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RfC: Nick Pope

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Q1: In regards to paranormal topics (including UFOs and adjacent, mainstream subjects such as astronomy, politics, and aerospace engineering), is Nick Pope ...

Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
Option 4: Other (individual authors are unfilterable so no deprecation option is offered)

Q2: If this RfC results in a decipherable outcome, how should it be logged at WP:RSP?

Option 1: An independent entry for Nick Pope.
Option 2: A single entry for "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" which could be populated with other names if similarly decided in the future.
Option 3: No record should be preserved of this RfC outside of the noticeboard archives.
Option 4: Other

Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (Nick Pope)

On Q1 Option 3. Nick Pope is best known for dozens of appearances in UFO documentary-style entertainment films,[1] as emcee of "Ancient Aliens: LIVE on Tour!" (part of the Ancient Aliens entertainment franchise which posits that Martians used ray beams to build the pyramids),[2] his numerous quotes in tabloids commenting on UFOs, and his non-critical, popular texts on UFOs (see Amazon author page: [3]). Across numerous past discussions (see below) it's been made generally clear that he presents the 20th Century UFO Shared Fiction storytelling versus factual reporting or scholarship.

On Q3 Option 2 but also okay with Option 3 For ease of presentation and economization of space, they should be aggregated under a common heading with a concise, holistic description using an introductory, independent clause (i.e. "Editors have found the following UFO content creators are generally unreliable ...") that can be separately workshopped later. If additional UFO writers are classified according to whatever the case ends up being for Pope, they can be added, as appropriate, rather than cluttering RSP with voluminous and numerous entries for individual writers. Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC); edited 16:13, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Q1, Option C per @Chetsford

No opinion on Q2. Dw31415 (talk) 02:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Q1 Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting. He is not a scientist, nor an expert in politics, he is a fringe exponent, and as such cannot be used for statements of fact. Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Q2 Option 4: Whilst Option 2 would be best, that needs a seperate discussion on the general concept. and not taged as being about one author. Slatersteven (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I have a few thoughts. First, this seems a little narrow in scope. I agree that we should consider UFO content creators more broadly. Secondly, it seems like these people could reasonably be used as a source for information about the disclosure movement itself (e.g. this UFO conference happened, there were these speakers, and these topics were covered), but obviously not reliable for claims about secret government programs, extraterrestrial contact, etc. Lastly, I'm not sure these discussions are perennial enough to be added to the table. Anne drew (talk · contribs) 17:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On question 2, I oppose option 2. For the reasons I said in the last discussion, I oppose creating a specific classification for such a varied assemblage of sources; even if we were to include the names manually the implication would obviously be that anyone who writes on similar topics is also unreliable when such people vary greatly. I don't think we've had cause to discuss this enough to insert him or Pope in the table, which is supposed to be perennially discussed sources, this was really only brought up a single time in reference to one AfD and the resulting discussions, and we barely cite him onwiki and for nothing of real importance. It's not a problem if we do add him to the table, so I wouldn't oppose it the same way I do option 2, it just seems unnecessary. You can always just link to this RFC it ever becomes a problem again. As for Q1, while I don't think appearing on a stupid TV show is itself evidence of unreliability, his books push fringe theories and so I would not cite him on this. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:10, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question 1 Option 2 - case by case - as usual, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I’d try to evaluate the RSness of the source depending on what the proposed edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and think no evaluation without that can be really valid except option2. In this case, I would suspect that he is being used as a cite for what is in his many books so that should be fine and helpful, and even necessary. (Where else to find writings on UFO reports other than books like this author's ?) Come back with an actual entry and cite in question and -- likely it is fine. Cheers part 1
Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP - it seems not a "Perennial" topic so fails the criteria to be listed there. WP:RSP is not supposed to be a list of every single author, just a list meant for sources frequently discussed. In this case, discuss at any article or coming to RSN with any individual issue is the way this should proceed. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:46, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Q2 – Option 1: An independent entry for the individual iff there is consensus about a reliability rating here. As noted below, we've done this with WP:JEFFSNEIDER. If an individual publishes widely and makes appearances in a variety of shows and publications, is frequently cited on en-wiki, and is a frequent topic of discussion here then this makes sense. I specifically oppose Q2 Option 2. A blanket entry for "UFO content creators" is too broad and is unnecessary since most of this content is covered under the general reliability standards and WP:FRINGE. This also becomes problematic if individual authors/creators end up with different reliability ratings and may inappropriately imply that the rating applies automatically to creators who have not been discussed. "Paranormal content creators" is an even broader category and therefore more problematic than "UFO content creators". —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:14, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP -- solution in search of a problem. Obviously, we're not going to treat fringe UFO believers as RSes on the existence of aliens, but per Anne drew, they're RSes to their own beliefs, the beliefs of others, and the history of their own movement, etc. Feoffer (talk) 06:20, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Q1 Option 3: Not reliable for factual content. Thoughts about his own beliefs or beliefs of others that are originated by Pope in books, on blogs, on YouTube videos, podcasts, fringe websites, social media posts, etc. do not merit automatic inclusion and are WP:UNDUE unless they are also noted in third party WP:RS sources. - LuckyLouie (talk) 13:43, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question 1, Option 3 As a professional practitioner of woo there is absolutely no good basis for considering Pope a reliable source for any paranormal topics (or "adjacent subjects"), broadly construed. There is also no good basis for treating his own beliefs as encyclopedic content. No opinion about Question 2. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 02:58, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Nick Pope)

We have previously and extensively discussed Nick Pope (e.g. [4] [5] etc.) and his various writings and other commentary are currently used as a source across the project (e.g. Ilkley Moor UFO incident, Ilkley Moor, Flying Saucer Working Party, Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, Narrative of the abduction phenomenon, Time-traveler UFO hypothesis, etc.). Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to me that if a "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" row is created, people will start proposing other categories of content creators (e.g., legal content creators). Do you envision that over time, we'd just have a bunch of rows for different categories of individual content creators? FactOrOpinion (talk) 00:42, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible. In the case of law, I'm assuming we're talking about pseudolaw content creators, like sovereign citizens. For the most part, we haven't had, in practice, a lot of disagreement about excluding the legal theories of Freemen on the Land or Sovereign Citizens to the point that there would be much benefit in indexing them in a single place to avoid endless argumentative repetition. If that started to be a constant and unending point-of-contention, however, I could imagine the dynamic might then justify a single and concise entry to index the most prolific and frequently discussed SCs and Freemen. But as of now, I don't see any extant record at RSN of these types of discussions. Chetsford (talk) 01:17, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was actually thinking much more generally (e.g., any legal content creator, or at least those who self-publish, not just those who create pseudolaw content). The reason I asked is because I don't see how to bound the scope of Q2 if consensus is for option 1 or 2. That is, you're asking specifically about Nick Pope, but editors raise questions about lots of individual content creators here: "Is Paula Person, author of Work 1 and Work 2, a reliable source?" What would distinguish the content creators who merit some characterization at RSP from those who don't? FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of Pope, an RfC is realistically justified as his name comes up repeatedly and he produces huge tracts of information in books by different publishing houses, appearances in different programs and documentaries, etc., and there are demands to relitigate each excision of his content which RfCs were designed to prevent (in the interest of time economization).
I think that's qualitatively different from someone who asks "is John Smith's 1982 book about the Third Zulu War RS" ... that said, if there were an entire subculture of authors who create huge volumes of fictional content about the Third Zulu War, sure, I think that'd be fine. I just don't know it's something that would happen, in practice. Chetsford (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have any other listing on RSP for an individual person? Not that that impacts my answer (which I am thinking about), but I can't think of another. PARAKANYAA (talk) 01:59, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't checked. Chetsford (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There's WP:THENEEDLEDROP, which is one person's YouTube channel, and The Skeptic's Dictionary is also listed. -- Recon rabbit 14:31, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then it sounds like this would be different in the sense that it's source=creator rather than source=publication. FactOrOpinion (talk) 14:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't find any entries on RSP that otherwise refer to a creator rather than the publication, with the exception of WP:JACOBIN which says "the reliability of articles authored by Branko Marcetic has been considered questionable." I don't see an easy way to mark a person as being more reliable or not with the current system (list) in place? -- Recon rabbit 15:07, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is some precedent with Jeff Sneider at WP:JEFFSNEIDER. The facts are a bit different but the entry notes that Sneider's reliability rating does not extend to his podcast co-host; thus the reliability is based on the speaker/"author" and not the show. If Sneider writes a piece in a different publication or is interviewed on a different podcast, I think it would be reasonable for an editor to apply his personal reliability rating to such sources, absent other reasons to doubt the suitability of the source and with all the usual caveats. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫‍(talk) 19:10, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Richard Dolan

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Q1: In regards to paranormal topics (including UFOs and adjacent, mainstream subjects such as astronomy, politics, and aerospace engineering), is Richard Dolan ...

Option 1: Generally reliable for factual reporting.
Option 2: Unclear or additional considerations apply.
Option 3: Generally unreliable for factual reporting.
Option 4: Other (individual authors are unfilterable so no deprecation option is offered)

Q2: If this RfC results in a decipherable outcome, how should it be logged at WP:RSP?

Option 1: An independent entry for Richard Dolan.
Option 2: A single entry for "UFO content creators" or "paranormal content creators" which could be populated with other names if similarly decided in the future.
Option 3: No record should be preserved of this RfC outside of the noticeboard archives.
Option 4: Other

Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (Richard Dolan)

On Q1 Option 3. Dolan has appeared dozens of times on Coast to Coast AM, [6] has written numerous non-scientific books exclusively about UFOs,[7] and appears at UFO festivals like Contact in the Desert. [8] He presents himself as a serious academic, self-styled as the "UFO historian", however, matter-of-factly claims things like: a breakaway civilization is operating flying saucers,[9] and that "the existence of underwater UFO bases is likely". [10] His writings include forewords by such luminaries as 9/11 Truther Jim Marrs [11] and he was previously, it seems, proprietor of an indie publishing house called Keyhole Publishing that produced books like Richard Sauder's Hidden in Plain Site [12] that makes the case that The Matrix (apparently a scifi movie from the 1990s) is real. He currently has a YouTube show that discusses things like the Bermuda Triangle. [13] Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On Q3 Option 2. For ease of presentation and economization of space, they should be aggregated under a common heading with a concise, holistic description using an introductory, independent clause (i.e. "Editors have found the following UFO content creators are generally unreliable ...") that can be separately workshopped later. If additional UFO writers are classified according to whatever the case ends up being for Dolan, they can be added, as appropriate, rather than cluttering RSP with voluminous and numerous entries for individual writers. Chetsford (talk) 00:00, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

no Q1 Option 3. for question 2 its "An independent entry for Richard Dolan. " Slatersteven (talk) 12:19, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On Q1 Option 3 per Chetsford. As for the second question, Q2 Option 2 would be my preferred choice, though option 1 could also work if he's cited frequently enough, which doesn't seem to be the case so far. Paprikaiser (talk) 20:14, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On question 2, I oppose option 2. For the reasons I said in the last discussion, I oppose creating a specific classification for such a varied assemblage of sources; even if we were to include the names manually the implication would obviously be that anyone who writes on similar topics is also unreliable when such people vary greatly. I don't think we've had cause to discuss this enough to insert him or Pope in the table, which is supposed to be frequently discussed sources, this was really only brought up a single time as far as I can tell? He is not a perennial source by any means and we barely cite him. It's not a problem if we do add him to the table, so I wouldn't oppose it the same way I do option 2, it just seems unnecessary. You can just point to this discussion going forward. As for Q1, his own reliability, he doesn't seem reliable, and furthermore all his books appear to be self-published or published by publishers only in the business of publishing wonkiness. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:00, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question 1 Option 2 - case by case - as usual, WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. I’d try to evaluate the source depending on what the proposed edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, and think no evaluation without that can be really valid except option2. In this case, I would suspect that he is being used as a cite for what is in his many books or media content per se so that should be fine and helpful, and seems a general source for the field. Cheers part 1
Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP - it has not made the mark of a "Perennial" topic so fails the criteria to be listed there. It is not supposed to be a list of every single author and every single corpration or media entity, just a list meant for thigns frequently coming up. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:32, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"I’d try to evaluate the source depending on what the proposed edit is, per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS" Could you give some examples of Dolan's writing that might, contextually, turn out appropriate for our encyclopedia? For example, would it be his writing in A.D. After Disclosure where he says humans are being abducted and experimented on by aliens? Or the part where he says we should consider if aliens are harvesting human souls? Or that aliens may be interested in using humans as a food source? Maybe just one or two examples so I can better understand your position. Chetsford (talk) 16:00, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Q2: Option 1 (individual entry) or Option 3 (no RSP entry). Oppose Option 2 ("UFO/paranoral content creators" entry). What I wrote in the Nick Pope RfC applies here. If Dolan publishes/appears widely, has consistent reliability issues, and is a recurring topic of discussion, an individual entry makes sense. "UFO content creators" and is too broad; "paranormal content creators" is even more so. Dolan doesn't appear to have been discussed often enough to be considered a true "perennial" source so option 3 (no entry) makes sense. That said, if there if a reasonable participation here and consensus about a rating, memorializing the discussion at RSP is acceptable. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question 2 Option 3 - do not list in RSP As above, this isn't a problem that needs solving. Dolan isn't a RS on the existence of aliens, but he's probably a fine source for, say, the history of the UFO movement, their internecine disputes, and his own personal beliefs. Feoffer (talk) 06:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"he's probably a fine source for, say, the history of the UFO movement" His book AD: After Disclosure asserts as a fact the existence of "The Breakaway Group" which he explains is a cabal of dark global forces who are secretly using Hollywood to leak out evidence of aliens and slowly condition society that UFO believers were right all along. I'd rather not have an article on "The Breakaway Group" in our encyclopedia. Chetsford (talk) 15:54, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, our editorial policy doesn't allow editors to include details from fringe proponents they find interesting - unless secondary RS have discussed them first. - LuckyLouie (talk) 16:16, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Let's definitely not cite Dolan on something like that. If memory serves, his very first book, despite being conspiratorial, actually had sourcing and included good debunkings. I don't think anything he's said or done since could be accused of being a RS though, and I wouldn't especially recommend using him even for mundane historical facts. But have people really been trying to use him as a regular old reliable source without any caution on context? Feoffer (talk) 13:30, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question 1, Option 3 Dolan is a professional practitioner of woo, and for this project nothing he writes/says/claims/etc. about paranormal topics, broadly construed, can or should be trusted. No opinion about Question 2, although I do not see how Dolan qualifies as a "perennial" source. JoJo Anthrax (talk) 16:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Richard Dolan)

Richard Dolan has been previously discussed (e.g. [14], etc.) here and his voluminous writings are cited across the project where they're used to subtly weave-in UFO frames on mainstream topics, such as the biography of U.S. Navy ADM Roscoe H. Hillenkoetter, etc. His writing is currently the only source to support the claim in the biography of Philip J. Klass that Klass masterminded a defamation campaign against Stanton Friedman. Chetsford (talk) 19:54, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mentioned this above in the Nick Pope RFC but there is precedent for an individual author reliability rating with WP:JEFFSNEIDER. That's the only example I've found. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫‍(talk) 23:05, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Can I suggest that instead of adding anything to the RSP, or having multiple different RFCs, that a project source list might be the best idea? RSN could still help with any unsolvable disagreements about any listed source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's an excellent idea, ActivelyDisinterested, and the best proposal to address this yet IMO. Chetsford (talk) 00:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If there is unresolvable disagreement about an entry on such a list then editors always have the option to start a discussion here for WP:3O. Projects maintaining such lists is common practice, they just can't be maintained against wider community consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:02, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Times appears to have fabricated (and removed) an entire article

Recently, the Times of London posted this article about former New York mayor Bill de Blasio's comments about New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. This would be a perfectly ordinary article about a subject of public note... except that according to Bill de Blasio I never spoke to that reporter and never said those things and The story in the Times of London is entirely false and fabricated.

The article itself is now down, as it should be, but this IMO pretty clearly calls the reliability of the Times into question. This is past the ordinary mistakes newspapers make every so often. Publishing a whole fake interview suggests that at minimum the Times has very little pre-publication editorial review (since even basic reaching out to de Blasio would have caught this) and potentially may have fabricated an entire interview deliberately (a possibility I wouldn't normally like to consider but this is so egregious I have to). Loki (talk) 01:42, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently they were tricked by an impersonator 𝚄𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙶𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑 (We are currently clean on OPSEC.) 01:50, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out that it wasn't an imposter. It was someone else named Bill DeBlasio who never claimed to be the former mayor (though he recognized that the reporter was assuming this, even though the reporter never said so), and it was The Times' reporter who initiated contact. More info from Semafor. FactOrOpinion (talk) 13:36, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pulling an article when it becomes apparent that a mistake how been made, and publicly admitting to that mistake, is how we want sources to behave. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:03, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yup. They messed up. They owned up to it. They pulled it in two hours. Hopefully the Times will be a bit more wary in the future, and hopefully Wikipedia will also remain wary of putting too much trust in a single source (any single source) for the sort of content that this sort of hoax could have been responsible for. It doesn't appear to have made it into the de Blasio article, so we're all good there. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:13, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fabricating quotes to the former NYC mayor is pretty wild in the first place. They didn't pull it till caught. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:14, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't a good look, certainly. All sources are fallible though, and we have to base content on something... AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:16, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They didn't fabricate the quote, the quote came from an impersonator who fabricated the quote. The Times fell for the impersonination thinking it was the real Bill de Blasio. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:18, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, that's not SO bad then. Not like they're the first people to get clowned like that. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 02:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah it makes them look stupid, but it's hardly the first time this has happened to a news organisation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:35, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any acknowledgement on their Corrections page. FactOrOpinion (talk) 02:20, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should wait and see whether they add it to the list. If not, we should have a discussion about what not owning up to their mistake means for the Time's reliability. Cortador (talk) 07:17, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More than half a week later - still no correction. Cortador (talk) 09:26, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that pulling the article was the correct move. However, if they were tricked by an impersonator it still concerns me that they never tried to contact (the real) de Blasio. Even DMing him on Twitter would have been enough to stop this.

Like, the impersonator wasn't even trying to talk like the real guy. Anyone with even basic familiarity with the subject matter could've caught this. Loki (talk) 02:29, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What action, if any, are you suggesting Wikipedia should take on this? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:32, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Times is currently green at RSP and I'm no longer confident it should be. Loki (talk) 04:10, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there's a newspaper of record out there that hasn't made similar slip-ups at one time or another. They messed up. They admitted it. They corrected it, rapidly. We clearly aren't going to change the RSPN entry on that alone. You could start an RfC, but it would be a complete waste of time in my opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:47, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt there's a newspaper of record out there that hasn't made slip ups. Similar slip-ups, though, I think is more debatable.

The entire premise of the article is wrong. They put words in the mouth of a man that he did not say and in fact has publicly said the opposite of. Loki (talk) 04:54, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How many reputable mainstream sources were tricked by The Yes Men's impersonation on the BBC, where one of them posed as an official spokesperson for Dow Chemical, apologizing for the Bhopal disaster, promising reparations, etc? This kind of thing doesn't happen often, but it does happen. 172.56.13.52 (talk) 08:43, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's a long history of news organisations failing for such hoaxes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:30, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is the WaPo unreliable because of Janet Cooke? Is the New York Times unreliable because of Jayson Blair? Or is it only British newspapers that Loki thinks should be targeted? FOARP (talk) 16:13, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...I am honestly concerned that you have these examples ready but think they are reasons to defend the Times rather than be doubtful of WaPo or the NYT. Loki (talk) 16:05, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well are you arguing that we downgrade all major newspapers with similar issues or just The Times? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:08, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should at least be skeptical of any source that does this.

Upon looking closer, the WaPo incident was in the 1980s, and one hopes they've improved their fact-checking standards since then. The NYT incident, however, was both more recent and extremely problematic, considering how it consists of fabrication across multiple articles over years. I'm surprised we didn't downgrade it at the time, frankly. Loki (talk) 19:05, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that we do treat the news media in general with greater skepticism than for example prominently published academic work. This particular case does not strike me as out of the ordinary but is a good example of why we are reminded to be extra careful at the intersection of breaking news and BLP. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:38, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They have put out a statement "The Times has apologised to Bill de Blasio and removed the article immediately after discovering that our reporter had been misled by an individual falsely claiming to be the former New York mayor" HuffPost. I would expect that a correction notice will follow. I don't see how they could have confirmed it with the real de Blasio, when they thought they were in direct communication with the real de Blasio. The mistake was being overly trusting in a source, which they have immediately corrected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 02:33, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

DMing the real de Blasio on Twitter. Or emailing him. Or calling him.

Like, you have "de Blasio" making public statements contrary to previous public statements and talking like a different person. Certainly reaching out via a known method of contact is just basic fact-checking. Loki (talk) 04:10, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Individual news sources aren't that good most of the time, but even if editors decided something like that was due, it would be covered by RSBREAKING in this specific case, no? Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:56, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RSBREAKING doesn't apply because this wasn't a breaking news report. "Breaking news" doesn't refer to news that were just published, it refers to news reports published very close to the event, from a writer who likely has incomplete information or is writing about a developing situation. This interview with the fake de Blasio unlikely happened just hours before they published it. It likely happened at least a day ago or so, as then included into this articles while adding other stuff e.g. Fetterman's comment and the assessment by economists etc. Cortador (talk) 07:12, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we don't cover exclusives then I think we should. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:44, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why? For those unfamiliar with the jargon, "an exclusive" is an opportunity to talk to a newsworthy person all by yourself, with them promising that they won't share the information with anyone else yet. It is the opposite of a press release or a press conference, in which the person (or their publicity team) spreads their information far and wide. I don't see any reason why we should be worried about "exclusives". WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:22, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a pretty bad mistake from the Times, in isolation I could see this as just a mistake that was rapidly caught, but this is not the Times first editorial controversy, for example this one was far worse [15]

While they are generally reliable, I would take their reporting on some controversial political topics with a pinch of salt. Giuliotf (talk) 11:40, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked and the origibal story still appears to be up on their website [16] Giuliotf (talk) 11:46, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I might just be confused (wouldn't be the first time) but that looks like a different article than the original one in the thread, and than the one in the post you're replying to. 𝚄𝚗𝚘𝚠𝚗 𝙶𝚕𝚒𝚝𝚌𝚑 (We are currently clean on OPSEC.) 13:03, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One problematic article isn't enough to call into question the credibility of a publication.

I've added a separate (and I think much more egregious) example where the Times publish a problematic series of articles, at least one of which is still on their website. Giuliotf (talk) 13:19, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

An individual incident generally doesn't impact a source's reliability, not unless secondary coverage makes it clear that it has seriously damaged their reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, which isn't the case here. It might be a reason to track coverage and to give the source a closer look, but it isn't enough to make us reconsider its status on its own. If you do want to argue that it's a problem, the thing to do is to look for secondary coverage that shows how this has affected their reputation. --Aquillion (talk) 13:55, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One of the signs of a good news organization is they retract their articles when they make an error. I think wikipedians have gotten way too attached to "discrediting" news sources when in general, across the board, news isn't reliable when compared to well researched academic works. There are more long-form, well researched news stories, but the news cycle today is faster then ever and focused on generating clicks. Per WP:RS: Each article needs to be evaluated for how reliable it is. Not just the author. Not just the publication. If we have a generally reliable News Source that reports something, that is clearly not true, that's enough to point out that that specific article isn't reliable because it's clearly not true.

Look at this article [17] that claims this about Twighlight: "it was the 2008 movie that truly propelled the franchise (and vampires) into mass appeal. Vampires weren’t just for horror nerds and theater kids anymore. Vampires could be cool and sexy." The author was a teenager when Twightlight came out, it's totally true that Twighlight made Vampires popular for her generation, and that is the personal experience of the author and many people her age. But here on Wikipedia, there are way too many arguments that use a source like that, where it's a throw away remark, over a source like this, that points to the ABC soap opera "Dark Shadows", and a vampire who wakes up after a long sleep and has to adjust to modern society as being a turning point in how vampires are portrayed in video, and then goes on to reference other movies and tv shows that came along before Twighlight that were mainstream and popular with generations before, like Lost Boys, Interview with a Vampire, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. [18]. The second one is clearly better researched, the first one is just a throw away remark buried in an article about something else, based on personal experience, and not based on research.

Wikipedians like to grasp onto that first article and insist "No, Twilight was the first! See this article says so!" and then get their buddies to come "vote" on it. This exact problem is happening on the Terminology of homosexuality article, where editors are defending a blog post, about a person who as a teenager experienced the word "Same-sex attraction" being used by religious groups, as proof the term was created and primarily used by religious groups, when a short search on Google Scholar clearly shows it's an academic term with a long history, used in academic and medical works for decades. Clearly, that particular blog post is "not reliable" because it's obviously not true.

The same problem is on Imane Khelif's article, and the whole "no medical evidence has been published to indicate she has XY chromosomes or elevated levels of testosterone" debacle. "We have a source that say's so!" despite... obviously it not being true. Nothing makes Wikipedia seem more unreliable then the manipulation of "reliable sources" in this manner to push specific points of view. Denaar (talk) 14:09, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in England and I never heard of Bill de Blasio before. Yes it was bad The Times got duped by someone, but the idea that they would bother fabricating something about some New York mayor is quite ludicrous. How many New Yorkers know the name of the mayor of London and do they care in the least about his politics? NadVolum (talk) 14:23, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mayor of London is Sadiq Khan, and you'd be surprised how much we New Yorkers know about him as a result of Islamophobia. – Muboshgu (talk) 18:50, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many Americans seem to think that the mayor of London is a terrorist. Phil Bridger (talk) 11:31, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As others have said, how the Times handled this after publishing us exactly the behavior we expect from a reliable source. It's also a good reason to keep in mind NOTNEWS, particularly when it comes to things that can only be confirmed by one source, that there is never a reason to rush to add such material until it's clear it seems legit. Masem (t) 14:31, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 Best Alexandermcnabb (talk) 15:49, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a massive error but it does not alter The Times‍'s overall reliability rating. As others have said, a single incident is rarely enough to undo hundreds of years of credibility and their response is an indication of sound editorial practices. It doesn't appear that the original story made its way into any en-wiki articles but there's a good lesson here about not rushing to catalogue every breaking detail about high profile stories here. —Myceteae‍🍄‍🟫 (talk) 15:25, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:SOURCEWRONG applies. It seems the process worked if they took story down.

if there is constant pattern of doing this, we might need to consider reliability, but a single incident is understandable User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:53, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Correcting mistakes should make a source go up in our estimation of (general) reliability. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:58, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They made a terrible mistake, but the owned up to it and pulled it. It's not part of a pattern of behavior. LDW5432 (talk) 14:49, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because accusations have been made against a living person repeatedly in this thread, and only corrected once, several levels deep in the replies, I thought it best to make a clear and visible statement: The person whom the Times interviewed does not appear to be an "impersonator" or a "hoaxster", but simple someone else of the same name (if capitalized differently) who the Times mistakenly reached out to. The fault lies at the feet of the paper, not the interviewee. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 16:21, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article in the first place is a bad mistake for sure, but I mean, them removing it entirely is exactly how we expect reliable sources to behave when they screw up - they realized they got duped/messed up, owned up to it, and removed the content from circulation entirely. If anything, it's a point in their favor as an RS rather than against. The Kip ^(contribs) 06:24, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
They didn't "get duped", they duped themselves by reaching out to a completely different person. Even more concerningly, the Times itself is misleading in its correction by stating DeBlasio was "falsely claiming" to be de Blasio [19]. When a newspaper makes a misleading statement in their removal of a fabricated article, it makes sense to asks serious questions about their reliability. That they didn't have any form of fact-checking to make sure they were speaking to the correct person is indeed very concerning, as Loki points out. As DeBlasio says, "He assumed the reporter would “have all his people check it out.”" The fact they did not is a problem. Katzrockso (talk) 02:59, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
+1 (t · c) buidhe 01:46, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The man was aware they thought he was the mayor and didn't correct them. That means he was impersonating Bill de Blasio. They made a good faith error and the man decided to have a laugh with it. I would not expect any media organisation to fact check a quote they had obtained by calling an interviewee.--Boynamedsue (talk) 10:21, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About the idea that That they didn't have any form of fact-checking to make sure they were speaking to the correct person is indeed very concerning: Shall we just stop using news sources, then? Because this basically never happens at any of them. The closest you might get is someone checking that they've got spelling of the person's name or the job title right, but you wouldn't do that for a more famous figure. (Think about how stupid that would look: "Just to be sure, he spells his name D-O-N-A-L-D T-R-U-M-P, right?") And since a lot of "interviews" happen in e-mail or DMs, you might just look at the signature block/profile instead. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:30, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a daft thread and should be closed. Of course this has no effect on reliability. The Times has done everything we would expect, and the article appears not even to have got into its print edition. In that case, one would not even expect a written correction, the statement on the mistake suffices. Almost as if this wasn't really about the somewhat anonymous (in the UK at least) Mr de Blasio at all...Boynamedsue (talk) 10:17, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Business Insider after switching to Artificial Intelligence

How reliable is the highly referenced, highly discussed Business Insider after it has started using A.I.? NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1: Generally Reliable
Option 2: Additional Considerations Needed
Option 3: Generally Unreliable
Option 4: Must Be Deprecated

Survey (Business Insider)

Option 2.5; Use With Extreme Caution. I'm not too familiar with this change. A.I. does tend to be inaccurate, but I'm not sure how this A.I. will behave. I will be going for 2.5 on balance as a result. NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2 No issues with reliability for me, but AI-generated stories should not contribute to establishing SIGCOV.
Business Insider's AI policy is that the AI will generate a draft of the story that will then be human-reviewed before publication. So I don't have any more issue with using AI here than I would using spellcheck. That said, the bigger issue for me than reliability is whether or not these stories should contribute to SIGCOV for purposes of contributing to N. IMO, they should not. The idea implicit in SIGCOV is that, if multiple slow-moving humans have devoted time to enterprising stories about X, then X must be a matter of great interest to humans. The same can't be said for AI that is hoovering up vast quantities of material and using temporal trend scoring to determine what to elevate. I don't object to Option 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines only as per GothicGolem29. Chetsford (talk) 14:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC); edited 01:45, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
~~Option 3~~. If Business Insider can't be bothered to write their stories, I have no confidence that their editors can be bothered to properly check them. The fact they apparently not to disclose AI use and plan to use it to distort images and videos only makes thing worse. Cortador (talk) 14:59, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm changing my vote to option 4 as per my comment below. Only tagging articles entirely written by AI isn't good enough. Cortador (talk) 22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that all AI-generated stories will be bylined "Business Insider AI" [20]. If we wanted, we could segregate BI in the same way we do with WP:FORBESCONTRIBUTORS and consider that byline non-RS. Chetsford (talk) 15:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4. Any publication using LLM-generated content must surely be aware by now of its inherent (algorithmically-unavoidable) flaws - most notably its tendency to hallucinate. If they are prepared to foist that on their readers, declared or otherwise (and note Cortador's comment below regarding limits to their declarations [21]), one has to assume that they simply aren't interested in content accuracy, anywhere on their website. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:06, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 3 for Business Insider AI Bylines. Using AI for articles will seriously affect reliablity however, it looks like per what was noted by Chetsford and my own research that these AI articles will be under a AI byline and labeled as AI. So we should do what we do with WP:FORBESCONTRIBUTORS and list the AI articles as unreliable but not non AI Business Insider articles.GothicGolem29 (GothicGolem29 Talk) 15:12, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4 per Andy the Grumpy person is clearly the best option here. - Walter Ego 15:53, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 4 per Andy. The fact that they're willing to use LLMs at all in articles reflects poorly on the intelligence of their editorial board. Cremastra (talk · contribs) 16:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
~~No change~~. Their AI policy says There is always human oversight when our journalists use AI, and they are responsible for the accuracy, fairness, originality, and overall quality of everything we publish. The risk of AI making stuff up, when people are to be held accountable, should be treated the same as the risk of people making stuff up—e.g, we judge sources for having editorial controls or not, with organizations taking responsibility for what they publish, and that should be the same here. If they do end up publishing fabricated information, then just like any other source that publishes fabricated information, we see it and go from there. Downgrading reliability without any evidence of actual published fabrication is premature and alarmist Placeholderer (talk) 18:14, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Struck my !vote per Grayfell. I maintain that a policy allowing regulated AI use isn't grounds for deprecation, but the issue is clearly more than that. I guess I'll wait for more information before another !vote, but I could end up supporting a 3+ Placeholderer (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No change per u:Placeholder's arguments. The argument that AI makes mistakes is similar to the argument that humans make mistakes. We don't downgrade every human-created media because of that. If the change leads to inaccuracies I'd be happy to support a downgrade but doing it preemptively seems like an overreaction. Alaexis_¿question? 20:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No change for now They say that any pieces that involved AI will be clearly labeled, and these pieces can be evaluated on their own merits. I share PARAKANYAA's concern that a time-based deprecation is not workable. I am okay with considering AI bylined stuff to be generally unreliable, but I don't think this should extend to other BI content until we get a better handle on how this will effect the website in practice. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:09, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Business Insider stated that only pieces fully generated by AI will be labelled, not all pieces using AI. Cortador (talk) 07:54, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 3 for content under the AI byline, or for all content if AI is also contributing substantive content outside the AI byline. -- LWG ^talk 22:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
~~Option 4~~ Option 3 - BI isn't using AI to spend more time or money on fact-checking. Their over-worked, disinterested editorial department is not going to be doing a better job with AI. There is no way to confidently tell what percentage of any article is LLM generated. BI has shown that they prioritize expediency over accuracy or integrity. Grayfell (talk) 03:57, 4 November 2025 (UTC) -edit: yeah, deprecation is too drastic. Business Insider was created largely as a blog for a guy who was banned for life from trading securities, and was financed by a guy who's prior claim to fame was pioneering privacy invading banner adds. It was never great as journalism, but it's become so ubiquitous on Wikipedia that jumping to full deprecation would be disruptive. Grayfell (talk) 20:28, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any sources to say there's reason to doubt their accuracy? That's what this whole section should boil down to Placeholderer (talk) 07:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See below. Grayfell (talk) 21:10, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option not 4 The only thing I'm very confident of here is that we shouldn't deprecate. As PARAKANYAA points out below, deprecation can't be time-gated because deprecation is an edit filter. It is a deliberately blunt instrument and so regardless of how we want to treat this situation it's inappropriate here because everyone involved acknowledges that BI was reliable in the past. Loki (talk) 06:51, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4 - Any site writing stories using AI should immediately be grounds for dismissal.

If you can't be arsed to write it, we simply won't cite it. Rambling Rambler (talk) 02:07, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 4 - Certainly unreliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Business Insider)

There have been a lot of RfCs on Business Insider in the past, with one discussion very recently talking about the switch to Artificial Intelligence. I don't think this is a bad RfC as a result. NotJamestack (talk) 10:46, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which discussion is that? Cortador (talk) 11:52, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Cortador This one. NotJamestack (talk) 14:33, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. From what Status writes, this includes using "A.I. tools for specific tasks and enhancements for images and video". That alone is dodgy since "enhancements" is a fancy term for "making things up", which doesn't bode well. Cortador (talk) 14:56, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@NotJamestack, can you share more details - how are they using AI and why do you think it impacts their reliability? Any examples of hallucinations that made their way into news pieces?articles? Alaexis_¿question? 13:02, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Alaexis From what I can see from the discussion I linked above, Business Insider will use ChatGPT without disclosing it to the article readers. A.I. has been know to be inaccurate, so I do feel like it will change reliability. NotJamestack (talk) 14:35, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I didn't notice the link at first. I think you'll agree that it's possible to use AI in a way that doesn't hurt and even enhances the quality. Humans are also widely known to be inaccurate sometimes. Let's wait and see whether this change produces inaccuracies - I don't think a preemptive change is warranted. Alaexis_¿question? 20:01, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A word of warning: Business Insider themselves writes that they will, in their own words "transparently label any products or content fully generated by AI". Emphasis mine. So if a story is partially slop, images are altered etc. they apparently won't disclose it. They also state that they will use AI to assist with fact-checking. How's that even supposed to work? AI itself is what needs the fact-checking in the first place. Cortador (talk) 15:43, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How exactly are we going to deprecate it for only post-AI stories? That is impossible with how deprecation works. To deprecate it we have to have an RFC for the entire publication because you cannot time limit deprecation because deprecation is an edit filter. PARAKANYAA (talk) 21:44, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This RfC is about the entire publication. The question above is how reliable Business Insider is after they started using AI tool, not how reliable their AI-generated articles are. Cortador (talk) 22:54, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but this would also deprecate their pre-AI articles. You cannot time limit deprecation because all deprecation knows is the URL. So this has to be an RfC on the entire history of Business Insider, or deprecation cannot be an option. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:04, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:DEPS merely says that deprecation is typically enforced with an edit filter. The edit filter does not disallow edits but warns the user and tags the edit. So possible outcomes would be:

List BI post-AI as deprecated but do not add it to the edit filter. It's not clear to me how practically this is different from listing it as generally unreliable, but it's at least nominally a thing we can do.
List BI post-AI as deprecated; add BI in its entirety to the edit filter and accept some number of false positives (possibly it would be better to do this with a separate edit filter so we can give a custom message explaining the situation and make it easier for editors checking up on the filter to account for those false positives)
List BI post-AI as deprecated; add only BI articles written after some cut-off date to the filter (articles have the year and month of publication in the url so this should be doable with regexes). This cuts down on the number of false positives in option 2 but makes the filter more susceptible to breaking if BI change their url scheme.

Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:36, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Placeholderer: There are plenty of sources for BI firing staff and aggressively shifting to AI ([22], [23], etc.) and being in bed with OpenAI ([24], etc.). BI often publishes vaguely proChatGPT puff-pieces like this without any disclosure. There's also self-citing ouroboros issue when BI generates a story from ChatGPT, which itself originated from BI, etc.

In August, BI took down an LLM-generated article for 'failing to meet standards'.[25] Taking down the article was a good thing, but they only did this after another news outlet pressed them on it. The article was fabricated. Apparently nobody is properly fact-checking these LLM articles. Wired also got taken by the same slop-monger, but Wired had the good sense to publish an article about it. Nothing from BI, as far as I can see. This isn't surprising. BI has a history of 'stealth' edits to articles without acknowledgement of any kind. This is a bad practice which damages BI's reputation regardless of LLMs. (This source mentions an example of this).

Here is an article co-written by a former BI editorial executive explaining why the track record for LLM tools in journalism is 'spotty, at best'. That source also points out that the use of LLMs requires more editorial oversight, not less, so they do not justify firing experienced editors.

As I said above, BI has always prioritized expediency over accuracy or integrity. This recent push is just an extension of that. Grayfell (talk) 21:08, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That does look bad. Updating my !vote... Placeholderer (talk) 21:22, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: Times Now

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Is Times Now ...

Option 1: Generally reliable
Option 2: Additional considerations apply
Option 3: Generally unreliable
Option 4: Deprecate

Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (Times Now)

Option 2 reliable for anything not related to Indian politics or Hindu nationalism. Our article on Times Now isn't in great shape and should not be used as a definitive guide to evaluate this.

Meets our standard for WP:USEBYOTHERS outside of Indian politics; e.g. Straits Times, [26] TIME, [27] Jerusalem Post, [28] Al Jazeera, [29] South China Morning Post, [30] etc.
While some editors have raised concerns in past discussions about the reliability of its coverage of the BJP, there has never been an objection to its coverage outside those topics and the fact it's in a joint partnership with Reuters [31], which is unambiguously RS is worth taking note. At the very least, as a subsidiary of the Times of India, it would be hard to imagine it would be less reliable than the parent (which we currently subject to "additional considerations", those considerations being attentiveness to AI and advertorials).
It obviously has a gatekeeping process and a publication record, and I can find no record of it failing any factchecks after checking all the usual suspect F/C entities, (outside of presentation issues related to Indian politics and Hindu nationalism).

There should be no reason we treat it more stringently than WP:FOXNEWSPOLITICS vs WP:FOXNEWS. Leaving this in limbo removes a major source for topics related to contemporary India that sit outside the political arena. Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2 or 3, low editorial standards which appear to only be dropping as time goes on... There also seems to be ongoing issues with mixing opinion and news content in an unclear way, some of that can be written of to clickbait or sensationalism but it doesn't speak in their favor. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 01:06, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Οption 3. A strong political bias is never bottled and isolated. It leaks and spreads across almost every kind of reporting. The most trivial examples of that typical phenomenon will be found in the realms of sports and culture. Therefore, having established that Times Now is virtually a political propaganda organ, we should keep it at a safe distance from the pool of reliable sources. -The Gnome (talk) 10:10, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"having established that Times Now is virtually a political propaganda organ" That was established? Chetsford (talk) 13:40, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Irrevocably so. -The Gnome (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I guess I didn't get that memo. Chetsford (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2. Their handling of the Jasleen Kaur story is a bit concerning (though it was almost 10 years ago). Other controversies mentioned in our article have to do with bias rather than reliability. Alaexis_¿question? 15:19, 1 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are biased sources reliable, then? -The Gnome (talk) 19:27, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bias is not a standalone determinant of reliability; see WP:BIASEDSOURCES. Chetsford (talk) 19:37, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I went for option 3 on the basis of the guideline you invoke. To wit: Common sources of bias include political, financial, religious, philosophical, or other beliefs. Although a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering. -The Gnome (talk) 12:20, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

such as editorial control, a reputation for fact-checking, and the level of independence from the topic the source is covering Seems to pass all three of those for topics not related to Indian politics or Hindu nationalism (the construction of this RfC). Chetsford (talk) 20:41, 3 November 2025 (UTC)}[reply]

Option 2. Seems generally reliable outside of the aforementioned topics by Chetsford.Katzrockso (talk) 02:44, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (Times Now)

Times Now has been repeatedly discussed across this noticeboard (e.g. here, here, here, here, etc.) and most recently last month [32]. It's occasionally cited across the project. Chetsford (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BBC: Alleged deceptive editing of video, bias and censorship

RFC STARTED

See the RFC at WP:RSN#RfC: reliability of the BBC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The Daily Telegraph, a right leaning British tabloid, has published a story claiming that the BBC deceptively edited film footage of Donald Trump's controversial speech on January 6, 2021. These claims are sourced to an internal BBC report that the DT asserts was quietly ignored by their management. Further, the DT claims it will be publishing additional internal BBC documents demonstrating bias and censorship on other hot button topics such as the Gaza crisis and the debate over transgender issues. There have been numerous and longstanding claims that the BBC is politically biased. The DT has likewise faced similar claims and has been the subject of discussion on this forum in the past. As of this post, the BBC has declined to comment on the allegations, something which I do not find encouraging. Should these allegations be confirmed, would it be sufficient grounds to revisit the BBC's community based ranking as a generally reliable source? -Ad Orientem (talk) 17:19, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The DT has a strong right wing bias and a longstanding axe to grind against the BBC. This just seems like mudslinging unless this is considered significant by less partisan publications. The BBC is regularly accused of being politically biased by all sides in the UK, both right and left, so I really don't think we can downgrade the BBC just based on this. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:47, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point in asking this until the "allegations [are] confirmed". Katzrockso (talk) 02:39, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Given debates we've had here about the reliability of DT on trans issues, I think we can disregard their culture warring on the issue. TarnishedPath^talk 03:41, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Facts are coming pretty strong right now and even BBC itself published articles [33] about the doctored Trump video or the deceptive pro-Hamas nondisclosure. Seems clear that at this point we can't consider it mere mudslinging but actual malicious tampering. Alves Stargazer (talk) 12:12, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Second what Hemiauchenia said. We'll see if there's any legs to their claims, but for now they're just allegations by a tabloid against a far-more-respected outlet. The Kip ^(contribs) 04:56, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

but for now they're just allegations by a tabloid against a far-more-respected outlet I'm personally no fan of the Telegraph, but it's not accurate to call them a tabloid. The Telegraph is still a traditional broadsheet in format, and most Brits would still consider it a respectable paper on a level with the Guardian and Times. These days it's maybe not quite as respectable as it once was – especially on right-wing culture war issues – but frankly these days the BBC isn't as respected by the general public as it once was either! Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:23, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it’s broadsheet in format doesn’t change the fact the Telegraph has arguably become rather tabloid in terms of its journalism. Ever since the dispute over its ownership and possible sale its standards do seem to have slipped somewhat, and editorially it can be seen to have become increasingly reliant on culture wars (of which the BBC is a frequent target of) to maintain its own relevancy. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:24, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that the Telegraph is no longer as reliable as the Guardian and BBC, but it is still not reasonable to classify it as a tabloid. This is both my opinion and the conclusion of many, many debates on this page and elsewhere.--Boynamedsue (talk) 08:11, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The 2021 speech was aired by us networks as well. What exactly was editted incorrectly ? Donald trump did encourage rioters to act and his actions that day are well documented. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 05:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bluethricecreamman

That's an incorrect assessment of an hour long plus, Trump speech. Two parts of the speech, an hour apart were merged/edited by BBC, Panorama, wrongly implying it was one continuous statement. Furthermore rioting footage was wrongly included, even though the rioting footage was recorded prior to President Trumps speech, yet again wrongly implying Trump, through his public address was inciting supporters to break the law. Quite the opposite was true, he had urged supporters to act peacefully. The Guardian has reported on the BBC's difficulties in defending the claim. "BBC accused of selectively editing Trump clip from day of Capitol attack | BBC | The Guardian".

The BBC hasn't been a reliable source for several years, which is why in part, they set-up BBC Verify. Dotsdomain (talk) 06:48, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/nov/03/bbc-accused-selectively-editing-trump-clip-capitol-attack Dotsdomain (talk) 07:01, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both this and the Telegraph story are reporting on a leaked report by former Sunday Times political editor Michael Prescott. It's not a conclusion, just an allegation made by a person whose history as a journalist at a right-leaning outlet, and whose appointment to the oversight board by the Tories, could mark him as an unreliable narrator. Oblivy (talk) 09:37, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC hasn't been a reliable source for several years.

Community consensus is the opposite of what you state. TarnishedPath^talk 09:29, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Err I am confused, are you saying that they did not in fact edit the video, just drew the erroneous conclusions from it? Slatersteven (talk) 09:31, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's high-time that the BBC's entry was slapped with a bias disclaimer. Despite major criticisms, such as those contained in the Hutton Inquiry on its misleading of the British public over the Iraq war, and a litany of other causes of criticism over the years, it has improprly continued to be treated as some sort of gold standard. Its effective state capture, in which it is two-thirds funded by a tax collected and distributed only at the discretion of the government, also makes it little removed from other "state-owned" media that draw far greater criticism. These two facets are currently treated like they are unrelated, when they are anything but, when rather, for want of a better phrasing: "The BBC, as a publicly funded entity, aligns with British foreign policy objectives".[34] The BBC's entry should be upfront about this and note the outlet's typically submissive coverage when uncomfortable news collides with UK foreign policy, in just the same way that the entry for AJ and others note this or related facets. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:48, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also instructive here is The BBC: Myth of a Public Service by Tom Mills (2020), for which the parsed Google books summary explains: Despite its claim to be independent and impartial, and the constant accusations of a liberal bias, the BBC has always sided with the elite. As Tom Mills demonstrates, we are only getting the news that the Establishment wants aired in public. Throughout its existence, the BBC has been in thrall to those in power. This was true in 1926 when it stood against the workers during the General Strike, and since then the Corporation has continued to mute the voices of those who oppose the status quo: miners in 1984; anti-war protesters in 2003; those who offer alternatives to austerity economics since 2008. As noted, the pattern extends beyond foreign policy, though that is often where the most egregious historical instances of bias have lain. The BBC's long-term censorship by omission in its coverage of domestic protests, in 2003 and at other times, is well documented. Iskandar323 (talk) 10:26, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly oppose this proposal. The BBC’s continued ability to provide more balanced (albeit of course imperfect) coverage than other sources is well illustrated by the fact that left-wing attackers like Mills call it right-wing while right-wing attackers like the Telegraph call it left-wing. They logically can’t both be correct. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:45, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's supposing that political positions are binary left/right, and that not being left/right makes one neutral and without bias. The BBC has a political position which broadly supports the British establishment, and as such follows what is the "acceptable mainstream" in the UK. Hence it is supportive of private property rights, monarchy, a limited state, strong links with the US, military and political support for Israel, strong controls on immigration etc. This is not neutrality, it is bias. However, it occasionally allows platforms for more left-wing voices, especially in its creative programming. That said, bias is not evidence of factual inaccuracy. The editing of this one speech is probably a bit dodgy, but it does not have wide implications for the BBCs overall accuracy.--Boynamedsue (talk) 08:24, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also don't think that there are any wider implications for the BBC's accuracy, though I do think that a slightly sterner note on the BBC's government-aligned bias, along the lines of the above, is well merited and long overdue. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the BBC is biased in favour of the monarchy and private property rights. I would add it is biased in favour of patriotism, veterans, nature conservation, the education of girls, parliamentary democracy, and the efficacy of vaccines. However, I don’t think many neutral observers would agree it is biased in favour of a a limited state, strong links with the US, or strong controls on immigration, and would be surprised if you could provide compelling evidence to show this.

I know many people think it’s biased in favour of military and political support for Israel, but far more people believe the opposite (with examples posted in this thread) suggesting to me it’s about as neutral as source can be on that hot button topic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:14, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Telegraph and other right-wing papers like the Mail have long had a problem with the BBC and are quick to jump on any perceived failings. Given their own failings in actually managing to print the truth much of the time, we should treat this as more of the same unless the BBC can be shown to have a pattern of persistently and knowingly transmitting false stories, which we don't have here. Black Kite (talk) 11:05, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issue here should not be the BBC but Panorama, one of its products. Has Panorama been used for anything related to Trump or anything at all on Wikipedia? It's generally difficult for us to use broadcast media, as we are text based we usually rely on what's been written about what was broadcast. Also, news-magazine/documentary is very different from straight news. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:02, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is Panorama a BBC published show but not part of BBC news? Something like Dateline NBC was to NBC and it's news program? If yes, then this would really be a question about a BBC show rather than all of the BBC. As for the edits, that's a hard one to classify. It is misleading to present a quotes and actions out of their true sequence. Selective quoting is always something we should be careful about and is exactly the sort of thing where we should consider bias of a source. This appears to be a case where bias may have resulted in context being omitted leading the viewer to draw their own, possibly false, conclusion. But it also appears this isn't BBC as a whole, rather a single show. I don't think this justifies any change to BBC News but I would be an issue if we are trusting this particular program for anything resembling analysis of facts/information. Springee (talk) 12:38, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And we could never take a clip of Panorama stock footage and interpret it just from the clip in our articles. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:47, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is also very true. Springee (talk) 12:54, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For an academic take on the long-term arc of decontextualization in video editing at the BBC, see: De/Contextualizing Information: The Digitization of Video Editing Practices at the BBC (2015). Iskandar323 (talk) 13:26, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Panorama is not part of BBC News, but a separate current affairs documentary programme broadcast by the BBC. The BBC produces a truly vast array of programming, most of which is not BBC News. There was a post awhile ago about a BBC Travel programme making fringe historical claims, just because BBC News is generally reliable doesn't mean the entire output of the BBC should be regarded the same way. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:18, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alanscottwalker Political programming on the BBC is not different from the news that they produce. They use their own staff journalists to work on both products, they even lede the news, with content from their own unverified output such as Panorama, Question Time, Politics Live, Laura Kuenssberg Sunday Politics etc.

We may be text based here but the links we provide give access to almost everything available media-wise to the public.

(This comment by Dotsdomain (talk · contribs) has been removed as a violation of the extended confirmed restriction in the Arab–Israeli conflict contentious topic. — Newslinger talk 09:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Oh, my, are there reds and illuminati too, perhaps some international conspiracy! At any rate, bias is what we generally expect from all sources, and it still has not been shown we have used Panorama for anything, so, we can no doubt calm down. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why you call The Telegraph a "tabloid."

The accusations are clearly notable considering that they've been covered by media outlets with opposite bias [35].

I think we should wait and see - maybe the accusations would be refuted. Maybe BBC will end up responding to the leak, this will also impact our assessment. Alaexis_¿question? 13:09, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Always assuming every source is biased is a good way of doing research. The BBC is British and funded by the UK license fee, so of course, that's going to influence their reporting. Their reporting on US politicians is going to be based on what they think is good for the British. Sometimes that distance makes it more objective, sometimes not. Per WP:RS "Each book, article, or other source needs to be credible for supporting the particular claim(s) it supports." There shouldn't be a blanket "this news source is always trustworthy" because news in general is produced quickly, by individuals with own points of view. When we're looking at sources, we have to go beyond "this generally reliable news source confirmed it" and look at the article or news story itself. We shouldn't use WP:NOR as justification to include a 'fact' that was 'reliably reported' if it's obviously not true and easily shown to be false. I haven't dug into this enough to make a judgement, but we can look at an individual news story, determine "eh, they missed the mark on this one" - and go with the best, most reliable sources... on an article by article basis. Conclusion: You don't have argue the entire BBC is unreliable to say "this one news report wasn't accurate". Denaar (talk) 13:36, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Alaexis The BBC Corporation have said today in their own inimitable way, "we don't comment on internal leaks".

How pathetic is that? Dotsdomain (talk) 14:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To answer your question, no, this is not grounds to revisit the BBC's reliability status. We should not be basing general reliability assessment on individual failings. Every source gets it wrong occasionally. What is more important than a failure is the reaction to the failure. Will they issue corrections, make apologies, launch internal investigations etc.? If so, we should probably consider them to be a more reliable source than we did previously.

Any talk of downgrading sources is massively premature if the only evidence is one or a handful of bad articles.

I would like this board to return to its purpose of discussing reliability of sources in context. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 17:48, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, let's be clear here. We are not talking about falsifying a story, we are talking about spinning it to pursue a particular POV, at the very worst. If we deprecated any media that were guilty of doing that, then ironically the Telegraph would be one of the first on the list. Black Kite (talk) 18:13, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Selective editing to make someone appear to say something that they did not say is definitely falsification. It's just that in the scheme of things, this is a very small amount of bathwater in which a very big baby sits. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:18, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What did the BBC say that Trump said, that he actually didn't? Black Kite (talk) 08:38, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you watch the video in the article? It's right there. They arranged his words to form a sentence that he didn't say. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 16:33, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RS is about a source's overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy; given the breadth of the BBC's reputation, one article from one source isn't going to be enough to change their overall reputation. The thing to do is to see if it gets followup elsewhere in a way that implies that the BBC's reputation has changed. With state-run media there's always some reason to be cautious about potential changes (especially anything that indicates that their independence has been breached, or that the fact-checking and editorial controls that gave them their reputation have shifted) but it would take more than a single article to establish that. --Aquillion (talk) 18:23, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Aquillion I'm wondering what date were the BBC given permission to merge videos of the Trump speech to give the impression that what was presented, worldwide was true, when in fact it was false? Only last week a left wing celebrity had to apologise in court for trashing a respected University professor's reputation. Will Trump bankrupt the BBC? Time will tell. Dotsdomain (talk) 20:27, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if those accusations are true, I'm sure they'll get a lot more coverage; and if they're significant, perhaps it will impact the BBC's reputation. But right now it's just a single piece from a single source; that's not enough to impact the overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy of a source this high-profile. It's a reason to, like, keep an eye out, maybe, but it's not enough to change things on its own. --Aquillion (talk) 20:34, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So the accusation is that Panorama took two statements by Trump that he definitely made, as part of a rallying speech, prior to his supporters attacking the Capitol... and its "deceptive" not because of what was said, but because it made the link between the statements and outcomes more explicit because it didn't play the full 2 hour rambleothon? This is blatant WP:COATRACK from the DT so they can launder their full list of grievances for their other media friends. Koncorde (talk) 20:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Koncorde I'd urge you to read the entire thread before jumping to those conclusions. The BBC included riot video clips that were filmed prior to Trump's speech and deleted his words urging protesters to behave peacefully. Dotsdomain (talk) 21:12, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Read it before I commented. Its still gibberish. Incited a riot. Riot took place. Was impeached for it. Everything else is just wild flailing trying to rewrite long settled narrative. If there had not been a riot, or impeachment for said riot, maybe some point may be gleaned. Koncorde (talk) 21:35, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lucky that we are blessed to have so many impartial editors. Dotsdomain (talk) 22:27, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would suggest you take a minute and read the page on WP:ASPERSIONS and rethink how you plan to go about this. Rambling Rambler (talk) 22:40, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(This comment by Dotsdomain (talk · contribs) has been removed as a violation of the extended confirmed restriction in the Arab–Israeli conflict contentious topic. — Newslinger talk 09:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Koncorde I don't disagree that part of the content of Trump's speech could be construed that way, you described the uttering as "gibberish" however the issue is whether a "respected" media outlet should knowingly splice two seperate parts of a speech (an hour apart) together, as if it was one sentence, to give the false impression that Trump was urging protesters to riot in the Capital. The deception was further compounded with the BBC broadcast, of earlier footage of rioting, recorded before Trump's speech was ever made. There is a very long catalogue of publicised BBC blunders which I am barred from sharing with you on here but which have been raised in Parliament. Dotsdomain (talk) 14:13, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not construed. Its what happened. They didn't turn up armed and equipped only after his speech. They didn't try to overturn multiple results only after his speech. They did storm the Capitol after his speech where he exhorted his followers to not give up etc. Suggesting the BBC Panorama edit of two comments or a video was meaningful years after the event, when the crimes had long been committed and litigated. Koncorde (talk) 19:17, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As long as the resulting edit dud not create a complete new and factually incorrect narrative, there's not much that can be done. Editing video clips all the time us SOP for network news outlets. Omitting certain segments but other still staying to the truth of what happened is well within the scope of journalism. Only if it can be shown that the edit of the footage falsified a completely different story that what other sources have already collaborated, as often done on Fox, then maybe something can be said. Masem (t) 22:45, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dotsdomain has made multiple comments here mentioning the Israel Palestine conflict, despite not being extended confirmed. Notably, they didn't cite any sources to support their allegations against the bbc... (t · c) buidhe 02:18, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the comments that violated the extended confirmed restriction in the Arab–Israeli conflict contentious topic. — Newslinger talk 09:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BBC should be downgraded to WP:MREL. Just last month, Britain's media regulator sanctioned the BBC for a "materially misleading” documentary pertaining to the Gaza war. This isn't an isolated mistake, the Daily Telegraph's allegations appear credible, and while bias is not actionable in itself, the bias at BBC is resulting in the reporting of falsehoods. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 12:02, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

“ The BBC said that the independent production company, Hoyo Films, bore the most responsibility for the failure because it didn’t share the background information regarding the narrator’s father. Hoyo Films apologized for the lapse.”

From the AP News article. So it wasn’t the BBC that made the mistake, but that the BBC had failed to take due efforts to ensure it wasn’t made.

There’s zero reason to move it to MREL based on unevidenced claims made in the Telegraph nor misrepresenting a different controversy as being caused by “falsehoods” when it is demonstrably a different issue entirely. Rambling Rambler (talk) 12:20, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ofcom evidently did not concur with that cowardly delegation of responsibility. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 14:11, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is civil in nature, but given your current ongoing, quite passionate disagreements on multiple articles to do with Israel-Palestine as a subject, may I suggest that you may lack the distance on this topic needed. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:05, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you'll accommodate some civilly expressed passion on the topic. DT's evidence has been corroborated; see BBC accused of ‘pushing Hamas lies’ after whistleblower report found Gaza coverage ‘minimised Israeli suffering’ and Jewish leaders slam BBC after boss praised Arabic service as ‘almost as trusted as Al Jazeera’. If a conservative outlet was fostering such animosity about another ethnic minority, WP editors would blacken their RSP listing. That the BBC also fabricated a narrative about the US president should open a reconsideration about their reliability. These aren't errors amenable to correction; they're revealed policy that certain kinds of lies and distortions are acceptable. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 14:23, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They haven't been "corroborated", you've just linked the Jewish Chronicle, a source itself found to be unreliable when it comes to the topics of Israel-Palestine (WP:THEJC) and is in recent years regarded with increasing suspicion following a still anonymous buyout and a rapid decline in quality amid a fabricated stories scandal, simply repeating the allegations as fact and citing "Jewish leaders" that openly operates a pro-Israel campaign group unsurprisingly being "outraged" by unevidenced claims that the BBC are "pro-Hamas".

As I've said in the subsection below, it's kind of interesting that the more that's come out about this "leaked report" the more it's entirely complaints from a very specific part of the political spectrum and involves people (including the memo writer themselves) who have deep ties to the Boris Johnson administration that spent much of its life actively trying to dismantle the BBC at every turn. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:13, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It should be unsurprising that the people whose interests are most injured by the BBC's malfeasance have done the most to expose it. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:26, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your assumption there that people associated with one of the most corrupt British governments of modern times should be trusted when it comes to their non-evidenced accusations that are the usual things about how the BBC is "woke, pro-trans, and pro-Palestine" which are things that funnily enough it's attacked for not being at all at the exact same time... Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen anyone dispute the DT's evidence. Have you? I'm open to reading it. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The DT hasn't presented any evidence. That's why everyone's shoving the word "alleged" or "accused" in front of their reporting. Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:17, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They rather have. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:31, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A YouTube video from the DT showing a couple of clips of a Trump speech which the report's author claims is "deceptive", screenshots of said report that if you read the entire thing is very unconvincing (and funnily enough they fail to disclose was written by someone linked to the widely-believed to be rigged attempt by Boris Johnson to impose Paul Dacre as Director-General of the BBC in 2021[36][37]), and going "remember that trailer from 2007" is not what many would consider "evidence".

What they're doing is the same old spiel that's become "journalism" the last few years, making unsubstantiated, emotive claims on issues to which the intended audience is already receptive on taking at face value and seeing what sticks and running with it. Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The DT quite plainly compared the BBC's fabrication to the source material from which it was confabulated. They've presented their evidence. Barring someone claiming that the BBC did not fabricate the video or that the Prescott memo is a fake or somesuch, that evidence stands. You seem to be objecting to how the evidence has been interpreted, which is beyond the scope of this discussion. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 19:05, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm going to repeat what I said initially to you at this point. Given you're throwing emotive words around like "fabricated" (which isn't even what's being alleged) and are insisting the mere making of allegations (which means without evidence, which is what the report stands as given it's simply presenting the view of its author) is compelling evidence simply in being, I believe that you're not distanced enough to make fair judgement on this due to your involvement in other discussions.

The fact there are now reasonable, evidenced grounds to suspect both the memo author's motivations (links to the Paul Dacre BBC bid affair) and claims (minutes of meetings casting a different picture) just weakens the likelihood it will lead to any re-evaluation of the BBC as a source. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:21, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Guardian: The words were taken from sections of his speech almost an hour apart. It did not include a section in which Trump said he wanted supporters “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard”. It is reasonable to call this fabrication. Also: Concerns about the cut were raised in a memo by Michael Prescott, a former independent external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee (EGSC). The Guardian is stating these items as fact. No one is disputing the existence of the Times's evidence, only its meaning. Suggesting that I'm insufficiently disinterested to discuss this is ad hominem. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 19:39, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not reasonable in the slightest. To "fabricate" would mean that they invented those quotes, which nobody is suggesting are they? It's not an "ad hominem" to suggest a lack of distance on your part when your argument is constructed using a level of highly emotive language not even being suggested by the Telegraph's reporting even if you were to take it at face value (fabricate, cowardly, lies just as examples), so isn't a comment on your character.

All The Guardian has done in that link you've provided is report there are claims made in a memo. It does not pass judgement on whether they are credible or not, and instead as I've linked above they have since reported that are grounds to challenge the memo's credibility as an account. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If not for the gaslighting, there'd be no light in here at all. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 20:06, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See, now that is a personal attack and emphasises my point.

Clearly there is no point in engaging further with you. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:10, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The statement that All The Guardian has done in that link you've provided is report there are claims made in a memo is glaringly false. But Signore Brandolini and I have other stuff to do. Peace out. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recognise the BBC quite obviously censors some things by simply ignoring them. However they do seem to try to make sure they don't put out obviously wrong stuff like joining up two bits of what a person says to say something they never really said. I think we should wait for the inquiry into this and if that is really what happened then yes what the BBC says will need much more careful checking. The Daily Telegraph has lost any reputation for straightforward clean news where it might suit its agenda. NadVolum (talk) 13:59, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

At least Ofcom have acted to seek out the truth, according to the Telegraph

"the head of the broadcasting regulator Ofcom Michael Grade has told Mr Shah that he must “seriously” examine allegations of bias, censorship and doctoring uncovered by The Telegraph.

Lord Grade, who leads Ofcom, has written to the corporation’s chairman, seeking reassurances that he is investigating the claims made in a leaked internal dossier."

The leaked 19-page memo was originally sent to the BBC Board by Mr Michael Prescott. Dotsdomain (talk) 20:36, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/11/05/lord-grade-ofcom-bbc-bias-inquiry/ Dotsdomain (talk) 20:39, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the same Lord Grade that funnily enough even we ourselves document on his very own article was appointed by Boris Johnson's government (who were explicitly not fans of the BBC), was a Conservative life peer up until that appointment, and has made previous public interventions in regards to the BBC and its coverage including Israel-Palestine.[38][39]

Yeah, for all the BBC's faults, it's not the BBC who are the ones here who I'd consider to be the biased party. Rambling Rambler (talk) 22:53, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because the BBC broadcast Panorama on the World Service, the implications are worldwide but as the Foreign Office part-fund the Service, the duplicity also goes to the heart of UK Government.

UK taxpayers and licence fee payers are funding a BBC fake news attack on the UKs closest ally.

It is well known that the BBC use subsidiary production companies to hide away payments they make to talent, journalists and production staff, while retaining full editorial control, but most importantly it is their BBC inhouse staff lawyers who signs off (approve) each and every one of the BBC subsidery programmes prior to their broadcast.

The buck starts and ends with the BBC, there is no getting away with or from the outpour and depth of evidence that Wikipedia prevents me from sharing. I'm not even a Trump supporter, but if the BBC can manipulate a Trump speech in plain site, everyone else is fair game too.

The BBC is no better or worse than GB News it is just that the BBC have been around for so much longer, that some think they are an institution to be revered rather than a news outlets to be scrutinised.

How ironic that Wales chose to appear on the BBC last month, to say, "We're living in an era of a massive lowering of trust" while at the same time blocking some editors from editing on important subjects. Dotsdomain (talk) 00:57, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC has significant bias issues, especially around the issues of Israel and transgenderism. This has been reported on by many reliable sources, and the BBC itself. This is just the latest example of that problem.

I support re-considering the reliability of the BBC, especially as it realtes to Israel/Gaza and transgenderism coverage. Jcgaylor (talk) 18:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You may wish to reconsider how you phrase that second topic, as the term you've used is considered by many to be derogatory. Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:04, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It should be added that the Director General and the News CEO have no resigned over this incident, per BBC. Jcgaylor (talk) 18:11, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BBC should definitely be reclassified as unreliable at this point; the evidence is so strong that even left-winged media as CNN and NYT have covered the whole story in the same way the Telegraph did, not to mention the very same BBC. Prescott has been director-general since 2020 and we can't take for true anything that was published under his rule since there's an high chance of being doctored. Considering that no one under the leadership even reported this malicious editing and we had to wait for a four-years late whistleblower we also have to consider that most of the BBC reporters were likely on board with it and since they're not leaving the news company we'll have no guarantee of reliability for quite a few years. Alves Stargazer (talk) 12:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many editors here argue that the BBC should stay a “green” source, but given recent developments, that position feels increasingly difficult to justify. When senior leadership, including the CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, steps down following significant public criticism and backlash over dubious editorial decisions (aka Trump’s video), it naturally raises questions about the stability and reliability of the newsroom’s internal processes. We don’t need to assume bad intentions to recognise that these changes point to deeper concerns about how content is being reviewed and approved. These leadership shifts also come after years of criticism of the BBC’s coverage of Israel. The pattern includes repeated mislabelling of attacks, uneven language choices, framing that many observers describe as slanted and that’s on top of the Gaza “documentary” fiasco. When an outlet shows the same type of problem again and again on several highly sensitive topics, it becomes hard to treat those issues as isolated accidents. This isn’t an argument that the BBC should be entirely discarded as a source. It’s simply a recognition that blind trust is not supported by the evidence. A yellow rating reflects a fair approach that better fits the current reality. ScottyNolan (talk) 22:16, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We should specifically be looking at their reliability in covering US politics given this scandal and their internal review of the situation. LDW5432 (talk) 22:51, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I think it would be grounds to look at the BBC's reliable source designation. This is more than just a "right leaning" publication making baseless claims against the BBC-- the BBC has also now had to go in front of parliament over the doctored footage and is facing a governmental investigation based on not just this incident but also their reporting regarding the Middle East. Agnieszka653 (talk) 00:04, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of those things are the case. It's been asked to make comment to the culture select committee to present its response (which are rather typical talking-shop affairs) and beyond that the Culture secretary has just mentioned that transparency is something that will be discussed in the upcoming Charter renewal of 2027.

So yes, it is still (despite the press bluster from quarters who already didn't like the BBC) overall a collection of allegations made by a single individual. Rambling Rambler (talk) 00:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Here is why the BBC is an RS [[40]]. They at least try. Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Two point in response to the OP - apologies if they've already been made. First, the DT is right-leaning (to out it mildly), but it's not a tabloid - it's a broadsheet, and one of the most respected news outlets in the country (albeit an openly and exceedingly opinionated one). But no, this one story does not mean we need to revisit the beeb's status as RS. This is breaking news. There will be an investigation, and likely if there is merit to the story, a retraction, as we expect from RSes. We don't need to jump at these things, but by all means we need to keep an eye on them. No news sources are free of dodgy reporting, it's how they deal with it when it's discovered that matters. Girth Summit _(blether) 20:45, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
While not a tabloid, it’s a long time since the Telegraph was one of the most respected news outlets in the country. I’ve reached the point it should be regarded as unreliable on culture war issues, and in the UK the BBC is a core culture war issue. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:56, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention its long-running climate change denial and, more recently, anti-vax articles. Black Kite (talk) 07:49, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I don't look at it that often - it's doing anti-vax stuff now? I would have put it several tiers above the Daily Mail, Sun etc that I think of when I see the word 'tabloid', but I concede that my view may be somewhat out of date. Girth Summit _(blether) 12:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that at this point it's the BBC that should be considered unreliable and that the Telegraph spearheaded the biggest news media scandal of the decade. ~~ Alves Stargazer (talk) 12:23, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC should be considered unreliable because of a single programme that they didn't even produce? Can't think what's led you to that conclusion. Black Kite (talk) 12:39, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

More importantly:

"The one-hour programme, Trump: A Second Chance?, was broadcast last year and was made for the BBC by independent production company October Films Ltd, which has also been approached for comment."

There seems to be multiple core misunderstandings to the issues at play here:

Despite the editorialisation by the Daily Telegraph, none of the errors raised are actually production decisions made by the BBC (many "BBC" shows are in fact produced by outside companies), but rather instances where it's suggested the BBC should've caught and prevented the transmission of.
The entry for BBC (WP:RSPBBC) already contains the disclaimer that it shouldn't be applied to "BBC publications with reduced editorial oversight".

At most what may be needed is a more obvious separation of core BBC items (such as BBC News itself) from those that are aired by them but are not in fact BBC editorially-controlled such as having two distinct entries for the perennial source list, but that would in my view require a far wider discussion than this one. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the rest of the series from the telegraph most of the other complaints are claims of bias because the BBC doesn't give enough article (or push notification) attention to the typical culture war issues the telegraph likes to devote itself to (apparently they don't report enough on immigration and anti trans issues like the WPATH files). It seems to me that whilst there are one or two examples here of times the BBC got it wrong (to be expected given the time frame considered), the majority of this complaint is about bias and that the BBC doesn't share the same bias as the Telegraph. If this is the worst they can find, the BBC is obviously a GREL source. LunaHasArrived (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some historical perspective: It took more than one or two instances of flawed reporting for us to downgrade Fox News - we didn’t do that until a pattern was established. The same should be true for the BBC or any other major outlet. Yes, the flawed panorama story is a fairly major scandal for the BBC, sparking coverage in other news outlets and resignations within the Beeb… but it doesn’t establish a pattern… yet. Indeed the resignations can be seen as an indication of reliability. So my advice to those who want to downgrade: Watch and wait. Blueboar (talk) 13:34, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not even that much of a scandal that the DT and mates of Boris Johnson (who it keeps getting linked back to) want it to be. An episode of Panorama showed two clips of Donald Trump and some have argued it's "deceptive" because they're shown together and didn't show the one sentence of him saying the word peaceful. In terms of "BBC Bias" controversies this is small-fry.

I get the feeling from the way the Labour government have now suddenly come out defending the BBC after the resignations[41] makes me suspect they were quite happy to let it play out to rid themselves of a Conservative-linked DG (Tim Davie's prior standing as a Conservative was a source of controversy when he was given the job) and will now look to see someone more amenable is put into the role given the upcoming Charter negotiations. Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:44, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It feels worth noting that this discussion was heavily bludgeoned by Dotsdomain, who has since been community banned primarily for their subpar conduct on this noticeboard. QuicoleJR (talk) 19:04, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Probably worth considering downgrading them to yellow (additional considerations apply) to world politics given their falseification and misleading publications as of this recent. Spy-cicle💥 ^Talk? 23:45, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Why? At best we have two resignations and an apology over the Trump clips, and then a series of non-corroborated allegations by a non-neutral party (Prescott) that the Chair of the BBC has strongly refuted.[42]

In his response to Prescott’s memo, Shah pushed back against the broader allegations of bias. He said Prescott “does not present a full picture of the discussions, decisions and actions that were taken”. He also said that some of the problems raised by Prescott were not new or had been previously examined by the BBC.

“Some of the coverage of Mr Prescott’s memo has implied that he has ‘uncovered’ a list of stories and issues that the BBC have sought to ‘bury’. That interpretation is simply not true,” said Shah. “There is another view that has gained currency in the coverage that the BBC has done nothing to tackle these problems. That is also simply not true.

“During the three years Mr Prescott was an adviser to the committee, the BBC produced thousands of hours of outstanding journalism: on television, radio, online, nationally, regionally and internationally. This does not diminish the importance the BBC board places on addressing the issues that Mr Prescott has raised. But it is also important that a sense of perspective is maintained.”

I think it's important to note that despite the wide-array of claims made in the memo, at present not a single other member of any of the committees where Prescott claims all this was happening has come forward to back them up and that the wider reporting is more or less restricted to repeating what has been stated in the Telegraph rather than other publications exposing further evidence which you'd expect for something of this scale and with how many people work at the BBC. Rambling Rambler (talk) 00:00, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As you state, "...we have two resignations and an apology over the Trump clips...". That is enough for me, the BBC should be reclassified from GREL to MREL. ~2025-32105-67 (talk) 05:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If someone taking responsibility for an error and someone else apologising is good enough for you to consider something unreliable you clearly haven’t read our reliability policy. Taking responsibility and apologising are generally positive not negative signs. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:07, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Link to the apology: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw001kw97o

"The Panorama edit had been discussed by the BBC's Editorial Guidelines and Standards Committee in January and May this year as part of a wider review of the corporation's US election coverage, he said."

I am not sure if the BBC is reliable to cover American politics. LDW5432 (talk) 14:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Followed closely by:

Shah added he "also heard from BBC News that the purpose of editing the clip was to convey the message of the speech". This was so Panorama's audience "could better understand how it had been received by President Trump's supporters and what was happening on the ground at that time". The point was not pursued further "given it had not attracted significant audience feedback and had been transmitted before the US election," he explained.

So not a case of "concerns were suppressed" but that it was raised appropriately internally and some had misgivings but these weren't widely-agreed with. Rambling Rambler (talk) 16:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Further Coverage

The full text of the BBC memo
BBC: BBC has questions to answer over edited Trump speech, MPs say
The Times (London): BBC must explain how it plans to correct liberal bias
Deadline: BBC Overhauled Arabic Network Output & Oversight As Internal Debate Raged About Anti-Israel Bias
The Jerusalem Post: BBC accused of misleading after whistleblower says broadcaster 'spliced' Trump speech - Telegraph
New York Post: BBC ‘materially misled viewers’ by deceptively editing Trump Jan. 6 speech for documentary: whistleblower
London Evening Standard: BBC under fire with 'serious questions' over alleged bias in edited Trump footage and trans coverage
Newsweek: BBC Accused of Doctoring Trump January 6 Speech: What We Know
Yahoo News: Bombshell UK Report Reveals BBC ‘Doctored’ Trump Footage to Make It Look Like He Called for Jan 6 Violence
AFR: ‘Fake news’ BBC under fire over censorship in lessons for ABC

-Ad Orientem (talk) 16:30, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Having done a scan through of the full text as printed by the Telegraph, I'm actually now more sceptical of the rationale behind the memo and its "leaking". To be quite frank it reads like a greatest hits of right-wing complaints with the BBC going back the last half decade, especially given how non-apparent complaints made by more progressive/left-wing groups are in this memo (which funnily enough included how the BBC's coverage was anti-trans which we have an entire article on). For instance one of the complaints is that the BBC didn't take the group "History Reclaimed", that Michael Prescott deems to be "reasonable" and intones are a non-partisan collective of scholars, seriously despite the fact it's very clear from their own website[43] that the group are one of the various "anti-woke" pressure groups that've popped up over the last few years in the UK (such as Restore Trust for the National Trust).

Beyond that I also did a quick google and for those who may remember there was a big storm in 2021 when Boris Johnson was angling to place Paul Dacre (a notable Tory press ally and former editor of the Daily Mail) in charge of the BBC through a much criticised recruitment process that was regarded as designed to give him the job. Turns out Michael Prescott already had links to the Tories and was brought in to aid the process.[44]

Despite the headlines the more that comes out about this memo, the less it seems like an explosive expose by an independent advisor unfairly ignored and more it seems uncannily linked to people and groups with longstanding political axes to grind regarding the BBC. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:03, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Upon seeing it, that splice was deceptive but not so deceptive it deserves this level of press coverage. Or us downgrading the BBC. This is an elaborate version of taking a quote out of context, a thing publications do all the time. In print with an ellipsis this wouldn't even be an error. Loki (talk) 19:43, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noting that “Yahoo News” here is actually WP:MEDIAITE not a reliable source. Its hysterical coverage, like that of New York Post, should not be read as a source of useful analysis but as artefacts in the Trumpian attempt to throw mud at a trusted independent news source. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:22, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is not enough weed in the world to make me take this complaint seriously. The allegations are the typical mountain-out-of-a-molehill reach to try and criticize any institution perceived as leftist, and aren't worth consideration by anyone with more than two brain cells (or even anyone with only two, so long as they're not currently fighting for third place). If anything, this makes me re-evaluate how seriously I will ever take the the Daily Telegraph again. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:03, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s shocking to see people act so blasé about this serious story. The Director General and the News CEO resigned over this, per the BBC. Do they have few brain cells, too? Jcgaylor (talk) 18:13, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
People are not "blasé" over it. The simply fact is there's very little to the report outside its author (who is very much not a neutral party to this) throwing a lot of mud. And if you knew much about the BBC over the last couple of years in particular his resignation was inevitable regardless of the provenance of this report. He was installed by the Conservatives and the government is now Labour, and during his period as Director-General the BBC has lurched from crisis to crisis and he has few if any political friends left to support his continued placement in what is at the end of the day a small p "political" role. Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:24, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that this is getting a great deal of attention, and I would hardly call the New York Times a righting publication. Ad Orientem (talk) 21:53, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And this from the Guardian... Tim Davie resigns as BBC director general after accusations of ‘serious and systemic’ bias in coverage. -Ad Orientem (talk) 21:55, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Allegations and resignations getting a lot of attention is not the same thing as proving said allegations.

A lot of publications in multiple countries have covered the claims of a Polish woman to be Madeleine McCann. That weight of coverage hasn't made them have merit though. Rambling Rambler (talk) 22:38, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You don't resign if the allegations are false. Let alone two people resigning, and the BBC chair apologising to Parliament.

Then there's today's email from the person standing in for the resigned CEO of News which includes "our trusted, impartial and agenda-setting journalism is more important than ever". Agenda setting is not impartial; the BBC refuse to acknowledge how corrupt they are. ~2025-32558-15 (talk) 12:02, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Beeb gets held to a higher standard because it’s a public broadcaster with higher expectations for neutrality. These things inevitably get overblown with outside groups and parties trying to apply pressure. Kowal2701 (talk) 01:46, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The resignations make this an important story. Do we reevaluate the reliability of the BBC in how they cover American politics? LDW5432 (talk) 14:24, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pardon me for not being hysterical enough to suite your tastes. I have a nasty habit of being... [checks notes] rational. Yes, that's the word. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 02:05, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is even more interesting. I wonder where that pressure on the BBC is coming from (don't all shout at once). Black Kite (talk) 12:37, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder where that pressure on the BBC is coming from (don't all shout at once)

@Black Kite ...The Communist Party of Great Britain... Rambling Rambler (talk) 13:53, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of complaints are about the bias, which is a big deal for a public broadcaster but not automatically a reliability issue. Downgrading would be an overreaction but we could note potential biases in the RSP summary. Alaexis_¿question? 19:22, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem would be which bias? They have been regularly accused of right wing bias, and of left wing bias, and not being hard enough on Israel, and anti-Israeli bias. Putting in a warning just about a bad edit to one of Trumps speeches and the current blow up in the culture war wouldn't cover everything. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:40, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the memo definitely describes a left-wing bias. I don't see a lot of accusations of right wing bias in Criticism of the BBC, especially if we focus just on the last 5-10 years. Alaexis_¿question? 10:52, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's a user defined list so is subject to confirmation bias. Just on the very issues of this memo there's been plenty of criticism from "the other side" so to speak on many of the examples in the memo. The fact the memo fails to mention any of this and instead paints a one-sided narrative is one that's coming under more scrutiny already.

For example, the "Hamas documentary" has seen plenty of criticism for being removed as being evidence of the BBC having a pro-Israel bent.[45][46]

When it comes to coverage of trans topics, the BBC has seen serious criticism for being anti-trans in tone,[47] with one article claiming transwomen were pressuring ciswomen into sex seeing large-scale backlash.[48]

So the idea it has a clear ideological bias one way or the other seems hard to justify in reality, because from the last decade in particularly it's been a common fixture of political life that everyone is claiming the BBC is biased against them. Anyone who was politically engaged during the Corbyn years of Labour leadership will know how often they raised claims that BBC News biased against the left,[49][50] yet at the same time was also an enemy of the right for being biased against Brexit.[51] Rambling Rambler (talk) 11:44, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not peer reviewed but Mills (2017) is probably reasonable as a source, and Mills also published a book with Verso Books a few months earlier (again, not a top publisher, but it's a reasonably well established press). Wahl-Jorgensen et al. (2017) is a journal article that was first published online a few months earlier, so quite close to the 10-year cutoff also. Lewis and Cushion (2019) say there are a number of recent studies, all of which suggest that the BBC has, in recent years, moved its centre of gravity to the right. Mills again (et alia though, 2021), etc, etc.

Realistically, their actual bias is probably something more like a pro-British bias (so pro-Tory when the Tories are in charge), plus a pro-whoever-is-on-the-board-leaning-on-them-politically bias (which is, *checks notes* Robbie Gibb apparently). So yeah, there seems to be a decent amount of people complaining about Gibb specifically interfering with editorial independence.

Mills, Tom (March 2017). "The Myth of the BBC". Viewfinder Magazine. No. 106. Learning on Screen. ISSN 2634-8179. Archived from the original on 2025-02-01.

Wahl-Jorgensen, Karin; Berry, Mike; Garcia-Blanco, Iñaki; Bennett, Lucy; Cable, Jonathan (August 2017) [30 June 2016]. "Rethinking balance and impartiality in journalism? How the BBC attempted and failed to change the paradigm". Journalism. 18 (7): 781–800. doi:10.1177/1464884916648094. ISSN 1464-8849. PMC 5732589. PMID 29278243.

Lewis, Justin; Cushion, Stephen (March 2019). "Think Tanks, Television News and Impartiality: The ideological balance of sources in BBC programming". Journalism Studies. 20 (4): 480–499. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2017.1389295. ISSN 1461-670X.

Mills, Tom; Mullan, Killian; Fooks, Gary (January 2021). "Impartiality on Platforms: The Politics of BBC Journalists' Twitter Networks". Journalism Studies. 22 (1): 22–41. doi:10.1080/1461670X.2020.1852099. ISSN 1461-670X. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Though not News, platforming of the Tufton street lot on every panel was a big one, culminated in Liz Truss Kowal2701 (talk) 13:21, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tried to make this point earlier, but it was drowned out by the OP's bludgeoning. The long-term bias of the BBC is towards no particular wing of the political spectrum, nor any particular cause, but towards the vested interests of the government, its policies and the British establishment at large. Iskandar323 (talk) 13:37, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As of this morning:

No one disputes that shortly before the US elections, the BBC aired doctored footage that caused Trump to appear to call for violence at the capital by splicing together clips separated by 54 minutes.
The Prescott memo warning about this was ignored.
Director general Tim Davie and CEO of news Deborah Turness have resigned over the scandal.
Other materials were "raced to air" on BBC Arabic without checks because they were damning to Israel.
The BBC has spent a half-million USD to prevent publication of the 2003 Balen Report investigating its coverage of Israel.
In February it aired, then removed, a "documentary" starring the son of Hamas's deputy minister of agriculture.
BBC Arabic has been the source of multiple anti-Israel and anti-Jewish statements.

The Prescott memo also charges the BBC with airing "ill-researched material that suggested issues of racism when there were none," withholding migration stories from push notifications on the app, "celebrating the trans experience without adequate balance or objectivity," and inflating the proportion of Palestinian women and children killed in the Gaza War. And the whole memo hasn't even been released yet. An inside source to The Guardian said of the situation, "It feels like a coup. This is the result of a campaign by political enemies of the BBC." And not, "We couldn't find journalistic integrity if we were alone with it in an otherwise empty closet," or something likewise indicating contrition. BBC brass continue to deny editorial bias in spite of all this. So we have both a pattern of inaccuracy and an unwillingness to correct, hence failing the two markers of reliability according to the encyclopedia. BBC should be lowered at least to MREL, and if not, a lot of GUNREL sources should be made MREL for committing far milder offenses. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 21:26, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Err the program was aired on 28 October 2024, after the polls had closed. Slatersteven (talk) 21:30, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The elections were November 5, 2024. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When was it aired in theUSA? Slatersteven (talk) 10:51, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC has been accused of both left wing and right wing bias, as well as anti and pro Israel coverage. Lower it's relating because the current issue is a major US culture war issue doesn't seem appropriate. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:08, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1 BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:02, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The issues from the standpoint of the encyclopedia are inaccuracy and unwillingness to correct, not bias as such. This is explicit in WP:RS. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 11:52, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not just owner up to their errors, but reporting non it extensively is a sign of a reliable source. Unreliable sources go to court to protect their lies, and having lost the court case act as if the lies where never told (this is a real world case). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:36, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed it is. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 13:41, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has still reported on itself in regard to allegations of bias around the I/P conflict, even if it hasn't released one particular report. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:44, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

One particular report that they sat on for a year until the story about it was broken for them. This is the opposite of a track record of corrections. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 15:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes one report, on a topic they had otherwise already reported on about themselves. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:20, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...as if said report didn't exist. This is malpractice. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:07, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is it noted that the New York Times wrote that the BBC Is Facing Its Gravest Crisis in Decades? I know titles alone might not be the most reliable, but this is something I think potentially worth noting, that this isn't treated as some small hiccup, but rather as a major scandal. Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:11, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Per the Free Press [52] Trump said "And after this, we’re gonna walk down, and I’ll be there with you. We’re gonna walk down, we’re gonna walk down. Anyone you want, but I think right here, we’re gonna walk down to the Capitol, and we’re gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not gonna be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard." but the edit is "We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be there with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore." That's... hugely different. Denaar (talk) 06:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC tried it on, and it got caught out. It should be transferred from WP:GREL to WP:MREL, else WP begins to lose its credibility. ~2025-32105-67 (talk) 06:06, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rest assured, Wikipedia has never been. Mist1et03 (talk) 07:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A major crisis is not a major scandal. The crisis is it’s under attack by the global right after a Conservative government restructured it to hamstring it in a fight of this kind and due to the two resignations it’s rudderless at a crucial time. The actual “scandal” is manufactured and pretty minor. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:02, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

+1. Andreas JN 466 20:10, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is that the New York Times which gave us weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? TarnishedPath^talk 07:23, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is largely irrelevant anyway, this is Panorama which is separate from News. Panorama outsource their production, which is why you also had the "Hamas leader's son" controversy. We could add something about Panorama, but no doubt the lesson learnt will be for the BBC to bring all production under its control Kowal2701 (talk) 13:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Useful reading: this article by highly respected news media veteran Alan Rusbridger in the centrist Prospect on the context of the assault on the BBC. And this poll from 2023 on how trusted the BBC is with the UK public (eg compared to the Telegraph, the least trusted broadsheet). BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:31, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If we are to determine the reliability based on this poll we should deprecate HuffPost and Vice immediately as both of them are way below GB News. Alaexis_¿question? 10:56, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The more "untrustworthy" outlets in the poll actuallly line up rather well with what's deprecated. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:54, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The net (trustworthy - untrustworthy) is probably a better indicator of public opinion, but then again public opinion isn't part of policy or guidance. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn’t determine reliability from this poll but it’s one indicator of reputation for fact checking and correlates quite well with WP consensus. Note HuffPost and Vice have high “don’t know” responses as aren’t well known in the general public compared to legacy media or GBNews, and so don’t have high NET untrustworthy ratings compared to GBNews. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

People should also remember that the reason The Jewish Chronicle lost its "generally reliable" ranking at WP:RSP last year is that Prescott's mate, BBC board member Robbie Gibb (who was appointed to the BBC by Boris Johnson and was also an editorial adviser to the populist, right-wing GB News) took over the Chronicle on behalf of an anonymous owner – a unique case in UK media, I believe.

Rusbridger wrote about that, too: [53] A few months later, the formerly venerable Jewish Chronicle was mired in a scandal over fabricated stories placed by Netanyahu's office, leading some of its leading Jewish contributors to leave in disgust – see e.g. New York Times.

Gibb, who BBC insiders say is the driving force behind this news story, lacks a recent track record of journalistic integrity but has form when it comes to media manipulation in the service of right-wing interests. Andreas JN 466 20:40, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This fallacy is guilt by association. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 21:15, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, not really, because it's the same gentleman who appears close to the centre of all these stories – the launch of GB News as a populist alternative to the BBC, the political shift to the right and loss of journalistic standards at The Jewish Chronicle, and this current, noisy attack on the BBC for being too left-leaning.

The Panorama edit was stupid and wrong, but I don't think this is just about standards (the BBC can be and has been criticised from the other end of the spectrum as well). YMMV. Andreas JN 466 21:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

People keep bringing up that criticism has come from both ends of the political spectrum, but it's beside the point. The BBC broadcasted faked evidence and unchecked claims, they've produced stories so one-sided as to fail journalistic basics, and they're not recognizing that they have a problem beyond "mistakes were made" kinds of admissions. These are reliability issues, leaving bias aside. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 22:15, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's why I always say news sources are ONLY as good as the journalist/reporter working at that institution who wrote/narrated the story. If the journalist/reporter(s) let things slide the whole org. can look bad. Also in a world of press entities like Associated Press corps. and things like that which write each-others stories without sometimes further review (in order to make sure everything is factual), sometimes stories can get picked up by other journalist bureaus and then it tarnishes other agency's news images as well. The BBC has had some of their high level staff allegedly depart due to this blunder.(Skynews) I would add this to the BBC's "criticism" section. CaribDigita (talk) 22:47, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that we add it to their criticism section at minimum. LDW5432 (talk) 22:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It’s there. Nobody is disputing that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:47, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It’s beside the point if the only topic of discussion is are they honest about facts. But if the allegation is they are “ so one-sided as to fail journalistic basics” (in your words) then that claim is easily refuted by the fact that the criticism comes from partisans of left and right and pro- and anti-Israel advocates. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As demonstrated at Talk:Gaza genocide, anti-Israel activists are disappointed that pro-Israel perspectives exist. They won't be satisfied until the BBC is as bereft of pro-Israel perspectives as that article. That perspective can't be accommodated within the expectations of responsible journalism. Their criticisms prove nothing. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 15:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please refrain from casting aspersions against other editors, which I believe your comment on "anti-Israel activists" active on a specific talk page would count as. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:05, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was the subject of aspersions cast by an editor on that page who admitted in so many words that he had targeted a somewhat pro-Israel item for removal with utter disregard for the state of the rest of the page, and nothing was done about either the aspersions or the blanked item. Does it count as aspersions to express how sick I am of the double standards? The same goes for this discussion; if the BBC were a Murdoch property and had committed these offenses against journalism, editors would deprecate it. I'm just asking for MREL for them. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 15:37, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'll note that admin ScottishFinnishRadish told both of you to knock it off, and that includes the other editor. Therefore, saying nothing was done about their aspersion is false. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And I discontinued conversation as requested. But it wasn't clear that was about the aspersions, and in any case the item remains blanked. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 15:54, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting very off-topic for this discussion, but I'd be happy to discuss the blanked item with you on the Gaza genocide talk page. QuicoleJR (talk) 15:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, and I would welcome that. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 15:59, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Note: the right has been attacking the BBC for years and years. However, the BBC has rarely if ever been in this much trouble, so for those of you saying it's only because of the right's attacks, I think it has to be more than that. Wikieditor662 (talk) 03:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s in more trouble now because the right is more powerful now. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:53, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
More powerful in what way? Because they control the presidency and legislative? They have for months now. Wikieditor662 (talk) 16:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the real world, things like this don't actually happen on Hollywood time scales. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:37, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How does the influence of a powerful American right wing lead to greater challenges for a British broadcaster?

LDW5432 (talk) 19:29, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A couple more pieces of writing that I wouldn’t think are due for inclusion in WP articles but are very much worth reading in considering how much the current BBC “scandal” affects reliability. By veteran investigative journalist Nafeez Ahmed in the reliable if partisan Byline Times: (a) on Michael Prescott and his leaked memo, (b) on the supposedly “neutral” sources Prescott accused the BBC of not using. By former BBC staff member Lewis Goodall on the manufacturing of a scandal. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:26, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Also out today, an excellent article by David Aaronovitch in The Observer:

The Prescott memo flunks the impartiality test

Essential reading. Andreas JN 466 12:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

BBC (Arabic) forced to correct two Gaza stories a week. If they can't have their own news in other languages be unbiased what makes you believe that they are unbiased in English? Yilku1 (talk) 14:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
BBC News, BBC Arabic and Panorama are all different entities, and it's also important to note that some of the controversial programmes were made with or by independent companies (October Films in relation to the Trump documentary, Hoyo Films in relation to the Gaza example) and just invoking reports which relate to one of these may not help sort out how the company's output as a whole should be viewed. This Telegraph article is specifically about BBC Arabic, and its source is CAMERA, a pressure group this noticeboard does not consider reliable. It primarily documents the zealous correction of minor errors, which is actually a sign of reliable oversight although chaotic news gathering in a war zone. For instance, examples of so-called inaccuracies the BBC corrected include Hamas described as "guarding" hostages or communities where Israeli Jews settle are described as "settlements" and their inhabitants as "settlers". I'm sure some editors would actually regard the "correction" of those "inaccuracies" as the introduction of pro-Israeli bias. The Telegraph is throwing as mud as it can. BobFromBrockley (talk) 15:35, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Trump footage deception was BBC, though, not BBC Arabic. I think the germane point is that there's a problem of reliability across the network. To point at the motivations of them who disclosed the issues strikes me as misdirection. The BBC wouldn't be vulnerable to the criticisms if they had been doing their jobs all along. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 16:37, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Check source: Journal İmgelem and article Dead Internet Hypothesis: AI, Censorship, and the Decline of Human-Centered Digital Discourse

This source has come up on the Dead Internet Theory RfC, and it looks pretty suspicious to me. First, the article cites a journal that has already failed Reliable source noticeboard, and it repeatedly states "Source: Author’s own work" within the text. The journal website looks like several predatory journals I've seen. Using Grammarly, large portions of this article resemble AI text. Looking for opinions, as this article could have significant impact on the discussion. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 19:00, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's a paper from 2025. Have others cited it? Secretlondon (talk) 12:08, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if other papers have cited it yet, is that relevant? New sources that are reliable are reliable regardless of citation metrics. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 22:46, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes, if they're cited, the way that other sources use it can give us information about whether it's reliable (e.g., if it's cited favorably, or as an example of nonsense being published on a subject). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:36, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Self-published source used to support unverifiable claims

This source is being used in three articles to support the same claim.

Three articles use it: Timeline of women in religion in the United States, Timeline of women in religion and Timeline of women's ordination.

The text is either the same or similar to this one: "For the first time in American history, a Buddhist ordination was held where an American woman (Sister Khanti-Khema) took the Samaneri (novice) vows with an American monk (Bhante Vimalaramsi) presiding. This was done for the Buddhist American Forest Tradition at the Dhamma Sukha Meditation Center in Missouri."

I'll be mentioning the AfD for "Vimalaramsi" and the "Dhamma Sukha Organization" as a supporting argument, not as a definitive recommendation. The AfD closed Vimalaramsi's article with result delete for lack of Notability. All of its sources were either self-published or press releases placed by the Dhammasukha.org organization.

These three pages use a source from an affiliated organization to "Kanti Khema", described by the article passages as being the "first ordained buddhist nun in the US." There is no way to attest this information - i.e that she is the "First nun in american history" from any reliable secondary sources, nor are they presented anywhere for examination.

Dhammasukha.org (referenced in these pages through archive.org) has four components that disqualify it as a reliable source: (I). Primary. (II). Affiliated with the subject. (III.) Non-notable and (IV). Cannot be confirmed by reliable secondary sources. Therefore, it appears to quote groundless information regarding the subject as being "The first in american history". Article text should be cleared of its controversial claim to fame or removed entirely from all pages. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

All of its sources were either self-published - nope; Natalie Quli is not self-published, see diif, which was removed by this editor from his talkpage as he perceived it as harassmenrt, an accusation for which they have been warned diff; see also User talk:Monkeysmashingkeyboards#Please remain civil.. Their attitude has detoriated rapidly into WP:BATTLEGROUND; see User talk:Deathnotekll2#What's up, from Deathnotekll and User talk:Deathnotekll2#About. Regards, Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 07:26, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is the Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Comment on the merit of the proposal or discussion instead of attacking the proponent.

Natalie Quili is not being discussed here, nor is the AfD per se. Read the proposal correctly.

No administrative warnings have been placed in my account. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:28, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming that you have no evidence that the claim is false, and assuming that the claim is plausible, I believe that the claim should be attributed to the organization that made it, rather than stating it as fact in Wikipedia's voice. But I do not see your concerns in themself to be an argument to entirely remove the claim. Cullen328 (talk) 07:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Very well. However, the claim is not plausible.

Remember we are discussing. I am not attempting to force my conclusion.

The claims are quite boastful, actually. They are similar to saying an unknown person with no verifiable notability has been the indisputable best at something or that they have met Einstein.

How is one to say it isn't a lie? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 07:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Stating that a woman is the first at a fairly obscure but significant accomplishment is not boastful and nowhere near comparable to an assertion that a person is indisputably the best at something. If a person was accomplished in physics and mathematics in the 50 years preceding 1955, it is not implausible to claim that they met Einstein. After all, Einstein loved intellectual conversations with a wide range of people although he did not enjoy conventional small talk and chit-chat. He was not reclusive.

What is your evidence that this specific claim is not plausible? Does the organization making the claim have an established reputation for making false claims? Do you have evidence, for example, of a previously ordained Buddhist nun in the United States? Cullen328 (talk) 07:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You see, the Onus of Proof, often summarized by the maxim affirmanti, non neganti, incumbit probatio (the proof lies upon him who affirms, not upon him who denies), is precisely the case here.

The organization is required to prove that such a bold claim is true. A company can claim its product is the best in the market with no supporting evidence to back their assertion. It'll be dismissed as marketing propaganda. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:57, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We commonly deal with such matters by attributing the claim to the person or entity that made the claim as opposed to stating that it is true in Wikipedia's voice. We do not usually deal with evidence free doubts like yours by completely erasing the claim. I have asked repeatedly for evidence that this is false and you have provided nothing more than your strident skepticism. Cullen328 (talk) 08:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Policy and guidelines are subject to interpretation.

Should Wikipedia also deal with evidence free claims, then? The opposite of evidence free doubt equally applies as well.

I haven't checked yet for additional evidence that contradicts the unsupported claim presented by the article passages that many of its supporters here wish to unambiguously defend. You demand and insist I do, and maybe I will. It's appropriate I demand back equally that you do your own research in the opposite fashion, i.e prove that the claim you defend is true. Maybe if that is done by both sides, a conclusion will be reached.

Personal commentary: I'm actually delighted you labeled me as a "strident skeptic". That's exactly the boldness Wikipedia needs. Really, I took no offense. I liked it. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:31, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For something to be a WP:RFC (that has a particular meaning here), the steps on that page needs to be followed. But just having a discussion about something is fine, too. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:53, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I second this. @Deathnotekll2, I highly recommend you take a look at WP:BEFORERFC and WP:RFC. Wikieditor662 (talk) 16:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted to challenge a source so editors could examine it and remove it side-wide if applicable.

I couldn't find a consensus-style process to do so, so I posted here after being recommended to do so by another user.

Anyway, as Gråbergs Gråa Sång said, I'll stay here so we can debate it, challenge it or support it. If necessary, I will open a formal RfC after studying the necessary conditions to do so in full. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:51, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've renamed the section, this isn't a WP:RFC and the title is only a distraction from any other discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:33, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh. Sorry. I'm new here.

I didn't understand why the title would be a "distraction" though, as I didn't intend for that. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:48, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Because RfCs are formal proposals that often have many users !voting in, so having a non RfC be titled as an RfC can confuse people, and bring them here instead of other, geuine RfCs. Does that make sense? Wikieditor662 (talk) 19:55, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it does. I think.

Where and how can I open a formal RfC on this topic if need arises, by the way?

It's probably best to do so after this discussion ends, right? Or so I'd assume for now. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 19:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see any reason you would need to open RFC on this at any point. I wouldn't suggest even thinking about them until you have more experience and understand what they are for. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:01, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why? Are they that difficult to open? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:03, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Again, if you really want to know, I suggest taking a look at WP:BEFORERFC and WP:RFC. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:09, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

WP:RFC says how you can open a RFC. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 20:06, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"RfCs are time-consuming, and Wikipedia being a volunteer project, editor time is valuable. If you are considering an RfC to resolve a dispute between editors, you should try first to resolve your issues other ways."

The RfC page quotes that. Do you think the Reliable Sources/Noticeboard is a good alternative to a WP:BEFORERFC? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:09, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it's also important to note what the opinions on the request are. If the proposal is universally accepted/rejected, then per WP:SNOW there's no need for an RfC. Same goes if it can be resolved in some other way. Wikieditor662 (talk) 20:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

About this stuff: components that disqualify it as a reliable source: (I). Primary. (II). Affiliated with the subject. (III.) Non-notable and (IV). Cannot be confirmed by reliable secondary sources

@Deathnotekll2, you seem to have confused the rules for WP:General notability guideline with the rules for Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources. WP:PRIMARY sources can be reliable for article content; non-independent sources can be reliable for article content; non-notable sources can be reliable for article content (and if that weren't true, then most textbooks and reference works would be banned); and information that isn't truly exceptional doesn't require more than one source.

I suggest reading the FAQ at the top of Wikipedia talk:Verifiability, the bullet list at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE, and also Wikipedia:Independent does not mean secondary (because a lot of editors confuse the two). WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deathnotekll2, It's time to WP:DROPTHESTICK. You've gotten no support here. Please find some other way to contribute constructively to the project. At this point you're wasting everyone's time. Toddst1 (talk) 20:14, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you speak on behalf of the entire Wikipedia and all of its editors?

Are you attempting to pressure for the closure of this discussion? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:30, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Deathnotekll2, I wrote a page giving advice to people who find themselves in the exact situation you are in. A lot of folks say that it helped them. You can find it at WP:1AM. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To get back to the actual issue, what exactly is being contested? It seems that from other sources that Sister Khanti-Khema was ordained in the US by Bhante Vimalaramsi[54]. Is it that this was not the first woman ordained by an American on US soil? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If it's is the latter you will need a source showing that an earlier ordination of this kind happpened. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but not necessarily.

The organization responsible for the claim has the onus of proof.

A source proving an earlier event happened can be used as supporting evidence. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:37, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, reliable sources say it was the first as per the link in my comment. It's now on you to show otherwise. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Precisely. This information is not verifiable in any way.

An ordination - by the catholic church, by a buddhist temple, whatever it is - is a small event that generally does not cause the need for examination of its factual data.

However, the three articles spin the idea that she is "the first in history", asserting a bold claim to fame. Otherwise, why would she even be mentioned in the article?

If one were to insert a random priest no one heard about as "being simply ordained by another", Wikipedia would readily remove the passage as it is unimportant. Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:35, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As per my link the Sri-Lankan Daily Mirror, which would be considered generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG, says she was the first such ordained woman. At this point it's up to you to show reliable sources that it isn't the case, as sources show say it was. That you may personally think it isn't plausible doesn't matter, you need to have something to back it up. That's either something to show that the statement itself is false, or an early ordination actually happened. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:42, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In case you didn't know, the Daily Mirror Sri Lanka's article you have quoted is a press release placed by the organization "DhammaSukha.org"

It is not journalism.

For more information, see Woodroar's analysis in "Bhante Vimalaramsi's" AfD (2nd Nomination). Deathnotekll2 (talk) 20:47, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where does it say that it's a press release, I can't find anything in the article to that effect? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:50, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reading Woodroar analysis I would disagree, I don't see that it's definitely a press release. It's obviously based on details that have been, at least in part, provide by Bhante Vimalaramsi Mahathera or whoever was organising his talk, but I don't think it can be dismissed as a press release without any other evidence. That wouldn't have made any difference to the AfD, one source doesn't make an article. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:59, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Take a look at a different article from the same newspaper: https://www.dailymirror.lk/latest-news/Elon-Musks-1tn-pay-deal-approved-by-Tesla-shareholders/342-324342

Now, compare it to this one: https://www.dailymirror.lk/news-features/Dhamma-Teaching-for-Daily-Life/131-140058

What is the difference between them? Deathnotekll2 (talk) 21:12, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Attributed, solved. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 21:20, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Blog written by an academic

Hello,

I am interested in potentially using this blog (https://theartofsouthasia.com/2019/04/11/the-vi%E1%B9%A3%E1%B9%87u-temple-of-adityasena-at-aph%E1%B9%A3a%E1%B8%8D-bihar/) to expand the archaeology section of the Later Gupta dynasty article. After doing some research, it looks like the blog is authored by Lakshmi Greaves who is an art historian at Cardiff University. Link to her profile: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/greavesl

Would the blog post be considered WP:RS? Ixudi (talk) 10:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Blog of researcher w prior publications (in the same field ofc) is covered under WP:EXPERTSPS, so it can be used. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:45, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

She looks to be a relevant subject-matter expert under WP:SPS. I'd consider this reliable, at least for factual descriptions. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 12:46, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems ok to use with some general care of course. Ramos1990 (talk) 19:54, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the others above- okay to use as she is an expert. However, I would be careful to only use the source for facts and not personal experiences which seem to be majority of the content of the blog. Wikipedia:SPS says that "if the information in question is suitable for inclusion, someone else will likely have published it in independent, reliable sources," - so, I'd recommend looking at peer-reviewed sources first to confirm that the information you want to add hasn't been published elsewhere. If it hasn't, then use the blog. Swirlymarigold (talk) 17:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rudolf Steiner

Collin-Smith, Joyce; Wilson, Colin (2004). "Introduction". Call No Man Master. Authors On Line Ltd. p. v. ISBN 978-0-7552-0116-7. Retrieved 7 November 2025. for the claim "Rudolf Steiner was a guru".

On one hand, citing Colin Wilson would be okay. On the other hand, it's WP:SPS. So, I have doubts about this source. Please chime in. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:19, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the statement in the article, I feel like at some point past a dozen sources for the same claim you'd start to run into diminishing returns? Like, any more than 4 or 5 and you should probably start considering what is novel/different about this one. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:00, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"If a viewpoint is in the majority, then it should be easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts;" from WP:NPOV. That's my reasoning for wanting many sources. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:38, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think I would interpret that clause as encouraging a focus on quality over quantity. After all, while "reference texts" is in the plural, the adjective used is commonly accepted and not, say, many reference texts. One or two books from George Guru et al., who are each really important people in guruology, would beat five, ten, or really any number of sources from just anyone, really. Ideally you'd be looking for secondary sources that take a look at the sources calling him a guru and describe how the term is used, but those are probably going to be rare, and it's not an explicit requirement unless you want to establish an academic consensus. Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:25, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

agree with the above. See also WP:OVERKILL —Rutebega (talk) 17:07, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

When NPOV says that it's talking about finding the balance in an article, rather than a need to add lots of references to an article. If someone questions that balance, then as part of a discussion you should be able to show that's it's "easy to substantiate it with references to commonly accepted reference texts" that the balance is correct. For very controversial statements that are commonly challenged putting 3-5 of the strongest sources can help stop repetitive discussions, but it's not required by WP:V or WP:NPOV. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:50, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is an idea that the lead should be a summary or an article, with the references included in the article below. For the lead, I'd go beyond "is it sourced" and ask "is this what the person is notable for"? There sure is a lot of labels throw in the lead, and I don't think they are useful, educational, or add anything to the article. I notice later on it says "An author stated that Steiner was a guru" I would change it to "Colin Wilson described him as a guru..." but go beyond the label, and talk about what that means and why it's significant. Does it really matter if he's a guru or a master or a teacher or another synonym? Denaar (talk) 06:16, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you have multiple sources saying the same thing, you shouldn't give WP:INTEXT attribution to just one of them.

Another thing to consider is whether there are sources explicitly disagreeing with this claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:47, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Bloomberg Law News

Is Bloomberg Law News a reliable source?

URL: news.bloomberglaw.com

Link Search	Fulltext
Google	Whois

From Bloomberg Law, it is stated that Bloomberg Law is a subscription-based service that uses data analytics and artificial intelligence for online legal research, so Bloomberg Law should be generally unreliable. However, what about Bloomberg Law News, a.k.a. their news platform? SuperGrey (talk) 17:21, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't seen an issue with them in the past but that was before the LLM AI bubble hit. What I've seen doesn't suggest AI is being used (at least, not as a final product). Masem (t) 17:24, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Uses artificial intelligence for online legal research" does not equal "uses LLMs to write articles." Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:56, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AI in online legal research would typically be used for stuff like algorithms for finding relevant cases when practitioners search for cases or providing summaries of how a particular court/judge is likely to rule based on their past rulings. Unless there's evidence that it's being used to write articles, the news articles should be fine -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 20:45, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Masem, Patar knight, Tioaeu8943: To prevent the discussion from deviating too far -- I just want to know what's the reliability rating of Bloomberg Law News. Is it generally reliable, or marginally reliable, if it is not unreliable? SuperGrey (talk) 21:58, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Unless you have evidence to the contrary, or there are concerns about an individual article (even RSs get things wrong), it should be generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG since it's part of Bloomberg. They appear to have staff writers per some profiles on LinkedIn (e.g. [55] among many at [56]) and the page for pitches indicates editorial control that includes a fact checking and corrections process. [57] -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 00:02, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

They seem to be within generally reliable. Masem (t) 00:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As our article on Bloomberg Law goes on to say, “Bloomberg Law combines content from Bloomberg's global news network, legal analysis, court dockets, legal filings and reports from Bloomberg legal analysts as well as business news and information. Attorneys can also draw upon stock charts, search patent histories and find information about relevant judges and attorneys.” News reports from Bloomberg Law are generally reliable and are respected and given credence within the legal profession. The reliability of other types of information varies by the type of information, but Bloomberg Law is seen as being as credible as any other source. John M Baker (talk) 07:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Contradiction between sources

We have contradictory sources regarding the early history of the city of Stepanakert/Khankendi. The current version of the article refers to historian Robert H. Hewsen, who wrote that:

"Originally called Vararakn, this Armenian village on the right bank of the Gargar (Arm. Karkaṙ) River was renamed Khankendi in 1847."

However, this information contradicts primary Russian imperial sources. The earliest Russian census of 1823 already refers to Khankendi, and Russian imperial records and maps do not mention any settlement called Vararakn. Therefore, it could not have been renamed Khankendi in 1847 if it was already known by that name in 1823.

In the "Description of the Karabakh Province", compiled in 1823 by order of the Governor-General of Georgia and Caucasus, Aleksey Yermolov, and authored by State Councillor Mogilevsky and Colonel Yermolov II, in the section titled “Estate belonging to the former Karabakh Khan Mehti Quli Khan”, Mogilevsky and Yermolov wrote that the newly settled Armenian village of Khan-Kendy was established by the former Karabakh Khan Mehti Quli Khan and was his estate, which he had gifted to his wife, Badridjagan Begum. After Mehti Quli Khan and his wife fled from the Russian Empire, the village was transferred to the Russian treasury (see page 291, the text is in Russian).

The name of Khankendi (spelled as Ханъ‑Кентъ or Ханъ Кянды) can also be found on Imperial Russian maps from before 1847, for example this one from 1842: [58] or this one from 1838: [59]

Robert H. Hewsen is a respected expert on the ancient history of Armenia and the South Caucasus, but not as much on the Russian imperial era.

I would like to ask for assistance with this matter: how can we reconcile the apparent contradiction between the secondary modern source, which claims a renaming in 1847, and the primary Russian imperial sources, which clearly mention the village of Khankendi as existing in 1823 and 1838? Grandmaster 12:29, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Тифлис, 1866". Slatersteven (talk) 12:35, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, 1866 is the date of publication. But the document is from 1823, as is clear from the title Описание Карабагской провинции, составленное в 1823 г.. — Тифлис, 1866. Grandmaster 12:38, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And do we know if any changes were made in those 40 years? This is why we try not to use primary sources. Slatersteven (talk) 12:40, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is the original text. It is considered one of the most important sources on the history of Karabakh region. Grandmaster 12:44, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. It is also not uncommon for places in the Caucasus to have more than one name. Nowhere does the primary sources mention that Khankendi was the official designation of the place. That is Grandmasters own deduction, which is against WP:OR/WP:SYNTH, which they have been told countless times to refrain from, yet still do. If their theories are right, I'm sure there are actual WP:RS about it. HistoryofIran (talk) 12:44, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that the claim that the village was renamed in 1847 contradicts the available primary sources, which show the name Khankendi in use well before 1847. Also, WP:OR does not apply to the talk page discussions. Grandmaster 12:50, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Editors should not interpret primary documentation to counter works by trained historians. Instead try to find other works on the issue that have raised the same issue -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:35, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your opinion. This topic is little researched, and even Hewsen only makes a brief remark about it in his map atlas. But I'll check to see if any secondary sources are available. Grandmaster 09:55, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

...yet you immediately proceed to repeat your interpretations again at Talk:Stepanakert [60]. Yes, a secondary source would be good. HistoryofIran (talk) 15:00, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A settlement might have had multiple names, especially in the multilingual South Caucasus of the 19th century. As far as I know the Tatar/Azerbaijani language was the lingua franca, so it would've made sense for the Russians to use it for their maps. Note that the Azerbaijani names are also used for Sevan, Yerevan and Goris on this map.

It's not improbable that there was some kind of a decree fixing the official name in 1847. Also, the publishers of the Description might have used the name that was official in 1866. But these are just my speculations.

I'd suggest looking for more Russian-language secondary sources. I'd be surprised if this toponym appeared only on two maps and nowhere else. Alaexis_¿question? 19:12, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The base of WP:RS is "Each book, article, or other source needs to be credible for supporting the particular claim(s) it supports." You might think a book or article is generally reliable, but - I've got a New York Times article that says an event happened on the 19th and every piece of evidence and other articles and event calendars all say it was the 18th. The New York Times article is clearly wrong. That doesn't mean I dismiss the NY Times outright, but on that specific particular claim? It's wrong. So, I think it's fair to evaluate sources in that way, if a source is clearly wrong. Denaar (talk) 06:22, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I found an English translation of the aforementioned 1823 tax census by George Bournoutian, which includes a footnote by the author confirming that the 1823 document mentions the present-day city of Stepanakert/Khankendi. Please see the relevant quote below:

11. Khan-Kendi.² – A newly settled Armenian village, administered by kevkha David.

Tax-paying families: 25. Tax-exempt families: 15. The tax-paying families consisted of 5 ranjbars, 17 newly settled and 3 former residents. Six poor families, 2 priests, 2 kevkhas, 2 ranjbars belonging to the khan’s nokar Alpanah-Beg, the children of the late Kevkha David, and the family of chitkar-oghli or the master of printed calico, were exempt.

The village paid no taxes except for the mal-u-jehat and darughalik dues. However all the farmers from the various villages, which belonged to the khan, in all the mahals had to plow and till the land using their own 10 plows for 2 days and give the treasury 26½ quarters and 4 garnets of wheat worth 483.13 rubles. The mal-u-jehat last year was 15 quarters of wheat worth 291 rubles. The darughalik was 70 rubles and 10 quarters of wheat, worth 259 rubles. The total revenue was 1,033.13 rubles in local currency, or 164 rubles and 4 kopeks in Russian currency.

The khan gifted this village to his wife Badri-Jahan Begum, who fled with him abroad and it now belongs to the Karabagh treasury. The village paid no taxes because it was newly settled. The local officials have to examine and determine the taxes. There is also a family from this village that lives in Shushi and is listed as such in the city register.

Footnote:

2. It refers to Stepanakert, the current capital of Mountainous Karabagh.

Bournoutian, George A. The 1823 Russian Survey of the Karabagh Province: A Primary Source on the Demography and Economy of Karabagh in the Early Nineteenth Century. Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 2011, pp. 381–382.

This means we now have a secondary source proving that Khankendi was already known by that name in Russian records, which refutes Robert Hewsen’s claim that the settlement was renamed to Khankendi in 1847. This source also aligns with the contemporary imperial Russian records and maps that I cited above. I think that should settle the question, since both primary and secondary sources contradict Hewsen and confirm the existence of a settlement named Khankendi well before 1847, dating back at least to 1823. Grandmaster 11:05, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You’re ignoring what you’ve just been told, including still adding your own interpretations to a primary source text. Nowhere does Bournoutian say what you just mentioned. HistoryofIran (talk) 11:57, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Did you see the footnote? Grandmaster 12:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"2. It refers to Stepanakert, the current capital of Mountainous Karabagh." Yes, it is no secret that Khankendi is one of the names of present-day Stepanakert. Are you done making your own interpretations? EDIT: Also, to clarify, nowhere does Bournoutian support you against Hewsen. No one is denying that the name Khankendi existed before. You however, keep denying that it was first made official in 1847 without any WP:RS. HistoryofIran (talk) 12:29, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think "renamed" means? According to Hewsen, the village was renamed to Khankendi from Vararakn in 1847. He does not say that both names were in use. However, Bournoutian also confirms that the place was already called Khankendi in 1823. If it had been renamed, it should have had a different name previously, but this is clearly not the case. Russian records consistently use Khankendi, and it is impossible for a military map published in 1838 to retroactively use a name that was given to the place in 1847. This is my question: how do we reconcile this apparent contradiction in academic sources, Hewsen vs Bournoutian? Can we really say that the place was renamed, when previous records all use the same name? If we do, how do we attribute the differing views? Grandmaster 13:45, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There's no point in repeating stuff when you're not going to read it (again) anyways. HistoryofIran (talk) 14:25, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Grandmaster, here is a source that seems to explain everything (Conflict, Space and Transnationalism. An Ethnography of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, p. 151)

“

The territory of modern Stepanakert encompasses several Armenian villages, including Vararakn, Pahlul and Krkzhan. In the late eighteenth century, the winter pasture of the Shushi Khans was established on the north-eastern side of present-day Stepanakert; it was known as Khaninbagh, the khan's garden. The territories of Khani Bagh were designated as estates of the Shushi Khans and their family members. Among them, there was the medieval Armenian village of Vararakn, which was transformed into a khan's estate and later earned the name Khanḱend, literally "Khan's village". In the 1820s, the population of Vararakn had significantly declined. Official Russian documents mention only 40 Armenian families along with their priests (Balayan 2019, 2020).

In 1835, the Russian military established one of its stations on the eastern edge of Vararakn. The inhabitants of the surrounding Armenian villages were gradually transferred there. In 1847, Prince Khasai Musayevich Utsmiyev, chief of staff of the Mingrelian Egerian regiment of the Russian Army, established more barracks near the village of Vararakn, on a vast plateau which locals soon called the Cossack Post. The new constructions were a significant development in establishing the settlement (Balayan 2019, 2020), renamed Khankendi in honor of the khans of Shushi.

”

There is no contradiction in the sources. Just as I thought, both names were in use in the first half of 19th century and what happened in 1847 was simply an establishment of a military settlement which was given the name Khankendi. Alaexis_¿question? 09:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This was my understanding as well. The year 1847 must have been when Khankendi became a military garrison of the Russian army. It was not renamed to Khankendi in 1847, as other sources indicate that the village was known by that name since the late 18th century, and the earliest official Russian records from 1823 also mention Khankendi. We are currently trying to work out a compromise version on the article’s talk page. I will be very busy today, but I’ll contribute tomorrow. Thanks, everyone, for your help. Grandmaster 09:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Social Star Age and Billionaire Index

Social Star Age is used on Draft:Sambucha to support the statement "Sam Beres was born in a small town in New Jersey and grew up alongside three sisters." and Billionaire Index (archive link) was listed in historical revisions to Draft:Sam Beres, but it wasn't used as an inline footnote. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:25, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would not accept Social Star Age as a reliable source for BLPs. Site was created in 2024, presents as a typical web-scraper tabloid-esque clickbait site, no indication of reliable contributors or site owners, can't find an editorial policy. Their "about us":

Socialstarage.com is a news site for entertainment with photos and videos. It covers Hollywood and foreign celebrity news, profiles, music, movies, TV shows, social media influencers, fun facts, and more. We share a few information and biographies about famous people and celebrities here, such as their Age, Bio, Family, Social Media Profiles, Relationship Status, Net Worth, and some interesting facts about famous people."

Schazjmd (talk) 15:15, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both of those websites are web scrapers and are not reliable. LDW5432 (talk) 14:12, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Both are totally unreliable. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:29, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

soundsjustlike.com

I found this website ([61]) being used on the article Waiting (Green Day song), and I have removed it from the article as not appearing to be a reliable source. To me, it appears to consist almost entirely of user-generated content, and per the homepage is likely a self-published source ("© Sounds Just Like 2013," from the link above). Many may argue that this is a no-brainer source to avoid, but I am mainly starting this discussion to get consensus about potentially adding it to the WP:NOTRSMUSIC list. It is being used in a few other articles ([62]), but I just want to know what others think about this source's use on Wikipedia. JeffSpaceman (talk) 14:27, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Clearly unusuable as it's user-generated. I'm in favor of adding anything that keeps showing up to the list of WP:NOTRSMUSIC, along with Discogs, Whosampled, IMDB etc. Popcornfud (talk) 15:06, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seconded. Sergecross73 msg me 22:41, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Popcornfud:, @Sergecross73: Do either of you have any issues with me adding this source to the WP:NOTRSMUSIC list? JeffSpaceman (talk) 01:27, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Nope! Popcornfud (talk) 02:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. LDW5432 (talk) 13:29, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. Sergecross73 msg me 18:05, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have added this website to WP:NOTRSMUSIC, per the consensus above. JeffSpaceman (talk) 22:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AnglicanWatch and Anglican Ink

Another user (courtesy ping to @Happysociologist) has repeatedly attempted to add contentious material to various articles that is sourced to AnglicanWatch and Anglican Ink. I'd like to get an opinion on whether these are appropriate:

Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic - This AnglicanWatch article, this Anglican Ink post (which appears to be just a regurgitation of a WP:USERGENERATED blog post) and another Anglican Ink post that republishes a press release from the Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic.
Diocese of the Mid-Atlantic - earlier attempt to add primary source material hosted on Anglican Ink
Christopher Warner - adding material from both sources to a BLP.
Incarnation Anglican Church - new page creation that uses both sources for contentious claims. User removed dispute tags on these sources.

Happysociologist insists AnglicanWatch is not self-published and that the Anglican Ink articles are also secondary and reliable to use. diff, diff, diff. I disagree, and per WP:BRD I am coming here to get a broader consensus. Consider:

AnglicanWatch names a single person on its "About" page and some number of unknown anonymous "volunteers". It republishes extensively from other sources with no evidence that it has permission to do so ([63], [64], [65]). What content appears to be original is unbylined/unattributed, highly opinionated and riddled with BLP issues ([66], [67], [68], [69]). I cannot imagine using this source to report on controversial or contentious issues.
Anglican Ink was the subject of an RSN discussion two years ago that rejected it for a particular use but did not reach a judgment on it generally. I would put it in the "unreliable" category. It appears to have two people, and while one of them (George Conger) was once known for his freelance journalism, today the vast, vast majority of what Anglican Ink publishes is reposts of press releases, letters and other primary source documents. I am pinging @StAnselm, @Erp, @Random person no 362478479 and @LPascal from that discussion.

While I would be OK with the use of Anglican Ink in cases where WP:PRIMARYSOURCES are acceptable, I think it's important to reach a determination of whether Anglican Ink is a repository of such sources. I also do not believe AnglicanWatch should be acceptable except in the very limited cases where WP:SPS are permitted. I welcome thoughts from other editors. Dclemens1971 (talk) 23:51, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the content in dispute, I see exactly why this discussion is appropriate. While I consider the WashPo portion of that edit seems actually DUE, I think Dclemens1971 is right that AnglicanWatch is not an RS. I would hold that it should only be used for uncontroversial information the same way someone's own blog might be accepted for material on themselves. Anglican Ink might be worth evaluating more on a case-by-case basis, but it's not useful for much more than SPS stuff. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 01:49, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Good assessment. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 17:27, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It may be worthwhile to add Ministry Watch to this discussion. It is similar to Anglican Watch in that it is an independent 501(c)(3) frequently cited in articles covering U.S. and international news about church abuse. [70] In particular, Anglican Watch, Ministry Watch, and Anglican Ink have been some of the only sources covering sexual misconduct in the ACNA, a conservative group which split from the Episcopal Church over its ordination of a homosexual bishop. [71] For example, Anglican Ink was the first to break the news about allegations against Steve Wood, the archbishop of the ACNA, before the Washington Post did. [72] In one instance, Dclemens1971 removed [73] such material from the Steve Wood article under the incorrect rationale that Anglican Ink is a "primary source." I concur that a determination of reliability is much needed for these sources. Happysociologist (talk) 03:24, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

501(c)(3) status is irrelevant to whether an outlet is a reliable source. I would consider Ministry Watch to be more on the side of a reliable secondary source. While it does not have a masthead page, it does have a page describing its editorial approach and organizational structure. It also distinguishes between straight news and opinion.

I am genuinely unsure what Happysociologist thinks Anglican Ink is if it's not a primary source. Looking at the most recent 10 items posted on the site as of this comment, reprints of statements by religious leaders ([74], [75], [76]), reposted articles from other websites ([77], [78], [79]), regurgitated press releases ([80], [81], [82]), and a summary of a primary source document ([83]). I don't see any evidence that there is original reporting going on here. It's fine to use the primary sources subject to the limitations of WP:PRIMARYSOURCES but not as a secondary source. Dclemens1971 (talk) 04:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I did not assert that 501(c)(3) status is relevant to reliability, but you have repeatedly referred to Anglican Watch in other places as "one guy's blog" and a "self-published source," which is not an accurate characterization. It is no different from Ministry Watch in that respect.

Anglican Ink publishes a variety of source material including some that is primary and some that is secondary. You have provided a selection of primary sources, but there are also a number of secondary sources. (Example: [84]) Some of these you have inaccurately characterized as primary sources. Happysociologist (talk) 04:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for pinging me to ask my opinion about these sources. Although I do follow some church abuse news in other countries including USA and UK, I find it difficult to definitively make a decision on the reliability of AnglicanWatch, Anglican Ink and MinistryWatch. I do not regularly read any of those sites but have just briefly reviewed them for making these comments. My impression of Anglican Watch is that it is a self published blog started by a single person who experienced church abuse and wants to expose that church and abuse by other churches. Some of his articles are very critical of people and he names them and uses name-calling eg "bunch of shameless hypocrites", "stupid jackass". Although I sympathise with those who are survivors of church abuse and who wish to expose abuse, I don't think AnglicanWatch should be used as a source by itself and its claims need to be checked against independent news sources. I previously questioned AnglicanInk as a reliable source primarily as it seemed to be run by just one person and published articles from elsewhere including the source I was most concerned about which is davidould.net. That is definitely a self published blog which regularly trolls and criticises women clergy and releases synod documents and correspondence which he may not have permission for. So I wanted to ensure that biased opinion and calumny from davidould.net was not republished on Wikipedia via AnglicanInk. AnglicanInk seems to republish without comment or investigation quite a few articles from Sydney Anglicans who distance themselves from the worldwide Anglican communion. MinistryWatch seems more of a valid reliable source. It has a variety of writers and separates Opinion from News articles. LPascal (talk) 08:14, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AnglicanWatch is effectively a personal website, unless evidence of widespread use by others can be provided. Doesn't meet WP:RS, anything cited exclusively to it should be removed. Anything for WP:BLP must be removed immediately.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability of Signals CV and VV Daily Press for entertainer biographies

Both of these sources were mentioned at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Brian Hull (impressionist) where they were referred to as a "decent writeup in a local distribution newspaper" and "another California new piece" respectively. I haven't seen the deleted article, so I can't tell you if either of these sources had been used there to begin with. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 02:05, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are the other sources (that described this source) reliable themselves? If so, and they described this source as reliable, then I don't see why you wouldn't consider it as such. Wikieditor662 (talk) 02:15, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Would they be considered reliable enough to help towards GNG if their coverage of Brian Hull was significant?" is what I'm asking. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 11:24, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Signals CV seems like an established local news paper, and so should be reliable. As ever with local news papers they will be most reliable for their local area, I would hesitate to use them for national or global issues. The VV Daily Press (archive for anyone having issue accessing the particular article) seems the same, they are owned by New Media Investment Group (e.g. USA Today) who are considered generally reliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:11, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see many articles using Signals CV as a reliable source for local issues. LDW5432 (talk) 13:19, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Usage in articles isn't always a great way to judge reliability, Wikipedia itself is very commonly used as a reference venue though it's explicitly not allowed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:23, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

A self-published blog is not a reliable source for a BLP

It is being claimed that the personal blog of Tony Ortega is a reliable source for the article Massimo Introvigne. I do not how to evaluate Tony Ortega's academic expertise in Scientology criticism (I see his article describes him as a self-published author and sometime editor of alternative weekly newspapers), but I think it is unacceptable to describe his non-peer reviewed personal blog as an expert source on the topic of Introvigne's life and work, and this is a violation of WP:BLPSPS. NotBartEhrman (talk) 14:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Applying WP:USEBYOTHERS to Ortega's blog would seem to suggest that it falls under WP:EXPERTSPS for matters pertaining to Scientology.

In this particular case, where the blog is being cited to cover the contents of the blog, it's verifiable, however, being verifiable is not sufficient justification for inclusion. Unless others have covered Ortega's blog posts about the Journal of CESNUR, there would be a serious question of WP:DUE.

I would suspect that this content would be DUE for the article CESNUR, but it's quite arguable at a BLP article.

@Feoffer:, if you could find any third-party coverage of Ortega's blog, I believe that would settle the matter. Without such coverage, I would suggest forming a consensus at talk. This doesn't actually seem to be a question of reliability. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 14:25, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Personal blogs are never reliable sources on BLP's, unless it is written by the BLP in question. The content in question is actually about CESNUR and should be proposed there instead. But it is not approropriate on the Massimo Introvigne article. --Kyohyi (talk) 15:04, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It says something about an academic book. WP:CITE that book and everyone is happy. tgeorgescu (talk) 15:26, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

User:PARAKANYAA found an academic source which helpfully balances Ortega's criticism against the more measured responses of academics. However, despite this compromise solution, User:Feoffer is continuing to add links to Ortega into the article and has ignored my request to discuss this here. Since Feoffer does not want to discuss this I will now adhere to WP:BLPREMOVE, which states that I can continue removing the personal blog above and beyond 3RR. NotBartEhrman (talk) 13:29, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Feoffer does not want to discuss Hey NBE -- the topic has been under active discussion over Talk:Massimo Introvigne#Tony Ortega and the Underground Bunker, we should have explicitly invited you to participate. Apologies on that. Feoffer (talk) 13:45, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

beacons.ai

This source has been cited in some biographical articles and drafts. Is it generally unreliable for biographies? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:48, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going by the front page, this appears not so much a source as a host. Looking at the first few links that you bring up, it appears to be being used for about-self-type material. Asking whether it's reliable is like asking if wordpress or any other blog host is reliable -- it depends on the individual user site and what it's being used for. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 15:10, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Looking through the articles and drafts[85] they all appear to be WP:ABOUTSELF or links to beacons.ai as the official URL of the subject. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:30, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Beacons.ai, a platform self-described as "Powered by AI", publishes a blog full of obviously LLM-generated content marketing posts, all of which ends in a call-to-action advertisement for Beacons.ai. These posts are claimed to be authored by a single individual named "Gabby Reyes" of the "Beacons Editorial Team", and despite the stated role, show no evidence of editorial oversight. Examples include "Salish Matter Bio: Age, Family & Facts" cited in Draft:Salish Matter, and "Sharky Bio: Age, Family & Facts" cited in Draft:Sharky (YouTuber). These pages are generally unreliable per WP:RSML and WP:SPS, and should never be used to substantiate claims about living people per WP:BLPSPS.

Also, Linktree was added to the global spam blacklist after it was abused to bypass the local spam blacklist, and Beacons.ai may also be added to the global spam blacklist if it is abused in a similar way, per WP:ELREDIRECT. — Newslinger talk 11:40, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Etymonline.com (AKA the Online Etymological Dictionary)

I previously used this in an edit so as to source the etymology of the word "oncology." Judging by our article on it, Etymonline appears to be reliable for word etymologies, though I would like to hear what others here think about its reliability. Has it been discussed before? Amateur Truther (talk) 15:03, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The last discussion about it appears to beWikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 306#etymonline from August 2020, it wasn't very positive. The main issue appears to be that it's a work by an non-expert[86], see it's 'about us' page[87]. It does have a list of source that were used that might be of help to find better sources[88]. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:42, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per WP:SPS: Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. The authors of Etymonline are not subject-matter experts, as they are neither etymologists nor lexicologists. Etymonline is a self-published source with seemingly no editorial policy. The veracity of the individual entries are difficult to verify as the sources are just relegated to one massive list (no one's gonna fact check that!).

Etymonline is cited widely by both amateurs and scholars, but I have not seen any thorough assessment of its accuracy or academic rigour. The claims I found about Etymonline in papers on Google Scholar were vague or presented without evidence/sourcing.

In any case, I'd rather we defer to peer-reviewed sources and publications by subject-matter experts rather than blogs. ArcticSeeress (talk) 07:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware it's considered a bit of a dodgy source by some etymologists / historical linguists. One thing I noticed about it long ago is that it gives half-assed spellings of PIE roots without laryngeals and tone marks (see "name" for example), which is just negligent for an English etymology dictionary. There are other sources which explain the root of "oncology", like MW. – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 08:45, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I find it hard to imagine a situation where Etymonline should be cited. It lacks all indicia of reliability and is never consulted by lexicographers. (I am a member of the American Dialect Society, the leading American society of lexicographers, and Etymonline simply never comes up.) Meanwhile, excellent etymological sources are readily available. For example, OneLook provides links to multiple dictionaries with etymological information. John M Baker (talk) 09:27, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The i Paper. Launched by The Independent but printed by Daily Mail. Reliable?

This is not an RfC. I have not seen any discussion on the reliability of The i Paper. It is nonpartisan and has never endorsed any British political party. It was launched by The Independent, which is considered reliable. but is printed by Daily Mail, which is deprecated per WP:DAILYMAIL. It is published in tabloid format, but is not classed as such. They are a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation and maintain editorial standards with a large team for this, and also take feedback from readers when errors arise (see this webpage). CMA also enforces the paper to be run separately as of 2019. I am left confused, hence why I am asking for opinions here! Thanks! 11WB (talk) 15:18, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it's owned and printed by the same head company as the Daily Mail doesn't mean anything. For instance The Sun is largely considered a pile of garbage but is owned by the same company as The Times which is considered one of the more reliable newspapers in the UK. Rambling Rambler (talk) 15:24, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Generally reliable per WP:NEWSORG unless credible concerns are raised. As Rambling Rambler said having the same publisher as a unreliable source isn't an issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jewish Currents

I've seen it used on many articles and I saw it mentioned on some discussions on the noticeboard archives, but I am wondering if anyone knows how to treat this source, and if this should be with certain caveats or not. It is currently (unless I made a mistake with Ctrl+F) not mentioned on the perennial sources list. Slomo666 (talk) 18:36, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The reliability of a source depends on its context. Please supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 18:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 19:01, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies,

I think I misunderstood the purpose of the noticeboard. I don't dispute the source's reliability, I just ran into it a number of times and wondered if such a niche publication can be considered generally reliable. Sorry.

The most recent encounter I had would be one where an individual is cited by them:

"Can Genocide Studies Survive a Genocide in Gaza?"

in International Association of Genocide Scholars

to support

Jürgen Zimmerer argued that instead of genocide being an aberration, perhaps "the world system is itself the root cause of genocide". A number of scholars, including Zimmerer, founded INoGS as an alternative to the IAGS.

(At least, if my adjacent edit has not accidentally moved things around too much.)

Slomo666 (talk) 19:33, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There it’s being cited for his opinion not for a fact, so the question is more about whether his opinion is due which in this case it seems to be. BobFromBrockley (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Actually what I said is probably not quite right as JC was reporting his opinion and the fact that he founded INoGS. I think articles by its own staff or by external subject matter experts would be generally reliable for that sort of claim but that it’s a weaker source than more heavyweight RSs and not good for anything extraordinary or contentious. BobFromBrockley (talk) 06:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My impression of it has generally been positive and I have not heard of any reason to think otherwise. It's niche in the sense that it is a magazine representing the perspectives of left-leaning or progressive American Jews but as a relatively small publication it punches above its weight. Opinions published there may be controversial, but I am not aware of it ever having published falsities (unlike, say, The Jewish Chronicle in the UK). For more background see The New Yorker: [89] (this Wikipedia page has a mention in the article). I'd consider Jewish Currents generally reliable. Andreas JN 466 15:04, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree. Thanks for the detailed description. Slomo666 (talk) 15:22, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AssyriaPost

Hello,

I've seen this website used multiple times in topics related to WP:GS/ACAS, and was told by Bushranger to check with you if it qualifies as a NON-WP:RS. From what I can tell, the website began publishing on 1 April 2025. It has been cited numerous times, and when I tried correcting the articles and removing the source on Ant Wan and Ricky Rich, my edits were reverted with the explanation that it’s not clear why the source is unreliable.

After doing my own due diligence, I don’t believe this qualifies as a WP:INDEPENDENT source. Its reporting, and even its name, appears closely tied to the topic it covers, namely Assyrian issues. There are no listed authors or background details about the publishers, and the “About” section only states that it provides “coverage of Assyrian issues – both in Assyria and across the diaspora.” 777network (talk) 21:31, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Assyria Post's about page indicates no editorial policy or editorial team, the contact page has a single E-mail address, their articles have no authorship attribution, and their social media accounts (Instagram, X) provide no info on who runs them. According to WHOIS, assyriapost.com was registered in August 2025 through the service "Withheld for Privacy", making it fairly obvious that the operator does not want people to be able to identify them. There is no way to ascertain whether this is an accredited journalistic agency or a blog because they refuse to identify themselves or their credentials. Err on the side of caution and consider them a self-published source. Any info cited to this website should be removed, especially on BLPs. ArcticSeeress (talk) 11:08, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sources regarding German motorcycle racer: Auto.de, Nordbayern.de, and Speedweek.com

During an AfD I started for the BLP Luca Amato, someone found sources that ostensibly demonstrate the subject's notability. However, before I reconsider my stance, I'd like to know whether they are reliable. I don't speak German nor am I from Germany, so I can't be too sure on them. (Not putting Rheinische Post here considering that one does appear reliable from first glance.)

Auto.de: [90]
Nordbayern.de: [91]
Speedweek.com: [92], [93], [94]

Lazman321 (talk) 23:50, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Auto.de is an online car dealership. It is not clear if their magazine has a public editorial policy, nor is it clear if they even have any editors.

Nordbayern.de has an editorial policy and editors. It seems to be frequently cited in deletion discussions on dewiki.

Speedweek.com has an editorial team, but I could not find an editorial policy. They are owned by Redbull, so there may be a conflict of interest if the subject is affiliated with Redbull. ArcticSeeress (talk) 09:16, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Journal Publisher Reliability ???

Does Inernational Journal of Creative Research Thoughts (IJCRT). Reliable or Not. ??

I have seen many Journals on site which may helpful in future for My New Drafts/Articles. 獅眠洞 (talk) 12:33, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is certainly unreliable. The website seems like a joke and has spelling errors. I think for a fee they would publish anything. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 13:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts seems like a predatory journal. I'd be wary of using them to city any information, especially for BLPs. ArcticSeeress (talk) 13:18, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Headbomb, @SuperGrey, do you have this on your lists? WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:57, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pinging me. Added it to the predatory journal list. SuperGrey (talk) 09:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability of the website SyriacPress

For context, I'm a participant in the topic area alongside Wikipedia:GS/ACAS. Frequently I encounter a number of citations attributed to Syriac Press, and I have even cited some articles from the page myself. However, owing to the concerns of reliability for the site Assyria Post (post above), I wanted to enquire about this site as well. Based on the above post, there are criteria that are cause for concern about SP's reliability:

The about page details aims and objectives of the site, as well as a span of coverage. Similarly to AP, there is no editorial policy listed (although there is a page outlining guidelines for article contributors), and the contact page has only a single email address.
WHOIS for SP has all contact and personal information for the site owners listed as "REDACTED FOR PRIVACY".
Social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram) provide no info on who runs the site.
Articles do not cite contributors; see a recent example [95]
The CiteHighlighter script by Novem Linguae marks SP with orange since "blog" is used in its URL
Another contributor in the topic area, @Shmayo, has also contested content by SyriacPress, see for example [96]. There are also suggestions that the site is run by Dawronoye, which Shmayo has mentioned previously (hence why I'm pinging them to this discussion if they can provide more info on this).

Any input on the reliability of SP will be greatly beneficial, especially since a lot of articles in the topic area cite it as a source. Surayeproject3 (talk) 16:00, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Their opinion section lists some of their authors. LDW5432 (talk) 19:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think your skepticism is reasonable. It shares many of the same qualities with Assyria Post discussed above, and it seems more like a blog with occasional external contributors. I cannot find any RSs that use the Syriac Press as a source. Based on these findings, I don't think Syriac Press should be used a source on Wikipedia, especially not on BLPs. Caveat: the standard WP:SPS policy probably applies to the articles written by named contributors: Self-published sources may be considered reliable if published by an established subject-matter expert, whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications. ArcticSeeress (talk) 15:20, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Surayeproject3, you should probably look at WP:NOTGOODSOURCE. The kinds of things you're looking at are tangential. We actually don't care how they register their domain name (protecting privacy is the default for some registrars) or whether their social media pages make it easy to doxx the staff.

I'm not saying that this is a reliable source, but you should look at things like whether they issue corrections for mistakes before you look at things like how many e-mail addresses are on the website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call trying to find out the editors or authors of a publication (if there indeed are any) the same as doxxing. This information makes it easier to figure out their credentials and whether the source is independent. WP:SOURCE states that these are important characteristics that WP editors use to discuss the potential reliability of a source. ArcticSeeress (talk) 09:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ArcticSeeress So let's say, hypothetically, that either of these two publications begin to have attributed individuals and is clear what their position is / who they're affiliated with. The articles are also cited elsewhere in other publications. Would this be cause for a new discussion regarding their reliability? Surayeproject3 𖢗 19:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously I can't predict the future, but if the source does change, then consensus on its relability would probably change. That consensus would likely be achieved through discussion (though that isn't stricly speaking necessary, see WP:Consensus and, more specifically, WP:Consensus can change). Most of the time, when consensus on a source's reliablity changes, it is mostly for the worse, e.g. Red Ventures' ZDNET, which was "downgraded" from "generally reliable" to "generally unreliable". Other times, they may be "upgraded", e.g. the Washington Free Beacon, where the consensus changed from "generally unreliable" to "generally reliable". If the Syriac Press does change to become more reliable, I would be happy to change my mind. ArcticSeeress (talk) 19:53, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

RfC: reliability of the BBC

Closed as per WP:SNOW. There is no indication whatsoever that there is consensus to change the status of the BBC as a generally reliable source, neither based on the above discussion nor based on this RfC. Cortador (talk) 13:20, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

It's recommended you take a look at this previous discussion before !voting: Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard#BBC: Alleged deceptive editing of video, bias and censorship

Which of the following should apply to the BBC?

Option 1: Generally Reliable

Option 2: Additional Considerations Needed

Option 3: Generally Unreliable

Option 4: Must Be Deprecated

Wikieditor662 (talk) 16:39, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Survey (BBC)

Option 1: Generally Reliable Everyone makes mistakes; the issue is how often and do they repeat the same ones. Slatersteven (talk) 16:56, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1: Generally Reliable To call the BBC unreliable is ridiculous. The question is one of overall reputation not singular incidents. -- GreenC 17:00, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1: Generally Reliable Good Grief. - Walter Ego 17:07, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1: Generally Reliable - The current controversy regarding the BBC is largely based on what continue to be unsubstantiated allegations made in a memo written by an individual whose own credibility has already come under significant scrutiny since for substantial links to the political right.[97] In the days since the initial leak there has been no corroboration of any of the allegations of "systemic left-wing bias" that were made nor original reporting from other publications that you'd expect from such a scandal (i.e. say The Times publishing new allegations from another party) which further suggests there isn't material here to support what's been alleged.

The only item of note that saw a response, the framing of two clips of a Trump speech that some consider to be misleading from a documentary that was released a year ago without any prior controversy over said edit, has seen an apology and admittance of error from the BBC along with resignations which is the sort of things we'd expect from a source we'd consider generally reliable.[98] It's probably also worthwhile to note that the BBC themselves have rather strongly denied the wider allegations at the same time.

After a week of wider reporting at this point I feel confident in saying this has already become a damp squib, and instead groups are in complete bad faith reporting very one-sided allegations as true simply from existing to fit their existing preferred narratives. i.e. many pro-Israel outlets/groups are pointing at mere allegation of pro-Palestinian reporting as conclusive proof the BBC is pro-Palestinian even as the memo completely ignores frequent ongoing criticism from other quarters that consider the BBC to be pro-Israel[99][100], or that the BBC are in the grasp of a "pro-trans" ideology even though it has been widely criticised by LGBT+ groups for reporting they consider to be anti-trans.[101] While not a scientific measure, I do personally place worth on the fact that for many years now most BBC "controversies" over bias amount to claims by groups that the BBC is biased against them for the simple reason it doesn't just present back their preferred view of the world and this current incarnation doesn't appear to be much different to that.

When we consider a source to be "Generally Reliable" we don't expect it to be perfect, which seems to be a misunderstanding amongst some demanding its reduction in judgement. Instead the BBC, from all demonstrated evidence presented at this point, appears to have done is make a single mistake that they re-assessed and apologised for when placed under wider scrutiny (which we'd expect) and faced a bunch of right-wing mud slinging without evidence to back up rather serious accusations. Therefore there are no grounds to warrant a designation of reduced reliability compared to what it currently has. Rambling Rambler (talk) 17:11, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 Absolutely no compelling reason for any other option, when based on overall reliability> ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 17:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 - Having been following the ongoing discussion here on the BBC, I'll say that, while many accusations have been made of their perceived biases & controversies, I remain unconvinced of any outstanding issues regarding their reliability. - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 as part of the generally in generally reliable. They made a mistake, people have resigned and the chairman has apologised. They are trying to make amends it seems. CNC (talk) 17:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Snow close as option 1 what was the point of this rfc? This is a reliable outlet and even great sources are sometimes wrong. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 17:20, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 The Jan6 thing is Not Good, but not enough to change our assessment of the BBC. Bias on LGBTQ or other topics is something to monitor, but does not make them unreliable. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:21, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Given the huge corpus of peer reviewed works about the BBC, its history, and specifically its biases and accuracy, opening an RfC on the basis of breaking news allegations seems like a waste of time, at best. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 17:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 And this perennial issue of any outlet which is perceived as having a left-wing bias being brought up for one of these RfCs every damn time they make a mistake is utterly ridiculous and should be stopped. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 17:35, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just any outlet which is perceived as having a left-wing bias. A thread was started about The Times a couple of days ago. I don't think anyone would accuse its owner of having a left-wing bias. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Phil Bridger a decade ago I might've agreed with you, but these days I think there's probably many who'd take a good shot at claiming Rupert Murdoch was left-wing regardless of how lacking in evidence it is... Rambling Rambler (talk) 18:32, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I've literally had a right-wing troll insist that Murdoch is an 'antifa-funding Soros wannabe' in an online debate less than a week ago. Regardless of that, I do believe that any thread arguing to downgrade the reliability of a GREL source should be able to present numerous instances of unreliability in the opening post, along with accusations of unreliability by third-party RSes such as to demonstrate a pattern of unreliability, and any thread which relies upon a single instance should be shut down by an admin without consideration. In fact, I'd be willing to start an RfC to find a consensus to implement such a rule here. I think these discussions are a ridiculous waste of time, and generally disruptive to the function of this noticeboard. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 18:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1: Generally Reliable per Rosguill. Sergecross73 msg me 18:37, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For what it's worth, I don't know that my own position here is really option 1, but I think that the pre-RfC discussion has neglected to do the homework that actually matters with relevant academic sources. I also suspect that any good faith attempt to downgrade BBC and other papers of record should really be arguing for a change in approach to news publications as a whole. _signed,Rosguill ^talk 18:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah apologies, I had thought that the "Option 1" from Muboshgu's comment was part of your comment upon first glance. Regardless, your comments still mirror my thoughts on why we should retain Option 1. Sorry for the "misquote" of sorts though. Sergecross73 msg me 18:54, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 (Summoned by bot) - Option 1 is "Generally Reliable". It isn't "Always Reliable", which is more than can be asked. We aren't seeing evidence of a long-term decline in reliability, but only a possible error. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2 - I am concerned about their reliability on covering American politics. LDW5432 (talk) 19:36, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There’s literally one evidenced misstep relating to that topic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:09, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 2. The organization quashed an internal report detailing multiple, damaging lapses of editorial judgment, the most serious of which was the fabrication of video released days before the 2024 presidential elections in the US that deceitfully showed Trump calling for violence at the capital. Other problems mentioned in the memo are listed here. Culpable leadership have issued responsibility-avoidant "mistakes were made" apologies but detailed no plans to improve the reliability of coverage. There is an argument for a pre-2024 designation of GREL and a 2024-present of MREL, dated to the issues documented in the Prescott memo. Defenders of the BBC in these comments have enthusiastically attacked the motives of the reporters and news organizations that broke the story of the memo, but have not dealt with the lapses themselves except to dismiss them. The BBC has been broadcasting false and narrative-pushing material akin to, perhaps worse than, the false and narrative-pushing material that prompted editors to designate the NYPOST GUNREL, for which no amount of correction or staff firings were deemed adequate to remedy. Designating the BBC MREL would demonstrate something like consistency of standards. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 19:41, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The source you've used to demonstrate its "other problems" when it comes to anti-Israeli bias is a story written in the Jewish News Syndicate (a source of no established reputation or reliability, but is clearly pro-Israel in terms of editorial view) by someone who their by-line describes as "a former fighter and counterintelligence analyst in the IDF". That is definitely not someone whose second hand reporting we'd consider likely to be credible when it comes to the subject of Israel-Palestine.

Also the link you've provided about the NYPOST quite explicitly doesn't show the NYPOST being declared WP:GUNREL but was a discussion closed as inappropriate (The result of the discussion is procedural close. As the header on this noticeboard suggests, whether a source should be deprecated should only be decided through a project-wide RFC. It's not like the discussion is heading towards a consensus anyway). Rambling Rambler (talk) 19:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As I said, Defenders of the BBC in these comments have enthusiastically attacked the motives of the reporters and news organizations that broke the story of the memo, but have not dealt with the lapses themselves except to dismiss them. Thank you for the demonstration. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 20:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

What do you think there is to address?

Shall we stop claiming that the BBC didn't edit those clips? Oh, wait, nobody's claiming that.

Shall we berate the BBC for failing to acknowledge that they edited the clips? Wait... They didn't do that, did they?

Nobody's 'dismissing' anything. It's just that those of us without an axe to grind against the BBC don't see a single fuckup as evidence that the whole org is unreliable.

I mean, if all of your evidence comes from unreliable sources, and all of it is attacking a source with a long-standing reputation for reliability, that's a pretty damning state of things for your argument. The fact that your unreliable sources produce a single valid datum doesn't really change that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

None of my sources are unreliable. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Jewish News Syndicate is less than 20 years old, and is literally a right-wing "we'll make our own wire service, with hookers and booze!" to the Jewish Telegraph Agency. They've barely been touched upon at this noticeboard, and when they have, the responses have ranged from a suspicious narrowing of the eyes to a half-hearted shrug. If you want to establish something as a fact, you absolutely need a better source than that. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:03, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations on having opinions. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 21:25, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Something something ...but have not dealt with the lapses themselves except to dismiss them. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 23:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Examples included the BBC’s main news website posting 19 separate stories about the hostages taken by Hamas on the day of its terror attack in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered in October 2023, while there was none on the Arabic service. “By contrast, every critical article about Israel that appeared on BBC News English website was replicated by BBC Arabic,” said Prescott.[102] But the problem here is JNS for some reason. Tioaeu8943 (talk) 13:05, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Option 1 A source making a mistake, reporting on their own mistake, and taking responsibility for their own mistake , is the absolute best that could be hoped for from a source. That the BBC has long been criticised for bias by the right and left wing speaks volumes, and even then bias is not a factor in judging reliability (WP:RSBIAS). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:41, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That a organisation didn't release an internal report is of course nothing to do with reliability, if it was every source would have to be rated as unreliable as they certainly have reports that they haven't made publicly available. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:43, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If I didn't know better, I'd swear that those internal reports were meant to be... You know... Internal... ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 20:00, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 and close per WP:SNOW. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:06, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 All sources foul things up occasionally. Some spectacularly. The BBC doesn't come out of this particular incident looking good, but then it is fully aware of the fact. We can't however, reject the entire output of the organisation on the basis of this one incident. I'd have to suggest that it is only the BBC's general prior reputation for objective reporting (or at least an attempt at it, within the confines of its own societal limitations) that has led to this story getting so much media attention. If it had been some obscure tabloid, or a mouthpiece for some random kleptofascist media tycoon, nobody would have taken much notice. So yes, don't always take their word on anything. But that should apply to any source. All the same, I'd say that rejecting the BBC as a source would do a darned sight more damage to Wikipedia content than continuing to use it, appropriately, with a reminder to ourselves that no source is infallible. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:14, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1, per ActivelyDisinterested and others. They continue to have an overall reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, and when they make a mistake, they acknowledge/correct it and hold people to account. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:16, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 and close per WP:SNOW. - Amigao (talk) 20:18, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Too Soon - The accusations are pretty terrible; you've got the Trump quote, reports of anti-Israel bias, [103]] and silencing of discussion on trans issues, [104] which lead to an attempt to block an interview with JK Rowling [105]. And per the BBC [106] it's being formally investigated by the government, "Culture, Media and Sport Committee will hold an evidence session with members of the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee". So this is much wider then "they edited one quote" even though that was a wild edit. Denaar (talk) 20:44, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note - The Culture, Media, and Sport Select Committee are not the government. Select Committees are standing bodies in parliament made up of MPs who regularly ask questions of various bodies. It's not a government investigation. Rambling Rambler (talk) 20:51, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Silencing discussion on trans issues [by promoting a pro-trans agenda]" is definitely a way to describe the outlet that brought us "'We're being pressured'". LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 22:10, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How does the JK Rowling thing suggest unreliability? BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:49, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mr Urban added: “Thus I was in a meeting where one producer with strong views on trans issues tried to veto an interview bid for JK Rowling, saying she was ‘very problematic’ (she didn’t want to come on anyway).”

Yeah that Evening Standard article is hilariously bad journalism. Starts off with an implication that "staff" in general attempted to block an actual planned interview and then eventually quotes the actual substack to reveal that oh it was a singular individual who voiced opposition to it in a meeting and it was entirely hypothetical because there was no interview scheduled. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:19, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1, maybe sliding partway to Option 2 on some topics, but not so far that I'd want to move them out of generally reliable. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 20:47, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1, and we need to note that they are under political attack. Secretlondon (talk) 21:19, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 Top drawer as media organisations go. It is, of course a biased source. It has the biases one would expect of an organisation deeply enmeshed in the British establishment: pro-capitalist, pro-monarchy, supportive of the British model of parliamentary democracy, pro-NATO, atlanticist, pro-Israel. However, these biases are usually less pronounced than in most British media sources.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:55, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 This is an independent company who have been RS for decades and the fact that they are now under attack from the usual suspects at home and abroad should be completely irrelevant to whether they are still an RS. We never change the status of RS when they admit that they have fucked up on a single occasion and admitted it, and whilst some might suggest that they haven't done that here, the fact that it has been admitted should be the end of it. Black Kite (talk) 22:08, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 all media companies have missteps but BBC is as good as virtually an major outlet. The resignation is evidence of taking responsibility for what seems to be overblown criticism. Oblivy (talk) 22:31, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 per arguments in previous discussion, but also Bad RfC, the consensus of the previous discussion was clear and it was well-attended, this is a time waste (why isn't there an essay on community time?). Can someone uninvolved close this please. Kowal2701 (talk) 22:42, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're looking for WP:EDITORTIME, a shortcut which was only recently made. Loki (talk) 22:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Even if there was majority consensus for option 1 (which I'm not 100% sure of), you should see my essay WP:OAFA.

And I think that this topic is a perfect example for why the essay is necessary; this was heavily discussed before the RfC, but after this'll conclude such discussions of this will largely quell, overall saving editors time. Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:37, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 per Rambling Rambler and per arguments in previous discussion, where consensus was already clear so this is a bad RfC and would clearly be due a SNOW close if it wasn’t. BobFromBrockley (talk) 22:52, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 I don't wanna be fully credentialist and go "come on it's the BBC" here. But also the "scandal" in question is very silly. A contractor of the BBC spliced two things that Trump actually did say together, which created a stronger impression than the thing he did say... but the quote was things he literally said, the gist was also accurate (Trump really did try to do a coup), and all this was not done by the BBC but by a contractor anyway. This "scandal" is no worse than taking a quote out of context, which news organizations do all the time. Loki (talk) 23:01, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option1 when the you know what is hitting the fan the beeb is my go too Jp33442 (talk) 23:58, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 logic the same as Oblivy.Red Fiona (talk) 23:57, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Snow Close Option 1. If the BBC isn't WP:RS then nothing is. Knee jerk pandering to political opportunism should be off the table. DeCausa (talk) 00:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1 for facts. It's clear that evidence of bias is there. We need to be careful about using the source for subjective claims stated as fact. The edit in question is deceptive but it's not something we would cite for a fact. It seems unlikely anyone would transcribe that video as a source for a quote. But it does show a clear political bias at least in that area. Of course, this is basically the same way we should be treating most news sources when covering politics. We presume the basic facts are correct but also keep bias in mind when dealing with characterizations. Springee (talk) 12:23, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Option 1.5 - Too soon, still mostly reliable. Specific reports (such as the Panorama program that caused the most recent scandal) can be deemed unreliable - but these are rare and do not (yet) rise to the level of demoting the entire outlet. There is cause for concern, but not (yet) cause for action. Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion (BBC)

I've closed[107] the prior discussion so that editor are direct to the RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:46, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, and do you know why this RfC hasn't been closed under WP:SNOW yet? I'm not necessarily requesting it; I'm just curious. Is it because the fact that it's such a big decision, that more time should be given just in case? Wikieditor662 (talk) 00:34, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It *was*, but Springee unilaterally reverted the close, only to !vote the exact same way....

Please restore the close of this bad RfC. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 13:13, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Discussion about RfC closure should continue here. Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:21, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Since you called me out I'm going to reply within the close. I don't think this is a bad RfC. It's clear meant who think the BBC is still generally reliable (myself included) are concerned about the evidence raised in the discussion above. The new close fails to reflect that. The close I reverted was done by an editor who's account is ~7 months old and isn't much beyond the extended confirmation limit. The RfC was less than 24hr old. There is no harm in allowing more replies. Basically, the close was premature. Springee (talk) 14:36, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So you reverted because the closer didn't have enough social capital? It's ridiculous that the two closes I've seen Gramix13 do were good ones yet were reverted, only to be re-closed immediately after by someone with higher social capital. Can we do better please and not strongarm newbies just because they're new. Kowal2701 (talk) 17:04, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted because I think the discussion was still productive and I don't agree this is a bad RfC. I also do think it's an issue when a relatively novice editor takes it upon themselves to close a discussion. However, if you want to say that's not a strong reason and I should have reverted with the other reasons, sure. I think the current close should be reverted both because the reasons above and because the close is not a good summary of the discussion. A number of editors who said 1 also noted concerns with bias and that the recent issue is a concern. The current closing suggests there is nothing here but a lot of editors, myself included, feel there is something here but we aren't at the point of a downgrade. Springee (talk) 18:06, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would have let the RFC run for longer, but I can see the reasoning behind a SNOW close. Editors wanting to contest a close should know the process for doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:57, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Their close was still reasonable even if you disagreed with it, discussing it on their user talk page would have been better Kowal2701 (talk) 19:58, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Enspires as paid PR firm

Enspires is the parent company of The Washington Mail, The Boston Courier, Texas Reporter, Tycoon Herald, The Michigan Post, New York Today, Wall Street Publication, American Age, California Recorder, and Dawn. The company website sells article spaces for each publication to, "Build Trust & Credibility" "Drive More Sales" "Boost Online Presence" "Gain Enormous Publicity" per the first link. Looking at the front page of each site and random articles, it seems to be a blatant PR firm masquerading as a newspaper and should be viewed as no more than a corporate blog. Groups such as the New York Today use a slightly edited New York Times logo and blatantly rely on recognition of bigger newspapers to manipulate. GGOTCC 03:24, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GGOTCC: I've run into this group several times and have them on my drama list. I usually go through it once a week to remove any of those fake SEO blogs, but I'm just getting back into the swing after some time off. At some point, when I see enough obvious bad faith additions (good faith editors can fall for these sometimes), I'll put the entire farm on the blocked domains list. Your analysis is completely correct.Sam Kuru (talk) 23:22, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That is great to hear, thank you! You are doing great work, and I am glad to see that I am not alone. GGOTCC 23:30, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

College Poll Archive

Website CollegePollArchive.com is used as the primary data source for all of the historic AP poll articles such as 1936 college football rankings and 1948–49 NCAA men's basketball rankings. Search shows 127 results across many articles.

Also frequently referenced at football and basketball team and season articles such as Michigan Wolverines football, Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball, 1940 college football season, 1937–38 NCAA football bowl games, etc. Used on BLPs such as Andrew Luck.

Contact page shows that the site is run by one keith *at* collegepollarchive [dot] com. Contact page uses the singular pronouns "I" and "me". Keith "will try to respond to your message as soon as I can, but that is normally limited to evenings and weekends, and only as my personal schedule allows."

Is College Poll Archive a reliable source? Is it a self-published source? If the site is self-published, is Keith an established expert in the relevant field who would qualify for WP:USINGSPS? Should College Poll Archive be cited on Wikipedia? PK-WIKI (talk) 06:25, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding WP:USEBYOTHERS, a Google Books search for "collegepollarchive", "soonerstats", and "AP Poll archive" (the latter two are former names that appear on the bottom of the website) shows a total of 18 books that cite it. Four are from publishers I recognize as reliable (Bloomsbury, Taylor & Francis, Simon & Schuster, University of Nebraska Press), but there are also several others which I do not know the reliability of. Perhaps someone with more knowledge and/or time to research can vouch for the quality of the other books. Left guide (talk) 08:01, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Daily Beast

Currently, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources says the following for the The Daily Beast:

There is no consensus on the reliability of The Daily Beast. Most editors consider The Daily Beast a biased or opinionated source. Some editors advise particular caution when using this source for controversial statements of fact related to living persons.

On April 15, 2024, Joanna Coles and Ben Sherwood acquired a minority stake of The Daily Beast; Coles was assigned to be in charge of editorial operations as the chief creative and content officer.^[1] Since then, in addition to layoffs, twenty-two out of thirty-five members of The Daily Beast union took a buyout.^[2] Furthermore, Tracy Connor, who had been editor in chief since 2021, was replaced by Hugh Dougherty, formerly a deputy editor of the New York Post.^[3] Various publications have raised concerns regarding the editorial direction of Coles who seems to favor listicles and eccentric ideas and posed ethical concerns regarding fact-checking and conflicts of interest.^[1]^[2]^[4] The article "Joe Biden Didn’t Poop Himself But These Celebs Did" was given as an example.^[2]

One incident that may be concerning is an article of dubious factuality that was silently deleted without notice.^[5] Since Wikipedia editors would generally archive a now-dead link per WP:LINKROT rather than assume the content was removed because of an error, this raises viability concerns for use on Wikipedia.

While I don't think this warrants a downgrade from WP:NOCON to WP:QUESTIONABLE, I do think it warrants a disclaimer in the summary similar to Buzzfeed News or Newsweek. Perhaps, citing The New York Times,^[1] something like this:

John Kinslow (talk) 06:33, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you suggest to use the wording "some editors" when, as of the making of this comment, it's just you? Cortador (talk) 16:47, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Robertson, Katie (2024-11-03). "Can The Daily Beast Claw Its Way Back to Relevance?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-11-13.
^ ^a ^b ^c Landsbaum, Claire; Silman, Anna (2025-02-04). "Can The Daily Beast be saved?". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-11-13.
^ Mastrangelo, Dominick (2024-06-04). "Daily Beast replaces editor in chief". The Hill. Retrieved 2025-11-13.
^ Miller, Justin (2024-05-02). "Can Joanna Coles Tame the Daily Beast?". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2025-11-13.
^ Dickey, Josh (2025-02-22). "The Daily Beast Publishes, Then Deletes Story Alleging Trump Was Recruited by Soviet Spies". TheWrap. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

Dawn

Dawn (newspaper)/Dawn.com "the largest English newspaper in Pakistan, and is widely considered the country's newspaper of record" and mostly treated as GREL at enwiki (though not listed at RSP) was caught using ChatGPT after it mistakenly published the suggested prompt in its print and online editions. [108], [109], [110].

The prompt itself has been removed from its online editions but the article remains as is with an editorial note now noting [111]:

This report published in today’s Dawn was originally edited using AI, which is in violation of our current AI policy. The policy is available on our website and can be reviewed here. The original report also carried AI-generated artefact text from the editing process, which has been edited out in the digital version. The matter is being investigated, and the violation of AI policy is regretted.

The article where the prompt appeared did carry the byline of its "ace business reporter Aamir Shafaat Khan" but not sure if the problem is more entrenched. I have used this as an RS but wonder if this warrants more caution. Gotitbro (talk) 07:21, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is of course just one incident, but I'm not particularly sold by their AI policy: they state that AI is permitted to be used for "audio/video editing and enhancement" with "human verification", but also state that it's not permitted to use to "manipulate[d] photos of real events". If you "enhance" an image with AI, you are already manipulating it.

They also state that they will note when "substantial AI assistance is used in content creation, an editor’s note/label will be included" i.e. they already admit that not all AI content will actually be labelled. What qualifies as "substantial"? Who knows. The paper also reserves the right to now label AI slop ads because "decisions about labelling for sponsored content are made by our editorial team according to the AI policy". The latter is less concerning since we won't use ads as sources anyway, but this "We'll tell you if we feel like it attitude" doesn't instil confidence. Cortador (talk) 13:56, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a bit too pedantic. Photojournalists have some rules about what's allowed (like you're not allowed to ask people to stand in a particular place and then present the staged portrait as if it were a candid snap), and those allow some kinds of photo editing (e.g., contrast, brightness) but not others, which are considered manipulating the content.

(We can cite advertisements. They are reliable primary sources for their own content. Of course, you're almost never going to have a reason to cite one, but it's okay if you need to cite some technical detail about a notable manufactured product, or if the advertisements themselves are notable, such as Apple Inc. advertising.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:12, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is Rein Taagepera a reliable source for a list of empires by maximum size?

We're going round and round (and round) in circles about this on the talk page at List of largest empires, so it seemed a good idea to throw this open to broader commentary. I'm referring particularly to the following books and articles where Rein Taagepera was author or co-author:

FOARP (talk) 09:27, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He's an academic in a relevant field, published by reliable sources, the topic is rather niche but the journal articles have at least 500 odd cites between them according to Google Scholar. Does 'More People, Fewer States" have any scholarly reviews? I couldn't find any. It only has a few cites, but it's niche and only published last year. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:43, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is church of quake are reliable source for Quake Gamemodes

https://churchofquake.com/wiki/clan-arena/

I am making an Article about Clan arena and want to know if it is a reliable source

My Clan arena article Zuake (talk) 17:06, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a reliable source, no. All of the staff are pseudonymous with no apparent background in games journalism or experience at reliable sources, and I'm not seeing any reliable sources using their content. You can read about sources for video game content at WP:GAMESOURCES. For more general guidelines about source reliability, there's Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Woodroar (talk) 17:24, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Archives of Baidu Baike

I know that it is not accepted as a source but what about its archives of government official sites ( example: [112]). 獅眠洞 (talk) 17:31, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The deprecation of WP:BAIDUBAIKE only applies to the open wiki part, the archival service is usable as an archive of the original link. Jumpytoo Talk 20:12, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You can use Internet archive to find similar archives. GrandCeres (talk) 01:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@GrandCeres, firstly .gov.cn does not support internet archive.org but archive.ph( in which some can't be archived) 獅眠洞 (talk) 11:52, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know that~Thanks for your explanation. GrandCeres (talk) 11:58, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Closure of RfC about the BBC

WRONG PROCESS

There is a set process for contesting a RFC Close. For the first step editors should question the closer on their talk page, and then start a review at AN if necessary. See WP:CLOSE#Challenging other closures. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:51, 13 November 2025 (UTC) Additional note: this has moved to this page. Wikieditor662 (talk) 04:33, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

@Springee has requested that the RfC be reopened, their reasoning is it is good to leave these things open for at least 24hr. Additionally, the editor who closed the RfC has limited experience and did so unilaterally. There is no harm in getting more input even if the final outcome is likely unchanged. (Which can be found here.) What do you all think; do you support this? Wikieditor662 (talk) 22:14, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. Clearly snowing. Rfc was waste of editor time. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:52, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. It's quite obvious which way it was going to go with only two votes in favour of any change in designation with 10x as many in favour of the current designation. Very clearly a WP:SNOW situation. Rambling Rambler (talk) 23:01, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Contrary to claims above, this wasn't a "bad RFC" (claims made by some in the RfC, not in this section) and having been opened for less than 24hr there was no reason to close. More importantly, even though it wouldn't change the color, it was generating useful feedback regarding BBC bias and issues. There is no harm in following the standard RfC process and giving more editors a chance to weigh in. Additionally, once the close was reverted it should have been left open. Finally, the closing doesn't summarize the discussion since it makes no mention of the issues/concerns raised by a number of editors. Springee (talk) 23:31, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Wikieditor662 @Springee @Rambling Rambler @∆t

This was extremely hasty. It was opened, and speedily closed in less than 24hrs. As far as I can tell with no notification of any of the participants in the original discussion, including myself (the OP). A number of the participants in the original discussion expressed serious concerns over this. Opening and speedily closing an RfC based on another discussion, w/o even the courtesy of notifying the involved parties looks pretty dicey to me. Add to that the original discussion was then summarily shut down based on the speedy close of an RfC that no one told us was going on. All of which said, I doubt that as worded the RfC would have gone anywhere. I would have argued for another option in the survey in which the BBC would have been acknowledged as generally reliable in facts, while acknowledging a history of concerns over editorial bias in its coverage. -Ad Orientem (talk) 01:58, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Karl's Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show

Is Jonathan Karl's Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show generally reliable regarding its treatment of January 6 and January 6-related subjects? DannyRogers800 (talk) 00:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

He's had a long career as a political journalist, and the reviews don't throw up any concerns. Unless you have a specific question I can't see an issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:30, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How much of your question is "Is this a decent source?" vs "Will using this book in articles like Donald Trump or January 6 United States Capitol attack result in a lot of drama from pro-Trump editors?"

Personally, I believe that most of the newspaper sources in Donald Trump need to be replaced by books, and that book looks as good as any other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:18, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for your comments. DannyRogers800 (talk) 11:53, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This request has been restated with context below. --Hipal (talk) 19:20, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Creative Bloq - creativebloq.com

Is creativebloq.com a reliable source? Specifically I ask in relation to its usage at You Wouldn't Steal a Car, where it is currently used as secondary coverage reporting on several statements originally made in a non WP:RS YouTube video. Thanks. Damien Linnane (talk) 02:41, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you are referring to this article. It does not state whether they have independently verified the facts, but my presumption is that they have (many news organisations do this, for some reason). You may view the author Joseph Foley's LinkedIn for his credentials; he has previously written for the Guardian and the Independent as a freelance journalist. Creative Bloq's about page features editors and legitimate journalists. It also states that they are a member of the IPSO (Independent Press Standards Organisation) which regulates the UK print and digital news industry and that they abide by the Editors’ Code of Practice and are committed to upholding the highest standards of journalism. Their headlines do seem a bit Buzzfeed-esque, but their coverage otherwise seems fine. Google Scholar shows that many of their articles are cited by reliable sources. They seem to be generally reliable, but whether the article in question is appropriate for You Wouldn't Steal a Car, I don't know; if other reliable sources haven't written about it, then it may be undue. ArcticSeeress (talk) 16:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

MarketLine

MarketLine is a publisher that provides information about businesses. It is available to eligible editors via Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library through EBSCO's Business Source Complete. If you log in to TWL first, then this link might work. Otherwise, try searching for microsoft marketline in the main search box, and then open the PDF for the first item ("MarketLine Company Profile: Microsoft Corporation.").

They produce reports called "Company profiles" about large publicly traded businesses, with a description of the business, founding dates, the names of key employees and a (very) little information about their previous positions, a timeline of product launches, mergers and acquisitions over the years, etc. For older companies, most of the information is in this timeline, which provides a short statement about key events (e.g., "Year: 1978 The company started its first international office in Japan as ASCII Microsoft"). The reports seem to get updated each year. The idea is that large businesses will subscribe to the reports, so they can figure out who their competitors are, find potential partners, write mind-numbing slide decks about the competitive landscape in their industry, etc.

It includes a separate section called "Company View" that copies information taken directly from corporate publications, and a SWOT analysis that does not appear to be anything a company would wish to publicize ("Microsoft faces threat from unauthorized access such as hackers, computer viruses and other related issues. Security breach could be a major threat to the company...") and which I therefore assume is independent analysis. It ends with the statement that "Copyright of [the company name] Corporation MarketLine Company Profile is the property of MarketLine, a Progressive Digital Media business" (which I first misread as "Copyright of [the company]").

These company profiles appear to me to be:

independent sources (except for the "Company View" section, which is labeled as being copied from corporate materials)
secondary sources (particularly the SWOT analysis section)
non-self-published (MarketLine is in the business of publishing these reports)
significant coverage (hundreds or sometimes thousands of words of prose, most of which is at least potentially usable in an article)
not biased (they're not trying to either hype the businesses or to denigrate them)
potentially better than WP:PRIMARYNEWS articles, especially if the news article has little more than a passing mention of a company.

They also have "industry profiles", e.g., a report titled "MarketLine Industry Profile: Foodservice in United Kingdom".

I'm not looking for some sort of WP:RSP-lite here, but could someone else poke around and tell me whether you agree with me? And should we recommend it for general use to editors (e.g., a note at Wikipedia:WikiProject Business)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#RfC on gender exploratory therapy as a form of conversion therapy

There is an ongoing RfC at NPOVN on whether gender exploratory therapy should be described as a form of conversion therapy. Editors interested in the issue are welcome to comment. TarnishedPath^talk 05:41, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not in Hall of Fame

Is the site Not in Hall of Fame reliable? Mk8mlyb (talk) 08:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Per [113], seems like a WP:BLOG. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:35, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Revisiting the Southern Poverty Law Center Hate Groups List

pings

Pinging @PARAKANYAA, @Gotitbro, @ActivelyDisinterested, @AndreJustAndre, @Barnards.tar.gz, @Berchanhimez, @Black Kite, @Blueboar, @Dlthewave, @FactOrOpinion, @TurboSuperA+, @PackMecEng, @Springee, @Simonm223, @MjolnirPants, @Rhododendrites, @Horse Eye's Back and @Riposte97 as editors involved in the discussion over on the main WP:RS/N page. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Grayfell, @Nblund, @Calton, @SoWhy, @CataracticPlanets, @Drmies, @A Quest For Knowledge, @RightCowLeftCoast, @Shrike, @Masem, @Snow Rise, @Slatersteven, @Kyohyi, @PaleoNeonate, @NorthBySouthBaranof, @Guy Macon, @Aquillion, @Alanscottwalker, @Netoholic, @Objective3000, @Sir Joseph, @Insertcleverphrasehere and @The Four Deuces who participated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 245#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Ian.thomson, @Atsme, @Arkon, @SPECIFICO, @Anmccaff, @Neutrality, @Peter Gulutzan, @Fyddlestix, @Saturnalia0, @Eperoton, @Sławomir Biały, @Edaham, @Indy beetle, @Volunteer Marek, @Doug Weller, @James J. Lambden, @Tryptofish, @Power~enwiki, @MastCell, @D.Creish, @Hob Gadling, @Pudeo, @Srich32977 and @Sitush as editors who participated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 230#Southern Poverty Law Center As Source For Labeling Someone a White Supremacist. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Bneu2013, @GreenMeansGo, @El_C, @François Robere, @JzG, @WhatamIdoing, @Santasa99, @Markbassett, @Johnpacklambert, @Jayron32, @Lepricavark and @ColumbiaXY as editors who particpated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 280#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@IRWolfie-, @Fifelfoo, @Collect, @Binksternet, @Arthur Rubin, @Mangoe, @North Shoreman, @Confession0791 and @Aprock as editors who participated in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 130#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @SlamDiego and @Squidfryerchef as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 22#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Rocksanddirt, @ScienceApologist, @Moni3, @Arthur Kemp, @Dezidor and @Verbal as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 26#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @WVBluefield, @Shazbot85, @Jayjg, @Jmabel, @Y and @Hipocrite as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 48#Southern Poverty Law Center (again) & Rousas John Rushdoony. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Nableezy and @Skinwalker~enwiki as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 128#Southern Poverty Law Center. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Kevin Gorman, @Itsmejudith, @Binksternet and @Crews Giles as editors involved in the discussion Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 127#Is an SPLC intelligence report a reliable source for information about the men's rights movement?. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Mrdthree and @Dlabtot as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 70#Southern Poverty Law Center Blog Reliability. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @RandomScholar30, @EvergreenFir and @K.e.coffman as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 208#Southern Poverty Law Center on Debbie Schlussel's Anti-Muslim stance. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Softlavender, @dlthewave, @MrX, @Kmhkmh, @Carptrash, @Darouet and @My name is not dave as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 232#Is an SPLC report a reliable source for List of Confederate monuments and memorials?. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @historicaljohnny, @Izno, @Cordless Larry, @Herostratus and @Galobtter as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 247#SPLC: not a reliable source. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Alaexis, @Alexbrn, @Hemiauchenia, @Nil Einne, @Szmenderowiecki, @XOR'easter and @Thryduulf as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 339#RSP wording for SPLC. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @NatGertler, @BobFromBrockley, @Spy-cicle, @Fiveby, @Shibbolethink, @My very best wishes, @Mr Ernie and @DGG as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 347#When can SPLC be treated as a 3rd party RS vs a primary source that needs to be first mentioned by a independent RS?. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @X-Editor, @feminist, @Buffs, @Ivanvector, @Johnbod and @MJL as editors involved in the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 260#Is the SPLC reliable? It is reliable. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:39, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to revisit the question of whether the Southern Poverty Law Center is a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.

I would rather not be sidetracked into a discussion of whether the SPLC is reliable on other topics. That discussion may be worth having, but this is not the place for it.

This may turn into an RfC later, but please don't jump the gun -- we need to make sure any RfC asks the right questions through prior discussion.

If the SPLC is the only source for labeling a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should not make the claim on any page, attributed or not.

If reliable sources label a group as a hate group, Wikipedia should use those sources, and should not add the SPLC as an additional source.

In my opinion, the SPLC has a strong perverse incentive to label groups they politically disagree with as "hate" groups in order to solicit donations and advance their political agenda, even when there is no evidence behind the listing.

There exists no RS on whether the SPLC is a RS on hate groups, only opinions. The reader of the following list should consider the source and reliability of the source, and pay special attention to any verifiable facts contained in an otherwise unreliable source. That being said, here are the reasons why I came to the above conclusion:

A Demagogic Bully: The Southern Poverty Law Center demonizes respectable political opponents as "hate groups" -- and keeps its coffers bulging. --City Journal
The church of Morris Dees: How the Southern Poverty Law Center profits from intolerance. --Harpers (paywalled: using alternative link)
King of Fearmongers. --Weekly Standard (dead link: using alternative link)
Department of Defense Purges SPLC Information from its Training Material. --Capital Research
Why Is the Southern Poverty Law Center Targeting Liberals? --The New York Times (paywalled:: Using alternative link)
Pressured, the Southern Poverty Law Center Admits It Was Wrong --National Review
Has a Civil Rights Stalwart Lost Its Way? --Politico
Critics skewer SPLC hate group list --The Montgomery Adviser
How Did Maajid Nawaz End Up on a List of 'Anti-Muslim Extremists'? --The Atlantic
SPLC Won’t Label Antifa a Hate Group: To the SPLC, targeting conservatives and giving Antifa a pass is good for business. --Capital Research
The Unlabelling of an 'Anti-Muslim Extremist' --The Atlantic
Young Conservative Flagged on SPLC "Hatewatch" List. --Capital Research
Hateful speech on hate groups. --The Mercury News
The sad hysteria of the Southern Poverty Law Center --The Week
The Intellectual Poverty of the Southern Poverty Law Center: Branding dissenters as haters undercuts its effectiveness. --Reason Magazine
Southern Poverty Law Center Gets Creative to Label 'Hate Groups': Principled conservatives are lumped together with bigots. --Bloomberg (paywalled:: using alternative link)
'Shocked' Anti-Defamation League slaps FBI 'diss on hate crimes --Washington Examiner
The Ivory Spires of the SPLC "Poverty Palace" --Capital Resarch Center
The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam: A "hate group" list loved by the media is bogus. --Reason
The Southern Poverty Business Model --Harpers
The Hate Group That Incited the Middlebury Melee. --Real Clear Politics
Poynter Institute's Retracted List of Fake News Sites Was Written by SPLC Podcast Producer: Media watchdogs should not outsource their fact-checking to the Southern Poverty Law Center. --Reason magazine
Some People Love to Call Names --Philanthropy Roundtable

I would like to discuss one specific example which to me shows exactly why I believe that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not a reliable source for whether or not a group is a hate group.

Do they make any effort to check sources? Do they print a retraction or a correction when they are shown to have made an error?

Let's look at the sad case of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub.

Start with this report from the Iowa City Press Citizen:[114]

Apparently, someone with the screen name "Concerned Troll" posted "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!" on the Daily Stormer website, claiming that this "bookclub" met sometime in September 2016 at a unnamed restaurant somewhere in the Amana Colonies, Iowa. Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a "refuge of hate" and listed them as as "the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group".

One small problem: The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed. They never met. The restaurant was never named. The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing. Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed.

The Des Moines Register contacted the SPLC, and Ryan Lenz, a senior investigative writer for the SPLC initially told them that claims by community and Iowa County leaders that no such groups exist in the town are wrong.

Then later, after there was a storm of controversy, the SPLC silently changed the claim to say that this imaginary hate group is "statewide", and later even that claim was silently deleted.

The SPLC still to this day refuses to provide any evidence other than the internet post by "Concerned Troll" to support the original or the revised claim.

The SPLC vigorously stood by its claim for a full year[115], ignoring all calls for any actual evidence, and only reluctantly revised the page to falsely claim that the nonexistent group exists on a statewide level.

When you make a claim without a shred of evidence[116] other than a post on a neo-nazi website by an anonymous user who is an admitted troll, and then stand by your claim for well over a year without providing a shred of evidence, and then change the claim to another false claim, never publishing a retraction and never admitting that you were wrong, you no longer have a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, as required to be considered a reliable source by Wikipedia. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If SPLC is the only source calling a group a hate group (or similar classification), and that that classification is not itself discussed in sources, then it seems to be an UNDUE issue of including the SPLC's mention, rather than trying to use questions around RS to try to justify inclusion or not.

Of course, if the SPLC's classification itself is the subject of coverage in sources though remains the only source actually calling a group a hate group, that is appropriate for discussion along the lines of the issues around the SPLC's classification. eg DUE is meet. And same when other RSes call a group a hate group, or where there at least some debate about whether a group is a hate group or note, then the SPLC classification also would be DUE. All these cases avoid trying to question SPCL's RS's nature, though obviously in all cases where used, we should have in-prose attribution and not assume wikivoice of the SPLC's classification. Masem (t) 14:15, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I am pretty sure that we are already attributing SPLC everywhere it is used as a reference for hate groups. Few editors get that sort of thing wrong and if they do thier edits don't survive. WP:DUE says "Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources." You have to pass the "reliable source" hurdle before you even get to the "due weight" hurdle. We wouldn't reject a citation to Infowars because of DUE. We would reject it because of RS. And we wouldn't allow a citation to Infowars as an an additional, attributed reference even for material already covered by reliable sources. I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am arguing that in the area of hate groups, we should treat the SPLC as an unreliable source, not as a reliable source that has been given undue weight. If that is your contention, then at least for my part, I find your argument in support of it wholly unconvincing. A bunch of sources defending their political allies from serious charges with emotive or unsound arguments doesn't come anywhere near to making that case. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, we are not attributing them everywhere. The RfC for this was very confusing, which was why I attempted to challenge the closure, but was unsuccessful. The status quo is we have to attribute their opinions and everything else is ??? uncertain, due to the lack of clarity in the last RfC's closure, which everyone seems to have interpreted differently. When I proposed actually enforcing said RfC closure, people became quite irate, so... But as is onwiki, we do not actually attribute them for most of what we cite to them, except aformentioned opinion statements, and it is unclear if we have to. Personally, I do not think we have to; the incidents you are discussing are not really convincing. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:05, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the SPLC's list should be the only source used to state in wikivoice that a certain group is a 'hate group'. I think it should be discussed on a case-by-case basis whether to state a group is 'designated as a hate group by the SPLC' on sole basis of inclusion on that list, with a preference towards exclusion.

In all cases, we should have multiple sources asserting that a group is a hate group before we state it in our voice, and in general, we should have at lease some coverage of the SPLC's designation before we consider it WP:DUE for inclusion.

That being said, that list of sources above isn't the best. For example, the City Journal piece is from 2017, and it states that diversity is universally promoted as a civic virtue which is an unequivocally false statement in 2025. I would even contend that it was an unequivocally false statement in 2017, as well, given that the demonization of DEI in particular and diversity more generally by the political right in this country long predates that year, going back at least as far as the early days of the Obama administration. (It's arguable that it would be a false statement, no matter when it was made, because opposition to diversity has always existed, but I understand the CJ's statement to be in the context of mainstream American politics.)

Indeed, it looks like most of the sources you've cited are right-wing advocacy groups or right-leaning news orgs, at least two of which are 'no consensus on reliability' sources from WP:RSP.

Digging further into it... One of the few non-right-wing sources you provided, The Mercury News is merely reposting a story from WaPo written by Dana Milbank, the 'extravagant contrarian', which implies without argument that it is ridiculous for the SPLC to label the Family Research Council a hate group. Except that is an instance in which the SPLC's inclusion on the list is well-justified, covered in multiple reliable sources, and (while, perhaps, arguable), completely understandable to anyone who cares about LGBTQ issues. The FRC disseminates disinformation about LGBTQ people and issues, after all. In 1999, they claimed with a full chest that one of the primary goals of LGBTQ activists was to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order. At best, that is blatant bigotry, which is the same thing as 'hate' in this context.

While numerous criticisms of the FRC being included in the SPLC's list can be easily found, the objections raised never seem to extend beyond "this is a well-funded and powerful group, how dare you call them hateful!"

I'm not going to go into more detail about the list, because I do think some of those represent fair criticisms. But there's enough dubious sources and dubious claims within it that I think it could use a heavy-handed pruning. At the very least, providing some context about the source and nature of the critiques would be a good step.

To be clear, I stand by my opinion above. I don't think the SPLC should be our only source to establish whether a group is a hate group. I think we need either broad acceptance of the SPLC's designation in secondary sources, or multiple, independent sources asserting it.

But I would also advise you to trim down that list, and possibly to stop reading many of those outlets to get useful views on the SPLC. My opinion is based on my understanding of WP policy, and the argument presented here is far too weak to have had any impact on it. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have an opinion about the main question yet (as I haven't investigated sufficiently), but a few points:

That there is no public evidence other than one or more pseudonymous statements on the Daily Stormer's site ≠ "The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub never existed." The former makes the latter more likely but isn't determinative.
It would help to be able to read what the SPLC actually wrote. Is there an archived copy of it somewhere? For example, the Iowa City Press Citizen says "The Amana Colonies is no longer designated as the home of the neo-Nazi group. The Southern Poverty Law Center had previously designated the historic settlement as the home of the Daily Stormer," but it's hard for me to believe that the SPLC referred to the Amana Colonies as "the home" of the Daily Stormer rather than "a home". (Is "the home" of the website the place where the people funding the website live? where the site is hosted? why would it even make sense to focus on the home of the site rather than the locations where supporters live? ...). Yes, this is picky, but if the Iowa City Press Citizen isn't careful about this, what other elements may they have gotten wrong?
The Iowa City Press Citizen wrote that the SPLC said "it had confirmation that a group of individuals met sometime in September 2016 at a restaurant in the Amanas. A thread, originally posted on the Daily Stormer and since cached by Google, backed the claim." Google no longer makes their caches public, so there is no way to check that their cache, but if there was a thread in response to Concerned Troll's statement, and the thread mentioned a restaurant, then the public evidence wasn't limited to a single statement by one person, Concerned Troll. Also, if the SPLC did, in fact, have some independent confirmation about a meeting at a restaurant, it would be good to know more specifically what the SPLC itself said to the Iowa City Press Citizen, rather than just the latter's statement describing what the SPLC said.
When I went to find a bit of info, I saw that you (Guy Macon), gave the same example in a thread 4 years ago. Do you have any other examples of what you consider serious problems with SPLC's reporting?

FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed here. I'd take the "he said/she said" in regards to a single incident a website mentioned (that is apparently not even accessible) years ago with a huge, huge grain of salt. Lostsandwich (talk) 19:00, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

So I've poked around a bit more, and Guy Macon, I question some of your information. As best I can tell, here's a timeline of (some of) the relevant Daily Stormer posts:

In August 2017, one source, The Gazette, says "A cached page of The Daily Stormer's former website - which was taken down by the Go Daddy hosting service in the wake of the deadly rally - shows members planning the meeting about one year ago." Presumably The Gazette reviewed the cached copy.

August 31, 2016: someone with an unspecified name posts on the Daily Stormer that "I'm going to be busy on weekends for a while, but let's do an East Iowa book club too." "Reply if you'd be down. CR [Cedar Rapids], IC [Iowa City], Davenport, Waterloo, etc ... The Amana Colonies might be a sweet place to meet. There is an awesome free shooting range on Amana road plus it is a historic German community.” (The Gazette)
September 23, 2016: another person with an unspecified name writes that they're "down for the Amana Colonies. ... I would really like for this to happen, they have great food over there, plenty of outside space to chat.” (same source)

No other info is provided about the rest of the thread; perhaps it also included a suggestion for a book club elsewhere in Iowa, given the "too." Alternatively, that person could have been proposing more than one kind of gathering (again, "too").

September 26, 2016: Concerned Troll posts “The First Iowa Stormer Bookclub was a success!” PJ Media says "Concerned Troll did not provide specific details about the visit, but went on to suggest a subsequent meeting in Des Moines." Presumably PJ Media also saw a cached copy of the page.

The Gazette also says "The Southern Poverty Law Center - which tracks hate groups - lists Amana as one of several locations in the nation for The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi hate group. ... [T]hat appears to be due to members deciding to meet there for a so-called book club. Ryan Lenz, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said that designation does not mean Amana is home to any actual neo-Nazis. ... 'We know people drive many, many miles - hundreds of miles - to sit with like-minded people.' While hate group activity increasingly has moved to cyberspace, Lenz said The Daily Stormer took the opposite approach in 2016 by calling for members and would-be members to attend 'book clubs” and meet one another. ... Once the center's researchers uncovered the cities where these meet ups were to take place, the cities were added to the map when it was updated this year. Lenz said it was impossible to know how many times the meetups took place." So it sounds like part of the problem is how SPLC and others interpret a given location being listed on the SPLC map, and whether SPLC explains this well.

Guy Macon, you said "Based upon nothing more that that single post, the SPLC listed the Iowa town a 'refuge of hate' and listed them as as 'the home of the First Iowa Stormer Bookclub neo-Nazi group'." Do you have a link to what the SPLC wrote? I think we should all be able to read it in full. Clearly it wasn't just one post. You also wrote "They never met." How do you know? "The restaurant was never named." How do you know? This source says "The owner of the restaurant where The Daily Stormer club met says "people who promote hate are not welcome," so the local Fox channel knew the name of the restaurant; otherwise they couldn't have gotten a statement from the owner. You say "The local police did a thorough investigation and found zero evidence for the meeting ever happening or or the group ever existing." Please link to a copy of this police report. "Someone with the user name Concerned Troll posted something on the Daily Stormer website and that's all the "evidence" the SPLC needed." No, it seems like they were using more than the one post. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:31, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

i dont see much here beyond grumblings from conservative groups that a civil rights group finds that many folks with questionable beliefs belong to such groups. wp:attribute exists for this purpose and Wp:publicfigure exists to state that we need multiple sources for any negative statement anyways. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:28, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

By dint of the fact that we always attribute SPLC (or at least, should do so, which is reflected in the RSP entry), we are clearly treating it as opinion and not fact (by NPOV's Avoid stating facts as opinions, we should not make such attributions if we consider SPLC's opinions fact). The SPLC is a reliable source for their own opinion, and this can only be an issue with the amount of prominence we ought to give it. The level of reliability issues needed to argue a group is no longer reliable for their own opinion is far beyond people disagreeing in their own opinion pieces. Alpha3031 (t • c) 16:04, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SPLC is a garbage source and shouldn't be used for defamatory information. SPLC uses highly negative or alarmist portrayals to drive donations. SPLC has been sued times for mislabeling organizations and people as “hate” or “extremist” groups. Some cases settled, others were dismissed, and some are still pending. That it is used so extensively on this project, many times as the sole source for a defamatory material reposted without attribution as fact is an issue in and of itself. Absadah (talk) 21:06, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you know of articles with "defamatory material reposted without attribution," please name them, so we can fix that right now. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:34, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That article is more or less just complaining that the SPLC lists groups that are anti-gay marriage as "hate groups". I don't find that to be a compelling argument against it, at least from the perspective that Wikipedia usually comes from. It's not any more garbage than the media, or academia is, which in my experiences in this topic area are just as often wrong as the SPLC is. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:13, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is a WP:DUE question, not a WP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. Beyond that, sources you cite are unconvincing - these are largely opinion or heavily WP:BIASED sources (and most of them are accusing it of bias; bias doesn't make a source unreliable. It just requires attribution, which we currently use.) These sources establishe that the SPLC is controversial, not that it is unreliable; and they establish that what it says attracts massive amounts of attention, which lends it weight. Indeed, many of these are worded from a clear perspective of, essentially, "everyone trusts the SPLC and treats it seriously, but they shouldn't", ie. they acknowledge that they are taking a minority position. And beyond that, the argument that we shouldn't describe the SPLC's opinions even when heavily covered by high-quality secondary sources is absurd - nothing gets that level of prohibition. Literal lies spouted by Lucifer himself could be included in our articles if given sufficient high-quality secondary coverage; we'd want to cover it the way the secondary sourcing does and hope that they'd point out any problems, but in that case it is the secondary source's reputation that matters. And the fact is that, as you are probably aware, secondary sources quite frequently defer to the SPLC - which is doubtless why you made this suggestion, but, again, "fixing" that isn't how we work! "These people are so bad that even when secondary sources quote them we should ignore it because they were obviously wrong to do so" is WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. I don't think you've even convincingly made the argument that the SPLC is unreliable, but certainly we have to cover it when it is given significant weight by secondary sources. If anything, the fact that a significant minority dislikes or distrusts the SPLC is an additional reason to make it clear when secondary sources are relying on them - the implication of your request here would be that if an academic paper says "XYZ is a hate group, according to the SPLC", we would... cite that paper without mentioning that it attributes it to the SPLC? That's worse, you do see how that's worse, right? --Aquillion (talk) 21:19, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is a WP:DUE question, not a WP:RS question, since you acknowledge that when it's the only source it's generally used for attributed opinion. That was my thought when I first responded, as well, but Guy clarified in this comment that he's arguing that the SPLC is unreliable. Apparently, Guy finds those heavily biased right-wing opinion articles much more convincing than the rest of us do. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 21:26, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

These sources are overwhelmingly right wing publications, followed by those few that aren't but which are almost a decade old, and lastly the NYT piece which is an op-ed Snokalok (talk) 21:33, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with what everyone else, who posted before me, is saying. Your best bet for restricting the use of SPLC is probably asking whether their opinion is undue when their opinion isn't covered in other secondary sources. Or that if their assessement isn't covered in other sources, it should not be in the lead. Rolluik (talk) 22:11, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Read my everyone else as most people. Some people's opinions, I hadn't read yet because they posted at nearly the same time. Rolluik (talk) 22:16, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with other commenters - only use with attribution, and not necessarily in the lead. However, this does raise the question of whether it should be down graded at WP:RSP - perhaps to a yellow “additional considerations”. Blueboar (talk) 22:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This suggestion strikes me as pointless. If the SPLC is the sole source describing a group as a hate group, that description is going to be attributed anyway. If there's multiple source also describing a group as a hate group alongside the SPLC, why omit it them? Cortador (talk) 22:24, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hate group is fundamentally an opinion statement so per MOS:LABEL we should never say it in wikivoice anyway. PARAKANYAA (talk) 22:59, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And, as someone who mostly edits about the 'far-right', my opinion on the SPLC itself and their factual reporting (not their opinions), I would say they are generally reliable, as our protracted RFC earlier this year concluded and my own experience researching and using them as a source. I have rarely taken issue with their factual reporting, far less than with news media, for example. As shown by FactOrOpinion the specific case at issue is overblown and I don't actually see any issue with how they reported it. The other incidents pointed out here are not really convincing and are a mix of opinion pieces and people subject to the pieces complaining about their opinions. They are just extremely opinionated, but so is all scholarship on this topic (and academic on "hate groups" post-NA is almost entirely just recycling the SPLC anyway), but when it comes to factual matters they are generally excellent. In that regard, they are not really any worse than academia. Relative to all other anti-hate watchdog groups they are by far the most reputable and reliable in terms of facts. But whether it's from the SPLC or anyone else "hate group" is like "terrorist" in that it is a contentious label and basically inherently opinion so per MOS:LABEL should never be said in wikivoice, e.g. we do not call Hitler evil in wikivoice for the same. PARAKANYAA (talk) 23:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Karl's Betrayal... again

Sorry for turning up again, but I failed to follow the instructions. These are the specific statements attributed to Jonathan Karl's Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show in the article on Jonathan Swan:

"The US was then engulfed in a pandemic that had killed upwards of 100,000 Americans as well as nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd."
Shortly before the 2020 presidential election between incumbment president Trump and Joe Biden, Swan revealed Trump's plans to claim victory regardless of the outcome as part of his wider plan to overturn the results.

Is Karl reliable in this context? DannyRogers800 (talk) 17:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is he really the best source for these claims? Slatersteven (talk) 17:58, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure, that's why I'm asking. DannyRogers800 (talk) 17:59, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In fact "upwards of 100,000 Americans ", out by a factor of 10, so not reliable. Slatersteven (talk) 18:01, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, the sentences refers to the total deaths up to August 2020. Sorry for not providing the full context. DannyRogers800 (talk) 18:03, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, the problem may then be less about RS (he does seem to be a respected journalist) and more about due. Slatersteven (talk) 18:07, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Great, thanks for your comment. DannyRogers800 (talk) 18:10, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Jonathan karl seems like a journalist, was president of White House Correspondents' Association, seems reliable enough.

what statement are we trying to discuss? Trumps big lie is well documented, doesnt seem too controversial to state he was aiming to claim victory no matter what User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:23, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The two statements marked by bullet points are the objects of discussion. DannyRogers800 (talk) 18:25, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In general all of thats true. If we dont use that book, we could use any other. Maybe we need to attribute, but dont think we necessarily need to User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 18:29, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Thanks! DannyRogers800 (talk) 18:30, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like the book is a reasonable source to, if you will, set the stage or suggest a national mood. I wouldn't be OK using it for something that is closer to a specific, factual claim (killed upward of...) but why would we use that source if the number of Covid deaths is DUE in context? I would also be careful about stating the Trump plan as a fact. Rather it should be clear this is a claim Swan made about Trump's plan. Basically I think this can be used but the specific claims should be modified just a bit. I think if you can find a second source for the number of dead (change to "tens of thousands"?) at the time and if you make it clear Swan claims are attributed to him (Swan stated that Trump intended to...) I don't see an issue with this source. Springee (talk) 19:56, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a source (a NYT article) for the Covid statistics, while maintaining the phrase "killed upward of 100,000 Americans." I have also rephrased the statement regarding Trump's election plans, as in "Swan revealed what he understood as Trump's plans to claim victory regardless of the outcome…" However, I do think that Trump's quest to defy the election results is not merely a claim, but a historical fact. There really should be no need for this statement to diminish into a claim. DannyRogers800 (talk) 20:55, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

[robertson-2024-1] Robertson, Katie (2024-11-03). "Can The Daily Beast Claw Its Way Back to Relevance?". The New York Times. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

[landsbaum-and-silman-2025-2] Landsbaum, Claire; Silman, Anna (2025-02-04). "Can The Daily Beast be saved?". Business Insider. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

[3] Mastrangelo, Dominick (2024-06-04). "Daily Beast replaces editor in chief". The Hill. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

[4] Miller, Justin (2024-05-02). "Can Joanna Coles Tame the Daily Beast?". Intelligencer. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

[5] Dickey, Josh (2025-02-22). "The Daily Beast Publishes, Then Deletes Story Alleging Trump Was Recruited by Soviet Spies". TheWrap. Retrieved 2025-11-13.

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