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Omitting Bloomberg from India-Pak Conflicts

Recently, Bloomberg wrote an article which contained fake news regarding the Indo-Russian SSN deal. This was instantly fact checked by an official Indian handle.

The same news network didn't seem unbiased post the Indo-Pak conflict, when it bluntly pushed the Indian CDS to confirm the PAF claims of IAF losses during the Shangri-La dialogues, while no such hard and direct questions were asked to his Pakistani military counterparts despite the IAF making a similar claim regarding PAF aircraft losses as well.

As such, I would argue against adding Bloomberg sources in Wiki articles regarding Indo-Pak conflicts. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 17:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Do you have a source which says that Bloomberg wrote an article which contained fake news? The official Indian handle is hardly an independent reliable source in the matter after all. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:50, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Press Information Bureau (PIB) is the official nodal agency of the Government of India regarding press topics. It's stance is the truth if the matter concerns Indian deals and issues such as this military deal.

Any RS will only cite it as a source. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 18:07, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Unless of course the truth is classified, then their stance is an official lie. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:12, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

The truth wasn't classified but available for everyone to see from 2019. They simply made up a false and misleading report which they were forced to rectify after the fact-check, thus proving my point. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

You dodged the question, does the PIB ever lie, mislead, or withhold information for operational, national security, or strategic reasons? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:39, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Didn't dodge but ignored, because it doesn't matter in this context.

If you are suggesting that they lied in any point of time, then the onus of proof is on you. I have already proven my point. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 19:02, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

You claimed that they always and unfailingly tell the truth, to the point that whatever they say is the truth... the onus of proof never left you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 19:11, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

I never said that. I only said they state the truth when related to Indian deals and issues such as this military deal.

There are no national security risks for correcting/not correcting Bloomberg. So the basis of this argument is wrong.

That's why I ignored it. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 19:24, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Have they been delivered? Slatersteven (talk) 18:45, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

A couple of things: A government fact-checker is useless, especially one commenting on matters regarding the government it belongs to, you are not doing yourself a favour by calling this "fake news" i.e. fabricated news when even the supposed fact-checker calls it just "misleading" (which isn't great but different from an outright fabrication), and news outlets are not obligated to ask the same questions to both sides of a conflict. Cortador (talk) 17:54, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

We need more than the Indian government says it's false to bar the use of a source. Slatersteven (talk) 17:58, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

If the bar to bar is some government official tweets a negative thing about a story we will run out of RS before Christmas... Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:01, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Even if the PM and President issues official statements it should not be enough, independent third-party party RS needs to say it is making up stories. Slatersteven (talk) 18:05, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Can we have the retraction? Slatersteven (talk) 18:42, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

A government fact-checker is the most important source when talking about stuff related to arms deals such as this one.

Also, if a so called RS can't bring itself to act impartial and ask questions of similar gravity, sensitivity and magnitude, such as multi-million dollars worth of military equipment destroyed, to both the parties, then it is indeed being non-neutral and biased. This can't be disputed.

I am not asking to outright dismiss Bloomberg as an RS, not anything on such lines. What I'm suggesting is not to include it only on topics related to Indian Military and Indo-Pak conflicts. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 18:57, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes we get that. The problem is that the only "fact" they seem to have gotten wrong is that this is a new deal, rather than a redrawing (a delay) of an old one. Slatersteven (talk) 19:07, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Bias does not preclude a source from being considered reliable; we seek accuracy, rather than fairness, in sources. Neutrality is expect of Wikipedia, not of our sources. See WP:BIASED. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 19:17, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

The fact-check proved accuracy is missing. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 19:34, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

You indicated above that when faced with a criticisms of the accuracy, Bloomberg made a correction. Per WP:NEWSORG, we consider the issuing of corrections to be a positive sign toward the reliability of a source. Basically every source will make an error at some point. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 21:03, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

• One bad report (if it was indeed bad - I haven't checked) is not enough to exclude a source, much as I would like to exclude news reports from any "serious" articles, but Wikipedia editors in their infinite wisdom have decided to allow them. Phil Bridger (talk) 20:46, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

  Fine, but I'm atleast expecting a depreciation of this source in the aforementioned topic(s), or atleast a note to be careful/cautious on citing this source for the same. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 06:34, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

  A depreciation of an outlet based on one possible error is very rash, even if the depreciation is in one topic area. Katzrockso (talk) 14:46, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

• Goverments are reliable for their own words and positions, they don't get to be arbiters of fact. They are inherently political and biased to their own position. Has any other third party criticised Bloomberg for this claim? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:49, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

  Goverments are reliable for their own words and positions - See, this is the case here. Any third party would only cite it as a source.

  Not only did they cite the value wrong ($2B instead of $3B), but also falsely attributed to the statement of the Chief of Naval Staff Dinesh K. Tripathi and stated "commissioning of the attack submarine would be expected soon" to justify their false report.

  The CNS clearly gave the statement regarding the upcoming indigenous SSBN, not the Russian SSN. Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 10:31, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think anyone got the number of billions wrong. See my analysis below. --Guy Macon (talk) 12:28, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

  I thank you for giving so much of your time for an extensive analysis on this issue. But as I said earlier, it's not limited just at this. They also falsely attributed to the CNS statement to justify their false report. Even the 3 Indian news reports you mentioned (Telegraph, NDTV & Firstpost) have openly written about sourcing their information from the misleading report of Bloomberg, believing it to be true. So it is Bloomberg who's still the main culprit, and the core issue remains.

  Hearing everyone's opinions, I've come down from my earlier argument for a limited topic-area depreciation. But I am atleast expecting a note to be extra careful/cautious on citing this source inside the aforementioned topic-area(s). Cdr. Erwin Smith (talk) 20:32, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Let's start with the fact that it wasn't just Bloomberg.

• "India seals $2 billion deal to lease nuclear submarine from Russia during Putin visit" --Telegraph India
• "India Clinches $2 Billion Russia Submarine Deal As Putin Visits" --NDTV World
• "A $2 billion-worth Russian nuclear-attack submarine lease is what India is going forward with as Vladimir Putin comes to town." --Firstpost india

The geeky defense site Defense Express made a more nuanced report:

"What Is Known About India's Leased russian Nuclear Submarine and Its Missile Capabilities

"India is set to lease the 36-year-old K-391 Bratsk nuclear submarine, which will be modernized and equipped with universal vertical launching systems. However, Delhi is subject to the U.S. CAATSA law, which allows for the imposition of sanctions. The Indian Navy will lease a russian nuclear submarine, which will join the fleet in 2028 for a period of 10 years at a cost of $2 billion. The agreement has already been officially acknowledged in Moscow, confirming that the lease is based on the contract signed in March 2019. It should be noted that the Indian media wrote about this agreement based solely on their own sources. It is known that Delhi wanted to acquire theShchuka-B nuclear submarine of Project 971. The delivery date was set for 2025-2035, while the contract value was announced at $3 billion. However, this contract was never fulfilled. Later, insiders revealed that it was the K-391 Bratsk. This is a very old submarine, which was commissioned in 1989. In 1998, it was removed from the standing forces, and in 2003, it was sent to the North-Eastern Ship Repair Center in Vilyuchinsk, Kamchatka, for repairs, from which it never formally returned."

So, it looks like sources told Indian Media one story, then later another story. Pretty normal, as long as corrections are posted.

Then there are the multiple reports of the Indian Government blasting Bloomberg (and maybe the Indian Media?) over this,,which is also pretty normal.

• "India debunks media reports of new Russian submarine lease" --Naval Technology
• "Govt refutes report of new $2 bn submarine deal with Russia, calls it 'misleading' " --The Economic Times of India
• "Govt fact checks report claiming India, Russia sealed USD 2-billion submarine deal" --India Today

Seems like ordinary news reporting to me. Sources racing each other to be the first to report breaking news get it wrong because their sources got it wrong, Government complains about media, a geeky defense-related source gives out all of the geeky details about which submarine and what contract, Media goes back to their sources, find that the geeky source and the government was right, and publish a fresh bunch of reports based on the new info. None of this makes any of the sources unreliable. They appear to be just doing what news organization do.

BTW, this IRDW URL (h t t p s : / / i d r w . o r g / india-denies-any-fresh-2-billion-submarine-deal-signed-with-russia/ ) is a better source for the Indian Government statement rather than a post on X. Alas, it hit one of our blacklists. :( --Guy Macon (talk) 12:20, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

The problem seems to stem from the desire to be first with the news, as appropriate for a news organisation, rather than be slow but right, as appropriate for an encyclopedia. As Guy says above, "they appear to be just doing what news organisations do". We, as an encyclopedia, should not follow suit. Phil Bridger (talk) 13:50, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

We totally screwed up from the start. We should have started with an ironclad rule that nothing on Wikipedia can be newer than 48 or maybe 72 hours and invited anyone who doesn't like the rule to create an article on WikiNews or to work on a sandbox version that can only be viewed by extended confirmed editors. Readers would get a notice saying that Wikipedia is purposely 3 days out of date because we are an encyclopedia, and would stop looking to us for late breaking news. A reasonable exception would be some way to remove things that we know for sure are wrong even though we just found out.

A large percentage of the conflicts we have on Wikipedia are caused by trying to chase late breaking news. Alas, that ship has sailed and we have to many editors addicted to late breaking news for any such proposal to pass now. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:56, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

+1 -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:35, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

The article OP is complaining about isn't cited anywhere on Wikipedia as far as I can see. They are complaining about Bloomberg's reporting on India/Pakistan issues, not about someone having uses a breaking new article. Cortador (talk) 23:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Flightconnections, Flightradar24 and FlightsFrom - reliable to verify airline routes?

There's been a bit of scattered debate about these three sources, from myself included, with some labelling these are WP:SYNTH or WP:SPS in the case of FlightsFrom. I have to admit, the waters are getting muddied every time the arguments crop up, so I think it may be time to put this to bed once and for all:

The use-case here is verifying the continued existence of an air route - eg. Wikipedia Airlines flies from DannersTown to Synthland seasonally (or not seasonally).

• FlightConnections seems to be a website dedicated to showing airline routes - there has been discussion (specifically between @Thenoflyzone and @VenFlyer98 that this source is WP:SYNTH. Personally my primary concern is there appears to be zero transparency as to where the website obtains its information, as I cannot find an About page anywhere. Example source: to verify that the route YUL-LIR is operational (Guanacaste Airport
• FlightRadar 24 is a popular website for sourcing, but I personally agree with a number of others (such as @10mmsocket) that it's SYNTH - however, it's very similar to the above. Example use is to verify that there are flights between Kuala Lumpur and Juanda (Juanda International Airport).
  • However, FR24 also has another part of their site which lists future flights for an airline - for example, - unlike the flight history pages in the above bullet point, it's showing future flights. As with FlightConnections, my only thought here is where the data is coming from.
• FlightsFrom appears to be very similar to WP:AEROROUTES in that it publishes information about airlines starting, changing or ending routes - however, unlike Aeroroutes, its About page lists two people working on the website, so it would appear to pass WP:SPS. I've included it here because it's become the "go-to" source since Aeroroutes was labelled SPS, so I wanted to have clarity one way or the other to avoid any potential conflict or disagreement. Example use is to verify a flight from Houston to Bozeman (George Bush Intercontinental Airport).

To clarify for editors, I don't know what the outcome here will be - apart from FR24 (flight history - not the future flights section), I don't really have any strong opinion... I just want to stop the back and forth between editors by having the discussion once in the appropriate forum, and deciding one way or the other - reliable or not. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 11:15, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

• Comment - I wouldn't say these sources were reliable, secondary, independent sources in any event. FlightConnections.com is a ticket-sales site associated ultimately with Kayak - very obviously not independent. Flightradar 24 is a flight-tracker website whose data comes from transponders and so-forth: clearly primary. The same is true of FlightsFrom - it's a ticket-sales website.

Please just stop doing WP:OR/WP:SYNTH to generate route-lists and recognise that WP is not a host for non-notable fan-content.

We can keep playing whack-a-mole with the incredibly bad sourcing that people see fit to use for flight information, or people can finally acknowledge that Wikipedia actually has policies for sourcing. FOARP (talk) 11:35, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

@FOARP, I agree with you that these are not secondary sources, per WP:LINKSINACHAIN.

When you say that the website is "very obviously not independent", what exactly is it not independent of?

I'd say (from the details you provide) that it's definitely not independent of Kayak.com, but surely the ticket-selling website is independent of the origin and destination airports? I wouldn't say fully independent of the airline., but perhaps also independent of any specific flight and any specific route? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:54, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Comment If I remember correctly there were previously removals about how FR24 wasn't a valid source, but flightsfrom isn't a ticket sales website because you can't book any flights on such websites, I genuinely think we shouldn't keep on bringing up about aviation sources because this has prolonged so long and it's already becoming harder to source routes ever since Aeroroutes became declared as not reliable and it will be more harder to source if we start to do one for many other sources, and the case about whether they're secondary is making it look like we're reaching to the point like we're trying to see where a source receives it's information from rather than if it publishes routes/aviation updates that did happen and become true or misinformation that was never planned Metrosfan (talk) 11:43, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

And for the record, if we are gonna count a source as non-independent because it receives information from the airline itself or another source that depends on it, it's basically near impossible to label a source that isn't a secondary sources because all sources rely on source that use information from the airline or at most use a source dependent on it Metrosfan (talk) 11:45, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

The information it's showing you comes direct from transponders onboard the planes themselves. In what way is this not primary? It's the equivalent of using ATC radio traffic as a source. FOARP (talk) 11:51, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Just a note that there’s two parts to FR24 - the flight history which very much comes from transponders, but also the second bullet point where they appear to list future flights. I’d argue they’re almost two separate sources, since they would likely get their data from different places. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

That also is information direct from the airlines per what it tells you on the page. It's (at most) only as reliable and independent as the corresponding airline web-page. Per the disclaimer: "The information provided on this page is a compilation of data from many different sources including flight scheduling systems, airline booking systems, airports, airlines and other third-party data providers. The data is provided as is, there are no guarantees that the information is fully correct or up to date. Changes and errors may occur. Therefore Flightradar24 cannot be held liable either for the accuracy of the information or for ensuring that the information is up to date at all times. Some of the flights presented may be charter, cargo, ambulance or other types of flights not available for passenger travel.". It even tells you that these are not necessarily regular flights (see underlined section). Clearly a primary source as there's no actual analysis or comparison going on. FOARP (talk) 13:15, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I am largely unknown for the case of FR24 as I do think that FR24 does kinda fail to reach certain requirements so I won't comment on that. However for FlightsFrom and flightsconnections I would say they are reliable, as they update routes each month based on schedules and they do sometimes even list some routes updates or new routes that AeroRoutes didnt end up covering Metrosfan (talk) 11:17, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Quick reminder that Wikipedia:Secondary does not mean independent. A source can be 100% independent and also primary. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:55, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Hey, thanks for finally bringing this up. I’ll quickly go over my reasoning for saying FlightConnections was WP:SYNTH: Thenoflyzone (talk · contribs) was using it with a start date. When clicking on the link, it just shows who’s flying the route, but when it’s a route starting multiple months out, you have to click over the calendar to find the first flight. Additionally, FlightConnections doesn’t tell you if it’s a new route, returning route, seasonality…It’s not like a news article where that info may be outright stated. Assuming a route is beginning off of FlightConnections is SYNTH since we’re assuming that’s the actual first date and that isn’t stated by the source. As for using it for existing routes, I’m not too sure. I will say that I pretty much agree with all of the points FOARP (talk · contribs) has made. I just feel sites like these don’t provide enough information for route beginning/end dates since it isn’t outright stated when it begins or ends (especially FR24 because it could be a one-off or charter flight), and since it isn’t outright stated by the source, that meets the definition of WP:SYNTH (specifically the “Similarly, do not combine different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source”). I just don’t think they’re reliable enough for the sake of the tables. (VenFlyer98 (talk) 18:06, 19 November 2025 (UTC))

I do not agree with VenFlyer98's assessment. There is nothing WP:SYNTH about flightconnections. I'm not combining multiple sources to imply a conclusion. It's one website clearly listing which airlines fly what routes. All the information is easily available without taking additional steps. We have to be careful here, because airlines don't necessarily announce every single route they operate in a press release. Some routes are simply added in the schedules without much fanfare, as is the case with WestJet from Montreal to LIR and ADZ. It's the same when airlines remove routes. Ex. Emirates to Damascus. That doesn't mean we shouldn't find other reliable sources and include these informations on Wikipedia. Not doing so will render information on airport pages incomplete and unreliable. Is this what we want? I don't think so. Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:17, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Without commenting on the reliability of the sources for a second and addressing the incomplete lists - that is what is required by Wikipedia policy, namely our Verifiability policy… content only belongs on Wikipedia when it can be sources with reliable sources. This is why there’s an RfC shortly about these route tables at WP:VPP, so that might be a page to add to your watchlist. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:19, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I get that, but what I'm trying to say is that flightconnections is a reliable source. I'll also add that I don't think flightconnections falls in the same category as FR24. I agree that FR24 shouldn't be used as a source, because we can't really determine if a flight shown on FR24 is a scheduled or ad-hoc charter flight. We don't have to worry about that with flightconnections. It lists only scheduled flights available for sale to the general public. So apples and oranges. Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:22, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

While I understand your points, here’s the other issue I have: the link to FlightConnections in the future. Let’s say an airline launches a route and we use a FlightConnections source. 6 months later the airline cuts the route. Maybe they announce the cut, maybe they don’t. At least if the reference is a news article or some kind of article that says they launched it, then at least if the destination is kept in the table it’s sourced. The source for FlightConnections at this point wouldn’t be accurate because it wouldn’t show the airline flying that route anymore. It would mean we’d have to keep checking back to the FlightConnections source to see if it’s still accurate. Along with that, what if we have a seasonal route and someone looks at a FlightConnections link during the season the flight doesn’t fly? They may think the source is outdated and remove the flight which wouldn’t be accurate. Again, that’s just my take. (VenFlyer98 (talk) 20:52, 19 November 2025 (UTC))

Let's take a concrete example. Transat from Montreal to Toulouse. Transat currently doesn't operate this route because it is summer seasonal. Flightconnections clearly mentions this See: https://www.flightconnections.com/flights-from-yul-to-tls. So I don't see how someone will remove the route when the source clearly mentions "from Apr to Oct", with future dates available to book on top of it. Thenoflyzone (talk) 22:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Why are you using a 3rd-party ticket-sales website with algorithmically-generated content? In what way is that at all appropriate sourcing? Even with that, this source does not in fact state that Transat only flies April to October. Instead it states "Air Transat flights start in April". FOARP (talk) 09:15, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

It does list "April to Oct" under Transat. If you go to flightconnections.com, and they type in YUL in the departure airport, followed by TLS in the arrival airport, if you look on the left side of the page, it clearly states "April to Oct" under Transat. Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:46, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

That is WP:OR, anytime you have to do that much work its no good. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:12, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

No, the Wikipedia editor is not making their own conclusions or synthesizing sources by inputting fields and looking at the results. That's absurd to call that original research. There is absolutely no requirement that something can only be verified with a direct URL to the data. "Doing work" does not mean a fact is unverifiable. — Reywas92^Talk 16:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

If you are inputting fields you are doing OR... Sources need to be readily usable without manipulation. That is in fact how verification works on wikipedia, the data needs to be found at the source in the quoted form without manipulation. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:55, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

The prohibition against original research means that all material added to articles must be verifiable, in the sense that it must be possible for an editor to find a reliable, published source that directly supports this material. Followed by A source "directly supports" a given piece of material if the information is present explicitly in the source so that using this source to support the material is not a violation of this policy against original research. What you are describing is definitionally OR.⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 17:03, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

This was a specific example to refute VenFlyer98's claim that seasonal routes pose an issue. They don't. Your argument holds no water. The links I am inputing in wikipedia lead directly to the final webpage listing all the airlines that fly a route, with the proper schedules well into the future, not just 7 days like FR24. All of this is verifiable data. Thenoflyzone (talk) 19:18, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I was not making an "argument." I was quoting our policies against original research. But do explain how those "hold no water."?⇒SWATJester ^{Shoot Blues, Tell VileRat!} 20:03, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I just did. And I have read your link about WP:OR. What I described above isn't that.

"Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. By "exists", the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online.""

Care for me to explain more on how your argument based on your policy holds no water ? I can do this all day. Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

If not online where else is this source published? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:42, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, I don’t understand, in a discussion about the reliability of websites, making the point that the source doesn’t have to be online to be reliable. These are websites, their content is either online or they don’t have it. FOARP (talk) 22:45, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, this was a bit of an... interesting... thread. That is to say, I would like to strongly second @Horse Eye's Back, @VenFlyer98 and @Swatjester in that what they are describing is OR. However, I wouldn't call something like this OR. Everything is listed in plain text. As long as you can directly link to the result you're seeking to include in the article, and reader need not enter any information to obtain the same results, I'd say it's good. I'm not commenting on whether or not I believe these sites to be RSs... that is a complicated question and one which I'm not nearly intelligent enough to opine on. All I'll say is that they may be fine to use as long as it is for simple, easily-verified information and perhaps with a requirement of direct attribution. MWFwiki (talk) 01:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

"may be fine to use as long as it is for simple, easily-verified information" I would actually agree with that... But to me that means that the source is essentially unusable because such a source is basically never due (attributed or otherwise), if we can easily verify the information using a stronger source then that stronger source should be the one used. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 14:34, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

@Thenoflyzone, it's possible that editors need to see a screenshot of the website, with the "Apr to Oct" part circled, so they can find it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

You are mistaken, two people does not mean that it passes SPS. Still a SPS, do not pass go, do not collect $200 dollars. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:08, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Wait, validating a source is valid gets us $200? Excuse me while I open another 300 RSNs… 🤣 Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:17, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Dollars... Donairs... Doll hairs... Something like that... Either way SPS isn't contingent on there being only a single person involved. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:39, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Are there any examples of the sources used in context? Why do we need to verify... airline flight routes? Denaar (talk) 20:29, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

Answering my own question, we've got two examples in context Guanacaste Airport, Juanda International Airport. Each article has a list of Airlines and their Destinations... and I just question why this detail is needed; it's not static information but rather something that will consistently change, requiring it to be monitored and updated. I wouldn't expect Wikipedia to be a place to go to verify airport routes. So why are we including the information? Denaar (talk) 21:03, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

They apparently exist because people want to use Wikipedia to make their itinerary for travel plans and also for last minute changes in routes. Which, you know, is not what Wikipedia is for. Go to WikiVoyage or, perhaps, these sites themselves if you need that information. There's no reason for it to be here. Silverseren^C 21:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

I guess it's been discussed a few times, with previous discussions noted here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Aviation/Style_guide/Layout_(Airports)#Airlines_and_destinations. Denaar (talk) 21:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

It has been discussed a few times in the past, and I'm about to start an RfC on the topic at WP:VPP shortly, but there's a related RfC ongoing at the moment hence the delay. I'll make sure to ping you when it goes up. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:37, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

As someone who mainly edits the lists, my only answer as to why they’re there in the first place is because that’s how it’s always been. There’s been a few discussions on it here and there and I wouldn’t be opposed to a new one. VenFlyer98 (talk) 04:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

It's not about travel plans (or at least not just about them, though I don't recall seeing anyone personally attest to looking up the Wikipedia article for the airport nearest them and using its contents to plan their next holiday). Airport connections both reflect and create economic effects in the surrounding area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:01, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

There are a number of editors stating just that at the WP:VPP thread (now on a sub-page) Danners430 _{tweaks made} 21:24, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I remember one saying they used a Wikipedia article when coping mid-journey with a cancelled or delayed flight, and another saying they used other, non-air-travel Wikipedia articles (lists of landmarks) to make travel plans, but I don't remember anyone saying that if they lived (e.g.,) in London, they went to Heathrow Airport#Airlines and destinations to figure out what cities could be reached by air. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:44, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

• Unreliable, inappropriate, and ridiculously primary to boot I don't think you can get more primary than literal transponders on the planes. It's basically like using raw data to make a claim in an article, which is highly inappropriate. Originally, I wasn't going to say the sites were unreliable, per se, since they were just regurgitating said data, but since it appears they're not only doing that, but also combining said data in unknown ways to get their overall output, that means they're actively doing data synthesis. And they are not reliable sources for doing that. These sites shouldn't be used anywhere on Wikipedia at all. They're honestly worse than Aeroroutes, which is an impressive accomplishment. Silverseren^C 21:09, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  Aeroroutes was absolutely impressive, and yet we can't use it now. I understand the why, but flightconnections and aeroroutes can't be dumped in the same category as FR24. On top of it, flightconnections, unlike aeroroutes, isn't a blog, so in my opinion, there is no valid reason I see that prevents us from using flightconnections as a source. Thenoflyzone (talk) 22:30, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  They are random people's websites. Meaning they aren't reliable sources. Silverseren^C 00:21, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Agree. The argument seems to be "airline routes are notable, therefore there must be reliable, independent, secondary sources, these are sources about airline routes so they must be reliable independent secondary ones", rather than looking at what the sources actually are. Sometimes the thing you are trying to write about just isn't notable. FOARP (talk) 09:10, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  abcnews, cnn, abcnews, etc. are random people's websites too. It doesn't matter who they are. As long as the info is verifiable. And on flightconnections, it is.Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:35, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  It might not be notable to you, but to a lot of people, it's notable. Who are you to decide what is and isn't notable? Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:36, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  That's not a good argument at all. The news sites that you quote are run by multiple people with strong editorial controls. A one- or two-person enthusiast/fan site is completely different. 10mmsocket (talk) 12:45, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Prove to me that flightconnections is a one to two person fan site. Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Or that the info it provides is unverifiable. Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  That’s not how WP works … per WP:Burden and WP:Onus it is up to those wanting to include material to prove the positive (ie that the source IS reliable). It is not on those challenging the material to prove the negative (ie that the source isn’t reliable). Blueboar (talk) 13:04, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Flightconnections is neither WP:SYNTH nor WP:SPS. It collects its information (airline flight schedules) from multiple sites selling airline tickets. It's as simple as that. It is completely verifiable data and is 100% accurate. What more proof do you need. Thenoflyzone (talk) 18:58, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  We don’t want proof - we want reliable sources. Big difference. See WP:TRUTH. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:06, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  So far, I have yet to see a valid reason why flightconnections isn't a reliable source. Thenoflyzone (talk) 19:20, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  It is absolutely on those challenging the claim to prove their point. You haven't shown me one shred of evidence claiming flightconnections is a fanboy site, unverifiable and/or not a reliable source. I, on the other hand, have shown on multiple occasions that this particular website is very much a reliable source. Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:07, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  (Technically, WP:BURDEN requires an editor only to provide one source that they believe to be reliable. They don't have to prove that it's reliable to have fulfilled BURDEN.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

  What "editorial controls" would you even have over flight schedules? This is not a newspaper and is not opinion pieces or reporting, nor can only newspapers with editors be used in articles. Articles can use data, and there is no actually presentation that this data is false. — Reywas92^Talk 16:04, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  The same we expect of any RS, I'm not seeing how this topic would differ signficantly in any way. Why do you want to apply a different standard to these sources than those for other topics? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:14, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think it's a different standard. These sites say that X airline runs a flight from A to B at a certain time, and they know that because the airline says so, sells tickets for it, and is tracked as such. That's perfectly reliable data with no concern for bias or fabrication of facts. Is something inaccurate about this? — Reywas92^Talk 17:37, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  All sources are required to meet the same editorial standard... You appear to be saying that standard doesn't apply to these sources because of the information they cover. Is there something I'm not getting? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:44, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  And I believe these do meet that standard: the website has appropriate controls to ensure that when it says X airline flies from A to B, that it's an accurate statement. Do you think these websites are just making things up? That they are happy to allow incorrect information to be presented? — Reywas92^Talk 22:05, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  I agree with Reywas92 and Thenoflyzone here, the sources lists what airlines fly on a route and it shows what destinations a airport have, unlike AeroRoutes it doesn't publish articles and it was only a tab of destinations list Metrosfan (talk) 23:29, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Where can I find more information about their editorial policy and staff? Maybe I'm just missing what you're seeing... Also remember that reliability on wiki requires more than accuracy, no amount of pointing out how accurate a SPS is for example will make it not a SPS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  This isn't self-published material, it's republished material, making data from airline timetables, booking portals, transponders, and other sources accessible. This isn't a blog, podcast, book, or forum post by someone making their own claims or sharing their research, it's simple data already published elsewhere. They don't name their staff because staff aren't coming up with their own reporting or commentary. Yes, FlightRadar24 has a podcast, and I would not cite that! But the website as a whole is not merely a banned SPS, and it's perfectly reliable for verifying that an airline flies a particular route. — Reywas92^Talk 01:47, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

• {outdent}
• Whether or not material is republished or not has nothing to do with whether its self published or not. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 02:01, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  I have a website. Nobody other than me decides what information is or is not published on that website. That website is unquestionably self-published.

  Transport for London publish lots of factual information about the services they operate, including details of planned weekend engineering works . That information is:

  • Primary
  • Reliable
  • Not-self published

  They also make this information available via an API meaning that (if I had the technical ability) I could incorporate TfL's weekend engineering work information as part of my website. I would be republishing TfL's information. Would that make TfL's data:

  • Secondary? No
  • Self-published? No
  • Unreliable? Not if it is unaltered.

  The questions for this discussion are thus, (1) are airlines a reliable source for the flights they operate? Unquestionably yes. (2) Are the websites in question republishing airline data without material modification? I've not seen any evidence to the contrary. Thryduulf (talk) 02:30, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  If a self-publisher republishes something it becomes self-published. It would also be unreliable because we would have no way of knowing that it was unaltered without access to the actual data posted by ToL... And if we have access to the actual data posted by ToL why would we use your scraped version of the data? Nothing in your analysis here supports the use of these sources as RS, you actually appear to be digging their grave with great enthusiasm. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:39, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  If a self-publisher republishes something it becomes self-published. That doesn't make any logical sense at all, otherwise my quoting the New York Times on my website would make the New York Times self-published, which is very clearly ridiculous.

  It's true that we need to know whether the quoting and republishing is accurate, but you don't need access to every bit of source material to do that. For example, if I accurately republish 100 facts from a given source and 95 of them were proven to be accurate when verified and the other 5 could not be easily checked but were exactly as plausible as the 95, what are the chances of those 5 being inaccurate?

  What we have in this case is evidence that when these sites have been checked, literally everything they claim to say has matched reality. In what universe does that make them unreliable? Thryduulf (talk) 18:18, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  The hypothetical quote from the NYT on your hypothetical page is self published... That doesn't make the NYT self published, I have no idea how you are making that jump. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:23, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  My website is self-published. The quote from the NYT is not self-published. If I can be relied upon to quote the NYT correctly then the information in the quote from the NYT has the exact same reliability it has on the NYT's website. You are arguing that 100% identical information is reliable when published by source A but unreliable when published by source B, even when B cites A as the source, there is evidence that source B reliably republishes source A and no evidence that source B unreliably republishes source A. That is simply not credible. Thryduulf (talk) 18:30, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  Yes it is... You are the publisher of the content on your site, not the NYT. Anything you republish becomes self published content. The NYT is only the publisher for the stuff they actually publish, if you're quoting, scrubbing, or ripping off the NYT they're not the publisher of what you publish, you are. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:37, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  So you are saying that I publish the New York Times? I'm sorry but your arguments are getting even more detached from reality. Thryduulf (talk) 21:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  If you were to scrape and publish entirety of the New York Times each day yes you would be self publishing a pirated copy of the New York Times. No we would not consider your pirate mirror to have the same reliability as the New York Times. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  If you're just going to double down on redefining reality then there is no hope of a good faith discussion. Thryduulf (talk) 23:54, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  What I am describing is how we currently do it... AKA reality... If you created such a NYT mirror site we could not use it as a RS. If you disagree then do it, copy paste the NYT and start adding your copy pasted site to articles and see if anyone objects. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:17, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  We don't use it because there is no point in using it when the original source exists (and a large-scale copy would be prohibited under the linking to copyright violations), nothing to do with reliability or self-publishedness.

  When we know that source b has accurately reproduced source a, then that information in source b is, by definition, exactly as reliable as source a (without implication for information in source b with other origins). If this were not the case then we would not be able to use any quote of a third party. For example the NYT regularly quotes primary sources whose reliability we have no way of independently assessing (e.g. "Fire chief Joe Bloggs said no injuries were reported", "local media named the suspect as Jane Doe", "Posters predicted a landslide victory for the Sensible Party") but your version of reality would disallow all such information, regardless of reliability or DUEness. However that is very obviously not the reality we actually live in. Thryduulf (talk) 22:02, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

• {outdent}
• The NYT is not self published... If it was we would treat the account published by them as self published, no matter who was quoted. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 23:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, but that completely misses the entire point. Thryduulf (talk) 02:47, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  The entire point is that we treat the accounts published by the SPS under consideration here as self published, no matter who was quoted. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:16, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  Except it isn't. The point is that you are arguing that a reliable source becomes unreliable if quoted verbatim by a different source. This is false.

  • An accurate quote of any source is exactly as reliable as the original source.
  • Quoting a reliable source does not make that source self-published, regardless of who is doing the quoting.
  • It is possible for self-published sources to accurately quote other sources (of all reliabilities).
  • Primary sources can be reliable.
  • The primary sources in question here are reliable for the information they provide.
  • There is no evidence that any of the sites quoting the primary sources in question are doing so inaccurately.

  Thryduulf (talk) 11:21, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  "The point is that you are arguing that a reliable source becomes unreliable if quoted verbatim by a different source" I never argued that, you are clearly confused. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:04, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

  Yes, you have argued exactly that, e.g. You are the publisher of the content on your site, not the NYT. Anything you republish becomes self published content. and that's just the most recent. Thryduulf (talk) 17:18, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

That means exactly the same thing as "we treat the accounts published by the SPS under consideration here as self published, no matter who was quoted." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:20, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Quoting a source verbatim does not change the nature or reliability of the quoted source, regardless of who does the quoting. If you disagree with that you need to explain how it changes the reliability of the source.

Note also that being self-published does not automatically mean a source is inherently unreliable (evidence: WP:EXPERTSPS among others). Thryduulf (talk) 19:19, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

• You seem confused about our WP:RS policy and how it would apply to abcnews, cnn, abcnews, etc., is this your first time encountering it? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Best summary yet @Silverseren. I fully agree. 10mmsocket (talk) 09:13, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Yet again, FR24 and flightconnections cannot be bunched into the same category. Just because both websites have the word "flight" in them doesn't make them similar. Yes, FR24 is transponder based live information website. That is not the case with flightconnections. Thenoflyzone (talk) 12:38, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Silver seren, the data synthesis on airline trivia isn't even limited to external sites, it's explicitly endorsed for editors to perform themselves... JoelleJay (talk) 18:14, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

• All reliable These are all widely-used, highly respected sources. I have seen no basis to believe their content is likely to be incorrect or unreliable. This data is generally compiled from information submitted to the FAA or other entities and published in timetables to reflect actual flight schedules and movements. There is literally nothing wrong with using "raw data", nor does a source providing raw data affect its reliability. These may not establish notability, but that does not mean they cannot be used generally for verification. A source being a primary source does not mean it is unreliable or unusable, it means it should be considered carefully for bias or omissions, which is not an issue for straightforward data like this, which is routinely used in articles. This is yet another roundabout way to delete airport destination tables by systematically attacking the numerous sources that can verify them, despite there being no legitimate issue with accuracy. Reywas92^Talk 16:00, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Reywas92: can you support "widely-used, highly respected sources" or is that your personal opinion? Even if marginally reliable I'm not seeing widely used or highly respected for any of these so I'm wondering what I'm missing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:08, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  Flightradar24 at least is a major company recently valued at $500 million, and our article says "The Guardian considers the site to be 'authoritative'." The other two import some of the same data. — Reywas92^Talk 16:50, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  The quote says authoritizative for flight tracking, which isn't what we're trying to use them for. How would importing the same data as another source ammount to widely used and highly respected? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:00, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  @Reywas92 I suggest you read WP:AGF - as I've made abundantly clear in my message, there is no "ulterior motive" so stop suggesting there is such. There have been arguments about the use of these sources, so this is the correct place to discuss their inclusion. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 16:13, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think you need to use quotation marks there but you're right, my apologies. Reywas92^Talk 16:52, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  The arguments against flightconnections hold no water. Period. Thenoflyzone (talk) 18:59, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I have a thought. What if we use the airport website as the main source for all destinations for the table. I mean they are the ones that know the flights after all and most airports have a list of destinations on their websites. It seems fairly simple instead of running around trying to find something that mentions the route we are wanting to edit in a vague article. It’s not the airline themselves stating the route rather the airport which seems to make sense to me. DesignationJazz07 (talk) 18:59, 20 November 2025 (UTC)strike sock -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:11, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree. However not all airport websites have a destination list that they serve, and furthermore, they might not list every single airline that operates a same route. I still think it's a good idea however. Thenoflyzone (talk) 19:05, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

This is true unfortunately. I was looking at the Lincoln, NE airport website for example and they didn’t have a list of the destinations but provided an article with announcements of Breeze starting flights. Could we hypothetically combo both, the airport websites that list all their destinations, as well as articles the airport pages that post on their websites who don’t have the destinations list? I hope that made sense. Basically to the airport website that has no destination list, we use the article announcements they list instead? Yes? Maybe? DesignationJazz07 (talk) 19:19, 20 November 2025 (UTC)strike sock -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:11, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Think the problem is reliability. The airport websites just aren’t reliable enough, as you both mentioned. VenFlyer98 (talk) 19:22, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Yes I think so too. But I'm wondering if the airport sites themselves could be help fix some sourcing issues if they are posting specific articles. Now this only would seem to work for route resumptions or beginnings as I doubt the airport websites would post route ending. So yeah definitely a reliability problem trying to implement at a mass scale. DesignationJazz07 (talk) 19:45, 20 November 2025 (UTC)strike sock -- Ponyo^{bons mots} 21:11, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Why wouldn't the airport website be reliable? and its corresponding linked are perfectly reliable – this is the exact kind of source we would want to use that verifies everything. I know many airports don't have this kind of a page, but we should be using this wherever possible. — Reywas92^Talk 22:01, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

• So, what I'm gathering from this discussion thus far is that the editors involved in this topic area don't understand what reliable sources are on Wikipedia and are extremely dedicated to pushing the entirety of such trivia ephemera into articles (or their own separate articles like the destination lists). Silverseren^C 23:33, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

  What I'm gathering from this discussion is that there are many editors who should know better who are failing to distinguish the concepts of notability, reliability, primary/secondary source, independent source, and DUE. This is not helpful to anybody. So lets set out some basic facts:

  • Primary sources can be reliable, and indeed are almost always reliable for statements of fact about the source.
  • Primary sources do not confer notability, but can be used to verify information about notable topics.
  • Not every bit of information in an article needs to be independently notable.
  • Whether any particular information is DUE or not is unrelated to the reliability of the source it is found in.
  • Information can:
    • Unverifiable and UNDUE
    • Verifiable only in primary sources
      • and DUE
      • and UNDUE
    • Verifiable only in non-independent sources
      • and DUE
      • and UNDUE
    • verifiable in independent secondary sources
      • and DUE
      • and UNDUE
  • Reliable sources can be:
    • Independent or not independent
    • Primary, secondary or tertiary
    • Commercial or non-commercial
    • Published by an individual or an organisation
  • Unreliable sources can be:
    • Independent or not independent
    • Primary, secondary or tertiary
    • Commercial or non-commercial
    • Published by an individual or an organisation
  • The current consensus of the English Wikipedia community is that lists of airline destinations can be DUE for inclusion.
    • There is a vocal portion of the community that dislikes this consensus, but unless and until the consensus changes that is not relevant.
  • Whether a given airline flies between Airport A and Airport B is a matter of fact, not opinion. There is therefore no requirement that sources be independent or secondary.
  • An airline is a reliable source for whether that airline flies from Airport A to Airport B, and for whether those flights are scheduled or chartered. They are not independent, but that is irrelevant to the reliability of facts.
  • Aircraft transponder data is a reliable source for whether an aircraft flew between Airport A and Airport B on a given date, but not whether that flight was scheduled, charter or something else. They are not independent, but that is irrelevant to the reliability of facts.
  • Schedules published by an airline are reliable sources for whether that airline intends to operate flights between Airport A and Airport B on dates covered by that schedule. They are not independent, but that is irrelevant to the reliability of facts.

  If anybody disagrees that any of the above is factual, please present explicit evidence that it is incorrect. Thryduulf (talk) 01:47, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Thryduulf, we aren't discussing the airline websites. We are discussing some websites run by random people that are synthesizing transponder data with other unknown data in unknown ways. So it's both primary and not. The original transponder data would be primary, but then they are using it in a way that makes it not. And they aren't reliable for being secondary reporters in the latter manner. So the websites in question are not reliable sources. Silverseren^C 01:56, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  As has been pointed out multiple times, that's both true and untrue depending which part of which site you are talking about. Thryduulf (talk) 03:50, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  If we're talking about FR24, it literally tells us that "Some of the flights presented may be charter, cargo, ambulance or other types of flights not available for passenger travel.", and this is being used as a source for what are and are not regular flights.

  Why not just use the airline website if that is the information we wish to use? FOARP (talk) 10:14, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  I am happy to use airline websites, which is what has been done all along for many lists with a references column, though not all of them have an easy-to-link route map or timetable. FR24 data does usually have a flight number and history that is identifiable as a regular passenger route, though that type of page has not been extensively used since a route is usually not tied to a particular flight number. Context and what is being sourced to what matters – we are usually not stating facts that relate to precise locations of plane transponders anyway. — Reywas92^Talk 18:24, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Just a reminder that I deliberately put examples of where and how these sources are being used in the original statement, with the intention being that these are the use-cases to be discussed. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 18:30, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Also, just a thought - the current guidance at WP:AIRPORT-CONTENT is that airlines and destination tables may only be included in articles when independent, reliable, secondary sources demonstrate they meet WP:DUE, which is based off the most recent RfC on the topic - so arguably, using airport websites as sources would go against this previous consensus. Now, given the current inclusion of full route tables, I'm personally also of the opinion that they should be used - from my reading of this guidance, the use of secondary sources is specifically to ensure notability of the routes being included, not due to any reliability concerns (which would of course be nonsense). But for now, they would go against that consensus, so I'd suggest we not try and add them for now.

  Given the impending RfC on what to do with the route tables, which will explicitly not discuss the sourcing guidelines as previously agreed during the WP:BEFORE discussion, we can have a second RfC specifically on the sourcing guidelines following the first one's conclusion so that these can be amended if required. It may well be that we decide to keep the route tables - then it would make sense to change the sourcing guidelines so that the lists are complete... whereas if we decide to summarise, it could make more sense to keep the guideline as is, so that only notable routes are included. Personally I don't know what the outcome will be, so we'll have to see. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 19:12, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  I never realised all these proper news websites follow WP:DUE. Yes, when i think of foxnews, the first thing that comes to mind is a "neutral point of vue".....lol Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:25, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Again - Fox News is deprecated per WP:FOXNEWS, so I'm not entirely sure it's a good example here. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:27, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

• Any editor who truly believes that abcnews, cnn, abcnews, etc. are random people's websites should have their competency questioned.
  Per FOARP, these sources should be deprecated/removed on sight. —Fortuna, imperatrix 11:01, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  Fortunate for me then that we are not discussing my competency here. Oh and btw, last time I checked, Rupert Murdoch is a random dude, and foxnews is one of this websites. I rather read what's on flightconnections than on that guy's new sites. I guarantee you it's more accurate and verifiable. Maybe you should get your competency questioned. Thenoflyzone (talk) 20:13, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

  OK, let's quit the personal attacks from both sides. It's worth noting that Fox News is also deprecated per WP:FOXNEWS. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:23, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Courtesy pinging @Snape2324 following our discussion on their talk page. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 20:24, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Thank you @Danners430. Snape2324 (talk) 21:16, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Thinking about this entire situation, I’m starting to think another RfC may be needed for the inclusion of destination lists. When I think about it, so many airport articles have unsourced destinations, there’s always discussions about what sources are reliable…with WP:NOTTRAVEL, I really think a new discussion on the lists is needed. VenFlyer98 (talk) 22:15, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Already in the works :) Danners430 _{tweaks made} 22:44, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Appreciate you being on top of it, Danners! VenFlyer98 (talk) 20:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

So what’s the consensus on these three sources being used for airline routes? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 07:08, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Not sure about FR24 but for flightsconnections it might be where it's counted as unreliable Metrosfan (talk) 07:21, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment - just wanted to give a couple further examples of how FR24 is being used. This is from Dr. António Agostinho Neto International Airport:

By 18 December 2024, an average of 4 flight departures per day was recorded.
By 17 April 2025, an average of 11 flight departures per day was recorded, all by TAAG Angola Airlines and nearly all to Angolan destinations.

To me, this seems an OK use of FR24, since we're giving statistics based on data... Danners430 _{tweaks made} 15:11, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Well... Firstly, the two references are for the same FR24 page retrieved on different dates, so without an archive they are unverifiable a posteriori. Secondly, I don't see any mention on the cited FR24 page that would verify the "all by TAAG Angola Airlines and nearly all to Angolan destinations" claim. Thirdly, FR24 doesn't explicitly give a daily average, though I guess that could be allowed under WP:CALC. With those caveats, I guess this is just about acceptable, yes. Rosbif73 (talk) 16:32, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

Not reliable, per the extensive reasoning above by @VenFlyer98, @Silver seren, et al. If certain details can't be sourced directly from RS then they do not belong in an encyclopedia. And even info that would be nominally acceptable through WP:CALC is not BALASP if you're making a whole table column out of calculations not present in any source. JoelleJay (talk) 16:16, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Not Reliable (ie secondary) per @JoelleJay Dw31415 (talk) 00:43, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Whether something is reliable, and whether it is secondary are completely independent questions. I benefits absolutely nobody to conflate them. Thryduulf (talk) 11:00, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Fair point but RS often gets used to refer to the policy. I’ll take another look at the question and RFCBEFORE Dw31415 (talk) 13:44, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Why would there be any need to use these sources as primary sources? Wouldn’t the airlines be better primary sources? I could edit my vote to say they are reliable primary sources, but not secondary sources if that’s helpful. Dw31415 (talk) 04:12, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

What does "certain details" mean? WP:CONTEXTMATTERS – different types of sources can be perfectly appropriate for different types of content but suboptimal for others. These sources just put airline schedule data in visual formats and there's no reason to believe they are unable to verify straightforward schedule- or route-related content. — Reywas92^Talk 16:51, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

All details must be supportable by RS... if the only sources supporting certain flight schedule details are SPS like the sources above, then those details are not encyclopedic. JoelleJay (talk) 17:54, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

Except the information on those sites is not self-published any more than my publishing data from an official API on my personal website would make the data in the API self-published. My website including a copy of an FAA accident investigation report does not make that report self-published. There are only 2 relevant questions:

1. Is the data on these websites being changed in any way from the data supplied by the airline?
2. If so, does that materially impact the reliability of the data for the purposes to which it is being put?

Only if the answer to both questions is yes can we say that the websites are unreliable for the factual information relevant to this discussion. Nobody has presented any evidence that the factual data differs from that supplies by the airlines in any way other than presentation and formatting. Thryduulf (talk) 22:45, 27 November 2025 (UTC)

ADS-B data are not being "published" by the airline, the aircraft itself is periodically transmitting its ID/position/etc. in real time and this gets automatically aggregated on the site via crowdsourced transponders. Just like an app that collects location ephemera from its users' personal radar detectors to generate a map of police activity isn't "republishing" a "work" from the PD... Primary, automated electronic signals aren't exactly audio, video, and multimedia materials that have been recorded then broadcast, distributed, or archived by a reputable party... JoelleJay (talk) 06:39, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

That's beside the point though - is there any evidence at all that the factual data published and/or republished by these sites differs from reality? Those who oppose the use of these sites have written a massive amount of words without actually addressing the relevant questions, when it would be far easier to just demonstrate that the data is not a reliable reflection of reality if it were - despite multiple requests to do exactly that. The longer this goes on the more I'm becoming convinced that the reason we aren't seeing proof of unreliability is because they are actually reliable. Thryduulf (talk) 09:47, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

I have no reason to believe that the raw data is being altered by these sites such that they fail to reflect reality – so in that sense, they are reliable. The question is whether they are suitable for the claims they are being used to verify. If FlightRadar24 shows a particular airline and flight number as having flown from airport A to airport B on a particular date, or being scheduled for a particular date, we have no reason to doubt the data point. But can we conclude from that data point that there is a regularly scheduled commercial flight between those airports? Can we conclude that the flight is marketed by the airline that operated the aircraft (as opposed to being operated on a wet lease or similar basis on behalf of some other airline)? Can we conclude from the absence of a data point that a previously scheduled flight has been suspended or terminated? All of those would be WP:SYNTH. Rosbif73 (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

I think this really is the crux of the matter for FR24 (and other tracking websites) - it’s not in dispute that their data is accurate and reliable… it’s whether it’s suitable to be used as a source to verify whether a route exists and is regularly flown by an airline. I would agree with Rosbif73 that using this tracking data to verify this specific thing is SYNTH.

However, it’s worth remembering the second point I put in my initial question - there is also the separate section of the FR24 website which lists upcoming flights on a specific route. I would argue this is a distinct source from the above, as it’s not SYNTH based on flight tracking data… but I’m also not sure about whether it should be used or not, as I can’t work out where this data is coming from. Danners430 _{tweaks made} 10:35, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

It seems likely that the upcoming flights section of FR24 is generated from data provided by the airlines, perhaps intended for booking systems, travel agents, whatever... Regardless, we have no reason to suspect that the data is unreliable. However, it remains a collection of individual data points, and drawing conclusions from such data points remains SYNTH in my opinion. Rosbif73 (talk) 12:31, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

From one data point we can't conclude anything, but it's not synth to conclude that if there are multiple flights each way every day that this is a regularly scheduled route (that comes under simple calculations). Again a single absent data point tells us nothing, but no data points for a month does. Thryduulf (talk) 10:43, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Flights occurring every day on a given route is highly likely to imply a regularly scheduled route, sure, but not verifiably so: the data is only visible over a short time window and doesn't tell us whether the flights happened the previous week or will happen the following week – yet editors are citing things to single data points or, worse, using the presence or absence of data points to cite that one route is seasonal and another is year-round, for example. That sort of claim could only be verified on these sites by retrieving data on a regular basis and comparing over time, which is rather a stretch for WP:CALC. Rosbif73 (talk) 10:58, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Extrapolating business practices from scheduling data (or the lack thereof) is not in any way a simple calculation. A route being "regularly scheduled" isn't some subjective, observational description, it's a legal designation. As Rosbif said, this is not verifiable from flight data. JoelleJay (talk) 19:11, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

The requirement that content be published is integral to WP:V. If the only sources that are actually publishing these data are automated, user-generated fan sites, then those data are not reliably published. JoelleJay (talk) 19:18, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

Indeed. Otherwise I could go set up my own Wordpress site right now pulling from the same transponder data, making the same flight claims from it, and then say here that my website is a reliable source. Which is obvious nonsense. Silverseren^C 19:21, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

If the source data is published, which if you can mirror it it very obviously is, and reliable (and it very obviously is reliable for what it is) then it doesn't magically become unreliable by being quoted verbatim. Whether it verifies what it is being used to verify is a very different question that is independent of its reliability. Thryduulf (talk) 19:53, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

So if I got an RFID reader and started tracking the movements of the local orca pod on my blog, you think this would be a reliable republication of data from the research org that put ID tags on the animals? We don't consider preprints to be RS even when they're intentionally made available to the public by a reputable institution, but a site that aggregates user-generated reports of the raw, automatic transponder data an aircraft transmits to ATC is not only merely "republished"—because the CSV data strings extracted from those electronic signals correspond to an aircraft ID and flight number assigned "published" by an airline and were "made accessible to the public" by virtue of being detectable by civilians with certain equipment—but has the "meaningful editorial oversight" and "reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" to qualify as a reliable source on the operation of regularly scheduled routes... Which would mean we could also use these sites as the source for an accident the instant an aircraft's QNE appears incompatible with normal flight. JoelleJay (talk) 23:32, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

• FlightRadar24 is reliable for the narrow purpose of verifying that a route is active over the upcoming days. It is essentially a primary source and may be used within the limitations of WP:RSPRIMARY. It should not be used for notability or the status of a route beyond the few days ahead that are published. (changed my vote from above after reading discussion) Dw31415 (talk) 21:04, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

  For what it's worth, this is what I have come to as well. I don't think it's proper (from a Wikipedia policy standpoint) to infer from a plane flying between two particular places on a given set of dates (i.e. today, tomorrow and the next 3 months we have data that confirms a route was flown) that there exists a concrete 'route' flown by an airline on a regular basis. Seems like a result of the strictness of the WP:NOR policy. Katzrockso (talk) 01:18, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

  That's not useful for inclusion in any of these articles though, Dw31415? I agree with your meaning here, but you're basically still arguing unreliable with it, since our articles are not meant to be breaking coverage of day to day changes on a subject matter such as this. So if they aren't reliable for long term route status (and I agree they aren't), then they shouldn't be used at all. Silverseren^C 18:29, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

  This question is starting to feel like a koan: Is a source reliable about something it’s silent about?

  But seriously, I do hesitate to say FR24 is unreliable. I think @Danners430 is planning a broader RfC on what should qualify a route for inclusion, maybe that will settle the question. The question seems to be whether we can infer a route exists from several days of operation. That’s a slightly different question than posed here (and one I don’t have a strong opinion on). Dw31415 (talk) 19:21, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I do get the feeling that the discussion has strayed a little, and that is mostly my own fault for bringing three tangentially related sources to RSN in the same thread... do we think this can continue as is, and a closer would be able to navigate the discussions, or is it worth splitting these into three discussions? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 12:29, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

My gut feeling is that it's probably worth just abandoning this as "no consensus" due to it being unclear exactly which aspect people are commenting on (see e.g. the large-scale conflation of primary sources with unreliable sources). I'd then wait at least a couple of weeks (possibly until after the proposed RFC about airline routes, as that could make it clearer what information needs to be sourced), and then start (if desired) a new RFC focussing on whether source X is reliable for type of statement Y (that is explicitly without prejudice or relevance to whether source X is reliable for other types of statement). Workshopping the RFC statement before launching it wouldn't be the worst idea either. Thryduulf (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

My only concern with the RfC idea is the statement at the top of the noticeboard - I don’t think these sources would qualify for that quite yet…? Danners430 _{tweaks made} 14:14, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

In which case just make it a normal discussion rather than an RFC, but given the way this discussion has gone being explicit and focussed does seem like the only way a consensus is likely to emerge. Thryduulf (talk) 14:26, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Makes sense - end of the day, it was my fault for bringing them all here at once :) Danners430 _{tweaks made} 14:42, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Complex magazine

Apologies in advance if there has already been some discussion about the magazine as the only discussion I could find which directly referenced it was Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 472#Sophie Rain in which it was briefly mentioned and called an example of "several less-than-"ideal" sources". I've also not made a thread here before.

The particular article used was this one which was used in the 2025 Stockton shooting article. I'm not concerned with the accuracy of this article in particular, just the magazine as a whole. I removed the citation as another source already had basically the same information and Complex didn't appear to be the most trustworthy in general. Raskuly (talk) 06:09, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I know on BLP pages it is contentious and a lot of editors will not use it but in some cases I can see it's appeal for pop culture adjacent subjects. However I do not think it's appropriate for a page based on current events and would probably a suitable alternative source. Agnieszka653 (talk) 02:41, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

WP:WikiProject Video games considers Complex to be reliable in regards to video games per Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Sources#General gaming with three discussions. WP:WikiProject Albums also considers it generally reliable in regards to music, though it doesn't list any discussions: WP:RSMUSIC.

I imagine based on that it's reliable for gaming and music, but I agree it's probably not appropriate for current events. Music in particular notes that the sources listed shouldn't be used for BLP or for controversial claims. John Kinslow (talk) 09:40, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Noted, thank you both. Raskuly (talk) 15:14, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Should Slate be included in the perennial sources list?

Slate was on the perennial sources list until it was removed on March 9, 2023 by @Levivich. Discussion regarding this removal was held on Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources/Archive 8#Slate, where it seems they note that the three RSN discussions (1, 2, 3) never actually discuss the reliability of Slate.

Since then, two additional discussions on Slate with its name in the title have been posted to the noticeboard:

• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 396#Slate's "Future Tense" columns (3 February 2023)
  • Users @Red-tailed hawk and @DIYeditor opine that Slate's Future Tense column published in collaboration with think tank New America and Arizona State University is WP:MREL. @Red-tailed hawk notes that while the Source Notes column is commonly used on Wikipedia, he brings up some examples in Future Tense inconsistently distinguishes between fact and opinion.
• Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 461#Slate (magazine) and is it reliable? (15 December 2024, note this discussion was started by a sockpuppet)
  • Silver seren seems to believe that within "US politics and culture", it is "commonly considered reliable".
  • Horse Eye's Back trusts their long-form content but suggests additional consideration for their Life column.
  • Doc Strange seems to regard Slate's coverage on pop music and their music critics (Chris Molanphy and Carl Wilson) as reliable.
  • JPxG seems to believe Slate is factually reliable and of high quality but is perhaps biased.

Given that it seems to meet WP:RSPCRITERIA, should Slate be added to the perennial sources list? I am not sure whether the first discussion qualifies since it discusses a specific column rather than the source itself.

If it doesn't qualify, would it meet the criteria if I were to open another discussion on the source? Per Special:Search/insource:"slate.com", there are 13,372 articles that cite Slate; hence, I think there would be some value in writing up some guidance on the consensus of Slate's reliability. John Kinslow (talk) 23:34, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Indeed I do consider Slate, and Molanphy and Wilson in particular, to be reliable when it comes to pop music criticism and history. I have not seen any examples of their music writing being inaccurate or unreliable. I was quite taken aback in that discussion when another editor brought up "edgy opinions" when what was being discussed was anodyne music coverage that was demonstrably not edgy (Billboard Hot 100 chart positions, a comparison of a music video with an Oscar nominated film, and a genre description). I have no opinion of Slate's content outside of music topics such as music criticism and music history, as those are the only topics I utilize Slate for as a source on Wikipedia. Doc Strange (talk) 02:45, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

If the question is only about whether it should be included in the RSP, then it would be better asked on the RSP's talk page (WT:RSP). This noticeboard is for discussing the reliability of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:11, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Especially since the upcoming restructuring will mean that we shall shortly be free of the constraints of a tiny little table row. Alpha3031 (t • c) 12:20, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

I see, thanks for the heads up. I posted it here: Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Should Slate be included in the perennial_sources list? This discussion can be preemptively closed now if necessary. John Kinslow (talk) 05:36, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Note I've moved this to Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Should Slate (magazine) be included in the perennial_sources list? to fix the wikilink to Slate. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:39, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think Slate is 'perennial' enough. This is really only for sources that have been discussed over and over. PARAKANYAA (talk) 02:09, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes I'm wondering why this is coming up. It's not a particularly controversial publication is it? The prior discussions seemed to be over what is somewhat obvious, that opinion columns should not be used to cite facts. —DIYeditor (talk) 22:40, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is not generally considered a reliable source for factual claims, as it's a late-night comedy/news satire program. However, it can be used to reliably attribute opinions or criticisms expressed on the show itself (e.g., "John Oliver criticized Air Bud Returns for [specific reason] on Last Week Tonight").

In this case, would it be appropriate to cite the segment where Oliver criticized the production of the movie in the reception or legacy section? This avoids using it for verification of facts but highlights the commentary.

Edit in question: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Air_Bud_Returns&diff=1324074058&oldid=1324073943 RayScript (talk) 16:33, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

its undue, reliability is another question. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 16:38, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Is it undue? Oliver's coverage and relationship to Air Bud Returns (including that he has done "tirades" about it) has been covered by The Wrap, which RSP tells us is a reliable source for entertainment news. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:01, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

as a joke, to push the entertainment WP:GOSSIP. if this shows up in more places, it would indicate dueness.
of note, many of his antics are regularly covered and make headlines, and are noted as such on wikipedia, so it could be a strong possiblity this does end up becoming due User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 21:07, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

It's Pop Media, but I wouldn't say that it's quite unreliable, it's just effectively video essays for people who go on Bluesky. As a crash course on a topic, his work is usually partisan but factually solid. Snokalok (talk) 16:45, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

i'd almost say his work is tertiary, in that he reports on secondary analysis, but he has recently been using journalists to do their own reports and analysis. There are a few deep dives.

not sure about how to define editorial control, would remain uncomfortable using the show currently. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 16:52, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

The edit would be fine in a reception section, but not in the production section. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:54, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

It's actually not always factually solid either-particularly when it comes to contentious topics. Oliver has made comments in the past about gender affirming care which are incorrect--things like noting puberty blockers are reversible and safe (which they are not and can inhibit bone development leading to early inset osteoporosis and a lower IQ) See NIH study from 2022 on bone health and puberty blockers here: Impact of gender-affirming treatment on bone health in transgender and gender diverse youth statement from the Endocrine Society here: [] PubMed "The impact of suppressing puberty on neuropsychological function: A review" Questions around puberty blockers and their effect on brain function [] Oliver has made similar flubs and claims around other aspects of these issues while confidently and authoritatively making statements to his audience that can be fact checked and on occasion are wrong. But for something like airbud/pop cultural critique I see no reason that he shouldn't be allowed to be referenced--although I'm sure there is some policy I am unaware of refuting me. Agnieszka653 (talk) 19:03, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Then you're getting into WP:MEDRS range, and I don't think anyone's making a case that he qualifies for that. -- Nat Gertler (talk) 20:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

No they definitely aren't I was just giving an example of an area where I know for a fact he has dipped his toes into misinfo--I have absolutely no issue in using him in a pop cultural-reference sense. Agnieszka653 (talk) 20:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

You’re listing primary sources, but as you can find on the Puberty Blockers page, several systemic reviews and medorg statements have found them safe and reversible. Those trump your primary sources Snokalok (talk) 00:59, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

I would not call the review or Endocrine statement primary, but the former is contradicted by newer and more voluminous reviews mentioned in that article (though mainly on short-term reversibility) and the latter doesn't contradict reversibility at all; it only states that bone development is affected and even says that other studies found it reversible. Aaron Liu (talk) 14:25, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Oddly, given their notable history of getting sued and (IIRC) a 100% win rate, and now it's a running gag to point out whenever HBO legal censors them... it's reasonable to assume that Last Week as a news/event analysis show discussing events as reported is totally fine. It gets into "John Oliver said..." when it's clearly his opinion versus reporting (like his intro/outro stuff, "And now... this").

WP:RS on context of how it's used. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 19:51, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

i think it appears to have very high editorial standards, but its a very orange to apples comparison.

we really simply dont have fitting guidelines for premium cable news sketch comedy shows with deep dives for half an hour sad time with john oliver yet. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 20:07, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree. The issue here is less about the reliability of the facts the show relays, and more the tone and the overall satirical package in which those facts are presented. The edit which gave rise to this discussion is a great example; having watched that segment, I don't know that it is strictly speaking particularly faithful or elucidating to say that Oliver "criticized" the production team in question. I'm not a religious follower of this show, but as I recall, after every season, in the off months between November and February, they produce two or three of these joke segments on a light-hearted takedown of something that's really a non-issue in the grand scheme of things. The entire point of these bits is that the subject matter isn't really anything a reasonable person would get so worked up about, but Oliver (or at least his screen personality) presents as lacking the perspective/opinion that they are below intensive scrutiny and gets way too emotionally invested in, for example, the legacy of a series of direct-to-distribution movies about a dog that plays basketball. It's supposed to blur the line about how much the audience is supposed to care about these issues and what constitutes reasonable indignation, versus histrionic ire directed at topics nobody should be too preoccupied with; it's a kind of self-effacing humor in that respect.

The problem is, this technique is also reflective of rhetorical methods utilized in the show proper, when it is legitimately trying to draw attention to major social ills, scandals, corruption, dirty politics, inane public policies, poor moral leadership, misinformation campaigns, and any of the other serious and heavy topics which are the man subject of the regular airings of the show. It is very much a part of the normal ebb and flow the show to punctuate horrific facts and dismissive or descriptions offensive commentary around them with hyperbolic, sarcastic, or purposefully obtuse comparisons. Indeed, this satire is often laid directly over the topic in Oliver's discursive style so thick that if you read a particular quote about a given subject, and removed both context and the live tone of the commentary, you can easily end up presenting statements that are the exact opposite of what Oliver and the show are clearly trying to impart.

In short, I think the show, as a kind of secondary/tertiary source re-(or re-re-)relaying information is probably more reliable for factual accuracy and presentation of facts without distortion than 2/3's of the current news media environment. But is it particularly useful for encyclopedia writing? Unfortunately, I think the heavy reliance on unspoken subtext and the disputable intention inherent in the shows approach to satire presents major issues in that regard. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:11, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

This is the point where Oliver shows an overly sexualized horse or fornicating rats, agrees with you, says "of course I'm not a fucking reliable source, you nerds, but you can quote me that this horse wants it," and finishes with, "And now, this..."

I do agree with you, as a regular watcher. — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 03:17, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Haha--just so: Oliver would probably be the first person to deflate the idea that he should be treated as a reliable source. And you and I might actually listen to him do so and think "I understand why you are saying this, but I think you are probably more intellectually honest and scrupulous about how you present the reality of a situation than nearly all the talking heads that might have tried to reach me this week." But critically, and I think Oliver would agree with this, when you choose to speak truth to power by assuming the role of a kind of public jester mixing humor into your your social criticism to make the darker realities a little bit easier to grapple with, you become a less-than-optimal reference point in drier treatments of the things you discuss. SnowRise ^{let's rap} 03:38, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

Agreed. Its his job to right great wrongs, but his satiricism and nonneutrality are close to impossible to use as is on wikipedia. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 03:57, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

• It's sort of complicated. There is some coverage indicating that it's unusually reliable for a satire program, but it also tends to describe it as advocacy or opinion:

• During this era of repoliticisation of humor (Nieuwenhuis & Zijp, 2022) certain satirists have veered into journalistic satire; a subgenre where the host and writers of satire shows embrace some traditional values of journalism like factuality, political relevance, and holding the powerful accountable (Koivukoski & Ödmark, 2020).
• In this way, Oliver’s satire functions more like “advocacy journalism” offering corrective measures to the problems he satirizes (Kilby, 2018). Beyond encouraging specific actions, his “investigative satire” also works to transform information into opinion (Brewer, Young, Lambe, Hoffman, & Collier, 2018, p. 1424).
• With three Peabody wins, sixty-eight Primetime Emmy nominations (and twenty-eight wins), several Writers Guild, Producers Guild, Webby, GLAAD, and Critics Choice awards under its belt, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (LWT), has retained its position as the leading voice on international news and policy, structural issues, and other rather solemn topics that would not be considered entertaining for a primetime show. With long investigative pieces that build on the work of other journalists, LWT challenged the idea that viewers are not interested in stories lasting twenty-odd minutes without any commercial breaks.

tl;dr it's opinion, though high-quality opinion, and should only be be used with attribution. Citing it with attribution in the reputation or legacy section is the appropriate use for a source of this nature - the only question is due weight; weigh it relative to the other sources being cited, check to see if it has secondary coverage, consider how much focus the bit it's being cited for has within the show's own coverage, etc. (Well, I guess that's not that complicated; that's how it usually is with sources like this.) --Aquillion (talk) 23:02, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

If reliable sources (i.e. not Oliver's show) cover his commentary, it might be due to mention. Maybe there's a situation in which you'd then cite the show itself as a primary source, but I can't imagine where this would be necessary - if 3rd party reliable sources have mentioned Oliver's commentary, the relevant information to describe Oliver's commentary will be available from those reliable sources without citing the show itself. Samuelshraga (talk) 07:15, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Per Mr. Oliver, "This show is among other things an opinion outlet. And while our staff works incredibly hard to research stories before we write something and vigorously check our facts afterwards, we're also not the news". (Bari Weiss 31:33) I agree especially with Aquillion's thoughts that it should both be treated as opinion.

I did find one RS source in which your claim is somewhat supported by: WP:AVCLUB, which is considered reliable for film, music and TV reviews (though this technically isn't a review). It states: "[Summer and Charlie] were selected to play the titular Bud(dy), although as a disgruntled Oliver points out, the dogs don’t really look alike". https://www.avclub.com/john-oliver-audition-air-bud-returns John Kinslow (talk) 09:53, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

“Among other things” is doing heavy lifting, think they sell themselves short…

but for wikipedia it should probably not be used for sourcing facts and might be best seen as what it is, an infotainment opinion comedy piece. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 01:13, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Not sure why we are talking about this, when the question of whether Monty Python's Life of Brian is a reliable source remains unresolved. My view is that we can use the non-cartoon bits, but all the UFO stuff is covered by WP:FRINGE--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:40, 26 November 2025 (UTC)

The show is not a RS for facts. It's a comedy show after all. As for a RS for what the show talked about, sure. However, in that context it's a primary source. Is it notable or DUE that Oliver talked about something on the show? That would require independent 3rd party sources to establish the weight. Such comments may be DUE in context of an article about Oliver or the show. It's almost certainly not going to be DUE in other articles. If some coverage in Oliver's show results in significant coverage then we should be citing the 3rd party sources that provide the coverage. Citing Oliver's show directly could also be done in such a case as a reference the same way we might cite a passage from a novel when using a RS discussing the writing style of a particular author. Springee (talk) 00:47, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

To me, Last Week Tonight's reliability doesn't actually matter for the purposes of your question, RayScript. If the segments are worth a mention in Air Bud, you should add the information with a citation to reliable sources that have written about the show's fixation. Then, if you need to quote something specific from within the show, WP:ABOUTSELF applies. (Whether a sentence or ten is UNDUE or not is outside the remit of RSN; that should be tackled on Air Bud's talk page.) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:39, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

References

Unreliable author used excessively on (especially Spanish, but the English version is concerned too) Wikipedia

Hello. This was originally put on the teahouse. I wanted to signal that an obscure historian named Aristides Herrera Cuntti (1952–2008), who has notably authored multiple google books works, among which Divagaciones historicas en la web, is, despite using the unreliable Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, being cited excessively on Wikipedia. Recently, his own invented concepts of "first/second/third Inca expansion" were added to Wikipedia pages (I have removed these mentions, as this idea stems from the Spanish Wikipedia article on Inca expansion, which largely uses Herrera Cuntti). This is very scary to be honest, especially the existence of a huge wikisource page, and I expect it has something to do with Herrera Cuntti 2000s Wikipedia work. While this author probably was very helpful to Wikipedia, I doubt that something like this would be tolerated today (publishing google books works to spread original historical research on Wikipedia which contradicts the rest of scholarship). Herrera Cuntti makes Inca expansion start at Manco Capac's reign, when in reality it started way later. He largely re-uses the historical narrative of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. The problem: the latter is used for cultural interpretation, not for the historical events. If Wikipedia states this or that battle took place in exactly 1324 when only one, unknown, historian says so on the basis of speculation (for the date) and an unreliable chronicler wishing to push Inca expansion back in time, then that is profoundly disturbing. He was also a Wikipedia editor, which explains his influence, but this also isn't really positive, considering he most likely uses this influence to spread his works. Even though the issue isn't too important in English Wikipedia, I wanted to know how I can request this author and his works to be put on the list of unusable/unreliable sources (I forgot the exact name). Lastly, I wanted to show that this user has been blocked multiple times (), which hasn't stopped him from being an influential Wikipedia user. One of the blocks says "Falseo de licencias", but I have not looked at the details of the issue. Regards, ~2025-38815-96 (talk) 09:47, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I can only find 8 citations of Cuntti on the English-language Wikipedia, and nothing to indicate he has been previously discussed here. Accordingly, there aren't sufficient grounds to add him to Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources, which only includes "sources whose reliability and use on Wikipedia are frequently discussed". As for the Spanish-language Wikipedia, they have their own policies and guidelines, and the English-language Wikipedia should not attempt to apply its standards to other projects. You will have to raise the issue there if you want it dealt with there.

Where Cuntti is cited on the English-language Wikipedia, it is certainly reasonable to deal with reliability issues through normal editing/discussion processes, and if this doesn't resolve the matter, bring up the specific problem here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:02, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Apparently, he was even blocked indefinitely but by some weird turn of events, following his death he was revered as a great Wikipedia editor. I just don't get how something like this can go under the radar. Where can I talk about this on the Spanish Wikipedia? I fear I might get ignored as a vandal, considering the glorification of this person over there. ~2025-38815-96 (talk) 10:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Cuntti died in 2008, so at this point, any block is a complete irrelevance. As for 'getting ignored as a vandal' on the Spanish-language Wikipedia, I've no personal experience, but if it operates anything like we do here, you will do better to just stick to discussing whether Cuntti's works should be cited, and leave the rest of it out - reliability is assessed based on whether works are cited elsewhere (e.g. in scholarly historical works, for material like this), and any on-Wikipedia behaviour of the author will have no bearing on the matter. AndyTheGrump (talk) 10:15, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I have some limited experience of the Spanish wikipedia, my advice would be not to have a string of numbers as your username.Boynamedsue (talk) 04:35, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Indeed, creating an account adds to the trustworthiness of users, even if unfairly. I'd also recommend to make some other edits, before bringing this up on es.wiki's version of RSN, as you may seem like a sockpuppet or vandal if you don't do so. User:Easternsahara_{review this} 03:53, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Adding Grokipedia to the list

There are a lot of reasons why WP:GROKIPEDIA is deprecated. I am pushing this opportunity to be added to the list and then blacklisted. Ahri Boy (talk) 22:15, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Already covered by WP:RSPLLM, making a specific addition to the list unnecessary. As for blacklisting, we'd first need evidence that there was a real problem with people trying to cite it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:24, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, totally unnecessary as of now. To be perfectly honest, if we get to the point where users were trying to add it so often that blacklisting was required, the principles of wikipedia will have broken down so far that we will be about a fortnight away from Mad Max buggies and it's unlikely to matter anyway.Boynamedsue (talk) 23:39, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Does not look necessary at the moment. Already covered in WP:RSPLLM. It is not a reliable source for sure. I have noticed multiple incorrect statements on grokipedia since it cannot differentiate nuances. Ramos1990 (talk) 00:52, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I agree Ramos and Sue, WP:LLM and WP:CIRCULAR already cover it sufficiently. Thus, I'd close this without wasting further editor time User:Easternsahara_{review this} 04:10, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

@Ahri Boy, I second Easternsahara's suggestion that you close this. There was a long recent RSN discussion about Grokipedia , and this discussion is unlikely to add anything significant to that one. FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:27, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's deprecated although the effect is just as bad -- the edit filter logged where I cited Grokipedia on the Grokipedia talk page. Those were remarks which I consider relevant and reasonable, perhaps Ahri Boy could do me the courtesy of disagreeing there rather than demanding here that I be censored. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 21:07, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

"The making of an ethnic group: the Romaioi in the 12th–13th centuries" by Christos Malatras

I am bringing this paper up because it was recently tagged with {{Better source needed|reason=This seems to be a conference paper, not sure if it's peer reviewed}} in the page Byzantine Greeks (diff). It is used to support the first sentence, along with numerous other sources.

Now, some information about the source. The article "The making of an ethnic group: the Romaioi in the 12th–13th centuries" by Christos Malatras, is included in the proceedings of the 4th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies, a major academic conference organized by the European Society of Modern Greek Studies on 9–12 September 2010 at Granada, Spain. The proceedings of the conference were published in 2011 with the title Identities in the Greek world (from 1204 to the present day), divided in five volumes. The article by Malatras is included in volume 3 (here), on pages 419–430. Regarding the author (short CV), he is certainly a subject-matter expert, who earned his BA (History & Archaeology) from the University of Crete in 2004, his MPhil (Byzantine History) also from the University of Crete in 2008, and his PhD (Byzantine Studies) from the University of Birmingham in 2013. Furthermore, the article in question appears to have undergone academic scrutiny prior to its inclusion in the conference. For example, the prologue of the publication includes the following:

• Σε ό,τι αφορά την ιστορία του Δ' συνεδρίου της ΕΕΝΣ: Tον Δεκέμβριο του 2009 υποβλήθηκαν 461 αιτήσεις για συμμετοχή με ανακοίνωση. Από αυτές, η 16μελής διεθνής Επιστημονική Επιτροπή ενέκρινε 348 αιτήσεις. Το τελικό πρόγραμμα του συνεδρίου περιέλαβε 332 επιστημονικές ανακοινώσεις. Η εκφώνηση των ανακοινώσεων και το σύνολο των εργασιών του συνεδρίου πραγματοποιήθηκαν σε 8 παράλληλες συνεδρίες σε αίθουσες της Φιλοσοφικής Σχολής και της Σχολής Επικοινωνίας και Τεκμηρίωσης του Πανεπιστημίου της Γρανάδας.
  [Regarding the history of the 4th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies: In December 2009, 461 applications were submitted for participation with a presentation. Of these, the 16-member international Scientific Committee approved 348 applications. The final conference program included 332 scientific presentations. The presentations and all the conference proceedings were held in 8 parallel sessions in rooms of the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Communication and Documentation of the University of Granada.] (p. 17 in volume 3)

Let me also note that this was the largest conference in the history of Modern Greek studies. On page 19, we read:

• Σύμφωνα με τα διαθέσιμα στοιχεία, το Δ' συνέδριο της ΕΕΝΣ υπήρξε όχι μόνο το μεγαλύτερο έως σήμερα σε αριθμό συμμετοχών με επιστημονικές ανακοινώσεις συνέδριο της Εταιρείας, αλλά και το μεγαλύτερο και ευρύτερο από διεπιστημονική άποψη συνέδριο στην ιστορία των νεοελληνικών σπουδών, όπως αυτές διαμορφώθηκαν και καθιερώθηκαν μετά τον Β' Παγκόσμιο Πόλεμο τόσο στην Ελλάδα όσο και διεθνώς.
  [According to available data, the 4th European Congress of Modern Greek Studies was not only the largest conference to date in the history of the Society in terms of the number of participants with scientific presentations, but also the largest and broadest conference from an interdisciplinary point of view in the history of Modern Greek studies, as they were shaped and established after World War II, both in Greece and internationally.]

Is this source deemed reliable, and can it be used in Byzantine Greeks (not just in the first sentence, but in general)? – Demetrios1993 (talk) 13:34, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Is he a professor, or just a teacher? Slatersteven (talk) 16:52, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

His CV says "Associate Researcher", so...yes? He doesn't have the title of "professor", but he does carry out research activities alongside teaching. Not sure which part you're looking for. Toadspike [Talk] 17:58, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

So do a lot of other people, that does not make them subject matter experts, being widely cited does. v Just being a teacher (or "Associate Researcher") doesn't. Slatersteven (talk) 09:15, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

The fundamental question is whether there was editorial review. According to our article, conferences vary widely in their level of peer review. The website says that "The papers that were subsequently submitted and accepted can be found here", but doesn't say on what criteria papers were accepted. I couldn't find any editors or editorial policy in the PDFs themselves, but I also don't speak Greek. @Demetrios1993, could you help us with this? Toadspike [Talk] 18:01, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

FYI, the introduction of the conference proceeding (in Greek) states at p. 23 that:

"Τα αποτελέσματα του συνεδρίου, όπως αυτά αξιολογήθηκαν και εκτιμήθηκαν σε μια πρώτη φάση από τη μέγιστη πλειοψηφία των συνέδρων, αποτελούν τη δικαίωση του επίπονου έργου που επιτέλεσαν τα 16 μέλη της Επιστημονικής Επιτροπής του Δ΄ συνεδρίου της ΕΕΝΣ προς όφελος της διεθνούς κοινότητας των νεοελληνιστών."

Google translate: "The results of the conference, as they were evaluated and appreciated in a first phase by the vast majority of the conference participants, constitute the justification of the painstaking work carried out by the 16 members of the Scientific Committee of the 4th conference of the Greek National Society for the benefit of the international community of modern Hellenists."

Added emphasis highlighting that the papers were "evaluated", which I translate the above as peer-reviewed by the participants of the conference as it was organized by the "Scientific Committee". This scientific community can be found here and includes (Greek and non-Greek) professors from notable international universities including: University of Cambridge, Columbia University, King’s College London, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne etc. Does this resolves the issue? A.Cython (talk) 04:52, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Ancient histories

Is there currently written policy anywhere on the use of ancient histories? I'm seeing editors at AFD citing the Book of Song and Zizhi Tongjian for supporting articles on Ancient Chinese figures. What are our thoughts on using ancient histories published from the 5th to 11th centuries as the only basis for building articles (ie zero coverage in 19th, 20th, and 21st century sources)? In my opinion anything published in the ancient world requires training as a historian to properly interpret and evaluate. For that reason, I don't think this type of material should be the primary basis for any article. This of course would not be limited to just these two sources. I would think anything published pre-1800 should be viewed in this way. Obviously using these as supplementary materials, and carefully citing them in a limited way should be allowed, but I don't think we should be able to count these as WP:SIGCOV in notability discussions or have a large amount of text verified only to them. Thoughts? Best.4meter4 (talk) 22:20, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

SIGCOV is about how much (usable/encyclopedically relevant) information is in a source. It would be a bit silly to say "well, the source has five thousand words, but it's not significant coverage" – as if 5,000 words were some trivial amount of coverage. If you want to say that it doesn't count towards notability, then leave SIGCOV out of it, and just say you don't think that attention from the historical world makes any difference to modern-day notability. You'll have to find a way to square that with Wikipedia:Notability#Notable topics have attracted attention over a sufficiently significant period of time (attention over centuries isn't "a sufficiently significant period of time"? – you may have your work cut out for you there), or you'll have to find a different thing to complain about. For example, maybe they're not reliable. Or, much more promisingly, ancient works are not actually usable as secondary or tertiary sources.

As for date-based arguments, Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (history)#What is "recent" scholarship in history? suggests that anything before the 1990s should be discouraged (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the details), and I believe that there's another view in the community that says that historical theories/stores before the mid-20th century (1950s? 1960s?) should be assumed to not meet the modern scholarship. (That is, if someone wrote in 1885 that John Smith once wrote ____ in his letter home, then the simple facts are probably fine, but you don't want to accept conclusions in that old source, such as "and so that proves that it was reasonable for only married men to be able to vote" or "and so that proves that biological sciences were commercially important in the development of chemistry" or whatever; at most, you want to use it to say that John Smith once wrote something in a letter). WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:41, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing You sort of answered my question, but didn't quite get where I am coming from. I am asking what do we do with articles being built only from ancient histories. In this case 5th century to 11th century sources (which I am potentially seeing in a few Chinese nobility articles), and where no modern sources have been found? That to me seems problematic because A. Modern readers of ancient texts may not have sufficient training in interpreting historical documents to interpret them properly, and B. Ancient histories are not necessarily reliable histories (some of the writers writing on topics they had no first hand knowledge of, etc.) I would think older histories might be better interpreted as WP:PRIMARY documents even if they are histories of earlier time periods because of the translation difficulties across time and culture. These type of sources need modern historians engaging with the histories themselves to properly use and interpret them (and also fact check). Best.4meter4 (talk) 04:09, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

The same thing that we do with any other article that isn't already WP:FINISHED: We try to improve it.

It sounds like, in this case, the next step is to determine why we haven't yet found any modern sources. Could that be because no modern sources exist, or is it more likely that modern sources exist but we can't find them (or read them)? Is it likely that the sources are in Chinese and we're searching in English? Or that the sources are offline and we're searching online?

If we think that's the main source of our inability to improve it, then the usual thing to do is to add a maintenance tag and wait (for years, even decades) for someone who can find the sources to discover the article and improve it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:47, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Ya, I don't agree with that. I think deletion is the route to go (and the policy backed route) in cases where no reliable materials can be found. We don't assume sources exist, and articles shouldn't be built in the first place until multiple reliable sources are in hand both for verifiability and nobility policy compliance. 4meter4 (talk) 05:07, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

"Where no reliable materials can be found", or just "When no reliable materials can be found online, by me personally, given my own limitations, such as the fact that I don't read Chinese, and our article at Book of Song says 'There are no known full translations to English', so I'm neither able to read that source nor to find non-translated information related to the contents of that source"?

We don't need to "assume sources exist" in these situations. We have evidence that sources do exist, because you're complaining that the sources you've been given are not the Right™ Kind of sources.

I think you've been around long enough to know that Wikipedia's ruleset is imperfect and doesn't always fully describe reality. The claim that notability requires secondary sources is one of those unfortunate gaps. It was written back when many editors thought that secondary was a fancy way of spelling independent, and when the WP:SECONDARY policy literally defined a secondary source as second-hand information – thus making any old rumor, and every single newspaper report, be a policy-defined secondary source. We have IMO a more accurate understanding of those words among experienced editors now, but I think there are two fundamental facts to keep in mind at AFD: The first is that the words in the GNG don't necessarily represent the original intent behind the GNG. And the second is that articles will be deleted at AFD whenever we feel like it, and kept at AFD whenever we feel like it, even if "the rules" say the result "should" be the opposite. You can call it whatever you like (Jury nullification has a nice ring to it), but I think it's better not to worry about it too much. Do your best, let others do their best, and if the result is wrong, move on to something else. If they get it wrong on this article, there are 7,097,737 other articles waiting for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• I don't think age of a source matters to notability, no. More recent sources supersede older ones if they disagree, sure, but that doesn't mean that older coverage doesn't represent significant coverage contributing to overall notability. I've had someone try to argue before that one of my actress articles isn't notable because the decades of coverage of her took place in the first half of the 1900s and there hasn't been anything since then. Which is nonsense. We have WP:NTEMP for a reason. Otherwise, you could say any currently notable subject isn't notable anymore in 30 years if no new sources are made about them during that time period. Silverseren^C 05:42, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Silver seren I agree with that, but we aren't talking about the same thing. It's one thing to take a newspaper clipping from the 19th century about an actress in a play which is not so far outside our language, culture, worldview, and in general conceivable conception of the world that it can't be well understood today. It's another thing to read a document made in 5th century China where the culture is completely alien because nothing like it has existed in centuries. Understanding/interpreting meaning then becomes a skill that one has to spend years learning by studies in universities training to read those type of documents. It's just like someone learning to read Ancient Greek and interpret the Bible, and learning to exegete a passage correctly and understand the 1rst century Greco-Roman culture and its Jewish context within the document. One can't even properly understand the document and what's being said without the right cultural subtext/context that isn't even in the document but would be readily familiar to the author and its intended audience. This includes literary genre and the unique ways those tyoes of documents were stylized and structured and what that construction meant in terms of interpretation (it's not like modern writing). That's the type of work historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, and other scholars spend years learning in graduate school and after. It isn't something a lay person can do. It takes highly specialized skills. I'm not an expert in Chinese 5th century literary genre but I do know it's a thing, and it's a thing requiring many years of education to do properly.4meter4 (talk) 05:57, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

And yet we do allow editors to use their own personal translations of non-English sources and summarizations of their contents, even for languages such as many Asian ones where a direct translation isn't really possible and requires interpretation of what the words actually mean. Again, all of this still sounds like an NTEMP argument. If Wikipedia manages to last long enough, society will likely continue to drift linguistically and culturally. Would you then argue 100 years from now that the oldest of sources you're willing to allow for use right now no longer are good sources because they've become too culturally disparate? Silverseren^C 06:05, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Sigh, I think you are misunderstanding the point. We can reasonably expect editors to use scholarly sources made in the recent past competently because they are written in a time and place which we can understand without needing specialized education and training. Scholarly lit written for modern audience is something we can use. What we can’t do is place a reasonable expectation that editors will be competent at correctly interpreting materials from outside a culture they do not know or understand such as Ancient China. That requires specialized skills. I don’t think anyone without a degree in Ancient Chinese literature or history can be trusted to use a 5th century Chinese document accurately. If you haven’t been trained in it with a masters or doctoral degree at a reputable institution you simply won’t be able to do it without significant errata. Since we aren’t subject matter experts, we therefor have to rely on scholarly engagement with ancient texts and work by modern scholars published on those ancient text. We should not be attempting to interpret them on our own because that isn’t something we are competent enough to do under any circumstances.4meter4 (talk) 06:20, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

@Silver seren, by policy medieval and ancient sources are considered primary and therefore do not contribute to GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 20:37, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

What is the age cutoff then to be "ancient", JoelleJay? How do we determine that line? Is it different for different parts of the world? Is it a sliding scale of age where previously secondary sources turn into primary once they pass the age limit? Wherever that dividing age line is, what exactly defines the difference between a written source on one side of the line vs one just over the other side?

In short, where is the policy/guideline where all of my questions above there are defined, as such a definition would be necessary to make any claim about what sources even count as "medieval" or "ancient"? Silverseren^C 20:41, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

The cutoff for "medieval" is generally considered to be around the late 15th century. In practice, I think editors of history topics tend to use a later cutoff. Regardless, in order for any source to be considered reliable it would need to be evaluated for its reputation for fact-checking, peer review/editorial control, and vetting by the scholarly community to qualify as non-self-published; that would automatically rule out the vast majority of texts before the 1700s. To be an expert SPS the author would still need to have been published in reliable, independent publications, so that's out as well. At best, old text could be considered WP:RSEDITORIAL, which is still primary and thus ineligible for GNG. JoelleJay (talk) 21:10, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Well, that's confusing then considering the context of what's being discussed here. I agree with you on the self-published issue, as that would apply just as much to older sources as they do to current ones. Except the two Chinese sources this entire thread is about aren't self-published. They are official history documents made by the government. They are, in all likelihood, biased in what they cover and how they cover it, sure, but wouldn't an official government book series about the nation's founding and historical events be considered a proper source, JoelleJay? Silverseren^C 21:14, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

The relevant policy is still the one that states all ancient works are considered primary sources. I would also not consider the official histories to be truly independent, though that's a different discussion. JoelleJay (talk) 22:29, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

• Thousand year old texts are not reliable sources for anything and can't provide notability for our purposes.--Boynamedsue (talk) 18:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

  All sources are reliable for something. Many sources are reliable only for a statement like "Such-and-so document contains the following words: _______", but all sources are reliable at least for that much. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:28, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

• So, what exactly is the age limit for sources, Boynamedsue? And is that a moving limit that then makes formerly reliable sources unreliable as they go outside that age limit? How exactly do you determine that point? What do you base any rules of age related reliability on? Silverseren^C 20:29, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

  There can be no easy criterion, given the lack of extant copies and questionable translations I mentioned below. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:54, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Are you seriously arguing here that a 1000 year old source might be considered reliable in order to provide notability for an article?

In terms of how old is too old to use, that would depend on both the field and the individual topic. In anything regarding history, I would probably put a practical limit around the 1840s, though much published after that date will still be unusable. The methods used in modern history and the development of knowledge since that period means that we should be using modern historians interpretation of older historical texts rather than using them directly. We shouldn't, for example, use Suetonius to source details of the life of Augustus, but instead cite authors that interpret Suetonius. Historians of the distant past simply did not follow the methodology of modern history and so are not reliable sources. Our use of them for article immediately becomes WP:OR as we are taking a position on their accuracy that we are not qualified to take.Boynamedsue (talk) 22:23, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

Hi, although your intuitive comments are almost correct, you have given the crowd here no solid basis for your assertions, e.g. a discussion of the Rankian approach to modern historical analysis etc. And if any ancient doc is significant there will be many many debates on it. My point about translations below is of course crucial. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 04:58, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I wouldn't say we need a discussion of the Rankian approach to interpret WP:AGEMATTERS to say that a thousand year old source shouldn't be used. We give primacy to academia, and sources from before professional academia existed will always be suspect in any field. The point of the accuracy of translation is true, but perhaps unnecessarily complicates things.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:11, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I think 1500 year sources go well before Age Matters. We may be heading towards a heated agreement on the avoidance of ancient sources. But I should mention that in various cases there is scholarly dispute about the interpretation of ancient sources. One concern was the use of 1840 as a year. I do not think there is any definite year that far off. But let us leave it there. Cheers Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 07:28, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I think it is probably the case we agree in practical terms. The rough cut off of the 1840s is the limit where I might read a source and consider it in a field of history where I am more or less a subject matter expert (and there is only one of them, really). Apart from the question of method, I can't see how our guidelines on reliable published sources can be applied to texts written before the advent of the modern publishing industry.

In linguistics it would be further back, back to the Grimms and Sir William Jones in the late 18th century. Though of course, this would always be used with attribution and care. However, unless I am an expert in the topic at hand, I would rarely add anything written before the 1950s.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:59, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

It's about changes in modern scholarship. No simple cut-off. Ancient history requires historians to analyse. We need to find modern sources. Secretlondon (talk) 17:55, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

• I think one issue to remember is that in most cases we do not have the original item for 1500 year old type sources but some hand written copy, at times in a few different languages, eg Galen among others. And the translations can conflict. So using them is "possible" with extreme care but very tricky. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 20:50, 29 November 2025 (UTC)
• They have limited use for about self... But nobody should be using a source even a hundred years old for serious history. Even the 1980s is too far back to get generally accurate information in most historical disciplines. As they are not reliable sources outside of the context of aboutself they do not contribute to notability. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:10, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

We had a long discussion on the issue as it applied to classical Greco-Roman sources (Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_479#Classical_sources_(Herodotus,_Plutarch_etc)), which resulted the WP:GRECOROMAN entry on RSP. I would consider its advice to also apply to classical Chinese sources Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:31, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I concur. What's the process for getting something like that added for classical Chinese sources?4meter4 (talk) 17:36, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

I would support a parallel entry on WP:RPS classifying the kind of sources queried here as WP:PRIMARY. I would also note that, if this is accepted by others, the Book of Song and Zizhi Tongijan would not be able to provide WP:SIGCOV and as such the articles you queried probably do not pass WP:GNG as they stand. However, you almost certainly should take this to WikiprojectChina before initiating any deletions, especially if you don't speak Chinese. It may well be that some of the topics are actually quite well covered in Chinese paper sources.Boynamedsue (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Good advice. I would imagine that modern Chinese scholarship has been done in Chinese language publications on many of these topics, but they may be more easily accessible to those in China.4meter4 (talk) 19:08, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

Ancient texts cannot be contributory to notability as they are, per policy, considered primary. Further examples of primary sources include: ... medieval and ancient works, even if they cite earlier known or lost writings.

There is also no possible way to judge the reliability of ancient texts that have not been secondarily analyzed by actual RS, so those are by default unreliable as well as primary. JoelleJay (talk) 20:33, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

The inherent problem is that the policy contradicts itself. WP:Primary says Primary sources are original materials that are close to an event, and are often accounts written by people who are directly involved. Older sources, speaking on event long after they happened, are definitionally secondary as they provides thought and reflection based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. They have a whole host of other problems, from age to transmission, but to call them primary is factually incorrect. That's not to say they shouldn't be attributed when used, and used with caution, but for a whole host of other reasons. ~2025-37597-99 (talk) 21:59, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

It doesn't contradict itself, it clarifies how "primary" is defined for Wikipedia's purposes. This is also aligned with how modern historians treat ancient histories as primary sources, since the ancient authors' treatment of prior sources is radically different from what we would currently consider "secondary analysis". It's especially important on Wikipedia to require any information from these books to be filtered through modern scholarship to avoid OR. JoelleJay (talk) 22:54, 30 November 2025 (UTC)

You've cited a class syllabus for a 200 level class, which is about as far from reliable as one can get. I'll point to Livy: The Composition of His History by T. J. Luce as an example of academically published work, where he calls even the sources Livy drew from as secondary.

The issue is that this is not the universally held position you're making it out to be, and is an extremely complicated and nuanced topic. It isn't hard to find academic sources which uncritically cite ancient authors, and that you should have to cite a some random work to say "Plutarch said X" or "Livy said Y" instead of just citing them is nonsense. Nothing about that is WP:OR, since and editor is only repeating material inside the work, identical to how any other source is treated. Plenty of ancient authors are reliable, like Pausanias or the Geographica of Ptolemy, and others very much aren't, like Herodotus or the Historia Augusta. Editors should instead look at what various historians say about the individual reliability of each source, and how they are treated by said historians, rather than simply dismissing them out of age. ~2025-38588-60 (talk) 21:43, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

You are also confusing "uncritical citation" (which these historians certainly are not doing!) with endorsement of the source's reliability as a whole, and conflating pronouncements of reliability with the issue of these sources being primary. You can read my other comments linking to, e.g., the Cambridge History of China, which explicitly lists all of the texts mentioned here as "primary sources". Academic sources are written by historians who are actually qualified to interpret primary sources for the individual claims they make. Wikipedia editors are explicitly forbidden from doing this. JoelleJay (talk) 22:01, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

that you should have to cite a some random work to say "Plutarch said X" or "Livy said Y" instead of just citing them is nonsense Citing a modern perspective on what Plutarch said is exactly what we expect of editors. The article on Ptolemy's Geography that you linked literally calls these sources primary and does not cite any of them inline without an accompanying modern source addressing the same material. JoelleJay (talk) 22:09, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

There is no contradiction in there, you simply misunderstand wikipedia policy and guideline. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:50, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

At least for Zizhi Tongjian, I do not see why it could not be considered a reliable secondary source, it deals with history hundreds of years away from when the author lived/wrote the work so by nature it cannot be primary, and it is well regarded as reliable research material for the periods it covered, with many analyses & annotated versions written by people over the centuries. Portions of it are still given to Chinese high school students to read to this day: , so it should be interpretable to some degree by native speakers.

Book of Song as part of Twenty-four Histories should also be fine, but I could see a primary argument made as it was only written 15 years after the fall of the dynasty it covers. Jumpytoo Talk 01:12, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

If we apply the same rules to ancient Chinese texts as we do ancient Greek and Roman texts, then we shouldn't use it except, in effect, to quote it and no articles should be sourced solely to it. It's not a reliable secondary source, it is a primary source for our purposes.Boynamedsue (talk) 08:25, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

This has been discussed before, by the relevant WikiProjects and elsewhere, and no firm conclusion was reached. I will link the past discussions and provide a more thorough comment tomorrow. My initial response is that this is a very complicated issue and it is probably best to examine each source separately. Simple time-based cutoffs are often inadequate for this topic area, where "classical histories" were written and published thousands pf years after their Greek and Roman counterparts. Our typical metrics for what makes a reliable source (e.g. editorial oversight) may include many "classical" East Asian histories, while our typical definition of a "primary source" may exclude many of these histories. Toadspike [Talk] 22:15, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

Another thought: We should keep reliability, due weight, and notability separate. I think I lean towards disallowing the use of these sources to establish notability, but I lean against calling them "unreliable" and I am certain that any East Asian article would be incomplete without relevant information from the "classical" histories if such information is available, even if it is only presented as a quote. Toadspike [Talk] 23:12, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

I argue the opposite: they do establish notability (if they are secondary to the events/persons depicted). They are unreliable in that we can't trust them for the historicity of events/persons or can't ourself establish how reliable or unbiased they are (wp:OR). In practice that leads to the same conclusion: we can't use them to source an article/partial text of an article to. Whether that means we should immediately delete these articles/that material or wait till they get reliable scholarship added is a judgement call. If they end up at AFD and no reliable sources are added then that should result in deletion or a redirect. Rolluik (talk) 10:39, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I think I agree with Rolluik. Significant coverage in an official history would indicate a subject's notability. However, the content of that coverage should at best be taken with a pinch of salt, and at worst be considered unreliable. It should not be the basis for an article, and certainly not the sole basis, at which point the article becomes essentially a WP:OR translation of the classical text. Rather, WP:HISTRS should be used. @Toadspike, I come out in hives whenever you link the Princess Changde AfD.... Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 11:09, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

If they are unreliable they can't establish notability... They don't just need to be secondary they also need to be reliable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:55, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I'd disagree, particularly in the case of people - a biographical chapter in one of the official histories would to my mind confer notability with respect to WP:ANYBIO criterion 3: The person has an entry in a country's standard national biographical dictionary. The official histories were the standard national biographical dictionary of the times. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:33, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Standard national biographical dictionaries are built from modern historical research methods. Conflating ancient histories with today's publications is a false analogy.4meter4 (talk) 16:37, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

We will have to agree to disagree, then. Notability is not temporary. That said, I think it is likely that most subjects of a ranked biography would have sufficient WP:HISTRS sources anyway to draw on for an article. I suppose my position is that I would not myself draft an article from scratch solely based on a ranked biography, but I would not recommend deletion were such an article to be nominated for AfD. Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:47, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

It isn't so much a question of notability but a question of verifiability. We can't undertake the work of a trained historian because applying modern methods of historical research ourselves is a skill that can only be done by a subject matter expert. Even though many of us who volunteer have studied research methodologies (anybody who went to graduate school likely had to take at least one or two courses in it), we are a community of volunteers that have to set aside any credentials we may have as we don't vet editors backgrounds. In that sense, anybody who edits on wikipedia is an amateur and can't engage in WP:OR. Translating ancient documents in ancient languages to a contemporary audience so they can understand is a skill, and interpreting essential subtext (ie understanding what an audience of its day would read into a document that wasn't outright said, but would be essential to its proper interpretation and meaning by its author) is only something a highly knowledgeable historian would know to do who was a specialist in that particular language and culture of that historical period. The chances of errata in this area are too high if anyone not qualified (ie not a verified subject matter expert) does it. As such, we rely on modern scholars to do their necessary work in order for us to use these materials. Because these types of sources can't be used on their own to verify articles, we shouldn't be using them to create pages. That is why they indicate no notability. We need sources we can use as amateurs to have an article. Ancient document use absent modern scholarship requires original research, and that is something we can't do. Period.4meter4 (talk) 17:02, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@4meter4 I urge you again to stop using the word "ancient". Most of what we're talking about here is not ancient. Please also be more specific in your claims about "modern scholarship" and how it differs from the methods of traditional East Asian historiography, which in some cases was extremely similar to "modern scholarship". Toadspike [Talk] 18:26, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Whether the text is technically ancient or not, it still falls under our very straightforward policy that sources from the medieval period and earlier are automatically considered primary regardless of whether they cite other sources or are non-contemporary accounts. Modern historical scholarship is certainly not in the practice of interpreting old Chinese historiography the same as modern historiography. JoelleJay (talk) 19:13, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

You also seem to be arguing that all sources in literary Chinese should be discounted because no Wikipedia editor is qualified to read literary Chinese. I do not think I can be convinced of this. While some cases, especially very old texts, can be difficult to interpret, many are extremely straightfoward. It this regard it is a language like any other. See for instance the Princess Changde AfD, where several editors opined on sources written in literary Chinese. Toadspike [Talk] 18:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

Leaving aside the point of whether or not that counts as a "a country's standard national biographical dictionary" where does it say that it confers notability? I think you might fundamentally misunderstand how notability works on wiki. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't think I do fundamentally misunderstand; it is probably my wrong choice of verb. Wikipedia:Notability_(people)#Additional_criteria says: People are likely to be notable if they meet any of the following standards ... The person has an entry in a country's standard national biographical dictionary (e.g. the Dictionary of National Biography). Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 16:55, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

"likely to be notable" means that no actual notability is conferred by meeting that standard. You are arguing for a fundamental misinterpretation of notability, this isn't an "agree to disagree" situation you're just wrong. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:07, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

May I ask, then, what is the wiki phrase that isn't "likely to be notable" but is something like it that does confer notability then (maybe it is "may be considered notable"?) Cheers, SunloungerFrog (talk) 17:13, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't believe there is a phrase which confers notability... As WP:N says "articles which pass an SNG or the GNG may still be deleted or merged into another article, especially if adequate sourcing or significant coverage cannot be found, or if the topic is not suitable for an encyclopedia." Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:57, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

Reliability is absolutely required for notability. Discussion in an ancient "encyclopedia" is indicative of further coverage in secondary RS existing, but as it cannot be used to actually write an article it is not sufficient to establish notability. ANYBIO is weaker than GNG and BASIC (it uses "likely to be notable" rather than "presumed notable"), and regardless, WP:N still requires secondary independent coverage in RS. If the only coverage that can be found is in ancient texts like Zhizhi Tongjian, then that is no better than a profile in a DPRK newsletter for the purposes of Wikipedia as it is not possible to write an NPOV, tertiary article on the subject. JoelleJay (talk) 18:57, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

Past discussions: recent RSN discussion, recent discussion on WikiProject Talk China, 10-year-old discussion on WT:ZH. recent RSN discussion of Sillok/VRotJD and subsequent WT:KO discussion, both summarized at WP:VROTJD. Relevant AfDs are for example Princess Changde and Wang Ji. I encourage folks to at least skim over some of these (including the AfDs) to understand the various perspectives and the status quo. Toadspike [Talk] 10:51, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

I also believe that something like WP:GRECOROMAN is needed for traditional East Asian sources. As user:Toadspike notes in the above-linked discussions, the use of these sources is particularly pervasive in Chinese history articles, with many of the more obscure ones being translated from zhwiki, which routinely accepts these sources. The problem is exacerbated by ill-advised placings of {{expand language}}. While this is all done in good faith, it is riven with the same issues identified above for other pre-modern sources. I am not suggesting immediate deletion of the vast number of articles affected, but we must put down a marker to stop the situation continually getting worse, and perhaps to start to improve it. Kanguole 13:03, 2 December 2025 (UTC)

@Kanguole, luckily we already have policy that states these ancient and medieval texts are automatically primary and thus cannot count towards notability. JoelleJay (talk) 19:15, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@JoelleJay You've made this argument several times, but the discussion I linked above on this exact question was inconclusive. (There was also clear opposition there to applying WP:GRECOROMAN to Asian sources.)

You link to a footnote in WP:PRIMARY that I have objected to in the past because it mischaracterized what its sources say. I assume you are referring to the phrase "medieval and ancient works, even if they cite earlier known or lost writings". Again, there was no consensus in the RSN discussion to apply this to post-medieval Asian sources, and even if there was, centuries of post-medieval East Asian histories written with the same style and methods as medieval or ancient histories, which makes this an arbitrary distinction. That footnote goes on to list three definitions of primary sources from reliable sources, none of which would apply to most Asian works of history (with the possible exception of those in the "Veritable Records" style). As such, I can't accept that this footnote means all traditional East Asian historigraphy is primary without an affirmative consensus somewhere saying exactly that. Toadspike [Talk] 21:42, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@Toadspike, an informal discussion on RSN that got archived with no closure definitely does not override explicit, long-standing policy. Nor does it override the very well-established practice within history scholarship of treating these old sources as primary, both by university syllabi and professional historians (e.g. The Cambridge History of China, which explicitly treats Shiji, Hanshu, Hou Hanshu, Zhizhi tongjian, etc. as primary). The reasoning for this should be clear: secondary, modern analysis is necessary to contextualize and interpret the reliability of old texts, and this would be especially necessary for anything commissioned by a ruling government. JoelleJay (talk) 22:33, 3 December 2025 (UTC)

@JoelleJay Looking at the links you provided, only the Cambridge History claims sources covering history hundreds of years after the fact is a primary source (Zhizhi tongjian). All the other sources refer to "primary" sources under the more generalist term, for example the example primary source used in the second link for the "WEEKLY ANALYSIS OF PRIMARY SOURCE" assignment uses the records the words of an envoy sent by King Bu of Wa to the Liu Song court. In addition, page 403-404 of the "Early Chinese texts : a bibliographical guide" book you linked, it says that Taiping Yulan and Yunji Qiqian, both works from the 10th & 11th century are Sources which cannot be primary but are likely to be secondary, which goes in direct conflict with the assertion that all old sources are primary.

In addition, while I can find the discussion on the ancient text portion when that was added to NOR in 2010, I cannot find the discussion or consensus where medieval sources, which would cover the vast majority of old Asian works in question here, are to be considered PRIMARY. I can see it was added in this edit in 2021, yet I cannot find any corresponding discussion on the talk page either there or at RSN around that timeframe. This kind of change that makes 1000 years of sourcing potentially blanket unreliable is something that needs a consensus to back it up. Jumpytoo Talk 03:05, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

We've never had community support for the idea that even hundred year old sources are generally reliable... What makes you think that such consenus exists for even older works? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 03:56, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

We also don't have anything saying hundred year old sources are generally unreliable and PRIMARY solely due to their age, so I'm not sure what you're trying to get here. We can judge the sources on their own merits and not automatically discount them because they are not from the current/last century. I can see some arguments on why these sources are not preferred (ex. claiming they primary because they are too close to the time period they are covering), but saying "the source is from 10th century = unreliable" is not something I support. Jumpytoo Talk 05:24, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

That has been the practice the entire time I have edited wikipedia, upheld again and again in discussion after discussion. None of what you are describing are reliable sources beyond WP:ABOUTSELF. If you disagree then name a single source from the 10th century which has a standing generally reliable consensus. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:04, 4 December 2025 (UTC)

..3rd century count? The surviving books of Arithmetica are pretty standard fare. (Mind you, they'are all Greek to me :P )

Arithmetica Infinitorum (1656) and Arithmetica Integra (1544) are a bit later than what you asked, but still good. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:17, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

And where is the consensus that they're generally reliable? None of them seem to have come up on this noticeboard Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:21, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, are you questioning their reliability? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:25, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

I asked for a "a standing generally reliable consensus" not to start discussions about random texts... Lets establish where we are before we look to the future. Do you know of any existing consensus that could help us answer this question? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 05:32, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, you asked if there were any texts which the community deems reliable... and given that these are cited in many articles, apparently without question, I'd say that's good enough. I'd love to see what an RSN discussion deeming any of those unreliable would look like. :) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 05:57, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Are they widely cited beyond ABOUTSELF? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 06:01, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Interesting enough, the non-ABOUTSELF citations are far superior in quality to the ABOUTSELF citations for these books.

Out of curiosity, HEB, are you familiar with these books? Because this (and the comparasion to The Peerage) are rather amusing to me - to pick a quote from Arithmetica, "A minus multiplied by a minus makes a plus" (translation by Heath). Is there anything you'd like to question about that source being reliable for statement? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 22:18, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

It would help if you could provide those citations, almost all of the citations I see are ABOUTSELF. I'm struggling to come up with a scenario where we would need to use that source for that information, don't we have thousands or more higher quality sources to use instead? We generally prioritize the most recent reliable sources, if only because its from those sources coverage of the legacy sources that we learn how accurate the legacy sources were. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 22:27, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Well, speaking of Wikipedia only, citations for the magic numbers look OK; I should perhaps clarify though, that these sources are treated as general reliable by experts in the subject area. And while we do change citations to modern ones, when possible - we don't do it just for the sake of changing, we do it when there's a reasonable expectation that newer sources will be better quality. The newer sources in this topic are, at any rate, are not inherently better. They are certainly often far less detailed - there's a reason why it's common to use English translations of these old or medieval texts to learn the fundamentals of maths, even today - they are far superior to modern textbooks. And contain information often not found in modern textbooks - because why would you try and reinvent the wheel, and write something when you could just refer readers to the older books?

And HEB, that's an interesting argument, that we need to have modern sources judge "how accurate the legacy sources were". Are you aware of any fundamental shifts in basic algebra that have occurred on the past few centuries? Has changes to modern genocide scholarship stoped the sum of the interior angles of a triangle from summing to 180? Have changes in the global climate impacted the results of calculations in Arithmetica logarithmica? Does our new understanding of the role genetics play in cancer development impact how to solve a Diophantine equation?

Trying to use just age to determine if a source is primary or reliable is rarely ever that useful; it depends too much on subject matter. To create a spectrum, you can use much older sources in areas like maths than you ever could in an area like molecular biology or medicine - viruses weren't discovered until the very late 1890s, photo 51 is from the 1950s. That's very much a field where any pre-2015 sources are likely to be out of date in some way or another, and you need subject matter expertise to tell when. History texts are in the middle; I don't trust Raj era sourcing, but the basic facts in these old Chinese histories are a lot less disputed in modern scholarship than somebody learned in a more rapidly evolving field might expect. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 23:42, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

A shocking amount of my formal schooling was dedicated to Chinese history... You are misrepresenting the state of the field vis-a-vis the imperial histories. They are treated as political documents which reflect the politcal realities and desires of those who created them... Not objective works of scholarship. They're full of racism, bigotry, and ignorance on an almost comical level, would you really use one to say in wikivoice that Kazakhs smell bad, have no manners, and are unintelligent? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:39, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Given that I can find those exact statements in 20th century American newspaper articles about essentially any given ethnic group, and we'd still treat having an 1950s obit as evidence of notability/importance.... look, I'm not saying they're reliable for 10th century race relations. They have to be used with care- all sources have to be used with care. No work of scholarship is ever truly objective, they aren't reliable for every statement in them (goodness knows I've or-ed my share of claims out of articles". But in terms of "this historical figure was born here, to these parents, is credited with these important things, and died"/"they're noteworthy and we should have an article on them", then it's okay. But a simple "old sources are all bad", like you proposed in the beginning, is rather redictionist. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 03:03, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

there's a reason why it's common to use English translations of these old or medieval texts to learn the fundamentals of mathsWhat are you talking about? JoelleJay (talk) 19:14, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm talking about my university education in maths? They were a standard part of the curriculum. (And an absolute joy - one of my professors was born in India and he gave us a lot of notes on Līlāvatī that the English translations missed) GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 02:54, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

We still have 4500 citations to The Peerage. Usage by editors means nothing. JoelleJay (talk) 16:29, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

That number pails into insignificance in comparison to how many times Wikipedia is used as a reference, even though it's against multiple policies. Usage on Wikipedia is a terrible argument for reliability. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:37, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, whether or not anonymous editors on Wikipedia consider a source reliable is an awful indication of how reliable a source is. Unfortunately, following such logics leads to a deprecation of RS/N. GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 00:48, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Policy based arguments are what should be used when considering the reliability of a source, usage on Wikipedia doesn't appear in any guidance or policy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:52, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I am allowed to say that editors have not, to date, questioned the reliability of a source. "Consensus is assumed when there's no evidence of disagreement". GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 01:02, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

You can but silent consensus exist up to the point that it's challenged, and it certainly appears that there's been a challenge. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:29, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

.... a serioues question to the reliability of my medieval math texts? Silly question, Actively , but you've noticed that I was off on a tangent with HEB about whether or not a ancient book could be reliable, right? GreenLipstickLesbian💌🧸 03:05, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

The syllabi all use the same historiographical meaning of "primary" as the Cambridge source. I don't know which bibliographical guide you're referring to; I only linked the three syllabi, the (apparently now 404) article on the Xiongnu which says The most important primary sources on the Xiongnu are, as briefly mentioned above, the Yantielun, Shiji, Hanshu, and Hou Hanshu. and the Cambridge source. I did find a work edited by Loewe sharing that title which helpfully lists the primary and secondary sources as the historians use them for one chapter, and as far as I can tell the earliest secondary source is from 1901. The context for the excerpt you cite is a commentary relating Thompson's analysis of the Shen tzu in which he is explicitly defining "primary" in relation to particular events recorded in various fragments; neither Thompson nor the editor is himself using these sources as "secondary" (as should be evident by Thompson providing clarifications for his usage of "primary" etc.), nor should we. And even if we were to a definition of primary that did not align with modern historiographical treatment, medieval sources still do not satisfy our criteria for "reliable" in any meaningful way. JoelleJay (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Discussions do not need a close to have consensus; most don't. The policy you cite still does not exist. The "medieval" thing, which I am still not convinced is supported by consensus or sources, is ridiculous. What methodological difference makes the History of Ming reliable and the History of Song unreliable? What makes the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty unreliable up until 1500 CE, or wherever that footnote draws its arbitrary line, after which it suddenly becomes reliable? We have a featured article, Genghis Khan, which cites a translation of The Secret History of the Mongols three times (in conjunction with other sources). Cai Lun, another featured article, relies much more heavily on the sources you claim are unreliable. Are these uses inappropriate? Toadspike [Talk] 18:34, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, uses of those specific sources beyond WP:ABOUTSELF would be inappropriate... We would want to instead use modern scholarship which talks about those works to establish their relevance to the topic. There is no need to directly cite the obsolete source, if we do its a courtesy link in addition to the RS. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:51, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

What makes such older sources so unreliable for statements of fact that it can only be used as ABOUTSELF, yet if a more modern source trusts that same source for statements of fact it's suddenly OK? For example The Cambridge History of China mentioned by Joelle earlier trusts these sources at their word, there is no commentary about if these sources are reliable or not and there is no in-text attribution. As WP:USEBYOTHERS says, widespread citation without comment for facts is evidence of a source's reputation and reliability for similar facts. Jumpytoo Talk 01:43, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

The CHC authors do not trust these sources at their word. They weigh them against whatever other sources are available in order to synthesize an account and identify what is uncertain. There are numerous remarks, both general and specific, about limitations of the traditional sources and the caution needed in using them. I'm not sure what you mean by "there is no in-text attribution" – the CHC chapters have extensive footnotes. Kanguole 12:48, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I am looking at the footnotes right now for the volume (Vol 2) that was linked earlier, when they use sources such as 24 histories and Zizhi Tongjian they are simple WP:INLINE citations with no additional commentary. I even see footnotes like For biographies of major Tan family members, see Book of Jin 85.2217; Book of Song 45.1372–1373..., which suggest to the reader that the source is reliable to read as is. And I do not see any discussion about limitations of the traditional sources and the caution needed in using them, all source discussion I can see is regarding the modern scholarship. Please do don't try to confuse WP:INLINE citations which are always required and WP:INTEXT attribution which is when there is some concern that prevents using WP:WIKIVOICE. Jumpytoo Talk 19:35, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

CHC is written by SMEs who are qualified to interpret and synthesize primary sources. Referencing those sources to support the historian's commentary is not in any way an endorsement of their overall accuracy or even their accuracy for the specific claim being made. JoelleJay (talk) 20:35, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

even their accuracy for the specific claim being made, by this logic CHC would be an unreliable source? Most of the book has no in-text attribution so that would mean the authors of this book are writing these supposedly dubious claims as fact? Jumpytoo Talk 21:42, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

What? The CHC authors are SMEs who are qualified to interpret old sources; those interpretations are perfectly RS for us to use here. What we can't extrapolate from the sources' use in the CHC is their general acceptance by historians as accurate unless this is explicitly stated. Usage does not imply acceptance at face-value of historicity. But even if the sources were considered accurate, that does not make them permissible to use on their own on WP because they still require secondary interpretation. JoelleJay (talk) 16:31, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Modern sources do not trust those sources for statements of fact, thats the entire point... They use them within their limited context and primarily for OR which we aren't supposed to do here. The Cambridge History of China does not trust these sources at their word, you've confused yourself somewhere along the line. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:35, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

I think we are coming to different conclusions about the same facts. Modern sources rely very heavily on traditional histories because they are often the only sources we have. Modern sources attempt to verify these histories where possible using other sources or other information, but much of the time they simply repeat what the histories say because we have nothing else to go off of. Is there more use with verification or acceptance at face value? I think your perspective is that a majority of information is verified by modern scholars, while I contend that a majority is simply accepted at face value. But this is impossible to quantify.

the Cambridge History of China does not trust these sources at their word: I ctrl+F searched the volume on Song political history (Vol. 5 part 1) for the abbreviations it uses for the traditional histories (page xxiii). The result: this volume of the CHC cites various editions of the Zizhi Tongjian over 1500 times. Clicking through the results, it seems many or even most of these footnotes are for the Zizhi Tongjian alone, with no other sources. This seems to be fairly strong evidence that historians often accept traditional histories at face value.

Re: racism and other biases – yes, these sources are biased. (In fact, all sources are biased.) I accept that on some topics these histories are more biased than, say, modern scholars. However, assessing biases requires nuanced discussion of each source and what topics/uses it can or cannot be used for, ideally based on what other sources say, rather than a blanket ban on this entire category of sources. Toadspike [Talk] 19:04, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Modern historians have the expertise to interpret these early primary texts. Whether a text is accurate for a given claim is their determination, NOT a Wikipedia editor's. If a statement in an early text has not been secondarily evaluated by modern scholars, it cannot be used on Wikipedia. JoelleJay (talk) 20:41, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Correction: Some of those works are not actually the Zizhi Tongjian itself, but various "continuations" like the Xu Zizhi Tongjian Changbian and Xu Zizhi Tongjian. The Zizhi Tongjian only has 311 hits. Since those aren't special, I'll complete the set: I get 520 hits for the History of Song, 180 for the Old History of the Five Dynasties, a hundred for the Song State Compendium (aka Song Huiyao), and about 75 for the Jianyan Yilai Xinian Yaolu. Toadspike [Talk] 13:05, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

You have shown that the CHC authors make extensive use of these sources, which we knew and should expect. This is not evidence that they take them at face value. Kanguole 14:28, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

We cannot know for sure what went through the authors heads before they wrote pages upon pages of text cited solely to these traditional histories. I cannot prove they were not reviewed, but it equally cannot be proven they were not taken at face value. Here it seems the traditional histories were simply summarized and pieced together by a historian, much how zhwiki creates entire articles. If we require review of these histories, I think that too is a spectrum, ranging from detailed studies of the historiography of a topic corroborated by archival and archaeological evidence, to a copy of the Zizhi Tongjian annotated by a modern historian, which you could find in any Chinese bookstore. Would the latter be sufficient review? Toadspike [Talk] 15:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Although CHC chapters and zhwiki articles (and many enwiki articles on Chinese history) share the property of citing traditional sources, the way they use them is completely different, because these are professional historians expert in that area acting as such. This is also apparent from reading these chapters.

It is not review of the traditional sources that we require, but rather the work of modern historians (who will of course be using these sources, and are qualified to do so). As for the annotated Zizhi Tongjian, the modern historian's annotations might be usable, depending on the standing of the historian. Kanguole 13:53, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Of course a list of source types considered primary for Wikipedia purposes is policy...?? The medieval cutoff isn't some hard line for "reliable-not reliable", it's a bright line for what is considered primary age-wise, with later texts still potentially (and in practice, very often) considered primary. Historians treat these texts as primary for good reason.

And for reliability, do you know what the editorial standards were for History of Ming or Song, their level of independent review, their reputation for fact-checking to the standards we expect of modern RS? Are you confident enough in the factuality of Mingshi to state, in wiki-voice, its narrative on the Mandate of Heaven, its claims about Zheng He's treasure ship, or its characterization of Ming triumphs?

Cai Lun is a great example of an article that explicitly only cites early sources when accompanied by a modern source: When applicable, this list identifies the relevant passage of early sources in addition to a modern citation. Do you think that maybe there's a reason that, in the "Sources" section discussing how Cai Lun is described in the Hou Hanshu and Dongguan Hanji, the citations are strictly to modern scholars, with the exception of a reproduction from the latter account alongside the modern citation? Maybe you could ask @Aza24 why they didn't just use those early sources directly?

AFAICT the article on Genghis Khan does not cite a single source published before 1951. As you noted, the translated, annotated version of Secret History from 2015 is only cited in conjunction with modern interpretations of its text. Perhaps @AirshipJungleman29 could explain why he didn't just use that translation at face value? JoelleJay (talk) 20:23, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

For the record Toadspike, the citations to the Secret History are purely illustrative; I could equally well just place the relevant quote in a {{quote box}}. You can find a full analysis of sourcing in the Genghis Khan#Sources section, but it essentially boils down to "the Secret History is not fully reliable". That said JoelleJay, that does not mean that all medieval sources are completely unreliable. If modern historians describe a medieval work as generally reliable, it should be treated as such. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:44, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29, my argument isn't that they're unreliable per se, but that they require interpretation from more modern scholarship to contextualize them, which is why they are (and should be) treated like primary sources. JoelleJay (talk) 16:19, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Similarly, @Toadspike the primary sources in Cai Lun could all be removed and the text would still be completely cited, verifiable and solid. Their addition was entirely a extra thing to help any readers or researchers who are really interested in where this information is coming from. Used alone, they are too vague, contradictory or incomplete to provide reliable and nuanced information. Aza24 (talk) 02:42, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Ancient and medieval sources are not WP:RS. They do not have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy. (If anything, their reputation is the exact opposite, a reputation for not being accurate.) Because they're not RS, they don't contribute to notability and should not be used as a basis for articles or to support any statements in Wikivoice in any article. Very surprised to see experienced editors confused about this. Historians are RS for history, and that's about it. Levivich (talk) 06:06, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Agree with Levivich. Subject matter experts, historians, and academics are entitled to use ancient and medieval sources for their works; Wikipedia editors should instead be citing those SMEs, historians, and academics for theirs. Mr rnddude (talk) 13:33, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

What if, completely hypothetically, an ancient or medieval source does have a reputation for fact checking and accuracy? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:49, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Then it might be an RS, although there'd still be the rest of RS analysis to consider (e.g. WP:RSCONTEXT, WP:RSPRIMARY, WP:AGE MATTERS, WP:UBO, etc.). Levivich (talk) 19:18, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Ancient and medieval documents are notoriously biased, misleading, or blatantly false and frequently use language that meant something different than it does now. It takes a historian years of study in very niche fields to be able to produce a more-or-less accurate summary of the meaning behind these documents. A wikipedia editor's interpretation of a historical document is by definition wp:original research. If something described in one of those sources is fit for wikipedia, it will have been covered in published academic work by an expert; that's what should establish notability. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 00:55, 8 December 2025 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement/Sources

How much weight should we give to the page Wikipedia:WikiProject Latter Day Saint movement/Sources when discussing whether to use a particular source in an LDS article? Are there any other non-RSNB lists evaluating sources for any other topics? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:46, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

For my part, I don't disagree with how Brodie is characterized at the noticeboard. Her facts are fine unless directly contradicted by modern scholarly consensus, but her conclusion of Smith as irreligious was fundamentally flawed. Feoffer (talk) 01:08, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I intend to bring up Brodie here, as I usually do when I see editors disputing over the reliability of a source, but first I need to get the question I asked above out of the way. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:02, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I remember discussing this list here at RSN before, but I'm having trouble finding it in the archives. The gist is that it's as good of a list as the LDS WikiProject can be trusted to neutrally and fairly judge such matters. If one is weary of a WP:LOCALCON bias on any specific source and disagrees with the assessment, feel free to point it out with reasoning to try to establish global consensus. There are several other similar lists at Category:WikiProject lists of reliable sources. Left guide (talk) 02:30, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Kenyan media stories about Kenyan individuals not considered reliable

I have used their articles about a Kenyan rugby coach, and the main sources I have used are from Capital Group, which owns 98.4 Capital FM and Nation Media Group, which owns the Daily Nation. The feedback is that the submission is not adequately supported by reliable sources which can be verified. The sources present factual information, some of which is obtained from firsthand interviews, but because they may not be as visible or well known on Wikipedia due to the lack of visibility, their credibility is being questioned.

Additionally, Mozzart Sports, a news platform by betting company Mozzart Bet, is a key source of information for Kenyan sports, but the same issue of credibility appears.

How are we expected to publish articles and cite sources when it is unlikely that the individuals we are creating articles about, while notable, are not reported on much beyond local sources that would be considered 'niche'?

The article rejection states that 'Reliable sources are required so that information can be verified', but there are articles that are included in the article from the three sources mentioned above that are not in question. What sources should be considered 'reliable' in this case? ~2025-36586-94 (talk) 08:49, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

This temporary account has not edited a draft and you have not provided a link to the draft, so it is not possible for experienced editors to comment on that specific draft. There are a few things that I can say based on what you have told us. What is required to establish notability are references to reliable, independent sources that devote significant, in-depth coverage to this person. First of all, media interviews of a person do not help establish the notability of that person, because they are not independent sources. They are the person speaking about themself. Second, betting and gambling websites are definitely not reliable sources for anything about a person on Wikipedia and should never be used as references to try to establish notability. Their primary goal is to generate bets, not reliability. Both of my comments apply to draft articles about people from any country on Earth and are not specific to Kenya. Cullen328 (talk) 18:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

What page do you intend to use what URL on, or would like to? — Very Polite Person (talk/contribs) 18:37, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

Self-published political endorsements without secondary coverage.

At 2026 New Democratic Party leadership election, a majority of the citations for the "Endorsements" section are WP:SELFPUBLISHED, almost always from a social media post or lengthy YouTube video uploaded by the candidate. WP:BLPSELFPUB says that such material cannot be unduly self-serving and does not involve claims about third parties, therefore I don't think these should be allowed on Wikipedia and should be supported by secondary sources, or not used in Wikivoice at all. I've been reverted twice now, but have not gotten any engagement on the talk page despite opening a thread before editing.

A secondary issue that I've yet to take editing action on (though I raised it in the above-mentioned talk page thread) is that the policy platforms are also poorly sourced, with no inline citations and presumed to be sourced to the candidate's official websites and not secondary sources. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 20:11, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Without coverage by independent sources, neither endorsements nor policy plans are due for inclusion. Both are effectively ads and inherently promotional. Cortador (talk) 22:01, 5 December 2025 (UTC)

Agree. This is about DUEness not reliability. If there are further nuances to go into, maybe original research noticeboard is right one. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:31, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies and the referral to ORN. Discussion seems to have finally picked up on the article talk, but with a lot of WP:OTHERCONTENT arguments. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 00:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Political endorsements, one of the criteria for an endorsement to be listed (both for individuals and groups) is: "cover[age] by reliable independent sources." If you look at the corresponding RfC Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 164#RfC on inclusion criteria for lists of political endorsements, it claims there is consensus for individuals' endorsements to be covered by reliable and independent sources. For groups, it claims there is no consensus and thus, should be decided by WP:LOCALCONSENUS.

I don't really think what you describe seems worthy of inclusion. John Kinslow (talk) 09:28, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Pinging @Wellington Bay: who has unilaterally restored the endorsements, claiming a "consensus" exists despite further comments here. We cannot make a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS when a wider one exists, nor have a consensus to violate policies and guidelines. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 16:28, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

"Claiming" a consensus? On the article's talk page discussion it's now 5 to 1 I believe, which is fairly clear and not "unilateral" unless you are the 1 in question. If you want to overturn the consensus I suggest you start an RFC on that talk page. Wellington Bay (talk) 16:49, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

That's not how consensus works. WP:NOTDEMOCRACY ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 17:01, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

As per WP:Consensus there is a "wide agreement" on the article's talk page. Consensus isn't unanimity. Again, if you disagree with the consensus then start an RFC. Wellington Bay (talk) 17:05, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

A consensus decision takes into account all of the proper concerns raised., yet there are outstanding concerns raised that other editors here agree with and that you are ignoring ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 17:25, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Local consensus cannot override Wikipedia policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Context is important… remember that WP:IAR is policy.

It may be that the real question is whether a given policy should apply in a specific situation. The dispute may be one of those (rare) situations that no one thought about when the policy was written, and so an exception to the policy should be made. This does not happen often… but it can happen. Blueboar (talk) 17:45, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

I think for articles written about politicians--or political figures in general we should all "ignore" IAR and stick to abiding by the rules because of hoe hairy editing those pages can become. Agnieszka653 (talk) 20:26, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

A Local consensus is fine… until/unless a broader consensus over turns it. If you think a local consensus is flawed in some way … file an RFC and ask the broader community. Blueboar (talk) 17:33, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

RfC has been opened here. ―"Ghost of Dan Gurney" _(hihi) 20:31, 7 December 2025 (UTC)

Votes mean nothing unless voters actually made a policy-based argument. Cortador (talk) 20:01, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Explorersweb

https://explorersweb.com/ is a rather specialized news platform. Like many other news sources, it has a lot of churnalism, but I am not aware of any accuracy problems with it. There is a fair amount of WP:UBO I'm curious if DJ Cane or any other editors have evidence whether it is a reliable source. (t · c) buIdhe 20:46, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

I did not participate in whatever led to it being listed as unreliable at Wikipedia:WikiProject Climbing/Article recommendations and don't have anything to offer to this discussion beyond the context that it was listed there before it was removed without a discussion today. DJ Cane _(he/him) (Talk) 20:51, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

They have an editor who is described in some media as a "professional photographer and writer" and his work received the "GG Polar Medal" . They're owned by AllGearDigital, which seems to publish a number of travel-related and sport-related websites . Katzrockso (talk) 20:55, 10 December 2025 (UTC)

North London News

Heads up folks: the Press Gazette has a new article out calling out 'North London News' for being AI-generated and regurgitating stories previously reported in MyLondon, the Evening Standard and Barnet Post.

The real zinger of this article states that NLN is leaving prompts in the byline as well as hallucinating info in the stories. To quote the Press Gazette:

After those points have been made, a paragraph seemingly from an AI text generator has been left in: “Using these key points as a foundation, I will now craft a comprehensive news report on the recent controversy surrounding Barnet’s East Finchley housing plan, with detailed attributions and a neutral tone, structured in an inverted pyramid style, incorporating relevant questions for optimal SEO ranking.”

The same story references an East Finchley Residents’ Association and its chair Sarah Johnson, neither of which do not appear to exist. An article about Barnet Council rejecting a plan for 1,485 homes similarly refers to someone who does not exist: “As reported by local planning correspondent Jane Doe of Barnet Times, Councillor Sury Kathri, chair of the planning committee, stated…”

In addition, Kathri stopped being a councillor several years ago and is therefore not the current chair of the planning committee. His name is also correctly spelled Khatri.

Not exactly sure of the processes here, but I think a catch and kill of the site here and now under WP:RSPLLM shouldn't hurt. Hullian111 (talk) 14:58, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I can't find any instances of it being used as a source, how long has it existed for? Orange sticker (talk) 15:18, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

According to the article, since at least October. The follower base for them seems to be pretty negligible, so I'm not surprised that NLN hasn't appeared as a citation yet on Wikipedia.

Press Gazette also makes reference to 'PlymLeaks', a so-called 'investigations' outlet that has 'just launched' as far back as September with reputed AI provenance and author pseudonyms. All that one seems to be are articles attacking Plymouth City Council, so that may be one to watch as part of a wider problem, too. Hullian111 (talk) 18:44, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Edurank - circular sourcing for alumni lists

I came across https://edurank.org/ recently; a minor university ranking service, with an odd methodology that incorporates data on Wikipedia pageviews. There is an earlier discussion on them at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 364#Academic ranking sites (AcademicInfluence.com, EduRank.org, OneClass.com) though it didn't go into much detail.

As expected we have various university articles saying that they were "ranked ###th by EduRank" or similar, which seems a reasonable use of the site.

They also provide lists of the "famous alumni" of various institutions - for example, Ashley Jensen cited this list of Queen Margaret alumni. These pages are where the problem comes in. They seem to be generated entirely from us (a combination of Wikipedia categories + Wikidata statements), presumably as part of the data-gathering for pageview stats. This seems to make it completely unreliable as a source for "X attended this university", since all it's doing is parroting our own information back at us.

I've started removing these but there are about 130 pages citing alumni lists, and I'm wondering how we avoid this coming up again in future. Andrew Gray (talk) 19:08, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

After going through the list, it turns out a surprising number of articles are not citing this simply for "X attended Y University", they are citing it as "X was recognized as one of the 100 most notable alumni of...", which is a bit more concerning. About half removed now, though. Andrew Gray (talk) 20:08, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Update: all /alumni page citations (the ones that are Wikipedia generated) have been removed from articles - I think these were all very clear risks of WP:CIRCULAR. I've left all the rankings etc in place. Any recommendations about what to do going forward? Andrew Gray (talk) 21:30, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

Vocal.media

vocal.media: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • blacklist hits • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

Vocal.media is a self-described platform for creators to share their stories and is owned by Creatd, a marketing company. There is little to no editorial oversight, and the stories are rife with promotional material (e.g.: , , , , ) and outright fabrications (e.g. , , ). Clearly, this is not a reliable source, but it is cited in over 300 articles (). Should I just go and remove them all, or should the source be blacklisted first? Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 16:54, 6 December 2025 (UTC)

Unarchived. Children Will Listen (🐄 talk, 🫘 contribs) 13:54, 11 December 2025 (UTC)

I can only see it really being used in a manner where an expert in some area posts a story within their area of expertise, per WP:EXPERTSPS. Looking at some of the articles where it's used, the authors don't appear to be experts, and the references seem to appear alongside others from more reliable sources for the information. So, honestly, I'd just go ahead and remove them under WP:SPS. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:52, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Pennywise

I recently nominated Pennywise for FAC, and want to check on the reliability of a few sources I use in the article to see if they're WP:HQRS. Below are the links to the sources as well as the claims I used them for in the article.

1. Российская газета (link) -- English actor Will Poulter was originally cast as Pennywise in the 2017 film, with [Tim] Curry describing the role as a "wonderful part" and wishing Poulter the best of luck, but the latter dropped out of the production due to scheduling conflicts and the first film's original director Cary Fukunaga leaving the project.
2. film89 (link) -- The most notable change [between the book and the miniseries] is that Its resting period is extended from twenty-seven to thirty years.
3. Wonderfully Weird & Horrifying (link) -- Kristy Strouse called Curry's portrayal as "zany" yet disturbing, also noting the quality of the character's makeup, costumes, and practical effects.
4. Cinepunx (link) -- [Director Andy] Muschietti often kept Pennywise hidden in shadows or out of the camera's focus; a critic observed that Pennywise was a "jittering, twitching mess of a monster" whose form is constantly unsettling and unpredictable. and One analysis noted that Skarsgård's Pennywise was a "sadistic predator" who took pleasure from killing.
5. The Brenau Collaborative (link) -- [Costume designer Jamie] Bryant said she wanted Pennywise to feel more organic, drawing on King's description of him wearing a silvery-gray clown suit.
6. Flickering Myth (link) -- Skarsgård's Pennywise is more overtly creepy, less humorous, and stands out more. Muschietti said he wanted Pennywise to look older than a typical 20th-century clown, since the creature had existed for thousands of years. He felt that modern clowns looked "cheap" and were too tied to social events and circuses, saying he preferred the look of 19th-century clowns.
7. MovieWeb (link) -- Muschietti decided to use the 1800s and earlier as inspiration for Pennywise's design. Used in conjunction with Coming Soon (link).
8. Pacific Standard (link) -- [R]eviewer Katie Kilkenny of Pacific Standard felt that clowns "remain[ing] forever terrifying" was one of the key reasons for the 2017 film's success.

Let me know what you think! Gommeh 📖   🎮 18:34, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Md80.com and Volavi

Md80.com is a website that mostly make article about a airline that own the aircraft before such as, Boeing 717, McDonnell Douglas MD-80 and McDonnell Douglas MD-90. And Volavi is a Colombian tourism website that includes Colombian airline history. I'm not sure if both website are blog. Shaqil (talk) 15:05, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Time-Life book series(s)

Back in the 80's/90's Time-Life put out multiple series of books on a variety of subjects (e.g. The Third Reich, Mysteries of the Unknown, etc, etc). I know Time is considered a RS....but I wasn't sure about this. In some cases the series of books are written by the "editors of Time-Life" in other cases (like the Third Reich books), they had academic consultants. Whatever set we are talking about the bibliography is quite extensive. So in any case, are these types of books acceptable RS? I would never give these more weight than more modern sources or academic sources....but just for more obscure things. (As this could be helpful.) Rja13ww33 (talk) 18:56, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

I've read their series on aviation. They are generally good and, as I recall, generally didn't go into an controversial claims. I would treat them as a good, general reference. Springee (talk) 19:03, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Look at Category:Time Life book series. The books in Life Science Library are quite good, but of course are as dated as any science books from 1967 would be. The Enchanted World and Mysteries of the Unknown, not so much. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:36, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't follow your point. Are you saying the series Mysteries of the Unknown isn't dated or isn't good?Rja13ww33 (talk) 00:13, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I am saying that when they publish books about aviation, science, or the third reich, they are writing about things that actually exist. When they publish books about werewolves, vampires, levitation, or atlantis, they are writing about things that don't actually exist but which they nonetheless claim or strongly imply are real. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't know that I would say that (it would be OR if I did)....I will say they definitely present the POV of all the prominent skeptics over the years (e.g. Klass, Menzel, Sagan, etc) when it comes to UFOs. I don't recall if that is the case in some of the other books in that series. Rja13ww33 (talk) 03:24, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

WP:OR only applies to articles. Original research is allowed on talk pages and noticeboards. In particular original research on the nature of a particular source in relation to a particular claim in an article is most or what we do on the reliable sources noticeboard.

That being said, I don't have the books about the fringe topics in my possession and a quick web search did not turn up any online copy, so if anyone has the books, please let us know what they say about werewolves, vampires, levitation, atlantis, etc. Maybe my memory is wrong and they present a skeptical POV. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:18, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I can tell you right now they present the skeptic's POV (at least on UFOs, as I said). I have only 4 volumes in that series though. And the UFO one was the only one I was considering using. Rja13ww33 (talk) 19:01, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• I recall looking at some of their scientific books when I wore a younger man's clothes. They were "ok" so to speak but the word that came to mind was: shallow. But now they are like old newspapers and although they may not support Phlogiston on other issues they may come close. I would avoid them. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

The Forward

Realible source? WassimUS01 (talk) 15:24, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• The reliability of a sourcedepends on its context. Please supply the source, the article it is used in, and the claim it supports. you need to do this
• also please search through the archives first before asking a general question.
• generally yes, need attribution, dueness always apply

User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 15:31, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

What context is The Forward being used in? -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:32, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

• It's hard to say without context, but it probably falls under the usual standard of "reliable, but very much WP:BIASED, and therefore requires attribution that makes its biases clear." Is there a reason you think it might be something else? --Aquillion (talk) 16:16, 12 December 2025 (UTC)
• Generally, the Forward is an RS and its reportage is reliable, but it is demonstrably progressive, which can affect its WP:RSBIAS depending on context. Based on the discussion over at Talk:Ainsley Earhardt, however, the Forward, Times of Israel, and Jerusalem Post citations you're using are actually syndications of the same article originally reported by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. JTA is as straightforward a news agency as they come. Longhornsg (talk) 22:06, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

Propose we close this discussion now unless a reason to discuss it is given. BobFromBrockley (talk) 21:26, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

MobileMagazine

I used the sources in some Huawei mobile phone related articles recently (such as Huawei Mate 80), but I don't know the source whether it is reliable, so can you help me assess the reliability of this source? Thank you. Peterxy（talk） 12:01, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

Reliability of Loop Magazine, indy100.com, www.untitledgroup.com.au, Bimbo's 365 Club, The Honey POP, and GINX TV

See also: Wikipedia:Source assessment/CG5 (YouTuber)

• Green was born on May 10, 1999, in Arizona. Green has three siblings, and is the 5th generation of his name in the family. Green started posting on YouTube under his name, releasing his first original song, "What Is A Dream". Green would continue releasing original and cover songs on SoundCloud and YouTube. In 2014, he released his first extended play on SoundCloud, Celadon. In October 2014, Green started CG5, where he released remixes of popular songs and video game soundtracks. In 2015, he released his second extended play, Turning Gray. The name for the channel was chosen because he is the 5th generation Charlie Green in his family.

• Green started making music when he was 5-years old, using software from his father's computer.

• CG5 has performed multiple tours in the Netherlands and Australia.

Sources not cited within the CG5 draft but are listed on the source assessment table: Bimbo's 365 Club, The Honey POP, GINX TV

References

Which of these sources are generally reliable, marginally reliable or unreliable for these contexts? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 12:38, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

(The non-controversial parts of) Angela Marcantonio, The Uralic language family: facts, myths and statistics

This book is universally acknowledged as a fringe book and strongly condemned by a large number of mainstream scholars (e.g. see here, which makes the claim: Marcantonio - to put it bluntly - does not know what she is talking about.) However, there are some Wikipedia pages that use it as a reference for (what should be) uncontroversial information; I've been removing these references but I'd like community input into whether I was correct in doing so (e.g. in this diff I removed a reference to it for uncontroversial information). Stockhausenfan (talk) 22:46, 12 December 2025 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the removal per se, but in uncontroversial cases, it would be much better if you replaced the source with a more reliable one.Boynamedsue (talk) 01:24, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Actually, I would say you probably are wrong to do this. She appears to be an academic linguist, who would be expected to present the work of other scholars correctly. So while her own theories will likely be fringe in most articles, she is a reliable secondary source. Don't remove unless it is controversial (then the claim itself will be worth removing) or if you have a better sourceBoynamedsue (talk) 01:32, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for the response! I'll wait for some more responses and if the consensus backs this up I'll revert the changes I made. Stockhausenfan (talk) 02:48, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

I've had a look at some of your edits, and I wouldn't argue for a policy of blanket reversal, where another source is present there is no need to revert.

In terms of content, I agree with your removal of reference to Marcantonio in some places, but reject it in others. For example, her criticism of Alinei is fine to keep, important even. Whatever the problems with Marcantonio's work, and The Uralic language family: facts, myths and statistics appears to be a terrible book, she is qualified to criticise Alinei and it is important we show how bad his work is. Whereas your removal of reference to her work in Ural-Altaic languages was absolutely correct.--Boynamedsue (talk) 07:35, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

• There can be no doubt that the book on Uralic language family is highly controversial. Multiple book reviews seem to say so. But Sapienza is a reasonably good university in the humanities (no comment on science) and her being a professor there makes her a semi-respectable academic. So she can be used in non-controversial issues. Yesterday, all my dreams... (talk) 14:37, 13 December 2025 (UTC)

  A minor correction: She was never a full professor. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 13:12, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

cwbchicago

I question whether cwbchicago.com is a reliable source, and if yes then if it is a reliable source for a BLP. Context: under "personal life" in an article about a politician Toni Preckwinkle, a paragraph that says her adult son was found not guilty of assault, but implies something about political connection. CWBChicago describes itself as:

CWBChicago was created in 2013 by five residents of Wrigleyville and Boystown who had grown disheartened with inaccurate information that was being provided at local Community Policing (CAPS) meetings. Our coverage area has expanded since then to cover Lincoln Park, River North, The Loop, Uptown, and other North Side Areas. But our mission remains unchanged: To provide original public safety reporting with better context and greater detail than mainstream media outlets.

This does not strike me as a reliable, mainstream news source at least in part because of their description. I'm wondering how others feel. It isn't used extensively on Wikipedia, but I see it on three other BLPs . - The literary leader of the age ✉ 15:50, 14 December 2025 (UTC)

The section "Brandon’s Bodies" seems to be hit-piece arguing that Brandon Johnson is somehow personally responsible for murders in neighborhoods that were previously served by the (incredibly unreliable) ShotSpotter system. Source is clearly GUNREL. CamAnders (talk) 03:46, 15 December 2025 (UTC)