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• Source: Greenblatt, Alan (October 2003). "What Makes Alec Smart?". Governing.
• Article: American Legislative Exchange Council (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) (ALEC)
• Content: Lots, as the article is quite dense and relevant. List of disputed content in this diff. The dispute has been about the reliability of all of the source's content rather than about particular passages.
• Talk page disccussion: here, permanent link here.

Talk page discussion has centered around the contention that two alleged inaccuracies in the source render the source unreliable as a whole. The two alleged inaccuracies:

1. The source says ALEC was "ounded in the early 1970s as a conservative counterweight to the mainstream National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL)." NCSL was founded in 1975 as a consolidation of three other entities. ALEC was proposed/founded in 1973 and registered as a non-profit in 1975. In light of this chronology, there is consensus on the article talk page that the source's "conservative counterweight" sentence is not reliable.
2. ALEC coordinates "task force" meetings among state legislators and private-sector entities (e.g. corporations and think tanks) in which model legislation is drafted and proposed. The source says "The private-sector folks help draft and have a veto over any proposed legislation that the task forces create." One editor contends that language about "private sector folks" having a "veto" is inaccurate and has pointed to this document, which appears to be a leaked internal flowchart about ALEC's messaging/PR. I personally don't see how the flowchart either (a) is a reliable source or (b) refutes Greenblatt's "veto" language.

As far as I can tell, Governing Magazine is an extremely reputable and neutral outlet. According its website it has won numerous journalism awards, has polled among "government and local leaders" as the "most read," most "objective," and most "current" news outlet, and has been cited by a variety of the most well-known and well-respected outlets on both sides of the political aisle. Independent sources (e.g. here, page 3) bear this out. In addition, Greenblatt, the author, also reports for NPR (same guy, see here, here, here) and has even written an article about defending his press credentials.

In light of the above I believe this dispute falls under WP:SNOW. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:20, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

As a source, Governing looks about as reliable as you can get, to me, and certainly more reliable than the Alecexposed Wiki. If there are other highly reliable sources directly contradicting what the Governing article says, that would obviously raise legitimate questions. Barnabypage (talk) 19:25, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that Governing looks very reliable and should be used in the article. However, I would like to defend the reputation of ALEC Exposed; that project is run by the respected Center for Media and Democracy. Investigative journalists Mary Bottari and Lisa Graves were both awarded the The Sidney Award in 2011 for ALEC Exposed. (The Sidney Award is for excellence in investigative journalism.) In 2012, the ALEC Exposed project also won the Izzy Award, given by the Park Center for Independent Media which is based out of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College. So what we have with Governing saying one thing and ALEC Exposed saying another is one of those situations where we tell the reader both versions even though they conflict. Binksternet (talk) 23:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

But they don't conflict. (Or am I missing something?) Not to mention that the flowchart appears to be authored by ALEC, not ALECExposed. ALECExposed appears to have simply marked it up and published it on its website without vouching for its factual accuracy -- disputing it, in fact. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Rebeccalutz said they conflicted, so I took her at her word. I have not looked at the two sources side by side. I have only looked at the Governing source. Binksternet (talk) 23:23, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Whew, that makes me feel a little saner. I think the ALECExposed file is a red herring, totally irrelevant to this dispute. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:34, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Where there are disputes about factual claims (as is the case above concerning a claim that it was founded in response to a group founded after ALEC was founded) common sense says we do not make the claims where the source is clearly inaccurate, or is questioned by other sources. Collect (talk) 22:52, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Right, that's why there's consensus that the source's "conservative counterweight" sentence is unreliable. The question here is the reliability of the rest of the article. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 23:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Not Reliable Either Greenblatt or his sources were lying. I don't have the time to check everything but the most glaring errors are as flows:

1 - Greenblatt claims that ALEC was founded as a response to a different organization (NCSL). The NCSL, which Greenblatt claims ALEC was founded as a response to was created 2 years after ALEC was founded.

2 - Greenblatt claims the businesses have veto power over votes inside the organization. Several of ALEC's political opponents have leaked internal documents and written extensively about them. The leaked internal documents contradict this claim as do all of ALEC's political opponents.

3 - Greenblatt says that EEI left ALEC over a dispute. EEI is still a member of ALEC. It is conceivable that they quit and came back but unlikely.

Lets not take the word of a guy that can't even get the year his subject was founded right. Rebeccalutz (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Lets not take the word of a guy that can't even get the year his subject was founded right. - this is probably just a minor elision of the NCSL with its three predecessor organisations, which merged in 1975. ALEC probably was founded at least in part to counter those predecessors. Podiaebba (talk) 01:51, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, as far as I can make out, proven errors and even deliberate lying are irrelevant to whether a source counts as "RS". Podiaebba (talk) 01:54, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I would hope that proven errors should be relevant to whether a source is WP:RS. "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts...." If the "facts" reported are proven incorrect, that should indicate a poor reputation for checking the facts, unless a specific reason why those facts are reported in error is provided. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:30, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that proven errors should bear on the reliability of the source overall... but in this case we don't have any proven errors. We have one statement of questionable reliability, with a number of plausible innocent explanations for it, such as the one Podiebba advanced. We have no way of knowing what the author knew or meant, so it's difficult to extrapolate. As for Ms. Lutz's issue #2, this is a figment of her imagination. As I wrote above, there's nothing in the leaked document that bears on the accuracy of the Governing source's statement about private sector vetoes. Check the document yourself. Finally, as for Ms. Lutz's issue #3, she is correct that EEI is now an ALEC member again but she admits that EEI could have quit and returned. Her assessment that this is "unlikely" is totally unfounded, and irrelevant. "Unlikely" things happen all the time and are correctly reported without implicating the reliability of the news source. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:33, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Are there any other sources, at all, claiming that businesses have a veto over "model policies"? I have shown you sources that say that they do not. Is there anyone besides Greeblatt who claims that they do? Rebeccalutz (talk) 16:23, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, actually. Here are some: , , , , , . Given its sterling reputation, Governing is the most reliable IMO. And if you're going to beat this horse about "sources that say they do not," then you'll need to explain where they say they do not. Lead us through it. Communicate. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:17, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The Governing source's assertion that EEI left ALEC over a dispute with Enron is corroborated by this ALEC Watch source (p. 16), which says: "The side that lost – representatives of investor-owned utilities and their trade association, the Edison Electric Institute – walked out of the session and later renounced their ALEC memberships." --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 08:16, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

• Source: Business Week magazine article here http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=11255770&privcapId=2263285&previousCapId=2263285&previousTitle=Sapias,%20Inc

• Article: James McGibney.

• Content: That, in addition to his other claimed educational degrees, McGibney also has an Associate's Degree from Chadwick University, along with a BS or BA degree.

There has been some disagreement on the talk page of the article as to whether or not Business Week magazine is a reliable source. This publication has been in business for nearly 100 years and is a billion dollar company in the business of reporting on business. It clearly meets the guidelines for reliable sources per Wikipedia policy here (https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources). And it also meets the guidelines involving verifiability, that are found here (https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Wikipedia:Verifiability). Dead Goldfish (talk) 00:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Sphilbrick has indicated that the subject of the article has stated that the information is incorrect and is discussing this with business week. To me the source is of questionable reliablity as there is no author. I feel the information should be left out of the artiicle until we verify the credilibilty of the source. An earlier version of the article discussed how the university that this degree comes from is a diploma mill. That is enough to be a BLP problem. GB fan 00:58, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

The source is businessweek.com, not the magazine - I don't believe the large volume of company and personnel profiles is published in the magazine. However, as a company information database published by Bloomberg Businessweek, it clearly counts as a "reliable source" by Wikipedia standards. Reliable sources can and do make mistakes... if there is a claim from the subject that this information is wrong, then I'd suggest agreeing a reasonable amount of time for the subject to communicate with Businessweek and potentially amend the database entry, and then see what happens. If no change is forthcoming after, say 1 month, then the info stands. Podiaebba (talk) 01:42, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Podiaebba, that's like saying that the source is Time.com and not the magazine Time. Business Week and Business Week.com are one and the same. And while reliable sources can make mistakes, there is ZERO indication that this was the case. Because of all the activity involving sock puppets trying to edit the article and remove the information I tend to think that this is just a lame whitewashing attempt and not a legitimate issue. Also, how do you know that it is a legitimate issue and not just the subject of the article trying to whitewash things from Wikipedia? It seems a useful way to game the system to me. Dead Goldfish (talk) 02:10, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

We're not really disagreeing, apart from the fact that I think it matters a bit that Time.com publishes editorial content not in the magazine in much lower volume than businessweek.com seems to, and much of its online content has names attached (AFAIR) - it's not an ideal comparison. I also think the most likely thing is that the information is correct and the subject just finds it embarrassing; but we should give some opportunity for them to address a potential problem. Podiaebba (talk) 06:59, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Lack of authorship does not mean the source is not RS. It only means the strength of the source is not as strong as one with author information. Many times these sources use un-credited staff writers and that alone is not a reasoning to exclude as non-RS. However...being accurate is our utmost responsibility no matter what. If an editor questions whether the source is actually accurate, that must be addressed as to ignore it is not within the spirit or letter of Wikipedia.--Mark Miller (talk) 04:21, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Just as a note. The website of an organization is not "one and the same" as a publication by the organization. Read WP:Identifying reliable sources there is often content on the websites of many organizations/publications that are not subject to editorial oversight and fact checking. Note that even in publications generally regarded as reliable sources there are peices by columnists, editorials, guest editorials, letters to the editor etc. these are not RS. The lack of an author increases the concern as having an author with some credentials and reputation would lend some credibility to the source. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:11, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Is this an OTRS issue or is User:Sphilbrick in contact with the subject of the article on his own? If this is an OTRS issue please provide the ticket number. Gamaliel (talk) 06:01, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

It is an OTRS issue, ticket number 2013112810001642. GB fan 12:30, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

GB fan is correct, it is an OTRS issue. In addition, Wikimedia legal counsel has been alerted. There's more to this than meets the eye.--S Philbrick(Talk) 12:54, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Sounds to me like the subject of the article is working fast & furious to whitewash embarrassing information. Sphilbrick let us please hear the details in the interests of openness and transparency so that we can be certain that no shenanigans is going on here undercover and behind the scenes. Dead Goldfish (talk) 20:06, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

User:Dead Goldfish, OTRS refers to the Wikipedia:Volunteer Response Team, a group of volunteers who work with living individuals who have concerns about the information about them on Wikipedia. A person has the right to dispute the information in their article and those volunteers work with them to address those concerns as best they can. They don't automatically do whatever the person asks and it may well turn out that the reference is returned to the article, but until this matter is concluded it must remain out. I've examined the ticket myself and I assure you that there is nothing inappropriate about this matter. Please be patient and do not use Wikipedia as a forum to make unsubstantiated allegations against other editors or the subject of the article. Thank you. Gamaliel (talk) 20:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. As you know from past history, events done in secret are often times subject to abuse and misuse. Dead Goldfish (talk) 09:51, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree, but we must balance transparency with privacy in matters like these. The only thing secret are the private communications between volunteers and the affected parties, and these can be examined by other volunteers such as myself if there is any reason to suspect inappropriate actions have been taken. If, after this matter is resolved, you have a reason to believe that inappropriate actions have in fact been taken, the matter can be examined again by myself or another OTRS volunteer. Gamaliel (talk) 16:33, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

As an FYI to you, I contacted Harvard College directly and got an email response saying they've never heard of the guy. So it seems that he also has a fake degree from Harvard. Dead Goldfish (talk) 21:15, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Whoa, slow down there. The source 10 says Harvard Business School not Harvard College and it only says "attended", not "graduated". If you asked the wrong question (or wrong institution...) that might explain that. Podiaebba (talk) 00:44, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Good point, so I contacted each of them, too, and they have not been able to confirm any participation by McGibney in any kind of MBA or Executive Education program. You can easily check yourself here: (http://www.hbs.edu/mba/registrar/general/Pages/general-verification.aspx). I have also received confirmation of his Chadwick "degree" from Chadwick University itself. I provided the information to OTRS. Anyone can duplicate the contacts that I did and you will see that, other than the Chadwick "degree", all the rest of McGibney's educational claims seem false. Dead Goldfish (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Background info

• Related discussion from Dec 2012
• detailed investigation
• Wikimania 2013 slides

Request

I'd like to approach this noticeboard before actually adding any oral citations. There was a discussion in December about Achal Prabhala's (aprabhala) WMF-funded project. The community here wasn't very perceptive of the idea, partly due to concerns about intellectual property (uploading files on Commons to back up article claims), partly due to a general resistance to the idea.

My colleague Maja and I found several weaknesses in both the general approach of the en.wp editor community and in the particular roll-out by Achal. We pre-released a book chapter, and I gave a talk at Wikimania Hong Kong, both with the aim to re-activate the discussion. Roughly, we claim that:

1. Indigenous knowledge (IK) is knowledge
2. Wikipedia wants to be the sum of all knowledge
3. Wikipedia therefore should aim to include IK

and that

1. All knowledge is documented in reliable sources (RS) of some sort
2. IK is documented almost exclusively in non-written form
3. Therefore some non-written sources are reliable

I would be happy if some of you had the time to go through this argument and the supporting documents, and either prove us wrong or allow oral citations. If neither happens, which would somewhat be the expected result, :) we plan to put this to a test in 2014, taking a few topics for which no/little RS can be found, and develop content based on oral citations. Cheers, Pgallert (talk) 09:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

The question is too general for this board. Yes, there can be a tension between WP:V and our concern to avoid systemic bias. You should take this to the talk page of WP:V, because it goes to the heart of what Wikipedia is about. Either that or the village pump. Wherever you take it, giving some examples would be very helpful. Can you show that indigenous knowledge is not available in written (codified) form? Perhaps all knowledge is indigenous until it is codified? Itsmejudith (talk) 20:26, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Although I am sympathetic to the broadening of Wikipedia coverage, this proposal is problematic across numerous policies. In particular, oral sources are WP:PRIMARY, which means that the WP editor is effectively creating WP:NOR by selecting the source and content that is used. Wikipdeia aspires to include all human knowledge, not 'everything anyone has ever said'.Martinlc (talk) 23:24, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

In effect the aim of this proposal is to publish things for the first time, which is not the aim of this community, nor the way it is set up. It would require fundamentally different ways of working that would make the rest of Wikipedia difficult to continue. So the more obvious approach is to try to develop a new Wiki?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 09:41, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

@Itsmejudith: Indeed, the proposal is broad. I brought it here first because it was discussed here before. It touches WP:V --- the paper and the slide show referenced above argue that it is absolutely verifiable. A real-world example is difficult to give at this time because IK is just not available in writing. Template {{cite}} would also need adaptations. Hypothetical examples would be (Sorry, I have no idea how to restrict the {{Reflist}} template to just show the two relevant sources):

The village of Ovitoto was founded in the 1860s by Herero Chief Tjamuaha.¹

The OvaMbanderu people use the fresh leafs of Securidaca longipedunculata to heal menstruation pain.²

@Martinlc & Andrew Lancaster: Oral knowledge is published orally: A village elder delivers a narrative, other elders listen and correct him if necessary by telling their version of the narrative. It is not just something that happens to be said, it is a ritualised session of knowledge transfer, predictable both in time and content.

Generally, do you contest that Indigenous knowledge is knowledge? If not, do you contest that WP should be the sum of all knowledge? --Pgallert (talk) 10:17, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not the sum of all knowledge and never can be. See WP:NOT for some of the important things that we aren't. 99% of the important and useful knowledge that you and I have is tacit and uncodified, like how to get from my house to the greengrocers, or whether the light is bright enough for me to be typing at the moment. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:25, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

You're preaching to the choir. But the matter of the fact is that there is real knowledge out there that is not available in writing, and that's what I'm talking about. Did you check the examples in the documentation linked at the top? --Pgallert (talk) 12:01, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I think the emphasis you have placed on verifiability is a distraction. To answer the question about Indigenous knowledge, my view is that it may be knowledge but it is difficult for it to be treated as encyclopedic knowledge since the criteria developed for the selection of sources and content based mainly on print culture cannot be readily replicated for oral sources. However it would be straightforward for an expert in oral traditions to select and gather information from the bes evidence as encyclopedic as a shortcut.Martinlc (talk) 22:52, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew Lancaster's point above that a Wiki could handle this kind of source, and could develop into an encyclopedia of oral knowledge, but it couldn't be this wiki. Both reliability and verifiability are at issue. Wikipedians need to be able to verify that the source is reliable and has been reliably reported: those questions arise frequently on this board, and in the two examples you give I don't see how they could be answered. Just for example, what was the speaker's name for Securidaca longipedunculata and is the identification valid? That's exactly the question that I would ask if I found such a report in a printed or online source, and I wouldn't add the information to the page Securidaca longipedunculata unless I could cite a source that (a) I considered reliable, but also (b) the next Wikipedian would be able to check, and, if necessary, dismiss as unreliable. Andrew Dalby 11:19, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

@Martinlc, Andrew Dalby: 'Encyclopedic knowledge' surely is what writers of an encyclopedia (=us) consider valuable. From 'IK is knowledge' and 'WP aims to present the sum of all knowledge' necessarily follows 'WP aims to present IK'. That's a syllogism; if you accept the premises you have to accept the conclusion.

As for your second argument, Wikipedians are not just the white-collar workers in developed countries. We have Wikipedians in Epukiro, in Donkerbos, in Otjinene, and for those it is not at all a simple thing to verify facts on WP. Assume they want to verify a fact referenced to the Library of Congress. They would have to learn English. They would have to travel to another country. They would have to learn how our knowledge is organised---Do you remember your first time with a library catalogue? Finding a book is by no means easy. And then they would have to convince the knowledge keeper (the librarian) to give them access. A San in traditional attire might have a hard time lending a book.

It is thus maybe not too surprising that for somebody not acquainted with an African rural IK setting, verifying an oral narrative is not easy. You would have to learn the language. You would have to travel to that country. You would have to learn how IK is organised, how it can be retrieved, and how it has to be understood. After gaining the trust of the local community, oral knowledge might be presented to you for verification.

I am slowly developing into an expert in oral knowledge, and I can already tell you that western scientists misunderstand so much that their representation of an elder's narrative is about the worst source of knowledge you can get. We miss the context, the non-verbal communication, the subtleties in translation, the reason for 'publishing' (orally), and so on. I am publishing in the field---do you want to treat my writing as a reliable source, denying the original author, who didn't get half as many things wrong, the same recognition? BTW, 'primary source' is a red herring in this case: As long as I do not attempt to abstract from an elder's narrative, my writing is still a primary source. --Pgallert (talk) 14:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

The examples you give above are your "representation of an elder's narrative" ... right? So it's lucky you're different from all the other experts, or your material, also, would be "about the worst source of knowledge you can get". Forgive me if I've misunderstood something :) Andrew Dalby 20:20, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

:) The examples are entirely hypothetical, simply because I do not possess much IK. But no, of course not, thanks for asking. I don't speak the indigenous languages, and my representation would indeed not be better. It is supposed to come from a native speaker who is also fluent in English. We are currently busy developing them into Wikipedians, for now using written sources. I often challenge them by showing how poor certain articles are developed, and they tell me all the content. If I ask them where they know it from, it invariably is the parish priest, the chief, the traditional midwife. --Pgallert (talk) 10:50, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I get it now: I didn't understand fully.

Wikipedia developed quite a long way while still accepting material based on what Wikipedians know or have been told by people they trust. Some other-language Wikipedias still do, but here on en:wiki the drive towards reliable sourcing has been going for years: it is deep-rooted and still intensifying. Even the things that everybody knows have to be sourced (... if anyone asks ...) with a source that others can verify. En:wiki differs from academic writing precisely in that it is edgy about primary sources and won't accept "personal information from ...", "letter from ...". So, given this culture, can you get en:wiki to accept "information from an elder"? You have a fight on your hands! I'm telling you what you already know. Andrew Dalby 12:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

So true :) But I want even more. I want en-Wikipedians to understand that the information from an elder in all likelihood is more reliable than the respective writeup from an anthropologist. And I want to convince an audience anchored in a culture of writing that oral knowledge transfer is alive in these days and times. It happens in institutionalised settings, and if someone voices a fringe opinion, then this opinion is attacked by the listeners. It is thus not quite the same as a "letter from ...". The best analogy I can offer so far is a museum guide. When asked about a certain item, or at certain rituals (e.g. guided tour) they will always come up with more or less the same explanation.

Of course we could go to the OtjiHerero incubator or to the Afrikaans Wikipedia, nobody is going to ask for sources there. But I think en.wp is missing out on some really exciting and important knowledge without IK. --Pgallert (talk) 19:42, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The knowledge contained in Wikipedia is whatever a Wikipedia editor inserts. If the knowledge is not published, there is no way to verify that the so-called knowledge is not a lie. Wikipedia can never contain oral knowledge because Wikipedia does not have a mouth. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:57, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

The point is that the act of predictably and reliably narrating a piece of history, technology, or culture to an audience, is a way of publishing. Or, the other way round, that en.wp's definition of publishing deliberately excludes all oral knowledge, to the detriment of Wikipedia's vision and mission. --Pgallert (talk) 20:14, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

This version of Wikipedia's vision is contrary to WP:TRUTH. The disadvantages of the possibly-faulty transcription or summary are outweighed by the chance for editors to consider the Reliability of this secondary source, in my view. Somebody can compile oral traditions into a fixed form, and that can be used by Wikipedia editors if they consider it reliable, so it is not true that WP excludes all oral knowledge, it only excludes that knowledge which falls outside the scope of Primary, RS, and Verifiability policies. Martinlc (talk) 23:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given access to the sum of all human knowledge --- If that was contrary to WP:TRUTH then that would be no problem, WP:TRUTH is just an essay. But it isn't contrary. Oral knowledge is verifiable. Not easily verifiable, not without an effort, but it isn't hearsay. And if I have to convert oral knowledge into 'a fixed form' before I can use it, then oral knowledge is excluded. Or did I misunderstand something? --Pgallert (talk) 07:32, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

In order for oral traditions to appear in Wikipedia they need to be fixed by someone. You are proposing that WP editors do this directly, and this proposal has been considered problematic as cutting across numerous policies. I have suggested you do so indirectly (ie fix first then into WP), this would be unproblematic.Martinlc (talk) 11:09, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Not sure I properly understand 'fix' in this context. If you mean recording the narrative and uploading it to Commons, that has been rejected by this very board in the past, for doubts on the ethical implications of indigenous communities' intellectual property. --Pgallert (talk) 08:34, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

No I meant transform from its primary, oral, form, into a secondary, textual, form, either as a transcript, summary or analysis. Wikipedia is a text medium, so at some point somebody has to do that transformation. If the text version exists outside of WP it can be used as a source. Martinlc (talk) 12:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

'Summary' would be tricky. If I do it myself there is the risk of misunderstanding what is important. 'Transcript' would not make it a secondary source, because in order to get from a primary to a secondary source there needs to be a level of abstraction, and a transcript does not involve abstraction. The 'analysis' I shall leave to the scientists. Any of these would have to be published, right? Which would mean that only what alien visitors to an indigenous community find important, actually is important, and that only their take on how the narrative is to be understood, counts. That does not look like a good approach to me. --Pgallert (talk) 07:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I am at this stage pondering to which venue to next take the issue, as mentioned, I brought it to this noticeboard first because it was discussed here before. I recollect the following objections:

• Verifiability, even if no one actually refuted my argument ;)
• WP:NOT as hearsay and incidental chit-chat,
• WP:NOR and WP:PRIMARY

The core objection in my view is that oral information is not 'published' as outlined in the WP:RS guideline. I would believe that this is core territory of this noticeboard, but maybe I should take that issue to the talk page of the content guideline. Again, nobody refuted my argument (for instance backed by the main space article Publication) that communities not rooted in a culture of writing can have an oral equivalent of publishing. I'll be grateful for additions and further commentary. --Pgallert (talk) 07:53, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Greetings! It has been a long time since I have posted here, but a new source has brought me here that I would like to bring up for evaluation for possible use on the GA article Jose Calugas. AusTerrapin notified me of a secondary source that identified a medal that was previously unidentified in published sources, the source is as follows:

• http://www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/Calugas.htm

The source appears to have been written by the article subject's son, a retired U.S. Army sergeant first class, and the President of the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society. The question is, does the website (more specifically the linked page), even though appearing to have been written by the subject's son, a reliable source?--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 18:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I've had a quick look at that page and at the article's Talk page. So what's the central issue here - identifying exactly which medal he received?

It surprises me if there's not an authoritative military-maintained list of recipients of medals, but that's by the by. Barnabypage (talk) 19:16, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Correct. The source linked above says that the medal in the image is a foreign award, the Philippines' Distinguished Conduct Star, with the image being referenced being this one:

• http://navyphotos.togetherweserved.com/2093365_med.jpg

--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 04:44, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I'd say it's not a fantastic source but it's not an obviously untrustworthy one either, and the author as president of the heritage society is presumably an expert on the subject to some degree. Unless there's anything really contentious about using the identification, it's okay at least until the day a better source turns up. Barnabypage (talk) 08:05, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

This is the page for the breed club (not a breeding kennel) of the Olde English Bulldog. My issue is, is this a reliable source for the temperament/disposition of the breed? Obviously since this is a breed club their interests lie both in promoting a positive image of their breed and in presenting an accurate picture of it; my issue is that it says things like "...generally excellent with children and the OEB is no exception", which can be found in every dog resource about just about every breed that is not a livestock guardian dog. It is currently being used here extensively. I am aware that it is WP:PRIMARY but it is also one of the most well-developed sources on the breed. --TKK! bark with me if you're my dog! 00:42, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I would say it's fine for "objective" facts like breed size, typical colouration, etc., but less ideal for qualitative assessments of this kind. Having said that, I don't know how easy it will be to find a "warts and all" discussion of temperament from a RS (no doubt there are lots on blogs and in forums etc.). I have the print version of the Kennel Club breed guide (not available online, as far as I can see), which ought to be a pretty RS, and even though it doesn't exist to promote any one particular breed, it tends to steer very clear of phrasing anything negatively.

Perhaps you could just state it as an informed opinion rather than an outright fact. "The OEB is excellent with children, according to the Olde English Bulldog Kennel Club." Barnabypage (talk) 11:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

I share Tikuko's concerns. Every breed club says positive things about their breed. Ditto for other sources that cover specific breeds, and of course our articles are often edited by people who are fond of that breed. Consequently, almost all our articles on dog breeds say that each breed is intelligent, loyal, good with children &c and none of our articles say that the breed is yappy, dimwitted, or destructive. Every dog is above average. bobrayner (talk) 12:46, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

At this article, a claim attributed to a BLP is being sourced to an OpEdNews piece allegedly by someone who is a researcher at the Assassination Archives and Research Center regarding the JFK assassination. The claim in the article is sourced to an op-ed allegedly by a director of that Center, and includes a partial scan of a letter. There's a dispute over this in part because OpEdNews is an entirely self-published operation meaning we cannot verify authorship or the legitimacy of the scanned piece, nor has the claim appeared anywhere else we would consider reliable. The closest I can find is this book review, but it's highly conspiratorial in nature and, again, deals with a BLP issue. I would love some extra input, especially as we do not use OpEdNews anywhere else on the site. Thargor Orlando (talk) 19:29, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

I love that you'd rather come to RSN than follow my request to pick up the phone to the AARC and ask them to republish an article by their co-founder, Jim Lesar. That would actually be useful, whereas this - joy - can produce nothing but hot air and the removal of information that cannot seriously be doubted. You really think someone's impersonating Lesar at OpEdNews (in 3 articles)? You really think Lesar (an attorney) is forging letters? Or perhaps the widow of Gaeton Fonzi is? And to reiterate: if you'd picked up the phone when I first asked you to, we'd probably have the AARC republishing the article by now (or at least agreeing to do so soon). Podiaebba (talk) 20:17, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

As you see from the point here, it's actually a lot deeper than that. More eyes are always a good thing. If the consensus is that I'm wrong, we can move on from it. Thargor Orlando (talk) 21:24, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

it's actually a lot deeper than that. - what are you talking about? All I see is that you can't even give a straight answer about not being willing to pick up a phone and ask an author to republish an article on a different website. Instead of doing something to contribute to the sum of human knowledge that goes ever so slightly beyond the usual Wikipedia editing and endless talking, you want vindication that your removal of some information is technically correct according to WP rules. Podiaebba (talk) 22:37, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Podiaebba, while your comments might be 100% correct (I don't know), they're probably better suited for Thargor's user talk. Repeatedly criticizing his/her editing practices on this page discourages other editors from weighing in. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Additional: ex-Washington Post Jefferson Morley, who Lesar is acting for in a FOIA lawsuit, cites the OpEdNews article here. Podiaebba (talk) 16:39, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Is this source:

• Gopi, Vinod (2010). Chapter 3,"The Aesthetic of Pluralism", in The culture of excess in Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man, Rates of Exchange and Doctor Criminale, thesis submitted to Mahatma Gandhi University.

Reliable for inclusion in Vedontakal Vrop (as seen there footnote #7). Note the PhD thesis was submitted but no indication it was published. -- Green Cardamom (talk) 18:10, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Marginal. It might have been all right alongside other sources. If this is the only independent source, then the article merger should go ahead. Itsmejudith (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Copying directly from my talk page:

new sources for al jazari article

here are three new sources for the kurdish ethnicity of al jazari please add them to article & change it

http://www.worldclock.com/world_clock_blog+the-history-of-clock_1.html http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Al-Jazari http://www.kasimdemir.com/selected-scientist/al-jazari-el-cezeri/

thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cobanas (talk • contribs) 22:43, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Why not place this on the talk page of the Al-Jazari article?

AND,

http://www.worldclock.com/world_clock_blog+the-history-of-clock_1.html, appears to be a blog(which are not a reliable source, the section being written by Burcu Afrin(who ever that is).

http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Al-Jazari, appears to be two links to Wikipedia, as such is not a reliable source.

http://www.kasimdemir.com/selected-scientist/al-jazari-el-cezeri/, appears to be a mirror of Wikipedia,as such is not a reliable source. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

the first link is a historical & scientific website & it is much more reliable than a unknown PDF ! the second one is an encyclopedia & IT is a reliable source the third one is a website wich concenrns with math history they all are reliable & DO not remove the resourced article unless if you have a personal problem with it ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cobanas (talk • contribs) 10:16, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

The first source to be used to show a Kurdish ethnicity, and still in the article as the editor insists it is fine despite being told it isn't, is <ref>http://ismir2011.ismir.net/papers/PS4-16.pdf 12th International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR 2011) An early example of an automated, programmable musical instrument ensemble was described by al-Jazari (1136-1206) a scholar, inventor, artist, mathematician that lived during the Islamic Golden Age</ref> I haven't checked to see if the conference papers have any peer review, but that seems irrelevant as the authors are all specialists in robotics in music, not in anything relevant to this article. The editor is a new editor whose edits have until today been only to this new article. Today he edited an article to change population numbers and remove a sentence.11. That set of edits alone shows we have a problem, he reduced the number of Assyrians in Iran before the revolution 1979 from 200,000 to 20,000 despite the fact the article says that after many left Iran there were between 32,000 and 50,000 left. An IP has just reverted me that I assume is Cobanas. Dougweller (talk) 13:48, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Steven R. Ness, is a Phd candidate in Music Information Retrieval - Machine Learning - Distributed Cognition 12

Shawn Trail, is associated with the Dept. of Computer Science, University of Victoria 13

Peter Driessen, is professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering 14

Andrew Schloss, is a professor in Electronic & Computer Music, Musical Acoustics, Ethnomusicology 15

George Tzanetakis, is a professor Associate Professor in the Computer Analysis of Audio and Music 16

Therefore, this "paper" has been written by academics that have no specialization in the time period or area in question. As such this is not a reliable source in regards to ethnicity. --Kansas Bear (talk) 05:58, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

How do we determine if we can use a scientist with unconventional beliefs, as a reliable source, or is this just an Association fallacy? eg.

• Isaac Newton studied the occult
• Einstein believed in the Pole shift hypothesis
• Nobel Laurate Brian Josephson apparently believes in homeopathy (not able to confirm).
• Nobel Laurate Hannes Alfven promoted Plasma Cosmology

Are they a reliable source on only their area of expertise, on their unconventional beliefs, on the application of their field of expertise to their unconventional beliefs? Only on their support of the status quo? --Iantresman (talk) 18:21, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

This may be more a WP:UNDUE question than a reliable sources one.

On that front, one consideration might be whether the belief is thoroughly discredited, or just controversial. (And yeah, I'm well aware we could spend all day discussing the dividing line between those groups of beliefs!)

In the former case, the scientist's support for it might well be of some biographical interest or of interest to the history of the discredited belief, but we should be careful to avoid implying that their support lends the belief any weight.

In the latter case, the support of a prominent scientist in a related field surely seems worth mentioning. Related field is important, I'd think. Barnabypage (talk) 19:26, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

How about this thought? We have never had a source that was 100% right in everything they thought or did over the course of their life. We report what is reported and try to balance it. At best, we draw the line of reliability case-by-case, claim-by-claim, and we shouldn't generally assume that because a source was right about something once, they are infallible.Of course, I could be wrong about this. __ E L A Q U E A T E 21:32, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Three of the unconventional beliefs are considered pseudoscience. But has does that affect their reliability in their main field of expertise?

The answer to this is that Wikipedia looks at individual statements in sources and considers whether they are reliable to support individual statements in WP articles. It doesn't consider whether Albert Einstein per se is a reliable source. Sometimes he will be, sometimes he won't be. Formerip (talk) 21:47, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Trying to keep this in an actionable format, how can we establish a yardstick with which to say how far out of his or her discipline a scientist can comment before becoming unreliable? This is the foundation of most content disputes in the paranormal subjects. Can we say that a person is qualified to comment about subjects which are specifically part of his formal education--say a cultural psychologist commenting on the cultural history of the middle class--but is not qualified to speak on a question outside of his training, such as one of biology? Or, must we assume the psychologists is qualified to comment on biology because he has a doctorate? Tom Butler (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

There are several issues that should be considered: where is the material published, when was it published and has the science changed since it was published. For example, Newton's theories of absolute time and space are no longer valid, and it would be silly to use 300 year old science texts.

Some scholars publish both inside and outside mainstream academic writing. For example, Newt Gingrich has published work which meets rs on global warming, but I would not use one of his speeches to CPAC.

What is important is not how far outside one's area of expertise one writes, but the nature of the publication. If a geologist publishes a paper on English literature in a peer-reviewed journal, then we need to take into account that the editorial board has determined he or she is qualified and peers have reviewed the article prior to publication. Also, scholars sometimes make statements about subjects that have little relevance to their papers. A physics textbook for example may mention that Newton appears on Margaret Thatcher's coat of arms, then mention something about her scientific training and policies on science. But that would be a poor source for her biography.

TFD (talk) 00:31, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

This makes absolute sense with peer-reviewed publications, of course. But what about statements by acknowledged experts in one subject, in more mainstream publications, that drift into another subject? An obvious example would be the views of Richard Dawkins on religion.

He is not a theologian or a philosopher and as far as I know doesn't publish in peer-reviewed pubs within those disciplines, yet he is an acknowledged expert on a subject (evolution) that has a clear relationship to some religious questions - and he is not afraid to make his views on those questions heard in mainstream media. Moreover, although technically coming from outside the subject, his views on the subject are taken seriously by many.

I do appreciate we are moving a bit away from "unconventional beliefs" into "non-professional opinions" here and that this does not directly address the original question. My point is that there are areas greyer than the physicist writing about Margaret Thatcher's coat of arms! Barnabypage (talk) 00:46, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Dawkins' writings are good source for evaluating the factual claims of ID and creation scientists and determining whether their arguments are scientifically valid. Those are issues within his field. However, I would not use these writings as sources for other subjects he writes about. Specifically, although he writes about religious history and cargo cults, his information is taken from other reliable sources. TFD (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

It's impossible to give definitive answers to such general questions. Talking around the subject may be illuminating, but eventually, you need to go for really concrete "Is X good enough to source statement Y in context Z?" questions. (A few of those taken together might help give a general trend.) Podiaebba (talk) 02:10, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Rephrased question

Let me rephrase the question slightly. Suppose that all these scientists state that in their opinion, that they consider telepathy to be nonsense. Is their reliability any different, if they state that they consider telepathy to be something worth investigating? Does their unconventional beliefs influence this either way? --Iantresman (talk) 14:08, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you didn't see Podiaebba's comment above (it was hidden by a much longer, irrelevant edit which I have just moved into the next section). You need to cite something that one of them has said about telepathy and tell us in which article you want to use it. Andrew Dalby 17:18, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

In The Rupert Sheldrake article, reference 14 is: Gardner, M. (1988). The New Age: notes of a fringe-watcher. Prometheus books. "Almost all scientists who have looked into Sheldrake's theory consider it balderdash." 17

Gardner was a well-known skeptic and had a vested interest in being right as one (COI). he was also trained as a mathematician and holds no apparent qualifications as a biologist. Yet, his 1988 comment about what other scientists thought of Sheldrake's work is used as one of the many references to discredit the still-living man.

The question is, should the incredulity of a mathematician be allowed as a comment about a biologist's theory concerning morphogenesis? Tom Butler (talk) 18:40, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Easy. And most of those words above are wasted, in my personal opinion.

If Gardner doesn't name or cite some of the scientists he's talking about, his quote is no use to us; cite, instead, scientists who actually have looked into it and given their own opinions. If Gardner does name some of them, his trenchant summary may be useful; retain the quote and add some names. Andrew Dalby 19:42, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

(1) How do we tell whether a mathematician, physicist, psychologist or biologist has indeed looked into it, and not just read, for example, a newspaper article? (2) Does it make a difference whether it is a mathematician, physicist, psychologist or biologist, I can see them all bringing something to the party. --Iantresman (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Again, if you find a source problematic, cite it and ask for an opinion. Andrew Dalby 17:00, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Saying that telepathy should be investigated is a matter of opinion, not fact, hence is irrelevant to reliability. If a scientist says this, it has no bearing on the reliability his or her writings. TFD (talk) 23:53, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

I'll try answering the original question in a slightly different way. The beliefs of authors are not things we should judge on Wikipedia. We know we can cite an author about subject X when that author is considered reliable outside Wikipedia for subject X. But concerning subject Y, we have nothing to say unless we are talking about subject Y, and then we also look at what people outside Wikipedia think of the author and subject Y. We try to reflect what is in publications. It is possible for a person to be considered a lunatic by experts in one field and a genius in another, at the same time. It is not for us to judge that, just to work out what the published experts say in each field.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:18, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Iantresman is attempting to subvert WP:VALID at Rupert Sheldrake by attempting to remove from the article any sort of implication that Sheldrakes' morphic resonance poppycock is seen in general by the academic community as complete poppycock and hence leave the reader with the impression that Sheldrakes morphic resonance has actual validity outside of its ability to line Sheldrakes pockets when the woo-able when they purchase his non peer reviewed books. Iantresman's actions getting very near (if not having already crossed) the WP:TE line of the WP:ARBPS. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 22:38, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

TRPoD, your statement here is a gorse misrepresentation of the facts. I submit that your sense of ownership in the article is clouding your better judgement. Please rephrase your statement or line it out! Tom Butler (talk) 00:22, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

To me, it looks like a good summary of the problem. bobrayner (talk) 11:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Alfvén

I think Hannes Alfvén did advocate plasma cosmology (PC). In 2008, I read The Big Bang Never Happened by Eric Lerner, which advocated PC, and which cited Alfvén as a proponent thereof. The Wikipedia article on Alfvén seems to support the idea that he advocated PC; or at least, “unorthodox opinions”, and had trouble getting his papers published.

Brian Josephson believes in homeopathy? I don't know.--Solomonfromfinland (talk) 14:05, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

"Upstream swimmers"

Some interesting testimony here by Richard Peltier on "The Denial Machine". Those researchers who made their name for a result from contrarian thinking tend to apply it everywhere. Scientific progress depends on some such, challenging conventional thinking, but it is rare to have it pay off even once, let alone twice. Josephson entertains alternative thinking (see his contribs at talk:Cold fusion, though I don't think he's actually said that it works). That doesn't mean he's gullible, just open-minded. But to take that openness as wiki-evidence that CF works would be a disservice to him, to his work, and to WP. If he actually does have a substantive result (vice opinion) to publish, he will have no difficulty doing so in a major physics journal. His Nobel will ensure at the very least the careful attention of editors and reviewers. Once that result is published, we'll have something to work with on WP. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:32, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Are Cartoon Brew and The Animation Guild's blog considered reliable sources? Or, to be more precise, are they reliable enough to support an entire article? The case I am looking at is Don Lusk, and (according to the author) there are no other sources on which to support the article. He seems notable, but notability is based on sources and not my personal opinion, and I honestly can't tell whether what's there now is sufficient. I have no strong opinion here, I'm just seeking a consensus. Canadian Paul 00:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

None of the sources cited by that article are reliable:

1. Cartoon Brew: This is a self-published source with apparently no editorial review. The author, Amid Amidi, is also the website owner and its sole editor. As a self-published source it cannot be used for a WP:BLP.
2. Animation Guild blog: Same thing. The source describes itself as a blog and the "thoughts and observations" of its leaders and "reflects their individual personal opinions." Again, as a self-published source it cannot be used for a BLP.
3. IMDb: This occasionally comes up in the noticeboards. We do not consider IMDB pages to be reliable sources as they can be written by the article subject and there is no editorial review.

So, with no reliable sources remaining, per WP:GNG either reliable sources should be found or the article should be nominated for deletion. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 05:57, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

http://www.demographia.com/

We really need some viewpoints on this. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:18, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

Note reliable. Here is a link to an article about them in Vancouver Magazine. It is run by Wendell Cox's company, and its objective is to promote automobile use and road construction. TFD (talk) 00:27, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

If this isn't considered reliable, then the UN urban agglometation data and the CIA country population data should be removed as well in my opinion. Just because they are considered reliable sources, that doesn't mean that they area reliable. I've already worked to disprove that the CIA is a reliable source at User:Elockid/Source Comparison. The UN's World Urbanization Prospects, is a poor source and was so poor in fact that it was nominated for deletion. Demographia's data in my view is much reliable than the UN. First off, unlike the UN, Demographia has a consistent definition that can be used to compare entry by entry. Since there is no universal definition of what a metropolitan area/urban area/agglomeration is, other lists become problematic since they employ different methodology for each entry. Probably the best one I've heard is the London vs. New York argument. The common argument is that if London had the same definition as New York, the population would be X million. At least with Demographia, there's an explanation of their methodology and in doing so, readers can actually compare between entries. Even with an official data available, the UN has grossly underestimated data for some entries. Demographia has some consistency with official data. See below for some examples:

City	Official	Demographia	CityPopulation	UN
Jakarta	23,308,500 (2000)	26,746,000 (2013)	26,400,000 (2013)	9,769,000 (2011)
Osaka	19,342,000 (2010)	17,175,000 (2013)	16,800,000 (2013)	11,494,000 (2013)
Seoul	25,721,000 (2012)	22,868,000 (2013)	25,800,000 (2013)	9,736,000 (2011)

There are other entries where the UN grossly underestimates data. Comparing it to the sources available, Demographia has more consistency than the UN. Elockid ^(Talk) 03:29, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

UN figures are lower because the use the population for the city rather than the metropolitan area. They say they get their info from national governments. However Democraphica says (p. 4) that it gets its information national governments too, when it is unavailable they make their own estimates or use UN estimates. Citypopulation also says it takes its figures from government sources. There is no reason to use Demographia, you just need to decide whether to use city or metropolitan figures. TFD (talk) 05:13, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

For major cities we surely need to give all the main population estimates, explaining any discrepancies. All this stuff is in the public domain. Each country publishes its census results and these publications are reliable. The UN estimates are also worth mentioning. I can't see that this website adds anything. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:09, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

After running into a problem while trying to edit an article that had had deleted material Wendell Cox/Demographia, I was kindly directed to this discussion. How bad is the spamming of this disputed resource? And I agree that if there are (reliable) conflicting population estimates that they should be included.24.0.133.234 (talk) 12:38, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

@The Four Deuces (talk · contribs): That is blatantly not true. No source will tell you that Tokyo has a CITY population of 35+ million. I can go on and will take more than a page. Elockid ^(Talk) 14:03, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Not following you. Demographia says that the "Tokyo-Yokohama Metropolitan Area had a population of 34,472,000 in 2005, while Tokyo prefecture had a population of 12,571,000." They provided Japan Statistics Bureau and Statistics Center as a source.18 The UN provides a total of 35,622,000 for the "urban agglomeration" of Tokyo.19 Most of the difference is accounted for by Demographia excluding Yamanashi. In any case, why would we cite Demographia, when they get their numbers from elsewhere? TFD (talk) 15:20, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

I've had a look at the links I've removed and I can't see any evidence of them showing their sources or their calculations. If their sources exist, it would be nice to review them and perhaps see if we can reconsider, but at the moment, I don't see how it's possible to consider Demographia a reliable source. That's ignoring the potential conflict of interest that exists as it's not really an information resource but a consultancy with various business interests. Nick (talk) 17:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

UN figures are lower because the use the population for the city rather than the metropolitan area. How does that exactly hold true when you just stated the UN provides a total for Tokyo for "urban agglomeration" rather than city? There are plenty of data where numbers are not readily available for metropolitan areas/urban agglomerations/urban areas. Chinese cities (they don't come up with a metropolitan area figure and even just counting the urban cores for those cities leads into SYNTH/OR problems). Pakistan (their last census took place in 1998 and I have yet to find their metropolitan areas/urban agglomerations/urban areas), and Egypt, Russia are some examples where metro/urban/agglomeration data is not available. Even if they were available and we were to use solely official, we would get back to the London vs. New York debate. Elockid ^(Talk) 17:58, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

This is taken directly from the UN site: Population of urban agglomerations with 750,000 inhabitants or more in 2011 (thousands) Urban agglomerations are not cities and it's common knowledge that they are not the same. Common perception of what an urban agglomeration is that they are similar or to but not necessarily the exact same as a metropolitan area or urban area. They are also often interchangeable. Are you saying that despite the UN having a vastly different number it is still a reliable source despite the fact that the official source for Seoul puts the metropolitan area at 25+ million or the fact that other sources say otherwise? While I agree that it's important to include disputed numbers, but when the data is just obviously wrong not even remotely matching that from the established data or other comparable data, then common sense dictates that it's not reliable. Elockid ^(Talk) 18:11, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

@Nick: it's in page 5 (page 7 if viewing pdf) of the report that I linked above in the table. Elockid ^(Talk) 18:02, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Whether or not we should use UN statistics is not particularly relevant here; the key is that Demographia is not a reliable source. I pointed to a number of reasons on User Talk: Jl2047a, foremost among them being there is clearly no editorial oversight with a history of fact-checking. The grammatical quality of the document indicates a non-professional production. And it is known that the author is an advocate for a very specific form on city planning which presumably would/could be affected by population statistics. Finally, there is no reason to believe that Cox's definition of the urban area is equivalent to Wikipedia definition, especially since he explicitly states that he's making his own decisions based on satellite imagery. Qwyrxian (talk) 23:00, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

It's entirely relevant. What I am pointing out is that if you consider Demographia to be unreliable then the UN is just as if not more unreliable. Why should we consider them reliable? Because of the perceived notion that they have editorial oversight? I suppose you even say that the CIA population data is reliable for countries such as Turkey or the Phililppines? No they are not. It's quite obvious that the large disparity in data even comparing to that of official sources blatantly shows clear lack of editorial oversight or a lack of effort at fact checking. What I am getting that is the data presented by Demographia is more reliable and of which I've already outlined above. If you guys say the data from Demographia is questionable, then prove it by showing data that's says otherwise. Elockid ^(Talk) 00:44, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Elockid, the UN figures you linked to in your table represent the city population while the figure of 35M for Tokyo you just threw out represents the metropolitan area. So the UN provides both, you must choose which to use. Or use another reliable source, just do not use Demographia.. TFD (talk) 00:25, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Not true again. The Osaka figure is not that of the city population. Like I said in my expanded comment, those are data for "urban agglomerations". Elockid ^(Talk) 00:47, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

The UN data for Osaka shown above is Osaka Prefecture, while the numbers from Demographia are for the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto region (Keihanshin). And guess what else. The UN's figures for New York City will probably differ from Demograhia's figures for New York State, and vice versa. Why on earth does any of this matter? TFD (talk) 19:04, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's not correct again. Kobe is in the Hyōgo Prefecture which is included in the UN figure. This matters because there's source bias at present. In any report, paper, article, etc. the most important thing you do is always check your sources. Even though there are considered reliable sources, they are perceived notion, not actual reliability. The most logical approach is to see if really in fact the source is reliable. I said previously that the metropolitan/urban/agglomeration data is not released by all census authorities. In situations like these, why shouldn't Demographia be used? People have stated that the UN should be stated but why? I am under the assumption that because of source bias, in these type of situations, the UN data despite the number inaccuracies/inconsistencies, will be preferred by those saying that Demographia is unreliable while also considering that the UN is. What I am trying to get at is that we are not really doing our jobs in determining the reliability of a source but using source bias instead of concrete evidence to do so. There's not a comprehensive review of which I mean looking at other sources to help determine the reliability of the data. I do really appreciate that you tried to find concrete evidence to support your stance and prove that Demographia is unreliable. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I said that Osaka was in the Osaka prefecture, not that Kobe is in the Osaka prefecture. Still not following your logic. If the UN figure for Hyōgo Prefecture is accurate, what does that matter if one of their lists provides the population for that prefecture? TFD (talk) 06:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

When you said, The UN data for Osaka shown above is Osaka Prefecture, I assumed that you meant that the UN figure I listed above is based on Osaka Prefecture. I am saying that this is not true because Kobe is not part of the Osaka Prefecture. Kobe is included in the figure shown above. So the figure can't be based on Osaka Prefecture. In other words, the 11 million figure given by the UN neither matches the official nor is it with agreement with other sources. It's not the Osaka Prefecture or Osaka + Hyogo. Furthermore, going back to the statement you made above how the lower figures are attributed to the city population being used, how reliable is a list then that uses a metropolitan definition for one, a city definition for another, or an urban agglomeration definition according to the UN, etc.? I don't care that this the UN. What I care about is that they are 1) consistent with the official source, 2) consistent with other sources or 3) have some methodology/consistent definitions. In any comparison study, if the definitions for data are different for each entry, then that would not be a reliable study. The UN source fails at 3. Not all the numbers are bad or inaccurate as seen in cities like Tokyo. But the fact that point 3 is lacking means that it is not reliable. Readers want to compare apples to apples, not apples to oranges. At least with Demographia, there is consistency with definition/methodology.

I am saying that source reliability shouldn't be based on reputability. Not everything a source publishes or releases is reliable. All sources make mistakes. No source is perfect. This is why it is important to take information from multiple sources. However, the UN has consistently published data that doesn't match the criteria I listed above. Just because it's the UN, it doesn't mean that we should include it (there is an argument above that they should be included) especially when multiple editors/readers have highlighted the problems with the urbanization study. However, disqualifying Demographia on the basis that it adds nothing extra, wouldn't the UN not add anything extra either? Basically, treat the sources fairly. Elockid ^(Talk) 14:43, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

I was directed here because my edits to the Wendell Cox, which is also the redirect page for Demographia page, were reversed. I'm still waiting for clarification on what if anything that has to do with this matter.

Also, there is quite a bit of information which explains exactly where Cox is getting the Demographia numbers from in the pdf. yearly report which btw contradicts what some of you have been saying here about the data. Such as the fact that satellite is used. Yes it is used, but the reasoning is explained that satellite photos are not being used to count or estimate population but to find areas that were otherwise not mentioned. Copied from the 2013 Annual Report are the sources from where the information is derived--Sources for Base Population & Land Area Estimates A: National census authority data agglomeration data (land area or population). B: Demographia land area estimate based upon map or satellite photograph analysis. C: Demographia population from lower order jurisdictions, including reduction for rural areas. D: Population estimate based upon United Nations agglomeration estimate. E: Demographia population estimate from national census authority data. F: Other Demographia population estimate. L: Demographia population estimate from local authority data. N:Combined urban area using national census authority data http://www.demographia.com/db-worldua.pdf a comprehensive listing of urban area (agglomeration) population and densities (edited to add24.0.133.234 (talk) 01:23, 27 November 2013 (UTC)) I'm not totally convinced that the data is bad even if Mr. Cox has some kind of contentious or unpopular, or self-serving, agenda. And I'm not convinced that the editor who was adding Demographia numbers and info. to the multi-infoboxes was operating under a COI either. Is it possible that those numbers/info-headings are available on international Wikipedias and that the editor speaks another language? I'd like to see if that editor returns to answer questions or comment on what it was they were trying to do there. Although they were asked to please slow-down, and they are a single issue account I'd like to assume good faith here until proven otherwise.24.0.133.234 (talk) 01:18, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think the editor will be coming back. I strongly believe that this user was editing under good faith and was blocked harshly. While the massive additions may seem like spamming, they definitely were not in my view. I would even venture to say that anyone who is involved with demographic statics would agree with me that they were not spamming. We're not the only project that uses Demographia. We have some of the largest projects such as Spanish,French, or Italian projects also who use Demographia. If they were really spamming, believe me as someone who blocks a number of spam accounts, I would have taken action or intervened myself (I had already noticed this user adding Demographia before the issue was brought up with the editor). Elockid ^(Talk) 02:09, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't able to access the Vancouver Magazine article earlier but now I can (this was mentioned above). From what I can see, there's some strong or at least elevated liberal bias/anti-conservative bias in there. Even non-neutral sources can be reliable but news articles should strive for neutrality. The bias in the article leads me to believe that there is at least some liberal agenda in the article. In my opinion, this article reads much more of an editorial. Elockid ^(Talk) 02:23, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but you have a consensus of this board. Not reliable. The UN and CIA issue is a red herring. A city's area (administrative) is determined by its national government. The area of its agglomeration is determined by geographers and demographers. Its population is ascertained by a census. There may be inconsistencies across countries; we have to live with them. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:38, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Well, no one (with the exception of one) has given any strong or reasonable proof why it's unreliable. They have neither given evidence to disprove the reliability of the source. Rather personal analyses were presented without any links or evidence to prove why it's unreliable. The only user who was obtained any sort of concrete evidence was TFD. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:06, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, we don't have to give proof. It doesn't add anything to what is already known about city populations. It just crunches stats that are already available in reliable sources. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:36, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say this, Elockid, but I think it's the other way around. We need "strong or reasonable proof" that it is a reliable source. I think Qwyrxian hits the nail on the head with his above post starting with "Whether or not we should use UN statistics is not particularly relevant here...". There are just too many indications that this is not a good source. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:50, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

@Judith: not giving proof is ridiculous. In any debate, you must have proof when you are questioned. If you insist on saying that Demographia doesn't have anything to ask, would you mind please finding me then the metropolitan/agglomeration/urban population (not the city, county, prefecture, province, etc.) of Cairo or perhaps Karachi from the official sources?

@Anna: I am going to be in disagreement. I have attempted to prove that the data is reliable by showing that it is reliable using other reliable sources. In any debate or argument, like statements made in an article, you must show support for statements with evidence. What are these indications? For example, what exactly in the source (specific passages) would make people agree that it's not a reliable source. What is written in the passage that leads to question the data? Part of a debate or argument is for everyone to give concrete evidence, not for one to. If the opposition can't come up with evidence or even refute the data I have presented, then I see no basis for the arguments being made by the opposition. Elockid ^(Talk) 23:13, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I don't think we have to prove that it is unreliable. Strong indications that it is unreliable are enough to disqualify it. We have to trust a source beyond a reasonable doubt. There is doubt, by several editors, for several reasons.

You say that it is reliable because some figures seem to make sense. Well, an unreliable media source may get the facts in lots of stories right, but that doesn't mean we should consider it a reliable source. We have to examine such factors as the source's agenda, the presence of editorial oversight, and yes, the grammatical quality. Would we really trust an online newspaper that failed in those respects? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:39, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

No source can be trusted beyond a reasonable doubt. Even "considered" reliable sources fail at times. U.S. cities even challenge the Census bureau sometimes and wins. Also, the fact that the CIA has been on this noticeboard multiple times further shows that "considered" or "perceived" reliable sources are not trusted beyond a reasonable doubt. This is why you merit other factors such as comparison between other sources when able.

I can also argue that there are strong indications that the source is reliable with no willingness to show proof either. But that doesn't really give any basis to my argument. The Urban Area Report grammatical quality is far from terrible, unprofessional, or a source with elementary grammatical skills. I don't see anything in the publication that has a negative agenda. I don't see any indications of spam or promotion either. If we were to discredit sources based on source agenda, then sources such as MSNBC or FOX would qualify. But the source agenda doesn't disqualify them as unreliable for a number of people (Personally, I think both these sources fail in more than one areas of what a qualifies as a reliable source). I'm sure there are other similar sources out there. If the facts or data are wrong then there isn't much of a presence of editorial oversight. However, there is information that is believable and correlates with that of established data. It's not like the data was pulled out of thin air either. Please note that 24.0.133.234 mentioned about the sourcing above. Elockid ^(Talk) 02:11, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

As explained, the source has an agenda - it opposes public transit. Also, it gets its numbers from somewhere else. The oil companies that support the site do not visit all the cities of the world and count inhabitants. TFD (talk) 06:26, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Hmmmm, you do make good points, but I still think there are too many indications that it's a bad source. I think we should err on the side of caution and select alternate sources. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 15:22, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

@TFD: How does a source that opposes public transit make it a bad agenda? Also, this was taken from 24.0.133.234 above. "Also, there is quite a bit of information which explains exactly where Cox is getting the Demographia numbers from in the pdf. yearly report which btw contradicts what some of you have been saying here about the data." It's not like the data is made up and it's quite evident that they're not.

@Anna: The problem is that there are not many alternate sources. In many cases, from what I have seen, official sources can be difficult to find due to a language barrier. Sometimes even if there is an English version, they are not as comprehensive or lacking in information that would be in the country's native langauge(s) or they simply do not release a figure for metropolitan data/agglomeration/urban. Even though some official sources like China release urban core figures, and suburban figures, combining figures can be construed as OR or SYNTH as they are not official definitions. A study done by Forstall gives examples of other available sources out there which are WorldGazetteer, CityPopulation, Mongabay, and CityMayors. The links for WorldGazetteer are dead, Mongabay uses Wikipedia as a source and CityMayors use UN data for an agglomeration list (it's essentially a mirror). There was previously another website that published similar data but they have gone through an extensive revamp and they do not have their data publicly online. We could use Forstall's study but many editors have pointed out that the figures are outdated and there are many other cities missing from the list (it only goes to top 25). If were to not use Demographia, CityPopulation and the UN would be really be the only sources available. Readers like to compare cities and get an idea of how big a city is. So another one of the points why I included the UN is that readers are unable to compare cities. We really don't have alternate choices to choose from. Elockid ^(Talk) 16:08, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Readers like to compare cities, yes, but the info may simply not be there. The EU has defined a Larger Urban Zone and we could cite area and population for those using Eurostat. In other areas the work on ensuring comparability hasn't been done, except by the UN. It isn't a one-off website that is going to get that comparability. Itsmejudith (talk) 19:31, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

At the risk of being repetitive, let me summarize. You have provided no evidence that Demographia is reliable. And your evidence against the UN is based on comparing figures for different population areas.

Let's look at one example in Demographia: "the Toronto, Hamilton and Oshawa metropolitan areas...are combined into a single combined urban area." It also says "Toronto, ON, Canada: Includes Hamilton and Oshawa." Since they provide a population of over 6 million, they are clearly referring to the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTA). The description is however a little misleading, because both Oshawa and Toronto are part of the Greater Toronto Area. Of course using the GTHA makes sense for Demographia, because the area is served by Metrolinx, a public transit authority. But other than providing the population for the GTHA article infobox, what use is it? Even then it is problematic because it does not actually say it is describing the GTHA. And it does not provide the population for the GTA, Toronto, Hamilton, Oshawa or any of the other municipalities inside the GTHA.

TFD (talk) 19:41, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Um, no. Unlike the other commentators in this thread who quote, "we don't have to give proof" or "I don't think we have to prove that it is unreliable", I have actually attempted to give proof on more than one occasion. For example, I did so by explaining where to find the sources they've used. In fact, 24.0.133.234 went ahead and copied the whole section. Not only that, but I also showed that the data is consistent with other sources. Again, it would seem that the opposing editors lack of proof has been criticized by 24.0.133.234 as I already mentioned above. The proof you have given yourself has bias as I explained above. If you want me to go into finer detail by highlighting the specific passages that show bias, then I will. The description is however a little misleading, because both Oshawa and Toronto are part of the Greater Toronto Area. This is incorrect in terms of official definition. As you can see here, the statistics bureau of Canada does not include Oshawa in their CMA definition. Unless I'm missing something, that is the only definition that they use. The source that states Oshawa is part of GTA is not an official one. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:30, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

Result of debate

I see four editors who consider this an unreliable source. I think consensus for acceptance as quite unlikely. I propose that we remove the occurrences of figures with accompanying demographia references from the remaining articles where they occur. Some helpful links for that purpose:

• Link search
• WikiProject Spam list
• Articles containing the url

Thoughts? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:00, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

Considering that there a lot of pages, it would be a much better idea to first inform other users such as in WP:WikiProject Cities, Wikipedia:WikiProject Urban studies and planning or the affected pages. With 1,540 watchers as of this post, I'm pretty sure most people don't watch this page and as such, it doesn't represent the wider of view of editors who might happen to have a different opinions than either myself or yourself. Even just looking at the talk pages where Demographia is mentioned, there really isn't anything definitive. Elockid ^(Talk) 21:55, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

I endorse your suggestion and have posted at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Urban studies and planning#demographia.com. Very best wishes, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:52, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Further discussion

Coming here afresh from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Urban studies and planning (I worked as an urban planner in the UK for 30 years), I'm slightly bemused by the intensity of this discussion and the suggested actions. Obviously, different sources using different methods of analysis and definitions will come up with different population figures. There is no bright line between "right" and "wrong" figures; they are all estimates - but, obviously, we should use the most accurate and up-to-date, and best researched, estimates, and explain (or at least link to) the basis for them. Equally, there is no bright line between "reliable" and "unreliable" sources. The idea that any information provided by a source that is perceived to have an agenda should necessarily be discounted, and any references to it should be expunged, is surely misconceived - it would mean that any information provided by (using UK examples) newspapers such as the Times, Telegraph, Guardian, Independent, etc. should be automatically removed from WP as they each have a clear editorial political agenda; such an action would be absurd. Just because a source is perceived to have a political agenda, it does not necessarily mean that the information it provides should be disregarded; it depends on their reputation for checking facts. This discussion doesn't lead me to conclude that Demographia has any better, or worse, reputation, in that regard than any of the other organisations cited. I can be convinced either way on that. But, even if it is less perfect than other sources, it still should not mean that all references to the site should be expunged. Editors should look for better sources, use them wherever they can, and - if Demographia is the only source for a given fact - its limitations should be set out. I am opposed to simply expunging Demographia-sourced information from articles because of what editors perceive as the political agenda of its source. The limitations of the source should be mentioned, and where necessary information should be tagged for checking and improved sourcing by other editors. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:01, 2 December 2013 (UTC) PS: I now see that this discussion was initiated by the actions of User:Jl2047a, which were, and are, unexplained (but not WP:SPAM). Clearly, they need to explain and justify their actions in adding that material. Ghmyrtle (talk) 10:23, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

If during your work as an urban planner, you were required to provide information about the population of Muslims for a report that would be viewed by the public, would you source it to the English Defence League website? Why or why not? TFD (talk) 09:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, source of demographia.com exists on dozens or hundreds of articles and several articles based on this source, why no one has been informed? This is too big a change in Wikipedia to changed ​​it by few people with quiet/hidden discussion about which no one knows. Furthermore, in my opinion Demographia is reliable source, better source than UN or similar. Subtropical-man (talk) 15:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC) In other words, page of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard is seldom (or at all) read by most users of Wikipedia. There was no information on talk of articles about the discussion about Demographia, despite the fact that many articles use this source. Consensus does not exist/this is too small and weak consensus to mass changes on Wikipedia. Please start / continue the discussion in a larger group of users in a more accessible place than Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 161. Subtropical-man (talk) 16:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

A question has been raised in Tin box relating to various names for containers, specifically decorative metal ones. Common names used by households include “tin”, “can”, “tin box”, “tub” or whatever one chooses to use. Manufacturers often call these “steel can” or “steel packaging” 20 21. Two authoritative books in the packaging industry are;

• Soroka (2002) Fundamentals of Packaging Technology, Institute of Packaging Professionals22, ISBN 1-930268-25-4
• Yam (2009) “Encyclopedia of Packaging Technology”. Wiley23, 978-0-470-08704-6

These two books have chapters on cans that indicate the preferred name of the containers in question to be “cans”. Some editors have rejected these published sources. Is there agreement that these books are reliable sources or should these be ignored? Thank you. Pkgx (talk) 22:09, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

This refers to Ingushetia#Origin of Ingushetia's population. I don't understand quite how the first sentence, about the derivation of the word, relates, but the source seems ok. The second source, George Anchabadze, is probably ok and confined to tradition. "The Soviet-Russian anthropologists and scientists N.Ya. Marr, V.V. Bounak, R.M. Munchaev, I.M Dyakonov, E.I. Krupnov and G.A. Melikashvilli wrote: "Among Ingush the Caucasian type is preserved better than among any other North Caucasian nation", Professor of anthropology V.V.Bounak "Groznenski Rabochi" 5, VII, 1935. Professor G.F.Debets recognized that Ingush Caucasian anthropologic type is the most Caucasian among Caucasians." gives me problems. It's sourced to 24 and starts "Dear reader" and is signed by someone called Yusuf Timerhanov. You can try to read it in Chrome, which gives a full translation but the formatting is terrible. It appears to be a rambling essay. As for the list of anthropologists and scientists, I'm not clear what comes from the weekly newspaper Groznensky Rabochy. The 'rambling essay" does have (as translated) "Prof. V. Bunak in the 30s of XX century. said: "Among this Ingush own Caucasian type survived more than any of the other North Caucasian peoples" (Grozny Worker 05/07/1935) anthropologist Professor G.F.Debets acknowledged that kavkasionsky (Ingush YU.T,) anthropological type "most of all Caucasian Caucasian" (Anthropological studies in Dagestan. "TIE. T.23.M., 1956, p.214). These data are almost identical to expressed Marr, R.M.Munchaevym AND . M.Dyakonovym, E.I.Krupnovym, G.A.Melikashvili etc." so perhaps this quote comes from the Grozny Worker ( the Groznensky Rabochy) originally, but it's obviously taken from the essay so we can't be sure it's accurate and in any case I'm dubious about something from what was undoubtedly a political newspaper. I also note that in 1935 Igor Mikhailovich Diakonoff was 20 years old. Then there's the problem of the use of a review of Nichols paper for " An American linguist Dr. Johanna Nichols claims that: "The Nakh–Dagestanian languages are the closest thing we have to a direct continuation of the cultural and linguistic community that gave rise to Western civilization" Dr. Henry Harpending, Univetsity of Utah supports her claims in the article". Although she says this, her point is that she is using language "to connect modern people of the Caucasus region to the ancient farmers of the Fertile Crescent." (quote from the review). Source is fine, quote is confusing. Nichols or rather the review of Nichols is also used for "Invention of agriculture, irrigation, and the domestication of animals" - definitely not what the source says - it says "Archaeologists have long known that some 10,000 years ago, ancient people in Mesopotamia discovered farming, raising sheep, cattle, wheat, and barley. And researchers knew that by 8000 years ago agriculture had spread north to the Caucasus Mountains. But they had little inkling of whether traces of this first farming culture lived on in any particular culture today." The other source for this statement is a YouTube video25. It's clear from the editor's edit summaries that they are not exactly amenable to changing any of this (he/she even restored the YouTube video after I removed it). Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 14:05, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The editor has posted to my talk page calling me a vandal, but he does quote Nichols as saying "I am not an ethnographer or historian" - now she is clearly a reliable source for the language issues, but do we also need this disclaimer? Dougweller (talk) 14:13, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

A bit more on the Grozny Worker: "The newspaper Groznenski rabochi ('Grozny Worker'), which started coming out as early as 1920 (some sources give 1918), was later made the organ of the Chechen Oblast Party Committee, the City Party Committee and the Supreme Soviet of the Worker's Deputies, and published five times a week in Grozny. By the early 1930s, there were 16 newspapers published in the Chechen AO."26 The Chechens: A Handbook By Amjad Jaimoukha. Dougweller (talk) 14:23, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

The main problem I see with the use of Nichols quotes here isn't so much their reliability but rather the way they are being manipulatively used. Nichols stated that the Nakh languages were connected to ancient farmers in the Fertile Crescent, and of course this may very well be true, but the problem is the way it is placed on the page. It gives the impression that this is their ethnic "origin", that the Ingush people are the direct heirs to the society which gave birth the "Western civilization," when of course that's a huge simplification at best. Really, this sort of seemingly nationalistic use of quotes isn't appropriate, in my opinion at least. And btw, this account in question has a long history of heavy POV-pushing, edit warring and so on- see Khaibakh massacre, etc... --Yalens (talk) 05:24, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

In my sandbox at User:MezzoMezzo/sandbox, and maybe within the next hour or so in an actual article, there is a biography of a Japanese professor of Islamic studies, Kojiro Nakamura. It's small though the sources I have found so far are reliable, and his specialty (as well as location) seem unique enough to warrant an article.
The University's Center for Philosophy has an official blog here with a discussion regarding a presentation of one of Nakamura's books along with the rought topic. It seems like it could support at least a one-line mention of the book in the article, but I am unsure about a few things.
According to WP:USERGENERATED, "Self-published material may sometimes be acceptable when its author is an established expert whose work in the relevant field has been published by reliable third-party publications." Well, that post is officially from the University's Center so it seems official, but the post was written by some guy named Shoko Watanbe and I don't know if he is an expert himself, some kind of a TA or maybe just a temp. Does the fact that this is published on the University website meet the standard in and of itself for a one-line mention of that book in the Wikipedia article on Kojiro Nakamura? MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:13, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

See now Kojiro Nakamura. The other sources look fine, and show that he's an expert in his field, so a serious publication by him in his field is worth mentioning. I wouldn't rely on that web page for detail, as it might be just a tiny bit biased in his favour :) but I would say it's worth linking to as a source of information about the book. Andrew Dalby 13:00, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Under the auspices of the Shaheen Foundation, Air Cdre M KAISER TUFAIL (Retd. published a book entitled the Story of Pakistan Air Force – A Saga of Courage and Honour. I believe that this makes it a WP:SPS. It is not widely cited see 27.

Per WP:SPS there may be an excemption as Air Cdre M KAISER TUFAIL (Retd) could be considered an expert but there is a further problem that this WP:SPS is being used in the article to quote another individual in the article Operation Chengiz Khan. If considered an SPS, then part of policy states explicitly:

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