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- Where should I ask whether this source supports this statement in an article?
- At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Don't forget to tell the editors the full name of the source and the exact sentence it is supposed to support.
- Do sources have to be free, online and/or conveniently available to me?
- No. Sources can be expensive, print-only, or available only in certain places. A source does not stop being reliable simply because you personally aren't able to obtain a copy. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/cost. If you need help verifying that a source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange or a relevant WikiProject.
- Do sources have to be in English?
- No. Sources can be written in any language. However, if equally good sources in English exist, they will be more useful to our readers. If you need help verifying that a non-English source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Wikipedia:Translators available.
- I personally know that this information is true. Isn't that good enough to include it?
- No. Wikipedia includes only what is verifiable, not what someone believes is true. It must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source that says this. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough.
- I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it?
- Your personal belief or knowledge that the information is false is not sufficient for removal of verifiable and well-sourced material.
- Is personal communication from an expert a reliable source?
- No. It is not good enough for you to talk to an expert in person or by telephone, or to have a written letter, e-mail message, or text message from a source. Reliable sources must be published.
- Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?
- No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual.
- What if the source is biased?
- Sources are allowed to be biased or non-neutral; sometimes these are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a controversial subject. However, the resulting Wikipedia articles must maintain a neutral point of view.
- Does every single sentence need to be followed by an inline citation?
- No. Only four broad categories of material need to be supported by inline citations. Editors need not supply citations for perfectly obvious material. However, it must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source for all material.
- Are reliable sources required to name the author?
- No. Many reliable sources, such as government and corporate websites, do not name their authors or say only that it was written by staff writers. Although many high-quality sources do name the author, this is not a requirement.
- Are reliable sources required to provide a list of references?
- No. Wikipedia editors should list any required sources in a references or notes section. However, the sources you are using to write the Wikipedia article do not need to provide a bibliography. Most reliable sources, such as newspaper and magazine articles, do not provide a bibliography.
- Does anyone read the sources?
- Readers do not use the reference list extensively. This research indicates that readers click somewhere in the list of references approximately three times out of every 1,000 page views.
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Over the past year or so, I recall being involved in a couple of discussions in which one editor wanted to cite an obscure book that has been ignored by scholars in the field, arguing that anything published by a university press should have an automatic presumption of reliability, because it has been peer-reviewed. This isn't necessarily true.
This topic had been mulling in my mind for a long time, so a couple months ago I took it upon myself to dig up some information and write a short essay about this.
The essay is here: User:Anachronist/Reliable sources (university presses). Feel free to edit, find more sources, more examples, etc.
Mainly I'm wondering if the topic of university presses should be mentioned somewhere in this WP:RS guideline, or perhaps the essay could be moved into Wikipedia namespace and linked in "See also" if the community deems it appropriate. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:30, 13 March 2024 (UTC)
- Agree that university press publications be vetted since they may be vanity publications by the university's faculty. Harvard University Press has books published by academics and non-academics which do not have any peer reviewed status.
- They are essentially not reliable sources for the same reason that an academic technical report has not been peer reviewed.
- Books such as, dictionary of (academic field) also too are not peer reviewed, they are a collection of short articles on various topics in that academic field and represent the viewpoint of the author.
- Often, these university press books are written to be included in the university's own college classes, forcing students to buy books which directly benefit the faculty. It is a conflict of interest for a college faculty to enrich themself by forcing their own students to buy a book.
- By extension, the large number of newspaper articles quoting the author and the book of these university press publications should be reviewed for reliable source status since the underlying university press book may not be peer reviewed and may not be a reliable source. 2600:1700:D591:5F10:40C5:FE3:6045:96CD (talk) 06:46, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- @Anachronist, I suggest that you consider the alternatives here. We don't want to say "Oh, you should be a bit suspicious about university presses", because the alternative for books is not the peer-reviewed literature, but non-academic publishers. We should generally prefer a book from (for example) Oxford University Press over a book from (for example) Random House.
- I also think you need to clarify the statement in your essay that "There are multiple reasons why a university press chooses to publish a book. Authors need those publications to be considered for tenure..." That's a reason why the author would submit the book, but not a reason why the publisher would choose to publish that one instead of another one.
- Also, as much as it goes against the grain for certain academics, Wikipedia's job doesn't really entail citing only sources that are endorsed by the field. We're citing sources to show other editors that some passably (possibly only barely) reliable source said this thing before we posted it in Wikipedia. We're not citing the sources so that we can provide a curated list of the best books in the field. Readers basically don't read the sources that we're citing. The viewpoint we use that source to support matters (because NPOV), but the source itself is just not the point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:25, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- Anon: I would be interested to know what books from Harvard University Press are by non-academics without any peer review.
- @WhatamIdoing: Excellent points. This essay arose from two (as I recall) completely different discussions with different editors in which one editor was claiming that stating something as fact from a university press book should get an automatic pass because books by university presses should be considered as inherently reliable sources. I and other editors countered that this isn't necessarily the case, and the essay includes some examples as demonstration. This essay's intent is to provide an overview of the pitfalls if such disagreements occur in the future.
- My objective in asking for feedback is to find out if the arguments are reasonable, and if there is anything that should be added or improved.
- I have clarified the statement you suggested.
- Most readers don't read the sources we are citing, true. I do, however, when the source is available. I have no objection to citing an unreliable university press book to verify a view of the author. Where I have a problem is citing a university press book to make assertions of fact in Wikipedia's narrative voice when citing a book that may not actually be a reliable source. Bottom line, publication by a university press doesn't necessarily merit an automatic presumption of reliability. ~Anachronist (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- I think it would be fairer to say that no source gets an automatic presumption of reliability, since (a) any source could suffer from an unfortunate typo or other unintentional error, and (b) whether the source is reliable for a given statement depends on what the statement is. That is, sometimes the source is "unreliable" in WP:RSCONTEXT through our fault (e.g., because we misquoted it) and not because of any flaw in the source itself. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:23, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
- I would not be surprised to learn that, in that second situation you mention, the source could be "reliable" but wasn't WP:DUE. A source can be perfectly reliable for viewpoint or even for an undisputed, objective fact ("Chris Celebrity wore red shoes to the Big Event") and still not be appropriate for an encyclopedia article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:26, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Many of the academic researcher pages have self-promotional citations from the university 'about our faculty' page for the person.
Consider "Liz Lightstone" or "Jennifer Martiny" Wikipedia topics, both academics where half of the citations are from their own employer's about our faculty pages, from a conference / lecture 'about our speakers' page, or from a grant proposal written by the same person - all of which are self-promotional.
The citations and the statements from them should be removed as not reliable sources for the same reason that Wikipedia does not include CV/Resume or book jacket about the author citations.
There are many academic researcher pages with self-promotional citations which need those self-promotional citations removed. Wikipedia should not be a CV/resume/about my research/who's who database directory for academic researchers. 2600:1700:D591:5F10:40C5:FE3:6045:96CD (talk) 07:10, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- References 4,5,12,22,23,24,35,43 for "Karen Mills" are all self-promotional 'about our faculty' pages at her employer. There are also multiple citations 'about our distinguished panel members' for meetings she attended at other universities.
- Can someone give instructions on how to find all citations on Wikipedia for a given self-promotional URL such as 'about our faculty' for Harvard, Columbia, or other universities?
- Wikipedia is not a CV/resume database like linked in. 2600:1700:D591:5F10:40C5:FE3:6045:96CD (talk) 07:32, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- A Google search for "www.hbs.edu" site:wikipedia.org results 10 academics self-promotional 'about the faculty' pages at Harvard in the Wikipedia articles for those persons. Those citations should be removed as they are self-promotional. Wikipedia is not a CV/Resume database. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:D591:5F10:40C5:FE3:6045:96CD (talk) 07:37, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- WP:PRIMARY sources are allowed, although these are closer to WP:ABOUTSELF statements. Either way the use of such sources are fine, as long as the content they support isn't unduly self serving. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:54, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- Of course, if the 2600:1700:D591 is volunteering to personally spend the time needed to replace (=not just remove) the existing sources with Wikipedia:Independent sources, then I'm sure nobody would object to that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:29, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Is MSN considered a reliable source of information? Never17 (talk) 21:53, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- MSN News is a news aggregator… not a source itself. It reposts news stories from other news outlets. Thus we should not be citing MSN, but the outlet that originally published the story. Reliability is thus based on the reputation of the original outlet… Not MSN. Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 17 March 2024 (UTC)
- K Never17 (talk) 00:12, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- MSN, yahoo, Forbes all aggregate stories. What is the procedure for qualifying stories as RS?
- for example, yahoo repeatedly has thinly veiled advertisements from financial advisers giving a crafted scenario which would lead readers towards investing with the financial advisor. 2600:1700:D591:5F10:A98C:7BBF:91EE:619D (talk) 04:03, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- Ultimately editors are required to use their own judgement on the reliability of sources, and no sources is considered always reliable only ever generally reliable. Undisclosed advertorials are common place in Indian and Nigerian media, in sources that would otherwise be considered generally reliable, and it's a practice that is likely to become more common globally.
For aggregators always start with the original publisher, if they are unreliable then they are still unreliable even if Yahoo/MSN/Forbes republish the article. There is also more information about Forbes on the Perennial sources list. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:57, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
- To quote that page, "Yahoo! News runs both original reporting and syndicated feeds of other sources. Editors have treated the original reporting as an ordinary WP:NEWSORG, and thus presumed generally reliable. Take care with syndicated content, which varies from highly reliable sources to very unreliable sources. Syndicated content should be evaluated as you would evaluate the original source. Syndicated content will have the original source's name and/or logo at the top." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)
Hi. I need editors with expertise/experience in IRS-related matters in a consensus discussion on the Joan of Arc talk page. Someone added a passage in the section on Joan's cross-dressing, and cited as a source the late Andrea Dworkin, whose Wikipedia article describes her as a "radical feminist" who was criticzed for her belief that "all sex is rape", which prompted one critic to label her "a preacher of hate." Dworkin was not a historian, nor trained in history, as her BA was in literature. Could conscientious editors please read what I've presented at the discussion, and then offer their views? Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 03:55, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
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162.71.236.123 (talk) 22:44, 20 April 2024 (UTC) In the 2016 League Of Legends Championship, $380,250 USD was split between 3rd and 4th place instead of 3rd place getting all of it.
- Not done:You did not list the page you want modified, nor have you provided a reliable source⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 23:01, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
Dark matter is different than Anti-Matter.Big Debstoh777 (talk) 03:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- @Debstoh777: You're posting this in the wrong location. This page is for the discussion of the Reliable Sources guideline. ⇒SWATJester Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat! 04:08, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Thank you for that honestly because I'm very new to all this and still learning. Debstoh777 (talk) 06:40, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
I was adding an event to an article (Special:Diff/1220193358) when I noticed that the article I was reading as a source, and planning to cite, was tagged as being written by AI on the news company's website. I've looked around a bit, skimmed Wikipedia: Using neural network language models on Wikipedia, WP:LLM, WP:AI, WP:RS and this Wikimedia post, but couldn't find anything directly addressing whether it's ok to cite articles written by AI. Closest I could find is here on WP:RS tentatively saying "ML generation in itself does not necessarily disqualify a source that is properly checked by the person using it" and here on WP:LLM, which clearly states "LLMs do not follow Wikipedia's policies on verifiability and reliable sourcing.", but in a slightly different context, so I'm getting mixed signals. I also asked Copilot and GPT3.5, which both said AI-written citations neither explicitly banned nor permitted, with varying levels of vaguery.
For my specific example, I submitted it but put "(AI)" after the name, but I wanted to raise this more broadly because I'm not sure what to do. My proposal is what I did, use them but tag them as AI in the link, but I'm curious to hear other suggestions.
I've put this on the talk pages in Wikipedia:Using neural network language models on Wikipedia and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. SqueakSquawk4 (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
- For me it comes down to a case by case basis. If AI is being used as part of the process, but ultimately the article is from a real person and editor then it's probably fine. The issue comes from articles completely written by AI with little or no oversight.
The site has an AI disclaimer where they say they only use AI in the first way, not the latter. So on that point I would think it should be ok. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:02, 22 April 2024 (UTC)