Wikipedia talk:Verifiability

Self-published sources for statements that ascribe the information to the publisher

In light of the dispute at Talk:Microsoft Windows#Request for comment on reliability of a self-published work as a source of info about themselves, I think it should be added to the policy, explicitly, that any self-published source can be used as a source of information for any statement that ascribe the information to the publisher, and that conditions 1-3 at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves need not be met for the ascribed information. (e.g. "According to X, whatever is claimed on X's official website") This is essentially a special case of self-published sources of information about themselves, as it is about the views expressed by themselves, and nothing more. This will prevent confusion and similar disputes. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:15, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with this proposal as it violates WP:WEIGHT and opens the door to pushing into articles any claim made by a company about its competitors. Schazjmd (talk) 19:28, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's confusion with that. They should not be able to make claims about third parties, especially when those comments are obviously self serving. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:09, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Oppose ActivelyDisinterested, that is exactly what the proposal means. The OP does not say that statements cannot be self-serving or concern other entities, and in fact, explicitly says that conditions 1 (not unduly self-serving or exceptional claims) and 2 (not involving claims about third parties) of WP:SELFSOURCE do not have to be followed as long as we ascribe the claim to the to the source. And losing condition 3 (not involve claims about events not directly related to the subject) opens us up to even more problematic claims. Meters (talk) 09:17, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

And I find this whole proposal to be very premature. The OP raised an RFC about specific content on Microsoft Windows, and is attempting to implement a general solution here to get their way (and more) even before the RFC has closed on the specific article issue raised. Note that as yet there has been no support for the OP's position in the RFC. Meters (talk) 09:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I read the discussion at Microsoft Windows that's way I said they shouldn't be able to do that. I also completely agree that trying to change policy to win a content dispute is a bad idea. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:49, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Let me tell you about myself, starting with what I think about you, is not ABOUTSELF. It fails at least one of either 2. It does not involve claims about third parties; or 3. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;. Unadulterated sophistry. - Rotary Engine ^talk 09:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The policy permits my proposal as it is now. The purpose of the proposal is merely to say explicitly that this use of a self-published source is permitted. To prevent confusion.

It's not true that the such use necessarily violates WP:WEIGHT. Schazjmd's arguments has nothing to do with the questions of Verifiability and Source Reliability, and does not belong here. They are fine example of exactly why my proposal is necessary.

When we ascribe something to X, the source is used for the statement as a WHOLE - including the "According to X," part, so it's obviously a reliable statement that complies with the policy AS IT IS NOW. I understand your concerns, such statement might not be appropriate for some OTHER reason, but this should be judged on a case by case basis. One thing for sure, though - a self-published source for such statement will ALWAYS BE RELIABLE.

The purpose of Wikipedia:Verifiability is to assure "people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Nothing more. You can't get any more reliable for someone's expressed views than their official website.

The matter has been previously discussed at the Teahouse, where I presented the question and two editors agreed with me.

I've withdrawn the RfC at Talk:Microsoft Windows#Request for comment on reliability of a self-published work as a source of info about themselves, and we'll continue discussing the matter here. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

@Sovmeeya, the part you're ignoring is that WP:ABOUTSELF means "about themselves". It does not mean what they say about any other entity other than themselves. When Digital Confidence says something about any other company, it's no longer about themselves. Schazjmd (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not ignoring that. Any statement that begins with "According to X," is a 100% statement about X, not about any third parties, regardless of how this statement continues. It's entirely "about themselves". It's not certain that their expressed views are correct, but it's certainly certain that these are their expressed views.

It might be X that makes a statement about a third party, but the WHOLE statement only mentions it second hand, without endorsing it, and in compliance with Wikipedia sourcing policies. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:31, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It is them stating their opinion about a third party. Adding attribution does not change that. Schazjmd (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Adding attribution does not change that, but it does make the statement verifiable and the source reliable. (for the statement as a WHOLE) Verifiability and Source Reliability is what this policy is all about. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:44, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

It does not make the source reliable. WP:ABOUTSELF only permits statements about themselves, not what they say about anyone else. Digital Confidence's self-published content about Digital Confidence is about them; anything Digital Confidence self-publishes about any other entity is not about Digital Confidence. Schazjmd (talk) 19:53, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The policy as it's written now is confusing. That's why I've made this proposal.

Forget about the policy for a second, and tell me this:

If it has been established that a certain website is the official website of X, and there is no reasonable doubt to its authenticity, (it doesn't appears to have been hacked). In that website, it's said something.

Consider this statement: "According to X, something".

1. Can you verify that X has expressed something? (by checking if something is said on the website)
2. Do you have any doubt for the truthfulness of the statement that "X has expressed something", if you find that something is indeed said in the website?

If the answer to the first question is yes, and to the second is no, then the statement is verifiable and the source is reliable. Sovmeeya (talk) 20:26, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

No that is not the case, which is why there is additional guidance about self-published sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:54, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The context you gave at the Teahouse and the content you wanted to add with the RFC don't match. At the Teahouse you asked about According to Digital Confidence, the built-in metadata stripper is flawed (although I would argue form limited being more neutral), which the source might be reliable for but could still be undue. While at the RFC was for According to Digital Confidence, the Remove Properties and Personal Information feature has a very limited support of file formats and metadata elements, and has a misleading user interface. These are not the same. Context is critical and how much you can rely on a self published source is important.

Simply adding "According to" to the beginning of a sentence isn't some kind of magic that allows any content to be added from a self-published source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:52, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion at the Teahouse was limited to the question of Source Reliability of a self-published source about itself, as it should be here. I kept it short to save space. Adding the other details about the nature of the criticism makes no difference to the question of Source Reliability of a self-published source about itself.

And yes, adding "According to" to the beginning of a statement does make it a COMPLETELY different statement - one that is about the publisher, and is permitted by THIS policy. Sovmeeya (talk) 18:56, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

No it's doesn't, as everyone replying to this thread has made clear. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 01:46, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Not everyone. Blueboar agrees with me. See his comment below. And that's on top of the two editors at the Teahouse. Sovmeeya (talk) 09:50, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

At the very most, Blueboar agreed with a far less dogmatic formulation of your premise. They do not agree at all with the conclusion you've drawn from said premise. Remsense ‥ 论 09:55, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry but your answers now seem to be a case of WP:IDHT. You may dislike the answer but multiple editors have expressed the same opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I wonder whether we're confusing WP:SPS with WP:ABOUTSELF. SPS does not have any restrictions like "claims about third parties".

In the instant case, we have:

• A market-dominating software system, and
• A possibly non-notable critic of some detail in one product.

When the critic says "I think a sub-sub-feature of this product is flawed in this very specific way", it might be SPS but it is not ABOUTSELF.

The question isn't whether someone can verify that the critic published that criticism; the only question of any importance is why anybody should care, for which see Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:09, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

The other critical question if it's self published would the points laid out in WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:28, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and to be clear, those points are:

• "produced by an established subject-matter expert"
• "whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications" (bold in the original)

The points that sound like "not unduly self-serving" are in ABOUTSELF. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:31, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

The claim here is that adding "According to" to the beginning of the sentence makes it an ABOUTSELF statement. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I can see why someone might come to that conclusion, but that's not what we intend ABOUTSELF to cover. ABOUTSELF is for "Chris Celebrity said he got married today". ABOUTSELF is not for "Alice Expert said something about someone else". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

No. You're ignoring the purpose of THIS policy - Wikipedia:Verifiability. As its title suggest, and as it's written in its lead section, its purpose is to assure "people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Nothing more.

Now if this is the purpose of THIS policy, and if we have a different policy for Due and undue weight, why would THIS policy make a distinction between the two statements in your comment?! it would make no sense, as they are both verifiable the same! (provided that Chris Celebrity and Alice Expert published what it's claimed they've said in their respective official websites)

When we ask if a statement that begins with "According to" is verifiable or not, it makes absolutely no difference what follows the "According to", as long as it's indeed written in the self-published source. What follows could be true, false, short, long, about third parties, outragious. ANYTHING. Sovmeeya (talk) 10:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Though this has been articulated to you several different ways so far, you do not seem to appreciate the central point that policies are written to communicate important norms to the community as needed. You have a very particular problem with what the policies explicitly cover, but it is just that: a problem that is particular to you. You were told what ABOUTSELF is intended to communicate, and you continue to reply as if we're discussing the logical completion of policy instead of the particular practical needs that policy is intended address. Remsense ‥ 论 10:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, the statement "According to Digital Confidence, the built-in metadata stripper of Windows is flawed" does NOT involve claims about third parties, since the assertions are not presented as objective facts, but as subjective assertions that Digital Confidence claims. The criteria in Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves does not prohibits it. It prohibits bundling information about themselves with information about third parties that are presented as objective facts. For example: "the built-in metadata stripper of Windows is flawed, as was found in an analysis by Digital Confidence, a company founded in 2009". Sovmeeya (talk) 10:53, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Also, the statement "According to Digital Confidence, the built-in metadata stripper of Windows is flawed" does NOT involve claims about third parties. Respectfully, that statement DOES involve a claim about a third party - that "the built-in metadata stripper of Windows is flawed". Wikipedia:Verifiability#Self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves DOES prohibit using self-published sources for such a claim; even if attributed. There is NO limitation in that policy to only claims that are presented as objective facts. Rotary Engine ^talk 23:35, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

There is no EXPLICIT limitation in that policy to only claims that are presented as objective facts. This is why the policy is confusing, and this is why I want to clarify it. But it's a trivial deduction that this is the intended policy based on the purpose of this policy - verifiability.

Determining verifiability of "According to X," statements is trivial: if what follows "According to X," is in X's website - it is verifiable, and X's website is a reliable source for such statement. The only relevant criteria is that there is no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of X's website. (it hasn't been hacked) Sovmeeya (talk) 14:12, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't see that it is particularly confusing. Most respondents in this discussion do not seem confused.

The purpose of the policy is indeed verifiability, but the policy is explicit that this is verifiability in reliable sources; and both verifiable and reliable are terms of art, with meanings distinct from the plain English.

The policy then goes on to define reliable sources; where it is explicit that, with certain limited exceptions, self published sources are not reliable (term of art). The exception for self published sources is: a) subject matter experts, b) information about the publishers themselves; with a defined set of rules for b), including that the information "not involve claims about third parties".

Those rules are intended to prevent exactly the type of end around that is being proposed here.

The source directly supporting the proposed content is a necessary but not sufficient condition for inclusion.

I also concur entirely with the comments by Blueboar below around NPOV & DUE weight. But for mine, they are a second hurdle, when the horse has already fallen at the first: reliability. Rotary Engine ^talk 00:12, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll try it a little differently this time. Direct quotes of self-published work. Reminder - we're talking only about verifiability now, not DUE WEIGHT. Consider the following statements:

1. <START>"Company A states on its website the following: "A was founded in the year 2020""<END> (cite A's website)
2. <START>"Company A states on its website the following: "Our tests shows that product B by our competitor company C, totally sucks, and using it will kill you by electrocution""<END> (cite A's website)

To verify the 1st statement, you can check A's website and see if the quote appears there. A's website is a reliable source for the 1st statement.

To verify the 2nd statement, you can check A's website and see if the quote appears there. A's website is a reliable source for the 2nd statement.

Same thing! Anything else would be an absurd!

By contrast, the statement <START>"Product B by company C totally sucks, and using it will kill you by electrocution"<END> is not verifiable, and A's website is not a reliable source for it.

Don't you agree? Sovmeeya (talk) 10:58, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The statement of your second company is unreliable for the product, so your or anyone else's observation of it, does not meet the standards of verifiability on the product. There are many unreliable things that can be observed, just not put on Wikipedia. This should not be this hard by now, what you think of the word, when you think of the word "verify" is irrelevant (although you actually seem to have an oddly cabined view: 'to verify; is regularly concerned with quality and proper use of evidence, not just any evidence). But, how a source is being used is relevant, is it being used for unreliable commentary. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:21, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

I've edited my comment to clarify the scope of the statements.

The quality of evidence of a direct quote is the highest you can get. The statements only mean that what is within the quotes appears in the A's website. Nothing more. It does not mean that what's within the quotes is necessarily true.

These two statements are equivalent:

1. <START>"Company A states on its website the following: "Our tests shows that product B by our competitor company C, totally sucks, and using it will kill you by electrocution""<END>
2. <START>"Company A states on its website the following: "Our tests shows that product B by our competitor company C, totally sucks, and using it will kill you by electrocution", but what company A states might not be true."<END>

In the first statement it is implicitly that what's within the quotes might not be true. In the second statement it's explicit. This covers all possibilities, so the two statements, as a WHOLE, are necessarily true. Sovmeeya (talk) 12:07, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Come on. You either are not listening, interested in philosophy and so in the wrong place, or simply have no ability to properly use information and sources in context. When you use what you want to use for unreliable commentary on the topic, it cannot be verifiable for the topic. No one cares what you think is true, the policy cares when someone is trying to shove unreliable commentary in a particular article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:40, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't agree. Because, per WP:V, verifiability (Wikipedia term of art) isn't just you can check the source, it's you can check the source AND the source has certain characteristics. For the most part, as a simplification, those characteristics are a reputation for fact checking & accuracy. For self-published sources, those characteristics are detailed in WP:SELFPUB and WP:ABOUTSELF. Rotary Engine ^talk 14:57, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Current policy already allows it under certain circumstances/conditions. There's no need to go beyond that with wording that would be used as categorically greenlighting it, overriding the current policy restrictions. North8000 (talk) 21:15, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with the contention that when we write: “According to person X, ‘Y an idiot’” (cite X’s website) we are making a statement about X’s opinion, and not a statement about Y. It is verifiable that X has stated this opinion.

However… Verifiability is NOT THE ONLY ISSUE here. We have to ask whether mentioning X’s opinion is appropriate or not. THAT is a function of DUE WEIGHT. It might be DUE to mention it in the article about X, but be UNDUE to mention in the article about Y.

(extreme example: Hitler’s views on Jews are verifiably sourced to Mein Kamph, but there will be a very very limited range of articles where his views would be appropriate to mention - even with attribution. Essentially, they would be DUE to mention in the article about Hitler himself, and definitely NOT in an article on Judaism).

To relate this to the debate under discussion: the question isn’t really about verifiability (whether we can reliably verify that Digital Confidence has an opinion), but how much WEIGHT to give that opinion. Blueboar (talk) 22:41, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

That's what I've been saying early on at Talk:Microsoft Windows. Another editor there didn't agree with me. He and most editors in this discussion, so far, think that the proposed statement violates Wikipedia:Verifiability. Evidently, the policy as it is written now is confusing! That's why I'm asking to EXPLICITLY make it crystal clear in the policy that such use of a self-published source NEVER violates Wikipedia:Verifiability. (although it might be inappropriate for other reasons) When we'll do that, we could move on to the question of DUE WEIGHT at Talk:Microsoft Windows. This will also prevent confusion, unnecessary disputes, and waste of time in the future, for similar statements. Sovmeeya (talk) 18:40, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

Thing is, this actually isn’t a question that comes up all that often, and amending policy to “clarify” how it should be applied in rare situations almost always causes unforeseen headaches.

So we are reluctant to amend policy without seeing a proposal for specific wording - and then giving a lot of thought as to how that proposed wording might be misused by Wikilawyers to cause even more debates than the status quo language causes.

Sometimes it is actually easier to occasionally have to explain “no, that’s not what this passage of policy means” than it is to amend the passage itself. Blueboar (talk) 19:03, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

We are making a statement about X's opinion, but that statement involves a claim about Y; which fails WP:ABOUTSELF #2. Rotary Engine ^talk 23:39, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

A LOT depends on context - is the article focused on X or is it focused on Y? Blueboar (talk) 11:31, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Uh oh, you're getting confused now. Perhaps forgotten what this discussion all about by now. Context has nothing to do with the question of verifiability of "According to X," statements. Could be relevant to DUE WEIGHT, but not to verifiability. Wikipedia:Reliable sources also have a "Context matters" section, but it's not the kind of "context" relevant to the question of verifiability of "According to X," statements. Better stick to what you've initially written above.

Determining verifiability of "According to X," statements is trivial: if what follows "According to X," is in X's website - it is verifiable, and X's website is a reliable source for such statement. The only relevant criteria is that there is no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of X's website. (it hasn't been hacked) Sovmeeya (talk) 14:07, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Our policies and guidelines all work together… and thus need to be discussed together. The issue here is actually Reliability (which is an aspect of Verifiability)… most self published sources (ie those not published by acknowledged experts) are NOT considered reliable for claims about third parties… but ARE considered reliable for claims about themselves and their beliefs - IN articles about the person or people who hold those beliefs. This is why we can cite flat earth proponents in the article about Flat Earth… but NOT in the article on Earth. Blueboar (talk) 14:43, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not what you initially said. Anyway, claims could be reliable or not, regardless of what articles you put them in. In what articles we should mention a particular statement, if any, is a question of DUE WEIGHT. DUE WEIGHT and Verifiability (including Source Reliability) are two different and completely independent questions, covered by two separate and independent policies.

When we consider a statement for inclusion, we should start by asking if it's verifiable, and if the answer is yes, continue to ask if it's DUE WEIGHT for a particular article.

For "According to X," statements, the statement will ALWAYS be verifiable if what follows "According to X," is in X's website. Period. From this point, we need to consider DUE WEIGHT. Sovmeeya (talk) 14:57, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, if you have a WP:Published source in which X says ____, then "According to X, ____" will always be verifiable. It won't always be verifiable-because-ABOUTSELF-subclause, but it will be ordinary-main-policy-verifiable (which, lest you misunderstand, is better).

But:

• See also Wikipedia:Verifiability#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion, because being verifiable is Necessary but not sufficient.
• See also Wikipedia:Due weight, which one company's criticism of one detail in one subunit of a huge software system isn't.

Which is to say: The statement is verifiable, and you still don't get to put it in that article. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:41, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

We're talking about a case where X's website is a self-published source. That is, the author and publisher are the same, as in "Business, charitable, and personal websites". That's as per "Examples of self-published sources" at Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works#Identifying self-published sources. So it's not "ordinary-main-policy-verifiable".

I don't need you to tell me that "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion", I've said that over a month ago at Talk:Microsoft Windows#Privacy features addition reverted, as well as numerous times here, including in the very comment you were replying to.

When we'll finish clarifying here that "According to X," statements are ALWAYS verifiable, we could move on to discuss Due weight at Talk:Microsoft Windows. Sovmeeya (talk) 11:17, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

No. Not All Ways. you should know this by now. We measure all things in the context of articles. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:44, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

The wording right now is a little ambiguous, but it works in most situations. As I have said during the RFC discussion, there are multiple considerations, including how elaborate a claim is and the scope of the article. Senorangel (talk) 02:58, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I'll give another example to everyone here: Lets say, hypothetically, Tylor Swift tweeted on her official social media page the following: "I honestly believe that Earth is flat". Now consider the following statement: "Tylor Swift said that Earth is flat". It has the following traits:

1. It's self-published
2. The ascribed info (second handed) involves a third party (Earth)
3. The ascribed info (second handed) involves an exceptional claim (outrageous, contradicts proven solid scientific evidence, contradicts view held by all experts in the field, view held by a negligible minority)

Shouldn't we mention this on the Wikipedia article on Swift as well as the article Modern flat Earth beliefs? Of course we should!

Not only that the fact that the ascribed info is false does not makes the statement inappropriate for inclusion in Wikipedia, it's precisely the reason why it should be included! She is very famous, has many fans, and therefore influential. (we shouldn't be discussing here things about DUE WEIGHT, but I wanted to give an extreme case to make my point)

What does that tell you all? that what Wikipedia:Verifiability says is not what you think it says!

In particular, the conditions at Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves does not prohibits it. It prohibits bundling information about themselves with information about third parties that are presented as objective facts. For example: "the built-in metadata stripper of Windows is flawed, as was found in an analysis by Digital Confidence, a company founded in 2009". There is no EXPLICIT limitation in that policy to only claims that are presented as objective facts. This is why the policy is confusing, and this is why I want to clarify it. But it's a trivial deduction that this is the intended policy based on the purpose of this policy - verifiability.

Determining verifiability of "According to X," statements is trivial: if what follows "According to X," is in X's website - it is verifiable, and X's website is a reliable source for such statement. The only relevant criteria is that there is no reasonable doubt as to the authenticity of X's website. Sovmeeya (talk) 14:21, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

No. Earth is not a third party, it is not a party at all, it is a thing without agency. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

However… if Swift says “Trump is a poo-poo head”, we can mention her self published opinion about Trump (properly attributed) in the article about Swift… but NOT in the article about Trump. Again… context matters. Blueboar (talk) 14:50, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Blueboar, the hypothetical source the new editor has given in the example is a self-published social media post. That would violate WP:BLPSPS.

Compare a musician tweeting an opinion ABOUT music:

• Self-published source: "The rhythm in this song is challenging".
• Article content: Y "Mel Musician once described the rhythm as 'challenging'."

the same musician tweeting a fact ABOUT music:

• Self-published source: "That song is in the key of B♭".
• Article content: Y "Mel Musician said she plays the song in the key of B♭."

with the same musician tweeting ABOUT herSELF:

• Self-published source: "Today is my birthday!".
• Article content: Y "Mel Musician said her birthday is September 23rd."

and the same musician tweeting ABOUT someone else:

• Self-published source: "Today is my friend Chris Celebrity's birthday!".
• Article content: N "Mel Musician said Chris Celebrity's birthday is September 23rd."

Self-published sources cannot be used to support content that are ABOUT another living person, full stop. It does not matter if it's an opinion or fact. Such a source is unusable per WP:BLPSPS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:54, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you. But I'll add for clarity of the new editor, instead of "Article content" in the above chart, you should read that as "Potential article content", because as WhatamIdoing and others stress elsewhere: just having a source is not enough, it is a piece that goes into the multiple considerations. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

An example of self-published source about a third party living person:

The ex-wife of the president of a large country has posted on her verified social network page that she has divorced the president because he used to regularly get drunk and beat her. No other evidence are available to support this claim.

Consider the following statement: "The ex-wife of the president has said that he used to regularly get drunk and beat her."

It has the following traits:

1. It's self-published
2. The ascribed info (second handed) involves a third party (the president)
3. The ascribed info (second handed) is about a living person
4. The ascribed info (second handed) involves an exceptional claim of objectionable nature
5. The ex-wife is non-notable for an article on herself on Wikipedia

Shouldn't we mention this on the Wikipedia article on the president? Sovmeeya (talk) 13:34, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

If the source is saying "she said", then it is not the wife's own statement. And the issue is whether the source (not the wife) is reliable for that and a bunch of other things. If you are saying "she said", just because you want to talk about her tweets, you are definitely not reliable, and her bare tweets are not reliable for anyone else, except herself. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

To answer the question Shouldn't we mention this on the Wikipedia article on the president?: The community decided not to use such sources in this way. This is a self-imposed restriction.

In the model that all sources are reliable for something, the ex-wife's social media post is a reliable, non-independent, primary, self-published source for what she posted. You could not use this to make any claim that "it's true" in any form: not that it's true that he got drunk, not that it's true that this was her actual reason for divorce, merely that it's true that she said this. (Even then, we'd probably want some reason to believe that her social media account hadn't been hacked.)

Now: Is this verifiable? Yes. A reader "can check" that this was actually posted in her account, by going to the post and reading it. All sources/documents are considered reliable for claims about the exact words that are in that document. Nobody will click the link to her social media post, read the words "I divorced him because he used to get drunk and beat me", and say "What's going on? This post is just her saying that tomorrow is her birthday". They're all going to say "Yes, I guess she did post that."

But: This is a disallowed source. It is nominally verifiable but still not acceptable under our policies. Because using that post to talk about her ex-husband is banned under our policies, it doesn't particularly matter whether it's verifiable. You still can't use it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

What you've written in paragraphs 2 and 3 are absolutely true. That's exactly what I've been saying all along.

You claim that such statement is still disallowed by this policy, despite being "nominally verifiable". That's an exceptional claim! self-published sources are weak, and so the limitations imposed by this policy are very justified and make a lot of sense for the content of self-published sources, when it's presented as objective facts! But they are pointless and not justified at all for statements that ascribe info to the source.

On top of that, a policy titled "Verifiability" has no place for limitations that has nothing to do with verifiability. Just like we have a separate policy for WP:UNDUE, we can have a separate policy for additional limitations, if in fact the community wishes to impose them. This could be titled Wikipedia:Limitations for statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources, or even better - Wikipedia:Pointless limitations for statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources. I'm sure Wikipedia servers have enough room for one more policy page.

Consequently, I would have accepted your claim that these limitations are imposed by this policy only if it had been stated explicitly that they apply for statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources, which is not. But let's not argue about it any longer! my proposal here is to amend the policy anyway. I'm calling it "clarifying the existing policy". You want to call it "a policy change"? so be it. The result is the same. I've created an RfC for the proposed change below. If anyone have sensible arguments for why any limitations should be imposed for AUTOMATICALLY dismissing statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources, they can present them there. Just remember - arguments that concern WP:UNDUE should not be used to reject my proposal, as they are completely irrelevant. (e.g. "A LOT depends on context - is the article focused on X or is it focused on Y") Sovmeeya (talk) 16:54, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, it looks like you've been indeffed, but just in case you're reading this page anyway, mind the gap between not acceptable under our policies (notice my use of the plural word policies) and disallowed by this policy (notice your use of the singular policy). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:58, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

About this: There is no EXPLICIT limitation in that policy to only claims that are presented as objective facts. This is why the policy is confusing, and this is why I want to clarify it. But it's a trivial deduction that this is the intended policy based on the purpose of this policy - verifiability.

Sovmeeya, I'm sure this "trivial deduction" feels logical to you, but the deduction is wrong. The purpose of this policy is to explain one (1) of the multiple requirements for getting content into Wikipedia. The requirement explained on this page is that the material – whether facts or opinions, which are treated equally in this policy [*] – must have been provably published somewhere else (i.e., off wiki), by a source that we consider "reliable".

There is nothing in this policy or any other that says Digital Confidence's view about Microsoft should be included in Wikipedia. BTW, if you happen to be connected to this company, this would probably be a good time to review Wikipedia:Conflict of interest and to let the team know that their criticism of Microsoft isn't likely to be included in the English Wikipedia.

[*] Facts and opinions are treated the same because we assert facts about opinions, rather than the opinions themselves. "According to Mel Musician, the rhythm as 'challenging'" is a fact – a fact that is about her opinion, but still a fact. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose: For the layman, the casual reader of Wikipedia, the difference between "2+2=5" and "According to John Doe, 2+2=5" is just a technicality. That's why this type of statements are allowed only on the current special circumstances. Also, the proposal can easily lead to loads of Argument from authority. Cambalachero (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Question: Why was so much time wasted on this ridiculous proposal? EEng 05:39, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

  I think the WMF should invest in some sort of fund that we can dip into to bribe folks with whatever amount they think they should expect to see from being promoted onwiki—just so we don't have to feel guilty about not arguing with them, or indeed feel guilty when we argue with them. Remsense ‥ 论 12:00, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

  Sometimes, it's helpful to explain things even when it seems hopeless because there exist people – rare, perhaps, but real ones – who have similar questions but don't want to ask themselves. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose in strongest possible terms. This is obviously not going to happen but it's important enough to weigh in anyway. Attribution is not a magic cure-all; it still puts something before the reader, which means we still have some responsibility to source it properly. WP:RSOPINION establishes that there is still a threshold of fact-checking and accuracy that must be met for opinion (ie. only some sources are usable for opinions), just a lower one than for in-article statements of fact. We cannot put something like "ResearchCorp says that John Doe is a pedophile" to an article sourced solely to ResearchCorp's website; nor can we use it for something like "ResearchCorp says that they have the cure for cancer" or something like that. Statements that are exceptional, or BLP-sensitive, or clearly self-serving require a secondary source exist for them so that we can provide necessary context; if no secondary source exists then we can't be covering them at all. And there's another case that is often overlooked - the practice of so-called "nutpicking", where an editor could look for the most absurd or incriminating statements from a BLP's own site or the like, and use WP:ABOUTSELF to post them in order to make that person look dumb or crazy, even if no secondary sources have covered those statements. All of these things require limits on how we can use non-RS primary sources about themselves. --Aquillion (talk) 04:08, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of sources

I've noticed that many right-wing sources on this site are considered unreliable; my question is: why? I'm politically neutral and, considering that the politics of Italy and the United States are different, I have asked myself this question. Thanks in advance. JacktheBrown (talk) 22:48, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

That's not a question with a simple answer, but whether a source is perceived as right wing or left wing shouldn't be a consideration in questions of reliability. If you look into discussions about sources the issue are rarely ideological. Instead the cause is that media organisation have diverged since the days of print media, and that divergence has impacted media on different parts of the political spectrum differently. That change in the real world has then had an impact on Wikipedia. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:47, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are.
I repeat: I don't know the political situation in the United States in detail. In Italy we have a right-wing government; it's a government that many Italians support, because Italy is quite conservative, which for the Italian context is a very good thing; for the US context, however, it seems not, since the American right has, for example, denied climate change, which unfortunately exists.

Returning to the main topic: the thing that seems strange to me is that extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong), while extreme right-wing sources are. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:11, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

extreme left-wing sources aren't banned (maybe I'm wrong) yes you age +are+ wrong. Take for example in British news media The Canary and Skwarkbox are both considered unreliable, and are on the far left of politics. Also to be clear sources aren't banned so much as actively discouraged if the consensus is that they are unreliable.

Whether governments or voters are of a particular part of the political spectrum is also not a consideration in judging the reliability of sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:21, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: thank you very much for this detailed and very useful explanation. JacktheBrown (talk) 14:23, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

The primary reason media sources get Deprecated (which is not quite a “ban”), is that they have repeatedly been shown to not fact check (or, in some cases, shown to completely invent “facts” which they report).

As to why right leaning sources seem to be more likely to be deprecated than left leaning ones… this is due to the fact that right wing sources tend to get more scrutiny. It’s no secret that Wikipedia attracts academics, who tend to be a somewhat left leaning group. They notice (and complain) when right-wing sources don’t fact check… and they tend to be a bit more forgiving when left-wing sources do the same.

That being said, we have deprecated a few left-wing sources when enough evidence has been presented to show they are not properly fact checking. It’s difficult, but possible. Blueboar (talk) 15:04, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Blueboar: Recognizing and admitting this problem is certainly a big step forward, but actions are more important than words; I would like neutrality not to be compromised in the encyclopedia. JacktheBrown (talk) 20:12, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

User:JacktheBrown - Outside of politics the banning also happens. I think it is just the mechanics or effect of WP:RSP. For the UK it seems more an elitism thing than a political leaning -- for example it seems most British press by volume is excluded as low class. RSP seems to interpret 'reliable' to mean 'respected' or 'truth' to that WP editor, excluding consideration of 'available' or 'accurate' from 'verifiability'. (You can elsewhere see discussions on a paywalled source or remote paper being preferred despite readers generally not having access to such or WP:VNT) The terms RSP uses are "Blacklisted" meaning mechanically edits including that site are blocked, or "Deprecated" meaning the guidance includes "generally prohibited" by automatic warning of such an editor and removal of such edits by third parties, or "Generally unreliable" meaning outside "exceptional circumstances" not to be used with removal by third parties and pings in TALK. If you want to see what discussions on what to ban are like, they are mixed in at WP:RSN. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 04:22, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

RfC on amending the policy to explicitly allow any statement that ascribes information to the source

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

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Should we amend this policy to explicitly allow any statement that inline ascribes information to the source, including any self-published source? Sovmeeya (talk) 16:45, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Should we add to this policy under the section "Sources that are usually not reliable" a sub-section named "Statements that ascribe information to the source", and under it write the following:

"Any statement that inline ascribe information to the source is verifiable, and the source is a reliable for it, as long as there is no reasonable doubt as to the ascribed information authenticity. This include self-published sources. Consequently, any such statement is allowed under this policy.

There are no limits to the source and to the ascribed information, which may include unduly self-serving and exceptional claims; claims about third parties, including living people and deceased people; and claims about events not directly related to the source. The claims may be suspected as true, suspected as false, verified as true, or verified as false.

The ascribed information may be direct quotes or a summery of the information in the source in other words.

Examples:

• "According to X, Earth is flat"
• "X says "Y an idiot, a thief, and a fornicator""
• "X says he's the smartest man in the world"
• "X claims 2+2=5"
• "According to X, aliens from Mars are going to destroy the Earth in the year 2025"

"

The matter has been extensively discussed in the following: (the counts are of UNIQUE editors across all discussions)

• Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#Self-published sources for statements that ascribe the information to the publisher
  • 7 editors have disagreed with me that the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy currently allows such statements. Out of these, 3 believes Wikipedia:Verifiability depends on context, ("is the article focused on X or is it focused on Y", and 1 believes that such statements are "nominally verifiable", but if self-published, still disallowed by the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy.
• Wikipedia:Teahouse/Questions/Archive_1233#Is self-published work a reliable and usable source of info about themselves?
  • 2 editors have agreed with me that such statements are allowed by the current Wikipedia:Verifiability policy, although may be inappropriate due to WP:UNDUE.
• Talk:Microsoft Windows#Request for comment on reliability of a self-published work as a source of info about themselves
  • 3 editors have disagreed with me that the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy currently allows such statements
• Talk:Microsoft Windows#Privacy features addition reverted
  • 1 editor have disagreed with me that the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy currently allows such statements

Statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources, such as personal or cooperate websites, blogs, and social media, are a special and trivial case of self-published or questionable sources as sources on themselves. In such statement, only the info that the source has published something is presented as a fact, whereas the content of what was published is presented as subjective assertions.

The purpose of this policy should be only the verifiability of info by reliable sources. Self-published sources are weak, and so the policy currently have the following limitations on the type of info that can be based on such sources:

"Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer."

"

1. The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;
2. It does not involve claims about third parties;
3. It does not involve claims about events not directly related to the source;
4. There is no reasonable doubt as to its authenticity; and
5. The article is not based primarily on such sources.

"

These limitations are very justified and make a lot of sense for the content of self-published sources, when it's presented as objective facts! But they are pointless and not justified at all for statements that ascribe info to the source. The purpose of these limitations is to assure that info in Wikipedia is reliable. The reliability for "X said Y" (cite X's website) is the highest possible. It's trivially verifiable. In such statement, Wikipedia vouches only for the simple fact that X have said Y. Wikipedia does not vouches for Y. Any reader understands that X could be mistaken or lying.

In this era of social networks, many famous/important/influential people have accounts they use to publish info about themselves, or their views/testimonies of other people/things/events. These include politicians, head of countries, head of large corporations, celebs, and all sorts of VIP's. What they publish can be important info for Wikipedia articles, usually about themselves, and occasionally about other matters. This is governed by WP:UNDUE, and should be judged on a case by case basis. Wikipedia should never AUTOMATICALLY dismiss statements that ascribe info to the source in self-published sources. My proposal, that have no exceptions, will prevent future disputes and save a lot of time.

Determining if a statement is appropriate for a certain article is a two stage process:

1. Is the statement verifiable? (this is independent of the article)
2. Does the statement pass the WP:UNDUE test? (this in article dependent)

These are two different and completely independent questions, covered by two separate and independent policies.

Wikipedia:Verifiability already explicitly says that "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion" and refers to WP:UNDUE. So my proposal will not categorically greenlight any such statements. Inappropriate statements will fail WP:UNDUE. So there is really no reason for a concern.

Verifiability is only a function of the statement and the source. It's not a function of the context article. "Water is a compound with the chemical formula H2O." is verifiable statement for the article Water and for the article Tylor Swift. It just not relevant to the latter. Do not mix Verifiability and WP:UNDUE! It's very wrong! Wikipedia:Verifiability should only impose limits that are relevant to the verifiability by reliable sources of info that is presented as objective facts. Nothing more.

Pay attention: Arguments that concern WP:UNDUE should not be used to reject my proposal, as they are completely irrelevant. (e.g. "A LOT depends on context - is the article focused on X or is it focused on Y")

Hypothetical examples of how my proposal could apply, where mentioning statements with ascribed info is clearly essential:

• The ex-wife of the president of a large country has posted on her verified social network page that she has divorced the president because he used to regularly get drunk and beat her. The ex-wife is not notable for an article, and no other evidence are available to support this claim.
  • "The ex-wife of the president has said that he used to regularly get drunk and beat her." is a verifiable statement with a reliable source, and is due weight for the article on the president.
• An influential celebrity X tweeted on her official social media page the following: "I honestly believe that Earth is flat".
  • "X said that Earth is flat". is a verifiable statement with a reliable source, and is due weight for the article on X as well as for the article Modern flat Earth beliefs. Sovmeeya (talk) 16:50, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Nothing has changed since last month's discussion above. Sovmeeya's attempts to get their own way is becoming tendentious and a time sink. Schazjmd (talk) 16:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Adding 'According to X' in front of a statement does not somehow immunize it from verifiability concerns. If adopted, this loophole is so broad that it would amount to throwing away WP:V entirely. - MrOllie (talk) 17:02, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Malformed. Per WP:RFC, opening statements should be brief. I don't think this qualifies. DonIago (talk) 17:13, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose and close as Malformed. That is the least brief or neutral RFC question I've yet to see. It also completely ignores the preceding discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:37, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  It isn't Malformed! The RfC statement is: "Should we amend this policy to explicitly allow any statement that inline ascribes information to the source, including any self-published source?" That's brief and neutral. As per Wikipedia:Requests for comment#Statement should be neutral and brief: "If you have lots to say on the issue, give and sign a brief statement in the initial description and publish the page, then edit the page again and place additional comments below your first statement and timestamp." You fail to understand a policy. Again. Doesn't that tell you something? Sovmeeya (talk) 17:51, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  You continue to make uncivil remarks because other editors don't agree with you. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:53, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Even if the RFC isn't malformed, your own summary indicates that in the prior discussions a significant number of editors disagreed with you relative to the number of editors who agreed with you, so I have to wonder what you hope to achieve by escalating this. DonIago (talk) 18:05, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  In the prior discussions there was a dispute about what the policy CURRENTLY says. I believe that the limitations in the current policy are only for info that's presented as OBJECTIVE FACTS. Most of the other editors believe that the limitations also applies to ascribed info in self-published sources. This RfC is for changing the policy regardless of what the policy currently says. No limitations should be to automatically dismiss "According to X" statements. Hopefully, the RfC will attract more editors. Sovmeeya (talk) 18:18, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Given how this discussion is progressing, I would encourage you to consider withdrawing this RfC as a gesture of good faith. DonIago (talk) 18:36, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Can I suggest that sometimes, even if you're right and everyone else is a fool, you have to accept that others don't agree with you and move on. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:51, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. Contrary to multiple core Wikipedia policies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:56, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  What policies? WP:UNDUE? Have you read what I've written? WP:UNDUE is the second stage for determining if a statement is appropriate for inclusion. My proposal only says that "According to X" statements should not be automatically dismissed on the grounds that it violates Wikipedia:Verifiability. Any potential statement would still have to pass WP:UNDUE to be included. No problem! Sovmeeya (talk) 18:32, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Allowing "any" such statements is way too broad, easy to imagine all kinds of no-nos. Selfstudier (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  If it so easy, why don't you share with us a "no-no", that also passes WP:UNDUE? Sovmeeya (talk) 18:27, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose WP:Core content policies wisely says Because they complement each other, they should not be interpreted in isolation from one another. When Sovmeeya insists that These are two different and completely independent questions, covered by two separate and independent policies, the editor is wrong and policies must always be interpreted in relationship with other policies. This proposal is mediocre reductionism. Cullen328 (talk) 18:54, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Core content policies is merely an "explanatory essay", not a policy or guideline. Wikipedia:Verifiability and WP:UNDUE complement each other indeed, but there is no relationship between them. The two questions are completely independent of each other. If a potential statement fails either, it will not be included. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:32, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• The core issue if this RFC is: Are attributed statements of opinion verifiable by citing the opinionator directly?

If we quote someone (or closely paraphrase what they say) we do need to verify that we are quoting the person accurately, and cite where the quote originated.

That said… there are lots of OTHER policies that limit when it is appropriate to include a quote (such as UNDUE) in the first place… and I do think we need to point readers to those other policies. Our policies should not be read in isolation, but as an interwoven set. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. As I've said above, this policy (Wikipedia:Verifiability) already explicitly says that "Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion" and points to WP:UNDUE. So my proposal will not categorically greenlight any such statements. Inappropriate statements will fail WP:UNDUE. So there is really no reason for a concern. Sovmeeya (talk) 19:21, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Thing is, WP:SPS most definitely does apply when editors neglect to add in-text attribution… when they state opinions as if they were fact (“This proves that the earth is flat” as opposed to “According to Ima Nutcase, ‘This proves that the earth is flat’”).

An unattributed opinion stated as if it were fact is NOT verifiable by an SPS. That distinction is important to mention, and is directly related to this policy.

When, how and whether to include SPS opinions is an area where there is an overlap between UNDUE and WP:V. So both policies need to mention it and support each other. Blueboar (talk) 20:22, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose. The current policy sets the bar at about the right height. We should not be using self-published sources for content that involves claims about third parties or about events not directly related to the source. Rotary Engine ^talk 20:10, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose I can't support as is though I see it has some points. My main problem is a due type, the information would be a primary source and we really do need a secondary source or for it in some way up front like if the topic is a company then information that is perfectly obvious on its home page. We can't go around trawling primary sources as reporters and make our own news. If noone else has picked up on the president's wifes's blog then we shouldn't have what it says in Wikipedia. NadVolum (talk) 21:38, 6 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose. One of the standard considerations in favor of the current policy is that, if something is really worth including, it will be picked up by some reliable source, and we won't have to rely on the SPS. To take your example of the unhappy ex-wife: If the president's ex-wife said that he used to regularly get drunk and beat her, responsible media outlets in that country would make sure that the post really came from her, would ask the ex-president for his side of the story, and would then publish an article that we could cite. If the ex-wife's post attracts no such attention, per your hypothetical that "no other evidence are available to support this claim"? The most likely explanation would be that the media outlets in that large country, familiar with the people involved, know that the poor woman has more or less cracked up, and that she's routinely vending lies about her ex-husband. Maybe last month she posted that he was dealing drugs, etc. They've looked into her latest allegation and decided that it's garbage not worth reporting on. The alternative explanation is that, in today's clickbait-hungry media world, a bombshell allegation against the country's president sank without a bubble. That's not plausible. So I think your example illustrates the merit of the current policy. We could verify that she made the allegation but including it, if there's no other support for it, would still be UNDUE. JamesMLane t c 02:15, 7 October 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose – eh, why? If you're running into friction or other issues here—if you feel you can only clearly justify something via a policy with this enshrined—that's probably an indication your idea of what should be included in a tertiary source is wrong. Remsense ‥ 论 02:20, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose This is just another attempt (the third that I know of) by the OP to get some version of their desired result on this. We have been over this. Bludgeoning every response and repeatedly opening this is not helping. Meters (talk) 03:10, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

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

Closing the RfC above

Perpetuating closed discussion

The above RfC on amending the policy to explicitly allow any statement that ascribes information to the source has unjustifiably been closed by User:Levivich less than 24 hours after start, saying that "No chance that consensus will form to repeal WP:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion." But it's not an attempt to "repeal WP:V#Verifiability does not guarantee inclusion."! Most participants so far are the same as in prior discussions. I'm trying to attract more. We should leave this RfC open for at least a week. Sovmeeya (talk) 10:40, 8 October 2024 (UTC) any self-published source can be used as a source of information for any statement that ascribe the information to the publisher We already can and do use self-published sources to verify statements when we feel the inclusion of said statements is justified in context. if a statement did not rely on self-published sources in order to be verified, this change wouldn't make any difference regarding its inclusion. if inclusion of a statement was seen as justified per WP:NPOV and WP:ONUS, this change wouldn't make any difference either. So this change has no function as policy unless it impinges on WP:ONUS. Remsense ‥ 论 11:10, 8 October 2024 (UTC) The proposed change impacts poorly with WP:DUE@WP:NPOV, which requires viewpoints to be represented in proportion to the prominence in reliable sources. As currently written, WP:V excludes self-published sources from that body of reliable sources, unless those sources meet the conditions in WP:EXPERTSPS or in WP:ABOUTSELF. This is a good thing. We should not need to trawl through the quagmire of self-published sources to determine whether content meets NPOV. Rotary Engine talk 11:41, 8 October 2024 (UTC) You don't say? That's what I've been saying all along! OVER AND OVER!! In all discussions! I've said that over a month ago at Talk:Microsoft Windows#Privacy features addition reverted. ("There are two different and independent questions here") There are editors that think Wikipedia:Verifiability strictly prohibits this in some cases. (when the ascribed statements involve third-parties, etc.) Hence the RfC, which was prematurely and unjustifiably been closed for an invalid and false reason! It aims to explicitly state this to prevent disputes. Obviously, it does not impinges on WP:ONUS! (as I've clearly written in the RfC: "Inappropriate statements will fail WP:UNDUE. So there is really no reason for a concern.") Reopen it now!. Sovmeeya (talk) 12:30, 8 October 2024 (UTC) Nah. Remsense ‥ 论 12:34, 8 October 2024 (UTC) The people closing this RFC (which has no chance of going your way, see WP:SNOW) are doing you a favor. You've already been blocked for bludgeoning once, it is time to disengage and find another way to contribute to the encyclopedia, not get yourself blocked for edit warring to keep the RFC open. MrOllie (talk) 12:45, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Note: I blocked Sovmeeya for a week for disruption related to this dispute. They are unlikely to be able to respond here during that time. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:53, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

The RFC should be re-re-closed, and this discussion hatted. The level of IDHT has now just become disruptive. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:22, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

 Done NebY (talk) 13:38, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Source display

We have achieved a consensus at the List of common misconceptions to split one of our Special:LongPages. Once we decide exactly how to split it, that page will be converted to a very short list (e.g., links to * List of common misconceptions (A–G), or * List of common misconceptions about history, or whatever is decided).

Some editors really appreciate the one-stop-shopping aspect of the long page, but there are so many refs that it's run into the Help:Template limits problem. If there were no refs on the page, of course, we wouldn't see that problem. An editor has very kindly mocked up an option at User:S Marshall/Sandbox/List of common misconceptions demo that would transclude the real lists (e.g., the subject-specific lists) into a single "List of common misconceptions (one page)" that doesn't display the refs. To see the refs, you would click through to the real lists, where you would find identical wording, but this time with the refs shown. To be clear, this display style is meant to be in addition to, rather than instead of, the real lists.

Our question is: Would this be acceptable in the main namespace in terms of the WP:V policy? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't think it's a problem in general, but in specific instances it could be. If the information is a direct quote, material that has been challenged, material that is likely to be challenged, or, probably the most important one, contentious material about a BLP, then it would appear to conflict with WP:V/WP:BLP. Not including that information, or only including those references in the transclusion could be a solution. But that may become a mess of include and noinclude tags.

I could see the issue of CIRCULAR being brought up, but it's not being verified by another Wikipedia article it is content transcluded from another Wikipedia article. So I don't think that's a concern. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:25, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I tend to lean towards the “information needs to be cited in every article in which it appears” mode of thinking. If you are transcluding cited information from one article to another, why not also transclude the citations? It doesn’t add extra work. Blueboar (talk) 00:20, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

There are so many of them that all the citations won't display. There are server-side limits to how much template content you can put on a single page. After a certain point, it just stops rendering all subsequent templates, and everything else is an error message. This is one of the two driving forces behind the decision to split the page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:27, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Washington Post & LA Times

Are these two newspapers still usable sources after the recent interference by the billionaire owners showed that a fact-based reporting can possibly be surpressed by them when it may bring trouble to the billionaires and their businesses by one of the 2024 candidates for US-President? This question is brought to you by the series 'Questions at the Dawn of Fascism'. --Jensbest (talk) 12:14, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Any decision by the owner(s) of a newspaper on editorial page policy does not necessarily say anything about the reliability of the newspaper. Editorials, including election endorsements, and opinion pieces, are not generally generally used as reliable sources, anyway. Donald Albury 12:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

That's not the point. The point is that an owner has interfered because he fears reactions by a possibly autoritarian US-President. It is the obvious attempt to appease Trump. Trump often and clearly expressed his desire to harm businesses which he dislikes. Considering this history and that the tone of Trump has become fully fascistic, it is not safe to consider the reporting of these two newspapers based on facts and untouched by their billionaire owners. --Jensbest (talk) 13:02, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

You are in the wrong place. The right place is WP:RSN. Zero^talk 13:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The editor earned a WP:TBAN about Trump eight years ago, and has now been blocked for violating it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

ONUS a blank check?

We've discussed this in the past and I'm wondering what the current thinking is on ONUS as a reason to remove something without any other reason, even long-standing, multi-years long content that once had a consensus to remain presumably. Is it enough for a few editors to remove something then claim ONUS? What about if an RFC is started? Usually, an RFC means that the status quo remains for the duration, and WP:NOCON means the status quo remains. Does ONUS still have the ability though to just be a blank check to remove anything at all that a few editors don't like? Andre🚐 19:33, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I've always supported ONUS but I don't believe, or have ever believed, that the wording of ONUS can be used as a reason for removing content. If content is removed for a valid reason and is restored, then ONUS is a reason it shouldn't have been restored until there is consensus for it. It's shouldn't be the reason that the content was removed in the first place. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:55, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Right, but what about a situation where content has a consensus at a past time, or was added and stood for years at a reasonbly well-watched article, then a few editors come along and create a no-consensus situation due to either inactivity of the editors who originally added/supported that or simply attrition/changing perspectives and userbases, and use ONUS as a justification for "nocon -> remove or change" as opposed to "nocon -> status quo"? If you catch my drift. Andre🚐 19:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess my feeling is that if someone is going to claim ONUS as a reason for removing content, they'd better have an underlying explanation ready, and it would probably be best to provide some insight into that reason in the edit summary rather than simply claiming ONUS. I also think unless it's linked, newcomers may very well have no idea what "ONUS" as an edit summary is even referencing. "Better before" isn't much better than "ONUS", but at least it gives a bit more of an inkling as to the reverting editor's mindset.

I'm not readily aware of any situations like the one you've described, though I can't rule out the possibility...however, consensus can change. If editors who came to Consensus A have all gone inactive, and a new number of editors come along six months later with no knowledge of the prior consensus and achieve Consensus B without the prior set of users engaging with them, I'd argue that that's an indication that consensus may indeed have changed. I'm not quite sure I'm addressing the scenario you're describing, though. DonIago (talk) 20:03, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but we're talking about a scenario where there's no consensus whether consensus has changed. Therefore, usually, WP:NOCON means status quo. Andre🚐 20:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Isn't that why dispute resolution processes exist? DonIago (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I mean, sure. Although that's a very different discussion. I'd say my recent experience with dispute resolution has left me with some ideas for improvement, as a former mediator with the defunct MEDCOM. Which wasn't always the best either. But you still haven't really answered my question. Which is OK, it's OK to answer my question with another question. I will then answer that with another scenario: What if we went through dispute resolution and the outcome was to have an RFC (which is an outcome), and we're getting NOCON again? Equally strong camps, equally strong arguments (as in the WAID style thought experiment) Andre🚐 20:10, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

There was an RFC on that exact thought experiment, it was never closed as there was no consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:16, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Exactly. Which means further discussion and here we are. Andre🚐 20:19, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes and all this has been said before. "It depends on the specifics" is the best there is. Editors have been blocked for running around quoting ONUS removing content and being disruptive, and of course the same is true on NOCON and stokewalling. Being open to others ideas and viewpoints while working to find a solution is the best you can do. If editors are displaying behavioural issues and being disruptive there are other means to resolve the issue. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

At some point if editors who prefer a difference consensus aren't getting their desired result even after going through an RfC, maybe they need to accept that there simply isn't a consensus for their preferred version, and perhaps try again in six months or such? Anyone who's spent significant time on Wikipedia likely has experience in losing an argument and hopefully trying to be graceful in defeat. DonIago (talk) 20:26, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I have always thought that being long standing on its own barely counts as a consensus, it's certainly very weak. Consensus shouldn't stand forever, the project will become moribund.

The real issue is that both ways have issues, some editors misuse ONUS to remove content just because they dislike it and at the same time other editors misuse NOCON as a way to stonewall. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:05, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that NOCON is a form of stonewalling if abused, but what about a legitimately stipulated situation where something was added on a well-watched article, had a consensus at one point, and then a NOCON exists today? Does ONUS therefore allow removing anything that can be fought to a NOCON? As opposed to the usual situation as I understand it that a NOCON means status quo, except perhaps in extreme situations such as a BLP UNSOURCED where policy is clearly on one side. I'm talking about an even content dispute NOCON which leads to removal through ONUS. Is that legit? Andre🚐 20:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe? That's the best answer there is. It's not something that can be given a satisfactory answer in a general sense, only in a specific case by case basis. Discuss it, discuss it some more, discuss it at a venue with more with a bigger audience, have a formal discussion, all the normal dispute resolution processes. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

“Consensus can change”… so a prior consensus can be overturned by a newer consensus. If there is currently a consensus to omit or remove material from an article, then that material should be omitted or removed… even if there used to be a consensus to include that material.

Of course, whether consensus has in fact changed (or not) can sometimes be a matter of dispute. If so, use the normal dispute resolution steps (seek 3rd party opinions, file an RFC, etc) to resolve the issue. Blueboar (talk) 20:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

and when/if the RFC ends with no consensus being clear to omit or remove the material, does ONUS default to removing it? Or does NOCON default to the status quo? Andre🚐 20:15, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

It's starting to feel as though you're asking for a global remedy to a problem that should be handled locally if and when it arises. DonIago (talk) 20:58, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not asking for any specific remedy. If the answer remains unclear then it's unclear. Andre🚐 21:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Technically, NOCON doesn't "default" to anything, as it's not a rule. It is a claim that "the common result is" to retain the STATUSQUO. Perhaps we should make that clearer, e.g., When discussions of proposals to add, modify, or remove material in articles end without consensus, the common result – but not a result that is required by any policy, including this one – is to retain the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:07, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

That would resolve the conflict by making ONUS supercede NOCON. Not my preference but a valid resolution of the tension. However, I would argue that this is an ambiguity in the current wording. I would read the current wording as defining the "common result" as carrying the force of policy/guideline (like all guidelines, not always observed strictly) and then there are 3 bullet points defining the bounded, but not exhaustive, exceptions to the "common" result. Certainly, while this may not be an accurate interpretation of the policy, it's a common one. Andre🚐 23:20, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, I didn't write that sentence originally, so I can't tell you what the original intention was for the wording choice, but based on what I know of the now-blocked editor, he would be very happy to have you interpret it as requiring inclusion, or at least STATUSQUO.

When I write that something is the "common" choice, I never mean that it is "carrying the force of policy/guideline"; I mean what it says, i.e., it is a statement of fact about the frequency of an event. For example, when I wrote the paragraph in MOS:FNNR about which section heading to use for ref lists, it was based on a survey of a random set of articles. It strictly says which section headings are most common, as a point of objective fact, without telling editors that they should prefer the most common. We did expect that editors would use this information to voluntarily choose the most common section heading (and they have), but it is not "a rule" and it is not a matter of "force". WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

My guess is that given how old this part is, it was a case of someone writing something down that was observed before its incantation was transcribed. In keeping with the section in policy wherever it is - I know you know the one - that says that all of the policies and guidelines are merely description of a consensus and not the thing in itself. AFAIK, it's always been the case in RFCs and VFDs/AFDs that nocon meant keep. Whereas the ONUS/BURDEN supporting remove thing seems much more recent. Without having exhumed the remains myself to confirm that. There also might be an alternate older wording of this concept. Maybe in the deletion or RFC policy if not here. Andre🚐 23:43, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

The NOCON expansion to prefer QUO was discussed repeatedly before the addition was made, and the editor knew that there were concerns (from me and others) about it.

The specific sentence in ONUS was added two years later, but the edit summary when he updated the shortcut (originally created in 2008 and pointing to the same section as BURDEN) suggests that this was not intended to be "new" content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:04, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

That version from 2012 is clearer and more decisive than the current language: In discussions of textual additions or editorial alterations, a lack of consensus results in no change in the article. No "common result" there. It may have been watered down later. But I'm sure that nocon meant keep/status quo even in probably 2005. Here's an essay from 2007. Wikipedia:What "no consensus" means Andre🚐 00:10, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

That essay doesn't address article changes, and on the day it was written, the main point appears to have been: Often, people feel that no consensus should mean that the current status quo prevails. That is not, however, always the case. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:48, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree, but, that supports the idea that this was the generally practiced procedure at the time. Andre🚐 00:59, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe. Or maybe that back then we had problems with oversimplification of rules. Or maybe that back then we had problems with wikilawyers claiming that whatever asserted rule supports my preferred outcome is the One True™ Rule. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:29, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I see. Well, that's not how I remember it. Andre🚐 05:11, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I found you, WAID, in 2016 removing some status quo from an old version of BRD. Andre🚐 01:17, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

I have made many edits to BRD over the years. In general, my earlier ones took BRD away from its original concept, which was less about WP:EPTALK and more about what to do when achieving consensus has already proven difficult. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:27, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

(Hopefully useful links) Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 74 and Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 75 host the 2022 debates about ONUS. Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 77 is the long discussion on BURDEN. ONUS comes up again on Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 80. All very lengthy discussions, probably helpful to read before reviving the arguments. Schazjmd (talk) 20:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

yes, and my name appears in Archive 77 and Archive 80 so I participated. Those archives still don't provide a resolution to the question. Nor does Wikipedia:Requests for comment/When there is no consensus either way Andre🚐 20:43, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The links are for everyone. Other people are participating here and might not have read those discussions. Schazjmd (talk) 20:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

That's true. Thanks. Andre🚐 20:48, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

ONUS has many problems including conflicting with other policies and processes, being out of place (what the heck is a ham-handed arbitrary finger on the scale towards exclusion doing in wp:verifiability?). Also the commonly quoted word "ONUS" is not even in the policy. The original intent was to prevent somebody from using meeting wp:verifiability as an argument for or a way to coerce inclusion. We should fix the whole mess and turn it into a big plus by removing it and substituting "WP:Verifiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion"' which was the original intent of the wording linked by ONUS. That change would also be neutral regarding inclusion/exclusion because it makes slight balancing changes in either direction. Sincerely,North8000 (talk) 21:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

How many times we going to have this discussion ) Selfstudier (talk) 21:47, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Apparently we need to have it since editors still cite ONUS to remove things. I agree with North8000 that this would solve the problem in a fair way. Andre🚐 21:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

We have problems with NOCON, let's remove them both and let the talk page decide through discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Something to consider… if there WAS a consensus to include, but is now at NO CONSENSUS, then the consensus has changed… the pendulum is swinging towards not including. So, my “tie breaker” is to omit… and ask again in a year to see whether the pendulum has continued to shift towards omit… or has swung back towards include. Blueboar (talk) 21:53, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I agree with that, Blueboar. If there is no consensus to remove material, WP:NOCON would retain the status quo. At least, that's how it's normally worked that I've observed Andre🚐 21:58, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

In principle but that doesn't necessarily apply in all cases and I notice you have studiously avoided being specific. Selfstudier (talk) 22:57, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Andrevan… Is there “no consensus” to remove the material, or is there “no consensus” to retain the material? Answer: it depends. Ultimately you have to look at how the RFC question was worded, read the comments people made in reply, and figure that out on a case by case basis. Yet another good example of why RFCs are not simply !votes. Blueboar (talk) 12:45, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

That's one of the problematic conflicts of wp:ONUS with the wp:consensus policy. If there is no consensus to remove or reaffirm some long standing material, wp:consensus says that it stays in and wp:Onus says that it comes out. North8000 (talk) 18:54, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Again… it depends. If the question asked was “Should Xxx be retained?” and there is no consensus to retain, then I would take that lack of consensus as a sign we should remove. Alternatively, if the question asked was “Should Xxx be removed?” and there is no consensus to remove, then I would take that lack of consensus as an indication that we should retain. Blueboar (talk) 19:17, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Those are the same question, though. Should it be retained or removed - the only differing factor is whether it's there now and is stable and long-standing, or whether it was recently added and its addition is contested. Andre🚐 19:31, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It's not only that, there is the question of WP:CONLEVEL to consider. Selfstudier (talk) 19:41, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Yup… which is yet another reason why we can’t have a simple one-size-fits-all “default”. We have to look at the actual discussion. How many editors commented? Did they focus on reasons to include (which failed to gain consensus), or did they focus on reasons to omit (which failed to gain consensus)? How we proceed will depend on all of these nuances. There is no single correct answer. Blueboar (talk) 19:59, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the relevance of CONLEVEL. Whether to include or exclude a given bit of material in a specific article has nothing to do with a small group of editors trying to "override community consensus on a wider scale". CONLEVEL does not refer to small discussions. CONLEVEL is about small groups of editors declaring that "their" articles are exempt from site-wide policies. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

In my post that started this subthread, (That's one of the problematic conflicts of wp:ONUS with the wp:consensus policy. If there is no consensus to remove or reaffirm some long standing material, wp:consensus says that it stays in and wp:Onus says that it comes out.) I was intending to imply that both questions (remove and keep) got asked and neither attained a consensus. Then ONUS dictates the opposite of wp:nocon. North8000 (talk) 21:25, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Four years ago, you and I talked about moving ONUS to NOCON, so the contradiction could be side-by-side in the same page.

Recently, there's been talk about moving NOCON out of CON. That seems to have stalled, and not just because a couple of editors were worried about my suggestion that it be moved to a page that is more relevant but doesn't currently say "policy" at the top. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:33, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It's been many months since I did this but I went back and analyzed the roots. IMO there was a tacit local agreement with the inclusion (including an edit summary the gist of which is what I said above....to prevent using using verifiably as a way to coerce inclusion) but no big discussion. And certainly NO agreement with the way that it is being used today as I described above. IMO it's a change that would fix many problems and conflicts, aligns with the intent of why it was included in the first place, does not go against any previous large discussion decision, and would be pretty neutral in the inclusion/exclusion equation. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 23:21, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

While I lean toward North8000, what I'm gathering so far from the discussion is that there still isn't a consensus and it depends. Which is fine. That's how things were last time I checked in. NOCON/PRESERVE is a policy and so is BURDEN/ONUS. However, I do think that last time we discussed it, I think it was ActivelyDisinterested who proposed adding something saying that ONUS can't stand alone as a rationale or when paired with other otherwise invalid rationales, it doesn't add anything. Or clarifying that ONUS specifically doesn't mean that you can remove some long-standing content, claim ONUS if there isn't immediately produced a new consensus to retain it, and have policy justifying that this content has now lost its consensus even if it's been previously considered to have one. I don't think it's theoretical that this is or can be disruptive. ONUS was never intended to be a blank check, that much is clear from the discussion. If we're not going to resolve the conflict with NOCON, at the very least, could we consider an option to limit the scope of potential misuse of ONUS? I just don't think it's a good idea or accurate to the intent of ONUS to allow a situation where long-standing content, with no consensus to change, can be removed by default. This effectively means that 2 editors can have policy endorse removing material that previously, let's say 10 editors supported including, if only 2 of those editors show up for the re-discussion at such time as it is called. Maybe they show up but not until 60 days later, too late. Now you need a new consensus to include that content. I don't see that as a good thing for the integrity of the material on Wikipedia. Andre🚐 20:54, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Huh… I thought one of the selling points of Wikipedia was that its material is dynamic… stuff gets added, stuff gets changed, stuff gets removed. Blueboar (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Dynamic, yes, but there's a point where it's not a net benefit to keep changing something, particularly a stable and controversial high-quality article. Surely you can come up with an example of this? There's a real example that caused me to come here, but I think better to keep it more abstract for a variety of reasons. There's a problem of defending article quality. I wrote that essay in 2005 and the original title was defending the status quo. I think now that the original title was more along the lines of the point needed. There are other solutions to the problem or maybe you don't agree it's a problem, but I think we're oversimplifying things if you think that Wiki just hums along with people adding or removing stuff, especially in controversial areas, and that every time some long-standing content is challenged that it's a legitimate and helpful challenge. Andre🚐 21:13, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm not so much worried about the 2 editors now but 10 editors give years ago stuff, things change and even if 2 editors removed it 2 can add it back 6 months later. Content changes and I fear the idea it must stand because a group of editors said so at some point in the past just tends towards stonewalling. Content can be removed for many reasons, even just to improve the article. Bloated articles are not better by default.

I don't think ONUS, or VNOT if editors dislike the word, should be used as a initial reason to remove content, as I've said, but my ideas to reformulate the statement didn't get much of any support and I'm in no hurry to try and revive it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 22:52, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

• My impression for previous discussions is that the dispute between WP:ONUS and WP:NOCON mostly amounts to editors disagreeing about when text gains a degree of implicit consensus by being longstanding and having people edit it. This is a complex question that we've avoided nailing down (for good reasons; having it too rigid would lead to people arguing over it rather than focusing on actual content.) But as a general rule-of-thumb I feel policy could be a bit more clear on the main points - content that has been seen by many eyes eventually gains a degree of consensus, since each of those people is presumed to have approved of it to some degree, and after that at least some consensus is needed to remove it. While people often use time as a rough handwave (often approximately three months of stability), and the "status quo" or "longstanding" are sometimes used to refer to it, it's really about the eyes; something on an obscure article that few people see might never accrue that sort of consensus, while higher-traffic articles can get it more quickly if it's clear a diverse group of people are editing it and seeing it. And any sort of indication that it's controversial (any objections on talk, say) prevent it from happening. --Aquillion (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

If there is no longer consensus to include something, it can be removed. Also a "finger on the scale towards exclusion" is the right way to have it. Almost all content policy is about restricting what can be put into articles and hardly any of it is about restricting what can be taken out. There's no reason for this example to be different. Zero^talk 03:10, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

That's not how policy or practice works; if we have an RFC over whether to remove an established section of an article (one that previously had consensus of some form), and it reaches "no consensus", the result will be that it is retained. I disagree with your proposal to add a finger on the scale towards exclusion, too; current policy places a priority on stability instead. Adding a finger on the scale towards exclusion encourages WP:STONEWALLing and discourages people from engaging. Generally speaking I don't think that proposals for these sorts of "strong" policies with default outcomes that could drastically change articles are ever workable - heavy-handed policies seem good in people's heads when they picture it giving the "right" answer, but in practice they reduce incentives to engage and compromise, encouraging people to use policy as a bludgeon instead. It's better to have a grey area with. (As an aside, this is, to me, the most frustrating part of discussions about ONUS - people who want to push for an expansive interpretation of it, which would allow for the removal of longstanding text without a consensus to do so, frequently make baffling assertions that this is already how things work, which anyone who edits Wikipedia in controversial areas knows is not the case. Outside of a few situations, like WP:BLP, no-consensus outcomes result in the status quo being retained, not in removal; the standard for disputes is WP:BRD, putting the article back in the status quo until a consensus is reached, not Bold-Revert-Remove.) --Aquillion (talk) 14:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this and your previous post. WP:ONUS is a finger on the scale towards exclusion and I opined that such a ham-handed arbitrary thing is a bad idea. Zero0000 opined that it is a good idea. So it wasn't a proposal to add something. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:29, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Agree with North and Aquillion in my humble opinion. While it may not gain consensus to be changed, I encourage a constructive proposal to change text on these lines to make it clearer. Andre🚐 19:12, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

There are differing levels of consensus though. If something has an RFC support for, then maybe it makes sense to maintain inclusion until there is a consensus against. But if something just has an implied consensus through dint of being in the article over time, then once that implied consensus is gone by having been challenged then it should not be retained absent a consensus for it. By making it so default to status quo you are empowering filibustering to retain challenged material that never had any real firm consensus to begin with. Something that say 4 users discussed but is now challenged by 20 shouldn't be retained either. The circumstances matter, and filibustering shouldn't be rewarded. When there was a larger discussion among 20 users, then yes I agree that this consensus holds until a new one forms, but the other way around? Not so much. nableezy - 19:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Well...

If I write an article and include some bit of content, and it 'sticks', then that's evidence of a presumption of consensus.

If we have a discussion that does not prove that presumed consensus to actually exist, should we keep assuming that there is a consensus? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:05, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

At best, that's silent consensus, conlevel 0, WP:SILENT. Selfstudier (talk) 21:37, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean the pre-discussion situation is a silent consensus? Once a discussion has happened, I wouldn't say that we're still silent. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:07, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Hard to say without an understanding of the "discussion" (conlevel again). Selfstudier (talk) 10:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, you surprise me. Do you mean that if I add a sentence to an article, and nobody edits that section of the article for the next year, nobody posts anything on the talk page, and nobody mentions it or refers to my edit in any way, then it's difficult to for you tell if that's "silent"?

Or that if someone does react to it, e.g., by posting a message on the talk page, then it's difficult for you to tell whether "saying something" is "silent"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

First case, that's silent, the second, which was what I was referring to, hard to say with knowing what it is that was said. You want to be general, I want to be specific. Can't have that so we are left with the unknowable. Selfstudier (talk) 23:16, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I think that the word silence means the opposite of someone communicating with you, especially in the context of Wikipedia:Silence and consensus, which says "Consensus can be presumed until disagreement becomes evident. That is typically through reverting, editing, or stating disagreement on a relevant talk page." In that model, "if someone does react to it, e.g., by posting a message on the talk page", then it's not silence. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with what is said there in general but I think silence means have not specifically said whether something is agreed. If the edit was originally made, say on a page with low traffic, it might well sit there for a while but I don't think that means it necessarily has consensus, even if someone had commented about it but not said something yea or nay. Selfstudier (talk) 00:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Even on high traffic pages, an edit might stay under the radar for quite a while, can't assume it has consensus just because no one said anything. In practice it has, because it sticks in the article until someone actively does something to unstick it. Anyway, I find all these discussions to be the same, we end up going around in circles because the issues are all connected, I don't think there is supposed to be one correct answer to any problem and the PAG reflect that, perhaps not in the most efficient or clear way, but they do all the same. Selfstudier (talk) 00:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you that things can be overlooked, but you said above that if someone actually, directly has a discussion about this – a discussion that results in no consensus, which can only happen in there are editors saying that they support and other editors saying that they oppose – then that whole discussion could still be "silence". That does not sound reasonable to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:54, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I said that. Where? Selfstudier (talk) 10:47, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I asked if it's difficult for you to tell whether "saying something" is "silent"?. You replied that it's hard to say whether "saying something" about an edit is "silent".

And all of this in the context of a scenario in which:

• There is a discussion
• involving more than one person
• that ends up with a no-consensus result.

I cannot imagine a scenario in which a discussion(!) that ends in "no consensus"(!) constitutes silence. If nobody said anything, how would there be a discussion? If nobody said anything about supporting or opposing the change, how could the discussion end in no consensus? WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Depends on the discussion (that's what I actually said). Selfstudier (talk) 17:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Please explain to me how you can have a discussion, about the desirability of an edit, that results in no consensus, and still not have anybody talking about the desirability of that edit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

You are assuming that the discussion (of an edit) is about the desirability of that edit. I said it is not possible to generalize, specifics can be discussed but that's no use for PAG, right? Selfstudier (talk) 17:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Can you give me an example of a discussion that

1. is about a particular edit, and
2. ends in "no consensus" for or against that edit, but
3. is somehow not about the desirability of that edit?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

In my opinion, it seems best to conceptualize WP:IMPLICITCONSENSUS only in terms of identifiable individual editors signalling identifiable (if implicit) assents. If an obscure article remains in a given state for seven years and only one editor has ever contributed to it, there's no evidence that another editor is aware of its contents, never mind that they've consented to them. The same would generally hold regarding editors that previously engaged with an article but are no longer active—their consensus can no longer change, so it can't really be considered. Remsense ‥ 论 21:51, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The above are discussions about the complexities of wp:consensus. This overall discussion is about what has operatively become arbitrary interference/conflict with the wp:consensus process....wp:onus. Which has jumped the track from it's original intent of keeping meeting wp:verifiability from being used to coerce inclusion. Again suggest fixing the whole mess and going back to the original intent by substituting onus with "wp:verifiability is a requirement for inclusion not a reason for inclusion". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:23, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies for getting sidetracked. If I've read the room correctly: would it be fair to characterize WP:ONUS as a blunt tool to initiate the consensus-making process, rather than as a blunt tool to circumvent it? While I don't think you're wrong in observing it can function as a finger on the scale towards exclusion, I think in most cases it is better described as tending towards stability, because in a majority of applicable situations stability and exclusion happen to be the same outcome. I don't really think it is a natural policy point to apply if one is trying to remove material, unless I'm missing soemthing? Remsense ‥ 论 03:51, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Not in my experience. ONUS can be cited when a few editors want to remove something, or prevent the addition of something. Verifiability doesn't guarantee inclusion, so this should be removed unless there is a consensus to retain it. Andre🚐 03:58, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Someone yank me back off-stage if I'm veering off-topic again, but I do think this is directly relevant? It's tough, because I will diverge with opinions stated above (and likely majority opinion in the community, which is fine) in that I don't think presence should be privileged over absence when it comes to discussions on the fringes or outside of WP:V and WP:NPOV. Very often, if we want to entertain cohesion or parsimony as valid editorial goals, we have to fall back on a hamfisted-if-not-false argument that a given content presentation (or any given aspect that doesn't boil down to the claims made by prose) "doesn't reflect sources". WP:PRESERVE says what it says, but it remains indefensible to me that additions should categorically require lower editorial scrutiny than removals do: it is equally important to the quality of articles to discern what they shouldn't say or present, compared to what they should. Remsense ‥ 论 04:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think I agree with the general sentiment. What I think shouldn't be a permissible practice is to remove something that is long-standing or had consensus in the past citing ONUS. If that BOLD removal is reverted, it should remain unless there is consensus to remove it, not just no consensus to keep it. The BURDEN should be on the BOLD change, not on keeping the status quo. Andre🚐 04:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Depends (again). ONUS should not be an initial reason for removal and then it depends on the "discussion" (and editing) that follows. Selfstudier (talk) 10:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

A lot depends on the circumstances of a removal. If I remove something with the explanation "this does not appear in the source", then it should stay out until someone shows that it is in the source or provides another source. Nobody should be saying "it stays in until you get consensus to remove it". Conversely, people who remove sourced relevant content without adequate explanation shouldn't cry "ONUS" if it is reinserted. In general, removals that are accompanied by cogent policy-based reasoning should be treated differently from removals that aren't. Zero^talk 10:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that. Andre🚐 23:03, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Regarding the "finger on the scale" issue, I stand by my comment. Articles are our face to millions of readers and we should revere them as precious places that contain only our best work. Treating stuff in an article as equal to stuff not in an article is fundamentally opposed to that principle. In my opinion, a policy that makes removals as difficult as insertions can only lead to deterioration of quality. Zero^talk 10:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I share the same values.

Firstly, I don't think readers want us to revere articles as precious objects; I think they want us to get some information to them. In the case of a recent event, I definitely think that they prioritize quantity over quality. If treating the article like a precious thing means that people don't get the information they want and need, then we're failing them.

Secondly, the Wikipedia:Editing policy says that Wikipedia is, in principle, best off when it contains more information instead of less. We are also supposed to Wikipedia:Be bold, which sometimes looks closer to Move fast and break things than like perfectionism. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm an agile guy, which tries to get at a process that is fundamentally move fast don't break things, and I tend to think that articles, like software, should be shipped warts and all if having an article is the alternative to not having one, so I tend to agree with WAID that perfectionism can be harmful in the goal of continuously shipping articles. I don't think articles are precious any more than chickens are precious. Sure, in some sense, all life is precious, and there's a preciousness to your pet chicken, especially your prize chicken that has special longevity or traits. On the other hand, there are likely at least 20,000 less impressive but more accessible dead chickens within a 15 mile radius from you. But, I do agree with Zero0000 that we should have a set of quality heuristics to ensure that successive changes are improving quality. So let's try to get as many articles being organic free range chickens as we practically can while recognizing that some are going to be factory farmed, might have salmonella chickens. We want to limit salmonella, while providing healthy enough non-organic chickens to people who are hungry. The food shouldn't make them sick (have false information or other obvious, 5-alarm fire, showstopping problems) but it may not always be a heritage farm free range chicken with the top organic certifications. So in my mind shipping a stub or a rough article is fine, because as WAID says everything has mistakes and we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. ONUS being a fairly blunt instrument in its present formulation, I wonder if there's a version of ONUS/BURDEN that looks something like the last few comments, i.e., changes to text that is verifiable, neutral, and encyclopedic that is long-standing with no affirmative consensus to remove need some rationale, while new bold changes that are reverted should be discussed and need a consensus to add if challenged. Because I do think ONUS is useful if it's keeping out bad new additions and giving some proportional weight to older and less controversial stuff. Andre🚐 23:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

If you're Agile, then Zero seems to be proposing Waterfall. But more importantly, he seems to prioritize "remove existing stuff" over "add missing stuff". Your precious chickens can get sick because they have too much salmonella, but they can also get sick because they have too few nutrients in their diet. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

You wrote "Wikipedia is, in principle, best off when it contains more information instead of less". As a dedicated inclusionist, I agree with that sentiment. However, "more information" does not mean "more information of any sort". The right interpretation of the principle is "the more good stuff, the better". We should add stuff to articles if it improves them, and the way we decide whether stuff will improve an article is by consensus. That's what ONUS means to me. If something already in an article loses consensus that it improves an article, then its inclusion becomes subject to recall (to choose a trendy word) and consensus has to be reacquired. That is not balanced between inclusion and exclusion, and I approve of that. Basically, something good missing from an article is undesirable, but it's a smaller sin than having something bad included in an article. Zero^talk 03:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

WP:Consensus should be our guide. WP:Onus was originally intended to prevent interference with that (to prevent people using merely meeting wp:verifiability to coerce inclusion) but has turned out to be instead an arbitrary interference (and conflict with) with wp:consensus. Let's fix both problems by substituting "Verfiability is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion". Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

You proposed this before, I think, what happened? Selfstudier (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think ONUS should be cited as the reason for removing something, but if there is a reasonable claim that the content violates our other content policies or guidelines, then it seems like that's a case where ONUS would apply? That isn't too different from WP:LOCALCONSENSUS in terms of where and when I see it applying. Alpha3031 (t • c) 04:18, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

  So... first of all, LOCALCONSENSUS is not about "a couple of editors made a decision on the talk page", even if I think those editors made the wrong choice. It's about "a couple of us decided that 'our' article is exempt from some generally applicable policy or guideline". Imagine, e.g., some editors saying that the Suicide article should be completely replaced with a big disclaimer. That violates our ordinary policies and guidelines, especially Wikipedia:No disclaimers, and no matter how strongly they feel about it, it's a LOCALCON and doesn't count (unless, you know, the rest of the community agrees with them and decides to change the rules).

  Or don't imagine a hypothetical scenario, if you prefer, because we have real ones: the reason we have LOCALCON in its current form is because WP:WikiProject Composers declared that 'their' articles are exempt from MOS:INFOBOXUSE. It took a couple of years of disputes and a painful RFC to convince them to change their tune (slightly: they went from "we officially ban infoboxes from all our articles" to "we strongly recommend against infoboxes, though technically we can't ban them").

  Secondly, I think ONUS gets invoked more often in disputes in which most editors agree that the addition is a bad one, but its lone proponent disagrees. After several rounds of "Yes, we know that you want to say that you disproved Einstein's theory of relativity, but it's not okay to put this in the article because it violates all the core content policies", followed by "But I did disprove Einstein, and it's compliant with every single policy in the world!", then editors tend to shrug and say: "The ONUS is on you to get consensus before you can re-add it. Good luck with that." WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

SPS definition

A discussion on RSN has broken out which revolves around what exactly a self-published source is. From my perspective, WP:USESPS provides the only comprehensive guidance for what is or is not self-published, and it is pretty unambiguous.

However, many of the responses have come down to claiming that USESPS is wrong and should be disregarded or deleted.

Leaving aside the surrounding argument about bias and reliability for this specific source, does anyone uninvolved have any opinions on this? If editors are supposed to disregard the guidance on USESPS, I would like to know. Void if removed (talk) 14:01, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

There was something way back that I had brought up the idea that self published means there is no editorial oversight from a person publishing their work (ignoring copy editing or the act of publishing it on a website).
So someone putting info up on Medium clearly is SPS, while aember of an advocacy org like GLAAD or SPLC will need editorial approve from their in house editors before sonething goes online, and thus is not an SPS. — Masem (t) 14:15, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Ok, but that isn't at all what USESPS says, and by that measure absolutely every corporate website isn't self-published. So - is USESPS just completely wrong?

My understanding is there is supposed to be some level of separation between the publisher and author. Void if removed (talk) 14:23, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

No, that bears no relation to how WP:SPS has been interpreted until now. Most sources employ their own writers, after all; if the fact that the writers work for the publishers made something a SPS, virtually everything would be a SPS. What the part of USESPS that you're misinterpreting means is that something is a SPS if the writer and publisher are literally the same person, ie. there's no editorial oversight at all; or if the entire thing is presented as a single monolith with no indication of who writes what and therefore no way of determining that there's a distinction between publisher and author. GLAAD lists individual writers for the things it publishes in the acknowledgement section, and those writers are not themselves the publishers, so they don't fall under the part of USESPS that you're citing. Otherwise, by your argument, I could say "well, the New York Times' reporters and writers work for the New York Times, therefore the editorial controls are not independent and it's a SPS." Now, whether the editorial controls are good enough is another story, but you can't just say "the writers work for the publisher, therefore this is a SPS." --Aquillion (talk) 14:50, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm hoping for uninvolved input here, but again: that's not what USESPS says, which is:

If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same.

What I'm trying to get at is why USESPS says things that are completely different to how you and some other editors are interpreting SPS. If Business, charitable, and personal websites are given as a specific example of SPSs, why is this charity's website not self-published? If USESPS says a SPS can have a professional structure in place for deciding whether to publish something, why are people arguing that having some sort of notional approval process means it isn't self published?

I want to know why what the guidance says, and what half a dozen editors are currently saying over on RSN, are so at odds, and which is correct? Void if removed (talk) 16:02, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Masem, you give an example of Medium.com vs SPLC, but the two collide at https://medium.com/@splcenter I'm sure their PR department does in-house review for both the content on their official Medium.com posts and the content on their https://www.splcenter.org/ website. The level of editorial oversight is the same in both cases, and I suggest that both of these are self-published, because in both cases, the org is posting whatever it wants, whenever it wants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:03, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

Counterexample, apparently NYTimes authors are also writing on medium with the NYTimes logo.

https://medium.com/@timesopen

And the WaPo folks just have their own account on there:

https://medium.com/@washingtonpost

Similar counterexamples, all the news media sites out there operate Twitter accounts, and WP:twitter is usually always considered WP:SPS.

Operating on a SPS platform to promote itself does not imply SPS of the organization. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:21, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

The definition of self-publishing exempts traditional publishing houses, so news articles are non-self-published no matter where they post.

Of course, any organization can self-publish something. The pages on their websites that tell you how much a subscription costs, or that try to talk you into running ads in the newspaper are all self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:02, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure that USESPS is the issue so much as this material from WP:V, Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content. Further examples of self-published sources include press releases, the material contained within company websites, advertising campaigns, material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media group, self-released music albums, and electoral manifestos: Springee (talk) 16:27, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree that there are some difficulties in the line "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content."

I think that speaks to our hopes and aspirations for reliable sources, but this sentence tacks on some irrelevant things. Self-published material is characterized by the lack of editorial control. Hopefully, usually, that editorial control will involve independent reviewers and even professional standards; hopefully it will involve something validating whether the content is accurate. But a source can be validated for reliability by independent reviewers and still be self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:36, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

USESPS seems a mess, and doesn't seem to match commonity pratice. If we're relying on an essay that says a self-published source have certain features, but then has to specifically exclude news organisation because they have all the features mentioned, then it's obviously going to cause confusion.

Sources such as SLPC and SBM are accepted as not being self-published, and there are even RFC with that result. Interpreting such sources as self-published doesn't seem to match up with the wording of WP:SPS, and it doesn't appear to line up with the ideas expressed in Self-publishing. Particularly that self-publishing involves the author of the work publishing the work themselves at their own cost. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:49, 31 October 2024 (UTC)

So when a dictionary says that self-publishing means to "publish (a book etc.) oneself rather than through a publishing house", do you find that their exclusion of publishing houses (a group that includes newspapers) to be confusing? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

What makes no sense is you dividing publishing. News is not the only thing that is published. And you seem to have lost 'oneself', a writer reporting for a non-governmental organization is not just one self and is not publishing oneself, the organization is the publisher. Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

And Donald Trump doesn't write the content on his campaign website, so he's not "onself", either, and it's mostly not being paid for with his own money. Are you interested in declaring https://www.donaldjtrump.com/ to be a non-self-published source? Or do you think that it might be possible for a self-published website to involve more than one author? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

SBM I have no idea how that was arrived as non-self published, it seems to be a group blog, but from reading the conversations there is some credence given to the fact it has editorial oversight? And yet recent controversies suggest that isn't actually the case for some of the editors, so again it is a mixed picture.

SPLC, I see no RFC to that effect, and lots of similar debates in the past with a similar split of people arguing it both is and isn't self-published. IMO, any material a lobby group writes and posts itself on its own website is self-published, whether that's SPLC or Heritage or anyone in between. Maybe there's a grey area around externally authored reports that they endorse and publish, but website content written by employees or an internal team? Its self-published. There's no independent editorial process, and a simple process of internal authorisation before publishing something is not sufficient.

While I accept there might be grey areas and hard cases, I really don't think the specific example that kicked off this discussion - material straightforwardly written and posted by GLAAD to its own website - is one such case. Void if removed (talk) 09:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

GLADD write? It's not a writer, its an organization, it can't write (at least before AI). Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:13, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

This is an unfeasibly narrow definition of self-published.

WP:USESPS says: If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same.. That seems sensible to me and in line with the view that virtually everything on any corporate website is self-published.

What you're saying is completely contrary with the essay provided as guidance for WP:SPS. Your answer is that WP:USESPS is wrong or that it isn't policy and we should ignore it. Fine, but I disagree, and what you're saying is at odds with what it says in the footnote on WP:V quoted above: the material contained within company websites. And that is policy.

What I want is non-involved input to help explain which is correct and why this seeming vast gulf in editor opinion exists. Void if removed (talk) 10:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The essay, you rely on is not policy and needs no consensus. The essay is written broadly, lacks nuance, and is overinterpreted by you. That it leads in your mind to absurdity is the problem you face. When you come up with sales material that you want to use in a BLP, we can talk about then (but a more fruitful discussion would be COI) but your wanting to suggest in effect everything is sales-material is silly. Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Can you please stop calling me silly. Reading guidance attached to a policy is not silly. You have made your personal opinion clear, many times over, so I suggest you move on.

What I want is non-involved input to help explain which is correct and why this seeming vast gulf in editor opinion exists. Void if removed (talk) 11:18, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I did not call you silly, I explicitly referred to your suggestion. The problem is your reading of that essay not a gulf. Whether you consider me involved also makes no sense.Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That essay needs to be rewritten from the ground up. It doesn't match community practice and implements a definition that is way broader than that found in policy. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Repeating a comment I made at WP:RSN:

The footnote at WP:SPS that Springee quotes is badly written in that it conflates two different things. By comparison, the sources quoted in the same footnote do a good job distinguishing those two things: The University of California, Berkeley, library states: "Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published or published by businesses small and large with motives to get you to buy something or believe a point of view." (my emphasis); The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition states, "Any site that does not have a specific publisher or sponsoring body should be treated as unpublished or self-published work." The problem with coca-cola.com is that the only content on there is about the product sold by the publisher, and everyone involved in publishing it has an interest in that product selling well; this is a good reason to not use coca-cola.com as a source, but it has nothing to do with the concept of self-publishing, and is not analogous in any way to material published by GLAAD.

(Personally I do not consider it shocking that Wikipedia policies are not always carefully or thoughtfully written: they're produced by the same process that Wikipedia is, but without recourse to reliable sources, and with much less scrutiny than any high-profile article.) 100.36.106.199 (talk) 13:38, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• Perhaps what is needed is a NEW guideline (or at least an essay) that specifically focuses on Advocacy organizations and think tanks. This could cover the nuances of reliability when it comes to such organizations and also discuss the need for attribution due to bias, and opinion. Blueboar (talk) 11:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Possibly, but IMO this is quite a fundamental policy to have such divided opinion. We have a policy that by my reading - and by the explanatory essay - would consider the vast majority of company websites to be self-published, and yet when raised a roughly equal number of editors insist that the opposite is true, and that the vast majority of company websites are not self-published. The consequences of the latter being true are significant for contentious BLP claims about third parties, and since in this specific case the entire purpose of this website is for GLAAD to make BLP claims about third parties who it is politically opposed to, with no independent oversight or accountability, the matter of whether this is a SPS or not is something that needs settling. If this is fair game for inclusion on BLPs with attribution, that is a concerning state of affairs, and discussing this specific case reveals (to me) a divide in the way editors are interpreting SPS narrowly and completely dismissing USESPS, and more than anything this needs to be clarified. Void if removed (talk) 12:28, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t think company websites are the issue here. The vast majority of company websites do not contain material about third party people - ie those who are not directly connected to the company. (material about people who are directly connected to the company would be covered by WP:ABOUTSELF).

  The disputes seem to all be centered on advocacy groups… which do comment on third parties. Blueboar (talk) 12:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Ah right I see. I don't think the for-profit nature of the organisation changes whether something is self-published or not, but yes advocacy groups are simply more likely to self-publish partisan opinions of the sort that probably shouldn't be in BLPs. Void if removed (talk) 14:31, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  It's definitely not all centered on advocacy groups. For example, with respect to BLPSPS, I've previously had to ask whether the Mueller Report was self-published or could be used as a source for a statement about one of the people it discusses, whether a professional society's newsletter was SPS or could be used a source for an NPROF who received a notable award from them, whether material written by an unknown person on a university website could be used, etc. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I would treat the Mueller Report as something like a SPS. In general we shouldn't cite without a RS telling us what we should be looking at first. Note that we of course would cite it as a supporting reference. Springee (talk) 19:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I'd take the opposite approach. Governments – that's little-g government, meaning the organization that is in charge of providing roads and armies for a given place, not the name-brand government that refers to the reign of a particular political party (not, e.g., the Sunak government, the Putin regime, the Clinton Administration) – are, in some respect, traditional publishers (e.g., of laws and reports). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  By this logic, all newspapers are SPS and missing a key distinction. Non-SPS are sources that at least have some kind of editorial oversight for accuracy, which newspapers obviously have (outside of opinion sections).

  What is being confounded here it seems is WP:INDY which is not the same as SPS. If a company website claims something, the question isn't whether it is an SPS or not, but rather that it generally wouldn't be included without third-party mention from a WP:DUE perspective due to lack of independence. That is why WP:SPS policy specifically says in relation to BLPs Never use self-published sources as third-party sources about living people, even if the author is an expert, well-known professional researcher, or writer. KoA (talk) 13:38, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  What is being confounded here it seems is WP:INDY which is not the same as SPS. Yes exactly this. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 13:52, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I don't see your point - WP:INDY doesn't have the same BLP restrictions as SPS, so doesn't really cover the case where a source has a vested political interest in negative portrayal of third parties. Without independent editorial control, advocacy websites are a ready source of hyperbolic descriptions of BLPs. Void if removed (talk) 17:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  Again, please read SPS policy I mentioned above. It is explicit not to use self-published sources as third-party sources when it comes to BLPs. There's a ton of guidance linked right there. INDY helps give supplemental guidance on some of the topics you are trying to navigate here.

  If something is self-published, you can't use it that way. If something isn't independent of the subject, but is not an SPS, then that's where WP:DUE comes with respect to what WP:INDY gives guidance on as well, especially whether or not something is going to be included or not even with attribution. The main issue here is that you're missing existing guidance related to SPS and barreling past some of that. As others mentioned at the beginning of this thread, most advocacy groups are not just a single person setting up a blog, but instead have some degree of editorial oversight between the writer and the group actually publishing something. What you're trying to address is primarily not an SPS issue.

  I've seen and dealt with a lot of problematic advocacy group sources in the past, but generally SPS isn't the way to handle it. You either have to work through the lens of WP:RS or WP:DUE, and in general you're going to avoid advocacy group publications and reach for higher quality sources anyways. KoA (talk) 18:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• And universities, and historical societies, and . . . . The drive to see everything as for profit companies is not only not reality, it is generally useless for our purposes, we have a narrow area of concern, statements about living persons, and a narrow prohibition, statements that are self published about blps, because we doubt they have the safety in WP:SOURCE reliability that having a writer and a publisher has (among other things there are more/real defendants to sue), and that the self-published more likely lead to NPOV and OR problems. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

  I'm primarily concerned about the drive to conflate INDY and SPS. If we want to accept INDY SPS's, then we should just say so, instead of saying, "well, technically the author and the publisher are the same, and they're not actually traditional publishers, but we'll just close our eyes and pretend that they're not SPS, because WP:IAR is dead and otherwise I don't like the result". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:55, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with Blueboar. To that effect, I propose the insertion into WP:RS, either in WP:SOURCETYPES or the section after, following a sufficiently widely advertised RFC, depending on whether the community considers grey literature in general to be self published, one of the following subsections:

Grey literature (not SPS)

Governmental bodies, as well as non-governmental organisations like think tanks and advocacy groups, often produce a variety of material in support of their missions. These are usually published and distributed outside of traditional commercial or academic channels, and may vary in reliability and degree of oversight. In general, any such material that has undergone some form of formal review process independent of the original author should not be considered self-published, whether or not the author is employed by the sponsoring organisation. This material may still be unreliable in other ways, and only groups with a well established reputation should be considered generally useful. If an organisation produces multiple forms of content, the level of review may vary, and sources subject to minimal or no review, or with a poor reputation for fact checking, should be considered self-published and only useful in the same situations as other self-published sources.

---

Or:

Grey literature (yes SPS)

Governmental bodies, as well as non-governmental organisations like think tanks and advocacy groups, often produce a variety of material in support of their missions. These are usually published and distributed outside of traditional commercial or academic channels, and may vary in reliability and degree of oversight. In most cases, the internal review of such groups are not considered on par with traditional publishing, and not independent of the sponsoring organisation, thus usage should be constrained to that typical of other self published sources. Content authored by subject matter experts may be reliable if previous work has been published by reliable traditional publishers. If there is a formal review process, such content is usually still reliable for the opinions of the sponsoring organisation, and use with attribution may be appropriate for organisations well established in a topic area.

---

Please feel free to edit or do whatever to the proposed sections, I do not consider them part of my comment for TPG purposes. Alpha3031 (t • c) 13:12, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that second one is a pretty fair assessment of how I'm reading USESPS, and the sort of use I would personally think is appropriate. Such sources can be reliable, indeed are sometimes the best possible sources, irrespective of any bias. But unless there is compelling evidence otherwise in any specific case I would treat them as self-published and I would still consider them unsuitable for third party BLP claims, given the low threshold for publishing and lack of accountability. Void if removed (talk) 14:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd argue that if this remains contentious, we do an RFC to see what folks come to consensus on. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think its contentious, I think some people just don't see where it leads: 'celebrity column, just fine!' . . . serious organization, absolutely not!' Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

though i agree that i think the answer is straightforward, the significant convos here and WP:RS/N suggests otherwise.

If it doesn't quiet down, an RFC is useful for reorienting all of us to whatever consensus is nowadays. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:54, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree we're heading quickly towards RFC territory. Loki (talk) 16:24, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Not always. But really to create such a broad rule for such narrow issue, can 'this publication be considered for in BLP's, is likely even more contentious. Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:41, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I would oppose this outright as it goes in the wrong direction, it is instead USESPS that needs rewriting. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:32, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

To be clear I don't think this is needed in V, SPS is a simple explanation and covers everything well. The broader definition used in USESPS appears to be the problem that needs solving. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I disagree that nothing is needed at WP:V. The footnote on WP:SPS says Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content. Further examples of self-published sources include press releases, the material contained within company websites, advertising campaigns, material published in media by the owner(s)/publisher(s) of the media group, self-released music albums, and electoral manifestos, where "further examples" is a reference to self-published material such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, podcasts, Internet forum postings, and social media postings in the main WP:SPS section.

For me, that phrase implies that material contained in other organizations' websites (e.g., non-profit websites, university websites, government websites) is also SPS. But I've seen multiple WP editors saying that company websites and organizational websites are not SPS, as they expect that there are editors involved in crafting the final version of the text on those websites. If that view is the one that people want reflected in policy, then this text about company websites needs to change, and other text (e.g., about newsletters) may need to change as well. Either way, I think the text needs to be modified to make clear that “material” means the specific work that’s being used to substantiate a WP claim (a specific webpage, book, article, etc.) rather than an entire website, all of an organization's publications, etc., as it’s possible that the latter includes a mix of content that’s self-published and content that isn’t self-published. For example, I'd say that:

• a transcript of a congressional hearing is SPS, but a Congressional Research Service report is not;
• a Youtube video posted by an individual is SPS, but a Youtube video posted by a news organization is not;
• a non-profit's edited report is not SPS, but their weekly podcast or a live-blog at an event is;
• an article on a site like Forbes.com might be SPS, while another article on that site originated in Forbes magazine and is not.

FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Sure, that is likely an example of the more one goes on about something, the more trouble on is likely to stir up. The truth is, we have a clear consensus on what is self published and it has nothing to do with just being on a website (perhaps that made more sense in the past). Now, we may have less or even no consensus on going out from the core of self published (what one publishes on their own), but perhaps we should consider less is more, here. Our purpose should not be self-publishing our thoughts on the world, or the state of publishing, it is just to address a narrow issue . Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

(I made an editing mistake. When I said "For me, that phrase implies ...," the phrase I was referring to is "the material contained within company websites.") When you say we have a clear consensus on what is self published, who is "we," and where is that consensus stated? As a not-that-experienced editor, I'm trying to abide by WP's policies and I have to rely on what's written in a policy to help me figure that out, and I'm saying that what's written for WP:SPS says that company websites are SPS, when you and others here are saying that they aren't. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:54, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think I said it 'one publishing', things like social media, buying publication, etc. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:02, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I feel like this problem could be mostly solved simply by deleting this line from WP:USESPS: If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same.

This is obviously not true, since it would mean the New York Times is self-published. The fact that WP:USESPS says the NYT is not self-published doesn't change this, it just means that WP:USESPS contradicts itself. Loki (talk) 16:57, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Sure, go delete it. It's just an essay. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That line comes from this diff [1].

its been a bit longstanding, but i'll go ahead and WP:BOLDLY delete it. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks; I think your edit is an improvement. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing Just notifying you of this discussion about that line, I think you added that line.

Feel free to revert bold change, I see you are part of the current discussion too, and am curious about what community consensus ends up being. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 17:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I wrote Wikipedia:Identifying and using self-published works to reflect the results of the previous major blowup over this question. I think the underlying problem is still the same, namely: The source is technically self-published, BLPSPS prohibits using self-published sources for certain content, and I really, really, really want to use it anyway.

As long as the community doesn't twist the definition of this dictionary-definition word into some sort of special wikijargon, I'll likely be satisfied with the outcome.

This specific sentence: If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work (e.g., sales materials or a corporate website), then the author and publisher are the same does not appear to be clear to people, so it might benefit from including a concrete example (e.g., "Ima Investo–Relations produces the annual financial report, which Cal Communications posts on the corporate website").

It is also possible that it would help to show a color-coded table explaining the application of the definition to some of the typical questions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with this, it's far to broad a definition. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 17:07, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I mean, when an essay directly contradicts the controlling line of policy, I'm inclined to just ignore it until whoever wrote it brought it into alignment. Nobody approves essays, they don't have any force. I'm suggesting something inserted into WP:RS (not WP:V) because it covers NEWSORG as well, it's an OK place to discuss common types of sources. Alpha3031 (t • c) 01:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's most useful to start at the beginning. When you are evaluating whether a given source is reliable for a given claim, it is useful to know:

• Is this WP:SELFPUBLISHED or not?
• Is this WP:INDEPENDENT or not?
• Is this WP:PRIMARY or not?

All three of these WP:UPPERCASE are ultimately meant to refer to their ordinary, real-world meanings. None of these three are meant to be special wikijargon (contrast with WP:NOTABLE), and even when we have had to settle a few details on our own (e.g., WP:V's definition of WP:Published), we have tried to stick to the real-world meanings.

For the question of self-published sources, we can look to proper reliable sources, like dictionaries, to find out what they mean. These sources consistently give definitions that amount to this:

1. The author and the publisher are the same.
2. The publisher is not an established or traditional publisher (e.g., like a daily newspaper).

For example, if we look at coca-cola.com, we find these facts:

• Author = the employees of The Coca-Cola Company
• Publisher = the employees of The Coca-Cola Company
• The Coca-Cola Company is a multinational beverage company, which is not a traditional publisher.

The evaluation looks like this: Author = publisher; publisher ≠ traditional publisher; ∴ coca-cola.com matches the definition of self-published.

We can check our interpretation of the definition against what sources say, e.g., in the library website that says "Most pages found in general search engines for the web are self-published". A page from coca-cola.com is the kind of page you'd expect to find via a general web search engine, and it is not the kind of page you'd expect to find in a more scholarly-oriented search engine (e.g., via PubMed or EBSCO). This therefore confirms our definition and its application to a website like coca-cola.com.

The problem here does not actually seem to be about what the word self-published means. The problem here seems to be a straight-up Argument from consequences, which is "based on an appeal to emotion and is a type of informal fallacy", per that article's lead. In other words, no editors have any factual reason to believe that coca-cola.com isn't actually self-published; however, some of them just don't like the consequences of that factual determination. For those editors, I suggest the following two paths forward:

1. Determine whether the entity in question should be considered a traditional or established publisher. For example, it is not unreasonable to decide that the United States Census Bureau is a "traditional or established publisher", at least with respect to the United States census reports, and therefore automatically exempt from the definition of self-publishing. (This is what @Alpha3031 was getting at with the "grey literature" notes.)
2. Change the policy to accept that, yes, some sources are technically self-published, but we're going to use them anyway. WP:BLPSPS is our own homegrown rule, and we can change it. There's no inherent reason why we couldn't say that self-published sources are generally banned, but in the case of certain reputable self-publishing organizations, such as widely respected advocacy groups, a well-advertised discussion could determine a consensus for a limited exception to the normal policy. For example, we could accept that GLAAD's GAP database is self-published and still choose to allow its use.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Merriam Wesbster [2] (per that definition, no, the Coca Cola site is not self published, certainly not by the employees), so it is quite a stretch for you to argue you did not just write a whole bunch of Wikijargon. And it is entirely silly in this day and age to say, it is on a website, thus it is self published. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:04, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with this, the definition that was used by USESPS was wikijargon that didn't match real world sources. That's not to say that such sources are reliable or due for inclusion, but those issues don't need to be covered by this single definition. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, I'd love to see a list of real-world sources that actually disagree with USESPS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Well Wikipedia editors disagree with the definition in USESPS, and have done in mutiple discussions. If it can't be brought inline with actual practice it should be discarded. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested, you said the definition that was used by USESPS was wikijargon that didn't match real world sources.

The definition at the top of USESPS is: "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same".

I see no wikijargon in that sentence. Do you?

The definition in that sentence identifies the core point of every dictionary definition I've seen, including the one Alan links to above. Can you provide a counter-example? Any definition, from anywhere, that says "If you write it, and someone else decides whether to make it available to the public, then it's still self-published"? Or one that says "If you write it, and you publish it, then it's probably not self-published"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:03, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Stop playing games, of course I accept "Self-published works are those in which the author and publisher are the same".

The question is in regard to the definition you added to USESPS of "If the author works for a company, and the publisher is the employer, and the author's job is to produce the work ... , then the author and publisher are the same". This is very obviously not how self-publishing is being understood in practice and doesn't match the result of discussion and RFCs about sources.

If you want that definition to be used, which would overrule those discussions, then you need consensus to overrule those discussions. Otherwise those discussions and RFC show a consensus that your definition doesn't have consensus. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:16, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this sentence is suboptimal. I do not agree that it is a definition, and I do not agree that it contains any wikijargon.

I also don't think that this example is "not how self-publishing is being understood in practice and doesn't match the result of discussion and RFCs about sources". This is consistent with the discussions in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Peerage websites, WP:RSPYT, WP:RSPTWITTER, The Skeptic's Dictionary, etc.

I think what editors want is a way to say:

• Science-Based Medicine is non-self-published, but Quackwatch is at least partially self-published and ScienceBlogs are entirely self-published: I think the existing advice lets people do that.
• Southern Poverty Law Center and GLAAD – even if they technically meet the real-world definitions – are not subject to BLPSPS, but CounterPunch magazine should be, and Consortium News at least partially should be, and all political campaign websites definitely should be.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:48, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

No what editors want to say is that you definition in USESPS doesn't match their expectations of a self-published source. I have no idea how you think Twitter and YouTube back up your definition, it would still be self-published by anyone's standard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Also as it stands the wording at USESPS doesn't have consensus. The RFC on SBM and many such discussions on SLPC have rejected that definition. This should reflect practice, not be a definition thought up and imposed. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the editors in the SBM discussion rejected the consensus; I think they rejected the consequences. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:45, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh come on, that is just playing word games. In practice your definition stands rejected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think so. I think what editors are rejecting is the constraint that BLPSPS imposes on them. They'd rather change the definition than change the rule, but I don't see anyone saying things like "I looked in my dictionary, and it totally says that corporate websites, published with no external controls, are non-self-published". I only see editors saying "I hate this definition, because if I follow this definition, then the BLPSPS rule applies, and I don't want the BLPSPS rule to apply." WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

No. You are playing word games to no useful end. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It is just word games. The RFC doesn't match how you want self-published to be defined, so you denigrate the RFC so it's results can be dismissed.

The result of the RFC is that it is not self-published, and as it's not self-published BLPSPS doesn't apply.

"I dislike the RFC result and believe BLPSPS should still apply" is the quote you are looking for. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The RFC on SBM at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 256#RfC on sciencebasedmedicine.org ended with this consensus summary: "There is consensus that Science-Based Medicine is not a self-published source. Editors acknowledge that the website describes itself as a "blog". However, most editors believe that the website's published editorial practices are sufficiently robust to prevent it from being classified as "self-published". Some editors note that submissions from both staff writers and contributors are subject to fact-checking."

In other words, SBM is non-self-published because it has a "sufficiently robust" version of the "editorial practices" that we associate with traditional publishing houses. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:00, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I would agree that the result agrees that an author cannot being able to publish their work without editorial oversight means it's not self-published. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:07, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

And I also agree with this, and so does the definition in USESPS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

If editors won't to impose a definition that would overrule multiple community discussions, then they need to find consensus for it. It is obvious that no such consensus currently exists. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:54, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Really? Their definition is "to publish (a book) using the author's own resources".

Who writes that website? The Coca-Cola Company, through the method of hiring employees to do so. Whose resources are used to publish it? The Coca-Cola Company's own resources.

I think you have made the twin mistakes of ignoring corporate authorship and assuming that "own resources" means "an individual human's personal money".

See also definitions such as

• "publish (a book etc.) oneself rather than through a publishing house" – The Canadian Oxford Dictionary
• "to arrange and pay for your own book to be published, rather than having it done by a publisher" – Cambridge Dictionary
• "To publish a work independently, without the assistance of a publishing company." – wikt:self-publish
• "to publish or issue (one's own book or other material) independent of an established publishing house" – [3]
• "Self-publishing is the process of publishing a book by the author without the involvement of a traditional publishing house or company." [4]
• "Self-publishing is the process of independently publishing and distributing a book, e-book, or other written work, without the involvement of a traditional publishing house or company." [5]
• "Self-publishing refers to the process of independently publishing and distributing your own work, such as books, e-books, or other written materials, without relying on traditional publishing houses or companies." [6]

WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

No. What's plain you are creating your own illogical wikijargon and requirements that are baseless and factually inaccurate. No, the employees are not self publishing, they are being published by the corporation, and its the corporation's resources that are being used. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

So why does WP:SPS say that "the material contained within company websites" is an example of self-published content? FactOrOpinion (talk) 20:35, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

We know why, someone wants to make a black and white but false statement. And it does not practically matter, anyway, we will use what's found on its website all over the pedia when we talk about the company and what's related to it.Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:49, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That sentence was added in October 2011 by Wifione. It doesn't look like the kind of edit that is trying to distort anything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The question isn't whether "we will use what's found on its website all over the pedia when we talk about the company", which is permitted for self-published sources in WP:ABOUTSELF. The question is only whether it's self-published. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:23, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Come on. Yes we will use it to talk about living persons. And no it is not self published. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:50, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know who "we" is. I asked because I didn't know why, and because as a not-so-experienced editor, I'm using the policy to guide my actions, and this is part of the policy. That phrase was introduced in 2011, which is a long time for it to have been on the page if there's some consensus that it's wrong. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:25, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

BTW, re: it does not practically matter, anyway, it absolutely does matter, because the question of whether it is or isn't a SPS determines whether it can be used for statements about people who do not work for the company. FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

That M-W definition seems problematic. By that definition, a tweet isn't self-published unless the person has paid for a blue checkmark, and the transcript of a congressional hearing wouldn't be self-published either, since it's the government paying for the publication. For that matter, WP wouldn't be self-published, as none of us pay to have our edits published. I largely agree with WP:SPS that "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content," but it's sometimes difficult to determine whether there's editorial oversight. For ex., there are a large number of people posting things to a university website, and some of the content has editorial oversight and other content does not. FactOrOpinion (talk) 19:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, I'd rather say that the M-W definition is focused on the idea of producing a book on paper.

I don't think that a university website has "independent" editorial control. There are the parts with no editorial oversight, and there are the parts written by the PR (and fundraising and recruiting) departments. The kind of editorial control that makes a reliable source (and a traditional publisher) is much more likely to be found at the student newspaper than anywhere on the university's own website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Currently I think there's two quite divergent opinions here, depending on what angle you come from.

• Narrow definition of published - something has to have some sort of recognisable, established publishing structure and a measure of independence or accountability. Book and journal publishers have independence, news publishers have some sort of accountability (corrections and complaints procedure and policy, regulatory body, something like that). Anything less than that is self-published.
• Narrow definition of self-published - something has to be published by an individual, with no oversight. Anything greater than that is not self-published.

Both perspectives lead to pathological cases in the middle (is a magazine self-published by the former definition? is a guest post on a blog not self-published by the latter?).

Personally, I would favour a narrower definition of published, and to consider everything that falls short to be self published, simply because it is the level of external accountability and oversight that a formal publishing structure gives that protects individuals from propagation of third party BLP claims on wiki.

Perhaps debating what "self-published" means is less important than deciding what is "sufficiently published" for a third party BLP claim. Void if removed (talk) 19:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Void if removed, do you mean, for the first, "traditionally published"? We already have a definition of Wikipedia:Published that encompasses both the traditional publishing houses and self-publishing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes I would say so. And specifically I want to know what exactly we understand to be: "published with sufficient independent oversight and accountability for a BLP claim about a third party". Right now opinions differ, but this is a crucial distinction in practice. Void if removed (talk) 20:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Basically, the former approach says "BLP claims should only come via traditional publishers" which fits with the spirit of the guidance there.

The latter says "practically anything other than a random personal blog is in theory acceptable for a third party BLP claim", which IMO does not. Void if removed (talk) 21:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The opposite opinion is that the latter says "Sources that have editorial oversight aren't self-published", which matches the spirit and wording of the guidance.

BLP usage doesn't rely on this single aspect alone, as it has other requirements. So trying to use this to ban all bad sources just confuses the situation. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that "BLP claims should only come via traditional publishers" is the intention behind BLPSPS. Also, BLP would have a narrow definition of "traditional publisher" (e.g., excluding the government public records). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I would agree with this and I think it is a straightforward interpretation. BLPs are supposed to be conservative. For 3rd party BLP claims, only once you clear the first hurdle of "is it a traditionally published source" do you then consider independence, secondary, due etc. Being traditionally published is a necessary - but on its own insufficient - first step. Void if removed (talk) 00:18, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Editorial oversight by that measure is meaningless. Any celebrity social media account has editorial oversight. Any publishing where one other person signs off counts. This is back to my first pathological case - a guest post on a blog.

And I'm aware there are other considerations beyond this - but no 3rd party BLP claims from SPSs is a very clear edict, so I would expect "what is an SPS" to be similarly clear, yet it appears not to be. Without that clarity, the rule is meaningless.

If it really is, essentially, single person blogs and not much else, that should be clearer than it is. Void if removed (talk) 21:43, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

"Not an established or traditional publisher" is begging the question. You might as well say "it's not self-published if someone I respect published it".

There's simply no consistent way to do what you want to do. And this is Wikipedia policy, so even if I accepted that third-party sources agreed with you (they don't) we would be under no obligation to follow them. What a neutral point of view is on here is very different from the dictionary definition of "neutral". What is verifiable or notable are jargon definitions unique to us. Wikipedia policy is decided by consensus, not sourcing. Loki (talk) 21:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It is often true that we make up our own wikijargon, but that is not the intention for these particular words.

I would be interested in seeing the sources you would rely on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you have confused "established or traditional" with "reputable". So, for clarity, DMG Media, of WP:DAILYMAIL, is a traditional publisher. Larry Flynt Publications, publisher of Hustler porn magazine, is a traditional publisher. DC Comics, promoter of Superman, is a traditional publisher. Being a traditional publisher is about the business model. It's not about whether the publications you produce are accurate, educational, useful, interesting, or reliable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:06, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Here's a table that might be useful:

How to determine whether a source is self-published

	https://pepsico.com/	2020 United States census	The New York Times	Malignant (book)
Author	PepsiCo employees	United States Census Bureau staff	The New York Times Company staff	Vinay Prasad
Publisher	PepsiCo employees	United States Census Bureau	A. G. Sulzberger	Johns Hopkins University Press
Author = publisher?	Yes	Yes	Maybe	No
Traditional publisher?	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Result	Self-published	Not self-published	Not self-published	Not self-published

I'm not sure that it's useful to list the NYT example, because newspaper publishing in the US has a tradition that could be argued either way, without changing the end result. But this should give you the idea. (Note that I've declared certain government reports/gray literature to be traditional publishers. I think that's the right thing to do, but if the community disagrees, then we'd have to change that.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Once again this is baseless and factually inaccurate, the corporation is the publisher, the corporation's resources are doing the publishing, and it has to be the publisher as it is liable for the website of the corporation.

And your arguments actually serve no purpose, except perhaps you want to self publish your own thoughts in an essay. This is on the verifiability page for a reason, and the reason is small, use in BLP's -- your arguments have nothing to do with reliability and barely anything to do with NPOV or OR. Literally, you fall back on an irrelevant to policy logical fallacy of appeal to authority (so called, tradition.) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:33, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The corporations emoloyees ARE the corporation's (human) resources. The employees answer to the publisher. Therefore, it's self published. This is NOT the case with newspapers: the authors' work is the responsibility of the editor, and the publisher does not meddle with the editor's work. The publisher CAN'T, as that would be considered improper. Therefore, not self published.

And that is the difference. 73.2.106.248 (talk) 21:04, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

No. Absolutely not. The resources of the corporation are not the employee's resources, nor is the web page the employee's. It is exactly like the same as the newspaper, in every way that matters, the author and the publisher are two different things, both liable. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:08, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I can see that you're very committed to your view, but I wonder whether you can see the other viewpoint. For example, think about how editors talk about the Wikimedia Foundation. Have a look at https://wikimediafoundation.org/. Do you look at that and say "website designed by Greg, this page written mostly by the fundraising team, that section written mostly by one of the lawyers, this file was posted by Joe – see, none of that was written by 'the WMF', and none of it was published by 'the WMF', either"? Or do you look at that and say "Yup, that whole thing was written by the WMF and published by the WMF"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I think WP:SPS is very broken and does not accomplish the thing it wants to, but yeah, clearly the WMF webpage isn't self-published either. The author and the publisher are different people.

Our issue here is that what self-published means and what we need it to mean are different things. What we want is editorial oversight and what we say we want is that someone who is not the author published the work, which are not the same thing no matter how much we want them to be. Loki (talk) 21:34, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Upon thinking about this more, I don't think my issue is with WP:SPS per se, it's with the definition in WP:USESPS, which is useless even without the line I suggested we strike. The definition of "self-published" is not whether the author and the publisher are different. For proof: who's the publisher of a self-published book? It's not the author, right? It's a company that self-publishes books. This is as different from the author as any other publishing company: the thing that sets them apart is not they are the same entity as the author but that they offer no editorial review over the author.

By the definition in WP:USESPS taken literally, YouTube and other social media would in fact be some of the only material on the internet that isn't self-published, because the author is an individual not employed by YouTube, and the publisher is YouTube. Loki (talk) 21:44, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

You seem to have confused publisher with printer (or 'host', for digital media). The publisher is the person who decides that the book will see the light of day. The printer is the one who is paid to print whatever the publisher decides to have printed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:47, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Really, WAID? Your the one who posted a long wikispeak brief based on false claims and employing logical fallacies, so it's rather whether you can see it another way. As for your example, yes it appears to have a publisher the WMF, and have writers, who are not self-publishing. The WMF would be liable as publisher, unless it has a defense or immunity. The author's would be liable as author's and the reviewers would be held responsible for what goes wrong, whether they work at a newspaper or other company. It's nothing short of how out-of-touch your argument is when you go on about all the people involved in putting that page out, the more people involved is generally what we think of as great in a source. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Alan, where in your definition(s) of self-publish did you find any reference to legal liability?

I can see the POV in which any entity with enough internal control isn't self-published. I don't agree with it as a basic/non-niche definition, and I don't think it is suitable for Wikipedia's purposes, but I understand that some people have a narrow definition. In their model, single-person personal blogs are always self-published, and once you get above a certain size, then it starts being a publishing business. I've never seen any editor try quantify the size – the closest we've gotten is "if they have enough lawyers", usually with this not-in-any-definition value of minimizing libel risk.

BTW, when we were both new editors, the definition in according to ArbCom was "A self-published source is a published source that has not been subject to any form of independent fact-checking, or where no one stands between the writer and the act of publication." BLPSPS took its present form shortly after that case.

That definition exempts traditional publishers (news orgs and similar publications use independent fact-checking; peer review and traditional book publishing processes have someone standing between the writer and publication). However, it can only be seen as exempting corporate websites if you think that coca-cola.com is "independently" written by Emily Employee (after having been not-so-independently told to write it), and that Cal Corporate (the same boss who told her to write it) is somehow going to prevent Emily from doing what the boss told her to write. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:30, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

The idea that "PepsiCo employees" are the publisher of pepsico.com is beyond bizarre. A corporate entity is not coextensive with its employees. --100.36.106.199 (talk) 21:05, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Can you think of a way for information to appear on pepsico.com that doesn't involve an employee taking some action? Remember, we're working with a definition of published that means "made available to the public", and not, e.g., "accepting legal liability for the contents". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:46, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I can't think of a way for the US census to appear which doesn't involve USCB employees taking action, or the NYT to be printed without NYT employees taking action, but you haven't listed "USCB employees" and "NYT employees" as the publishers in those cases. I doubt that A.G. Sulzberger personally takes any action to publish individual editions of the NYT, yet you have credited him as the publisher there. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:06, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I credit Sulzberger as the publisher because the reliable sources do. As I noted above, the US newspaper tradition around publishers is sufficiently quirky that it may not be a good example. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:43, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Why do you credit Pepsi employees as the publisher rather than PepsiCo? The more I think about this, the more I puzzle over how one determines who the publisher is. Is the publisher the person who makes content viewable on a website or submits it to a printer? If so, then the publisher is an individual and not, for example, an entity like Oxford University Press, and Sulzberger would not be the publisher of NYT articles, and you might have different people identified as the publishers of the same content if it's published both online and in hardcopy. Is the publisher the entity that would be held legally liable for libel? If so, then the publishers of PepsiCo and NYT content are likely PepsiCo and the NYT Co., not the employee or Sulzberger (though perhaps I'm wrong, and both he and the NYT Co. would be defendants). Is the publisher the person identified as publisher on a masthead? If so, the the publisher of the NYT is Sulzberger, but PepsiCo doesn't have a masthead, so would it instead be the CEO? Is the publisher the holder of the copyright? If so, that would again point to PepsiCo and the NYT Co. as the publishers. FactOrOpinion (talk) 18:42, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

You're right; I should ignore the fact that the corporation's actions are implemented by the employees as a practical matter. I would credit PepsiCo as the publisher of their corporate website for the same reason that I put |publisher=Oxford University Press in a citation template, instead of |publisher=Whichever unnamed employee and/or committee at Oxford University Press gave the final approval for publishing this book.

We could go further down the rabbit hole: If the publisher is not OUP, but an individual employee, then is it "really" the person who approved it, or the assistant who did all the necessary paperwork? It couldn't be made available to the public without the actions of the printer, so maybe it's the printer. Or the ship that carried the hard copies from China to the Port of Los Angeles. Or the truck driver who took the container to the wholesale distributor. Or the shipping department at distributor's warehouse, because they shipped a box of books to a bookstore, and the public can't get it if it doesn't reach a retail establishment. Or maybe it's the UPS driver who wheeled the box into the store. (I must remember to tell my driver; he'll be tickled to learn that he's a publisher now.) Or, "really", it must be the bookseller, because how else would the public actually get their hands on the book, if nobody sold it to them? So there you have it: the low-paid employees of every bookstore in the world publish all the books they sell. We leave it to the lawyers to determine whether their action in publishing so much garbage should be considered joint or severable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Is it possible that a distinction we've glossed over is that individual employees aren't generally identified or credited as authors of PepsiCo publications? If Alice Pepsico doesn't get to publicly exist, we should only evaluate the context of her work as presented, without assuming an editorial distinction that is more hypothetical than usual. Of course, many news articles have anonymous or mass bylines—but that matters, doesn't it? I think there is a case we should treat a piece credited merely to the NYT editorial board as being "slightly more self-published" than one with identifiable, credited authors. Remsense ‥ 论 11:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

IMO we could make a rational argument for anything in the NYT that's written by Sulzberger as being "self-published", though in the case of the NYT editorial board, they're going to be running their opinion pieces past Sulzberger in at least a general way. (See also the recent kerfuffles about certain newspaper owners vetoing presidential endorsements.)

I don't think that bylines matter. Self-publishing vs traditional publishing is about the publication process rather than the qualifications of the author. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Let me show you the issue with your table:

How to determine whether a source is self-published

	https://pepsico.com/	2020 United States census	The New York Times	Malignant (book)
Author	Alice Pepsico, a PepsiCo employee	Bob Census, a member of the United States Census Bureau staff	Carol Journalist, a The New York Times Company journalist	Vinay Prasad
Publisher	PepsiCo	United States Census Bureau	A. G. Sulzberger	Johns Hopkins University Press
Author = publisher?	No, because the author is an individual and the publisher is an organization	No, because the author is an individual and the publisher is an organization	No, because the author is an individual and the publisher is an organization	No, because the author is an individual and the publisher is an organization
Traditional publisher?	Who knows, this is necessarily subjective.	Who knows, this is necessarily subjective.	Who knows, this is necessarily subjective.	Who knows, this is necessarily subjective.
Result	Not self-published	Not self-published	Not self-published	Not self-published

Loki (talk) 21:29, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's helpful. First, if we assert that "Alice" is the author – that's fine; some things really are written by a single person – then who exactly puts Alice's content on the website? An abstract corporate entity can't upload files to a computer any more than it can write a paragraph. So why would we say "Alice is the sole author, not the company in general" but not say "Bob is the sole person making the content available to the public ("published" according to this policy), not the company in general"?

Second, since "traditional publisher" is a concept that comes from reliable sources, why is it subjective, and why do you think subjectivity is bad? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:57, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't think that's helpful Yes but maybe at some point you should stop repeating yourself and try to understand a little bit why hardly anyone agrees with your point of view? 100.36.106.199 (talk) 01:23, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I think that quite a lot of editors agree with my view. Several of the people in this discussion today, including yourself, seem to be focused on a situation in which Hard cases make bad law: they want a particular result (GLAAD's GAP pages can be cited for BLP material), and although there are multiple paths they could take to make that happen, the only path they have explored is to reject the real-world definition of self-published and change the on-wiki definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Agree... I think the contentiousness of GLAAD being used to label someone a transphobe or homophobe is possible reason for fuel to fire.

I think similar situation with potentially opposite leanings is using Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine to declare a "gender-critical" doctors as leaders in the field, and gender-affirming doctors as, whatever insult they can think of.

I don't think I still agree on Whatamidoing SPS definition, but folks should def consider that Whatamidoing is right that if grey lit/advocacy is not SPS, we cannot use WP:BLPSPS to disqualify a think tank/advocacy group that we do not like, and that it opens up every think tank/advocacy group to say whatever about a person, unless if it get reposted by CNN/NYTimes or another traditional publisher. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 02:09, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, you're basically right: Whatever rules we put out for the Honest Brave and True Organization will also apply to the Scurrilous Knaves Society. If we say that GLAAD is non-self-published because their staff use an editorial process to decide what to post, and next year SEGM tells their staff to use the same editorial process to decide what to post, then both of them would be exempt from BLPSPS. We shouldn't, and probably can't (because editors will revolt), have a rule that actually says "This publication process is non-self-published if I approve of the source's POV but self-published if I don't". WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

SEGM would still be fringe. I don't know, WhatamIdoing, I feel like this argument really has more to do with whether we consider these sources reliable rather than whether we consider them self published, and self-publication is only one factor there. Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:30, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Correct, that's what we have the separate reliability criteria for. And even today, there are some editors (and often brand-new SPA accounts that pop up and regularly get banned or blocked) that try to push WP:FRINGE content, some of which does even sometimes get coverage on otherwise RS media, but that's where our other reliability criteria come in to stop such content from failing our other NPOV policies. And while sometimes such editing has gone unnoticed for longer (such as the case from a few years ago); by and large, typically our editor community is able to discern it and keep such misinformation in check, earlier or later (though earlier is preferred). Raladic (talk) 03:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with all of this. WP:SPS is just one part of our overall reliability guidelines. Loki (talk) 05:22, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

On what basis? Right now this is a subjective assessment. There are no objective sources declaring this to be forever and always true.

Consider instead a large powerful advocacy org the Heritage Foundation deciding to call a prominent figure something inflammatory and damaging for their political stance on some hot button issues.

Right now such a thing is unlikely to be added to a BLP because of all sorts of subjective interpretations of rules by editors. It isn't due. They're biased and unreliable etc. But those subjective interpretations can change. I'd ask editors who confidently believe their own personal views about a subject to be the majority, to consider a situation where they are not.

Whether something is traditionally published or not is the only objective test between an inflammatory claim, and a 3rd party BLP. If that criteria for inclusion is watered down and subjective too, then there's no serious barrier. IMO BLPs are too important for the subjective views of editors to govern the entire process, and forcing deference to traditional publishing structures that provide some level of external quality control on this specific matter is in the spirit of BLPSPS. Void if removed (talk) 06:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

There is no way to cut subjective judgments out of this. The Daily Mail is a traditional publisher, but it's deprecated because people have judged it to be generally unreliable. FactOrOpinion (talk) 15:05, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but if we say that advocacy orgs are not "a publishing house" in the meaning of the dictionary definitions for the word self-publish, then we would ban that use on both subjective ("it's not DUE") and objective ("besides, it's self-published, so you have to find a non-self-published source that quotes them") grounds. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Are you sure that there's nothing subjective about determining whether a publisher is a traditional one? For example, you wrote that the Census Bureau is a traditional publisher. Is (government)=(traditional publisher) true for all government publications, and if not, how do you figure out when it's a traditional publisher and when it isn't? Or consider a university's website, would you say that all of it is self-published (because the only part that might be a traditional publisher is a university press, which is now generally split off as a separate entity, like Univ. of CA Press), and if not, what parts aren't? Does your exemption that an employer's website can be used for statements about its employees mean that a university's website can be used for statements about current faculty, but not for statements about students, unless they're student employees? FactOrOpinion (talk) 21:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I would say, having revisited the past discussions on SBM, that's my reading of what happened in that case. The precedent set by considering a group blog not self published as long as it was debunking quackery is well-meaning but I think both unnecessary and unsound. It could be argued that the sponsorship of SBM by the NESS makes it not self published, but since both of these are directly controlled by the same people - and that those people can publish with no prior review - that is nothing like a traditional publishing arrangement. Certainly the last discussion started by calling that whole classification into question. By my reading there were some good points in favour of it being reconsidered as SPS that mostly went unanswered, but again responses ended up conflating RS with SPS when these are separate issues and no changes were made.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_351#Science-Based_Medicine

We've now got a situation where the argument really is that people are considering internal review and approval mechanisms of any kind to be sufficient to not be an SPS and to update SPS accordingly to retrospectively account for SBM, but I don't see how the arguments for SBM don't also apply to something like The Free Press. I don't think 3rd party BLP material on the Free Press should be a subjective local consensus away from inclusion on a BLP, the policy in BLPSPS becomes largely meaningless in that situation. Void if removed (talk) 10:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure prior consensus at RSN was that Bari Weiss's substack newsletter was no longer a SPS. They seem to want to transition to being a NEWSORG anyway (they now have a media company and everything!), so they would be exempt from being considered an SPS even under the broader, objective definition that you're proposing, as far as I can tell. Alpha3031 (t • c) 10:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Not what I see in the discussions, pretty clear opposition to considering it anything other than an SPS, and here too.

And if they transitioned to a traditional publishing structure, then obviously they'd be a traditional publisher, but right now that's not the case. Void if removed (talk) 11:53, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

My mistake, Void if removed, it does appear that it's closer to no consensus, I had only really paid a little attention while it was happening and I suppose I must have perceived the people arguing that it was no longer self published as receiving more support than they did. You seemed to have missed the Archive 425 (February 2024) discussion though, and I believe that one was the one that most informed my recollection: Notably, most people opposing use in that discussion focused on GUNREL in general rather than whether it was specifically a SPS.

I also really don't see how your excluding them under your definition, could you elaborate on how you see their publishing structure, versus, say Vox or HuffPost? Alpha3031 (t • c) 14:02, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Vox is published by Vox Media, the mass media company that publishes titles like New York Magazine, and a bunch of others. There is a separation between who commissions, authors and oversees the content of the title itself, and who takes legal responsibility for publishing it. Similarly, Huffington Post is published by Buzzfeed Inc.

What makes them not self published is not quality or reliability or independence or editorial oversight (all of which are quite questionable in some of these cases) but the existence of separation of concerns between creator and publisher. That a publisher is willing to take responsibility for the published material provides some measure of confidence in the editorial process. Sometimes what a publisher does - particularly in new media - is not terribly visible or obvious to someone external in the way it is with print media, but it can encompass investment, legal responsibility, marketing and distribution.

Determining that the creator and the publisher are not the same person or entity is all that's required to decide if something is a SPS. The Free Press, by contrast, publishes its own content itself.

Being a non-SPS doesn't automatically put Vox on a par with a scientific journal or an academic textbook publisher. It just places it in a different category of source, that can still be unreliable.

The mistake I think is in believing that what is in effect a blog or website which accepts posts from contributors becomes an external publisher for that content, when it is not. The blog in its entirety is the creation - the posts within it are not themselves separate, divisible publications. In exactly the same way, the publisher for the entire NYMag website and all articles on it is Vox Media. That the owner and creator of a blog sources and collates content that may have been written by other people does not make them an external publisher of that content, rather they are still self-publishing their own creation in the form of a singular blog or website. Just as the owner and creator of a corporate website self-publishes the site in its entirety, from mass contributions from its employees, whose work product the company owns. Just as the website of a non-profit advocacy org is the entire self-published creation of the org itself. Void if removed (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Well, hard cases make bad law cuts both ways. I think that some people, above, are looking for a magical dividing line that will let them discount GLAAD in this context without having to examine its reputation in depth. Clearly the desire for a hard line here is partially driven by the fact that some people feel GLAAD is obviously unusable and that any policy that wouldn't clearly indicate that must be fatally flawed. I don't think that that hard dividing line people are looking for is ever going to exist - ultimately, reputation for fact-checking and accuracy trumps everything else. It's the core of what makes an RS citeable for statements of fact and, when it's strong enough, will override anything we write elsewhere, which means that people will always have to confront a source's individual reputation. I don't even know if GLAAD passes that bar (we haven't really looked in-depth because we've been spending our time quibbling over this instead), but I stand by my assertion that SPS is a category of non-WP:RS, outside of a few limited exceptions; it is literally a category of WP:NOTRELIABLE - the purpose of SPS is to say "these things will usually lack a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". It's not intended to give us an easy test that can discount a source without regard for its reputation, because no such test can exist. Reliability is contextual, but a strong enough reputation overcomes everything else. --Aquillion (talk) 14:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you're right: in the case of GLAAD, this is all being driven by a desire to use the source. If BLP said that only websites with green backgrounds can be used, we'd doubtless have editors talking about the fuzzy Blue-green distinction and that this blue website is really green and should therefore be acceptable.

I don't want to re-write definitions to make this (or any specific) source usable. I say this even though I'm sure that I've cited that website myself and consider it generally reliable. Wikipedia:If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it. If citing GLAAD would improve any article, and BLPSPS prevents us from doing that, then we should ignore that rule and improve Wikipedia. We should not be trying to re-write basic definitions so that corporate, advocacy, and political campaign websites are all non-self-published just because we want to use one (1) website. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure its the reason (after all the original page wasn't even a BLP, unless people decide BLPGROUP applies) but its certainly a precipitating factor. After a few years of doing my best here I find the rules arcane and unevenly applied, so when I do my best to read, understand and then cite a policy in a CTOP, I find it quite unsettling to be outnumbered by editors calling my interpretation of the policy wrong. I raised it here because I want to know why, and where I erred.

However the result of all this discussion really seems to be that I didn't err, and that editors are moving to change either the policy or the explanation to retroactively endorse a practice they prefer. Whatever the policy is, all I care about is that it is something that I can at least try and follow in good faith. Void if removed (talk) 20:39, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Your essay is about Wikipedia articles, I don't think Wikipedia policy is the same thing (though I suppose if we consider "discussions Wikipedia users have about policy" to be a reliable source on Wikipedia policy, we could theoretically make COPO apply to our PAG as well). I do see subjectivity as sometimes necessary in policy, but at present, we don't have to adhere to WP:YESPOV when writing our policies and guidelines, and introducing subjectivity in standards where not necessary can make our guidelines less useful. Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:39, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

All sources are reliable for something, and a discussion about policy would be reliable for certain statements, and such discussions might even be cited in articles such as English Wikipedia Arbitration Committee. If you'd like to make the core content policies apply to policies and guidelines, then you will have to get WP:NOTPART revoked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:11, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Traditional publisher is not an iota less well-defined than publisher. Remsense ‥ 论 02:27, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Proposed RFC

@LokiTheLiar, @WhatamIdoing, @Alanscottwalker @Alpha3031, I am making an RFC draft based on Alpha's initial wording. It needs significant wording and shortening I think.

What are some ideas on how to clean this draft up? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:36, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to edit the draft, its very rough and i don't have much experience drafting useful RFCs. I'm going to come back to it later tn for another passthrough myself after reading the discussion a bit more. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 21:38, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

@Bluethricecreamman, I don't think that draft is even close to ready for discussion. For example, you suggest that "some form of formal review process independent of the original author" is the key distinction. Can you tell me whether an article that goes through the Wikipedia:Articles for creation is now "grey literature"? AFC is "some form of formal review process independent of the original author".

For another scenario, imagine that I run the advertising department for a large consumer-goods manufacturer. I hire three ad agencies to produce a 30-second commercial spot. I will put them all through "some form of formal review process independent of the original author" and run the best one during the Super Bowl. Does my advertisement now become "grey literature"? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:53, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I was really intending for more people to edit it before anyone actually tried to use it, but... well... Wikipedia isn't a traditional publisher, so by conventional definitions it could be considered grey literature. The current footnote in SPS also has validating the reliability of the content, so that should probably be added, though I think I've been overly focused on what the policy currently says. I am actually inclined to merge the well established reputation part from the second sentence into the first one (so only review processes that have a positive reputation for validating reliability are considered sufficient, and everything else would fall under the minimal or no in the last sentence). Alpha3031 (t • c) 02:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is self-published. You publish your changes, and I publish mine. That's why the big blue button says "Publish".

I don't think the current footnote is the best we can do. For example, "validating the reliability of the content" uses words the conflict with our jargon (WP:Reliability), and it's also not an activity universally undertaken by traditional publishers. (How exactly does one "validate the reliability" of a book of poetry, or a fantasy novel? And yet we cite such works, and not exclusively in WP:PLOTSUM sections.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I just took a look at what GreyNet considers grey literature, and others might also want to do that, since the draft RfC is worded in terms of grey literature. The goal of that list is not to distinguish self-published from non-self-published, and it strikes me as a mistake to frame the issue around grey literature generally being SPS or generally being non-SPS. The two options also seem to boil down to text that's already in footnote 1 for WP:SPS: "Self-published material is characterized by the lack of independent reviewers (those without a conflict of interest) validating the reliability of the content." If that's the WP determinant for non-SPS, then it shouldn't be in a footnote, and WP:SPS should make it clearer that (1) some kinds of publications (e.g., newsletters, books, website content) might or might not be self-published, depending on the nature of the editorial oversight, and (2) a given organization might create both SPS and non-SPS content (e.g., both unedited podcasts and edited reports), so the WP editor's task is to assess whether a specific source is/isn't SPS rather than whether a larger entity (e.g., a university website, the federal government, an advocacy organization) is/isn't SPS. WP editors are still faced with figuring out whether there are independent reviewers validating a source's reliability; some cases will be obvious and others won't. FactOrOpinion (talk) 23:56, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, it's better than many RFCs I've seen already.

The advice I'd give is that the most useful and actionable RFCs propose specific wordings of a specific section of a page, and usually a short section. So keep in mind where this text would actually go.

Personally, what I'd propose is replacing the first two sentences of WP:SPS with (changes bolded):

Anyone can create a personal web page, self-publish a book, or claim to be an expert. That is why material published without independent editorial review such as books, patents, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, personal or group blogs (as distinguished from newsblogs, above), content farms, podcasts, Internet forum postings, and social media postings are largely not acceptable as sources.

and then also add the following section:

Advocacy organizations

Some sources are written by political parties, think-tanks, or other organizations with a clear agenda. Whether these sources are self-published depends on whether the organization has done independent editorial review on the source, in the same manner a WP:NEWSORG would fact-check an article before publication. Even if it has, assume material put out by an advocacy organization is WP:BIASED and attribute it.

Loki (talk) 22:01, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

Your first suggestion has a syntax problem (it inadvertently defines books, etc. as being material published without independent editorial review). It also doesn't address some editors' uncertainty over whether "independent editorial review" applies to ordinary newspaper models. Is the review really "independent" if the journalist/author and the editor/reviewer both get paid by the same entity?

For the second, although it addresses the "independent editorial review" problem (at least partially; hopefully sufficiently), I don't think it's helpful to define them as non-self-published. If the goal is greater internal consistency, then I think we want a system like this:

• Self-published means what it says in the dictionary: one person/group writes it, and the same person/group controls whether it is made available to the public – but traditional publishers are exempt.
• Traditional publishers either work like a mid-century book publisher (the author mails in a manuscript, the publisher rejects it) or like a traditional news org (the publisher/publication hires editors and journalists; the editor assigns stories; the journalist writes them; the editor and publisher/publication representatives decide whether to publish what the journalist wrote) or like a peer-reviewed organization (authors submit papers; editors send papers for external review and uses that information to decide which ones to publish).
• Any entity that editors believe is behaving like a traditional publisher is non-self-published (per explicit exemption in the definition). Note that most traditional publishers have both non-self-published content (e.g., the book, the news article) and self-published content (e.g., marketing materials, investor relations reports, advertising rate sheets).

I think this is internally consistent. The next problem will be editors claiming that almost all corporate and political/campaign materials are non-self-published, because They Have an Editorial Process. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:20, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

It seems to me that what you're essentially proposing is to create a whitelist of acceptable publishing methods (essentially, news organizations, book publishers, and academic journals) and declare everything that isn't published via one of those models self-published, or at least to be presumed to be self-published. Would that be correct? That is to say, can you think of anything that isn't published via one of those models that you would consider not self-published? If that's the case, it might be possible to word this proposal more succinctly. Personally, I would focus more on potential conflicts of interests among reviewers - I don't think that a publication by a think-tank becomes a RS just because they structure it like a magazine, book, or newspaper. It's ultimately the existence of editorial controls and fact-checking capable of producing a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy that defines an RS; my reading of policy has always been that SPS is a category of non-RS, ie. a way in which a source might lack these things. That key point (they need a reputation) is what bars rando political organizations from just saying "look, we have an editorial process!" while having it be fatally flawed. I do think that there should be a harsher presumption that think-tanks, advocacy orgs, and so on lack a functional process, but if it's unambiguous that they have a reputation for one then we can't override that by splitting hairs with categories. I also don't really agree with the "plain english meaning" argument about SPS; to me, the normal English meaning of SPS only really refers to individuals publishing things themselves and is therefore not useful to us. No one would normally refer to anything else as being "self-published" outside of Wikipedia. I believe that that is what was intended and envisioned when SPS was written - ie. one individual crank throwing out newsletters, not organizations. I don't think that we should necessarily confine ourselves to that but it's important to keep in mind. --Aquillion (talk) 14:36, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

my reading of policy has always been that SPS is a category of non-RS

I think it is not generally reliable. So something with an external publisher likely starts from a presumption of reliability until demonstrated otherwise by lack of independence, poor fact checking etc, while something self-published starts from the other end but can be demonstrated reliable given sufficient expertise and track record, USEBYOTHERS etc.

In practice I think the burden of evidence and direction of travel is different, but not insurmountable - with the sole exception of 3rd party BLP claims, which remain the preserve of traditional publishing because of the sensitivity of the subject. Void if removed (talk) 17:58, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The point behind WP:SPS is to define the situations in which a self-published source actually is reliable. The canonical example is that if Einstein posted something on his blog about physics, that would be a usable/reliable source. It wouldn't be as good of a source as a peer-reviewed paper saying the same thing, but still: Einstein is a previously published subject-matter expert, and it would be possible to use it.

I do think that the main problem here is that humans do a poor job of separating components. Just like WP:Primary does not mean bad, self-published does not mean bad. We look at multiple characteristics in a source, including the context of the sentence/claim it's being used to support, to determine whether a source is desirable. Just like a primary source can sometimes be the best source, a self-published source is sometimes highly reliable for the sentence/claim we're supporting.

But because of our WP:UPPERCASE culture, we have taught editors not to say "Eh, I don't think that's such a good source; we should probably avoid that", and instead to spew a bunch of shortcuts to "prove" that WP:THE WP:SOURCE WP:IS WP:BAD WP:PER WP:POLICY. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

WAID:

1) You again misrepresent the definition of "self publishing". You previously claimed that "traditional" was in the dictionary definition, and you were immediately shown that was false. Once again here's Miriam Webster [7]. (Publish [a written work] using one's own resources). "Traditional" is not there. You then produced a few dictionaries none of which even say "traditional". So what this should say is not your made up terminology, rather, something like:

'Self publishing is where a writer (or creator of work) uses their own resources to publish (such as through social media, gathering a group to publish, or paying to be published (as with a self-publishing company or printer). Examine sourcing through WP:SOURCE: all sources must be examined carefully and in compliance with all policy. If there is dispute about a source, seek consensus. [Don't use self-published sources in BLPs, etc]'

2) So, then you really revealed where "traditional" comes from, a few what look like weak blogs selling self-publishing or pushing self-publishing services (eg. [8], and they don't even support your made up claims: they seem in context to use "traditional", as 'not the business of self-publishing,' and 'self-publishing' as, 'a business where you pay and have control over the publishing of your work.'

3) So, you take the word "traditional" like a logical fallacy as argument from authority and make it up. (In your essay, you also seem to misrepresent the University of Chicago source: 'Any site that does not have a specific publisher or sponsoring body should be treated as unpublished or self-published work.' The Foundations (like Mac Arthur Foundation), Coca Cola, the university, and think tanks, and governments have specific sites they sponsor and are publisher for (and for example, we use Mac Arthur's website, all over the place for BLPs).

4) Finally, you ignore facts: liability fixes the fact that it is a corporation (what you call traditional or not) that is generally the publisher, it is the corporation that has control and pays, and that is at risk as the publisher, for example in claims of defamation.

5) I totally get the impulse to restrict all sourcing to WP:BESTSOURCES, and perhaps I would even be up for doing that. But that's not done by making up our own definition self-publishing, and traditional, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:01, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

See the dictionary definitions:

• "publish (a book etc.) oneself rather than through a publishing house" – The Canadian Oxford Dictionary
• "to arrange and pay for your own book to be published, rather than having it done by a publisher" – Cambridge Dictionary

What do you suppose the dictionary writers mean by "a publishing house", if not the sort of business typically and even "traditionally" involved in the word of publication? Do you think that "rather than having it done by a publisher" includes posting the content online without the involvement of an external organization? I don't.

The absence of the exact words "traditional publisher" from most dictionary definitions does not mean that they're saying corporate PR departments are "publishing houses". It is true that I tend to WP:Use our own words when not providing direct quotations; I recommend that practice to all editors, especially in the mainspace.

Legal liability says that a gossipy old woman is also the "publisher" of whatever slander she spreads. But you are a publisher in copyright terms when you put something in a fixed form and make it available to the public, even if you are not legally liable for it. IMO copyright is a more relevant legal model for Wikipedia than libel laws. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Dictionary definitions are problematic sources here, because self-publishing companies are very clearly publishers, and yet the point of the term "self-published" is to separate them from the normal method of publishing things.

What we're actually doing here is trying to extend a word that has an ordinary and sensible meaning when limited to the world of books to all possible sources, and consequently creating jargon that is not present anywhere else on the internet. So it's up to us, and not the dictionary, to decide what that jargon means. Loki (talk) 18:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

That's simply not true, self-publishing as opposed to having a publisher is a commonly understood distinction across all kinds of media. Void if removed (talk) 18:37, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Self-publishing companies are clearly not publishers, as they have no say in whether the content gets made available to the public. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Also, some including WAID seem really concerned about corporations for example, publishing about themselves, but they then do something that makes no sense, from any policy standpoint, they really, really must define that, the corporation talking about themselves, as 'self published'. No, you don't, it makes no difference. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:25, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Copyright is a poor model for determining whether something is self-published or not. By default, the author holds the copyright even when it is published by some other entity. The default doesn't apply if it is a work made for hire, or if a contract is agreed to transferring copyright to the publisher. But there is no universal policy about whether the author transfers copyright to the publisher or not. It used to be customary for academic papers that the author retained the copyright when an article was published in a journal. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:04, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jc3s5h, I think copyright is a better model than libel law, and in particular, copyright recognizes a distinction between published and unpublished content, and that there is a specific publication date that divides the two. Somebody does something on that date to make the copyrighted material become published. Whoever is doing that 'something' is the publisher. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

If I understand @Void if removed: correctly, it would have been the duty of whoever added, to the article Epoch (computing) this source:

• Chen, Raymond (6 March 2009). "Why is the Win32 epoch January 1, 1601?". The Old New Thing. MSDN Blogs.

to consider the article self-published because it's published by a corporation which is not exclusively involved in publishing. Then, the WP:V policy would require that Raymond Chen's "work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable, independent publications."

This extra burden would be placed upon the poor editor even though millions of people rely every day on Microsoft publications to figure out how Microsoft products work. Jc3s5h (talk) 21:00, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Why is that an issue? It's obviously self published, and obviously usable. To be clear, that's straightforward WP:ABOUTSELF IMO.Void if removed (talk) 21:16, 2 November 2024 (UTC)