only source to empirically assess these databases with 4 others: the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department) and found "The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable". Also about half or less of all countries in the world even ask about religion at all in any census. With inconsistent wording and on voluntary basis too. You have to use other sources by default to compensate. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:14, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Erp,
- The problems you have encountered regarding the "double counting" and "inconsistent estimates" in WCE/WRD/WCD data are addressed in some of the papers we have discussed. For instance, in Hsu et al.: p. 688, analysing WCE/WRD/WCD data about US Christians:
The WCD reports the total adherent count within Christian denominations and movements is 226 million, of whom 20 million are estimated to be doubly affiliated, leaving 206 million unique adherents. An additional 46 million claim to be Christians but are not affiliated with a church, for a total of 252 million affiliated and unaffiliated Christians. The 2005 Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches’ tabulation of official church membership is 163 million. In contrast to the WCD, the Yearbook does not count members of independent churches or adjust for doubly affiliated adherents. This difference of 43–63 million adherents between the Yearbook and the WCD warrants further examination. ... The WCD adjusts for “doubly counted” adherents, who may be on multiple membership lists, when aggregating up from denomination level statistics to religious blocks and total religious adherents. However, we do not know how the WCD derives its estimate of 20 million doubly counted U.S. adherents. Current WCD estimates of American Christian populations are generally higher than those based on survey evidence and denominational statistics. The WCD estimate of the total Christian population does not sufficiently reflect the recent downward trend in the percentage of Americans professing Christian identity in surveys.
; pp. 689-691, analysing inconsistent estimates of Christians in other countries:We find two major groups of countries with inconsistent estimates: African countries with religious syncretism or a history of social disorder, and formerly Communist countries. ... African countries with very inconsistent estimates for percent Christian (Angola, Burundi, Congo-Brazzaville, Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon, Ghana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) have some populations that mix religious practices. ... For India, which others have cited as problematic, the WCD has a higher estimate for percent Christian than the other data sets ... the difference comes from Christian believers in high and low castes identifying themselves as Hindu for various reasons, ... and the existence of “isolated radio believers” who do not affiliate with particular denominations. The WCE does not explain how it estimates the number of isolated radio believers, presumably a particularly difficult population to measure.
. Æo (talk) 14:56, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Further criticism of the WRD is expressed in the following paper:
- Christopher Claassen & Richard Traunmüller's "Improving and Validating Survey Estimates of Religious Demography Using Bayesian Multilevel Models and Poststratification", Sociological Methods & Research, XX(X): 1-34 (Sage, 2018). On p. 4, we read:
A number of data collection projects have arisen to meet this demand, including the World Religion Database ... Although the scope and comprehensiveness of these databases are admirable, and while they provide perhaps the only source of data for some regions and periods of time, there are nevertheless a number of limitations with their estimates. ... Although these databases rightly respect the adage that some data are preferable to none at all, we have no way of ascertaining the degree of uncertainty attached to any particular estimate because none are provided. Without uncertainty estimates, analysts are led to treat census measures and expert opinions as equally valid. Second, the methods used to adjust sample survey data, combine data, and obtain estimates when no data are available are less than fully transparent. Adjusting, combining, interpolating, and extrapolating data require modeling. Yet neither the assumptions underlying the model nor the exact methods for doing so are fully specified. In addition, the uncertainty induced by modeling is again ignored.
. --Æo (talk) 21:12, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
RfC: WCE-WRD/WCD
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The #World Christian Encyclopedia and World Religion Database/World Christian Database are currently used in many Wikipedia articles (cf. 1, 2, 3, 4) to cite statistics on religion demography, and finding a consensus on the reliability of these sources in the discussion above has been difficult. Foregoing discussions on the same sources include one in 2018 and one in 2022-2023 (with RfC).
In this request for comment, it is possible to:
- Option 0: Express a comment without choosing any specific option on the reliability of the sources.
- Assess the reliability of the sources by choosing from one of the following options:
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
Æo (talk) 18:06, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3: There is abundant evidence, especially since the publication of Stewart's 2023 critical essay, but also in previous critical essays, that these are problematic, biased sources originating from a Christian missionary environment, and they have been questioned on methodological grounds. Moreover, the data they produce are based on speculative projection. Secondary sources that recommend their use often come from the same environment, and these secondary sources express some negative criticism themselves. Secondary sources that actually use them tend to be either outdated or uncritical in ther use, often merely citing them in footnotes and/or in lists of multiple sources.--Æo (talk) 18:21, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Bad RfC. Even if somewhere there's an unresolved discussion of the use of a cite, that still would not justify a 4-way template with options including a blanket ban. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 18:44, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Peter Gulutzan: What do you suggest as an alternative to the four options? Æo (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- "[Name of source] has been used in [reference to Wikipedia article] for a cite of [fact], and attempts to resolve on [name of talk page thread] have failed, please comment here." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, both are possible. I am going to integrate the two formats. I think it is important to clearly assess the reliability of these sources, and in any case, as the rule says, "consensus is assessed based on the weight of policy-based arguments". These are not votes and the closer will judge based on the merit of all the comments here, in the discussion above, and in the previous threads as well. Æo (talk) 19:37, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- "[Name of source] has been used in [reference to Wikipedia article] for a cite of [fact], and attempts to resolve on [name of talk page thread] have failed, please comment here." Peter Gulutzan (talk) 19:06, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is the standard format of RFCs on this noticeboard. The inclusion of an option shouldn't be seen as any kind of endorsement for that option. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:57, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Peter Gulutzan: What do you suggest as an alternative to the four options? Æo (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I doubt that anyone has authority to declare what is "the standard". Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:44, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. Regarding World Christian Encyclopedia (1st and 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, 1982, 2001; 3rd ed., Edinburgh University Press, 2019), World Christian Database (Brill, 2007, updated quarterly), and World Religion Database (Brill, 2007, updated quarterly): When I first saw it brought up on this board, I was inclined to encourage reassessing the sources as "Generally reliable". They are published with highly reputable university presses and have been improved across multiple editions and updates. However, after seeing the conversation between Ramos1990 and Æo, I concluded that these sources' current assessment as "Additional considerations" is fairest. Scholarly assessments of the sources evidently vary, with different perspectives about the extent to which the estimations and assessments can be depended on. As such, it makes sense to attribute these sources' projections and surveys and to be mindful of countervailing sources. However, I am not persuaded these sources should be considered "Generally unreliable". I recognize that Æo in their characterizes these sources as "originating from a Christian missionary environment". From what I have seen, that understates how the sources have emerged from an academic religious studies environment. Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, and Brill don't publish just anybody, and that the editors, authors, and demographers involved met those academic standards remains meaningful. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 20:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 1, Bad RFC, WP:FORUMSHOP These sources were assessed last year with the majority not supporting the same RFC poster Æo using the same arguments. I believe this may be WP:FORUMSHOP. He even tried to close the RFC himself with his own views highlighted over the majority. In any case, these databases come from academic publishers (Oxford University Press, Edinburgh University Press, Brill). And have been independently empirically assessed too, taking into account any criticisms, with 4 other common databases in demography (the World Values Survey (WVS), the Pew Global Attitudes Project (Pew), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the U.S. State Department (State Department)) and found to be generally reliable and highly correlated (very comparable) with correlation of .9 (note: a correlation of 1 would mean perfect correlation which never happens among demographic datasets) Becky Hsu et al :"We ran correlations of the five data sets with each other on the percentage of adherents to the major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) as well as the nonreligious (Table 2). The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable". Furthermore, they note that "on the whole we find that WCD estimates are generally consistent with other data sets. The WCD is highly correlated with the other data sets, estimates for percent Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu" and even give a positive overall recommendation "In sum, we find that the WCD religious composition data are highly correlated with other sources that offer cross-national religious composition estimates. For cross-national studies, the WCD may be more useful than other sources of data because of the inclusion of the largest number of countries, different time periods, and information on all, even small, religious groups.” No sources have been presented showing the opposite on such a multiple global datasets scale. And the WRD methodology is available: "fully transparent to the scholarly community...based on best social science and demographic practices." It has census, surveys, polls too. Furthermore, these sources are notable for their data being commonly commonly used by high-quality publications. They are respected by a diversity of scholars and authoritative sources such as scholars of Islam (e.g. The Oxford Handbook of Politics in Muslim Societies (2022)), scholars of nonreligion / irreligion (e.g. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Volume 7 (2016)), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007)), Pew Research Center's uses it in own methodology and database (see Pew's methodology, The Palgrave Handbook of Islam in Africa (2020)) and also Oxford Handbook of Mission Studies (2022), Oxford Handbook of the Economics of Religion (2011), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe (2022). If it is good enough for independent demographers, Oxford University handbooks, Cambridge University handbooks, Palgrave Handbooks, Pew, Sociology of Religion, it certainly good enough for Wikipedia. Ramos1990 (talk) 21:58, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I respond to Ramos' argument, which I find to be misleading and which once again relies upon personal attack, in the #Additional commentary below. Æo (talk) 20:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 1 I was originally between option 1 and 2, but after looking at some points further, I looked around and found additional high quality sources that use WRD/WCDWCE data without any issues. For example, Oxford Handbook of Religion and Europe [15] pages 793–798 uses the databases to summarize European demographics overall. I also found the same thing for summarizing demographics of Asia overall in Oxford Handbook of Christianity in Asia [16] at the very end pages 598–605. Two continents is quite good from my simple search. I think that the Becky Hsu paper on comparing WRD/WCD/WCE with 4 other secular databases with global statistics provides as good test of reliability for any given source. I was surprised such an empirical test was even done for any database at all. A .9 correlation is like an A grade for a student in school. That sociologist Robert Woodberry acknowledged Hsu's general conclusion of high correlation is a good second opinion by an expert, which is as good as it gets for global demography because demography is full of imperfections. I see no good reason for not seeing them as generally reliable at this point. Oxford, Cambridge, Pew and other unquestioned sources don't seem to either. I will lean on their expertise. After all, if WRD/WCD/WCE were unreliable, they would not even be used by them (Oxford handbooks are "Authoritative and state-of-the-art surveys of current thinking and research, from leading international figures in the discipline." [17]) The few clear criticisms I saw were minor and not significant enough compared to the positives and they were mostly Wikipedian opinions, not scholarly assessments. Pentecostalism is an informal denomination and it is hard to even get clear numbers for denominations across countries. Phil Zuckerman's struggle with atheism shows that censuses and surveys, may not be able to capture all religious groups evenly across countries and so any complaints about WRD/WCD/WCE seem to just be problems faced by demography in general, and not unique to WRD/WCD/WCE. I find it odd that the same editor opening this RFC is the same editor that opened the 2022 RFC with seeming repeat intent to depreciate again (WP:RSP entry). desmay (talk) 01:32, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 I'm mostly going on methodological grounds and also because in my last deep dive (from the previous discussion) I found very few peer reviewed articles using the WRD as a source that were not connected with the project itself (e.g., authored by someone in WRD). Even Pew uses it only when no other sources exist. Where we know it does correlate, other better sources exist which they are probably using. One article mostly on Pew though it also applies to WRD (Birdsall, Judd; Beaman, Lori (2020-07-02). "Faith in Numbers: Can we Trust Quantitative Data on Religious Affiliation and Religious Freedom?" (PDF). The Review of Faith & International Affairs. 18 (3): 60–68. doi:10.1080/15570274.2020.1795401. ISSN 1557-0274. Retrieved 2024-01-12. notes that "Numbers are not neutral. Behind any quantification of religion or FoRB there are a range of qualitative assumptions and decisions as to what constitutes religion, religiosity, a restriction on religious belief or practice, or a social hostility involving religion. It’s both an art and a science" and goes on to state "Pay close attention to what an organization is actually measuring and use the correct terminology when citing its data. As we have seen, religious “identification” is not synonymous with faith, belief, practice, or even formal affiliation" (page 6 of the pdf). Pew almost always gives us the methodology for their figures; WRD just presents the data but not what type of religiosity they are estimating (formal affiliation, self-identification, practicing). We should also be upfront that in some cases precise numbers just aren't there so, for instance, not use a pie chart which privileges one source well above others when no source is great. (As an aside I just looked at the WRD info on the United Kingdom, I suspect it would come to a shock to many in Scotland and Northern Ireland that the UK's state religion is Anglican [it is the state religion only of England].)
- Erp (talk) 02:48, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Deep dive. Looking at an article that is comparing the WRD/WCD and several other sources (note WRD and WCD overlap on who is running them, in particular Todd Johnson) (McKinnon, Andrew (2020). "Demography of Anglicans in Sub-Saharan Africa: Estimating the Population of Anglicans in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda". Journal of Anglican Studies. 18 (1): 42–60. doi:10.1017/S1740355320000170. ISSN 1740-3553. Retrieved 2024-01-14., btw the article goes into depth about why the numbers can vary including why censuses and surveys can vary). Broadly they match other info until they hit Nigeria. "Relative to any of the other cases we have considered here, WCD estimates differ most dramatically from any of the four surveys in terms of the proportion of Anglicans in Nigeria. The WCD estimates a dramatic proportional increase in Anglicans in the 45 years leading up to 2015, from 5.2 per cent to 12.1 per cent. The highest proportion of Anglicans on any of the surveys is found in the R5 Afrobarometer survey, where Anglicans comprise 5.3 per cent of a nationally representative sample". The author continued "The WCD has arrived at its estimate for the proportion of Anglicans in 2015 by taking the last reported figures provided by the Church of Nigeria (Anglican) itself to the WCD.... In correspondence with the author, Todd Johnson of WCD has noted that, collectively, the churches and denominations of Nigeria claim 25 million more members than the best estimate of the Christian population would allow". After evaluating all the information the author concludes that there is at least 4.94 million self-identified Anglicans in Nigeria and no more than 11.74 million (the Church of Nigeria claims 18 million). BTW the ARDA report of the WRD figures (https://www.thearda.com/world-religion/national-profiles?u=166c#RELADH) which most Wiki editors likely use does not include or mention the subtraction (under the guise of multiple affiliations) that WRD uses in its own database to make the various percentages add up; the WRD total percentage of Christians is 46.18% but adding up the WRD subtotals as reported by ARDA yields 56.29%. Erp (talk) 05:11, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 1 per Ramos1990 who makes a compelling argument. Nemov (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 or at least 2. Like Erp, I am concerned with the methodology used in compiling these databases, particularly the opacity in what questions are even being asked of respondents. Pew uses WCD and other databases for only 5% of the population. That that 5% is divided into a larger number of countries than the percentages allocated to surveys etc. is about as meaningful as the observation that Trump won 2,497 counties while Biden "only" won 477. The only utility would be when discussing religious representation in the particular 57 countries that Pew used "a database" for, but in those cases we have a better source in Pew itself, which has secondarily filtered and interpreted these data. Perhaps professional demographers can extract the substantive information from WRD, but given how uneven it is in reliability and all the special considerations that one must make for given groups, we should treat it as essentially a primary source. JoelleJay (talk) 04:24, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 1: Demography of religion is very sophisticated and imperfect. If it were a simple matter, or if there was a one-source solution, there wouldn't be as much debate among sociologists/demographers on religion (adherents and belief are not the same and hard to capture), and certainly not the thousands of sources that Pew needs to use to estimate religion in 232 nations. The sources in the RFC are used in quite a good number of tertiary sources from experts and reliable publishers of high-quality resources. For Wikipedia's purposes, we go by what reliable sources like these use, not if a source can solve what so many sociologists/demographers of religion have been unable to solve and continue to debate about, the number of adherents. Sociology of religion is full of debates on the estimated numbers of religious adherents. ---1990'sguy (talk) 02:38, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2: I'm fine with keeping it at option 2 but being more explicit about how it can be used. The methodology is really unclear, it is also unclear whether some numbers are predictions for the future. That the data is a lot of the time cited to ARDA instead of the real source doesn't help. WCD should never replace census data, reliable polling data or reliable membership statistics (e.g. Germany). It should not be used in religion/country articles that have better sources, the approach Pew takes essentially. If we add those other sources then I think it would violate WP:NOTSTATS and WP:UNDUE to also add the WCD. In religion/country articles where there are no better sources, it can be used but only with attribution and a disclaimer that they generally overestimate the number of christians. In the best case scenario, also an explanation of their methodology (this will be difficult). If it is used in infoboxes there should be a note with the same information. The data should not be put in a pie chart because people are far more likely to mistake it for census data or polling data (with conventional 3% error margins). --2A02:1810:BC3A:D800:A050:6C5A:A34E:91A2 (talk) 11:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm surprised by some comments here. For instance, "The sources in the RFC are used in quite a good number of tertiary sources from experts and reliable publishers of high-quality resources"--well, that may be so, but if the argument against is "a lot of academic studies are highly critical of the source and the organization funding them is biased" and the argument for is "there are scholars that use it", then these two are not on equal footing, and it seems obvious to me that we should value those that actually studied this and other databases higher than those that simply use it/them. No, I don't find Ramos's argument compelling here, because (besides all the other problems) they are simply explaining who uses it--"If it is good enough for independent demographers..." But that, while not invalid, is simply not as strong as the counterargument, and I think the last thing we should do here on Wikipedia is use data that is published by biased organizations and questioned by scholars. So I'm actually going to go with 4: deprecate, because of its problematic source, rather than 3. Drmies (talk) 16:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- A request for the closer: there have been some instances of at least borderline WP:CANVASSING and there are allegations that more may have occurred, potentially off-wiki. I'd recommend adhering especially to WP:NOTAVOTE when assessing consensus. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 21:14, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2: It may be usable depending on context. Path2space (talk) 18:52, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Additional commentary
Ramos' argument is opened by an ad hominem WP:PA (in which she falsely accuses me of WP:FORUMSHOPPING, manipulates the facts of the 2022-2023 discussion as she already tried to do in January 2023 and on 6 January 2024 in the discussion above, and accuses me of using the same arguments whilst I have presented plenty of new evidence, starting from Stewart's 2023 essay), which would be enough to make her argument fallacious. Then, she builds upon a few lines, already reiterated again and again in the discussion above, excerpted from the 2008 Hsu et al. paper which, however, is overall mostly critical of the source under discussion. Regarding the CIA and the US SD, they are not statistical institutes, and they collect statistics about religions from other sources, often from the WCE/WRD/WCD itself (e.g. US SD 2022 India report)! The Pew's very restrictive criteria in its use of WCE/WRD/WCD data have been thoroughly explained by JoelleJay and by myself in the discussion above, and once again by Erp in her comment hereabove. Then, Ramos continues by stating that no sources have been presented showing the opposite on such a multiple global datasets scale
, which is misleading: various scholarly sources presented (even Hsu et al. itself!) found a systematic overestimation of Christianity and underestimation of other categories in WCE/WRD/WCD data, and various other problems, but Ramos chooses to completely ignore all the critical problems highlighted by such scholarly sources. Anne-Marie Kool's Revisiting Mission in, to and from Europe through Contemporary Image Formation (2016), another essay which is highly critical of the source under discussion, already quoted in the 2022-2023 discussion, warns that: widespread caution is raised with regard to the accuracy of the figures and not to engage in statistical analysis with the data
. Æo (talk) 20:51, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Questions of forum shopping or any other editor behaviour should be taken elsewhere, equally editors comments should be centered on sources not each other. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:59, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not sure about Kool. She is not a demographer and she even says on the sources, "I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades." The Becky Hsu et al. source was not a source I found. It was Æo that cited it in the 2022 discussion and tired to use it as a main source against reliability. But after I read it, I noticed that it said the opposite and even included Christian data in the list of generally reliable data (see my blue text for quote). She is explicit on this. Furthermore, Table 2 has correlations on Christians among the 4 data sets and WCD correlates with the 4 datasets better (.9188, .9251, .9581, .9346 - all above .9 correlation) than how the other 4 datasets correlate with each other (.9146, .8979, .9365, .8468, .8538, .9408 - some are below .9 correlation). On overestimating, it is not unique [18]. Plus I found another authoritative source explicitly saying "A scholarly analysis of the World Christian Database was conducted by sociologists at Princeton University in 2008, confirming its reliability. See Hsu et al., 2008." (Bloomsbury Handbook to Study Christians (2019)) and in p. 23 acknowledges that these are "the best scholarly resource we have for documenting religious affiliation in the world today". For Pew, see my responses above. WRD is the second most used primary source after censuses, by country. Population size wise, WRD usage was comparable to large scale demographic surveys (12% of the population) - but Pew used 2,500 sources overall so it was never one source per country. Seeing that China and India alone account for 38% of the world population and all of Europe is only 7% of the global population, objections based on population size are not convincing not carry any weight. Pew goes by # of countries instead. See Palgrave handbook link for more info. Pew would simply not use WRD if it was so unreliable. Period. Numerous other authoritative sources that are commissioned specifically to leading experts in their fields (Oxford handbooks, Cambridge handbooks, etc) easily use these. Net positive, all things considered. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- You continue to manipulate facts, potentially misleading readers and commentators, probably expecting them not to read the essays and the past discussions. The full paragraph of Kool (2016) in which the line you excerpted is contained is the following (underlined: your excerpt):
It might well be that the great quantity of details easily silenced possible critical voices. It is peculiar that hardly any serious critical interaction and discussion of the underlying methodology of the Atlas has taken place, neither of its two data providing predecessors (footnote 65: Except for a not very convincing study: BECKY HSU et al.). The data are simply taken for granted, as I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades.
. It is a statement of repentance for having used the highly problematic WCE/WRD/WCD data in her past works. - Similarly, Hsu et al. (2008) itself (n.b. my links are always to the full paper, while Ramos' ones are always to the paper's abstract only), from which you continue to quote a few selected and decontextualised lines, is actually very critical of the sources under discussion, and I provided relevant quotes from it in the 2022-2023 discussion and others in the discussion above. It is also true that Hsu et al. is from the mid 2000s, and age matters in this case (as Doug Weller correctly pointed out in the discussion above), and therefore the excerpt you keep quoting about "high correlation" may have been true for the data of the 2000s, but no longer be true for the data of the 2010s and 2020s.
- The full paragraph of Hsu et al. from which your excerpt is taken is the following (underlined: your excerpt; highlighted: critical parts):
We ran correlations of the five data sets with each other on the percentage of adherents to the major world religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism) as well as the nonreligious (Table 2). The WCD is highly correlated with the other four data sets, with most correlations near 0.90, which suggests that its data for percent Christian, percent Muslim, percent Buddhist, and percent Hindu are generally reliable. However, the other data sets often do not have information for all countries, so the correlations only represent the countries where other data sets record percentages for those religious categories. Most notably, the nonreligious data are not highly correlated between most of the data sets. While all of the data sets have mostly complete data for percent Christian and percent Muslim, data on percent Buddhist, percent Hindu, and percent nonreligious are incomplete in various data sets. The nonreligious category has few observations in State Department and CIA data and is best represented in the WCD, WVS, and Pew. The estimates for Hindus and Buddhists are especially problematic in the CIA data. Figure 1 shows that the WCD tends to overestimate percent Christian relative to the other data sets. Scatterplots show that the majority of the points lie above the y - x line, indicating the WCD estimate for percent Christian within countries is generally higher than the other estimates. Although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians in the world. This suggests that while the percentage Christian estimates are closely related among the data sets, the tendency is for them to be slightly higher in the WCD.
- Regarding the handbooks that you keep citing, they are not written by statisticians and demographers and are not essays about statistics/demography and its methodologies. They are just "handbooks" that uncritically use the WCE/WRD/WCD among many other sources. Æo (talk) 19:38, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- Key word in Hsu - "Slight". Nowhere does she say significant, nor does she isolate Christians away from the list of "generally reliable". Table 2 shows WCD had higher correlation (greater than .9) with all 4 datasets than the other 4 datasets with each other (some were below .9) on Christians as well. High correlation verifies general reliability. Overestimates/underestimates occur all the time in demography because all sources are limited. Example on census overestimating Christians too [19] and also some censuses like Soviet or Albanian censuses underestimated Christians. If WRD was as unreliable as you keep saying, high quality publications obviously would not use them even on Christianity at all, and yet they do. Among other recent ones I cited above (in my vote), here is one someone else found on summarizing Christianity in Asia [20] (btw Asia is ~60% of global population). These publications use experts in demography. Neither you or I are experts. I will leave it here. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:23, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hsu, whom in any case wrote
although the bias is slight, it is consistent, and consequently, the WCD estimates a higher ratio of Christians
, is not the only one to have found such an overestimation; almost all the other papers cited have highlighted it. For instance, Liedhegener & Odermatt founda systematic bias of its data in favor of Christianity
. It is "systematic" and "consistent" throughout all countries, which means that even if the percentage of overestimation for each country were low (e.g. 3%), the overall result on the world population would be significant. The evidence suggests that in some cases the percentage of overestimation is very high: e.g. Australia WRD 2020 ~57%, cfr. Australia Census 2021 ~44% — overestimation of 13%; Canada WRD 2020 ~63%, cfr. Canada Census 2021 ~53% — overestimation of 10%; Czechia WRD 2020 ~35%, cfr. Czechia Census 2021 ~12% — overestimation of 23%; Hungary WRD 2020 ~87%, cfr. Hungary Census 2021 ~42% — overestimation of 45%; Isle of Man WRD 2020 ~84%, cfr. Isle of Man Census 2021 ~55% — overestimation of 29%; and there are many other examples. Æo (talk) 23:00, 14 January 2024 (UTC)- Your analysis: WRD vs census, is not reliable or convincing. Liedhegener & Odermatt themselves use at least a dozen sources from different time periods and adjust censuses to get their numbers for Europe. They use aggregate analysis, not single source basis (i.e. they do not just use census and that's it). Plus they admit that the quality of census can be problematic and are variable. "Even recent censuses pose sometimes serious, probably unsolvable problems to statistics on religious affiliation at a subnational or regional level. Micro censuses especially share to a certain extent the problems of survey research because the number of respondents is higher, but still restricted. The latest Swiss census is an example of the limitations to producing reliable regional, not to mention local, statistics on religious affiliation. But even traditional population censuses may cause problems which also affect regional comparisons. The British census of 2001 may illustrate this. Its results on religious affiliation where not only restricted by a missing distinction between the major Christian traditions. Moreover, the questionnaire differed substantially between England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland." Some census are good for sure, but obviously not all the time. Plus less than half the countries around the world even ask about religion in their censuses. And the ones that do are inconsistently worded country by country. That means half the world is missing such data by default. Liedhegener & Odermatt themselves admit "Moreover, for Europe as a whole, as for important European countries such as France and Great Britain, it is currently impossible to give reliable figures on the religious affiliation of its population." Britain has census data on religion by the way, so what happened there is interesting. Also they do say that "For Europe the SMRE data show that the WCD provides plausible data for a number of countries, but not for all." Definitely different than your analysis above. This is an interesting admission and find it interesting that they incorporated WCD to their SMRE, it means it is indeed a valuable demographical database for SMRE. And OMG they even acknowledge historical significance as former "international “gold standard” of comparative statistics on religious affiliation, the World Christian Database". Understandable with other global datasets available than in the past. Anyways, this is not unique, "To illustrate this: The two well-known international surveys EVS and ESS use a two-stage process of questioning. In comparison to other sources this technique leads frequently to much higher results on the proportion of persons with no religious affiliation. In addition, due to different wording, the ESS produces even higher figures in this category than the EVS." Each source is limited obviously. They even say "Statistics on religious affiliation in France are a prominent example. It depends on the data you choose to either name France a catholic country or to declare it to be a highly secularized nation. However, comparing the different data on France collected by the SMRE, it becomes clear that it is virtually impossible to come up with reliable figures for this Western European country today." I like their admission that secularized countries "are countries with a lack of data or with contradicting data".
- Hsu, whom in any case wrote
- Key word in Hsu - "Slight". Nowhere does she say significant, nor does she isolate Christians away from the list of "generally reliable". Table 2 shows WCD had higher correlation (greater than .9) with all 4 datasets than the other 4 datasets with each other (some were below .9) on Christians as well. High correlation verifies general reliability. Overestimates/underestimates occur all the time in demography because all sources are limited. Example on census overestimating Christians too [19] and also some censuses like Soviet or Albanian censuses underestimated Christians. If WRD was as unreliable as you keep saying, high quality publications obviously would not use them even on Christianity at all, and yet they do. Among other recent ones I cited above (in my vote), here is one someone else found on summarizing Christianity in Asia [20] (btw Asia is ~60% of global population). These publications use experts in demography. Neither you or I are experts. I will leave it here. Ramos1990 (talk) 20:23, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- You continue to manipulate facts, potentially misleading readers and commentators, probably expecting them not to read the essays and the past discussions. The full paragraph of Kool (2016) in which the line you excerpted is contained is the following (underlined: your excerpt):
- Not sure about Kool. She is not a demographer and she even says on the sources, "I have taken them for as authoritative in my teaching and research during the last two decades." The Becky Hsu et al. source was not a source I found. It was Æo that cited it in the 2022 discussion and tired to use it as a main source against reliability. But after I read it, I noticed that it said the opposite and even included Christian data in the list of generally reliable data (see my blue text for quote). She is explicit on this. Furthermore, Table 2 has correlations on Christians among the 4 data sets and WCD correlates with the 4 datasets better (.9188, .9251, .9581, .9346 - all above .9 correlation) than how the other 4 datasets correlate with each other (.9146, .8979, .9365, .8468, .8538, .9408 - some are below .9 correlation). On overestimating, it is not unique [18]. Plus I found another authoritative source explicitly saying "A scholarly analysis of the World Christian Database was conducted by sociologists at Princeton University in 2008, confirming its reliability. See Hsu et al., 2008." (Bloomsbury Handbook to Study Christians (2019)) and in p. 23 acknowledges that these are "the best scholarly resource we have for documenting religious affiliation in the world today". For Pew, see my responses above. WRD is the second most used primary source after censuses, by country. Population size wise, WRD usage was comparable to large scale demographic surveys (12% of the population) - but Pew used 2,500 sources overall so it was never one source per country. Seeing that China and India alone account for 38% of the world population and all of Europe is only 7% of the global population, objections based on population size are not convincing not carry any weight. Pew goes by # of countries instead. See Palgrave handbook link for more info. Pew would simply not use WRD if it was so unreliable. Period. Numerous other authoritative sources that are commissioned specifically to leading experts in their fields (Oxford handbooks, Cambridge handbooks, etc) easily use these. Net positive, all things considered. Hope this helps. Ramos1990 (talk) 01:21, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- Religious demography is just a mess and not as simple as you make it seem. That is why I keep on saying that experts should be doing this stiff, not wikieditors. I rest on the experts from Oxford, Pew, Cambridge, etc on what sources are used and acceptable. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:31, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Unreliable sources? FirstPost /TimeNow
Are these two sources Times Now and FirstPost reliable for stating the following in wikivoice?
In August 2023, large-scale demonstrations erupted in the region of Gilgit-Baltistan, currently under Pakistani control. Protesters are fervently chanting 'Let's go to Kargil' and expressing a desire to unite with India
None of these news sites have a reputation for fact checking per their own pages and may have an apparent conflict of interest w.r.t. the Govt of India. They also have a history of reporting latest events in Pakistan based on social media posts that later turned out to be fake. (Also noting that this is about a viral twitter video, not actually verifiable per any news websites in Pakistan or other reliable and independent international media sites.) Codenamewolf (talk) 20:40, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per their About Us page, Times Now is part of the same media conglomerate as The Times of India, which RS/P describes as biased toward the Indian government and somewhere generally toward unreliable. It's not quite as clear-cut for FirstPost, but with their usage of "Pakistani-occupied" rather than "disputed" or similar for the regions in question, I'm not sure if I'd trust them as an objective source on Indo-Pakistani territorial disputes.
- In short, I wouldn't consider them reliable for this topic. The Kip 23:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- FirstPost is at best weakly reliable, use with extreme caution due to sensationalism and pro-Modi bias.[21][22][23][24] On this particular topic, one solution would be to say something like “media supportive of the Indian government reported that—-“? There was lots of fake news circulating about these protests.[25]BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:37, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Both FirstPost and TimesNow are unreliable for purely political subjects. Abhishek0831996 (talk) 06:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
What is the reliability of Mondoweiss?
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What is the reliability of Mondoweiss?
- Option 1: Generally reliable
- Option 2: Additional considerations
- Option 3: Generally unreliable
- Option 4: Deprecate
WP:RSP has 8 discussions on Mondoweiss, but not an RfC I can see. It is cited somewhat frequently in the Israel-Palestine conflict topic area. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Survey (Mondoweiss)
- Option 4 I’m starting this RfC because since the October 7th attacks on Israel, Mondoweiss pushes extremism and disinformation. Like WP:COUNTERPUNCH or WP:UNZ, it has published extremist opinion pieces; in this case acclaiming attacks on Israeli civilians (typically considered to be war crimes). In terms of disinformation, the main propaganda narrative Monodoweiss pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th. [26] [27][28][29]
- According to The BBC, NBC news, The New York Times, AP news, The Washington Post, and Human Rights Watch, mass rapes were committed by Palestinians against Israeli civilians on October 7th. The consensus of all reliable sources is that this happened, and that there is verifiable evidence to show this. Mondoweiss is the outlier here with rape denialism against the vast majority of overwhelming sources. This is typical historical negationism; these are disingenuous claims that there is 'no evidence' for well-documented atrocities akin to Holocaust denial tactics.
- Mondoweiss also published extremist opinion pieces glorifying the acts of terrorism on October 7th. Counterpunch, Unz, and the Electronic Intifada [30] were declared unreliable for similar reasons, so I believe this is fair game to criticize the source on. This also provides the 'why' as to Mondoweiss' denialism of atrocities in the ongoing war. So I’ll just grab a few choice quotes from opinion pieces to show my point.
From the moment those fighters flew in on paramotors, disrupting the parallel reality that was this music festival, they accomplished something profound (one must wonder what it felt like for these fighters to see a party just outside where they have been trapped under a suffocating blockade).
in reference to the Re'im music festival massacre. [31]In some ways, then, we can see the attack on the festival as the most violent of anti-colonial refusals — a refusal to let the children of a nation that ethnically cleansed one’s family party on that stolen land in peace. It violently reasserts that this land is stolen and that it can only be returned to its rightful owners through bloodshed.
[32]Nothing can hide the determination and courage of those young people who returned to their land on October 7.
[33]They have failed to mention that those targeted were, are, colonizers, settlers, the primary agents, actors, impellers of the colonization and genocide of Palestine. They have failed to mention that the resistance targets colonial settlements, established atop ethnically cleansed and razed Palestinian villages; it targets colonial settlers that live in stolen Palestinian houses, on stolen Palestinian land, urinate on our corpses and dance on our graves. They have failed to highlight that the term “Settler-Colonialism” is not without reason, and that a colonizer is a colonizer, in uniform or out.
[34]The inhuman and annihilating excess of organized state force, whose untold destructive powers are now unfolding in total violence on the helpless people of Gaza, can never be morally equated with even the most atrocious acts of the colonized committed in the hope of liberation from an unbearable colonial regime. Any demand that the colonized desist from the use of armed force, a right in any case guaranteed to them under international law, becomes arrant hypocrisy in the face of the technical storm inflicted by state powers.
[35]
- To summarize, Mondoweiss is extremist and encourages hatred/terrorist attacks against Israelis. It argues that the killing and raping of civilians is not only justified, but actively heroic if done to advance Palestinian interests. Any of these opinion pieces, if posted by an editor on Wikipedia, would probably result in an indefinite block for racism per WP:NONAZIS. We can and should ban racist publications as sources as they have a tendency to fabricate information to fit their viewpoints. Mondoweiss proves this by publishing disinformation about the well-evidenced mass rapes committed on October 7th and repeatedly alleging that there is no evidence for these war crimes. Using it as a source would be giving credence to WP:FRINGE viewpoints. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:31, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't have time to go through all your evidence so I picked the first link, read it entirely, followed through to the Hebrew links and used machine translation to verify that Mondoweiss is indeed correct. At no point did I find the article said what you claimed it did ("pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th"). Instead, it cast doubt on the rape of one particular victim: Gal Abdush. Their reporting is corroborated by Channel 13 (Israel) quoting that Abdush's brother-in-law says "No one knows if it [rape] happened". VR talk 16:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Gal Abdush is the woman in the black dress filmed with her groin covered in blood. Virtually every reliable news outlet agrees that the video shows evidence of rape. Mondoweiss, which admits it has not seen the video, says the video proves nothing. Do you want me to post the video here? You can find it on Yandex in a few seconds. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- No, Mondoweiss article doesn't say "the video proves nothing". It says, "The newspaper did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing". This is the image from the NYT article (article reproduced here). Indeed the image is quite unclear.VR talk 20:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Vice regent: The last line of the Mondoweiss article is that
In the end, it appears that the New York Times manipulated a working-class Mizrahi family in the service of Israeli hasbara in order to score a journalistic achievement, which in reality is nothing more than a repetition of fake news and government propaganda.
Calling a piece "fake news and government propaganda" is pretty clear that Mondoweiss is calling the New York Times article bullshit. I would imagine they wouldn't call the New York Times "fake news" if they thought the video was credible. - Mondoweiss bases this on two things: that the video of Gal Abdush is not available to them, and so the only evidence are Abdush's relatives who dispute that this video shows she was raped.
- A high-res video is result two on Bing for "woman who was raped and burned to death". I'd recommend not clicking through to the video unless you really want to verify that, but Mondoweiss didn't bother to look for the video and so I don't think their first point holds water. They say that Abdush's brother-in-law + relatives don't believe/have doubts that Abdush was raped, but this is all meaningless hearsay. What matters to the Gal Abdush story is whether or not Mondoweiss bothered to find the video evidence which can be trivially found on a major search engine. That is what the New York Times based their reporting on, and Mondoweiss' media analysis falls flat.
- This would be like trying to refute theories about the JFK Assassination by looking at social media posts of people that have seen the Zapruder film instead of bothering to watch it oneself. It is the job of a secondary source to review the primary source and analyze it, not delegate that responsibility to relatives of the family member (who may not want to acknowledge that someone was raped) on social media. A source that doesn't (e.g. Mondoweiss) is not a reliable source. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Vice regent: The last line of the Mondoweiss article is that
- No, Mondoweiss article doesn't say "the video proves nothing". It says, "The newspaper did not link to the video but released a distant, indistinct image from it that revealed nothing". This is the image from the NYT article (article reproduced here). Indeed the image is quite unclear.VR talk 20:41, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Gal Abdush is the woman in the black dress filmed with her groin covered in blood. Virtually every reliable news outlet agrees that the video shows evidence of rape. Mondoweiss, which admits it has not seen the video, says the video proves nothing. Do you want me to post the video here? You can find it on Yandex in a few seconds. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:30, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't have time to go through all your evidence so I picked the first link, read it entirely, followed through to the Hebrew links and used machine translation to verify that Mondoweiss is indeed correct. At no point did I find the article said what you claimed it did ("pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th"). Instead, it cast doubt on the rape of one particular victim: Gal Abdush. Their reporting is corroborated by Channel 13 (Israel) quoting that Abdush's brother-in-law says "No one knows if it [rape] happened". VR talk 16:48, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3, though would not oppose Option 4. Even in its news articles Mondoweiss has published false and misleading information, and when we consider its lean towards antisemitism it is not a source we can rely on.
- For example, it has stuck to the narrative that Israel is responsible for the al-Ahli explosion. This is most obvious in opinion articles but it also occurs in news articles. They have explicitly stated that Israel is responsible in:
- Do not dismiss the Gaza genocide allegations from November 19. It makes the indisputably false claim that
Israeli claims as to complete Palestinian culpability
have beenlargely debunked
. - ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 39: Health official says Israel ‘sentencing Al-Shifa hospital to death’ as doctors dig mass grave from November 14
- ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 15: Gaza aid trickles in amid uninterrupted airstrikes, West Bank arrests continue from October 21
- etc
- Do not dismiss the Gaza genocide allegations from November 19. It makes the indisputably false claim that
- They have also implied it in a number of other articles, such as by referring to the explosion as a "bombing" and by linking to an article from the immediate aftermath of the explosion which is headlined "Massacre: Israel kills over 500 Palestinians in Gaza hospital attack" and describes an airstrike as being the cause.
- Activists hold Israel responsible for drive-by-shooting at homes of detained demonstrators in Umm al-Fahm from December 13
- Israel’s criminalization of Palestinian protest from November 23
- ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 36: Al-Shifa hospital at epicenter of Gaza fighting as fleeing civilians are killed by Israeli strikes from November 11
- etc
- Their falsehoods aren't limited to that topic; they also present them on others, such as the tunnels beneath Al-Shifa. For example, in ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 46: Israeli tanks besiege Indonesian Hospital as bombardment of Gaza continues from November 21, Mondoweiss says
The claims [that Hamas has tunnels underneath the Indonesian Hospital] mirror previous allegations Israel made about Al-Shifa Hospital that it has yet to provide concrete evidence of.
This is false; on November 19 independent media had confirmed that tunnels existed beneath Al-Shifa. - Elsewhere, they misrepresent their own sources. For example, in Western media’s reference to the ‘Hamas-run’ Health Ministry is another dehumanizing tactic enabling Israel’s genocide they say that Reuters says that three Al-Shifa employees were abducted; what Reuters actually says is that three are missing.
- In addition, I have concerns about antisemitism at Mondoweiss. For example, in "‘Atlantic’ rebrands new editor, Jeffrey Goldberg, leaving Israel, Jews, and Iraq off his resume" Philip Weiss, who is the founder and co-editor of the website, makes the problematic statement
The word Jew made no appearance in the Atlantic announcement
; while most of the piece is acceptable criticism of a new editor, with this line it swerves directly into antisemitism by suggesting that ones status as a Jew is relevant to ones position as the editor-in-chief of a major news organization - see Antisemitic trope#Controlling the media. Reliable sources have also documented this, such as in this Atlantic article. BilledMammal (talk) 09:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)- Exploring the source more generally, I find:
- First, they widely use deprecated sources; see #Discussion (Mondoweiss) for details.
- Second, I've found additional evidence of them misrepresenting their sources, going beyond their sources, and even making basic errors with their sources.
- Misrepresenting sources:
- In "Sadness and anger as 4 Jewish victims of Paris attack are buried in Jerusalem" they claim that
The bodies of the deceased were interred in a Jerusalem commemoration after an invitation to host the burial was extended to relatives of the slain by the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which later sought payment from families of $13,000 each for the ceremonies.
The source they link says something very different; that theHevra Kadisha burial society demanded Tuesday that the families of four Jewish men killed in a Paris terror attack and buried in Jerusalem each pay NIS 50,000 ($12,500) for their burials
. - In "How the Taliban chased the West out of Afghanistan", they attribute the statement
They tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac
to Reuters; Reuters is careful to avoid saying so in its own voice and instead attributes it to a Russian spokesman. - In the same article, they cite an ODI report to say that
Surveys regularly found Afghans saying that they believed corruption levels were lower in Taliban areas
. However, the source makes no such claim; the source doesn't even include a survey regarding corruption. - In "Israel’s national airline El Al is an intelligence front for the Shin Bet" they claim that
Israel uses its airlines as an intelligence front, in which Israeli security services work for the airlines as undercover employees.
As evidence for this, they cite anundercover investigation conducted by Aljazeera
. In doing so, they make a significant misrepresentation of the source, which discusses no undercover investigation, and avoids saying in its own voice that the airline is used as a front, instead attributing that claim to specific individuals and leaked South African cables. - In "Palestinians bid farewell to journalist Khalid Amayreh". It claims that he urged the Palestinian people to reject the two state solution. However, in the source provided he makes no such claim; instead, he reports that Palestinians consider it to be dead.
- In "Sadness and anger as 4 Jewish victims of Paris attack are buried in Jerusalem" they claim that
- Going beyond their sources:
- In "Arms, oil and Iran – Israel’s role in Nagorno-Karabakh" they say
Around 75,000 ethnic Armenians fled their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh – more than half of the population.
The source they use, DW, provides that number - but attributes it to a Artsakh spokesperson and does not put it in their own voice.
- In "Arms, oil and Iran – Israel’s role in Nagorno-Karabakh" they say
- Making errors with their sources:
- In "Gulf crisis could push Hamas closer to Iran, or cause it to fold under the Palestinian Authority" they say
Moreover, Qatar has paid the salaries of 40,000 Hamas employees in 2016, a bill that totaled $20 million and required careful coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
What their source says is thatSheikh Tamim bin Hamd al-Thani will pay $31,030,752 for the July salaries of Gaza’s public sector employees
- these are significant errors, getting both the period and the value significantly wrong. - In the same article, they say
Last week Egypt gave 220,000 gallons of fuel to Gaza’s power plant, raising daily electrical supplies to eight hours, up from four the week before.
Their source states the opposite;Despite the plant's partial resumption, residents will continue to receive four hours of electricity followed by about 14 hours off.
In Netanyahu bolsters Sudan’s military leaders in attempt to save normalization they claim that 72% of Sudanese oppose normalization; the figure their source gives is 68%. It's a minor mistake, and in a more reputable organization would be something we could safely ignore, but it's another piece on the pile of evidence against Mondoweiss.I misread their source BilledMammal (talk) 13:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- In "Gulf crisis could push Hamas closer to Iran, or cause it to fold under the Palestinian Authority" they say
- Third, they have defended deprecated sources such as Russia Today and The Electronic Intifada:
- They defend RT in a number of articles; in "The Russiagate farce" they go beyond defending it and present the claim that Russia influenced the 2016 election as conspiracy theory.
- In "A salute to ‘Electronic Intifada’", they describe EI as a source that
continues telling indispensable truths
.
- Fourth, they have published misinformation:
- In "Palestinian Authority blocks dozens of websites critical of Abbas government". This source claims that QNN
is an independent news source with no political affiliation
. This is false; it is affiliated with Hamas (The Guardian, Al Jazeera, JNS, US State Department, VOA, ToI, etc). Bizarrely, they originally got this correct; they issued a "correction" to say that their initial statement that QNN was affiliated with Hamas was incorrect. - In Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade they claimed that Israeli attacks killed 51 people. The actual figures for the conflict is 49 killed overall, with 30 killed by Israel. See also Al Monitor.
- In "Palestinian Authority blocks dozens of websites critical of Abbas government". This source claims that QNN
- This is not a source I am familiar with, so most of the issues I could identify were when they were contradicted by their own sources. I suspect an editor better versed in this source and the topics it writes on would find far more falsehoods.
- I still prefer Option 3, but given all this I would support Option 4 as a second choice. BilledMammal (talk) 05:02, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- An overall problem with this approach is treating as "sources" what are merely links. They refer to other coverage, but that's not to say it's the sole basis of their reportage. And in any case, many of these are either cases of semantics, cherrypicked/selective quotation, or not errors at all, e.g.:
- 2. The Afghanistan article: I don't think it's necessarily a misrepresentation; you've quoted selectively. MW also sources the information to the Russian embassy in Afghanistan:
When he fled the country, press secretary of the Russian embassy in Kabul Nikita Ishchenko told RIA Novosti, his people drove four cars filled with money to the airfield. “They tried to stuff another part of the money into a helicopter, but not all of it fit. And some of the money was left lying on the tarmac,” according to a Reuters report.
It's clear they're quoting Reuters' coverage of Ischenko's remarks. - 3. The report you link says (p. 17): "most [Afghans] pointed to government interference and corruption and occupation of and theft from clinics by Afghan security forces and militias as being more problematic than Taliban interventions." The fact that this came from interviews rather than "surveys" is semantic ("survey" also means
To investigate the opinions, experiences, etc., of people by asking them questions
which is what that report was about) - 5. The Khaled Amayreh article: MW says Amayreh
urged Palestinians to refuse its [the two-state solution's] false promise.
In the AJ article, Amayreh says:There is just no time left for a Palestinian state. How can a state be a viable proposition when it has no control over its borders, when there is a military occupation, and when towns are cut off from each other by a system of roads and checkpoints?
The two seem entirely consistent.
- 2. The Afghanistan article: I don't think it's necessarily a misrepresentation; you've quoted selectively. MW also sources the information to the Russian embassy in Afghanistan:
- "Going beyond their sources": this is just a case of MW willing to say in its own voice what another source decided to attribute. It's inclined to believe the official from Nagorno-Karabakh, no different from how Israeli sources frequently parrot IDF talking points without attribution.
- "Making errors with their sources"
- 2. The "Gulf Crisis" article: the BBC article was published four days prior to the MW article, and it's linked for the "220,000 gallons" point (not the hours of power point). An engineer interviewed by BBC stated his hope that the remaining two generators could be made "operational before the festival of Eid al-Fitr", which, in 2017, began on June 25 (the day before the MW article was published).
- 3. The 72% figure comes from Figure 27 of the linked article. You might have gotten it confused with Figure 26, "Attitudes towards the Palestinian cause". There was no error, minor or otherwise.
- Regarding the attempt to tether MW to deprecated sources, I don't think that's compelling reasoning. As you concede below, this is only grounds for Option 3 or 4
in the context of the other evidence [you] have presented
, which is amenable to various interpretations. - "Published Misinformation":
- 1. None of the sources you provide explain exactly how QNN is "affiliated with" Hamas; is it "affiliated" in the same way the Health Ministry is "controlled by" Hamas?
- 2. The Russiagate piece is presented as "Media Analysis" which is different from its News section; it has the cadence of an op-ed. I doubt this could be cited for statements of fact even if it was published in an RS, per WP:RSEDITORIAL.
- So this alleged evidence is not particularly damning in any case. WillowCity(talk) 12:40, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- First, you're right about Sudan; I have struck that, thank you for the correction.
- Second, you've only addressed about half the issues I raised. Even if you were right about all of them that still leaves too much to allow us to consider this source reliable - it is relevant to point out here that these are just the tip of the iceberg; I found them in only a couple of hours.
- However, you weren't right about all of them; half of the issues you raised could go either way, but the other half your argument is very weak (eg, arguing that Mondoweiss is right and everyone else is wrong), or I have found additional sources to disprove your interpretation.
- An overall problem with this approach is treating as "sources" what are merely links. They refer to other coverage, but that's not to say it's the sole basis of their reportage. And in any case, many of these are either cases of semantics, cherrypicked/selective quotation, or not errors at all, e.g.:
Specific responses |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
|
As you concede below, this is only grounds for Option 3 or 4 "in the context of the other evidence [you] have presented", which is amenable to various interpretations.
- I don't think you understood what I was saying there. If this source was otherwise impeccable, the reliance on deprecated sources would still be enough to make a valid argument for Option 3 or Option 4, but it would be possible to argue for Option 2 - and as you implicitly concede, this source about is far from impeccable as you can get. BilledMammal (talk) 13:19, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. Mondoweiss is primarily a publisher of op-eds. Since there is no evidence that Mondoweiss interferes with what its authors write, the reliability of each article depends on the author only. Our rules for citing opinions are perfectly adequate for dealing with it. If the author is a subject-area expert, there is no reason to exclude him/her from citation. We cite op-eds in the Israeli press which are no less biased on average. The concern being expressed here is not really about reliability; note how the two comments before this one quite openly emphasise that articles in Mondoweiss don't follow a pro-Israel line. Zerotalk 11:53, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
note how the two comments before this one quite openly emphasise that articles in Mondoweiss don't follow a pro-Israel line
Unless you consider "not antisemitic" to be equivalent to "pro-Israel", I don’t think that’s a fair assessment of my comment. BilledMammal (talk) 12:17, 7 January 2024 (UTC)- It's true that I ignored the weakest part of your argument, which quotes out of context and avoids mentioning that Philip Weiss is Jewish. Zerotalk 12:35, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- While not disagreeing with parts of your vote,
avoids mentioning that Philip Weiss is Jewish
- The idea that being Jewish automatically precludes one from holding antisemitic views is a false one. The Kip 23:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- What about Wall Street Journal, which published an editorial "Islamophobia isn't real", calling Islamophobia "normal human reaction to terror"? Even RS sometimes (unfortunately) give space to prejudice. VR talk 04:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- That’s not an editorial; it’s an opinion piece. Opinion pieces shouldn’t be used as a source for facts, and WSJ publishing bad opinion pieces is irrelevant to the reliability of this outlet. BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:40, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- What about Wall Street Journal, which published an editorial "Islamophobia isn't real", calling Islamophobia "normal human reaction to terror"? Even RS sometimes (unfortunately) give space to prejudice. VR talk 04:32, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2: Per the above, it is only a host, so IT may not (technically) be an RS, the stuff its hosts might be. Slatersteven (talk) 13:38, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- FYI, that’s inaccurate; it publishes op-eds, but it also publishes its own news stories, such as most of the articles I linked in my !vote. BilledMammal (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Technicaly my comment still takes that into account, it is not an RS what it hosts (hosts, not publishes) maybe. Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- If I have understood you correctly, you are saying Option 2 for the opinion articles it hosts (ie, consider self published with reliability dependent on the author), Option 3 for everything else? BilledMammal (talk) 13:44, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Technicaly my comment still takes that into account, it is not an RS what it hosts (hosts, not publishes) maybe. Slatersteven (talk) 13:42, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- So it can be treated as a WP:SPS? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:10, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- FYI, that’s inaccurate; it publishes op-eds, but it also publishes its own news stories, such as most of the articles I linked in my !vote. BilledMammal (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 but also wouldn't be opposed to option 4. The alleged falsehoods, at least to me, seem to be more based out of strong POV rather than outright fabrication (ex. multiple Palestinian and/or human-rights groups still blame Israel for the hospital explosion as well, and claim that the sources (mainly western intelligence/media) attributing blame to PIJ are inherently biased against Palestinians). The op-eds are also subject to author reliability on a case-by-case basis. As a result, deprecation seems a tad strong of a response.
- All of that said, however, and while I understand WP:BIAS doesn't inherently make a source unreliable, the opinions expressed in the above pieces (primarily, the glorification of terrorism) and Mondoweiss' willingness to publish them strikes me as WP:FRINGE and make me heavily question the reliability of their own content and its usefulness as a proper info source on Wikipedia. The heavy usage of especially inflammatory rhetoric ("
a colonizer is a colonizer, in uniform or out
," "[the land] can only be returned to its rightful owners through bloodshed.
") backs this up; as the nom stated, an normal editor expressing these views would more than likely find themselves the recipient of a WP:HATESPEECH complaint. Considering its in-practice status as Philip Weiss' personal blog, the news pieces seemingly amount to a WP:SPS as well, which further decreases any possible reliability. Finally, the limited overlap with Ron Unz (as described below) doesn't exactly fill me with confidence. The Kip 23:14, 7 January 2024 (UTC)- Reading the perennial sources list, this overall seems like a pretty similar situation to Counterpunch; effectively an SPS with little oversight of opinion pieces, and some entries promoting extremist content. That one is currently listed as WP:GUNREL. The Kip 23:50, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- And further, as noted below; like the recently-deprecated Electronic Intifada and The Cradle, it appears Mondoweiss also has considerable reliance on multiple deprecated sources, especially Al Mayadeen and RT, as well as hosting articles from Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone. This makes me a bit more sympathetic towards deprecation. The Kip 01:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, those are highly concerning FortunateSons (talk) 11:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 They primarily produce opinion pieces and the poorly articulated arguments above for deprecation seem to come down to bias arguments because of opinionated statements and not issues of actual falsehoods being produced as news. BilledMammal's is especially egregious in this regard, trying to use articles saying that Israel has some responsibility in events prior to and after October 7th (which is a longstanding topic of consideration in both the news and more academic settings) as some sort of negative factor, when it is not.
- Then using the 500 dead argument, which the entirety of the news media got wrong (largely because the original health ministry reporting in Arabic said 500 casualties and the first breaking news reporters in English of that mistranslated it as 500 killed, an unfortunate case of inter-lingual telephone and why breaking news pieces should be sparingly utilized). Then BilledMammal tries to use the discussion about tunnels under Al-Shifa, which are again a matter of quite public debate, especially considering the tunnels we know Israel themselves built under there in the 1980's.
- Lastly, the piece about the Atlantic is quite clearly focusing on how the Atlantic editor is extremely biased toward Israel (and promotion of lies helping start the Iraq war) and uses that bias on Israel and their cultural identity as a reason to point out said person's unreliability. Now, the article may possibly be making a very oblique reference to the nonsense conspiracy about Jewish people owning the world, but that is very unclear from just a single line like that and the article itself just seems to put that in context of the editor's massive Israel propaganda supporting in the past, including in their own book publication. So, again, the Mondoweiss article seems biased against Israel and such information, but I'm seeing no evidence of anything outside of opinions being made, because it's an opinion-publishing site. Meaning that what matters is who is making said opinion in regards to WP:RS policy. SilverserenC 00:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
trying to use articles saying that Israel has some responsibility in events prior to and after October 7th
Can you clarify where you got that impression, because that's not my argument?- Regarding the specifics, I also did not use the "500 dead" argument; the closest I came is noting that they continued to refer to a "Breaking News" article that uses that figure months after it stopped being breaking news - although, I would note that we normally consider failing to correct inaccuracies when the inaccuracies are identified evidence of unreliability.
- Finally, the existence of militant tunnels under al-Shifa is no longer a matter of debate - specifics of them are, such as whether they housed a command and control center and whether they connected to the hospital wards - but their existence was confirmed by reliable sources two days prior to the publishing of the article where Mondoweiss claimed Israel had presented no concrete evidence that they existed. BilledMammal (talk) 01:20, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Most news articles didn't correct the figure across all media, though some did flip flop across multiple different claims afterwards as statements by both the IDF and Hamas were debunked back and forth (such as the IDF originally using the video of a missile from a year prior). Nothing about the hospital blast is a negative for a specific source, because everyone got it both wrong on numbers and no one still knows who exactly is responsible, particularly after the New York Times investigation showing the missile came from the direction of Israel and not the opposite direction as originally claimed.
- The usage of the tunnels is very much a matter of debate. As noted, the tunnels already existed, made by Israel in the 1980's. Whether they were at all used in a militant manner remains up for debate and is still debated in the media. Especially since those tunnels in question aren't connected to the hospital complex, but to a separate set of buildings nearby. The Washington Post continues to point out the lack of actual evidence presented by the IDF in an article from December 21st, a full month after the Mondoweiss one.
- So, again, you're not bringing up anything of actual falsehoods, but open points of debate in the media in general, which only present Mondoweiss as being biased against Israel by their articles. SilverserenC 01:39, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Even if you want to argue that it's reasonable to argue that Israel is the culprit despite reliable sources being in consensus that this is extremely improbable, Mondoweiss goes beyond doing that. Specifically, they claim that the evidence of complete Palestinian culpability has been largely debunked - that, at the very least, is indisputable false.
- Regarding the tunnels, you're right that the usage is very much a matter of debate - but Mondoweiss' claim was not about the usage but the existence. BilledMammal (talk) 01:45, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. The nom raises what are essentially accusations of bias, but this does not address reliability. Essentially, a variation of "WP:IDONTLIKEIT (so it should never be used as a source for anything, ever)". The fact that some coverage may be distasteful to certain sensibilities does not make the source as a whole unreliable. It is hard to see this as anything other than an attempt to stifle or deprecate sources that depart from a preferred POV. In-text attribution is likely appropriate to address concerns regarding bias (as has been the community's conclusion in numerous prior discussions). Advocates for deprecation should familiarize themselves with what WP:RS actually requires. WillowCity(talk) 02:55, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- With all due respect, while the original complaint has elements of IDLI, I feel as if though the nominator has since raised genuine concerns of fabrication/exaggeration in responses to Silverseren, and more importantly, as elaborated below in response to my own question, a worrisome degree of overlap with a wide variety of already-GUNREL and/or deprecated sources. This latter issue played a significant role in why Electronic Intifada and The Cradle were recently deprecated, and I would encourage you to take this into account.
- Also, regarding the sentence beginning with "It is hard to see..." I recommend you reword or strike so as not to violate WP:ASPERSIONS. Remember to WP:AGF. The Kip 03:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Did you actually read through nom's evidence? If so, please respond to my comment under theirs. VR talk 16:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Your comment you're referencing under my !vote starts with
I don't have time to go through all your evidence
, so I'm not sure what the point of accusing other people of not having read the evidence is. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:33, 8 January 2024 (UTC) - I think The Kip may have confused me with the nom, given I was the one who had the discussion with Silverseren and replied them them below. BilledMammal (talk) 02:43, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- That would be it, my bad. The Kip 04:00, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Your comment you're referencing under my !vote starts with
- Did you actually read through nom's evidence? If so, please respond to my comment under theirs. VR talk 16:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 for NPOV sake, and because bias complaints like this would knock out basically all sources in the I/P area (as is well known, for example, one large German news publisher requires its European employees to take an editorial stand on Israel). All sources have bias, all sources are wrong sometimes, and all sources fail in their job from time-to-time. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. What I'm seeing in the OP's diffs can be addressed by Wikipedia's policies for op-eds/opinion pieces, rather than by total blacklisting or deprecation. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:08, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, the same isn't true for the pile of diffs that I have provided; most of those are labeled "news", and they have considerable inaccuracies - they are also the result of only a couple of hours of research, I have no doubt that are more detailed search would reveal far more. BilledMammal (talk) 16:37, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 Listed on RSP as NoCon after a bunch of discussions. Walls of text notwithstanding, this RFC appears out of the blue, rather than being referenced to some particular usage or ongoing discussion? Has MW been cited on WP for something alleged as fabrication? Biased certainly but that is not a reason to deprecate and deprecation should usually follow GU first. Its another of those news sites that mixes opinions with news so attribution will usually be necessary.Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- I thought now was a good time. We haven't had an RfC about this yet and it's cited heavily in the topic area, so I'd rather get consensus before I start ripping citations to it out of BLPs/articles. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:18, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3. The website used to be essentially a blog, first a personal one and then a group one, and older articles should be judged through that frame. In more recent years, it has professionalised to some extent. It now includes content it calls "News", most of which is summarised from other sources (both reliable and unreliable, including deprecated sources) but with some original content. The latter may be occasionally useful with attribution, but I'd say if this is the only source it's not reliable enough to use alone and if there are other sources why use this one. Then there is content it calls "Opinion", and on the whole I'd say the fact it's published at this outlet is an indicator that it is not likely to be sufficiently of note for us to include it per due weight. However, some contributors are more significant (e.g. Mitchell Plitnick is a fairly significant voice that often publishes there. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 4 while a few articles may indeed covered by “just” WP:Biased and/or a concerning proximity to Hate Speech, the regular presentation of things that are WP:Fringe at best and intentional misinformation at worst is worthy of depreciation, particularly in combination with the frequent use of sources that are depreciated by Wikipedia really does not help either. I am uncertain whether it can really by fully considered WP:SPS by someone who isn’t a subject-matter expert, but if it really is, that would just be the a secondary problem. In addition, based on some of the past statements linked, a use for BLP or politicised situations within the fog or war would be very reckless at best. While the concern regarding a lack of pro-Palestinian RS brought up by some is understandable, there are definitely better and more reliable sources that have the desired political leaning without the habitual misinformation.FortunateSons (talk) 01:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3. I'm against deprecation which should be an exceptional measure reserved for sources regularly publishing deliberate falsehoods. My !vote is mostly due to the list of errors from u:BilledMammal's comment above (most of these errors are in news rather than opinion pieces). If they had been meticulous with their reporting, we could've lived with their extreme bias and other issues, but they aren't, and I'd rather not have to recheck their sourcing each time their articles are used. The association with and financing by Ron Unz doesn't help either. Alaexis¿question? 12:58, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. I've read through the evidence, thought on this for a while, and this is where I land. I had no previous familiarity with this site, FWIW. I'm seeing evidence that a lot of Mondoweiss's content is verging on advocacy, and that a lot of their Op-Eds contain views are widely considered unacceptable and/or that contain factually inaccurate information. I'm not seeing evidence of their publishing, as news, information known to be inaccurate at the time; and that's really what we need if we're looking at deprecation. Their Op-Eds might be dreadful, but that's true of any number of news organizations, and has never been considered enough to deprecate; opinion pieces should just be treated as such, that is, unreliable for factual information and only usable at all if the author is considered a subject expert. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:49, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 A lot of different accusations have been made about the source. I have not looked at every reference but will comment on a few:
- On its coverage of sexual violence by Hamas:
- "In terms of disinformation, the main propaganda narrative Monodoweiss pushes is that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th" - The first source provided is an account of how the family of Gal Abdush reacted to the NYT story about her. It includes links to her families responses which cast doubt on the NYT story. Editor VR has responded appropriately to this first article. The Mondoweiss story "CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt" was given as an example of Mondoweiss “cast[ing] doubt on the allegations of sexual violence” committed by Hamas. The Mondoweiss article examines the evidence cited in a CNN article about the violence. There is nothing wrong with a news source doing that type of journalism. At the end, Mondoweiss states "The analysis presented here is not meant to deny the possibility that sexual violence against women may have occurred on October 7. It is about fair reporting and about ensuring that there is sufficient and reliable evidence to support these serious allegations". Since then The Intercept has revealed that CNN runs its stories about the conflict past the IDF censor prior to publication so Mondoweiss’ scepticism about the CNN article may have been well founded.[36]
- On Mondoweiss' treatment of the al-Ahli hospital explosion.
- Our own article on the explosion provides no definitive apportionment of responsibility. The Mondoweiss source links to articles in NYT, Forensic Architecture and Channel 4 news which cast doubt on Israel’s evidence that Hamas was responsible.
- Attempted bootstrapping of Mondoweiss based on the deprecation of sources such as RT and Electronic Intifada.
- One of the cited articles does not defend RT as claimed. It says: "No doubt both Russia Insider and Russia Today are trying to make the US look bad and presumably, Kirby might be right in saying RT reporters don’t go after the Russian government when it bombs civilians" and "No doubt Russia Today is a slanted news source ...". Afaict Mondoweiss does not say Russiagate is a conspiracy theory. It may have implied that the NYT’s claim that Russia used an “adorable puppies” page on Facebook as part of its scheme was a "fringe conspiracy theory". Where do we stand on the “adorable puppies” story?
- On misinformation published by Mondoweiss.
- The Mondoweiss story "Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade" was cited as an example. It is difficult to know whether the figure of 51 Palestinian killed by Israel is accurate. Our own article on this, Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2022, quotes the UN, OCHA Protection of Civilians Report as saying that Israel killed 41 Palestinians in the period 2 August to 15 August 2022. So the Mondoweiss figure is in the right area. Burrobert (talk) 14:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
- On Mondoweiss' treatment of the al-Ahli hospital explosion:
- The most significant issue with Mondoweiss' treatment of this is that they say that Israeli claims as to complete Palestinian culpability have been largely debunked. This is a falsehood; indeed, the opposite is true.
- Attempted bootstrapping of Mondoweiss based on the deprecation of sources such as RT and Electronic Intifada:
- While you mention EI in the lead of that paragraph, you make no mention of it in the paragraph - even if you're correct about RT, that means they are still considering a deprecated source with significant issues to be a bastion of truth.
- As for RT, I believe you are incorrect. Looking at the totality of the article they appear to be downplaying the issues with that source, and they do present Russian interference in the US election as pseudoscience and analogous to creationism:
Like all forms of pseudoscience, Russiagate is an endlessly flexible theory. Whatever truth there might be in any of the claims, the reporting resembles the material I read as a child in some of the less rational UFO literature, or, to use another analogy, the opportunistic and incoherent arguments put out by creationists.
- On misinformation published by Mondoweiss:
- You're comparing apples to oranges there. The 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes took place between 5 and 7 of August, and took place in Gaza. The figures the OCHA provide cover both Gaza and the West Bank, for the period between 2 and 15 August. Even beyond that, your argument is somewhat bizarre; you're arguing that a source that provides significantly lower figures is evidence that there isn't a problem with the provisioning of these higher figures. BilledMammal (talk) 20:27, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- This RfC is becoming hard to read, because of the long discussions under many of the votes. I will post my response in the Discussion section. Burrobert (talk) 07:43, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- You're comparing apples to oranges there. The 2022 Gaza–Israel clashes took place between 5 and 7 of August, and took place in Gaza. The figures the OCHA provide cover both Gaza and the West Bank, for the period between 2 and 15 August. Even beyond that, your argument is somewhat bizarre; you're arguing that a source that provides significantly lower figures is evidence that there isn't a problem with the provisioning of these higher figures. BilledMammal (talk) 20:27, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- On Mondoweiss' treatment of the al-Ahli hospital explosion:
- The Mondoweiss story "Inside the “Wasps’ Nest”: the rise of the Jenin Brigade" was cited as an example. It is difficult to know whether the figure of 51 Palestinian killed by Israel is accurate. Our own article on this, Timeline of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2022, quotes the UN, OCHA Protection of Civilians Report as saying that Israel killed 41 Palestinians in the period 2 August to 15 August 2022. So the Mondoweiss figure is in the right area. Burrobert (talk) 14:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
- Continuing from Burrobert's examples, BilledMammal also wrote "They make frequent reference to Al Mayadeen", with four examples. Note first that there is nothing at all wrong with referring to Al Mayadeen with attribution and mainstream news sources do that all the time. Here is a random selection from the Washington Post: [37] [38] [39]. Looking at BM's examples, the third doesn't mention Al Mayadeen at all(?), and the other three use correct attribution. The second and fourth one even use "allegedly" in respect to Al Mayadeen's claim. The fourth one was an Al Mayadeen scoop: the 2017 Hamas charter before Hamas published it. MW cite a confirmation from Hamas, and the charter does match what Hamas published later. So, contrary to what BilledMammal claims, these examples show MW in a good light. Zerotalk 03:24, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- Having read through this once again, I'm actually very concerned about the users who made the first claim Burrobert highlights above. I have not examined the totality of their coverage, but that example appears to be egregious source misrepresentation, and is the sort of thing we sanction people for at AE. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- MondoWeiss, according to its search engine, has referred to Al-Mayadeen 97 times, 77 in news pieces. I've looked through the first three or four pages of hits (about 30 articles), and on the whole I agree with Zero/Burrobert's take: almost all of the uses are appropriate, and would not look out of place in a more mainstream news outlet. (Typical examples:[40][41][42].) However, with two exceptions from my sample, there is no attempt at identifying that Al-Mayadeen might be partisan (e.g. you'd expect "Hezbollah-linked TV station" or similar, as is the case in just one 2018 article). Frequently, you get a formulation like "An analyst on Lebanese Mayadeen television reported that---"[43], as if it's a neutral source, which in my view is unprofessional and slightly dangerous. But this in itself is not a reason to downgrade the source. (Other reasons raised in this conversation are though.) BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:15, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: If by
users who made the first claim Burrobert highlighted above
, you mean me, the person who made the first claim that Mondoweiss casted doubt on evidence of rape, my comment represented the sources accurately. Mondoweiss said about the NY Times in the first source thatAlthough claiming its story proves that “the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7” the veracity of the New York Times story was undermined almost as soon as it was published
[44] In other words, Mondoweiss didn't just say that Gal Abdush wasn't raped, they also said that there is not a broader pattern of gender-based violence on October 7th, and Mondoweiss' proof of this is that the family of one victim didn't believe she was raped. Except the YNet News interview (cited by Mondoweiss to mean the opposite of what it says) with Gal Abdush's mother and brother has them both acknowledging she was raped. [45] I would say Mondoweiss is the group pushing falsehoods here. Another source I provided has the headlineDespite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza
[46], in other wordsMonodoweiss pushes that there is no evidence that Palestinians raped Israelis on October 7th
, so I don't see how I manipulated the source. Finally, for the CNN source Mondoweiss claims thatCNN’s failure to adhere to professional and ethical standards of responsible journalism also raises questions regarding CNN’s possible complicity with a political campaign orchestrated by the Israeli Prime Minister’s office to perpetuate unverified claims of mass rape, and a larger effort to dehumanize Palestinians in order to justify the ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza.
In other words, CNN is complicit with Israeli propaganda, and the claims of mass rape are "unverified". This is despite CNN's reporting being WP:USEDBYOTHERS such as the New York Times, Washington Post, etc. I think it's fair to say that Mondoweiss dismisses claims of mass rape as being Zionist agitprop, and I don't see how I engaged in source manipulation if that's what you're accusing me of. - The other claims Burrobert says they refuted aren't mine so I won't comment further on them. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not going to get deep into the weeds here; suffice to say that you need to not conflate opinion pieces and journalistic ones (the second quote you provide is from a opinion piece) and in the first case, it is fairly clear to a neutral observer that MW is challenging that story by NYT, and not the broader narrative. Whether they challenged the broader narrative elsewhere I don't know, and don't particularly care; what I am seeing is evidence of a lack of nuance and care in reading, typically brought about by a battleground attitude. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've read the particular story [47] by the New York Times since I have a subscription. Gal Abdush is presented as a single example to introduce the story in the piece. The story then segues into:
And The Times interviewed several soldiers and volunteer medics who together described finding more than 30 bodies of women and girls in and around the rave site and in two kibbutzim in a similar state as Ms. Abdush’s — legs spread, clothes torn off, signs of abuse in their genital areas.
which leads into graphic descriptions of rape/sexual violence of several women who are not Gal Abdush. Mondoweiss' central point of contention is whether or notHamas fighters engaged in systematic rape and sexual violence against Israeli women
(this is the exact phrasing Mondoweiss used), and I think it is clear that they did. - While Mondoweiss says a lot of true things in their story, such as the brother-in-law denying that Gal Abdush was raped, those things do not address the vast majority of evidence in the New York Times piece, such as other eyewitness testimony about the rapes from Sapir the 6 different locations the mass rapes occurred in, or Raz Cohen. It also says
There is currently no trace of the video on the internet
, which is patently false is it can be found with a simple web search. A Bing search for "woman who was raped and burned to death" has "hamas-massacre.net" as the second result with shows another very high-definition video of the dead body from the article. The reason why the New York Times only posted the low-resolution still image is because they cannot show a half-naked woman who has been raped & burned to death on their website for the same reason I can't directly post the link on Wikipedia. But the NY Times does mention the video in their article, and Mondoweiss is wrong on that front. Mondoweiss' finishes off the piece by then looking at a bunch of alleged social media posts from relatives and saying that because relatives may have seen the video and don't think it means rape, then the video isn't evidence of rape. In my opinion, this disproves nothing. It's Mondoweiss using hearsay instead of looking at the video to reach a conclusion themselves. It's trivial to find in a search engine in a few minutes, so I don't know why they didn't do it. - The reason why I am getting into the weeds is because you're an admin active at WP:AE accusing me in an RfC of committing source manipulation and adding that my comment would be sanctionable there. But I think it's pretty clear that I'm saying that Mondoweiss didn't bother to look for the Gal Abdush video and their evidence refuting it is weak. And even if we believe them 100% that the video isn't proof of anything whatsoever, Mondoweiss didn't analyze the entire rest of the piece featuring other interviews + other examples of mass rape. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:55, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've read the particular story [47] by the New York Times since I have a subscription. Gal Abdush is presented as a single example to introduce the story in the piece. The story then segues into:
- I'm not going to get deep into the weeds here; suffice to say that you need to not conflate opinion pieces and journalistic ones (the second quote you provide is from a opinion piece) and in the first case, it is fairly clear to a neutral observer that MW is challenging that story by NYT, and not the broader narrative. Whether they challenged the broader narrative elsewhere I don't know, and don't particularly care; what I am seeing is evidence of a lack of nuance and care in reading, typically brought about by a battleground attitude. Vanamonde93 (talk) 21:06, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Having read through this once again, I'm actually very concerned about the users who made the first claim Burrobert highlights above. I have not examined the totality of their coverage, but that example appears to be egregious source misrepresentation, and is the sort of thing we sanction people for at AE. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 per Zero (and my own comments scattered throughout this section).VR talk 15:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 4 as thoroughly delineated in Chess's comments at the outset. Using this partisan propaganda outlet as a reliable source is contrary to our standards. Coretheapple (talk) 20:21, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 3 It is useless to cite it. Not a strong source. Its orientations and who stands behind it are known. Sakiv (talk) 20:56, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- This editor has been topic-banned. Zerotalk 09:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Could you explain why it’s not 4 with this explanation? Otherwise, I agree FortunateSons (talk) 21:03, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 1 or 2 I think they are decent muckrakers. To give an example, the other day Yedioth Ahronoth, the leading Israeli daily, published an investigative report, authored by Ronen Bergman and Yoav Zitun, concluding that Israeli Defense Forces had essentially applied the Hannibal Directive on October 7 – a controversial doctrine that authorises the Israeli military to kill Israeli hostages along with hostage takers. According to Bergman and Zitun's report, it is unknown how many hostages were killed by the Israeli military on October 7, but the number appears to be substantial: in Ynet, the paper's online portal, Zitun said last month: Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that beyond the operational investigations of the events, it would not be morally sound to investigate these incidents due to the immense and complex quantity of them that took place in the kibbutzim and southern Israeli communities due to the challenging situations the soldiers were in at the time. For much of the current conflict in the Middle East, you had to struggle pretty hard to find any reporting on such matters in leading Western media outlets. My point here is that what you were able to read in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's leading daily, last week, and in Middle East Eye last month, you could have read in Mondoweiss three months ago: A growing number of reports indicate Israeli forces responsible for Israeli civilian and military deaths following October 7 attack. The English-language mainstream media pretty much refused to address how many Israelis were killed by Israeli friendly fire on Oct. 7, until very recently: New York Times Dec. 27, Haaretz Jan. 8, Associated Press Jan. 11. In conclusion, I think Mondoweiss is part of the spectrum we should cover. It is a serious site – it's not the Daily Mail publishing clickbait – and we should bear in mind that all our sources are occasionally wrong: mainstream Western sources (and Western politicians) repeated outright and inflammatory falsehoods for months. I'd rather have a broader range of opinion, including the odd mistaken view (which in any event can be balanced by others), than a situation where the truth is shut out. --Andreas JN466 15:16, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- No, it is not correct that you could have read the same stuff in Mondoweiss three months ago. The Mondoweiss piece you cite is a "thumb-sucker." Pure speculation, and it is anonymous and largely based on Israeli media. It is unheard-of for a reliable source (by Wikipedia standards) to use anonymous "reporting." Even if Mondoweiss had been permitted to be used as a reliable source at the time of publication, I doubt very much that a speculative, anonymous report would have passed muster here. That is little more than a blog item and anonymous blogs are not reliable sources. We should be striving for the highest quality sources given the sensitivity of the I/P articles, and not lowering our standards so as to use blogs with an overt ideological agenda. Coretheapple (talk) 15:37, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 They're definitely biased but I don't think there's much evidence presented here that they're unreliable for facts in their news content. Loki (talk) 17:54, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 4 Indisputably a propaganda website, and we do not use propaganda websites as sourcing. In blogs such as this, the line between fact and fancy is thin, and their trafficking in fringe conspiracy theories bears this out. We don't use Mintnews for the same reason. The example above concerning the "Hannibal Directive" works against using Mondoweiss. The facts are unclear to this day, and reputable sources have dealt with that aspect of 10/7 responsibly. To no surprise, given its agenda (minimizing 10/7 and attacking Israel) it made a mention of the Hannibal Directive in speculative fashion earlier than reliable sources. This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid. We don't rush into print when the Daily Mirror or NY Post splatters something on Page One and likewise, especially in a controversial topic, it behooves us to utilize high quality sources for extraordinary claims, not anonymous speculation in a blog with an extreme agenda. Figureofnine (talk • contribs) 14:31, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- How accurate is a statement like "we do not use propaganda websites as sourcing" I wonder? Sean.hoyland - talk 14:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- There's no question that we (the royal we, not you and me) use all kinds of crap as sourcing, and that assumes there is any sourcing at all. I recently spent considerable time and energy to obtain removal of an article on a mythical "crime family" that existed only in the imagination of the now-vanished editor who created it. There was sourcing, but none of it supported the existence of the subject of the article. I then found that that there was an entire template listing articles "related" to that mythical crime famiiy. More time down the drain. So sure, propaganda is used. Blogs are used. Coretheapple (talk) 17:03, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- We're not supposed to and this is a good first step. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 00:35, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure "we're not supposed to" is actually the case. The RfC:_China Daily case suggests that even when a source is operated by a Central Propaganda Department, there is wiggle room, a case by case approach to usage. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:15, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- That proves my point. We use outright propaganda, in much the same way as we tell our readers about "crime families" that don't exist (and we do so for many years). If Wikipedia existed during the 1930s, we might have used Der Stürmer or the Völkischer Beobachter. Hopefully we try not to have articles about nonexistent crime families, and likewise hopefully too we can strive for a higher standard of sourcing for contentious topics going forward, not using propaganda organs even if they do provide articles that aren't lies or spin on occasion. Coretheapple (talk) 16:19, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure "we're not supposed to" is actually the case. The RfC:_China Daily case suggests that even when a source is operated by a Central Propaganda Department, there is wiggle room, a case by case approach to usage. Sean.hoyland - talk 04:15, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- How accurate is a statement like "we do not use propaganda websites as sourcing" I wonder? Sean.hoyland - talk 14:46, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 4 as per the topic starter. Using propaganda outlets is not a proper approach as it may mislead readers of Wikipedia. With regards, Oleg Y. (talk) 00:26, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2 as far as I can see their news is generally reliable and I think their media analysis is especially useful even if it can sometimes be a bit off. The opinion pieces wouldn't be allowed in Wikipedia anyway. If some news appears - well I won't say exceptional because both sides have committed exceptional strocities - lets say debateable I'd say a second source which uses a reasonably independent first source would be enough to allow it. Anyway always attribute if used on its own. NadVolum (talk) 21:18, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Option 2. Mondoweiss is an important outlet for whatever news does not find its way into sources we regard as reliable because mainstream which, in the I/P area, means The New York Times, Haaretz, The Times of Israel, Ynet, Jerusalem Post etc., that is sources that systematically represent the standard Israeli narrative and underplay, when not ignoring or downcasing information from the Palestinian side. The reportage of the last four has been highly emotional, and times gung-ho, in its victimism (understandable, but the 93,000 deaths and casualties in Gaza are an abstraction, not a matter of in each case individual lives, as is, again understandably, the case in Israeli reportage). The point is, to what degree are we, by systematically deprecating a source like Mondoweiss, which provides a dissenting and, yes, Jewish perspective on Israel to a diasporic constituency and a general global readership, privileging the dominant Western narrative? Back in 1937, Sir Ronald Storrs in his classic Orientations wrote about the failure of the large Arab majority to have their views represented:
The Arab of Palestine therefore feels himself under an overwhelming inferiority in the presentation of his case to the conscience of the world. He is aware that he has not the ability, the organization, least of all the material resources or the audience for effective propaganda. . . . Against the scientifically controlled publicity of the two major continents he has about as much chance as had the Dervishes before Kitchener's machine guns at Omdurman'. (pp421-422)
- i.e. 48 dead vs 12,000 Arabs. Things haven't changed much since Storr's day. Deprecation is to be avoided if only because it allows the lazy to repudiate very good reportage (Jonathan Ofir's use of what Hebrew newspapers write, for example).Nishidani (talk) 07:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Discussion (Mondoweiss)
- With the caveat that I've never read Mondoweiss in my life; the vast majority of links I'm seeing above are to opinion pieces, already covered by WP:OPED. Is there evidence that Mondoweiss's journalistic pieces contain misinformation? Vanamonde93 (talk) 07:40, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: These opinion pieces are cited in talk pages in the topic area to support claims about the conflict. [48] [49] [50] [51] They are also cited in multiple articles. [52] [53] [54] [55] Ditto for their "media analysis" pieces. [56] WP:RSEDITORIAL is a guideline and you can say that it should cover this, but in practice it has and does not. An WP:RSP entry would make it clearer. How would you feel about deprecating their opinion pieces? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- More examples of their opinion pieces being cited in Wikipedia articles. [57] [58] [59] [60] [61] These are all 2023. I can find more if you'd like. I think 'media analysis' should also be deprecated if that is a workable compromise. I think we should be explicitly deprecating Mondoweiss opinions in order to prevent their improper use in articles. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not opposed to adding an RSP entry about their opinion pieces assuming there is sufficient discussion here, but what would that achieve? Bad sources that are marked as such at RSP are frequently used in talk page discussion and in articles, and deprecation won't stop that, only blacklisting would. I don't yet see evidence of the need to deprecate media analysis pieces. The one you link [62] appears to be based on an opinion piece in Haaretz; certainly it shares a POV with that opinion piece. Are we talking about deprecating Haaretz too? I assume not; we just treat their OpEds with caution as well. Vanamonde93 (talk) 08:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- It would achieve a blanket rule that Mondoweiss opinion pieces are bad and make them easier to remove in a very contentious topic area. I don't think we should treat Mondoweiss OpEds with caution, I think they're so extreme and contain enough disinformation that we should be blanket discouraging them from articles. Sort of like how WP:COUNTERPUNCH had to be explicitly declared as unreliable despite exclusively being a vehicle for opinion pieces, as it was heavily used in this topic area as a source. [63] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:39, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- “The one you link” is a little confusing here as Chess linked multiple examples and I can’t actually see where this one is cited on WP. But this particular example is a good example of why a MondoWeiss opinion piece (blog post) is rarely due. It’s Philip Weiss’ personal take on an op Ed published in Ha’aretz. Why would we cite this fringe person’s opinion rather than the more noteworthy Ha’aretz op Ed? Designation as generally unreliable wouldn’t stop that, of course, but it would create a red flag that would lead to it being replaced or removed more quickly. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:33, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I’m opposed to deprecating their opinion content. I think there could be times when opinion there might be due (eg if by a notable commentator or received secondary attention). Designation as generally unreliable is sufficient signal that opinion there can be presumed not to be due, while allowing for exceptions. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:21, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Their efforts to cast doubt on the allegations of sexual violence extends beyond their opinion articles; for example, CNN report claiming sexual violence on October 7 relied on non-credible witnesses, some with undisclosed ties to Israeli govt BilledMammal (talk) 09:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Vanamonde93: These opinion pieces are cited in talk pages in the topic area to support claims about the conflict. [48] [49] [50] [51] They are also cited in multiple articles. [52] [53] [54] [55] Ditto for their "media analysis" pieces. [56] WP:RSEDITORIAL is a guideline and you can say that it should cover this, but in practice it has and does not. An WP:RSP entry would make it clearer. How would you feel about deprecating their opinion pieces? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 08:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
Wanted to share something I found while researching this. Mondoweiss has received grants from Ron Unz. This comes from a conservative think-tank but I checked one of the 990 forms and Mondoweiss is indeed there. Of course he's a well known Holocaust denier whose Unz Review has been deprecated. Interestingly, Mondoweiss stopped disclosing their donors lately [64]. Alaexis¿question? 10:54, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- That same 990 shows a $10,000 donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. The UNZ Foundation was dissolved in 2017 and Mondoweiss did not receive money from it in that year or since. Zerotalk 13:27, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- The Wikimedia Foundation to my knowledge has not acclaimed the killing of Jewish people. Mondoweiss on the other hand shares that with Unz, so it's a more plausible they've been financially influenced by neo-Nazis. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Speculation. Selfstudier (talk) 19:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I can't, as a desultory reader of one or two pieces a day in Mondoweiss for nearly two decades, find anything vaguely supporting this absurd attempt to pass it off as some anti-semitic, holocaust-denying, pro-Nazi pastiche. Unbelievable. have you any idea of the contrarian vigour of Jewish and Israeli thinkers, journalists and others?Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Both Mondoweiss and neo-Nazis agree that murdering Jewish people in Israeli is OK. They have a lot more in common. Weiss has also cited Unz News before, [65] including noted Holocaust denier Philip Giraldi to say that Jews control the United States. [66] [67] Weiss is a fan of Unz on a personal level as well and published opinion pieces supporting him after the big donation. [68] Columnists such as John Mearsheimer have published in both Mondoweiss and Unz. [69] [70] People in this discussion are going to bring up that Philip Weiss is Jewish, but so is Ron Unz. That didn't stop Unz from creating a news site with columnists like Andrew Anglin denying the Holocaust and it doesn't mean Philip Weiss' site can't be part of the same antisemitic network as well. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:21, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- Putting Mondoweiss and neo-Nazis in the same basket is really quite disgraceful. But anyway this is just a distraction. Do we investigate the writings of the editor of the NYT to decide whether the NYT is a reliable source? Zerotalk 07:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Chess mentions John Mearsheimer, as a 'columnist', and not the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, as if that were proof of their remarkable theories about Mondoweiss. Good grief. His name is proof of the quality of many contributions to Mondoweiss.Nishidani (talk) 07:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- The editor of the NYT also has considerably less power over what the paper doesn’t and publish as opposed to Philip Weiss and his personal blog. This also again leads into (in my opinion) one of two genuine issues here that present an argument for GUNREL, rather than just bias - Mondoweiss is in many ways a WP:SPS, rather than a proper media outlet.
- The other issue is its considerable overlap with other GUNREL and deprecated sources, but BilledMammal’s entry below elaborates further on that. The Kip 08:54, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- You have no evidence that Weiss changes the content of articles that Mondoweiss publishes, except those he writes himself. He probably chooses which articles to publish, but that concerns bias and not reliability. The bottom line is that authors are responsible for what they write and there is nothing written so far to challenge that. Zerotalk 12:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- If I understand correctly, your position is to treat it like we treat WP:COUNTERPUNCH? BilledMammal (talk) 16:01, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- You have no evidence that Weiss changes the content of articles that Mondoweiss publishes, except those he writes himself. He probably chooses which articles to publish, but that concerns bias and not reliability. The bottom line is that authors are responsible for what they write and there is nothing written so far to challenge that. Zerotalk 12:22, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Chess mentions John Mearsheimer, as a 'columnist', and not the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, as if that were proof of their remarkable theories about Mondoweiss. Good grief. His name is proof of the quality of many contributions to Mondoweiss.Nishidani (talk) 07:52, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Putting Mondoweiss and neo-Nazis in the same basket is really quite disgraceful. But anyway this is just a distraction. Do we investigate the writings of the editor of the NYT to decide whether the NYT is a reliable source? Zerotalk 07:06, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Speculation. Selfstudier (talk) 19:11, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- The Wikimedia Foundation to my knowledge has not acclaimed the killing of Jewish people. Mondoweiss on the other hand shares that with Unz, so it's a more plausible they've been financially influenced by neo-Nazis. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:09, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- I suppose this is somewhat covered with the above information on Unz, but one thing I do have a question about: one of the key things that led to the recent deprecations of The Electronic Intifada and The Cradle, which covered the same topic area as Mondoweiss, was their overlap with/reliance on other already-deprecated sources, such as RT, Sputnik, The Grayzone, Al Mayadeen, and others. Is there any similar overlap between Mondoweiss and other deprecated sites? The Kip 23:26, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
- It seems they do.
- They cite Electronic Intifada regularly, in both news and opinion articles (eg. 1, 2) and in 2021 published this salute to ‘Electronic Intifada’, where they described their activities as "truth telling".
- References to the Grayzone are less frequent but they do still happen (eg. 1). They also share a number of authors with that site, including Dan Cohen (Mondoweiss profile, Grayzone profile), Hamzah Raza (Mondoweiss profile, Grayzone profile), and Max Blumenthal himself (Mondoweiss profile).
- They make frequent reference to Al Mayadeen (eg. 1, 2, 3, 4)
- They republish works, both in whole and in part, from Counterpunch under their "News" header (eg. 1, 2, 3)
- They make frequent reference to Press TV (eg. 1, 2, 3)
- They make frequently make use of Russia Today, including through extensive excerpts, and have defended the source (eg. 1, 2, 3)
- Effectively, it seems if we have a deprecated source that aligns with their bias, they have almost certainly have a connection to it; for example, it seems they also use Telesur and The Unz Review - this last one is particularly relevant, given the evidence Alaexis presented above them receiving donations. I wasn't able to check for Sputnik or The Cradle, as both of those terms returned too many irrelevant results when searching for them.
- I will note that I haven't checked the accuracy of the claims they are using these sources for - but I don't think that's overly important as relying on extremely problematic sources is a huge red flag. BilledMammal (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, that’s rather concerning. The Kip 01:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree, that reliance is highly concerning. FortunateSons (talk) 16:13, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't see how this calls for deprecation. I really dislike this daisy-chaining approach. This doesn't seem like grounds to deprecate the source as a whole; rather, an editor could simply go to the MW source that's cited, see if it relies on/cites to a deprecated source, and then, if so, use that as a basis to remove individually-offending pieces. We're all grown-ups here who shouldn't be afraid of a little legwork. WillowCity(talk) 18:21, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Part of being a reliable source is knowing how to identify sources which peddle misinformation; if you’re unable to do so then that raises serious questions about your own reliability, as it suggests that the editorial process behind all your articles, including those that don’t explicitly rely on such sources, is flawed.
- On it’s own, perhaps this wouldn’t be enough to justify Option 3 or Option 4 - reasonable minds could differ - but when we consider it in the context of the other evidence I have presented, of Mondoweiss misrepresenting sources and peddling misinformation, it is. BilledMammal (talk) 02:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Are you saying unreliable sources or deprecated sources are false 100% of the time? Of course not. So could Mondoweiss not be citing Press TV etc when these sources are true and not citing them when these sources are not? VR talk 07:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- How do you know when a deprecated source, a source that peddles misinformation, is presenting factual information? BilledMammal (talk) 08:07, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- It could be, but I don’t think it is here. Citing something critically can be done well, but based on the size of the org and what is linked here as well as the regular reliance on only one or two unreliable sources, it doesn’t appear to be good enough at determining truthfulness to be considered even close to reliable. FortunateSons (talk) 16:11, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Are you saying unreliable sources or deprecated sources are false 100% of the time? Of course not. So could Mondoweiss not be citing Press TV etc when these sources are true and not citing them when these sources are not? VR talk 07:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, that’s rather concerning. The Kip 01:49, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
Below are my responses to a post made under my vote above:
- Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion: An editor has said that it is “indisputably false” that evidence of complete Palestinian culpability for for Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion has been largely debunked. Since the meaning of the claim is unclear I will stick to what Mondoweiss says in its article published on 9 November. “The New York Times has shown how Israel’s supposed evidence did not add up, and so have Forensic Architecture and Channel 4 News”. So its article is pointing out that, as at 9 November, reliable sources had dismissed the evidence provided by Israel that the explosion was the result of a Palestinian missile. It was a reasonable position to hold.
- Use of Deprecated sources by Mondoweiss: One of the arguments used by editors against Mondoweiss has been that it uses deprecated sources such as RT. I looked at one reference provided by these editors and found that the article was in fact dismissive of RT, saying "No doubt both Russia Insider and Russia Today are trying to make the US look bad and presumably, Kirby might be right in saying RT reporters don’t go after the Russian government when it bombs civilians" and "No doubt Russia Today is a slanted news source …”. In a follow up, an editor said “in the article [Mondoweiss] appear to be downplaying the issues with [RT]”. Since the editor did not provide an example of this, I can’t respond. The editor also said Mondoweiss “present[s] Russian interference in the US election as pseudoscience and analogous to creationism”. Firstly, this appears to have nothing to do with RT. Secondly, some quite respectable sources have expressed scepticism of the arguments about used by Russiagaters. Thirdly, Mondoweiss does not say that Russiagate does not exist (“Whatever truth there might be in any of the claims”). Its criticism is of the reporting and “the opportunistic and incoherent arguments” made regarding it.
- Counting the number of Palestinians killed by Israel in 2022: An editor took issue with Mondoweiss’ statement that “The Israeli onslaught on Gaza … took the lives of 51 Palestinians”. The article was published on 8 November 2022. To refute the figure the editor used sources dated 13 August and 24 August 2022. Given that the Mondoweiss article supports its statement by linking to an article dated 9 October, the figure of 51 refers to casualties from August onwards and so articles published in August cannot be used to disprove the figure. Burrobert (talk) 07:51, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just a point about Mondoweiss's reportage on rapes. The core issue these pieces reflect critically on is the extremely diffuse meme, from day 1, that Hamas made mass rape one of the orders of the day to their militants. I have no reason to doubt many such cases exist, but scrupulous reportage would note that many of the early accounts are extremely confusing and contradictory. On wikipedia we have accepted that Hamas engaged in deliberate mass rape, that is the accepted narrative. But, and this is not by any means to be read as some attempt to exculpate Hamas from the terroristic killings they enacted that day, the invasion consisted apparently of trained Hamas operatives given specific plans, and a very large number of Gazans who exploited the destruction of the separation barrier, many of whom also ran amok. And, at least one Israeli eyewitness (whose account is still confused) states that Hamas militants did not undertake the rape he saw (Technical accounts tell us the core Hamas groups were supposed to have retired back to their tunnels by 10:30 am, within 4 hours).
"And that's it, and we hid in the bush for 9 hours bush with terrorists around us. These terrorists were not from the Nukhba unit [Hamas' elite force]. They were Gazans, civilians, with knives, axes, I don't think they had firearms, but there were many terrorists around us who did have firearms," he (Raz Cohen) said. Nir (Shoko) Cohen, 'He pulled out a knife, stabbed her, continued to rape her a bit more, and then he let her go' Ynet 17 January 2024
- News outlets like Mondoweiss rightly highlight anomalies, contradictions (trauma militates against accuracy, naturally) in the major narrative set in concrete by the mainstream. That is not denialism. It is simple professionalism, allowing their contributors to clarify that much of what we are told is (as it is to me) confusing, despite the unanimity.Nishidani (talk) 10:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Reliability of news reporting
Since a few editors have noted that many of the examples come from opinion pieces, I've looked specifically at news published by MW. They have reporters on the ground in Gaza and in Israel, and I'm sure that most of what they write is true (however that's also the case for RT). The problem is their news also read like a blog rather than a normal news source. In particular they are prone to making rather extreme statements in their news articles too. Here are some examples, I don't think this is something we'd want to add to Wikipedia based on MW
all Zionist parties ... can be proud of ... converting Israel to a Full-Dictatorship
[75].- There is apparently
intensification of fascist persecutions against critical voices in Israel
[76]
They write that Mondoweiss editors select content for the site on the basis of our shared commitment to news professionalism as well as justice for Palestinians
. This is more fitting for an advocacy organisation rather than a media outlet. Alaexis¿question? 13:24, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- The full quote is
When the last Netanyahu – Ben-Gvir government was established, they proudly labeled themselves a Full-Right government. Now, with full public unity between all Zionist parties for the destruction of Gaza, they can be proud of a much bigger achievement, converting Israel to a Full-Dictatorship.
- The second quote is an editor's comment explaining why the author of an article requested that their name not be published. Using the term "fascism" is provocative, but reliable outlets have published stories about the backlash against those outside Israel who have criticised Israel's actions. Some have termed it McCarthyism.[77] [78][79] The relationship between McCarthyism and Fascism has been remarked upon.[80][81] The Intercept has published articles about censorship/crackdown within Israel. It reported that there are "eight subjects the media are forbidden from reporting on in Israel". Also, "Since Israel’s war on Hamas started, more than 6,500 news items were either completely censored or partially censored by the Israeli government". Full censorship is not required because "People self-censor, people do not even try to report the stories they know won’t get through ... And that is really showing right now in how little regular Israelis are seeing in the press about what is happening in Gaza to Palestinians".[82] In November last year the Israeli Chief Military Censor "issued a complaint with senior IDF officers that sources close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have exerted extraordinary pressure on him to prevent publication of various events in the media".[83]
- The support for "justice for Palestinians'" is admirable and an indication of the outlet's bias, which editors would take into account when assessing its articles. A similar bias exists for Jewish outlets. For example, The Forward states that it "acquires and publishes informative, enlightening content that expresses its enduring commitments to social justice, Yiddish and Jewish culture, and the welfare of the Jewish people worldwide ".[84] Another admirable sentiment. The Times of Israel says "We aim for the site to serve as a platform for constructive debate regarding the challenges facing Israel, the region and the Jewish people.[85] Nothing wrong with that attitude, just a bias that editors would assess when using the outlet. Burrobert (talk) 15:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Re the first item, this is the full quote indeed, but my concern was with the characterisation of Israel as a dictatorship. This is a pretty extraordinary claim, as fascist dictatorships are not usually known for allowing courts to strike down the dictator's powers [86]. Of all criticism levied at Israel (human rights violations, apartheid, etc), this is pretty rare. I'm not sure whether they mean it as a rhetorical device or as a serious characterisation - but that's precisely the problem as reliable sources usually don't use such language without really strong evidence or attribution. And it's their reliability that we're discussing. Re the third point, fair enough. Alaexis¿question? 19:28, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Burrobert, you're right that many reliable sources focus on a certain region or topic and it's perfectly okay. The issue here is that MW only focus on one aspect of justice for Palestinians. Having looked at dozens of their news articles I haven't seen any criticism of Hamas and the criticism of PA, when it does appear, is mostly about their collaboration with Israel. Alaexis¿question? 09:53, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Burrobert’s third bullet point here. Partisan sources can be reliable. But the first two bullet points affirm the key issue Alaexis was raising: that items tagged as “news” are (at least sometimes) in fact opinion pieces. As a minimum, what we should take from that is that the site should be treated as opinion site and not routinely used as a source for facts. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:41, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- What is interesting is that "news" and "opinion" are intermixed. For example, "Tracing my queer consciousness from Palestine to the US, and back again" is labeled as "news" but it is quite self-evidently nothing of the sort. I think at the very least we need to treat the entire site as opinion pieces. BilledMammal (talk) 16:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- The full quote is
- @Alaexis: plenty of news reporting is often biased and mixed with opinions. For example, Israeli newspapers (including Times of Israel) have been casually calling "terrorist" any Palestinian who acts violently (sometimes even said Palestinian is not affiliated with any group[87]). That's obviously POV language we wouldn't use on wikipedia per WP:TERRORIST. This is in contrast to more professional news organizations, like BBC News, which explain that using such words implies taking sides in a conflict. VR talk 17:03, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I have very little faith in their editorial review which go beyond WP:BIAS and regularly WP:Fringe. At best, they really shouldn’t be used for anything related to BLP, Russia and Israel, at worst (and IMO this part is most likely) a full depreciation may be in order. FortunateSons (talk) 16:08, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Addition, as brought up above: even insofar as the source is not generally depreciated, anything that comes from an anonymous contributor should absolutely not be used. As there is a history of at least highly questionable reporting and intentional or unintentional failures in the editorial process (discussed at length above), a lack of ability to identify the contributor would make any further considerations effectively impossible. FortunateSons (talk) 15:58, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding "fascist persecutions" of critical voices in Isreael, The Observer, which functions as the Sunday edition of The Guardian, reported the following story a couple of days ago:
- "‘It is a time of witch hunts in Israel’: teacher held in solitary confinement for posting concern about Gaza deaths – Meir Baruchin, who was fired and jailed for criticising the military, says that many who agree with him are afraid to go public"
- Quote: "An unlikely charge of intent to commit treason landed Meir Baruchin, a grey-haired, softly spoken history and civics teacher, in the solitary confinement wing of Jerusalem’s notorious “Russian Compound” prison in early November. The evidence compiled by police who handcuffed him, then drove to his apartment and ransacked it as he watched, was a series of Facebook posts he’d made, mourning the civilians killed in Gaza, criticising the Israeli military, and warning against wars of revenge."
- Needless to say, the man was also fired from his job.
- Andreas JN466 09:16, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- If The Observer is used as a source, at that time we can deal with their reliability, and whether they meet the high standards that we should strive for in contentious topic areas.. Mondoweiss is the topic of this discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 15:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think the point is not to challenge the reliability of The Observer but to assert that Mondoweiss's claim of "fascist persecutions" isn't as implausible as the OP made it sound. Loki (talk) 15:38, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed; that's the takeaway I got. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think the point is not to challenge the reliability of The Observer but to assert that Mondoweiss's claim of "fascist persecutions" isn't as implausible as the OP made it sound. Loki (talk) 15:38, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- If The Observer is used as a source, at that time we can deal with their reliability, and whether they meet the high standards that we should strive for in contentious topic areas.. Mondoweiss is the topic of this discussion. Coretheapple (talk) 15:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Something strange is going on with ZDNet
Okay, here is a somewhat tangled tale. This (archived here) is a ZDnet article claiming to have been "Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor and Jack Wallen, Contributing Writer Sept. 20, 2023 at 1:53 a.m. PT". It's got significant errors -- first of all that it links to the distros' webpages with the ludicrous text "See price at", creating sentences like "See price at Linux Mint". As for the rest... I will have to excerpt (emphasis is present in the source).
Linux users who grew up with the GNOME 2.x style interface will also love Cinnamon due to its ____ and ___. Another worthwhile alternative for people who are fond of GNOME 2.x that is also integrated into Mint is MATE because of _____. While Cinnamon rests on the foundation of the GNOME 3.x desktop, MATE is an outright GNOME 2.x fork WHAT DOES 2.X FORK MEAN? Explain that. MATE is also available on Mint.
See price at Linux Mint
Yes -- it really says "due to its ____ and ___", bolded, in an article from September 20th last year which has not since been updated.
Additionally, when I was putting this URL into archive.is, I noticed something quite strange: it said that URL had already been archived... in 2022, over a year before its publication date. That article is here: it's a very similar article with somewhat different information. That one is "Written by Steven Vaughan-Nichols, Senior Contributing Editor and Taylor Clemons, Staff Writer on May 26, 2022, Reviewed by Elyse Betters Picaro".
The 2022 version of the article, which "was published" in May 2022 and archived in August 2022, doesn't have any editor notes in the body text, but it does have something very strange in the lead:
Today, the easiest desktop of all, Chrome OS, is simply Linux with the Chrome web browser on top of it. The more full-featured Linux desktop distributions are as easy to use in 2021 as Windows or macOS.
2021? What?!
Note that they did not just move the URLs around: a Google search for the headline and page title of the 2022 version ("The 5 best Linux distros for beginners: You can do this" and "The 5 best Linux distros for beginners in 2022", respectively) brings up nothing at all. This suggests that the article itself is just having its title and publication date changed every year.
Anyway, all of that aside, the more pressing issue is why they've had an article with TKTK filler text and editor's notes live since September (? - apparently the publication dates don't actually mean anything).
What could this mean? jp×g🗯️ 20:00, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- @JPxG: It means that ZDNet has also fallen victim to Red Ventures, which does this with every outlet they acquire including CNet and Healthline. [88] [89] I don't think the discussion we should be having is about ZDNet, it's about whether or not we should just list content published by Red Ventures as generally unreliable. This is the third time one of their publications has come here for becoming a blatant content mill and we shouldn't bother rehashing it when it's obvious what the common denominator is. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:32, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry, this would actually be the fourth time we've had to mark one of their pubs as generally unreliable or below. [90] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 23:38, 8 January 2024 (UTC)
- I didn’t know about that, but it is highly concerning regarding the quality. Would it be possible to have an RfC for an entire group, even if the editorial teams are formally unaffiliated? FortunateSons (talk) 00:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Red Ventures strikes again. At this point I would support listing anything owned by Red Ventures as unreliable. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- If this is compatible with wiki rules (which I don’t know, to be honest), it sounds like a very reasonable proposal FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- WP:Ignore all rules is also a rule, and there's a precedent for blocking spam networks. Dotdash is an example of a network of sites that are given special considerations. The difference with this spam network is that it has a revenue of $2 billion a year. It's pretty telling that none of their sources listed at RSP have anything above "unreliable" (CNET is only reliable pre-Red Ventures and the last ZDnet discussion was also pre-Red) and imho we might even want to deprecate the whole network so we have it in the edit filter for newer editors. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 03:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are underlying issues of concern, such as blacklisted Healthline having brand websites - Greatist.com (recently pruned by me; 8), Bezzy (new; 19), PsychCentral (319), and Medical News Today (MNT, 914) - all of which have links to one another and back to Healthline (parentheses: number of WP articles containing the Red Ventures-Healthline brand links).
- Removing the individual links requires an editor(s) to manually remove it, i.e., an onerous task for PsychCentral and MNT. Zefr (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- That is very unfortunate, I’m sorry to hear that. I am in favour of finding a functional solution to this, the status quo is clearly untenable FortunateSons (talk) 02:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- I’m not sure if a formal RFC is proper procedure, but I’d be in favor of a blanket deprecation of any Red Ventures-owned sites. The Kip 03:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- RfC seems like a good idea given how impactful this'll be. There will be major concerns regarding implementation. One of the first questions is if we want to carve out Metacritic as it was briefly owned by Red Ventures but has since been sold. There might be a few other sites that weren't ruined. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:22, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- Good point! FortunateSons (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think we'd probably just word the RFC to say that things published by a site owned by Red Ventures at the time of publication are unreliable. After all, they've purchased many sites that were previously reliable, and sites that ended up somewhere else should probably be evaluated on their own merits if the former owner was the issue. --Aquillion (talk) 22:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with that, but on a practical basis, we should still carve out Metacritic which doesn't have fixed dates for their summaries/review aggregation (it's continuous like Rotten Tomatoes). I think they're a special-enough case since review aggregation/summarization is algorithmic anyways. There could conceivably be a few more edge cases but that's the big one I would take out if we go with "publishing while owned by Red Ventures means generally unreliable" since applying this rule as written would mean digging through archive.org to see when the critic summaries were written and essentially getting rid of review aggregation for video games released from 2020-2022. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 21:00, 11 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with both this comment and with Chess's caveat that Metacritic is an exception. I don't think we're at the point of deprecation here. That's for sources that are specifically anti-reliable: posting misinformation deliberately and the like. Red Ventures sites just don't appear to have much of a fact-checking process, which is what we assume by default for a random site on the internet and is why the average site on the internet is generally unreliable. Loki (talk) 00:14, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar: Two of their sites have been deprecated at WP:RSP already for posting misinformation. CNET got declared unreliable for posting AI generated content. If you go on ZDNet now the website is chock-full of questionable information like this undeclared advertisement for an AI book creation service [91] written by "StackCommerce". Or great deals on Costco memberships, which is so important they published two articles on it in 24 hours (you get a rebate if you buy them through StackCommerce). [92] [93] If you believe ZDNet, this isn't paid content as their paid content is designated as such in the URL and at the top of the page. Example: [94] Here are some other great deals offered by StackCommerce on name-brand products ZDNet is covering. [95] [96] [97] I don't think many legitimate publications let companies selling products write a dozen+ articles in a week on what great deals they are offering, especially without declaring those articles as paid content. I can see that the evidence presented here is kind of thin at the moment and I hope these sources convince you that deprecation is necessary. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:35, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Chess Ambiguity about sponsored content is again not a deprecation-worthy offense. Deprecation is not for your garden-variety unreliable source. Deprecation is for sources that are anti-reliable, who spread misinformation deliberately, who are actually worse than no source at all. Loki (talk) 05:55, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar and Chess: IMO it makes sense to consider whether to carveout all of the sites which were sold to Fandom. It's possible or maybe even likely that they didn't do the same things to them and that's partly why they resold them. I'd note TV Guide is listed as generally reliable in WP:RSPS and GameSpot is listed as reliable at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources with Giant Bomb as situational (for other reasons, not Red Ventures) with GameFAQs said to be unreliable. Nil Einne (talk) 03:12, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Nil Einne: I'm drafting an RfC statement in User:Chess/sandbox and I've excluded Healthline, CNET, and The Points Guy as previously discussed. Ditto for everything acquired by Fandom. However I did scope it to include ZDNet. Is that scoped well enough for everyone? Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 04:10, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar and Chess: IMO it makes sense to consider whether to carveout all of the sites which were sold to Fandom. It's possible or maybe even likely that they didn't do the same things to them and that's partly why they resold them. I'd note TV Guide is listed as generally reliable in WP:RSPS and GameSpot is listed as reliable at Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources with Giant Bomb as situational (for other reasons, not Red Ventures) with GameFAQs said to be unreliable. Nil Einne (talk) 03:12, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Chess Ambiguity about sponsored content is again not a deprecation-worthy offense. Deprecation is not for your garden-variety unreliable source. Deprecation is for sources that are anti-reliable, who spread misinformation deliberately, who are actually worse than no source at all. Loki (talk) 05:55, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- @LokiTheLiar: Two of their sites have been deprecated at WP:RSP already for posting misinformation. CNET got declared unreliable for posting AI generated content. If you go on ZDNet now the website is chock-full of questionable information like this undeclared advertisement for an AI book creation service [91] written by "StackCommerce". Or great deals on Costco memberships, which is so important they published two articles on it in 24 hours (you get a rebate if you buy them through StackCommerce). [92] [93] If you believe ZDNet, this isn't paid content as their paid content is designated as such in the URL and at the top of the page. Example: [94] Here are some other great deals offered by StackCommerce on name-brand products ZDNet is covering. [95] [96] [97] I don't think many legitimate publications let companies selling products write a dozen+ articles in a week on what great deals they are offering, especially without declaring those articles as paid content. I can see that the evidence presented here is kind of thin at the moment and I hope these sources convince you that deprecation is necessary. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:35, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- RfC seems like a good idea given how impactful this'll be. There will be major concerns regarding implementation. One of the first questions is if we want to carve out Metacritic as it was briefly owned by Red Ventures but has since been sold. There might be a few other sites that weren't ruined. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:22, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
- I’m not sure if a formal RFC is proper procedure, but I’d be in favor of a blanket deprecation of any Red Ventures-owned sites. The Kip 03:57, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- That is very unfortunate, I’m sorry to hear that. I am in favour of finding a functional solution to this, the status quo is clearly untenable FortunateSons (talk) 02:04, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- If this is compatible with wiki rules (which I don’t know, to be honest), it sounds like a very reasonable proposal FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Red Ventures strikes again. At this point I would support listing anything owned by Red Ventures as unreliable. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:59, 9 January 2024 (UTC)
- Deprecate ZDNet post acquisition by Red Ventures. That hurts to say but it needs to be done. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:44, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agreed, they've otherwise ruined one of the best computer sources out there. Depreciate it post acquisition. Oaktree b (talk) 21:37, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Army Technology (army-technology.com)/Air Force Technology/Naval Technology
Army Technology [98] is a source that hasn't been discussed either on RSP or the MilHist Wikiproject page before. In several articles, it's tagged as an unreliable source (1 2 3 4 5), although their editorial standards page seems to indicate to me that they are at least generally reliable, but I'd like a second opinion. Pinging @Schierbecker as they originally brought this to my attention. Loafiewa (talk) 02:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC) Added Airforce Technology and Naval Technology. Schierbecker (talk) 04:43, 13 January 2024 (UTC) @WP:MILHIST coordinators: . Schierbecker (talk) 22:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- It's a B2B (business-to-business) website run by a marketing company and is largely written by marketers. I checked about a dozen news articles and their author bios listed no relevant education, training, or experience in actual journalism. Every article includes prominent advertisements for their Buyers Guides. I doubt we can trust anything they publish. Woodroar (talk) 03:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- I've been reading Army Technology for years and I use it as a source from time to time, very rarely really. I just noticed that they run low-quality syndicated content from their parent company Verdict. These articles (example) typically cite research by "GlobalData", which owns Verdict. This conflict is not disclosed in the syndicated articles. Also, undisclosed cross-promoting of their GlobalData tech/world affairs-focused Instant Insights podcast in this article. Schierbecker (talk) 04:03, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
- Generally unreliable, nothing about them suggests reliability and some of their content is so bad that I would support deprecation if this was a RfC. I also suspect that there are copyright issues with some of it... Some of their articles appear to be scraped without attribution through some sort of automated or semi-automated process. I've reviewed their editorial standards page and I'm just not seeing the OP's argument (although perhaps they misspoke, "at least generally reliable" is nonsensical after all... There is nothing higher than generally reliable). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:59, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- OP gets credit for being way ahead here. He was the one who was removing links to this site. I was the one who originally questioned whether it needed to be deprecated. Schierbecker (talk) 22:48, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
Are 33 1/3 books reliable
Are the books from the 33 1/3 series reliable sources for album articles? Been trying to find some info on Blue Moves for instance, and saw that there is a book in this series which covers that album. On the one hand, the authors are tend to be completely separate from the artist or their label, I believe that in my cases people request to write a book for the series through the 33 1/3 site, which is the big red flag for me here. But – they are published books that seem to have a respectable reputation. I’d mainly be using these books for info on the recording of the album, and also to have cite-able descriptions of the songs’ musical and lyrical content. Personally, it doesn’t seem that different to me than citing a review of an album from a site like Pitchfork or PopMatters, but I wanted to make sure Elephantranges (talk) 01:30, 14 January 2024 (UTC)Elephantranges (talk) 01:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- 33 1/3 is a series published by the academic press Bloomsbury. In its own words,
33 1/3 is a series of short books about popular music, focusing on individual albums by artists ranging from James Brown to Celine Dion and from J Dilla to Neutral Milk Hotel
. As a monograph published with an academic press, and authored by a tenured professor in history and anthropology, Matthew Restall's Elton John's Blue Moves (Bloomsbury, 2020) is an ideal source to cite. To not cite this book—when it is possibly the most significant publication on the subject in the past decade—on the Blue Moves page would, if anything, be a tragic failure on our part as Wikipedians. - I'll add that I am confused by you considering it a
big red flag
that authors for the 33 1/3 series apply to have their books published with the series. That is very normal for academic book series. Most involve a process where publishers have a series and authors can submit book proposals for the series editors' and press' consideration. This is, in fact, part of what makes academic books such reliable, independent sources for both accurate information and general notability: multiple scholars are involved in the process of determining what is worth publishing and how to make it a quality product. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:39, 14 January 2024 (UTC)- On the other hand, I own several books in the 33⅓ series, and academic publisher aside, the few I have are distinctly non-neutral writing exercises that I would suggest to be particularly careful about before citing. The example right in front of me is the Sound of Silver entry, which is not written by anyone with a credible academic background but a former Stereogum reviewer. The book reads like an extended personal essay and is so far afield from ordinary academic writing that I'd suggest that anyone who claims otherwise hasn't actually read it. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- As Stereogum is a music review website, that seems like the kind of background that would be suitable for writing about music.
- Additionally, I would be mindful that academic writing as a genre has become increasingly (though not universally) personable over the years. To speak by way of example, Harvard University Press' award-winning intellectual history of racism and religious prejudice, Heathen: Religion and Race in American History (2022), incorporates personal vignettes from the author. Qualities reminiscent of a "personal essay" sometimes find their place in scholarship as authors wrestle with positionality or consider the affective qualities of art and literature.
- Of course, per Wikipedia policies about maintaining a NPOV, we wouldn't necessarily repeat the partial expressions of authors in Wikipedia's own voice, but an author interpolating their fondness for the music doesn't seem like it would, on its own, make other content (such as bout information about how an album was recorded, or what the musical or lyrical content is, which is what Elephantranges mentioned being interested in) un-citeable.
- Lastly, series can contain internal diversity of approach. With 190 books in the series, maybe the several in your possession are unusually personal, or maybe Restall's will be unusually serious. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:41, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding
series can contain internal diversity of approach
, that's why I said to be careful, rather than exclude (or promote) the series altogether. In any case, writing about music is like dancing about architecture, which is why I try to apply due care to any music criticism, whether it comes from a tenured professor or not. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 03:31, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Regarding
- As Stereogum is a music review website, that seems like the kind of background that would be suitable for writing about music.
- Bloomsbury Publishing are not just, or mainly, an academic publisher. They made most of their money from being the first to publish the Harry Potter series, after bigger London publishers rejected it. They generally put out high quality books though - are these from the academic division? I think not, though a random sample of authors seem to be academics or at least experienced music journalists. Johnbod (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- As I understand it, Bloomsbury added academic publishing but not long thereafter stopped it, or anyway stopped adding to what they were already publishing, directing writers whose academic works were already in a Bloomsbury pipeline to this or that alternative publisher (definitely including Routledge). (No comment on the 33⅓ series: I know nothing of it.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Have they stopped? From what I gather, Bloomsbury Academic is still publishing. They have a six-volume anthology series on the cultural history of exploration scheduled for publication in September 2024, later this year. In the 33 1/3 series, Bloomsbury is publishing Dolly Parton's White Limozeen (2024) later this year as well, authored by published music critic Steacy Easton. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Right, they haven't stopped. (What made me think that they had? Perhaps just the departure from Bloomsbury of the commissioning editor of the particular book of which I have some knowledge. Hmm.) -- Hoary (talk) 07:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Have they stopped? From what I gather, Bloomsbury Academic is still publishing. They have a six-volume anthology series on the cultural history of exploration scheduled for publication in September 2024, later this year. In the 33 1/3 series, Bloomsbury is publishing Dolly Parton's White Limozeen (2024) later this year as well, authored by published music critic Steacy Easton. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:33, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- According to the publication information page inside the book (seen using Google Books), Elton John's Blue Moves was published with Bloomsbury Academic. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:28, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- As I understand it, Bloomsbury added academic publishing but not long thereafter stopped it, or anyway stopped adding to what they were already publishing, directing writers whose academic works were already in a Bloomsbury pipeline to this or that alternative publisher (definitely including Routledge). (No comment on the 33⅓ series: I know nothing of it.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:26, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- Makes sense! I have pretty much no knowledge about how publishing tends to work so I wasn’t aware if their process was a commonly used one or not, but that’s all good to know. Thanks! Elephantranges (talk) 21:44, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- On the other hand, I own several books in the 33⅓ series, and academic publisher aside, the few I have are distinctly non-neutral writing exercises that I would suggest to be particularly careful about before citing. The example right in front of me is the Sound of Silver entry, which is not written by anyone with a credible academic background but a former Stereogum reviewer. The book reads like an extended personal essay and is so far afield from ordinary academic writing that I'd suggest that anyone who claims otherwise hasn't actually read it. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 01:47, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
- The 33 1/3 series is published by Bloomsbury Academic (in this example, under "Product details" to the right of "Imprint", it says "Bloomsbury Academic"). The series is generally reliable per WP:SCHOLARSHIP ("Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses.") and commands a higher weight than generally reliable music publications like Pitchfork, PopMatters, and Stereogum. I do not see the 33 1/3 series having a submission process as a problem, since academic journals also use a submission process. — Newslinger talk 04:08, 14 January 2024 (UTC)
Business Insider
Please is Business Insider a reliable source, because I want to use it in an article, but it's confusing lots of editors whether it's reliable or not. Thanks. Yotrages (talk) 8:20, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per the perennial sources list, past community discussions have indicated that Insider (including Business Insider) is generally reliable for culture (RSP entry) and there is no consensus on whether Insider is reliable for other topics (RSP entry). Which Insider article are you planning to use, which Wikipedia article do you want to use it on, and what information would you like to include? — Newslinger talk 07:55, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Treat it with caution, they publish an immense quantity of articles and while some are very good some are native advertising. There is also a significant and longstanding problem with clickbait headlines, but thats not really an issue for us here because we disregard headlines anyways. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 08:05, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Treat with caution. As the Gonzalo Lira page featured on this discussion board, I noticed a Business Insider profile of him that is literally copied and pasted from our WP article, so any content of that sort would be circular referencing. As a good rule of thumb, only use a BI article that has a named author and when you click on the author's profile it's clear they are a BI journalist and not one-off contributor. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:01, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
I started this conversationn in WT:PHYSICS but was told to discuss here:
The Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP) and other genealogy websites, were created to track the advisors and students with phd thesis. MGP is often cited in Wikipedia [99]. However, this website can be edited by anybody and often does not provide sources. This makes it invalid as a source per WP:UGC. I have sometimes found errors in its use or been unable to confirm some of the information provided in its entries.
My question is would a WP:RfC to discuss the possibility to enforce the deprecation of such a source be advisable? This would help avoid the fabrication of data. Deprecating it will alert any users trying to use such a source and tell them to reconsider using something different. ReyHahn (talk) 19:08, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you have proof of fabricated information? Ldm1954 (talk) 19:20, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is an example that was bothering me the other day Carl Ramsauer appears as advised by Weber [100] I could not confirm this. See the thesis here: [101].--ReyHahn (talk) 11:09, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- "I could not confirm this by looking at the thesis" is miles away from "it is fabricated", and even from "it is wrong"! That said, I would be particularly cautious about using MGP for historical advisor information in the absence of any other source (as mentioned in the earlier discussion by Kusma, and as acknowledged by the MGP itself). --JBL (talk) 17:44, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- See page 46 of the thesis, where Weber is acknowledged. —Kusma (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- It does not apply to this case. I have in the past found errors or miscategorizations in the past that I have myself corrected in Wikipedia. It seems that most have been corrected in MGP too. You are right about Weber I missed that.--ReyHahn (talk) 19:39, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is an example that was bothering me the other day Carl Ramsauer appears as advised by Weber [100] I could not confirm this. See the thesis here: [101].--ReyHahn (talk) 11:09, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- The previous discussion here was pretty thorough. In particular, it is not true that it can be "edited by anybody" -- anyone can submit information, but it is not automatically added (i.e., it goes through an editorial process). Neither deprecation nor an RfC is needed, just a reasonable degree of caution in using it. --JBL (talk) 21:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't really see why we need this quasi-user generated project as a reference at all. For most notable academics, we should have a reliable biography, which in most cases would mention who their academic advisor was, especially if it was anybody who was themselves notable. If you can't find out who someone's advisor was from reliable sources, perhaps it's not worth mentioning at all. --Srleffler (talk) 05:18, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- The idea is to determine whether this is a reliable source, right? I understand what you mean by "quasi-user generated", but in some sense it is or it isn't, right? The issue with user-generated sources is there's no editorial oversight, but there seems to be editorial oversight here. — Remsense诉 07:22, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- "Quasi-user generated" apparently means "actually not user-generated, but I need to make 'I don't like it' sound more convincing"? A significant portion of their data comes not from individuals but from institutions (like mathematics departments), and all of it goes through an editorial process. --JBL (talk) 17:50, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
Thanks all for clarifying the use of MGP. It seems that their platform is notable and more curated than what I expected. The previous discussion was particularly enlightening. I will consider this conversation done.--ReyHahn (talk) 22:49, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
I would like to use this source:
https:// yourstory.com/socialstory/2022/05/aurangabad-foundation-babasaheb-ambedkar-vaidyakiya-pratishthan-bavp-marginalised-patients
for the Hedgewar Hospital page. The article seems well detailed and not written in a promotional style. I would tend to consider it a reliable source, but it triggers the spam filter. Before I ask for the page to be whitelisted, I would like to hear your thoughts on the quality of this source. --Broc (talk) 12:55, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- Given what it's says about itself on its (brands.yourstory.com) brand page, for instance
YourStory is the definitive platform for content, connections and communication that powers brand and business objectives
, I wouldn't consider it an reliable source, it's a platform for businesses, brands, and entrepreneurs to highlight themselves. If it's been blacklisted in the past I can see why. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:14, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
Is the International Journal of Integrated Studies and Research a reliable source for Gopala I?
Journal's website[102] One of the sources used.;[103] I can';t find information about the author, Saksham Jain. Doug Weller talk 16:23, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- It looks questionable, given the extremely broad scope of the journal if nothing else. [104] They claim that articles are peer reviewed, [105] but just how much subject-matter expertise can reviewers realistically have over such a wide range of topics? I'd have to suggest that unless it can be shown that the journal has been repeatedly cited by WP:RS for the specific subject matter concerned, or it can be shown that an article author has subject-matter expertise, we shouldn't consider any journal with this sort of indiscriminate scope as WP:RS. Or at least, not as meeting the expectations for a 'peer reviewed' journal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:53, 16 January 2024 (UTC)
- I would say extremely questionable. One of the perks of publishing with them is "No extra charges for additional authors". It also hasn't been around long (2 volumes). Also the "editorial head" is described by the journal as "Dr. Pooja Roy, hailing from Maharashtra, has an implausible publication background. She is a reviewer at two international journals and has successfully monitored working on newsletters. She has achieved a number of accolades to herself in academic field and her perseverance for research knows no boundaries. Her experience of having worked as Assistant Professor at renowned institutes is incredible and she is extremely passionate about teaching, research and reviewer role. She is also highly adept in handling editorial responsibilities as she has headed almost 6 journals and led them towards success. She has also been the editor of 4 books (bearing ISBN) which have been highly acclaimed. With this stupendous publication and academic background her skills and knowledge are highly profound and her predisposition towards research is highly enhanced." "implausible publication background" is possibly unintentionally accurate. I note the journals she reviewed for or the institutes she was an assistant professor are not named. Erp (talk) 13:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Erp Thanks. Doug Weller talk 15:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Assessment of BBC non-English content
Though I do not have a particular reference to request feedback on, I welcome any input regarding the maintenance of BBC's description as a reliable source. Please share your thoughts on the matter at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Assessment of BBC non-English content. Thanks, --PeaceNT (talk) 00:08, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
Assam-Bengal Relations from the Earliest Times to the Twelfth Century A.D.
Please share your valuable opinions regarding the reliability of the source, written by Dr. PC Chaudhury. Here is the information:- Choudhury, Pratap Chandra. Assam-Bengal Relations from the Earliest Times to the Twelfth Century A.D. Spectrum Publications. I want to use it in caste articles. Thanks. — Satnam2408(talk) 14:20, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- An RFC is currently open. You can provide your opinions there. Thanks — Satnam2408(talk) 04:54, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor
I'm not confident in the reliability and neutrality of Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a self-proclaimed "independent, nonprofit organization that advocates for the human rights of all persons across Europe and the MENA region, particularly those who live under occupation, in the throes of war or political unrest and/ or have been displaced due to persecution or armed conflict" which is currently used in ~100 articles, most of them related to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war (Special:LinkSearch/euromedmonitor.org). Their website is an odd mixture of Op-Eds, infographic posters, press releases, and articles, all of which riddled with inflammatory wording. Their about page says they are "inspired by the people's will to rebel against tyranny and oppression that swept through the Arab region in 2011 and continues to percolate everywhere". The press releases do not seem to be corroborated by reliable sources; there's one article I found that only exists in the Arabic version (most of their releases are in both English and Arabic), which I could only otherwise find in palinfo.com and Middle East Eye who are of the same condition. DatGuyTalkContribs 15:02, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
the reliability and neutrality
We can assess reliability, no sources are neutral ie all are biased to some degree, unless the assertion is that the bias is so severe as to make a source unusable. It's an NGO, so should be attributed for its opinions, is there actual evidence of unreliability? Selfstudier (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2024 (UTC)no sources are neutral ie all are biased to some degree
– sure, but there's a reason WP:RSPANI is not treated the same as the New York Times. As for the reliability, as said previously their releases are not corroborated by any newspapers of record. With the most recent article, for example, searching "Al-Rashid Street 11 January" only returns the EuroMed page, a Middle East Eye article, and two other (Yahoo and palinfo) citing the Monitor with no independent reporting. The articles are clearly sourced from the same person but each alleges it to be independent reporting: the Euro-Med article states the quotes from multiple distinct individuals, which are very close paraphrasings to the Middle East Eye article, weretold [to] the Euro-Med Monitor team
while the Middle East Eye sayseyewitnesses have told Middle East Eye
. DatGuyTalkContribs 15:37, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
there's a reason WP:RSPANI is not treated the same as the New York Times
As I said, the NGO should be attributed for its opinions, not treated as if those were facts. If the only evidence of unreliability is your own OR, that's not evidence.Selfstudier (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- So, there a multiple potential resolutions here:
- 1. Best case: Wikipedia:Biased and Wikipedia:RSEDITORIAL, and should therefore be marked as such when required and only used insofar as they comply with the restrictions and policies set forth above.
- 2. Worst Case (which is possible, but requires some further elaboration): the source is unreliable and may even be the subject to depreciation in the future if it continues to be an issue.
- In this case, I would most likely consider it to be unreliable (at least with a cursory overview). Exceptions can be made in cases of subject-matter experts and Wikipedia:Aboutself.
- I would strongly recommend against using it for anything related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, anything related to BLP and in cases where there is insufficient corroboration from reliable sources. FortunateSons (talk) 16:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- No evidence there either. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- @Selfstudier I elaborated on some of the issues of bias and reliability below, does that answer your question or is something else missing? FortunateSons (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- No evidence there either. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Also, there a two pretty concerning affiliations, so the reliability of sourcing from them should be very carefully considered.
- Per their (and other) wiki pages:
- A. We Are Not Numbers
- Cooperations with individuals who
- 1. have a history of writing for less than reliable sources, such as Ben Norton, whose name redirects to The Grayzone, which is depreciated (WP:Grayzone)
- 2. Individuals with a history of potential antisemitism and other questionable public statements, such as Susan Abulhawa, who was also in support of the terrorist attacks on 10.07.
- B. Founder Ramy Abdu
- According to his Wiki Page, he „ was the assistant director and Palestine Office Manager for Council for European Palestinian Relations. According to the Independent, it is „a Belgian non-profit organisation that lobbies on behalf of the Hamas-led Gaza Government“ FortunateSons (talk) 17:15, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- OR and still no evidence. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Is it possible that you are misunderstanding Wikipedia:No original research? It is generally not applied in the way you are doing right now, and this style of providing evidence on this noticeboard is generally done like that, which you can see in most discussions linked on the perennial sources. Additionally, the evidence for all relevant claims is cited on their Wikipedia pages, and I provided a direct link when quoting. FortunateSons (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Where is the evidence of unreliability (ie not just vague connections to other things)? Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- There are issues with the quality of reporting (as shown above by @DatGuy) as well as repeated platforming of people with fringe views which may be considered criminal in some countries (as shown by me).
- There are beyond any any reasonable doubt issues with bias and editorials, where I have cited the relevant policy (you seem to agree, based on your comment from 15:48, 17 January 2024 (UTC)).
- Insofar as I can find citations by other sources, it is often cited side by side with other unreliable sources, such as [1], [2], [3](citations from same sources that cite Electronic Intifada, and therefore have a different or lower standard than Wikipedia).
- There is also some overlap regarding the authors and other associated people with depreciated publications, such as [1] and the people I named above (under We are not numbers).
- Could you elaborate if (and why) you consider them reliable? FortunateSons (talk) 18:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Where is the evidence of unreliability (ie not just vague connections to other things)? Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Please read WP:OR, where it very clearly states in the first
paragraphsection "this policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards." DatGuyTalkContribs 18:07, 17 January 2024 (UTC)- Still looking for evidence, I will step back and let others comment. Selfstudier (talk) 18:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Is it possible that you are misunderstanding Wikipedia:No original research? It is generally not applied in the way you are doing right now, and this style of providing evidence on this noticeboard is generally done like that, which you can see in most discussions linked on the perennial sources. Additionally, the evidence for all relevant claims is cited on their Wikipedia pages, and I provided a direct link when quoting. FortunateSons (talk) 17:31, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- OR and still no evidence. Selfstudier (talk) 17:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Op-eds, per policy, should be attributed to authors. But I'm not seeing some sort of systematic unreliability that would justify deprecation. If anything, seeing other news sources quote and cite the EMHR seems like it would indicate that its reporting is regarded as sufficiently reliable to cite with attribution. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 18:26, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sorry, that was poorly phrased by me: the three linked sources are primarily activists, not actually news.
- I had a hard time finding reliable sources with non-significant bias citing them; if you can find well-established reliable sources without a high degree of bias regularly citing them and not citing other sources depreciated by us, I would be likely be in agreement with you. Are there any? FortunateSons (talk) 18:59, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Context: The reliability of Middle East Eye is controversial (as visible when searching on the noticeboard ,though I do not know enough to make an accurate judgement without taking a significant amount of time to research, so take this with a few dozen grains of sand).
- However, they have cited depreciated sources such as RFC: Electronic Intifada [1] [2] [3] and have some overlap regarding their contributors [1] [2][3] FortunateSons (talk) 19:22, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- In addition to the above, considering the chairman of this organization was assistant director for a Hamas-affiliated organization (see here) and tweeted his elation about the Oct 7 genocidal massacre of Israeli civilians, I would say that this organization should not be given credibility in the Israel-Palestine topic area, at the very least. JM (talk) 22:02, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, and I would strongly encourage not using them for BLP and anyone who is Jewish/Israeli either. This degree of fringe views should also not be used when other sources stating the same ‘facts’ are unusable due to depreciation. FortunateSons (talk) 22:09, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
Just to add to u:JM's comment, he also called the October 7-8 clashes in Ofakim amazing (مذهل) [106]. This doesn't inspire confidence in this source. Alaexis¿question? 22:10, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- What is needed is evidence of bad reporting, not brickbats about the poliics of the person who set up the organization. Is the original poster asserting that the story about people waiting for food trucks being shot at by an Israeli tank and quadcopters is false? Or are there other stories which are false that they've published as fact? NadVolum (talk) 23:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Hey, here are a few issues (sorry, I don’t really have the time to sort those, and don’t want to provide them unattributed (see below)):
- 1. Euromed claims used for (ex post) highly questionable reporting [1]. I couldn’t find a retraction/clarification, but I might have missed it.
- 2. Accusations (as far as I can tell, still current regarding the spread of misinformation [2] [3](Warning: (highly) biased sources not to be cited without attribution and other measures in compliance with policy)
- I am happy to discuss the details, but I believe the accusation to be both not new and not unsubstantiated. Do you disagree? FortunateSons (talk) 00:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- What falsehoods are reported as facts there? Both sides put forward false stories about the blast at the hospital, a rocket that Israel said wa from Hamas aimed at Israel was later analysed by the New York Times as a rocked fired by Israel but fell some distance away. It's almost certain it was a Hamas rocket that fell at the hospital but the Israelis wanted a quick believable denial. Why would you take an allegation by one sde as meaning the other is telling falsehoods? The best we can do is just say what each side said with attribution, and they attributed their story. Lots of newspapers got that wrong. Perhaps we can get some actual evidence one way or the other. I don't see the truth of a story about a particular family being killed would stay hidden very long. Is it so unbelievable when they shot some of the captives holding a white flag and shouting in Hebrew? NadVolum (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, I can look for some other specific things:
- 1. This is a pretty concerning statement (but ‘just’ on their twitter, so I hope no reasonable person would use it as a source)
- 2. This, which appears to be inaccurate and has been considered blood libel by the ADL; this information was repeated (without any further proof) by some media with the same bias and is likely to be misinformation. FortunateSons (talk) 02:07, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, and their view on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex is at least very different from more reliable sources FortunateSons (talk) 02:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- If you'd read up on the Israeli cemeteries of numbers you'd know that the statement about finding anything out in the present media glare is hogwash. We don't even know what's happened to the militants killed in the original atrocity. That together with them refusing access by the Red Cross and them having done it before should explain why allegations of organ harvesting are rife, what do you expect if they don't give bodies back and don't let outside observers in?
- As to the hospital what would you expect in a hospital that treated some militants that were armed when they came in? And what would you expect in a command centre? The BBC article said what they were shown, it didn't say it was anywhere near convincing evidence and others have said it wasn't. One would expect a decent sized meeting room with refreshments and big table and a place to stick maps on the wall - and access to the tunnel system. As to perhaps having a command centre underneath instead all they have shown is a passageway under a corner of the hospital which they exposed by digging down deep with an excavator. NadVolum (talk) 10:21, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- WaPo seems to disagree; regarding use of the hospital, there is general agreement regarding some military use, and more reliable sources are arguing for at least some command infrastructure. There are also Videos of hostages and armed men inside, so there is certainly cooperation between Hamas and the staff (which is explainable, but not really an indication of “no military use”)
- I agree that the current situation leads to unsubstantiated rumours, but that is not reliable according to the standards of Wikipedia, right?
- A general distrust of “established” media (first sentence, if I understood it correctly) is also not a good argument for using this source. FortunateSons (talk) 12:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- @FortunateSons Really? How is their view different from that of the Washington Post? The Post said, The rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas. None of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network. There is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards. And they said: That raises critical questions, legal and humanitarian experts say, about whether the civilian harm caused by Israel’s military operations against the hospital — encircling, besieging and ultimately raiding the facility and the tunnel beneath it — were proportionate to the assessed threat. See also earlier the New York Times report demolishing another part of the Israeli narrative. Andreas JN466 13:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but they said before “In a new statement released today, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor called for an independent international investigation into Israel’s absurd claims that Palestinian groups were using Al-Shifa Medical Complex and other hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes.” The extent is controversial, use (at this point) really isn’t within most reliable sources. FortunateSons (talk) 19:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- The video discussed in the first tweet was also covered by France24 CarmenEsparzaAmoux (talk) 18:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, and their view on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex is at least very different from more reliable sources FortunateSons (talk) 02:11, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- What falsehoods are reported as facts there? Both sides put forward false stories about the blast at the hospital, a rocket that Israel said wa from Hamas aimed at Israel was later analysed by the New York Times as a rocked fired by Israel but fell some distance away. It's almost certain it was a Hamas rocket that fell at the hospital but the Israelis wanted a quick believable denial. Why would you take an allegation by one sde as meaning the other is telling falsehoods? The best we can do is just say what each side said with attribution, and they attributed their story. Lots of newspapers got that wrong. Perhaps we can get some actual evidence one way or the other. I don't see the truth of a story about a particular family being killed would stay hidden very long. Is it so unbelievable when they shot some of the captives holding a white flag and shouting in Hebrew? NadVolum (talk) 01:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Use it with attribution, as should be done for all NGOs and non-profits (and all government bodies in addition). Everything else in this discussion just seems like people trying to push their personal POV against the source because it says things they dislike. SilverserenC 01:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Off-topic bickering. --JBL (talk) 22:02, 19 January 2024 (UTC) |
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- Let's just say I'm not particularly enthralled about Netenyahu talking about Amalek or the laws restricting free speech. On the same basis we should be deprecating every Israeli publication as well. Who could have thought the friendship song was acceptable? But this noticeboard is about whether sources are actually reliable, not about who might have some influence over them or even about whether they like what they say. So could people stop diverting it by going on about irrelevancies thanks? NadVolum (talk) 11:37, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
Example of an exceptional claim not supported by other sources
Their modus operandi makes it hard to conclusively prove that they are unreliable, however there are many cases of them publishing exceptional claims not supported by reliable sources. Consider this article. They write After failing to find any evidence of a military presence in [Al-Shifa hospital], the Israeli soldiers went crazy and deliberately carried out a series of executions, eliminating and directly shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood
This is an exceptional claim, and to my knowledge no reliable source has confirmed it. Alaexis¿question? 08:43, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I have stopped thinking of atrocities by either side in this as exceptional. However I wouldn't use stories like that which didn't have some confirmation by a second source that wasn't just quoting the first. And attribute everything. NadVolum (talk) 10:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but this a regular pattern for them. Accusations of crime, no evidence, then being repeated by media with the same political leaning. And as far as I can tell, they do not retract statements even when they are either proven to be false or when no further evidence can be presented. (See above) FortunateSons (talk) 12:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- The same can be said about many other sources sympathetic to the Israeli side. I have lost count of the number of press stories on Hamas atrocities that were later debunked – by Israeli sources (with the vast majority of American and British outlets not having posted corrections to this day). If we wanted to ban all those sources, there'd be almost nothing left. Happy to give examples. Andreas JN466 14:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Then feel free to give them. Although this is what the UN has reported. JM (talk) 20:07, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- The same can be said about many other sources sympathetic to the Israeli side. I have lost count of the number of press stories on Hamas atrocities that were later debunked – by Israeli sources (with the vast majority of American and British outlets not having posted corrections to this day). If we wanted to ban all those sources, there'd be almost nothing left. Happy to give examples. Andreas JN466 14:15, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sure, but this a regular pattern for them. Accusations of crime, no evidence, then being repeated by media with the same political leaning. And as far as I can tell, they do not retract statements even when they are either proven to be false or when no further evidence can be presented. (See above) FortunateSons (talk) 12:14, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I had a look at the BBC site about this Al-Shifa: What we know about Israel's raid on Gaza's main hospital reports a journalist and the director there saying the IDF were in complete control and no shots were fired. It then goes on to say the IDF went checking the hospital they engaged a number of Hamas members and killed them. This could well be the same story. By the way the same story says "But unless Israel has more to reveal, the military's controversial operation inside the hospital did not net a major arsenal of weapons, reports the BBC's Orla Guerin in Jerusalem." which would correspond to the bit about failing to find evidence. NadVolum (talk) 10:46, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just so we’re clear on that, militants without uniforms inside the hospital are (potentially unlawful) combatants and therefore military targets, right? So there is not direct collaboration of their statements by the BBC, and the BBC has a very different statement from a more reliable source? FortunateSons (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- If you read the BBC report you'll see about all men being ordered out of the hospital - but some were left in their beds inside because of being injured or sick. An unknown is how many remained even so who weren't in bed but it said the IDF were in complete control. Is there a requirement for uniforms to be worn while sick in bed? NadVolum (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- No, but they weren’t wearing uniforms inside the hospital in the recent past, so I strongly doubt they started once wearing a uniform increases their likelihood of dying FortunateSons (talk) 13:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- By the way what is this more reliable source than the BBC you mention? NadVolum (talk) 13:32, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- That was sarcasm, but it’s hard to tell in writing, so that’s on me, sorry FortunateSons (talk) 13:36, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- If you read the BBC report you'll see about all men being ordered out of the hospital - but some were left in their beds inside because of being injured or sick. An unknown is how many remained even so who weren't in bed but it said the IDF were in complete control. Is there a requirement for uniforms to be worn while sick in bed? NadVolum (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Just so we’re clear on that, militants without uniforms inside the hospital are (potentially unlawful) combatants and therefore military targets, right? So there is not direct collaboration of their statements by the BBC, and the BBC has a very different statement from a more reliable source? FortunateSons (talk) 12:17, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- That does not confirm the story but it certainly makes it a lot more possible. NadVolum (talk) 10:51, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
Just to clarify that many of the claims about this source emanate from here ie NGO monitor, whose worth can be judged from their article.Selfstudier (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I described them as a highly biased source above and separately sourced any evidence. But you are right to also add it here, in case someone does not read the whole thread FortunateSons (talk) 13:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure what the ie is for. Those are opposites rather than the same. NadVolum (talk) 13:47, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This was a discussion about the sources of ‘my’ side, not yours, don’t worry :) FortunateSons (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh I understand now, thanks. NadVolum (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- You’re welcome FortunateSons (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Oh I understand now, thanks. NadVolum (talk) 14:15, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This was a discussion about the sources of ‘my’ side, not yours, don’t worry :) FortunateSons (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Here is the Wikipedia article for Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor like the one you gave for NGO monitor. I don't know if they have a similar attack page for NGO monitor! NadVolum (talk) 13:52, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
In the matter of "field executions", a preliminary file covering the period November and December 2023 submitted by Euromed to UN rapporteurs does not appear to mention the al-Shifa claim so that would appear moot at this point. Note that the BBC reported on 19 November that WHO described the scene at al-Shifa as a "death zone" so it seems understandable in the circumstances that witnesses may well have said unverifiable things to Euromed.Selfstudier (talk) 14:01, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I guess they think there's no point including ones where they don't have much chance of some decent evidence. NadVolum (talk) 14:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
What I would still like to know is if there are any edits to articles supported by Euromed cites that are actually disputed? Selfstudier (talk) 14:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is a good question. OP mentioned that EMHRM is cited in a smattering of articles, but which edits are under dispute?
Context is important
, including the context ofthe claim it supports
. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 16:22, 18 January 2024 (UTC) - Rightly removed by @Selfstudier due to violation of the I/P arb rules, summarised and reposted by me (including specific source):
- On Jan 13 EuroMedHRM retweeted Maha Hussaini saying "Over 800,000 Palestinians who didn't evacuate Gaza City & the northern areas". This number is in complete contradiction to all western media that says most people in the Gaza Strip have moved to the south. EuroMedHRM's retweet casts doubt on the reliability of their other figures, seeing that their source verification or interpretation is lacking. (Source from cited wiki article, which contradicts the statement)
- They also published manipulative or misguiding titles or numbers, like "100,000 Palestinians killed, missing or wounded", grouping it together to get a larger number (clickbait at best, intentionally misguiding at worst) FortunateSons (talk) 22:55, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- At this point I'm definitely not seeing that this source is any better than "Electronic Intifada" which was just downgraded to "deprecated" if I recall correctly. I don't see why this should be treated with any higher regard than that. JM (talk) 22:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think I agree. FortunateSons (talk) 23:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Electronic Interfada was deprecated because it went in for denial of the rapes committed by militants in the October 7 attack, when the evidence is pretty clear. You equate that with having some titles that look like clickbait and retweeting something with a stupid mistake when talking about something else? Most of the newspapers around the world would be deprecated on that basis. NadVolum (talk) 00:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, the founder and current chairman Ramy Abdu allegedly “retweeted a post denying that Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7th, referring to this as “a fabricated lie.” “(Highly biased source) and said this, to be contested by this article from Reuters. Second (but potentially biased) source. So no, not through their official account as far as I can tell, but yes regarding the people who most likely have editorial control. FortunateSons (talk) 00:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Could we stick to the actual stories put out by the organisation thanks. This is the reliable source noticeboard, not the I think some evil person might influence it noticeboard. NadVolum (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not all stories are attributable to individuals, and the founder and current chairman is certainly a person with significant sway unless shown otherwise, which is a factor when establishing reliability. We have discussed specific content above, I am just responding to what you specifically asked about. FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- So apparently no cites on WP in dispute and all there is is twitter and some insubstantial claims. This is an NGO in good standing at the UN that regularly submits reports there, no reason to go beyond a 2 here. Selfstudier (talk) 12:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think any alleged good standing at the UN trumps their various false claims, exaggerations, failures to issue corrections, and the clearly partisan nature of their leadership as presented by FortunateSons and others. JM (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'd consider it plausible that having good standing at the United Nations could mean that some users' assessments of EMHRM may be taking what amount to occasional missteps and over-extrapolating them into a characterization of the entire source, inadvertently making mountains out of molehills. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:20, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Submitting reports isn't the same as being in good standing. Alaexis¿question? 20:24, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think any alleged good standing at the UN trumps their various false claims, exaggerations, failures to issue corrections, and the clearly partisan nature of their leadership as presented by FortunateSons and others. JM (talk) 19:00, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- So apparently no cites on WP in dispute and all there is is twitter and some insubstantial claims. This is an NGO in good standing at the UN that regularly submits reports there, no reason to go beyond a 2 here. Selfstudier (talk) 12:13, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not all stories are attributable to individuals, and the founder and current chairman is certainly a person with significant sway unless shown otherwise, which is a factor when establishing reliability. We have discussed specific content above, I am just responding to what you specifically asked about. FortunateSons (talk) 01:29, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Could we stick to the actual stories put out by the organisation thanks. This is the reliable source noticeboard, not the I think some evil person might influence it noticeboard. NadVolum (talk) 01:16, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Well, the founder and current chairman Ramy Abdu allegedly “retweeted a post denying that Hamas sexually assaulted Israeli women on October 7th, referring to this as “a fabricated lie.” “(Highly biased source) and said this, to be contested by this article from Reuters. Second (but potentially biased) source. So no, not through their official account as far as I can tell, but yes regarding the people who most likely have editorial control. FortunateSons (talk) 00:52, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Electronic Interfada was deprecated because it went in for denial of the rapes committed by militants in the October 7 attack, when the evidence is pretty clear. You equate that with having some titles that look like clickbait and retweeting something with a stupid mistake when talking about something else? Most of the newspapers around the world would be deprecated on that basis. NadVolum (talk) 00:26, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, I think I agree. FortunateSons (talk) 23:35, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- At this point I'm definitely not seeing that this source is any better than "Electronic Intifada" which was just downgraded to "deprecated" if I recall correctly. I don't see why this should be treated with any higher regard than that. JM (talk) 22:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- As in the discussion of Mondoweiss, we find ourselves confronted with a publication that has an agenda, and which is not shy about exhibiting it as indicated in the article cited by Alaexis. We seem to sometimes have a fascination with "breaking news" in the I/P articles, rather than remembering that there is WP:NODEADLINE and we can wait for multipe sources of established reliability rather than flouncing on ahead with extraordinary claims, using "tabloid" sources that make no bones about what side they're on and in fact flaunt it. This publication, like Mondoweiss, should not be used in controversial subject areas. Editors anxious to publish its claims, no matter how outlandish, should wait until those claims are made by reliable sources. We do not have to be in a rush to publish anything. On the contrary, we should be patient. This is an encyclopedia not a newspaper. Capitulating to a desire for unseemly haste will make our readers conclude that Wikipedia has the same agenda as some of the POV-pushing sources editors are anxious to use.Let's not fall into that trap. Coretheapple (talk) 16:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at the Mondoweiss thread further up on this page, I don't think there's yet a consensus for deprecating it for controversial subject areas. Several editors have articulated reasonable justifications for citing it, perhaps with attribution, as with EMHRM. In any case, that is a conversation for a different thread.
- It's possible that capitulating to a desire to exclude sources could make some readers conclude that Wikipedia has an agenda explicitly opposed to certain perspectives. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 19:27, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Looking at the Mondoweiss thread further up on this page, I don't think there's yet a consensus for deprecating it for controversial subject areas. Several editors have articulated reasonable justifications for citing it, perhaps with attribution, as with EMHRM. In any case, that is a conversation for a different thread.
- Euro-Med has not gone in for full blown unedited passing on of anti semitic stuff like Mondoweiss. I think it is quite interesting how Mondoweiss is actually run by jews as far as I know. If they can believe the rape denial business then they really are pissed off about and think the worst of Israel! so what are we to think is exceptional? I've given up wondering if an atrocity there is exceptional but I'm happy enough with needing two reasonably independent sources. NadVolum (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- "run by jews"'? Coretheapple (talk) 17:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I don't think the ethnoreligious background of people who run or edit these publications is worth making claims or implications about or trying to dissect. In determining reliability, we focus on the content of sources. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 21:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Also using a lower case "J" in "Jew" is considered a slur. I trust it was unintentional. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- It hadn't occurred to me that being called an american or a christian could be taken as slurs. I'm sorry I offended anyone. I was not determining reliability by whether Jews ran it. NadVolum (talk) 22:51, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Also using a lower case "J" in "Jew" is considered a slur. I trust it was unintentional. Coretheapple (talk) 21:57, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Actually going back and reading the links in the Mondoweiss discussion more carefully it looks to me like the news and media analysis parts are generally reasonable. The opinion ones would be excluded from Wikipedia anyway as opinion. In fact the media analysis part is I think especially useful, though for Wikipedia's purposes it is easy to dismiss most of that like othe media analysis sources because they disagree with the majority. I have come across so many things in the mainstream media which deliberately ignore important points to push a point of view or spin their phrasing. So I think I'll go there and register a 2. NadVolum (talk) 21:09, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Euro-Med has not gone in for full blown unedited passing on of anti semitic stuff like Mondoweiss. I think it is quite interesting how Mondoweiss is actually run by jews as far as I know. If they can believe the rape denial business then they really are pissed off about and think the worst of Israel! so what are we to think is exceptional? I've given up wondering if an atrocity there is exceptional but I'm happy enough with needing two reasonably independent sources. NadVolum (talk) 19:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- If this is original reporting, then it is reasonable not to find such claims in other sources. Keep in mind that other sources like Doctors without Borders[107][108] have also made claims of Israel deliberately shooting people at Shifa hospital.VR (Please ping on reply) 09:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not at all. Media outlets don't only publish their own reporters. Organisations like Human Rights Watch are quoted all the time by various outlets.
- As to the Hill piece, it's from November 11, so a few days before the November 15 raid. EMHRM were quite specific: they claimed that Israeli soldiers were
shooting a number of the wounded in cold blood
. your second article was published on December 1 but I don't see any mention of shooting wounded patients in Al-Shifa there either. Alaexis¿question? 17:49, 20 January 2024 (UTC)- It is worth mentioning that Israel (and Bahrain) have repeatedly delayed the granting of Special Consultative Status to Euromed. These also happen to be two countries frequently critiqued by Euromed. Israel did this three times in 2023. Selfstudier (talk) 18:14, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- What does seem well established though is that shortly thereafter the IDF removed a large number of bodies from Al Shifa hospital. Many were takem from the morgue or dug up. What is concerning in the light of that is I can see no report of them taking away any live patients. NadVolum (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I don't see it in the MSF report you linked and so I can't understand your argument. Alaexis¿question? 10:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I did not link to the MSF report, I think you've misplaced your reply. Here is what the IDF had to say about the removal of bodies [109]. If there were numerous dead bodies of militants at the hospital one would expect a few live militant patients at the start, if the IDF was interested enough to take away the dead bodies of militants you'd expect them to be interested in taking away any live militants who were patients as well. The live people who were reported as being taken away were the director and some staff. NadVolum (talk) 13:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm sorry, but I don't see it in the MSF report you linked and so I can't understand your argument. Alaexis¿question? 10:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- What does seem well established though is that shortly thereafter the IDF removed a large number of bodies from Al Shifa hospital. Many were takem from the morgue or dug up. What is concerning in the light of that is I can see no report of them taking away any live patients. NadVolum (talk) 21:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Off-topic discussion Alaexis¿question? 17:40, 20 January 2024 (UTC) |
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Article on source now at AfD
See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (2nd nomination). BilledMammal (talk) 05:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- This looks like canvassing. See nomination for deletion a couple years ago by the same editor, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor. Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Constant POV pushing
Article: Awan (tribe)
Issue: There is a very clear and constant POV pushing going on in this article. Since this article became extended user protected, an info box which contains wrong information (NOR), and a unreliable source was added. These are some very basic things which senior editors should take care of. When I highlighted these issues here, no one from senior editors who visit this article regularly replied to it. I also highlighted this issue in Admin notice board here, where admins suggested me to post the issue on this notice board.
The two main issues which I highlighted were the following:
Infobox: Infobox contains unsourced and wrong information. The information is contrary to article because the ethnicity of Awan tribe is not established. Only clue of it is tribe's own understanding of their ethnicity which is Arab. Location of tribe is also contrary to article because infobox gives their location as Punjab, Sindh and Azad Kashmir while the article states that majority resides in Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhaw and Kashmir. Similarly, there is no mention in article of language being used by the tribe which according to infobox is Punjabi while the tribe is spread over a vast area and speaks indigenous languages including Lehnda, Pashto, Hindko and Kashmiri. If any language can be associated with this tribe, its the tribal language Awankari and not Punjabi.
I personally don't see any need for infobox because its just a start-class article but if it is to be included than it should atleast contain correct information.
British Raj source: The addition to article which supports the assumption that Awans might have a Jat origin is backed by footnote in a controversial book which itself states that this assumption is derived from a British Raj Gazetteer. There are many British Raj sources which support different origin theories of Awans, according to some they are Arabs, others Greek, Pashtuns and even Rajputs. British Raj sources are extremely unreliable, thus this addition should be reverted.
-- Greentree0 (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2024 (UTC)
- Which specific source are you referring to? Can you link it? It seems the disagreement is on the content of the sources, rather than if the source is reliable (e.g. editorial oversight). Check out WP:BUTITSTRUE. I see you have put this message in the talk page and other noticeboards without much response, so I think it is worth looking at the criteria for what wikipedia considers a WP:RS. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:54, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am talking about this [1] source. It is an unreliable source and should be removed. -- Greentree0 (talk) 07:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- This source is not from RAJ era. Timovinga (talk) 10:26, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- It would be helpful if you dropped the surrounding ref tags when directly discussing a source so I'll repeat the source you are questioning here: Khan, Sabir Badal (2013). Two Essays on Baloch History and Folklore: Two Essays on Baloch History and Folklore. Università di Napoli, "l'Orientale". p. 40.. The publisher is, on a brief glance, academically respected. Looking at the actual statement in the book in question "similarly, the Awans, said to be of Jat origin (Attock District Gazetteer 1932: 82), claim Arab origins having descended from Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad, from a wife other than Fatima (ibid: 80)". The writer isn't stating they are of Jat origin but rather citing another source as stating/describing such a claim; the implication is that he doesn't believe they are descended from Ali though he isn't convinced of the Jat origin either "said to be". The wiki article itself also distances itself "However, they are also described as having Jat origins". Erp (talk) 13:40, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Agree with Erp’s observations. Certainly looks like the source has some academic standing. I would say that if other sources exist showing that Awans are Arabs, Greeks, Pashtuns, or Rajputs with good sourcing, they should be ok. Ramos1990 (talk) 14:12, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Using a passive "They are also described as ..." is semantically equivalent to "Some describe them as ...", in which case I would immediately tag it with {{who}}. Since there's only one source on this information, quoting with skepticism a single old source, it needs attribution in-line, if it's even WP:DUE at all. (Remember, a single academic source is not sufficient to describe a wider belief, unless there are multiple sources easily found that verify the consensus. In this case it appears there is one and only one source, who is again only quoting another generally-mixed-reliable source skeptically.) SamuelRiv (talk) 22:10, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am talking about this [1] source. It is an unreliable source and should be removed. -- Greentree0 (talk) 07:34, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ Khan, Sabir Badal (2013). Two Essays on Baloch History and Folklore: Two Essays on Baloch History and Folklore. Università di Napoli, "l'Orientale". p. 40.
Sourcing Discography
Hello there.
I wanted to seek this group's inputs on sourcing a discography -- Lewis Pragasam. Specifically, I am looking to use Last.fm. Per this RFC Last.fm is unreliable for biographies on musicians/bands
, and I agree. However, for discography there is a link to the actual songs / albums here. One can actually click on the songs / albums on Last.fm and listen to them. In this case is it alright to use this as a source for the discography?
Alternately, per this RfC [110] it seems like Discogs was not deprecated -- hence, can I use this source link?
Copying @Vladimir.copic as an FYI. Much appreciate the guidance. Ktin (talk) 02:03, 18 January 2024 (UTC)
- Last.FM's biographies are UGC, and its discographical information is commercial, so like iTunes or Amazon, I don't think we have general reason to doubt it, but it's not very good source material. However...albums and singles are published works. There's no need to exhaustively source (i.e., linkspam) a discography with tons of links to commercial websites, because the released album is a reliable source about itself, just like in a bibliography. Chubbles (talk) 23:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- This is a very interesting take. Firstly, I will agree with you that Last.FM biographies are not to be sourced. Re: the other albums, if I understand you right they are self-referential in the sense that one need not source them separately to commercial websites (including Last.FM). Instead, similar to plot summaries that are sourced to book itself, here albums are sourced to themselves? cc @Vladimir.copic Ktin (talk) 06:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- My understanding is that items of a discography are generated automatically when a user scrobbles a track, and other information is filled in by users the same as the artist bios are. I don't imagine there's much of anything on that site which isn't USERG (I'm not familiar enough with their features section to say regarding that), and that you'd be better off just going straight to Spotify, iTunes, or wherever else the music is found to get the info directly from there. QuietHere (talk | contributions) 00:07, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. I personally, in this case at least do not care much about biographies or the features section. However, need guidance on referencing the albums. I do not believe those albums are USERG. I am happy to go to Spotify or iTunes. But, I am being told those are not allowed as well. Need some assistance here. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I guess the Spotify discussion you are referring to is this one. It seems to be focused on concerns about the reliability of the biographical information rather than the discography. A possible advantage of Spotify (at scale) is that they have an API (e.g. get-an-album) which I suppose could, in principal, be used to auto-generate and/or verify discographies. Sean.hoyland - talk 07:09, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thanks. I personally, in this case at least do not care much about biographies or the features section. However, need guidance on referencing the albums. I do not believe those albums are USERG. I am happy to go to Spotify or iTunes. But, I am being told those are not allowed as well. Need some assistance here. Thanks. Ktin (talk) 06:02, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Yoga Journal as a Reliable Source
Hi! I am writing to solicit input on the reliability of Yoga Journal. Yoga Journal is a publication focused on Yoga as exercise. Majority of the yoga asana articles on wikipedia reference YJ. From the first 20 asanas on the List of asanas, 18/20 cite Yoga Journal. From my research, YJ appears to be a reliable source because -
- Wikipedia:REPUTABLE - Yoga journal is a national digital magazine with 1.3MM+ readers. YJ was initially founded by Rama Jyoti Vernon and Judith Hanson Lasater, a leading reputable yoga instructor and author of many related books. Today, there is a community of editors, experienced in different aspects of yoga, contributing to the magazine.
- Wikipedia:RSP - If pop culture & lifestyle magazines such as Entertainment Weekly, People, and Vogue are considered reliable, then YJ would fall into a similar realm of reliability.
- Wikipedia:RSCONTEXT - When used to describe an asana or provide generic information in compliance with Wikipedia:MEDRS, YJ should be reliable.
I recently had a brief discussion with an editor who questioned the reliability of YJ stating it was promotional. I wanted to post here to get thoughts from more people.
Thanks! Whitestar12 (talk) 01:38, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'm not sure my objection would be that it's promotional so much as it publishes stuff like "A Complete Guide to the Full Moons of 2024, Including What They Mean for You". I'm also seeing articles making medical claims which again we shouldn't be using. But for basic descriptions of yoga poses I'm not immediately seeing any problem with using it. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:47, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- Might be okay for cautious use to describe some of the in-universe stuff that goes on (Goat yoga[111] anyone?), but for any kind of heavier-weight claim (e.g. about health effects) WP:FRIND would be a consideration and WP:MEDRS would be required, which this magazine certainly isn't. Bon courage (talk) 10:01, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- YJ obviously can't be used for medical claims. On yoga asanas (postures) and on the ethical and professional conduct of yoga schools and teachers, it is authoritative, having from its foundation shouldered the responsibility of reporting accurately, of providing leadership, and of holding people to account. As such it is yoga's journal of record. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Except it doesn't seem to hold itself to account for the unethical torrent of nonsense and quackery it publishes. So it's basically reliable only for what people like to say to each other within the WP:FRINGE world of yoga. Bon courage (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for stating your position. However, I think you are confusing yoga-as-philosophy-or-religion with yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of asanas (yoga poses), which is YJ's specialty. There is nothing remotely fringey about exercise, and YJ is widely considered an authoritative source on modern asanas, as it is not tied to any particular yoga school or style of yoga as exercise. From the start, YJ had scholarly yoga teachers like Judith Hanson Lasater in senior editorial roles, and she served as the (main) editor for many years, just one example of YJ's high standards. There is no doubt that YJ is also a glossy commercial magazine with the usual fluff, but even recently it has boldly championed moving away from the "young, fit, white, slim, affluent and female" depiction of yoga practitioners, so it still has standards: even if, like the rest of us humans, it has to work hard at that. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Not really, if "yoga as exercise" is promoted for things like unblocking chakras to treat health conditions.[112] then the exercise is just a tad more than "remotely fringey". In fact, looking some more, it seems this magazine is so deep into woo-woo, and so unconnected from reality, I doubt anything it says can be taken as reliable. If RS means we are looking for publications with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, is that really a publications that has stuff that:
- uncritically relays somebody's "cure" for breast cancer which includes "integrated plant-based nutrition, Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Homeopathy, Kundalini Yoga, and meditation" (while rejecting mainstream treatment).[113]
- treats astrology as real.[114]
- says yoga can be used to "reset your electromagnetic field" and boost your aura.[115]
- I mean come on, this is just bollocks. This is the sort of source we should be blacklisting. Bon courage (talk) 09:54, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies of neutrality of course mean mainspace articles don't adopt the views of religious yoga in Wikipedia's own voice, but calling beliefs
bollocks
and saying this makes Yoga Journalthe sort of source we should be blacklisting
comes across as taking the matter further than necessary or quite appropriate. All sorts of reliable periodicals publish astrological content; the Washington Post still has horoscopes, at least in its website version. And claims about something like aura pertain to the spiritual side of yoga that some practitioners participate in and seems to me no more a strike against the periodical overall than recognizing that some contributors to academic journals like Fides et Historia or the Journal of Ecclesiastical History have religious beliefs that Wikipedia wouldn't express in its own voice, like the literal resurrection of Jesus or a God-breathed Bible. As for medical claims, those are covered by WP:MEDRS, and quackery appears in other reliable periodicals too (like the New York Times' on-again-off-again tendency to defy medical consensus on trans affirming medical care). Singling out Yoga Journal as needing blacklisting seems off the mark. Parsing reliability and contextually citing sources is part of contributing on Wikipedia. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)- Religious people can believe whatever stories they want within their sealed systems. But as soon as that obtrudes into the real worlds of cancer, electromagnetism, or the influence of celestial bodies then we call bollocks. So, pain during intercourse is not caused by a "blocked chakra" as YJ suggests.[116] Also, note that auras are pseudoscientific, as Wikipedia notes at Aura (paranormal). That this magazine does not demarcate between fiction and reality is a bad sign. Why is it trustable for anything? Bon courage (talk) 10:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Wikipedia's policies of neutrality of course mean mainspace articles don't adopt the views of religious yoga in Wikipedia's own voice, but calling beliefs
- Not really, if "yoga as exercise" is promoted for things like unblocking chakras to treat health conditions.[112] then the exercise is just a tad more than "remotely fringey". In fact, looking some more, it seems this magazine is so deep into woo-woo, and so unconnected from reality, I doubt anything it says can be taken as reliable. If RS means we are looking for publications with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, is that really a publications that has stuff that:
- Thank you for stating your position. However, I think you are confusing yoga-as-philosophy-or-religion with yoga as exercise, consisting mainly of asanas (yoga poses), which is YJ's specialty. There is nothing remotely fringey about exercise, and YJ is widely considered an authoritative source on modern asanas, as it is not tied to any particular yoga school or style of yoga as exercise. From the start, YJ had scholarly yoga teachers like Judith Hanson Lasater in senior editorial roles, and she served as the (main) editor for many years, just one example of YJ's high standards. There is no doubt that YJ is also a glossy commercial magazine with the usual fluff, but even recently it has boldly championed moving away from the "young, fit, white, slim, affluent and female" depiction of yoga practitioners, so it still has standards: even if, like the rest of us humans, it has to work hard at that. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Except it doesn't seem to hold itself to account for the unethical torrent of nonsense and quackery it publishes. So it's basically reliable only for what people like to say to each other within the WP:FRINGE world of yoga. Bon courage (talk) 07:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- YJ obviously can't be used for medical claims. On yoga asanas (postures) and on the ethical and professional conduct of yoga schools and teachers, it is authoritative, having from its foundation shouldered the responsibility of reporting accurately, of providing leadership, and of holding people to account. As such it is yoga's journal of record. Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:20, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- As ever,
Context is important
. It may depend on which claims an editor attempts to support using citations to Yoga Journal. For example, descriptions of yoga poses seems fine. Medical claims of course fall under WP:MEDRS. But you seem primarily interested in the poses, which are a matter of relatively straightforwardly describing Yoga exercises. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 10:12, 21 January 2024 (UTC)- Well, it's outside the remit of this NB, but the question then is: why should Wikipedia be talking about "yoga poses" if they receive no attention from reputable sources outside the fringe milieu of yoga? In any case, given the above, why should this publication be trusted for anything? The magazine seems to lack a reality filter. Bon courage (talk) 10:22, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Is Social Blade a reliable source for YouTube statistics?
Currently the article Gonzalo Lira has the following text He published over 500 videos, gaining 324,000 subscribers and around 2 million views.[1]
Is Social Blade considered a reliable source to include statics like that?--Ermenrich (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ "Social Blade statistics for Coach Red Pill YouTube channel". Social Blade. 2022-04-24. Archived from the original on 2022-04-26. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
Ermenrich (talk) 16:17, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- I'll note that there was a discussion about this last year but it seems somewhat inconclusive [117].--Ermenrich (talk) 18:55, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- For total subscribers, video views, and when the channel started maybe. The social blade 'rankings' are likely not notable, and I would avoid the estimated earnings (their explanation of how they are calculated do not fill me with confidence). There's nothing there that's useful that can't be found on the YouTube channel itself.
I would certainly agree with editors in the last discussion that said it wouldn't count towards notability. The site lists ever YouTube channel created, so appear on the site is no more notable than creating a YouTube channel (something anyone can do). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:24, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Sports Illustrated...
...seems to be in the process of laying off all of its staff. Might be something worth noting going forward as it comes to sourcing in sports articles. — Red-tailed hawk (nest) 17:43, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- There was already a recent discussion on how they’ve resorted to using AI-generated authors for articles, should definitely keep an eye on them lest they go the way of CNET. The Kip 18:42, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
- It was Arena group, who look to be about to loose the rights to publish SI, that was caught using AI generated content. Arena are now laying off all their staff, as Authentic (who own the rights to SI) looks to find another company to publish SI. If someone else takes other the publication of SI with completely new staff it would be a good idea to keep a close eye on it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:33, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Sources in Gonzalo Lira#Career
An editor has challenged two sources used in Gonzalo Lira#Career for which I'd like to seek a wider consensus. See related Talk Page discussion: Talk:Gonzalo Lira#Sourcing for "Career".
- For the statement
Released in January 1998, Counterparts follows the exploits of a fierce female Federal Bureau of Investigationagent and her "counterpart", an ambitious Central Intelligence Agency operative
, is this Kirkus Reviews review a reliable source: [118] - For the statement
For Newsday, Jane Goldman wrote that it was "far-fetched and heartless... as arrogant and clever as its hero"
is that review a reliable source: [119]
Jfire (talk) 15:33, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- The last discussion for Kirkus appears to be this one Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 402#Kirkus reviews from March last year. The issue there appears to be that authors can pay to have their work reviewed, and if the review is negative stop it from being published. They are certainly not independent for claims of notability, and may not be due in an article (if you pay someone for a review does that make it relevant for your Wikipedia article?).
- Newsday looks reliable, but I don't haveuch knowledge of it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:43, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is important to establish when Kirkus starting doing this. I’ve made many articles for authors who published in the 90s and 2000s. Kirkus reviews from that time often read like Publisher's Weekly, which offers short but decent reviews. Thriley (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Kirkus Indie began in 2005: [120]. The review in question is from 1998. So no concerns in this case about pay to play. Jfire (talk) 00:35, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is important to establish when Kirkus starting doing this. I’ve made many articles for authors who published in the 90s and 2000s. Kirkus reviews from that time often read like Publisher's Weekly, which offers short but decent reviews. Thriley (talk) 23:06, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- ’’Newsday’’, notwithstanding its tabloid format, is a respected newspaper that ordinarily would be completely acceptable as a reliable source. Here, the statement is opinion, not fact, see WP:RSOPINION. Since the opinion is properly cited, and a review in one of the 10 largest newspapers in the United States appropriately contributes to notability, it should be fine. John M Baker (talk) 23:54, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Sigh. As I have already told the OPs, nobody is disputing that Newsday is a great source. For Long Island. T
- oard. The OP (checks notes) forgot to mention that this is a discretionary sanctions case, and the reviews are an attempt to establish notability for a "writer"-"director-journalist"-"life coach" according to a plethora of iffy sources. It's unnecessary to use tabloids and review mills since he might already be notable for signal boosting the Kremlin and being being glorified by Tucker Calson as.a martyr to free speech. More comment to follow probably, since I need to check a few things, but the man himself made a video describing prison violence, which he said was directed. I don't think there's a way to prove that either way but in Tucker Carson's hands that became torture. Apparently he was also murdered by the "murderous" Zelenskyy régime, though it was other people who said that, I think. He telegraphed his "attempt to flee" on YouTube every step of the way. There are also red flags in the article history.
- Just in case anyone thinks I am just being mean.
- Apparently he is notable because of his YouTube viewss also, and non-notability is a ridiculous reason for an AfD about his bestselling book. We know it is a bestseller because he is said to have gotten a big advance. I'm still looking at the sourcing for that; it's a scanned paper clipping in Spanish, but it might be legit. There are several articles like this btw. This is a pattern. Elinruby (talk) 10:26, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Thank you for the replies. The same editor has placed similar tags on Acrobat (novel), a novel by Lira. What do we think about the sourcing for these statements?
Publishers Weekly stated it has a "perfectly twisted ending the most jaded reader won't see coming."
cited to that review: [121]Kirkus Reviews calls the characters "interesting"
cited to that review: [122]In their starred review, Booklist called the prose style "thrilling"
cited to that review: [123] (full text available via WP:LIBRARY): [124]. Jfire (talk) 00:21, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Booklist is the book review publication of the American Library Association, relied on librarians across the nation for building their collection. Really, this list seems to be talking about three of the top 10, probably even of a shorter list than that, for reviews in the US. So, no problems with the sources. However, the chosen excerpts feel more like someone is making back-cover copy for the book, and only emphasizing the positive. Publishers Weekly also says the book's "the flabby, juvenile prose leaves much to be desired" and "the self-consciously "hip" tone usually falls flat and will probably alienate audiences on either side of the age divide", so merely quoting the portion of the final sentence is not giving a sense of the review. The Kirkus review is more uniformly positive, but pulling one word from the midst doesn't tell us much. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 00:49, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that the text cited to these sources is in need of expansion to better reflect the balance of the reviews. I'll do so. Jfire (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I should also note that an editor that is willing to cherry pick positive quotes from reviews may also have been cherry-picking reviews as a base; it may be worth it to check if you can find other review sources, as you may find that negative ones that wre skipped. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I am pretty sure one of the reviews at least is explicitly cited to a book cover. Let me see if I can find that. I haven't examined the SF Examiner reference but it's a local alternative paper which likely does have a manosphere beat, and definitely would report on gender issues. Assuming it verifies ok, I would consider that an example of a good source for a review.
- I just think the reviews are undue. But hey, Louis-Ferdinand Céline managed to be both a collaborator and a well-known literary novelist, so I guess anything is possible.
- Elinruby (talk) 10:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I should also note that an editor that is willing to cherry pick positive quotes from reviews may also have been cherry-picking reviews as a base; it may be worth it to check if you can find other review sources, as you may find that negative ones that wre skipped. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 03:37, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I agree that the text cited to these sources is in need of expansion to better reflect the balance of the reviews. I'll do so. Jfire (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Sources for Melania Trump
I plan on improving the sourcing in the article for Melania Trump to get it up to good article status as part of my project to bring all first lady articles to GA. Since this is a more contentious BLP, I wanted to run a couple sources by this noticeboard to make sure there are no concerns about using them as major sources throughout the article for details about her life, including any potentially controversial details. They are:
- Bennett, Kate (2019). Free, Melania: The Unauthorized Biography. Flatiron Books. ISBN 978-1-250-30738-5.
- Jordan, Mary (2021). The Art of Her Deal: The Untold Story of Melania Trump. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-1341-4.
Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:32, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
- Both works are from reputable publishers (Flatiron is a division of MacMillan), both authors are reporters (CNN and Washington Post respectively) so in general both look good. Reading reviews both works rely in part on anonymous sources, so some care with BLP issues should be taken (but care should always be taken with BLPs). In all I can't see anything to discount either source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:57, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
Is NGO Monitor a reliable (but obviously not unbiased) source regarding statements about NGOs and the BLP associated with them?
There are (mostly old) discussion before, but the source came up in the Discussion on this noticeboard about Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and was characterised as biased (which, in my opinion, is accurate). I would like to incorporate some of them into the article on the org, insofar as that is appropriate. I believe that it can be used, where necessary with an attribution, as it is generally considered reliable enough to be cited by significant parts of MSM, many of the involved people are subject matter experts and they generally cite specific sources and examples. Does anyone disagree? FortunateSons (talk) 00:28, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Per reliable academic sources, I would consider NGO Monitor an unreliable source for statements about NGOs and associated BLPs. Multiple sources published through academic presses and periodicals characterize NGO Monitor's assessments as politically motivated, lacking full editorial independence, not conducting sufficient investigation to substantiate their claims, at times reporting inaccuracies, and having a pattern of singling out groups with perceived political differences rather than focusing on the substance of the alleged problems.
- Michael Edwards, foreword to NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles and Innovations, eds. Lisa Jordan and Peter van Tuijl (Routledge, 2006):
Examples of such attacks include the NGO Watch project at the American Enterprise Institute, the Rushford Report in Washington DC and the NGO Monitor in Jerusalem, all of which single out liberal or progressive groups for criticism while ignoring the same problems, if that is what they are, among NGOs allied with conservative views. It is no accident that hostility to NGO involvement in global governance forms a key element of neoconservative thinking in the US. Stronger NGO accountability mechanisms won't do away with politically motivated attacks like these, but they would surely help to expose them for what they are.
(viii, bolding added) - Joel Peters, "Israel", in The European Union and the Arab Spring: Promoting Democracy and Human Rights in the Middle East, ed. Joel Peters (Lexington Books, 2012), 77–92:
In recent years a number of right-wing groups in Israel, most notably Im Tirtzu and NGO Monitor, have launched high-profile campaigns with the aim of delegitimizing the activities of Israeli civil society and human rights organizations, especially those that advocate the rights of Arab citizens in Israel and/or address the question of Israeli violations of human rights in the Occupied Territories.
(86, bolding added) - Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Abigail B. Bakan, "After 9/11: Canada, the Israel/Palestine Conflict, and the Surveillance of Public Discourse", Canadian Journal of Law and Society 27, no. 3 (December 2012): 319–339:
NGO Monitor has been characterized by Israeli academics as "right wing", as well as selective in its focus on NGOs; in particular, it ostensibly looks at NGOs concerned with human rights but fails to seriously investigate the activities of NGOs that support illegal activities in the occupied West Bank.
(333, bolding added)- Abu-Laban and Bakan in particular identify NGO Monitor's propensity for inaccuracy in its descriptions of the basic planks of other NGOs, such as claiming Canadian ecumenical organization KAIROS supports BDS when at the time it explicitly did not encourage boycotting Israeli products:
while NGO Monitor claims that KAIROS is a "primary supporter of the anti-Israel divestment movement", KAIROS denies it. In fact, in its "FAQs" online, KAIROS states that its position since first discussed in 2005 is that "KAIROS does not recommend a general boycott of Israeli goods for a number of reasons.
(335, bolding added)
- Abu-Laban and Bakan in particular identify NGO Monitor's propensity for inaccuracy in its descriptions of the basic planks of other NGOs, such as claiming Canadian ecumenical organization KAIROS supports BDS when at the time it explicitly did not encourage boycotting Israeli products:
- Sara Kalm, Lisa Strömbom, and Anders Uhlin, "Civil Society Democratising Global Governance? Potentials and Limitations of 'Counter-Democracy'", Global Society 33, no. 4 (2019): 499–519:
However, in all its reports, the NGOs that are criticised for being biased and partial have a perspective of promoting Palestinian human rights and/or taking a critical stance toward Israeli Government policies vis-à-vis Palestinians. Thus, the NGO Monitor appears to be promoting pro-Israel views regarding the conflict in a partisan way. Therefore, the organisation cannot be claimed to express universalist views, as it promotes a highly parochial perspective, mainly promoting Israeli interests.
[...]Although the organisation claims to be independent—there has been accusations about strong ties between Gerald Steinberg, who is the founder of NGO Monitor, and powerful actors in the Israeli Government.
[...]In terms of independence, there seems to be strong evidence pointing to that NGO Monitor might be less independent than it claims and indeed tied to strong political interests and actors.
(516–517, bolding added) - Ron Dudai, "Entryism, Mimicry and Victimhood Work: The Adoption of Human Rights Discourse by Right-wing Groups in Israel", International Journal of Human Rights 21, no. 7 (2017): 866–888:
The goal of such pro-state entryism can be demonstrated most powerfully by NGO Monitor's recent practice of submitting 'shadow reports' to the UN human rights system. Shadow reports are among the most common and important tools of human rights NGOs: while governments submit their formal reports to UN human rights monitoring bodies, obviously seeking to portray a positive image, the practice of shadow reporting allows human rights NGOs to bring to the attention of these bodies independent and less flattering information and interpretation. Israel's human rights NGOs often make use of this tool. NGO Monitor's shadow reports however contain nothing but positive information about Israel, not seeking in any way to question Israel's formal submissions. In effect, they provide shadowing not to the state’s reports but to those of the other NGOs.
(871, bolding added)
- Michael Edwards, foreword to NGO Accountability: Politics, Principles and Innovations, eds. Lisa Jordan and Peter van Tuijl (Routledge, 2006):
- Assessments such as these from academic sources lead me to conclude that NGO Monitor is not a reliable source for statements about NGOs and associated BLPs. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 01:34, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Could you elaborate on the claims regarding unreliability? Their bias is pretty clear, but as far as I can tell, there is no higher frequency of errors than with many newspapers considered reliable.
- As this is an activist org (such as the one discussed above), it is obviously not fully independent, but many newspapers aren’t either, and as far as I can tell, there is no sign of a higher degree of bias than shown by many other comparable orgs.
- By my cursory reading, there were historically some instances of poor reporting, but not beyond the usual level for comparable org, and not beyond what was shown for EMHRM, which appear to be acceptable with attribution?
- Im pretty new, so it’s possible I missed something, but a (high) degree of bias is not a direct hindrance to being an RS, right? FortunateSons (talk) 01:46, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- While sources having some biases isn't necessarily out of the ordinary, the overall impression I get from academic sources is that NGO Monitor is not only particularly biased (rather than just somewhat biased) but moreover lacks independence from the topic it often reports on (by which I don't just mean it's founded by Israelis, but moreover Kalm, Strömbom, and Uhlin's analysis which finds compelling the connections between NGO Monitor and the institutional Israeli government) and is prone to mischaracterizing organizations. While every editor has a right to make a cursory reading of a source/sourcebase, I'm inclined to base my position on these academic assessments made by trained scholars with a lot more experience in the subject area than me. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- In terms of independence, there seems to be strong evidence pointing to that NGO Monitor might be less independent than it claims and indeed tied to strong political interests and actors. is (as far as I can tell) not entirely untrue, but it refers to Steinberg being a man who, at least for a period of time since its founding, was closely affiliated with the Prime Minister’s Office. Source (from the other end of the political spectrum). This sounds biased (which isn’t in question), but I don’t think it’s more unusual than many other political organisations are. As much as the “revolving door” personally annoys me, it is also the norm, and a venn diagramm of consultants, professors and activists would have more overlap than I like, but it is also a fact of life. Is there a more specific issue that I missed? FortunateSons (talk) 02:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- While sources having some biases isn't necessarily out of the ordinary, the overall impression I get from academic sources is that NGO Monitor is not only particularly biased (rather than just somewhat biased) but moreover lacks independence from the topic it often reports on (by which I don't just mean it's founded by Israelis, but moreover Kalm, Strömbom, and Uhlin's analysis which finds compelling the connections between NGO Monitor and the institutional Israeli government) and is prone to mischaracterizing organizations. While every editor has a right to make a cursory reading of a source/sourcebase, I'm inclined to base my position on these academic assessments made by trained scholars with a lot more experience in the subject area than me. P-Makoto (she/her) (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- @FortunateSons, what exactly would you like to add to the article about the EMHRM based on the NGO Monitor? In general, I would suggest to use less biased sources. If some information is only reported by the NGO Monitor, it might not be WP:DUE.
- A bias doesn't mean they are unreliable. The quotes above mostly confirm their partisanship and only one mentions an inaccuracy, so it's hard to understand whether it's a one-off or systematic problem. Alaexis¿question? 12:58, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- It certainly has come up before. If one puts "NGO Monitor" into the search box at the top of this page for the archives you'll find a whole load of them. I've only gone through a few but they were very dismissive overall. One comment I saw said calling it reliable is like saying Electronic Intifada was reliable - and that has been deprecated. Perhaps someone else can go through the lot and get an overall opinion about reliabiliy. I definitely think its very biased views mean its opinions should be assigned little or no weight. NadVolum (talk) 01:43, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, their bias is clear in my opinion, and pretty undisputed as far as I can tell; they are right-wing and Zionist (in the literal sense of the word). However, considering the debate we just had on EMHRM, I would think that they should be in the same category; they both have bias and some questionable statements, but NGO Monitor is cited by RS and should therefore be considered equal or better (but obviously attribution is still required). FortunateSons (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Putting a respectable NGO and NGO monitor in the same basket? Don't think so. Monitor is a trash operation spewing out endless Israeli propaganda, one merely has to look at the complete crap they wrote in respect of 6 NGOs declared illegal by Israel and for which Israel was widely condemned. Extreme bias makes the source unusable. I would accept the equally biased views of its founder as a source because they theoretically qualify as an expert and at least then we have a name attached to an opinion, can form a judgement of it. Selfstudier (talk) 13:19, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I see no reason to use them. They are more akin to one of those think tanks employed to say global warming isn't happening and it is too late to do anythng about it and it is good for agriculture and it is a Chinese plot. NadVolum (talk) 13:30, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Yeah, their bias is clear in my opinion, and pretty undisputed as far as I can tell; they are right-wing and Zionist (in the literal sense of the word). However, considering the debate we just had on EMHRM, I would think that they should be in the same category; they both have bias and some questionable statements, but NGO Monitor is cited by RS and should therefore be considered equal or better (but obviously attribution is still required). FortunateSons (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Unreliable source used in article in Mridul Wadhwa
The article makes some significant allegations which don't seem to be supported by verifiable facts ie: "After comedian and writer Graham Linehan published part of Wadhwa's home address, Wadhwa said that for the first time she feared for her life" but the source reference article used to verify this claim seems to use just a quote from Mridul Wadhwa themself to back it up and is therefore not well-sourced at all, it basically amounts to the subject of the article making unverified claims which are being reported as facts. That seems to be against the ethos of Wikipedia. Has any reputable Wikipedia editor verified that claim from Mridul Wadhwa without using the quote from the subject as a source? It seems like that allegation about Graham Linehan should be removed from the article until it has been properly sourced. Acoustamatix (talk) 01:50, 21 January 2024 (UTC) Acoustamatix (talk) 02:23, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply If you believe that the source cited https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/trans-scotland-mridul-wadhwa-for-women-scotland/ is not reliable for its claim But the first time Wadhwa says she truly feared for her life was when Linehan published part of her home address. I suggest you bring the question to the reliable sources noticeboard for broader community input. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:38, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply The source reference article cites an allegation that the subject Mridul Wadhwa has made themselves but dies not provide any factual evidence for the allegation. Is it normal for Wikipedia articles to use un-evidenced claims made by the subject as evidence for significant allegations made within articles? Acoustamatix (talk) 03:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)Reply Acoustamatix (talk) 03:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Pretty sure that this is a sockpuppet of recently blocked editor User:Anna Lertreader. I am in the process of putting together an SPI. Also, pinging @ScottishFinnishRadish: as they are mentioned above. --DanielRigal (talk) 03:27, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- I think it's more likely meat, but an SPI will let us know for sure. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 03:29, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you have any evidence for your unfounded allegation? Please provide evidence at your soonest convenience or remove the allegation post haste. Acoustamatix (talk) 03:41, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
- Do you have any evidence for your unfounded allegation? Please provide evidence at your soonest convenience or remove the allegation post haste. Acoustamatix (talk) 04:00, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Wikimedia Foundation projects
I have to discuss about reliability of Wikimedia projects (Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks,
Wikiquote, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies, Wikinews, Wikiversity, Wikidata, Wikifunctions) as user-generated content. As unreliable sources, such as Wikipedia is a circular source, and Wikinews does not meet verifiability standards. In Wikisource, there are public domain sources cited with {{EB1911}}
for Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, but no consensus. 49.150.0.134 (talk) 03:55, 21 January 2024 (UTC)