Where should I ask whether this source supports this statement in an article?
At Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. Don't forget to tell the editors the full name of the source and the exact sentence it is supposed to support.
Do sources have to be free, online and/or conveniently available to me?
No. Sources can be expensive, print-only, or available only in certain places. A source does not stop being reliable simply because you personally aren't able to obtain a copy. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/cost. If you need help verifying that a source supports the material in the article, ask for help at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange or a relevant WikiProject.
I personally know that this information is true. Isn't that good enough to include it?
No. Wikipedia includes only what is verifiable, not what someone believes is true. It must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source that says this. Your personal knowledge or belief is not enough.
I personally know that this information is false. Isn't that good enough to remove it?
Your personal belief or knowledge that the information is false is not sufficient for removal of verifiable and well-sourced material.
Is personal communication from an expert a reliable source?
No. It is not good enough for you to talk to an expert in person or by telephone, or to have a written letter, e-mail message, or text message from a source. Reliable sources must be published.
Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?
No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual.
What if the source is biased?
Sources are allowed to be biased or non-neutral; sometimes these are the best possible sources for supporting information about the different viewpoints held on a controversial subject. However, the resulting Wikipedia articles must maintain a neutral point of view.
Does every single sentence need to be followed by an inline citation?
No. Only four broad categories of material need to be supported by inline citations. Editors need not supply citations for perfectly obvious material. However, it must be possible to provide a bibliographic citation to a published reliable source for all material.
Are sources required in all articles?
Adding sources is the best practice, but prior efforts to officially require at least one source have been rejected by the community. See, e.g., discussions in January 2024 and March 2024.
Are reliable sources required to name the author?
No. Many reliable sources, such as government and corporate websites, do not name their authors or say only that it was written by staff writers. Although many high-quality sources do name the author, this is not a requirement.
Are reliable sources required to provide a list of references?
No. Wikipedia editors should list any required sources in a references or notes section. However, the sources you are using to write the Wikipedia article do not need to provide a bibliography. Most reliable sources, such as newspaper and magazine articles, do not provide a bibliography.
Does anyone read the sources?
Readers do not use the reference list extensively. This research indicates that readers click somewhere in the list of references approximately three times out of every 1,000 page views.
We say: "Questionable sources are those...that are promotional in nature". However, reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective.
I wonder if we have a shared understanding of what it means for a source to be "promotional in nature". For example, are the red carpet interviews before the Oscars "promotional in nature"? Is a positive book review "promotional in nature"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:34, 20 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is no right answer to this… a lot depends on the “who, what and where” of the source. The key is to ask: is the interview/review independent of the thing being commented on. An interview with someone involved in a film is probably not independent… a gushing book review might be. Blueboar (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that I've ever thought about that phrase, nor do I recall anyone bringing it up in any exchange I've had. (For that matter, I don't recall anyone ever referring to WP:QUESTIONABLE in a discussion.) It looks like "promotional in nature" was introduced in 2009. I'm inclined to think of it as sponsored content (this section wasn't introduced until 2018) + the content that gets excluded as "unduly self-serving" in BLPSELFPUB/ABOUTSELF/SELFSOURCE. So I don't see a strong reason to keep that phrase in light of those sections. The content of Oscar red carpet interviews largely falls under one or the other of those; at least, I think of someone promoting a film they're in as a form of sponsored content. A positive book review would be OK to use, as it doesn't fall in either of those; certainly practice is to pull from both positive and negative book reviews. As an aside, I find it odd that there's a section on questionable sources but not on generally unreliable sources. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:31, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that the absence of a "gunrel" section is because that concept was made up by WP:RSP and technically has no basis in policy. The community used to believe what the FAQ says:
Are there sources that are "always reliable" or sources that are "always unreliable"?
No. The reliability of a source is entirely dependent on the context of the situation, and the statement it is being used to support. Some sources are generally better than others, but reliability is always contextual.
– though the difference is largely in principle. In practice, there were always sources that were basically unusable (given that, e.g., so few articles actually need a statement like "A throw-away account on Reddit once said ____"). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:59, 21 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a new way of looking at this: Is a straight-up blatant advertisement a WP:QUESTIONABLE source? For example, if you open a dead-tree magazine, and there's an advertisement there saying that The Pure Soap Company makes Pure brand soap, which has assorted qualities that one expects soap to have, then is that WP:QUESTIONABLE on par with a content farm, extremist website, or a notorious supermarket tabloid? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:03, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is for some things, it is not for other things. It is not on par with a content farm, extremist website, or a notorious supermarket tabloid. Last month I used this advertisement in ketchup chips to verify the claim "An earlier description of Smith's manufacturing a "tomato sauce flavour" crisps is given in an October 1968 advertisement in the Scottish newspaper the Montrose Review.". I did not feel it was questionable for such a claim, even though it contradicted what secondary GREL sources were saying. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 11:49, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you, but I can't think of an example of anything that is more obviously "promotional in nature" than a blatant advertisement. I get an advertisement from the grocery store every week. There cannot be any purpose to that other than "promotion"; in fact, they call the various items listed in it "promotions".
For this guideline, you can see the historical development in these links: 2008 version, 2009a, 2009b.
Wikipedia:Verifiability#Questionable sources includes the word promotional ("websites and publications expressing views widely considered by other sources to be promotional, extremist, or that rely heavily on unsubstantiated gossip, rumor, or personal opinion"), but I think the key difference is in the prior sentence:
WP:V: "Questionable sources are those that have a poor reputation for checking the facts, lack meaningful editorial oversight, or have an apparent conflict of interest."
WP:RS: "Questionable sources are those with a poor reputation for checking the facts or with no editorial oversight."
Imo this is a symptom of discussions on whether we can trust something being oriented around sources rather than claims. And on reflection, an extremist website or supermarket tabloid saying "tomato ketchup flavour chips are being sold in this region" would probably usually be fine for verifiability if the authors are in the region. The source then is better understood as "a Glaswegian" than "killallminorities.co.uk".
I think losing promotional, gaining conflict of interest, and reframing around "a source may be questionable for a given statement if it has a poor reputation for checking the facts, lacks meaningful editorial oversight, or has an apparent conflict of interest." would better communicate what we are trying to say. Promotional in nature is too broad, and incidentally captures "promotional in effect" which includes positive book reviews. Rollinginhisgrave (talk | edits) 23:50, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone indicated that any given bachelor's thesis has "had significant scholarly influence"? (WP:THESIS says Masters dissertations and theses are considered reliable only if they can be shown to have had significant scholarly influence. No scholarly influence, no reliability.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:10, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I can definitely say that MY bachelors thesis (on the colonial history of the town where I grew up) is unreliable and had no scholarly impact beyond the local high school history teacher showing it to his students as an example of how to create a bibliography. Blueboar (talk) 11:35, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
My bachelor's thesis basically positioned me like Cassandra with regard to the impact of war mobilization in the United States on the antiglobalization movement but, despite me being entirely correct, it had absolutely no scholarly impact in any regard and, frankly, I think I mostly got really lucky regarding the predictions I made. It would also not constitute a reliable source. I think, in general, we should not be using bachelors' theses. Simonm223 (talk) 11:39, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The journal has been brought up in the talk page of the Dead internet theory, specifically the article The Dead Internet Theory: Investigating the Rise of AI-Generated Content and Bot Dominance in Cyberspace. It looks predatory, but I'm not 100%. Could someone please let me know if it passes sniff test. I would like a 3rd party opinion I can point to, as this topic gets a bit of attention and I don't want to be the only "bad guy" gate keeping the page. Thanks! GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 20:53, 8 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“ a contemporary secondary news source can quickly become a historical primary source. Articles of recent current events must be periodically updated with new secondary sources.”
What, precisely, is meant by this? Is it commanding us to purge articles on events that attracted lots of media interest at the time but failed to attract retrospective interest? Eldomtom2 (talk) 01:52, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not perfectly put.
A contemporary secondary source will become a historical primary source.
Articles of events must be updated with later secondary sources.
What time scale? I reckon at one year later, less than half the sources should date from the month of the event.
News sources for the most part are already primary sources at the time they are published. If they are simply recapping what's happend without any additional commentary, that's a primary source. Masem (t) 02:28, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To put it more concretely:
When you are editing articles like Grooming gangs scandal, it would be ideal if an editor or two found a reputable book on the subject or a long analytical piece (scholarly or maybe a "serious" magazine) and replaced as many citations to newspaper sources with citations to a page in the book as was feasible.
Agreed, but this is really about reliability and not really about primary vs secondary. A later source which has the benefit of hindsight and full knowledge of the accumulated evidence will be more reliable than one written in the heat of the moment. As is often the case, the use of the primary/secondary distinction in the present wording serves mostly to obscure the meaning. Zerotalk12:13, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. The point about time-based primary to secondary transitions is off point. The paragraph conveys new, beyond the earlier “older sources may be inaccurate”. The third paragraph of WP:AGE MATTERS should be cut. SmokeyJoe (talk) 00:44, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Must" implies consequences if it isn't done. Are there? Is "too many secondary sources" an argument to use at a deletion discussion? If not, "must" should be changed to "should." Zaathras (talk) 14:37, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is what I'm getting at. If it was "Articles of recent current events should be periodically updated with new secondary sources where available", it would make perfect sense to me, but at the moment it seems to be "old primary sources = bad", which doesn't seem to be really something there's consensus on (see, for instance, WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Eldomtom2 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is "must" in the sense of "or else the citations will be lower quality than we'd really prefer". "Must" doesn't mean an editor will be punished in some way.
Old primary sources are usually bad, but it depends on exactly what we're using them for. An old primary source cited for its own contents (e.g., if quoting Shakespeare) is not bad. An old primary source cited for facts (e.g., The Daily Whatever wrote in 1860 that Abraham Lincoln had been elected as the 16th president of the United States) is kind of bad. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:53, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Articles of recent current events must be periodically updated with new secondary sources" doesn't actually say anything at all about purging etc... Updating doesn't necessarily require replacing, it doesn't say that the sources must be updated it says that the article must be updated which it can be without removing anything. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:42, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This language is new, it was only added in September of last year[1]. There doesn't appear to be consensus for it anywhere on the talk page (Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Archive 72 covers the time period) for the addition. Therefore I have reverted the edit, anyone who wants to add this text back in will need to obtain an explicit consensus to do so on this talk page. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:53, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I’ve been wondering whether opinion polls and surveys should still be considered reliable sources, given the recent trends in survey research methodology. In North America, for example, response rates for random-sample surveys have fallen dramatically — often hovering around 5%, which is a historic low. This raises questions about how representative these samples really are.
Organizations like Gallup and the Pew Research Center earned much of their credibility from accurately predicting election outcomes in the past, but since the mid-2010s, both have largely moved away from “horse-race” election polling. Gallup stopped after disappointing accuracy in the 2010 and 2012 cycles, and Pew followed by 2016, citing a desire to focus on methodological improvement. Ironically, issue polling (which they now emphasize) doesn’t have the same clear benchmarks for accuracy that elections do, there’s no definitive “result” to compare with.
I know that groups like Pew compare their surveys to high-quality government surveys for benchmarking, but those benchmarks don’t exactly cover every topic that private or nonprofit pollsters study, and they focus mainly on demographics rather than attitudes, beliefs or opinions. Moreover, even major government surveys have faced declining response rates of their own.
Another related concern is the rise of online opt-in panels (notably YouGov), which rely on volunteer participants and have been criticized (often by pollsters that still advocate randomized sampling) for accuracy and representativeness.
Given all these developments, should the guidelines on Reliable sources consider qualifying or clarifying how (and when) public opinion polls and surveys can still be treated as reliable sources? Belson 303 (talk) 14:58, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think the most important principle is that every source is reliable for something – but that often, it's is reliable for nothing more than "This document contains the following words:" (or, in the case of a survey, "One survey claimed...").
Seconding WhatamIdoing on this one, definitely more of a due weight question. I would also note that Gallup and Pew earned their credibility for their non-political polling... Theres never actually been a period when you could describe political polling as "accurate" in the RS sense of a meaning beyond the poll or survey itself unless there is actual analysis at that level. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:30, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources § WMF seeking feedback on Reference Check. Sdkb-WMF talk 18:09, 25 September 2025 (UTC)
There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Restructuring RSP regarding reason for discussion. The thread is there. The discussion is about the topic Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. CNC (talk) 18:28, 25 October 2025 (UTC)