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Newspapers in countries without a free press

Resolved.

I am interested in whether a newspaper in a country without a free press can be considered a RS on news events? Specifically, I would ask about the Jordan Times, a newspaper that Freedom House considers "partly free" for the year in question. However I am more interested in the broader question. Thanks for any thoughts. Tundrabuggy (talk) 14:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Common sense seems to suggest no as the answer to the general question. Peter jackson (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes it would seem so to me as well, particularly in contentious areas such as the I-P conflict. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:23, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Note that free=/=reliable and unfree=/=unreliable. I would think this is obvious. I also think that Freedom House rankings are full of shit, personally. Last year, IIRC, Pakistan's noisily critical press was declared as unfree as China's, and India -- with draconian freedom of speech regulations and a very active press council -- was declared "partly free". Load of rot. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:41, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The rankings are one thing. The descriptions of a free press another. Of course free does not necessarily mean reliable as witness the tabloids, for example. Still, unfree would seem to suggest unreliable. So how does one determine reliability of an unfree or partly free press? Do you have any thoughts on the Jordan Times, Relata? Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
An unfree press might publish articles which are planted, in which case those would be unreliable. Or it might be censored, in which case articles it published would be reliable. A free press might practice self-censorship, and be reliable, or be held hostage by commercial interests, and be unreliable. Merely using a non-descriptive statement as "free" or "unfree" is, in the end, not helpful at all. On the Jordan Times, I don't have the slightest opinion, though I believe I have both added and removed academic book reviews from it at various points. [I note, however, that Jordan had a widely-publicised clampdown on the press in 1997, which seems to have eased somewhat a few years later. It is also true that this newspaper seems to largely be described as "independent".] --Relata refero (disp.) 21:07, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't understand the claim that "it might be censored, in which case articles it published would be reliable". Why would a censored article be reliable? Canadian Monkey (talk) 18:26, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
If there are two facts, X and Y, then just because X is censored does not mean Y is untrue. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
It does not mean Y is untrue, but it does not mean Y is true, either, which is what you imply when you say "it might be censored, in which case articles it published would be reliable". In addition, selective censorship can easily lead to biased, misleading articles, which would alo smake the article unreliable. Canadian Monkey (talk) 22:31, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Correct, I should have said "need not be unreliable". --Relata refero (disp.) 19:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
This is honestly an issue of case by case review. Pravda was probably a horribly unreliable source for the happenings of the Soviet government. Perhaps it might have been a reliable source for reviews of plays and works of art (maybe), I don't know. State control or state influence means that we should treat as suspect (or at least qualify as non-independent) claims made by the source about the government. Determination of that control is again a case by case manner. I can't support Freedom House's rankings as an editorial tool on wikipedia. We should review and act on individual claims about the editorial freedom of individual publishing houses. Protonk (talk) 21:32, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree. You can't generalise this, particularly as the degree of state control is highly variable. In some "non-free" states, such as the old Soviet Union pre-Gorbachev, the media was entirely a creature of the government - it was owned by the state and reflected only official views (even on issues such as theatre and art which, let's not forget, were also subject to strict ideological controls). In modern Russia the media isn't formally under state control or ownership, but the state directs it from behind the scenes. At the next level down, the media in some countries may be subject to what could be called ideological conformity on some issues, even if they aren't controlled or directed by the government. I'm thinking of countries such as the Arab Gulf states, where the media is relatively free but still has to operate within certain ideological limits (such as not being overtly critical of the regime). I'm not familiar with the Jordan Times, but I would guess that it falls into the latter category. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
That's an interesting thought Chris, as to what entails "ideological" limitations in regards to something like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Freedom House said that the Jordanian press practices "self-censorship" since should one anger the government a reporter can lose his credentials and his livelihood. In which case, since Jordan involved itself in the Al-Durrah case (in particular after the reported death of the boy), there could well have been an "acceptable" viewpoint in relation to the reporting of the incident. Tundrabuggy (talk) 18:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Let's not confuse presentation and facts. The facts in an article may be correct, but the presentation and/or selection may have a bias. // Liftarn (talk) 18:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, exactly so. This is the same in a lot of countries. It's almost always the case that certain avenues of argument are closed off by general social and political convention. (You'll never see criticism of King Bhumibol in the otherwise raucous Thai press, for instance). This isn't so much a restriction on free speech as a form of self-censorship, as you say - an unwritten agreement that the scope of free speech has certain boundaries. But the Western media has just as much of a self-imposed bias in various directions, as the whole "political correctness" debate makes clear. -- ChrisO (talk) 19:17, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
Self-censorship due to state control of the press is very different from "political correctness" in a free society. A reporter can choose to be "politically correct" or not. In a country with a free press, there will be plenty of reporters who are neither politically correct nor self-censoring. In a free society with a free press, the marketplace of ideas and commerce will ultimately decide who "survives", not the government and its ideological thrust. Tundrabuggy (talk) 00:33, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Where are the articles arguing in favour of underage sex and racial discrimination in the mainstream Western media? Every publication self-censors, for commercial, social, moral or political reasons. There's no such thing as an unfettered "marketplace of ideas" anywhere, simply because some ideas are considered unacceptable by the general population. The government doesn't have to censor if social pressure does the job for them (this is very much the case in Thailand with regard to criticism of the king, for example). -- ChrisO (talk) 00:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Articles in favour of underage sex and in favour of racial discrimination would not be the purview of mainstream reliable sources. They would be opinion pieces anyway. Tundrabuggy (talk) 03:08, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the Jordan Times is controlled by the government. That makes it absolutely off limits, except when it is referencing itself or it has something to do with official Jordanian government policy. In general, non-free presses should be avoided, especially on controversial issues. IronDuke 23:38, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Apparently the paper is published by the Jordan Press Foundation. According to Alan George, the JPF is "62 per cent owned by the government via the Social Security Fund" [1]. Partial state ownership certainly doesn't make it off-limits; plenty of broadcasters (the BBC, France Télévisions and RAI are European examples that come to mind) are wholly state-owned. Don't forget that state ownership doesn't automatically equate to state control - it did in the case of Pravda, because that was directly managed by the Soviet government, but many state-owned media outlets have a strict arm's length relationship with the government. WP:V#Reliable sources sets out four criteria: it must be a (1) reliable, (2) third-party (3) published source with (4) a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. Note that the question of ownership doesn't enter into the equation. Its articles are quoted by numerous published authors, so it clearly does seem to have a reputation as a reliable and accurate source, satisfying the first and fourth criteria. It obviously also meets the second and third criteria. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Do you think that if it were "controlled," as opposed to "owned," it would make a difference as to its reliability? I'll also point out, the books you link to are intriguing, but a) there is no context at all for the citations in the books, and b) the standards of any given random book may not be Wikipedia's -- is Winnie the Pooh a reliable source? What happens if we ask Google Books? IronDuke 02:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
It may make a difference, but it really depends on the degree of editorial independence enjoyed by the media outlet in question. Some are totally under the grip of their government masters - The Herald (Zimbabwe) is a case in point. Others are stridently independent, like the BBC. Some are in-between with a sort of compromised independence, like RAI. The only real way to tell is to to find out what others say about the outlet in question and, in particular, determine how widely it's cited as a source, hence the usefulness of reviewing Google Books to answer that particular question. -- ChrisO (talk) 08:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Given we have no good way of teasing out what parts of the Jordan Times are independent (assuming any part of it is at all) I'm not sure how we can rely on them as a source. They are controlled by an undemocratic government, that makes them automatically highly suspect. Google books doesn't help at all here, although looking at the books on Google might. Again, despite our inability to write reliable articles, we do have higher standards than many of the works we reference. IronDuke 15:38, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, ownership isn't part of our reliable sourcing criteria (nor should it be, considering the POV mischief that would permit - e.g. people trying to disqualify the BBC or Al Jazeera on the grounds of government involvement). You have to apply the criteria we have, not the criteria you'd like to have. If the JT is a reliable third-party published source with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy, then I see no reason not to use it. Note that I'm not arguing that it meets those criteria, since I don't know much about the newspaper - I'm just stating for the record that those are the criteria we have to apply. -- ChrisO (talk) 18:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
but policies and guidelines a descriptive of a community standard of behavior. I agree that we can't claim "WP:V says no state owned media" but it we instead claim "An editor has raised a concern in good faith that the lack of editorial independence at newspaper X renders it unfit to be used as a reliable source on issue Y", then that is another matter entirely. If we have good reason to believe that a newspaper would make editorial judgments at the behest (or in advance of that behest) of their owners on a particular matter, then we can discuss that. Even in England, we would be incorrect to cite a British paper on a matter subject to a DA-Notice as an authority on the matter--we would expect that they would withhold items related to the issue from publication. Protonk (talk) 18:28, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Of course ownership impacts reliability, especially when the owner is a state which censors and controls the media -- very much the case in Jordan. There are tough cases, to be sure, but this isn't one of them. You keep saying you don't much about the newspaper... fair enough. From what I know, it is unreliable, and I have seen no evidence that it meets the criteria you set out. Could a story in the JT be true in all its particulars? Most definitely. But there's no way to know, and good reason to be skeptical ... thus, it is unreliable. IronDuke 19:31, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
We simply don't operate on that basis - it amounts to a back-door way of eliminating all media citations from particular countries. I see from Reporters without Borders that Jordan is actually rated the third most free country in the Middle East in terms of press freedom, after Israel and Kuwait. But then again, you're blurring the difference between government ownership (which in this case appears to be only partial, if George is right) and government editorial control. The British government owns and funds the BBC World Service 100%, but it doesn't exercise control. Your case seems to be based entirely on the assumption that the newspaper has no independence due to the government's partial stake in the fund which owns it. I don't think that's a logical conclusion. You certainly haven't cited any sources to back up your assumption that the newspaper is not independent. -- ChrisO (talk) 21:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
Per your suggestion, I went to Reporters without borders. First sentence of their 2008 report on Jordan? “State security police have kept journalists under pressure despite King Abdallah II’s promises of democratic reform.” If that’s not a ringing endorsement, what is? More: “…self-censorship continues.” Also “state security stopped the weekly Al-Majd from coming out for allegedly “undermining national interests.” It had planned to run an article about Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his plans to boost his party. Copies were seized at the printers.” This is in addition to several other examples of censorship. So we have that, we have Freedom House, if TB is correct. As to your point about state ownership not equaling state control, that’s quite right. So… here we have the NYTimes “Once they are a sovereign country, we could sit down and have a conversation about unity,' said Abdullah Hassanat, editor in chief of The Jordan Times, a publication controlled by the Government.” (February 13, 1999, emphasis added). Okay… so Jordan papers are out, at least until something significant changes (argumentum ad googlem aside). For the larger question of whether unfree presses should be used, I think the answer is obviously no. If someone wants to introduce an unfree press cite, the onus is on them to show why a) it’s relevant and useful to the article in question and b) believable/reliable. IronDuke 23:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Another perspective: there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. Hugo Chavez got a law installed in Venezuela prohibiting criticism of *him* in the press, and has gotten television stations not favorable towards him shut down, while there remains a large state-dominated media machine. The press is not free in Venezuela; specifically, private enterprises cannot criticize Hugo Chavez, and leading private newspapers now often avoid identifying journalists in bylines. Do these restrictions mean that Venezuelan press articles aren't reliable on every other score, excepting that they aren't allowed to criticize Chavez? No, it just means that non-Venezuelan sources have to be used to complement what Venezuelan sources aren't allowed to report, and we have to use editorial judgment in interpreting Venezuelan sources, wrt 1) the state-owned enterprises and 2) limits on privately owned press freedom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem that I see with what you are saying, Sandy - is that once there is any state censorship, we can only guess whether other things are reliable -- that goes to the very heart of the definition of "reliable." Tundrabuggy (talk) 01:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Press sources that are not independent or are arms of the government like Granma should be used only to express the opinion of the controling entity, and sparingly at that. They should never be used for facts. Freedom House's rankings are a good place to start in evaluating media outlets. CENSEI (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

No they aren't. See above. --Relata refero (disp.) 19:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
First, I agree with ChrisO that sources on political subjects from countries with official policy of censorship (like Glavlit in the USSR) are unreliable. The problem arise with sources from countries without official censorship but where press is still "not free" according to independent reliable sources (not necessarily Freedom House). Then, some discretion should be applied. For example, reports by independent journalists and well known opposition newspapers (if any) from such countries should be considered reliable.Biophys (talk) 20:46, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
Again, censorship implies that material is excluded. It does not mean that false information is included. That is disinformation. There is a correlation between the two, especially in totalitarian societies, but they are not the same thing. --Relata refero (disp.) 20:57, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
It's common practice that false information has been used by totalitarian countries, take Nazi Germany or Soviet Union etc. They even have an article on WP about it: Big Lie.--Termer (talk) 21:34, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
In controversial cases, why not just describe the source (preferably with a WP:RS for description) and let readers decide for themselves? ie, "the partially government owned such and such" or the "military contract owned so and so" or "the neconservative controled this and that"?? Carol Moore 02:13, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc
PS speaking of Israel-Palestine, I have created this page Wikipedia:WikiProject_Israel_Palestine_Collaboration/Links_to_reliable_sources_discussions which has a link to all the specific and general topics that might possibly be related to I-P, or just about anything political. In case you want to bookmark it for a quick look at the various links to topics covered here before. 'Carol Moore 02:17, 21 September 2008 (UTC)Carolmooredc
As I indicate above, Jordan papers are clearly off limits. Carol, your suggestion is an invitation to well-poisoning, and creates a false equivalence between media outlets that tend to lean towards one end or the other of the political spectrum, and censored oulets that cannot be trusted with any confidence. To reify that elision into WP policy would be horribly damaging. IronDuke 00:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

POV-based exclusion of sources?

It's hard to see IronDuke's approach as being anything other than a way of excluding media sources from countries which you don't like. If you want to describe a particular country's point of view about an issue, then of course media from that country is likely to be the best source. Your approach simply assumes that everything published in the media of a country such as Jordan is inherently inaccurate. Of course, coverage of certain topics may be biased or incomplete due to ideological preferences about the topic in question. You would not necessarily look to the Russian press for unbiased coverage of the war in Georgia, for instance. But it's taking it to a ridiculous extreme to apply this sort of caution to every story in every media outlet in a particular country. Are Jordanian sports reports off-limits? How about reports on cultural or economic affairs? What about political matters involving countries outside the Middle East?

As well as that, the "IronDuke standard" is ridiculously ill-defined. What counts as "censored media"? Israel's media are heavily censored about issues to do with security matters; does that make it off-limits? Many consider Britain's media to be muzzled by very strict libel laws. India has a very active press commission. Thailand's media is distorted by political ownership and subject to drastic limitations in certain areas. In fact, if you look at Reporters without Borders' list of press freedom for 2007, Jordan is actually ranked higher than many "westernised" countries, including Thailand, the Philippines, Mexico and so on. It's in a roughly equal position with India. How about it, IronDuke - are you going to argue that the whole of the Mexican and Indian media should be excluded? Where do you draw the line? Considering who's brought this up, it's clear that this whole thing is just an attempt to exclude the reporting of one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict; nobody should take it seriously. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Chris, you switched from third person to second person in your opening salvo, so I'm not quite sure what you think you meant. Do you mean that I don't like Jordan ? What gave you that idea? Or that it would be appropriate to assert it here?
As for excluding India and/or Mexico … I'd certainly listen to arguments for and against with an open mind. Lay em on me, and I'll tell you if I think for our purposes they are better, worse, or about the same as Jordan .
"If you want to describe a particular country's point of view about an issue, then of course media from that country is likely to be the best source." Well, okay, that's actually not true at all, is it? Unless by "country" you mean "governmental view." And I think I said before, we might be able to use the papers for that. And okay, Chris, sports scores too. But not to support factual assertions about things that actually did/did not happen in the Middle East. Right?
"What counts as "censored media"?" Well, I answered this above. At length. Showed why Jordan won't do for the purposes that TB is interested in. Good stuff there, you should check it out. Your argument, BTW, leads directly to "all sources are fine," since it's impossible to draw a totally precise line. You don't actually believe this, of course, but it's where that sort of water-muddying leads.
"Considering who's brought this up, it's clear that this whole thing is just an attempt to exclude the reporting of one side in the Arab-Israeli conflict; nobody should take it seriously." That is not a useful remark. I don't have to give you the alphabet soup of what it violates, I'll just say TB's enquiry is in and of itself entirely proper; no serious, neutral person could have a problem with it.
In sum, I think from what you've written, we can all agree that Jordan papers should not be quoted when it comes to Middle-East matters, except to reaffirm a government position (and that this should be made clear in the text). Resolved? IronDuke 22:38, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Denial of the Holodomor

-library science is not a reliable source in this respect [2] claims Relata refero regarding
Denial of the Ukrainian famine (1933) according to:

and keeps removing the fact and the sources from the article. Any thoughts?

Also, once this is here are sources like for example:

reliable sources that would define the subject unlike Relata refero claims the article is a violation of WP:SYNTH, WP:OR and WP:NPOV?

Thanks!--Termer (talk) 02:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Er, I checked the talk page, and you seem to be mentioning a great deal of things that are unrelated to RR's comment about one specific source being inadequate for this purpose. Broadly speaking, RR's complaint - and it looks reasonable, on a first look, to me - is that the article is written such that it labels any failure to conform to a maximalist, intentionalist vision of the Ukranian famine of 1933 as an orchestrated master plan of genocide as "Holodomor Denial," a concept that does not seem to be well-defined or subject to serious academic study. It is as if someone were to write an article called "Iraq Sanctions Denial" about people who say that the UN sanctions on Iraq did not kill 1/2 million people; yes, the best evidence would seem to indicate that this indeed happened, and two consecutive UN Humanitarian Co-ordinators for Iraq resigned in protest of this "genocide," but that doesn't mean that "Iraq Sanctions Denial" is suddenly a notable topic and that people who say the evidence is unclear or Saddam is mainly to blame can be labeled as "Iraq Sanctions Deniers." <eleland/talkedits> 03:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Basically you're saying the article has notability issues? Please also comment on the question about the sources above. Thanks!--Termer (talk) 03:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Rather than notability per se, I am concerned that there has been some POV-forking, or that there is a potential for POV-forking. It might be better to reabsorb the denial article and the genocide question article back into the main article on the Holodomor. Keeping such articles within a sensible length usually helps with maintaining NPOV and does not detract at all from the importance of the events. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:24, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Termer, Relata is correct. The first reference above is to a book dealing with library science and more specifically the impact of the internet on information services. This is not a reliable source for a contentious piece of Soviet/Ukrainian history. That much is clear. The second source, which clearly Relata was not directly referring to in his "library science"{ comment, is from a book by Jeane Kirkpatrick, who seems to be well known for her anticommunist polemics. She may have held a PhD but in 1988 when the book was published she had long been entrenched in the front lines of Cold War politics, and should be very hesitantly used to source contentious aspects of Soviet history. That should also be rather obvious.PelleSmith (talk) 11:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I think Itsmejudith might have some valid points and in case WP:Consensus can be reached about it, why not to keep all Holodomor related subjects in one article. I'd be open to that. However, I brought the books here to validate the reliability of the sources in the context, not that much what to do about the article in general. That I think would be a separate discussion that everybody could give their input in the relevant talk page.
Regarding J. Kirkpatric being "in the front lines of Cold War politics" according to PelleSmith, that is a statement that would need some clear sourcing on its own I think. Has Kirkpatric been referred to by any other scholars as not being a reliable author who has promoted fringe theories about Soviet history or anything like that?--Termer (talk) 16:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
I linked her entry in the hope that you might actually read it. She was a foreign policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and an outspoken critic of communism as a political figure. In terms of the Soviet Union, as far as I can tell, she was a polemicist and not a scholar. Where are her qualifications as a Russian or Ukrainian historian? We don't need an emphatic statement by another scholar about something that is this obvious. There are several writers who have PhDs and/or have taught at respectable Universities who also should not be used as reliable sources in areas that directly relate to their highly politicized public life - especially without any evidence that they have any academic expertise in these areas.PelleSmith (talk) 17:15, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, in relation to the first two sources, Relata is quite right that the first relates to library science, not to history. Also, the second is not a mainstream historical work. History articles should be sourced from books and articles by qualified and practising historians, published in academic journals or books from academic presses. Their authors will usually have worked directly with the primary sources and will be competent users of the relevant language(s). I doubt whether Kirkpatrick was working in that way. Her writing would probably be a good source for commentary on current affairs or recent foreign policy, but not for unpicking events that happened decades ago and that professional historians are struggling to understand. Itsmejudith (talk) 16:54, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, including PelleSmith' points that Kirkpatric would be more like a primary source that would be valid only for citing a POV on the subject rather than a secondary source that an article on WP should be based on. How about the 3rd and 4th book in the context?--Termer (talk) 17:00, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
3 and 4 are both RS. Only one caveat, that you avoid giving prominence to any points that these sources only mention in passing. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:54, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Itsmejudith! It all makes sense. Coming back to your previous points regarding the article in general, please let me know if I got it right. Since no serious mainstream scholar has really denied the occurrence of the famine ever. the subject itself is not considered "serious" subject of study since the 'denial of the famine' is limited to ...the communist Party of SU politics and some of it's supporters opinions. Therefore it's getting mentioned as a fact by those RS-s only in passing. But in general the subject itself is not serious enough or the denial is limited to too marginal political groups and therefore there is no point of studding it really or having a separate article on WP that: like put by someone at the articles talk page: provides a list of "crack-pot fringe-theorists" who deny the occurrence of the famine . Therefore it would be better to keep the subject as a part of the main article Holodomor? --Termer (talk) 16:04, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
It seems that some people are working hard to draw parallels between this famine and the Holocaust, hence the term Holodomor. And hence there is an article on Denial of the Holodomor. But Holocaust denial is a notable phenomenon in its own right. There is an extensive literature on it. There is no real parallel with denial of the Holodomor. Well, morally perhaps there is a parallel but we are looking for verifiability not truth. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:44, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

(Outdent) Hello, as a contributor to this article, I personally find the above entry repuslive. Here's why:

In 1932, soviet authorities started taking away grain from people and by 1933 those people were starving to death. The people in Ukraine who were dieing started using the word "Голодомор" - "Holodomor" which is derived from the word "holod" "голод" (hunger) and "moryty" "морити" (to cause to suffer). "Holodomor" described the situation that they faced - starvation, unless they joined the collective farms. There was a holod, a famine, throughout Ukraine, and people were starving in the streets. The soviet union was exporting grain in record quantities. Hence the idea of "moryty" - using food as a weapon.

More than ten years later, a word started creeping into the English vernacular - holocaust. It was from the greek word for sacrifice by fire - holokauston, and referred to Hitler's extermination policies. This word did not become common in English until it was connected to the word "genocide" in the 1950s, and the whole horror of Nazism sunk in. The word "Holodomor" is now becoming widespread, as the horrible results of communism are starting to sink in.

Although the words "Holodomor" and "Holocaust" may seem similar in modern English, they are in no way related. Although these two events may seem equally horrible in nature, they are in no way related. Although the articles about Holodomor Denial and Holocaust Denial may seem related, they are not. There has been no attempt to link the two. Please do not try to read into any reasons or find any hidden agendas by any editors. Thanks, Horlo (talk) 09:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

the similarity between 2 words Holodomor and Holocaust seems to be a concern for some editors. The similarity might be intentional and then again, it might not. (it is actually a good question how the name Holodomor came into use?) The real parallel would be there only if "Holodomor" would be accepted as an act of genocide by the majority in the world. So far it's not, so the name itself might confuse the reader. That's why I've suggested renaming the article to Denial of Ukrainian famine (1932) that would refer clearly to the denial of the occurrence of the famine as such and it would have nothing to do with "Holodomor genocide question".--Termer (talk) 21:10, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
Christ, I had another look, and that article is an atrocity. It perniciously lumps everything together: naive offhand remarks by visting diplomats in 1933, official decrees from Soviet news agencies that Ukraine is an earthly paradise, and mild revisionism criticizing the political use of dubious claims about a Stalinist master plan of genocide is all treated as one phenomenon. Renaming it "Denial of the Ukrainian Famine" would be a silly little diversion. <eleland/talkedits> 01:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Allah, Yahweh, and Vishna to you also, my friend. What you may call an atrocity, others may call a work in progress. While it is difficult to organize such a vast topic as Holodomor Denial into one easy article, editors have taken on the task with a steady determination. Please help to improve the article, but please do not use phrases like "silly little". Thanks, Horlo (talk) 09:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I did not realise that the two words were not at all connected. Thank you for enlightening me. Let us please keep civil here, all of us. I am coming new to this topic. I have proposed merging this article into the general one on the Holodomor for reasons I gave on the merge discussion talk page. I hope you will see that I am not doing this to advance any position at all. It is to ensure that we have good quality articles based on reliable sources, i.e. what was hoped for when the question was raised on this page. Although Eleland's wording was harsh I'm sure it was offered for the same reason. All our articles are work in progress. Itsmejudith (talk) 11:17, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Myspace blog

I know this has probably been brought up before but what is the reliability of a myspace blog? (The situation: The birth year of Alex O'Loughlin has never been reliably pinned down but on what is presumably his myspace page he blogged clarifying his birth year.) My first thought is to say no to the use of myspace personally, but the section on 'self-published and questionable sources about themselves' makes me hesitant on this. Should/can this be used as a source or not? --ImmortalGoddezz (t/c) 19:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

If it can be verified by a reliable source that it is his blog, there should be no problem using it as a self-published source. --NE2 19:16, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
  • My gut says no. We have no way of knowing whether or not he (or someone else) operates his myspace. WP:BLP is stricter than WP:SPS with regards to blogs, etc. My opinion is that it is better to leave the birth date blank unless we can cite it reliably, but there is a wide range of opinion on that. Protonk (talk) 22:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
How can/should one go about verifying the legitimacy of a MySpace page as actually being that of the celebrity in question? Nightscream (talk) 01:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
If it is directly linked to from their "official" site with some pretty obvious "this is me (or really a publicist or intern) on myspace". Protonk (talk) 01:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. Since the actor doesn't have an official site and I can't link the myspace to any official news report about him I'm going with my instincts and removing the info. --ImmortalGoddezz (t/c) 17:03, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

University Thesis

Is a University Thesis by someone about another person that is passed away considered to be a reliable source?Vivaldi27 (talk) 19:31, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty borderline. If it's a biographical article I'd still try to find more widely-published sources. It would be a different matter if it was a thesis about an uncontroversial technical topic. Squidfryerchef (talk) 22:39, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
usually no. Most universities will let you get a MA or PhD with almost any thesis and the university is not officially on the hook for the claims made in the article. What is the source in question? Protonk (talk) 23:22, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
Finding a thesis is often useful as it gives you the name of an author. You can then search for books or articles written by that person. Academics often derive articles from their thesis while they are writing it or soon afterwards, and the whole thesis might be published in amended form as a book. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
A PhD thesis is certainly a RS. It isn't self-published and goes through a review process by a group of experts in the field. That's more than most books. Is a university Thesis something different? Hobit (talk) 21:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that is true at all. Not all university theses are created alike. Plenty of PhD granting universities out there will accept a thesis that could never get published in academic press. The purpose of the thesis is mainly to demonstrate that the writer can formulate an independent work of scholarly interest. Usually the thesis ends up being published somewhere, but that is only after it is submitted for peer review. I absolutely disagree that a thesis is RS simply because of the review committee. Protonk (talk) 22:12, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
A PhD dissertation (at the very least in the humanities and social sciences and in the United States) goes through a rigorous review process by the dissertations readers most of whom are experts in the field and who are "on the hook" in some way or another. Protonk, the reason why a given PhD dissertation may not be publishable has nothing to do with the perceived reliability of its content. Do you have any evidence of that being the case because I've never heard this before?PelleSmith (talk) 22:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Here are three older discussions related to this one: 1, 2, and 3. I will note that I only think a PhD dissertation from an accredited university (and not a lesser type of "thesis") should be considered reliable yet even in that case should be avoided when possible for novel and contentious claims.PelleSmith (talk) 22:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
(ec) I know that PhD's in the US in all fields go through a rigorous review. One of the elements of reliability (in terms of the "publisher") requires that the publisher take responsibility for the content. I also realize that many PhD dissertations are not publishable for reasons other than reliability (good and bad). Novelty bias, scope of subject, length of dissertation all impact likelihood of publication and do not impact what we would consider accuracy. Another element of reliability is editorial control. While PhD theses may be vetted for claims and evidence, most universities will eventually accept a thesis on most any subjects (assuming that the major professor ok's it). This is the antithesis of reliability in a publisher sense. We rely (rightly or wrongly) on third parties to select and cover topics. Fact checking is only an element of that outsourcing. Protonk (talk) 22:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm with ProtonK here, and I'll add that, as always, the devil is in the details. If you're looking blanket statement that PhD theses from qualifier1, qualifier2, qualifier3 university are always/never reliable sources, then I don't think you're going to get one. In many subjects, theses from certain universities may be valid sources for certain types of claims, but in many cases they won't be. Theses aren't "published" in the usual sense of the word, and if claims made in a thesis are notable and/or valid, then one would hope that the claim would eventually show up in an unambiguously reliable source. In my own field (chemistry), crappy not-otherwise publishable material is sometimes (not often--but still with an unfortunate regularity) crammed into theses, since sometimes the best way to get rid of a lackluster grad student is to pass him/her out of the program. It's clean and easy, and everyone gets what they want--the prof gets rids of an underperforming grad student and the student gets a PhD. Happens all the time, even at "prestigious" universities. Yilloslime (t) 22:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I realize now that I wasn't as clear as I had hoped to be. Here is my rundown: Reliability of a source (in this case, the word source refers to the publisher not the author) stems from three things. A reputation for fact checking. A reputation for selection and control of content. And a reputation for responsibility for that content. A PhD thesis from a major university only meets the first element. The rest are at best met on a case by case basis within given departments. Protonk (talk) 23:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with this assessment. To suggest that there is no "selection and control of content" by seasoned experts in the field who are not the PhD candidate themselves is absurd and clearly wrong. Sure the university itself may not take responsibility in the manner of a publisher but it seems like neither of you are willing to account for aspects of the dissertation process that are simply different from the publishing process but may accomplish similar ends in terms of reliability. To suggest that dissertation readers (as opposed to the university as an institution) take no responsibility for the content of the dissertation is odd. We get it, the dissertation writing process is not the same as the process of getting a book published by an academic press, but why on earth is that the standard by which the dissertation needs to be judged in terms of reliability? Yilloslime, in your hypothetical situation everyone does not "get what they want". The university and the department in question will lose in the end if they continue to produce scholars who can't get jobs in no small part because the research that was approved and supervised by the department is of poor quality. Don't forget that a lot of garbage is published by university presses as well for various reasons. Could either of you offer something more than simple anecdotes to support the assertion that PhD dissertations cannot be considered reliable sources in most instances? I'm happy to repeat the notion that they should not be used for contentious and novel claims. Thanks.PelleSmith (talk) 23:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Keep in mind that I'm not saying "never", I'm just saying "not usually". First, I don't agree that universities have incentives to maintain doctoral dissertation quality. That incentive is transferred largely to the student. In most fields there is a pressure to produce something worthy of publication in order to seek academic employment. In that case it is in the interests of the student to produce something of quality. For students who will not seek academic employment the university has no real incentive to control quality. Efficacy of graduate programs are judged based on the employment prospects of graduates and time to graduate, not the quality of dissertations. Second, we have no information on individual colleges and departments. While we can (and often do) judge sources bu their public face--tabloids are rebuked as tabloids, journals which practice rigorous fact checking are noted--we have no real way to determine this for the thousands of PhD programs in the United States alone. We can spot obvious diploma mills but review of these programs from a fact checking and editorial control standpoing is spotty at best. Third, we still don't have strong editorial control. While I agree that selection of a topic and scope are subject to the whim of the major professor, there is no guarantee that this results in some meaningful selection. I also want to contest the "just anecdote" notion. I don't see that you have offered some data about the overall accuracy of doctoral dissertation (or the average eventual publication). We are both providing reasons for our arguments and anecdotal (sometimes) examples. I can tell you that I go to a large Midwestern PhD granting university who is not in the top 10 academically. Our standards for dissertations are lower than the standards for publication in most fields. I have plenty of reason to believe that there is considerable variation in the quality of dissertations between universities and that they may not always be reliable sources. Protonk (talk) 05:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I don't have much more than anecdotal information myself, but I'm not asserting that a certain form of large scale research project supposedly done under expert supervision and receiving the stamp of an accredited university is often an unreliable source for facts. Is it possible that your experience is more salient in specific fields of research? I can't imagine many of these "PhD mills" in the humanities and social sciences, but maybe my experience isn't the more common one. The idea that oversight comes in the form of professorial "whims" seems pretty cynical to me. Of course the scope of the project isn't in question here the reliability of the finished product is. You are convincing me, even if only by example, that there is a lot of variation across programs and disciplines which would make a generalized statement here more problematic. Yet what I'm not convinced of is that the difference in "quality" between universities relates directly to the reliability of information within dissertations. That was my initial concern when it was suggested that the fact that most dissertations are not published speaks to their unreliability when I don't see any evidence of this. When advised on how to write a dissertation that would have a better chance of being accepted for publication I've never come across any advice about reliability and/or the accuracy of information. I'm not sure good data exists on the accuracy of information from books published by academic presses either. Perhaps no one needs to use a dissertation as a reference anyway if we all agree that novel/contentious claims should be avoided from these sources leaving factual information which can always be sourced elsewhere. Protonk I do not doubt that your appraisal is entirely sincere and based upon good experience in this area, and I didn't mean to suggest otherwise with my "anecdotal" comment. Cheers.PelleSmith (talk) 13:08, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
I'll attempt something of a reply here, but I think we agree on some narrow issues. One of the biggest issues with WP:RS is that we have three distinct connotations for the word source. We may mean source in the manner that RS means it: a publisher of information. We may mean source to be the author of that piece of information. And we may mean source to be the actual font of data that the piece compiles. In the case (broadly) of PhD dissertations I still think that they are not a homogeneously reliable source in the first definition. If there is a wide disparity in dissertation quality and appropriateness of topic selection then I am hesitant to leave the judgment of the accuracy and acceptability of a dissertation to the editor alone. I kind of answered this below, but I feel that there is a big continuum of PhD quality from top flight universities to diploma mills. there are plenty of PhD granting universities who have competitive admissions, comprehensive examinations and difficult coursework but which may (or may not) not undertake strong control in the selection of topics and coverage of material (I concede the point that fact checking is largely done). I also want to revisit my "whim" comment. I just threw that out there. I didn't mean it literally and I should have clarified. Topics are agreed upon (usually where I have seen) between student and professor but my point was that there are many more students than professors and the assent of the major professor to a student topic isn't the same thing as an editor pushing for a story and selecting among different stories (Mostly because students eventually write the dissertation where reporters or columnists may--for some papers--write several stories before one is selected). Remember, back to the "sources" issues. the problem at hand isn't the "reliability" of the information but of the PhD dissertation process. That is the important element. We may accept the NYT as a reliable source even though they messed up and published the WMD business in 2002-2003. This is a rough cut from a blunt tool, but it seems to work reasonably well. I just feel that if we apply it to dissertations we end up with the answer that usually it is impossible to tell if the dissertation process is reliable school to school. Protonk (talk) 16:10, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(out indent, EC)

  • OK, this is verging upon the bizarre. Let's go one thing at a time.
  • First, I don't agree that universities have incentives to maintain doctoral dissertation quality. That incentive is transferred largely to the student. In most fields there is a pressure to produce something worthy of publication in order to seek academic employment. In that case it is in the interests of the student to produce something of quality. For students who will not seek academic employment the university has no real incentive to control quality. Efficacy of graduate programs are judged based on the employment prospects of graduates and time to graduate, not the quality of dissertations.
  • Believe me, there are strong incentives to maintain doctoral dissertation quality. Schools do not want to be known as a paper mill. Faculty members don't want to be known for having shoddy PhD students. Graduate programs are judged almost solely on how good of students they produce. US News rankings have been making a bigger deal about number of graduates, but for departments it is peer-review that matters. And believe me, quality of PhD students (which is judged mostly by what they've done/written) is the number one issue there.
  • I'm not saying that they don't. Schools are certainly rated on the success of their graduates and this gives the university a strong incentive to get them to write publishable dissertations. What I'm saying is that there is a difference between being accountable for inaccuracies, bias and topic selection and being accountable for student outcomes. And it isn't just diploma mill vs. not. There is a pretty big leap from (say) the University of Chicago and the University of Phoenix. Most top of the field schools will produce dissertations that go on to be published in some form. Schools which don't (a big chunk of them) still have rigorous and comprehensive PhD programs, but we can no longer say that a high percentage of their students' dissertations go on to be published. It is those schools which we are concerned about. Not harvard.
  • Second, we have no information on individual colleges and departments. While we can (and often do) judge sources bu their public face--tabloids are rebuked as tabloids, journals which practice rigorous fact checking are noted--we have no real way to determine this for the thousands of PhD programs in the United States alone. We can spot obvious diploma mills but review of these programs from a fact checking and editorial control standpoing is spotty at best.
  • At the very least the same is true of newspapers and magazines in the US. Which local papers are "reliable?" There are a lot more local papers than PhD granting institutions. And we have a high degree of certainty that more time was spent on the thesis than a news article. Both in the writing and the editing.
  • Third, we still don't have strong editorial control. While I agree that selection of a topic and scope are subject to the whim of the major professor, there is no guarantee that this results in some meaningful selection.
  • And somehow you think that the selection of topic and scope by a news reporter and her editor results in meaningful selection? Why one and not the other?
  • Yes of course I do. Newspapers have a limit to their possible coverage, the number of pages they can print. They also have meaningful tradeoffs in assigning a reporter to issue A rather than B, or C or D. The only thing that limits topic selection for dissertations is grad students. We can cherry pick bad topics just as easily as we can cherry pick good topics.
I think you are holding one type of publication to a higher standard than the others. The work is reviewed by a committee (by definition) and directed by an expert in the field. If a Thesis claimed that "Bob Jones was a murder" I'd certainly be hesitant to take that as fact just because someone wrote it in a thesis. But I'd be hesitant to take that as fact just because the NYT said it. That "discovering the optimal scheduling algorithm for certain caches is NP-hard" is something I'd believe from a thesis, esp. as it would have evidence therein to back it up. In that case, there's also a journal paper (which should be cited instead). Hobit (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm going to respond inline just to make things worse. :) Like I said above, my suggested answer isn't never but "often, no". I don't see that as descending into silly season. The field that I dabble in has plenty of MA and PhD theses which push the discipline forward, mostly because it is so new. I wouldn't have a problem citing one in a paper but I probably wouldn't (even if I knew the research) cite it in wikipedia. Protonk (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Example of an unacceptable PhD. I just searched googlebooks for sources and found a full-text rendition of a PhD thesis that looked like a thoroughly researched, spot-on source on topic... until I found that it cites guess what - wikipedia - and on a gregarious scale (go figure). At page 387 the author even argues that wikipedia has more or less quality than paper encyclopedias. Why in the world a thesis needs to cite encyclopedias? beats me. This one is from Oslo School of Engineering and Design. NVO (talk) 15:57, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find more, even in the US or the UK. This is sad, but true. Doug Weller (talk) 16:18, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

Citing unverifiable Amazon 'editorial reviews' as book reviews

This specifically involves the 'blurbs' here [3]. There is an ongoing dispute at Kaveh Farrokh‎ and Shadows in the Desert: Persia at War‎ about whether these can be included in the article as book reviews. Some editors including myself say no, others keep reinstating them. My argument is that we actually need to be able to verify them, and that means seeing the original sources. This is particularly important as they are selective and at the moment there is no way of knowing what the rest of the statement was. I see this as similar to the way critics' reviews are used on billboards for plays, etc. The rest of the comment may have been very negative, but Amazon is after all a commercial venture trying to sell books - another reason not to use these I think. Unless our readers can actually see the entire source, I don't think these are verifiable and thus should not be used. (No one is accusing Amazon of lying, by the way, although one editor seems to have thought that was being done). Ironically, I was involved in a disagreement about this in another article recently, where I was able to find the original source. Part of the problem here is that there seem to be no published scholarly reviews of the book, which is probably why some editors are so keen to include these (unless you count, as several editors have, the book's introduction as a review).Thanks. Doug Weller (talk) 08:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

One other point about these being possibly misleading other than that they are incomplete (as you can see by the elipses. If you note, the first couple are from academics in relevant fields. Then we have someone's personal website, another academic, a right wing anti-semitic radio broadcaster, a chemistry graduate student from New York [4] writing in Persian Mirror which its website describes as "The modern magazine for Persian Weddings, Cuisine, Culture and Commentary" (this one is verifiable [5] but is it useful?, and finally "Timothy Baghurst, The Traveller" which doesn't mentioned that Professor Baghurst is Timothy Baghurst, is an assistant professor in the Health Science, Kinesiology, Recreation and Dance Department at the University of Arkansas. So what we have is excerpts where we can't check the context, and attributions which are incomplete to say the least. Doug Weller (talk) 09:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad this has been raised, as I think we need to make a firm ruling about blurbs once and for all. The reliability of Amazon isn't at issue. It is usually - and in this case also, I think - the publishers who cherry-pick from the reviews for back-cover blurbs. I came across a bad case on a contentious article, when a major reputable publishing house had snatched one favourable sentence from a distinctly poor review. There were other untraceable statements that were perhaps commissioned specially for the back cover. Let's just say no. Book reviews are great sources, but there must be the possibility of verifying the whole review. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Amazon does not do any substantial vetting of user reviews, they only weed out obvious abuse. Thus, those reviews are at best self-published sources, and nearly always by non-experts. I would not use them for anything contentious, and preferably not for anything at all. The way to handle biased unreliable sources is not to add balancing unreliable sources, but to remove the bad ones in the first place. But also note that "verifiable" does not mean "free online". If a clear reference is given, it may well require a trip to the library and an inter-library loan. If you are talking about the excepts in the "Editorial Reviews" section, I would say those have the same value as back cover blurbs, i.e. none. You would need to find the full original sources of these comments.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Just to say that I am talking about 'editorial reviews', which I also call blurbs. I agree, verifiable does not mean free online, but it does mean providing a source where it can be found somehow. Doug Weller (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
We all agree then. We treat the Amazon "editorial reviews" as back-cover reviews and don't use them. But of course any editor could follow a lead in one of these snippets, track down the review from which it was taken, and then reference the full review in the normal way, whether it is online or not. They might even choose to reference the very sentence that the publisher pulled out - so long as it was typical of the flavour of the review as a whole. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Well, sometimes the editorial reviews are complete from reputable publications, so Amazon could be a convenience link. If one can extract data from a condensed one that could hardly not be independent of the rest of the review, even if it were pure vitriol, that might be usable. (e.g. giving the date of birth of somebody hard to track down.), but these are special cases. For this book, the two reviews by scholars are more complete at the publisher - the Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones one looks like a complete capsule review in a journal, but the other still has ellipsis. The main problem with these is knowing exactly where they are from though, perhaps attribution to the publisher would be OK for the first.John Z (talk) 10:37, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
The problem is, no one has been able to find any journal reviews. Random House is not the publisher but the US distributor for Osprey I believe. I normally can find sources for Amazon editorial reviews without the problems I'm having with this one. Doug Weller (talk) 10:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Same here. I can't find anything at all. I suspect that these quotes were obtained by the publishers writing to the academics individually. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:59, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
Publishers do often send out "review copies" to sympathetic reviewers to obtain some puffs for the book's publicity material. (Yes, they're actually called "puffs" in the trade.) They can be quite shameless at times. I know of one case of a best-novel book which appeared with a glowing "review" from a prominent author. The author in question later admitted that he hadn't even read the book but just gave the publisher the words they were expecting. So I would say that such puffs are pretty much useless as reliable sources; they're just part of the publicity machine, no more reliable than a promotional press release. They certainly shouldn't be confused with actual reviews in third-party publications such as journals and newspapers. If the only source of the "review" is the publisher or bookseller, then you should be very suspicious. -- ChrisO (talk) 01:51, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
It should be noted that the reviews are actual book reviews, usually by notable people and publications, so as long as you find the full txt of the review and use that, it doesn't matter that Amazon is where you started, just don't cite it. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 12:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
I agree, Amazon is a great source to start a search with, but one cannot cite it. --Crusio (talk) 13:34, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Daniel Pipes,just as an example, writes book reviews in Amazon for books he has read [6]. His opinion carries some weight, good or bad. Wouldn't the fact of a well-known historian or academic reviewing another's work be valid in speaking to notability? I would not make a blanket "no-cite" ....even blurbs are not usually offered by people who do not respect another's work. It's an issue of intellectual integrity. Tundrabuggy (talk) 05:06, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

What confirmation do we have that such reviews are by the people they're claimed to be by? Does Amazon do any editorial control of reviews? If it doesn't, then it seems to me that there's nothing potentially to stop a person from posting reviews under the assumed name of another individual. You wouldn't get that problem with a third-party source. Remember, a lot of Amazon's content is user-generated. WP:V specifically assumes that there has been a process of "fact-checking and accuracy" where sources are concerned. -- ChrisO (talk) 10:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Amazon does in fact "check" on who people are. [7] Reviewers who are who they say they are, may get a "Real Name" badge beside their reviews. Others, like Pipes, are clearly obvious, based on the fact that he sells books as part of his "profile." [8] Many of the "editorial reviews" merely tell a bit what is inside the book without praise or censure, for example this one about Azerbaijani Turks [9]. No reason one cannot use it. Tundrabuggy (talk) 20:14, 27 September 2008 (UTC)
Please read the discussion. We are not talking about Readers' reviews, we are talking about the blurbs that Amazon calls Editorial reviews. These are no better than the blurbs on the back of book jackets. They are unveriable and in this specific case we know they are not even complete. Doug Weller (talk) 16:46, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Here's my take. Amazon "publishes" three different types of editorial reviews: 1: Excerpts from published reviews (NYRB, WSJ, etc). 2: Publisher reviews or synopses. 3: "Blurbs" from other sources usually found on the backcover. Only the first of the three is originally from a reliable source, but I wouldn't be comfortable citing amazon for it. Usually a google search can find the original source of the review. My overall feeling is, no, the amazon review page can't be seen as a reliable source. Protonk (talk) 17:04, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Gibnews.net and User:Gibnews

Resolved. No, this is not a reliable source. Protonk (talk) 13:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate a second opinion on this issue. User:Gibnews runs a Gibraltar-based news website [10], which he has used as reference or primary source in various occasions in the past. At the moment, there is an ongoing content dispute centered on this particular issue, whether he should be allowed to use this website as a reliable source, which he uses to back up his edits (many of the published pieces seem to be official press releases from Gibraltar local government). Link to dispute here. Regards, --Asteriontalk 09:35, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

No way, jose. Not a reliable source at all. check their about us link. they basically say they will run uneditied releases from anyone. Protonk (talk) 22:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)
In addition, I feel very uncomfortable about the conflict of interest this represents. An editor citing his own website as a source? What is to stop him adding <RANDOM> to his website and then citing that on Wikipedia as evidence of a claim? The website would surely count as a self-published source and wouldn't be usable as a reliable source anyway. -- ChrisO (talk) 22:33, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Chronicles from the 17th and 18th century

Are chronicles from the 1600s and 1700s reliable sources? In my opinion, even quoting from such an old source directly (i.e. without a secondary source acting as a filter) is original research, because words change their meaning over such long periods of time (either by losing some of their original meanings or being enriched with new meanings the original author never intended to use). Of course, if the meaning is undisputed within the community then that isn't a problem, but what's the proper course of action if the meaning is disputed? --Gutza T T+ 13:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

In most cases I would agree, though there may be exceptions. I would, e.g. tend to accept (attributed!) excerpts from James Cook's log books or Joseph Banks' reports to show their contemporary impressions. I would not allow them as sources for statements of facts in the editorial voice, of course. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:03, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with describing what they say without any original interpretation, especially when the source is available online (those works are obviously PD) and anyone can verify if the wording in the article is conformal or is just the personal view of an editor.Xasha (talk) 19:04, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
The problem as I see it is that with such old sources one needs to be a historian to determine what the chronicler actually meant, specifically because of the way a language evolves over time. In my opinion simply copying information from such an old source can be misleading as a result. In other words, I think that such old sources require interpretation by a contemporary specialist, especially regarding controversial matters. --Gutza T T+ 19:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
While that can be a problem, it's not substantially different from many modern sources. To read a modern research paper, you also need to be a specialist and be aware of nuances of meaning in words that have more vague or even quite different colloquial interpretations (see e.g. metal in astronomical contexts, or