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RfC: Sources for Muhammad

These two sources, among many others, are currently being used in the Muhammad article.

• Rodgers, Russ (2012). The Generalship of Muhammad: Battles and Campaigns of the Prophet of Allah. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-3766-0.
• Rodinson, Maxime (2021) [1961]. Muhammad. NYRB Classics. Translated by Carter, Anne. New York Review of Books. ISBN 978-1-68137-493-2.

Should both be replaced with other sources, thereby deeming these two sources unreliable? — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 05:46, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - Russ Rodgers' book is published by the University Press of Florida, and our WP:OR policy states that "Books published by university presses" are among "the most reliable sources." Rodgers is the command historian of the US Army and an adjunct professor of history. There are currently only two biographies of Muhammad written by military historians: this Russ Rodgers' book and Richard A. Gabriel's book published by the University of Oklahoma Press. I believe their perspectives are crucial given that Muhammad's life after moving to Medina was filled with battles, including the Battle of Badr (which was demoted from featured article status, apparently in part due to a lack of sources from military historians [1]). Rodgers' book has also been cited and reviewed positively by various other reliable sources [2] (not just random blogspots or websites). As for Maxime Rodinson, he was for many years a professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études at the Sorbonne and, after working several years in Syria and Lebanon, supervised the Muslim section of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris [3]. Some reviews of his book include [4] [5]. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 05:58, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I think these sources are RS per wikipedia's definitions. If anything, attribution would help to put some context if not an obvious claim. Ramos1990 (talk) 06:02, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with these sources. University of Florida Press and New York Review of Books are highly reliable sources. Vegan416 (talk) 10:37, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

New York Review of Books was not the original publisher of Rodinson.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:11, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Comment: Any claim that appears exclusively in one of these two books should not be included in the article without in-line attribution. These are popular works that don't generally engage with primary sources; there is no reason to believe that they make unique claims because of unique information. Muhammad is the subject of thousands of books. Very rarely is it productive to discuss claims in terms of their sourcing in such an article, because anything that deserves inclusion will be replicated across many valid options. You guys seem to be fighting over specific content. Each conflict should be an RFC on the Muhammad talk page (post notices wherever) with however many sources, arguments exist for each side. Don't waste everyone's time trying to win narrow and presumably well-sourced content disputes by end-running on process. GordonGlottal (talk) 13:44, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

The UF Press book doesn’t look like a pop-history coffee table book. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 01:57, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Muhammad was a historical figure, like Napoleon, Buddha, Constantine, Joan of Arc. As such, the highest quality material we should be using are academic books published by historians because they are written by experts, and go through extensive peer review, and are written a very neutral and factual manner. Thus they typically represent the best sources. If you look at FA quality pages on figures such as al-Musta'li or Theodosius III they extensively use university press published works. The second book is published by the New York Review of Books, which is a publisher I am less familiar with and am not sure about the quality, but it appears to be less academic. So it may present slanted information. On any article with any kind of hotly debated or controversial topic, we should rely more on the highest quality sources (typically academic books by university presses) more and more. Harizotoh9 (talk) 07:03, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think New York Review of Books or New York Review Books was the original publisher of Muhammad, that was probably something French. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:01, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Close RfC We have absolutely no context on why the books might be unreliable at the first place. I have read Rodinson and his views, though scholarly, are now-antiquated; so, it becomes a question of DUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 10:54, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Replace - Russ Rodgers is a U.S. army military historian and not an Islamicist or any authority on Islamic studies. The University Press of Florida is indeed a reliable source but as Harizotoh9 noted, we should use the highest-quality sources as possible. Rodgers' most famous book is Nierstein and Oppenheim 1945 about World War II and he has written only around 3 books related to Islam. As i highlighted on the article's talk page, people like David Bukay (an Israeli political scientist who is known to be an anti-Arab and Islamophobic person), Russ Rodgers (a U.S. Army military historian), Ram Swarup (an Indian leader of the Hindu revivalist movement), William E. Phipps (a ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) are nowhere close to WP:RS. This article should contain the work of classical Islamicists and Orientalists such as W. Montgomery Watt. I'm actually surprised how dedicated orientalists like Watt have so less citations now than people like Bukay, Rodgers etc. FA articles such as Khalid ibn al-Walid, Amr ibn al-As, Mu'awiya I, Yazid I, all of whom are controversial figures between Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, but nevertheless these articles are written neutrally neither from a Shia point of view nor a Sunni point of view and having reliable orientalists and Islamicists such as Fred Donner, Wilferd Madelung, Meir Jacob Kister, Patricia Crone, Hugh N. Kennedy, R. Stephen Humphreys and not anti-Arab political scientists, Hindu revivalists or U.S. military historians. ProudRafidi (talk) 11:33, 14 June 2024 (UTC) Sockstrike ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 21:49, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment. As others have said, the New York Review of Books is not the original publisher of Rodinson. The book was originally published in French in 1961 and subsequently published in English (translation by Anne Carter). The New York Review of Books has reprinted the book. I've updated the citation to clarify the situation. I can't speak to its reliability, but sixty years is a long time in academic publishing on a major topic. Mackensen (talk) 11:41, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
• These sources have been the subject of contention since late 2023. For context for those unfamiliar, back in 2023, Kaalakaa decided to rewrite the Muhammad article, using primarily the two books mentioned in this RfC for references. On the talkpage, the reaction to Kaalakaa's rewrite and to these sources has been mixed to say the least. I don't really think anybody other than Kaalakaa would object if the article was reworked to rely less on or remove these sources, but the fundamental issue is that nobody seems to be able/willing to do this (I don't feel comfortable doing this due to lacking in depth knowledge of the source material) leading to people just arguing in circles. Does anyone have recommendations for recent up to date scholarly biographies of Muhammad? Hemiauchenia (talk) 12:07, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

@Nourerrahmane, M.Bitton, and R. Prazeres: might have thoughts. Elinruby (talk) 12:48, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Bad RFC This completely ignores both the instructions in the noticeboard header and the edit notice. Discussions should take place before starting an RFC. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:57, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  Discussions have taken place, examples include

  • Talk:Muhammad/Archive_34#Suspect_sources
  • Talk:Muhammad#Maxime_Rodinson_is_not_a_valid_source
  • Talk:Muhammad/Archive_34#Russ_Rogers_statements
  • Talk:Muhammad#Revise_the_sources

  An rfc doesn't seem like a glaringly WP-bad idea. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:21, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  Sure, but no discussions at this board. Selfstudier (talk) 13:24, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  Is that a "must"? Anyway, Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_413#Sources_for_Muhammad. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 13:29, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  That's better, still, looking at that and then this, seems more like a discussion that ought to be at the article talk page, along the lines of what are WP:BESTSOURCES for the subject. Selfstudier (talk) 13:59, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

  This matches my opinion, this appears to be about what sources to use and what content should be included in the article.
  Also the question of this RFC Should both be replaced with other sources, thereby deeming these two sources unreliable? is a non sequitur, using different sources in the article would not 'deem' these sources as unreliable. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:33, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

• Discussion of sources by all means, don't need an RFC for that.Selfstudier (talk) 13:20, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment Russ Rodgers' claims "about military history" may or may not be reliable (since he's a military historian), but whatever he has to say about other scholarly subjects regarding Muhammad is obviously irrelevant. Maxime Rodinson's book was published in 1961, which makes it unsuitable for claims that have since been superseded and redundant for everything else. M.Bitton (talk) 17:19, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
• Replace Rodgers because it's a WP:FRINGE source. The OP is the only person in past discussions on Talk:Muhammad who considers the Rodgers book reliable, because he assumes, wrongly, that merely being published by a university press is a rubber-stamp of reliability, and that parroting the words from WP:OR is justification for including it. That is emphatically not the case. While publication by a university press is a good indicator of reliability, it is by no means infallible, because University presses can and do publish fringe views deliberately. This is one example. Rodgers is the only source available for certain extraordinary claims about Muhammad, and extraordary claims require extraordinary evidence, such as multiple corroborating sources. He seems to be more of a hobbyist author with an interest in history, and his book is ignored by academia with very few citations to that book. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anachronist (talk • contribs) 23:21, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

  Just for an information, @Hydrangeans appears to have shown that @Anachronist's essay above contradicts the sources used in it [6]. And @Just Step Sideways and @AndyTheGrump agree that the essay "belongs in user space" [7][8]. @AndyTheGrump also put @Anachronist's understanding of WP:FRINGE into question [9]. Furthermore, if one looks at the article, many statements cited to Rodgers also have supporting sources. Moreover, that Rodgers' book has also been cited and reviewed positively by various other reliable sources [10] [11] (not just random blogspots or websites). So this seems to be yet another instance of @Anachronist misunderstanding our policies and guidelines, aside from what has been listed here. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 08:13, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  What Kaalakaa conveniently omitted, is that the essay's assessment of Rodgers is based on past community discussion (now cited in the essay), which showed a clear concensus summarized in that essay. Kaalakaa is the only editor promoting that source, for the sole reason that it's published by a university press, which that essay demonstrates shouldn't be considered a rubber stamp of reliability. ~Anachronist (talk) 17:55, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: it is important to distinguish three kinds of reporting in these, and all other sources about the prophet Muhammad:
  • Objective statements that are not disputed (eg Muhammad ordered raids on Meccan caravans)
  • Objective statements that are disputed (eg Muhammad recited the satanic verses)
  • Subjective statements (any statement that seeks to pass any kind of judgement on Muhammad)
• It goes without saying any statements that fall in the latter two categories should always be attributed and not stated in wikivoice. Whether these statements belong in the main article Muhammad, or subarticles like Criticism of Muhammad depends on weight and editorial discretion about what constitutes encyclopedic material.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 03:41, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

  • Comment: On the second kind of report, It does seem like Rodgers at times misrepresented the primary sources he quotes. One example is, On page 145, he uses a statement by members of Banu Qurayza:

  "We have no treaty with Muhammad"

  as proof that no treaty had taken place. His source was Sirat Ibn Ishaq page 453. But when actually reviewing Sirat Ibn Ishaq, it is made clear that this was a satirical statement. To use it as actual historic proof for his narrative seems quite like deliberate distortion. QcTheCat (talk) 06:47, 16 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose - vague RFC, no specified flaws and no proposed edits shown - WP should mention all the major views and these appear to be prominent ones. The RFC has just not shown an article cite where any of the WP:RS principles are deficient, let alone such sweeping removal for 100+ cites, nor any basis to believe there are replacements for those 100+ cites. For example, in one place is a mention that Rodgers infers something and in that WP:RSCONTEXT it seems obvious that a Rodgers book is the best cite. Without reasons to change and without actual edits proposed I'd say clearly no. Try one-by-one and not a vague unfounded want. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:46, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Rodgers' views are far from "prominent", in fact they stand out as extraordinary claims unsupported by other sources. ~Anachronist (talk) 01:15, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose. I'd have to read both books, and be more familiar with general scholarship about Muhammad, to really have a strong opinion. But the books both have the imprimatur of respectable publishing houses. They look very usable. Even if they express minority-held views, they're still of value, because showing our readers multiple scholarly points of view on Muhammad is a good thing, not a bad thing. If the concern is that the books are over-cited in the Muhammad article, I think it's better to achieve due balance by adding more sources, or by putting more information in the article from previously-cited sources, not by removing sources. Pecopteris (talk) 01:40, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

• With respect only to the Rodgers source, the author bio blurbed by the publisher got me wondering what being a "command historian for the US Army" means, which led me to this quaint 1990s era autoethnography, which indicates that for the most part they're history PhDs and only some are mentally handicapped. I didn't find many reviews of Rodgers 2012, but this one by a self-described "Islamicist" found it impressive and better than expected if sometimes speculative, and specifically praised its incorporation of hadith materials. The Rodgers source is TWL-accessible via Project Muse, and while the ten-page bibliography feels scant at first blush, apparently the entire enterprise is a more accessible extension of an earlier Rodgers work, Fundamentals of Islamic Asymmetric Warfare (2008), which according to the publisher's blurbed reviews, has excellent sourcing, which we can believe the author did not forget about entirely in the course of the production of the 2012 book.
  Having said that, this whole RFC feels off, with a framing intended to produce blanket approval for the sources listed, where the issue in practice appears to be an imbalance of sourcing (my bystander take, having not edited articles citing these sources, unless perhaps in forgotten gnoming). Add to that an arbcom case request (my route to here) filed by the RFC initiator against an editor who has taken issue with the use of these sources, and my feeling is mostly bad RFC. Folly Mox (talk) 11:24, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

  Oh incidentally I was not able to confirm anything about University Press of Florida's peer review process a decade and a half ago, although Internet Archive have a fairly complete snapshot of the site at that time. The earliest snapshot of their editorial board is from 2021. Then, as now, they have several historians on the board, including at least one named chair, which I always like to visualise as a literal named chair. Of course, that any of them concentrate in mediaeval Islamic texts is an improbability, but anyway I'm not sure if I have a point to make. Folly Mox (talk) 12:01, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

  For clarity, the self-described "Islamicist" is John Walbridge, professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment There are plenty of academics who devote their careers to studying Muhammad, and even more historical specialists in the field of the Middle East in Late Antiquity. Russ Rodgers is not one of them. His work seems to be well-regarded, so it's probably good to use for the narrow field of analyzing Muhammad's military command, but little else. I wouldn't call it unreliable, but it's overused in our current article. The Rodinson source shouldn't be used at all. Historical knowledge and methods have changed a lot since 1961, there's no reason to use a source that old except in the few fields where nothing more recent has been published. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 09:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: While I raise my eyebrow at Anachronist's circular skepticism of university presses, starting this RFC seems pointy, in the sense of trying to score a point and 'shore up' OP's defense of Rodgers's book rather than seeking resolution to a question. I share Red Rock Canyon's sense that citations to Rodgers and Rodinson are overrepresented. Rodgers's' Generalship was relatively well-reviewed in H-Net, by John Walbridge, but military history is just one aspect of the topic's life. Walbridge's own review notes that Generalship is inattentive to the religious dimensions of the subject, which is frankly something that needs to be front and center in Wikipedia's article, since the source's primary notability comes from his influence in religion and status as the prophet of Islam. Military history in general seems overrepresented, with Richard Gabriel's Islam's First Great General also being cited more than 30 times. As is, there are very relevant authors who are minimally cited or entirely uncited. Only two citations to anything written by Karen Armstrong, for instance, one of the classic biographer's in English?
  As for Rodinson's book, religious studies has changed a lot since 1961. A historian or biographer's in-depth study might cite Rodinson in order to understand the historiography over time, but for Wikipedia's encyclopedic overview purposes, we really should be citing something much less outdated. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 19:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for your comment, Hydrangeans. However, one thing to note is that Muhammad's life is divided into two periods: his life in Mecca and in Medina. The Medina period is when reports about his life are clearer and more organized, because it was after he moved to that city that he gained many more followers, particularly from the Banu Khazraj and Banu Aws. His life in that city was filled with battles, so much so that he was reported to have ordered raids at least 95 times on trade caravans and surrounding tribes. It was also during this time that the major battles with the Quraysh (Battle of Badr, Battle of Uhud, Battle of the Trench) and the Jews (Siege of Banu Qaynuqa, Invasion of Banu Nadir, Siege of Banu Qurayza, Battle of Khaybar) occurred. That is why many statements are cited to military historians like Rodgers. Regarding Karen Armstrong, there have been several discussions questioning her, primarily seemingly because Karen only majored in English, which is unrelated to the topic [12][13][14]. Some even argue that if Karen Armstrong is used, then Robert B. Spencer should also be used [15][16][17]. It might also be worth noting that Kecia Ali, in her book The Lives of Muhammad, published by Harvard University Press, around pages 189-190, points out that Karen Armstrong references a primary source, Tabari, for a particular statement, but that statement does not align with what Tabari actually said [18][19]. Meanwhile, on page 270, Kecia Ali states, "A more measured assessment of Muhammad’s military skills can be found in Rodgers, The Generalship of Muhammad." Jonathan E. Brockopp, in his book Muhammad's Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities, 622–950, published by Cambridge University Press, on page 28, seems to classify Karen Armstrong among modern authors who "misrepresent the earliest period of Islam" by "downplay[ing] the confusion of the early community on how to be a Muslim." — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 01:28, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, there were plenty of battles in his life, but that doesn't mean there wasn't also plenty of religion. One might well say that, say, George Washington's life was filled with battles, before his presidency, but I'd consider an overemphasis of military history, over and against political history, in the George Washington article just as much of an issue.

  Fair enough that Armstrong doesn't have as many academic credentials as certain other authors, but it remains that her biography, A Prophet for Our Time, was published by a major mainstream publisher, HarperCollins. Meanwhile, Robert B. Spencer shouldn't be cited is because his axe-grinding interpretations aren't part of mainstream scholarly thought, weren't published by major mainstream publishers, and if incorporated into the article would likely violate WP:NPOV.

  Also, you bring up Kecia Ali and Jonathan Brockopp for a couple of errors on Armstrong's part; yet Ali is cited only once, and Brockopp only 6 times. If we can agree that Ali and Brockopp are academically published authors of WP:SCHOLARSHIP about the topic, why are they so underrepresented, especially compared to Rodinson's sixty-year-old book? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 17:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Kecia Ali's book, The Lives of Muhammad (note that the word used is not "life" in the singular but "lives" in the plural), does not discuss the life of Muhammad but rather the works of various authors, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who explore Muhammad's life. As for Brockopp's "Muhammad's Heirs: The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities," as the title suggests, it discusses "The Rise of Muslim Scholarly Communities." There are indeed many books about Muhammad, but those that specifically chronologically discuss his life from birth to death by reliable secular authors and publishers are very few, and the books by Rodgers, Rodinson, and Richard A. Gabriel are among them. Others generally only discuss specific aspects of his life (or other matters), like this book, which only discusses stories about Muhammad's meeting with a figure named Bahira. I am not saying that religiosity is not a part of Muhammad's life; I am saying that Muhammad's generalship is an important part of his life and the spread of his religion. If you look at the article (which is quite long), many other sources besides military historians are also cited for other statements. As I write this comment, the total citations in the article are 419, while the citations to Rodgers are 43. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 01:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks for quantifying the underlying issue, which was never one of reliability but always one of weight, dueness, onus and a hint of ECREE. There is no way Rodgers accounts for, or is owed by way of use by others, a one-tenth weighting within the corpus of relevant biographies. Nor is Glubb worthy of 30+ citations, or Rodinson 50+ citations. That's a quarter of the total referencing lent out to sources now at the margins of the body of modern scholarship. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Iskandar323 puts it well. 43 may be relatively few compared to 419, but that's some tenth of all sources cited. And with Rodinson cited over 50 times, more than 10% of all citations are coming from sixty-year-old scholarship! A source doesn't need to be a cradle-to-grave biography to be useful for the article (Generalship, for instance, isn't one such biography), and it may not even need to be book length. Surely there are peer-reviewed journal articles in Muslim history and religious studies that could and should be cited? Some partial biographies focusing on episodes of his life outside of wars and battles? Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 18:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Feel free, Hydrangeans, if you have sources as you described, to add them to the article. Rodgers and Richard A. Gabriel, unlike several other authors, provide citations for almost every one of their statements, whether it's to primary sources or other secondary sources, making it easy to verify whether their statements are extraordinary or not. Other sources that align with their statements are also given in the article as supporting sources. Actually, when one reads the scholarship about Muhammad, it is easy to see that the general view is that he is the founder of Islam, and that his religion spread as it did mostly because of his military strategy skills, not because of angelic assistance. So the truly extraordinary claim should be that Islam spread widely at that time because of angelic assistance, not because of Muhammad's generalship. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 23:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  It's not as if the only two choices are "military strategy skills" or "angelic assistance". The point isn't that there should be no reference to battles in the biography but that other aspects of his life also matter: the appeal of his religious ideals, institution building, personal dimensions, etc. You speak of reading the scholarship, so I trust that between us you would be the one familiar with more recent sources than Rodinson, and less militarily focused ones than Rodgers. You asked this board for feedback on these sources, and you're receiving it. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 00:26, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Yes, and I think those other aspects have more or less been covered, with sources also besides military historians, in my last version of the article (not sure about now, as there seem to have been some deletions and changes for various reasons). However, if you believe it is still lacking, as I mentioned before, feel free to add to it using the sources you previously described. We can't convey some expressions or intonations through text, but I appreciate your comments, as well as others' comments above and those to come. Thank you. :) — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 01:26, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  I have no problem with Russ Rodgers being used in the article. The problem is with the standard of reliability. Since Rodgers is reliable because his work was published by a University press, then sources such as Brown, Ramadan, Serjeant, Watt, Eposito and all the others should be reliable too. And as you said before, if WP:CHOPSY is not relevant, then the reason you provided that these sources "seem to parrot Muslim sources" would also not relevant. QcTheCat (talk) 10:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks, but this section pertains to the RfC for the two sources listed above. If you want to discuss other sources, feel free to open a new section. If you wish to push for the wording "Banu Qurayza broke their treaty with Muhammad" without attributing the statement to Muhammad or Islamic sources, please open a new section in WP:NPOVN. I will refrain from commenting on those two matters here because it would be off-topic. — Kaalakaa ^(talk) 02:43, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

  Section for Banu Qurayza is now on WP:NPOV Noticeboard Here QcTheCat (talk) 15:06, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

• Must use opinions with attribution. Kaalakaa seems to have been using these two sources to push a POV. Reading these sources, it does seem they are at least WP:BIASED. That bias doesn't make them unreliable, but we can't state them in wikivoice either. For example, on page 104 alone Gabriel criticized Muhammad: "[Muhammad's] hatred of poets was well known", "Muhammad hired his own poets to spread his propaganda among the tribes" and "killed on Muhammad’s order...These killings were political murders carried out for ideological reasons or personal revenge." Kaalakaa then proceeds to add at least one of these claims in wikivoice, and this is a violation of WP:NPOV. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 10:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Non serious RSN. These are undoubtedly important sources that offer insightful information on Muhammad's life and the early days of Islam.

• Rodgers (2012), Russell. Muhammad's Generalship: The Prophet of Allah's Wars and Expeditions. This book examines Muhammad's leadership techniques and strategies from a military point of view. Understanding the conflicts and campaigns that molded the early Muslim community can benefit much from it. But it's crucial to remember that this is only one particular perspective on Muhammad's life, and that other sources might provide a different analysis.

• Maxime Rodinson (2021) [1961]. Muhammad. This is a classic biography of Muhammad that was translated into English after it was first published in French. It seeks to provide an informed and impartial account of Muhammad. ND61F (talk) 08:44, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: The Times of India

What is the reliability of The Times of India?

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

-- Amigao (talk) 22:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

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

Survey (The Times of India)

• Option 3 There's nothing to indicate the prior issues with paid coverage and bias have been cleared up, and the Munger article indicated a considerable lack of fact-checking - if it's AI-published, that's a cardinal sin of news media. The Kip ^(contribs) 22:55, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

  I've removed my "/4" with respect to it being a paper of record, but I'm sticking at 3 - regardless of how widely-read it is, AI generation and/or poor fact-checking don't speak to reliability. The Kip ^(contribs) 07:12, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 Times of India is the world's largest English-language newspaper, and the largest in India. It is has some occasional problems, but there has been no systematic evaluation to show the problem is so severe as to eliminate 10s of thousands of citations on Enwiki. Most ToI links predate ChatGPT. -- GreenC 00:59, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 As per GreenC.The Times of India has been published since 1838 and it is a Newspaper of Record there are only 2 Indian newspapers which can claim so.It has been India's most reliable newspaper for large part of the time. It is politically neutral not aligned to the right or the left unlike most other Indian newspapers. There are occasional problems, but there has been no systematic evaluation to show the problem is so severe as to eliminate 10s of thousands of citations on English Wiki.It is also India's most trusted English newspaper.Pharaoh of the Wizards (talk) 01:53, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

  Our article on TOI gives examples of promoting political coverage in exchange for pay--they may not have an explicit partisan affiliation to any one political party, but that doesn't mean they're neutral. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 This is an invaluable source. As other editors said, it's the largest English-language newspaper in the world, and the largest in India. I'd have to see a lot more bad things from them to consider option 3, and option 4 is completely off the table for me. Pecopteris (talk) 04:16, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 I have to echo the above. Its usually been fairly good with its standard of reporting given its status but it does appear that recently there have been a few AI articles that have slipped under the editorial radar. Certainly nothing major to warrant depreciation but it is something worth keeping an eye on. The C of E God Save the King! (talk) 06:25, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 In the previous RfC the TOI was judged to be somewhere between Option 2 and Option 3, mainly because of its poor fact-checking and the fact that it regularly runs paid advertorials and sponsored content that are not admitted to be as such (see The_Times_of_India#Paid_news). None of this appears to have improved at all, and when you add the issue of AI content into the mix then I can't see how it can be trusted, certainly for anything contentious. Black Kite (talk) 09:26, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• It's cases like this where I wish there was an option 21⁄2. Broadly speaking it is definitely pushing limits (in a bad way), but does not fit very well into the definition of general unreliability for some of the reasons laid out above. I think leaving it in option 2 and assessing case-by-case makes better sense, though perhaps some sort of GUNREL post-X year should be considered. Curbon7 (talk) 09:46, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3 I don't think it puts past citations in danger or requires deprecation, but the embrace AI when combined with the other problems puts it "over the top" for me. I would endorse Curbon's idea just above me about post-X year, but we'd have to debate just what X should equal, and until that's sorted out, I prefer discretion. CoffeeCrumbs (talk) 16:15, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2/3 - I agree with the general criticisms that have been voiced by others. The paper may be a historic paper-of-record in India, but as documented by our Wikipedia article about it, it's also arguably a big part of why English-language press in India is so terrible, whether through its embrace of corrupt pay-for-play practices or through anti-competitive pricing that drove away its competition (and now it's adding AI to the mix, apparently). In a sense it's a free-market mirror image of the situation we end up in with Xinhua--it's one of the best major journalistic sources in the country, but that doesn't mean it's actually reliable or impartial to the extent that we would generally expect a newspaper of record to be. I have primarily encountered TOI's coverage of the Indian entertainment industry, and its average article on such topics is abysmal to such a degree that their content is typically indistinguishable from PR. That having been said, due to its readership, its opinions and perspectives will likely be DUE in many contexts to a degree that arguably outstrips its reliability for Wikivoice claims. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 for the time being, retaining the current considerations. It has many faults but also has useful uncontroversial content as well, imv Atlantic306 (talk) 18:29, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. The Times of India has a history of dodgy fact-checking, but hasn't quite sunken into tabloid territory. I think it's an alright source for uncontroversial information. However, it should not be used for anything contentious that isn't independently backed up. Cortador (talk) 18:37, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. It has some dodgy qualities, which should be assessed on a case-by-case basis. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:56, 18 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3, leaning Option 4. If they can't even be bothered to do a simple fact check about Munger currently being alive or not, I'm not sure why we'd even use them as a source at this point. I understand they're the large newspaper as explained, but this is getting silly. They've almost fallen to the level of tabloid media where they make up stories about Elvis being alive. AI generation (declared or not) being published as fact is shameful. Oaktree b (talk) 01:06, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2/3. While many of its old articles are good, it has become pro-government in the recent years though it still published about a number of incidents which the ruling government may not like. I don't see any reason to change the current consensus for this outlet. Ratnahastin (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option #2 The consideration for verifiability is expertise and objectivity with respect to the text which cited it. Also in our system which has a flaw in this are, the same classification is used for wp:weight in wp:npov and so knocking a major source in this area would also create a POV distortion. Which leads to that I'm against nearly all blanket deprecations/ overgeneralizations. North8000 (talk) 10:51, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 The issues with undisclosed advertorials is already known and documented, an issue not confined to TOI or even the Indian news media. The AI issue becomes another problem to watch for, but I don't think it's enough to mark all it's content as unreliable. Caution should be used, and articles evaluated on a case by case basis. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:35, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  Markets for news media the world over are being squeezed, so AI and the more profitable types of advertising (such as undisclosed advertorials) are becoming more prevalent. It's something editors will need to keep in mind when evaluating such sources, and make sure to double check anything exceptional or unexpected. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 Generally unreliable but tending to deprecated. I had been reading this paper regularly since before "paid news" came into vogue. Now I do not find it reliable at all. It is definitely not fit to be a Wikipedia reliable source. Chaipau (talk) 16:25, 19 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Yes TOI has issues, but the recurring problems with sponsored content are addressed in WP:RSNOI. This is a singular example of possible AI generated reporting, and although irresponsible on TOIs part, I don't think its cause for deprecation. We should monitor as part of larger efforts to reel in AI reporting in news media (as has been discussed many times on this noticeboard). Schwinnspeed (talk) 02:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3. I hate that it's come to this because we're basically screwing over a country of 1 billion people. I doubt the issue is "AI" in general; any decent large-language model can rewrite a news article while keeping the facts intact. Contrast the Times of India, which has consistently been unable to do that even before LLMs became commonplace. If the Times of India is using "AI", their complete disregard of quality means they've decided OpenAI's $1.50 for 1 million tokens (750,000 words) [20] is too expensive, which honestly is quite plausible.

Aside from that, the question I think we should be asking ourselves is whether it's better to have false information on a country of 1 billion people or no information at all. A vote for option 3 is "no information at all", and that's preferable since false information in one topic area ruins the credibility of the rest of the encyclopedia. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 02:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. The well documented issues with undisclosed advertorials should mean that we use the source with care. I don't see strong reasons for considering the source as unreliable. TarnishedPath^talk 13:16, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose Option 4 and this whole deprecation system (or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is). Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:46, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RfC "Option 4" deprecation ((or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is) should only be proposed as part of an RfC with a very good reason, it should not be a standard option on an RfC at this noticeboard. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3. There has been an ongoing issue with rampant paid coverage in Times of India, which wouldn't be considered reliable, and this problem has not abated. In fact, if TOI is now using AI to write articles, which in typical AI fashion would have a confident forthright and neutral journalistic tone while presenting bullshit, there's no good way to know what we're getting. The fact that it's the world's largest English-language newspaper is irrelevant if it cannot be trusted to be reliable. I would even lean to option 4 non-retroactively on a probationary basis. ~Anachronist (talk) 19:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 3: Undisclosed paid advert news articles, failure to fact-check that Robert Hale Jr. had become the late Charlie Munger as the main subject of their article, referencing Wikipedia articles. Just as The New Yorker described, the TOI does not worry about editorial independence and the poor quality of the journalism attracts the heaviest criticism.
  Size/distribution is independent to reliability. Very important newspaper, yes. Reliable newspaper, no. — MarkH₂₁^talk 19:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
  • In agreement with James500's point below, no problem with leaving pre-1950 Times of India as-is. All of these reliability issues are relatively recent. — MarkH₂₁^talk 20:52, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2. My belief is Option 3 based on what I have read in this discussion, as well as in their articles, but as Schwinnspeed explained, RSNOI actually covers all of these concerns regarding paid reporting. Personally I think this section of RSP should be reviewed, and possibly overturned, but not via an RfC over a single paper. The lack of disclosure requirement is extremely concerning, given it's more-or-less law to disclose advertising in some Western countries, but otherwise as I said this is a broader issue beyond ToI. CNC (talk) 19:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• In the absence of additional evidence, option 1 for information within the expertise of newspaper journalists in editions of TOI published before 1950. No evidence has been presented that there was any paid news at that time: In 2010, the Press Council of India said paid news had existed for six decades. Consideration should be given to any other content that appears to be unpaid, and which is not objectionable for some other policy based reason. The paid content is said to be marked as such, and TOI denies publishing "paid news", as opposed to clearly marked advertorials in supplements and Medianet. In any event this is covered by WP:RSNOI. The Times of India is said to be accurate: [21]. The "poor quality" comment in the New Yorker actually says that the paper changed at an unspecified point before 2002. What Fernandes says is "This wasn’t the paper I had idolized all my life", which appears to mean it was different in the past. The New Yorker says that "private treaties" began in 2005, and therefore are not an issue for earlier editions of the newspaper. According to the New Yorker, the Press Council says the newspaper changed from the 1980s. I could go further, but I do not see any evidence for the period before 1950. We should not downgrade the paper all the way back to 1838 unless we actually have evidence going back that far. James500 (talk) 16:19, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

  All of the arguments surrounding AI only make sense post-2021 when ChatGPT was released. I agree that we should limit the scope of this RfC. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 20:07, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2. WP:RSNOI covers the paid articles, which are supposedly marked as such. The Munger story is indeed concerning but still it's just one example. According to The Times of India article, BBC called them one of six world's best newspapers in 1991, so Option 1 for content generated before that. Alaexis_¿question? 11:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

  WP:RSNOI states that sponsored content often has "inadequate or no disclosure." Are paid TOI articles typically marked differently from unpaid articles? - Amigao (talk) 20:12, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 Ideally Option 4 They had a long history of using paid promotional editing that are open and openly disguised as journalistially written fact-checked articles when they haven't been and its been shown time and time again. I've came across it both Afd, extensively in the last 15 years and in AFC/NPP particularly. So much its beyond belief really. I vaguely remember it was one of the core reason that AFC was established. There is much of it, that I've no confidence that the average editor can tell the difference. It puts a unnecessary burden on these type of editors. It will do and has done lasting damage to Wikipedia. It should be deprecated. I don't like that WP:RSNOI clause. Never did. Its was and is sop to inaction and an appeal to inclusiveness, instead of taking action to address it at the time. The whole thing, something which is considered absolutely abnormal in the west, is unbelievable really, perhaps because its so pervasive. I think its probably linked to corruption somehow. scope_creep^Talk 17:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Flatly against any more restrictive overgeneralization. North8000 (talk) 20:24, 11 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 - One thing we are running into with film related articles are references falling under WP:NEWSORGINDIA and the TOI is being cited to support notability of topics. The issue is that many are not bylined articles and pure WP:CHURNALISM. I do not think it needs depreciated, but also do not feel that content mill type pieces should be used. Bylined references from actual journalists could be given consideration though. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:52, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (The Times of India)

@Amigao: Would you like to make this discussion a formal request for comment? If so, please apply the {{rfc}} template immediately under the section header per WP:RFCST, and place a copy of your signature immediately after the four options to ensure that the RfC statement is "neutral", per WP:RFCNEUTRAL. If not, please remove "RfC:" from the section heading. — Newslinger talk 22:27, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Done. Thanks, Newslinger - Amigao (talk) 22:48, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

Previous discussion here and at WP:TOI identified various issues with The Times of India. Mostly recently, on 31 May 2024, TOI published an article stating that the late Charlie Munger (who died in 2023) was alive and making donations. Whether AI-generated or not, there was no fact-checking going on here and the article remains live as of this time stamp. - Amigao (talk) 20:34, 17 June 2024 (UTC)

The Times of India article claims that the published information was obtained from "a report in the Insider". Assuming that refers to Business Insider (RSP entry), which was rebranded as Insider from 2021 to 2023, the corresponding Business Insider article is "Billionaire CEO gifts 1,200 UMass grads 'envelopes full of cash' totaling about $1.2 million — but there's a catch", which states that "Robert Hale Jr., the CEO of Granite Telecommunications", was the actual person who made the donation to University of Massachusetts Dartmouth graduates. Hale is also described as the donor by Associated Press (RSP entry), The Boston Globe, and many other outlets.

As an example of inaccurate reporting, this reflects very poorly on The Times of India. Munger's name is mentioned in the article 13 times and he was described as "the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway", which shows that there was no confusion about Munger's identity. The article looks like a hallucination from a large language model. I'd like to see if there are any more examples of this kind of error on TOI that establish a pattern of relying on AI-generated reporting. — Newslinger talk 00:54, 18 June 2024 (UTC) Edited 10:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Notified Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics — Newslinger talk 10:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Al Jazeera - factual errors

I reviewed about half of the 76 articles (excluding videos, opinion articles, and live updates) that Al Jazeera submitted under their Israel Palestine conflict tag during the past two weeks. I included every error I identified, regardless of significance:

1. Israel bombs Gaza school housing displaced Palestinians, kills at least 40 and US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school: Al Jazeera analysis

   Claimed that fourteen children were killed, as well as nine women. While this matches the initial figures put out by the the al-Aqsa hospital, this is false. The hospital issued an update hours later, correcting the figures to nine children and three women.

   The first of these articles was likely published before the update was issued, but we would expect a reliable source to issue a correction. Further, the second was published after the correction was issued, and after other reliable sources were able to publish articles with the correct figure.

2. Israel occupying Palestine echoes France colonising Algeria: Analysts

   Claims the Second Intifada started off largely nonviolent. This is false. It began on 28 September 2000 when Ariel Sharon visited Temple Mount, and on the first day 25 Israeli police officers were wounded, and least three Palestinians. The second day it escalated further, with widespread rioting that left seven Palestinians dead and three hundred wounded, along with 70 Israeli police officers.

3. Nuseirat, anatomy of Israel’s massacre in Gaza

   Claims that before fighting begun while Israeli forces were still moving into position Israel started bombing the area, hitting the busy market the hardest. They also say that the intent was likely to spread as much panic as possible, as well as inflict maximum casualties. This is false: these air strikes began later, when Israeli forces who had rescued the hostages came under attack while trying to exfiltrate. The problematic nature of this falsehood is exacerbated by the partisan spin they put on the story in regards to the intent.

4. Wikipedia war: Fierce row erupts over Israel’s deadly Nuseirat assault

   Incorrectly claims that on Wikipedia edit wars are considered vandalism, along with other similar mistakes.

5. ‘Absolute priority’: UN agencies must work unhindered in Gaza, G7 says

   Claims the GDP of the G7 is $40.27 trillion, making up 40% of global GDP, with the source being www.g7italy.it. The site contains no claims about GDP, and the real figure appears to be $43.86 trillion, making up 43% of GDP. This contains two issues; publishing incorrect information, and making false claims about the source of the information - in this case, the latter is far more concerning.

6. Israel in Gaza, Palestinian fighters in Israel, what the UN accuses them of

   Claims the Palestinian Ministry of Health (aka Palestinian Ministry of Health - Gaza) says that 15,000 children have died. This is false; the health ministry says 8000. Few sources have reported the 15,000 figure, but it appears to have instead come from the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Education and Higher Education. (One, two)

7. US says Hamas is to blame for ceasefire delay – but is it Hamas or Israel?

   Claims Hamas accepted an Egyptian-Qatari proposal. However, after this was initially announced, and well before this article was published, it was revealed that Egyptian intelligence had altered the terms, and the proposal was not the one Qatar had approved.

8. Will South Africa’s new coalition gov’t change tack on Israel-Palestine?

   Claimed South Africa has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is false; South Africa has repeatedly refused to condemn the invasion. The closest it came was a demand that Russia "immediately" withdraw issued at the start of the invasion, but that is not a condemnation, and even if it were it would mean that this statement is "merely" highly misleading.

9. Netanyahu slams US for ‘withholding’ weapons to Israel

   Claimed Israel closed the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. This is technically true, but it is highly misleading; Israel shut the crossing when they first took control of it but sought to reopen it. It remains shut due to Egypt.

10. Gaza fighting continues despite Israeli ‘pauses’ announcement: UNRWA

    Claimed Israel has sealed shut the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt. This, unlike the similar statement above, is false; the border is "sealed shut" because of Egypt, not because of Israel.

This suggests that at least a third of Al Jazeera's articles on this topic have factual issues, although the total is likely to be much higher as I expect I missed most errors even within the articles I did review.

It is possible that some of these are included because of errors on my part rather than on Al Jazeera, but unless most are I don't believe we can't consider this source reliable in this topic area; there are too many errors, and too many significant errors. BilledMammal (talk) 12:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Regarding the last two, I can see multiple reliable sources claiming that the Rafah crossing is shut because of Israeli military activity there (i.e. WaPo), or at the very least report that this is what Egypt claims is the case, or that Israel and Egypt blame each other for the situation. So that one certainly isn't as cut and dried as "It remains shut because of Egypt".
• Also in the "Claims the Palestinian Ministry of Health (aka Palestinian Ministry of Health - Gaza) says that 15,000 children have died.", I can find no reference to that claim in the link provided.
• Also, are we really ragging on a source because they don't understand how Wikipedia bureaucracy works? Most RS don't, we've seen that repeatedly over the years. Black Kite (talk) 12:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding the last two, outside of headlines (which, per WP:HEADLINES, are unreliable), the Washington Post source doesn't claim that Israel closed the crossing; it merely says it was closed, and that The United States, Egypt and Israel are in talks to reopen the crossing.

  Regarding the Palestinian Ministry of Health, look at the infographic in the section "What did Israel do in Gaza?"

  Regarding Wikipedia bureaucracy, I did consider that the least concerning, and was tempted to exclude it - I only didn't because I decided I should provide everything I found, and allow editors to decide for themselves what is and isn't significant. BilledMammal (talk) 12:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  Moved to #Rafah Border Crossing

   – BilledMammal (talk) 13:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  I'm getting a strong much-ado-about-nothing vibe from a lot of these examples that can easily be chalked up to the fog of war, the fast-paced news cycle and the fundamental fuzziness of some of the information. The first example appears incorrect. The first AJ piece attributes the casualty claim to its progenitor, which makes it a static claim in time. It is not in AJ's voice, so there is technically nothing to correct. That figure was put out at that time by its source. I have been seeing this confusion a lot lately: the idea that publications have some sort of onus to correct attributed statements that are subsequently amended or disproven. They can, but they don't have to. The next couple of examples involve debatable timelines. Then we have some minor slights involving attributed figures – one possibly outdated, the other presumably correct but misattributed. Then another debatable piece of narrative, and only one genuine oddity, which is the statement about South Africa. Iskandar323 (talk) 15:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  The first item contains two AJ pieces; the first one I can understand how you see it as attributed, but the second one, US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school: Al Jazeera analysis, indisputably puts the figure in Al Jazeera's own voice - and was published after the update was issued.

  Can you explain why you believe the timelines of the second and third are sufficiently debatable to make Al Jazeera's claims accurate? As far as I know, there is no dispute that the Second Intifada erupted with violence, and the timeline of the raid appears to be non-contentious and supported by Palestinian witnesses; the bombing began after the hostages were retrieved and the shooting started, not before. BilledMammal (talk) 16:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  So the second Al Jazeera piece doesn't appear to have adjusted, no, although it is rather simultaneously published with the piece you present. As it has videography, it might also have been prepared some time in advance of its publication date. As to why no correction ... ? Has that hospital update been published widely? Al Jazeera explains the second intifada as beginning after the riot on the 28th, beginning with largely civil disobedience. On Nuseirat, why are we trusting the NYT (not a great source on the IP conflict since December) over AJ? Iskandar323 (talk) 18:14, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  It was published thirteen hours later; seven hours after the Guardian article was published noting the correction. As for the wideness of publication, AP published it.

  Regarding the Second Intifada, that article published on September 28 2020, on what Al Jazeera called the twentieth anniversary of the uprising, said it began on the 28th: The second Intifada ... began after ... Ariel Sharon sparked the uprising ... on September 28, 2000. Even if you interpret that as meaning it began the next day, that still includes the riot that resulted in seven Palestinian deaths, three hundred Palestinians wounded, and 70 Israeli police officers wounded - that isn't anyone's definition of "started off largely nonviolent".

  Regarding Nuseirat, it's not only NYT. I included an AP source above, and others include the ABC, the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, NBC News, and more. Sources and witnesses are clear that the bombing began after the hostages were retrieved, not before. BilledMammal (talk) 18:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  I see a bunch of sources relying heavily on IDF testimony. Simply being an outlier doesn't make AJ demonstrably wrong – such events are often only properly pieced together weeks, months or even years later. Currently, all we have is competing narratives. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:33, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  The Guardian, the New York Times, and AP all say in their own voice and with reference to Palestinian witnesses that the bombing began soon after the Israeli team entered the apartment building. BilledMammal (talk) 05:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  The SA statement is not that odd, demanding a withdrawal > a condemnation. Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

A substantive and lengthy discussion, Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 434#Al Jazeera reliability, only a couple months ago, did not lead to any change in WP assessment of this source. It included this early comment from opener:

"We’ve seen this before with Al Jazeera; in the last discussion I presented evidence of them declining to retract false claims about the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion after fresh information emerged.This isn’t the behaviour we expect of a reliable source; we don’t expect them to be perfect, but we do expect them to be transparent and own up to their mistakes. I think it’s past time to consider Al Jazeera as "additional considerations apply", at least on the topic of the Israeli-Arab conflict."

Given this background, it would seem desirable that opener set a formal RFC on the question. Selfstudier (talk) 12:36, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Given that this is the first systematic review of the source in this topic area I felt informal initial discussion was better than jumping into an RfC, in line with WP:RFCBEFORE. It has also been suggested we should consider it on three topics:

1. Israel-Palestine conflict
2. Topics related to the Qatari government
3. General topics

Since only the first of these has had such a review I don't think we are ready for an RfC. BilledMammal (talk) 12:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Well, I have taken a look at your examples and don't see anything appalling there at all, so may as well shut this down or move to an RFC on the question. Selfstudier (talk) 13:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

The second topic is important. AJ is state-run and most people don’t even know. The scope of what is considered “linked” definitely needs to be clarified too. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 16:44, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

"State run"? Says who? Seems more like the BBC afaics. Selfstudier (talk) 16:53, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

See this. BilledMammal (talk) 16:54, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

That's a rather generic discussion about the issues that it may have, in exactly the same way as sources such as the BBC, presumably with an emphasis on domestic reporting. It's unclear what specific issues this translates into other than domestic favouritism. Iskandar323 (talk) 17:02, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

So run the RFC. Selfstudier (talk) 17:03, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

When was AJ last quoted on a topic related to Qatar where its input was questioned with regards to that in a dispute that turned otherwise intractable, thus warranting an RFC? Iskandar323 (talk) 16:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• How is it the conversation about Al Jazeera and its worth as a RS goes round and round and round in circles when it is basically the propaganda arm of Hamas?? Because it's too important as a source of anti-Israel sentiment. This isn't to say that there shouldn't be anti-Israel sentiment - but there's criticism of Israeli and then there's Al Jazeera. Over the years, how many stories from Al Jazeera have there been praising Israel? How many have there been criticizing Hamas? Even if it went to any sort of vote to strike it down as such, I don't there would be much chance of it passing. All this while there's a parallel discussion about removing the ADL as a reliable source...

Neutrality and balance are important here and when it comes to adding content here, that should always be the priority. Difficult find either of these 2 things in an Al Jazeera article about Israel, especially if the Al Jazeera journalist is on the Hamas books. MaskedSinger (talk) 17:48, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM. Selfstudier (talk) 17:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Why is it that you think a news source should be praising Israel or criticizing Hamas? nableezy - 18:45, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

All our major mainstream sources are defective. Most of them are Israeli or pro-Israeli. They may check better than al-Jazeera their facts, but as often as not they do not mentioning facts that al-Jazeera reports. Selectivity bias is more the problem here. To expect that by eliminating al-Jazeera, our key non-Western, Arab source for what happens in Gaza, esp. after the Israeli government shut it down, looks uncomfortably, eerily, like censoring anything that does not reflect a Western mainstream view. We are wasting time here, and NPOV should have told us that we cannot cover the I/P conflict by expurgating, with whatever itsybitsy technical pretext, all sources that don't reflect our Western/Israel perspective.Nishidani (talk) 21:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Much of the list is nonsense reflecting the editor's POV and scarcely stands or warrant examination. I'll take just one piece apart.

• (2) Claims the Second Intifada started off largely nonviolent. This is false. It began on 28 September 2000 when Ariel Sharon visited Temple Mount, and on the first day 25 Israeli police officers were wounded, and least three Palestinians. The second day it escalated further, with widespread rioting that left seven Palestinians dead and three hundred wounded, along with 70 Israeli police officers.

In fact it did, unless one only scrapes up one's historical information from reading wikipedia's articles. 'Rioting' is the standard Israeli term for what everywhere else in democratic societies is called a 'protest' or a 'demonstration'. BM's POV is showing. 75 police weren't 'wounded', they suffered minor injuries. 3 Palestinians weren't injured, they were shot, and a furtherr two severely beaten up. All this is the second phase however. Sharon's hour-long visit, surrounded by 1,000 policemen in riot gear, went off without incident aside from a piddling incident when he tried to enter Solomon's Stables, which is a mosque. 20 Palestinians blocked their way, and a scuffle ensued. Through all of this over the following week apart from one incident) Palestinians protested en masse, and, with the expenditure of over 1,000,000 bullets within several days, missiles and machine-gunning from israeli helicopters, 47 were killed, and 1,885 wounded, 80% of whom were shot in demonstrations where no threat to security police was present. So Al Jazeera is quite within its rights to state that the Palestinian uprising in that first week was (more than) 'largely non-violent'. What was massively violent was the Israeli reaction, in fitting with Nathan Thrall's dictum that on each of the four occasions where Palestinians have gone on strike, demonstrated en masse, in an initially peaceful manner to protest the Mandatory or Israeli occupation, the response has been, rigorously, extremely violent repression by the authorities. Nishidani (talk) 20:28, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I think it's a silly complaint too, as it's subjective what counts as primarily nonviolent, but the terms "were injured" and "suffered injuries" are usually understood as synonymous. XeCyranium (talk) 22:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I've been hit quite often in stone fights, and was shot (with an airgun) several times. A source describes the Israeli police injuries from punches and stones as 'minor', rarely anywhere near as damaging or frightening as being shot with a bullet, live or rubber-capped. The Israeli tallying of injuries is often suspect. It can refer to people grazing their knees when they stumble as they run to an air-raid shelter.Nishidani (talk) 22:37, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Peace and War, by Anthony H. Cordesman, has an excellent timeline of the start of the Second Intifada. In the first few days alone there are large scale riots, clashes between Israeli Arabs and Jews, Palestinian sniper fire, and dead on both sides. To claim that sniper fire and riots are peaceful is almost Orwellian, and not something any reliable source will do. BilledMammal (talk) 05:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Your 'excellent' timeline comes from Anthony H. Cordesman, who, notoriously, got most of his 'history' of events by taking notes from Israeli briefings and quoting IDF spokespersons. Everytime I've read him, I've looked at his sources, and they are press handouts, extraordinary for a scholar of his standing (but then again he belonged to the upper echelons of the 'Security Establishment'). Don't take my word for it. Norman Finkelstein is one of the world’s foremost experts on both Gaza and the systematic disinformation in mainstream sources reporting on that endemic conflict. He made a close analysis of just one paper by Cordesman and concluded that Cordesman’s work ‘was based entirely on briefings in Israel’ (p.40) and repeatedly drew on comments by the IDF’s spokesman, incident per incident. He concluded that ‘Cordesman’s ‘strategic analysis’ consisted of reproducing verbatim the daily press releases of the Israeli airforce and army spokespersons,' and Cordesman 'obligingly dubbed them ‘chronologies’ of the war,’(p.41) Norman Finkelstein Gaza: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom, University of California Press, 2018 ISBN 978-0-520-29571-1 pp.39-42.

Though I have never removed Cordesman from articles, because he qualifies eminently as RS, he is not reliable on the IP conflict, also for many additional reasons, like his well known advice to Israel and the PA to adopt the same counterinsurgency policies against Palestinians that the British used in Northern Ireland, i.e., excessive force, disregard for human rights law, and torture. His views on this were so extreme Amnesty's Marty Rosenbluth called his blueprint 'bizarre'.

Your campaign against Al Jazeera expresses a 'sensitivity' to misreportage and yet, twice on just one example given, you yourself made a false claim, and justified it when criticized by citing (no page number, no awareness of later scholarship postdating Cordesman whose book 'War and peace' was written hastily in the thick of the early days of the conflict) a source that virtually plagiarized its content by relying on IDF press cuttings.

There is no simple way of ascertaining reliable source material for a conflict whose reportage hallmark is stamped by bias on all sides. A blanket ban on the only daily Arab source that provides a perspective sensitive to Palestinians, together with reliance on known decidedly pro-Israeli sources, is a recipé for laziness. And please note that you repeat the word 'riots', as all pro-Israeli sources do, to describe mass protests, on Palestinian soil, against the Israeli army which invariably spins popular outrage at an occupation as 'clashes' between 'Jews' and Palestinians, when they are mostly parades of protest against an army that shoots at 'disturbances' of the kind you can see in any Western street most weeks. Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

you yourself made a false claim Only according to you. Personally, I think any source that claims riots and sniper fire is peaceful is almost Orwellian, and evidently unreliable. I would also recommend against relying on authors like Finkelstein who frequently publish on sites like The Unz Review - known for its publication of far-right, conspiracy theory, white nationalist, antisemitic writings and pro-Russia propaganda. However, I won't get too focused on Finkelstein, as even if we accept his rejection of Cordesman there are thousands of sources that demonstrate that the Second Intifada did not begin peacefully. Since this discussion is unlikely to be productive I'll just provide a small sampling of those that are easily accessible and leave the discussion; I'm sure you'll find issues with all of them, but I'm confident my point has been made.

1. Arab Uprising Spreads to Israel, published October 1, 2000

   The rioting and gunfire seemed to spread everywhere today--to Arab towns and cities in northern Israel's Galilee region; to Jaffa, the scenic old port town just south of Tel Aviv; to Rafah on Gaza's border with Egypt, where a pitched gun battle was punctuated by Israeli missile fire; even to Ramat Rachel, an upscale kibbutz on Jerusalem's southern outskirts where molotov cocktails exploded this evening.

   Israeli forces and Palestinian police and gunmen traded fire in nearly every major West Bank town and city, from Jenin in the north to Hebron in the south.

2. "Between Humanitarian Logic and Operational Effectiveness: How the Israeli Army Faced the Second Intifada":

   But unlike the first Intifada, which was basically a civil uprising against the symbols of an occupation that had lasted since June 1967, it very quickly lapsed into an armed struggle between Palestinian activists and the Israeli armed forces. Almost from the very start, armed men took to hiding among crowds of Palestinians, using them as cover to shoot from. The IDF retaliated forcefully, each time resulting in several deaths

3. The Current Palestinian Uprising: Al-Aqsa Intifadah

   On October 1, Israeli helicopter gun ships fired on Palestinian sniper locations in apartment buildings near the Netzarim junction after Palestinian snipers started shooting at the Israeli military post.

4. Rioting as Sharon visits Islam holy site, published September 29, 2000

   Young Palestinians heaved chairs, stones, rubbish bins, and whatever missiles came to hand at the Israeli forces. Riot police retaliated with tear gas and rubber bullets, shooting one protester in the face.

5. Al-Aqsa Intifada timeline

   30 September: In one of the enduring images of the conflict 12-year-old Muhammad Durrah is killed during a gunbattle between Israeli troops and Palestinians in the Gaza strip

6. Broken lives – a year of intifada

   The Netzarim junction, where Muhammad al-Dura was killed on 30 September 2000, was the scene of many riots involving demonstrators throwing stones or Molotov cocktails in the first days of the intifada.

7. Chapter 4 The Second Palestinian Intifada

   The Palestinian uprising, soon termed the al-Aqsa intifada, began with groups of Palestinian teenagers throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers manning checkpoints at border crossings, but it quickly escalated. There were increasingly fierce clashes between armed security forces of the Palestinian Authority and the IDF. Palestinian snipers directed fire against Israeli civilian neighborhoods on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

8. Violence escalates between Palestinians, Israeli troops, published September 30, 2000

   At least seven Palestinians and one Israeli soldier have died and hundreds of demonstrators have been injured in three days of fighting, according to Palestinian and Israeli officials.

9. Sharon Touches a Nerve, and Jerusalem Explodes, published September 29, 2000

   Tightly guarded by an Israeli security cordon, Ariel Sharon, the right-wing Israeli opposition leader, led a group of Israeli legislators onto the bitterly contested Temple Mount today to assert Jewish claims there, setting off a stone-throwing clash that left several Palestinians and more than two dozen policemen injured.
   The violence spread later to the streets of East Jerusalem and to the West Bank town of Ramallah, where six Palestinians were reportedly hurt as Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and protesters hurled rocks and firebombs.

Even Al Jazeera previously recognized that the Second Intifada started with violence, demonstrating how their quality has declined:

28-29 September 2000
Former Israeli army general and then opposition leader Ariel Sharon visits al-Aqsa mosque with his entourage, sparking a violent reaction from Palestinians.
Israel reoccupies the Palestinian territories amid fighting between the Palestinian resistance and Israeli army.

BilledMammal (talk) 19:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

2. "Young Palestinians heaved chairs, stones, rubbish bins ..." – sounds like it was a slighty rocky student protest on 29 September ... followed by a massively disproportionate response. Oh how history rings and echoes! Iskandar323 (talk) 19:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This newspaper snippet approach to history is inane. The point in the original al-Jazeera post was that the Palestinian intifada (mark 2) began with (1) an Israeli assertion the status quo would be broken on Al-Aqsa by allowing Jewish prayer on the 3rd most sacred site to Muslims, and the one remaining symbol Palestinians have for their fragmented warred down sense of identity. Sharon's walk itself caused no violence (2) The provocation some time later caused student reactions, and as the news spread through the West Bank, Israel's usual hyperoverreaction - shooting protesters kicked it. The statistics for Israeli shootings all over Jerusalem and the West Bank in the ensuing week underline that the 'violence' BM is attributing to the Palestinians (this is the standard Israeli POV) was overwhelmingly one of the use of massive shootings of Palestinians, for several days, causing close to 2,000 casualties with one Israeli killed. He refers to Muhammad al-Durrah without a link. The images of that atrocity were shown everywhere, and inflamed not only Palestinian but world opinion. I noted on the Al-Aqsa intifada page years ago, Jacques Chirac's comment to Ehud Barak, outrage at the Israeli use of helicopters missiles and machine guns to put down the widespread protests which followed al-Durrah's death (the suspicions seeded years later against the French video are not relevant). Violence quickly became a hallmark of the Palestinians' uprising, no one disputes that. The intifada became violent after a million bullets were shot by the Israeli army, and not, as BM would have it, from the outset from Palestinian 'rioters'. BM in citing a notoriously lousy source (Cordesman), to defend his reading of al-Jazeera's remark, only tends to confirm one's impression that his benchmark for true/falsenees here is apparently based on an assumption an official Israeli POV is reliable, and any source contradicting it false. Newspaper evidence dating from those days is absolutely immaterial, useless, because as always they are enmeshed in a frantic pursuit of partial reports, which necessity obliges us to use, but which, if these articles are to assume an encyclopedic dimension, must be edged out whenever secondary academic historical sources become available. In the meantime, getting at the one Arab source that has been accepted, would leave us with only Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Ynet and the New York Times, as the default mainstream papers, a recipé for making structural the subfusc Palestinophobic tenor which characterizes most of them the basis for I/P articles.Nishidani (talk) 21:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

As I said to another editor, arguments about lessening our criteria for reliability with the intent of "expanding" the number of sources from a particular point of the world/viewpoint/etc should not even begin to be discussed. Wikipedia policy does not care if every source from a region is unreliable. In such a case, other sources from other regions can be used to cover the subject, or failing that, with consensus for individual points and solid reasoning other sourcing cannot be found, the less-than-reliable sources from the region can be used with attribution. In fact, there are already regions of the world that don't have any "generally reliable on all topics" sources - North Korea, Russia, Myanmar... to name a few. Wikipedia is not in the business of accepting sources without attribution just to "cover all sides". If your only argument is that we must keep the source because of their POV, that's not a valid argument and in fact flies in the face of our actual policies on reliability which do not reduce or lessen the requirements just because a source has a different POV. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:04, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

And I would add that in writing, in response to a close 3 page scholarly analysis of Cordesman's amateurish fudging of the Al- Aqsa Intifada, you cannot come up with anything other than a cheap, tawdry and offensive ad hominem attack on its author, Norman Finkelstein, drawing on the standard POV pushing smear recycled for low brow consumption by the usual suspects. I.e.

authors like Finkelstein who frequently publish on sites like The Unz Review- known for its publication of far-right, conspiracy theory, white nationalist, antisemitic writings and pro-Russia propaganda.

Is close to a BLP violation, apart from the laziness of responding to a serious analysis by implying Finkelstein supports a white racist antisemitic rag. It's shameful but says something about the intolerance of dissonance to any source that might dare advance a different perspective than that customarily trotted out in the name of defending Israel.Nishidani (talk) 22:03, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

• @BilledMammal: I disagree.
  • Regarding your 1st claim Al-Jazeera's article with the outdated casualties looks like it was published at 02:22 on 6 June (not sure which time zone, maybe UTC?). That was published before Guardian got the correct figures, not after. And Al-Jazeera did update the new figures when they came in: right here.
  • 2nd claim responded by Nishidani above.
  • 3rd claim. Firstly, Al-Jazeera doesn't explicitly say bombing began before IDF moved into position as their article isn't necessarily in chronological order. Assuming the AP article is in chronological order (because if it isn't, then nothing about the chronology can be inferred), it quotes a witness saying "Clashes and explosions broke out" before the IDF team got stuck. Finally, the AP News doesn't make any assertions in its voice, but simply quotes witnesses and the IDF. It is entirely reasonable for them to come up with different stories (either by mistake or by design) without it being AJ's fault.
  • 4th claim. Agreed, clearly AJ hasn't read WP:Vandalism carefully.
  • 5th and 6th claims only make sense if we consider the list of references below their infographics to be exhaustive. It doesn't seem like they are strict with citing all their sources, but that's still better than newspapers who sometimes (often?) don't list references at all.
  • 7th claim. The allegation of Egypt altering the terms is based on an unnamed sources. While the refutation of that allegation was based on named sources (Diaa Rashwan) willing to stand behind their statements. So I wouldn't blame AJ for not giving much weight to anonymous hearsay.
  • 8th claim. Politico says "South Africa and much of the rest of the continent have experienced a different evolution — shifting from initial, tepid condemnation of Russia, to being non-aligned to — at times — seeming supportive of Russia’s war.". I think both Politico and that particular article of Al-Jazeera made a mistake (actually its possible the AJ article has a typo because if you consider the paragraph they likely meant to say SA has not condemned the invasion). An earlier AJ article said "Pretoria has refused to condemn Moscow’s invasion". VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:41, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

    1. I provided two articles, and as I said the first was probably published before the correction; the second was published after.

    3. The source is quite clearly chronological - and even if it wasn't, it does say Israeli special forces began the operation at 11am under heavy air bombardment on the camp.

    5 and 6. While publications don't need to cite their sources, when they choose to do so they need to get it right - and failing to get it right is a reliability issue. 5 also has factual issues, which makes misattributing the claim worse - they're effectively saying their source got it wrong. BilledMammal (talk) 05:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

    1. At what time do you think the articles were published?

    3. I'm not seeing where the AJ article says "Israeli special forces began the operation at 11am under heavy air bombardment on the camp". Instead it says "It began around 11am, with what witnesses say were several civilian trucks and cars entering a neighbourhood near the camp’s market."

    5 and 6. Again nowhere did AJ said they had published a comprehensive list of sources. They could have published some sources but not others.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:51, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  On 1st claim, updating the figures on a live article that is fast-moving and will bury them is not the type of retraction/correction we expect from reliable sources. Reliable sources would've gone back and added a footnote explaining that initial figures were revised and are now corrected, or at a minimum edited the article to fix the figures. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  on 8th claim, al jazeera has already published an infographic talking about South Africa's policy of strategic nonalignment here.

  It can be explained that South Africa's position on the war is intentionally confusing, as their foreign office has previously called for russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territories before.[22]

  I think if the position is meant to be strategically confusing to the point that Politico, a well known and well regarded newssite, has stated South Africa has provided support for Ukraine that Al Jazeera probably should not be judged for similar sort of mistake when doing the news race, especially when they are publishing much more in depth analyses about South Africa's position that are correctly explaining the full position of the government. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 00:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Agreed.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

This topic was opened right after ADL was declared WP:ADLPIA in the 2024 RFC, after editor lost his POV. Its clearly some tit for tat exchange in a POV war. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 04:07, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that this appears to be entirely civil POV pushing. Combined with the fact that the last discussion on Al-Jazeera was started only 2.5 months ago, and VR's debunking of the specific claims of error above, I am not convinced that this thread should stay open because I'm not convinced there's anything productive to say here. Loki (talk) 05:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Please drop the WP:Personal attacks and WP:ASPERSIONS, both of you. You're incorrect, and even if you weren't your concerns are inappropriate to raise here. BilledMammal (talk) 05:06, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

We are clearly correct. This is a waste of time and a repeat of an earlier forum around Al Jazeera's reliability regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the timing after the ADL decision is obviously clear.

There is no reason to post this except that you are upset to have lost the ADL povwar. (I don't even know if this is that much of a change, we can still cite ADL, just use attribution as always?) User:Sawerchessread (talk) 00:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Come on Sawer, this is inappropriate and aspersive. BM raised a bunch of factual errors—even if you think they don't constitute a reason to change how we regard AJ, or indeed that they aren't even errors, there's a conversation to be had here about facts, and "the initiator of this conversation has a secret plan" is not how that conversation starts. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

And yet, VR has a bunch of arguments that these aren't factual errors, as do the rest of us.

Much of the non-Israel-Palestine factual errors are due to WP:AGEMATTERS or are small errors that we could identify in other articles, and are a function of a fast moving news cycle forcing quick prints that are quickly corrected. Other reliable sources make the same sorts of errors. For example, the issue with Al Jazeera covering wikipedia is cringeworthy, but so were any of the others talking about the ADL "ban" (its not banned, just use attribution)

The rest are POV issues due to Al Jazeera clearly having an opinion and POV on the Israel-Palestine conflict, a position we have decided in many forum posts before hand.

I'll cast aspersions when the reputation is clearly rotten, the pattern repeats. And you will no doubt argue I need to be banned because this time is somehow unique. And so goes the cycle of internet debates. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 00:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

you will no doubt argue I need to be banned If you can’t participate in this discussion without casting aspersions and getting mad imagining a hypothetical attempt to ban you, maybe you’d better just abstain. But certainly don’t lob weird accusations at me. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see anything that would be considered a "factual error" here. If they are using attribution, and that attribution later changes, it is not their fault, as is the case with any other RS. AJ is not an encyclopaedia, it is a news source that reports on live-time events, whose interpretation differs on a day-to-day basis. Makeandtoss (talk) 15:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

They don't use attribution in this source, which was published after the corrections were issued. BilledMammal (talk) 19:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Unlike User:Makeandtoss above, I think that there are definitely some factual errors presented. Attributing a claim does not absolve you of responsibility to issue a timely correction (whether by editing/altering the article, or by posting a new article) when the attributed-to source changes their story. The first example also shows quite clearly that AJ has continued using inaccurate information well after other reliable sources have ceased publishing (and in some cases issued explicit corrections/retractions of old stories) such information. The second example clearly states Both Intifadas started off largely nonviolent. Our own article on the First Intifada states that by the second day, protestors were throwing petrol bombs, rocks, and other violent activities. Second Intifada also shows that it didn't "start off largely nonviolent". AJ is free to have its opinion on whether people intended to remain nonviolent. But stating that as a fact when it flies in the face of historically confirmed instances of violence within 24-48 hours of the months-to-years-long intifadas. Example 3 was quite clearly shown by BilledMammal - falsehoods by omission or by "misleading" timelines are not what we expect of a reliable source. To put it another way, if they weren't presenting the article as a timeline, they could say the information in whatever order they want. But since the article is purported to be a timeline, it's a factual error to say To provide air cover, Israeli forces started bombing from above right after talking about the cars just entering the area, and before discussing any further activities. That's intentionally misleading in a timeline. Example 4 is a non-issue, many reliable sources display a lack of knowledge of WP policies/procedures/terminology. Example 5 is barely an issue - it appears there is discussion hidden in the documents of the GDPs, and the 40% (well, rounded to 40%) is actually present in official documents from that conference. GDP is inherently a subjective measure, since different authors/politicians can include or exclude various "borderline" things, or calculate them in different ways. The World Bank site hasn't been updated for any country since 2022 (most recent data) - it's perfectly reasonable for AJ to assume that the G7 meeting that occurred within the last couple months has more recent/up to date information. Example 6 - AJ cites Al Jazeera, Palestinian Ministry of Health, Palestine Red Crescent Society, Israeli Army, Israel's social security agency. Ultimately, I doubt it's possible to verify that none of the other sources (including their own investigation) have come up with 15,000 as a number, and there are a handful of other sources (including the UN) that have published numbers over 10,000 that, if extrapolated, would be near 15,000 in mid June. Example 7 - misleading, but not outright false. Incomplete does not equal intentionally false. Example 8 - more research is needed - the article doesn't state that South Africa condemned it, but that the ANC government did. It's possible for political parties to act independently of official government foreign policy. Example 9 - again, incomplete is not misleading. Example 10 - not even sure this is misleading. Israeli army maintains operational control over the land of the checkpoint, and thus it's not really misleading to say they've sealed it shut. Whether they've expressed an intent to open it or not, that doesn't make it open.

So, where does that leave us? I count 3 examples of intentional falsehoods (or information presented in such a way to lead the reader to assume an intentional falsehood), 1-3 that are misleading, 2 that are incomplete information, and a few non-issues. That all said, 3 clear examples of intentional falsehoods or presenting information in a way that any reasonable reader will make inaccurate inferences - all of which have had ample opportunity to be corrected, retracted, or edited to present the information in a clear manner? To me that's clear that they cannot be trusted to publish factual information only on this topic at least. This is different than the ADL discussion above - in that discussion, many editors made claims of bias and how that bias means they can't be factually accurate. In this case, we not only have strong evidence of bias, but strong evidence of intentional factual inaccuracies. An RfC is the next step. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

On the intifada stuff, as highlighted by Nishidani, it's both subjective and a matter of perspective. If there are nationwide protests and violent incidents at only one or two locations, those protests could still be termed "largely nonviolent". Highly debatable. Timeline stuff ... also unclear. There was bombing before and after for sure. As for during, I'm not convinced that there is a single, authoritative chronology anywhere to benchmark this against. Iskandar323 (talk) 19:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't only one or two locations, it was nearly every major West Bank town and city. That can't be termed "largely nonviolent", and reliable sources don't term it "largely nonviolent". BilledMammal (talk) 19:51, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This isn't a matter of perspective, nor is it subjective. If protests erupted in multiple places simultaneously, then sure, "started nonviolently" may be acceptable. But our own articles on the topic, as well as reporting from many sources that BilledMammal identified, all agree that both intifadas started with violence, or if they didn't 'start' with violence, erupted into violence so quickly after to make "started nonviolently" deliberately misleading.

I also feel it's very, very telling that Al Jazeera themselves used to continuously call the intifadas violent from the start - they only stopped doing so once the term "intifada" started being actually viewed as a call for violence. So basically, they've began starting to try to "rewrite history" just because it doesn't fit their bias/narrative now. And that's textbook inappropriate behavior for a reliable source. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:54, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

On a purely procedural note, we really shouldn't use our articles as a measuring stick here. Articles with timelines are particularly susceptible to selective sourcing and chronicling. More generally, bad news speaks louder, so there is a media bias tendency to fixate on violent incidents over non-violent protest, which is generally dull. Take for example the 2018 Great March of Return, which began as an almost overwhelmingly non-violent action, and yet this is something that you would almost struggle to determine from the current Wikipedia page. Iskandar323 (talk) 20:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The violence started within 24 hours in both cases according to reliable sources. This is in comparison to months-to-years-long protests in each intifada. That's akin to saying that "I started as a bundle of a few thousand cells" - well, sure, I guess that's technically true, but it's irrelevant and misleading because I have been alive for decades. And that's if we accept your claim that they were nonviolent at the start - which multiple reliable sources present in our articles (which are a good place to start to look for sources, as you probably know) already refute.

It's ironic though, because I was explicitly calling out the source in question (Al Jazeera) has engaged in selective sourcing and chronicling in response to another point - to the point that they are deliberately misleading people. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Largely non-violent does not mean there was no violence. That is a tendentious reading of that report, and their reporting is backed by other reliable sources. See for example Hallward, M.C. (2011). Struggling for a Just Peace: Israeli and Palestinian Activism in the Second Intifada. University Press of Florida. ISBN 978-0-8130-4071-4. Retrieved June 20, 2024. The first weeks of the second intifada consisted of "an unarmed popular revolt," and it was only after heavily armed Israeli soldiers killed several dozen young demonstrators that Palestinian soldiers joined the confrontation. Palestinian suicide bombings inside Israel did not begin until three months later. nableezy - 21:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Something need not be an armed conflict, or include "soldiers", to be violent. The fact the quote you give pulls out "soldiers" and "suicide bombings" as its definition of when it becomes "violent", ignoring the rest of the violence that didn't have professional soldiers or suicide bombings. That's what's actually tendentious - trying to redefine the word "violence" to be "only violence that I think is bad enough to be called violence". -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The source: an unarmed popular revolt. Berchanhimez: trying to redefine the word "violence" to be "only violence that I think is bad enough to be called violence" Who is it being tendentious again? nableezy - 22:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Someone need not be armed to be violent. You are trying to redefine violence to mean armed violence. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:43, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Ill let that stand on its own. nableezy - 22:59, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

The First intifada is widely regarded to have been largely non-violent. The idea that "all agree that both intifadas started with violence" is total nonsense. If you are relying on an unreliable source, such as Wikipedia, to prove otherwise, Id be happy to provide you with reading material to correct that misimpression. nableezy - 21:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Example 5 is barely an issue

Well done on finding that - I spent a lot of time trying but was unable to. I've struck that issue. BilledMammal (talk) 19:49, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I conducted additional research on Example 8 - more research is needed - the article doesn't state that South Africa condemned it, but that the ANC government did:

• South Africa confronts cascading fallout of Russia’s war, from July 2022, says The ruling ANC in South Africa is isolated in its failure to condemn Russia. It also says that South Africa withdrew their demand that Russia withdraws from Ukraine, which rebuts any arguments that "demands withdrawal" are sufficiently similar to "condemned".
• New South African party hopes to capitalise on discontent with ANC, from April 2023, says The ANC has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• South African President’s Allies Want Democratic Alliance Deal, from May 2024, says Under Ramaphosa, South Africa’s government resisted US pressure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

The Bloomberg article isn't an exact match, while the earlier two are a little out of date, but I think this is sufficient to establish that neither the ANC nor South Africa has condemned the Russian invasion? BilledMammal (talk) 20:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I can't access the FT article, and I'm not sure I like the first one - since before the quote you pulled, it says Pretoria faces mounting criticism for failing to condemn Russia - making it more likely that "The ruling ANC" is being used to refer to the government in its official capacity - at least in my view. Obviously it's still unclear. Ultimately, I appreciate that it's an issue - and that you did the more research - but I'd say the disagreement over how to word the nuances of the ANC's party opinion, the ANC's member opinion(s), and the official government opinion makes this something not important to focus on. In other words, you've provided what I see as at least 3 much stronger true factual inaccuracies/deliberately misleading/omission of information/etc - those would be best to focus on as reason for unreliability. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:45, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

As a helpful trick, if you're unable to access an article because of a paywall adding "archive.li" to the start of the URL usually provides the content, including with that article: https://archive.li/https://www.ft.com/content/a14b6cc9-a709-4b0f-a027-6839fb7505bd

However, I think you're right that we should forget about these less significant/more ambiguous issues and focus on the three strongest examples. BilledMammal (talk) 21:02, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I removed "frequent" from the section header. Selfstudier (talk) 21:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

First off, this is nothing to do with AI/IP, which is what you claimed this was all about when you opened this discussion. Secondly, On 1 February AJ reported "Since the beginning of the Ukraine war, South Africa has been careful not to condemn Russia’s invasion including declining to support a UN resolution on the matter." Perhaps this needs more looking into yet. Selfstudier (talk) 21:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

As someone else suggested somewhere here, it's actually pretty plausible that it's simply an unnoticed typo. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

That Al Jazeera has a feature about the neutrality of South Africa regarding Russian aggression suggests that they agree with the consensus that SA is pursuing strategic non-alignment, which necessarily has confusion built in.

That Politico and other MSM has stated that South Africa has some degree of condemnation/disapproval suggests that strategic ambiguity regarding the conflict exists, similar to how US both sometimes acknowledges China's claim to Taiwan and refuses to have an embassy to Taiwan and vehemently opposes China's aggression on Taiwan at the same time as part of some strategic ambiguity plan they maintain. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 00:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

the wikipedia page of the second intifada gives off the impression that initial uprising and rioting by palestinians followed the pattern of a general strike, and that the lionshare of initial violence was perpetrated against palestinians, especially with regards to the post visit riot section indicating 7 palestinian deaths and hundreds of injuries for only 70 israeli injuries... Much of the phrasing indicates that it was protests and riots that turn violent

but arguing semantics won't go anywhere, this is clearly a matter of viewpoint and arguing that Al Jazeera is biased for having the viewpoint that the intifadas started off peaceful is rehashing the whole conflict. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 21:00, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Like many others who have commented, I find that almost all the claimed cases of "factual error" aren't cases of fact or error, just situations where OP would prefer something be characterized differently than AJ characterized it. The few cases that are questions of fact, like citing the figure a source was providing at the time the report was made (at or shortly before the time it was published), are also underwhelming. The claim above that this story says the Palestinian Ministry of Health [says] 15,000 children have died also seems to be wrong: AFAICT the "15,000 children" number only(? am I missing something?) occurs in an infographic which is sourced to a multitude of sources including not only the PMH but Al Jazeera itself (their own investigations or prior reporting); since it seems the issue is not with the number—which is also reported in some other places—but with its supposed attribution to the PMH, but AJ does not actually attribute it to the PMH, this supposed error too seems upon investigation to be another non-issue. -sche (talk) 22:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I think Al Jazeera is generally unreliable for certain areas including I-P, for a few reasons

• General factual errors, per BilledMammal.
• Failures to properly retract errors, e.g. in the Jamila al-Hissi case
• Framing questionable statements as (unattributed) statements of fact, e.g. in the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, which they referred to as "Israel’s attack on Al-Ahli Arab Hospital", "the deadly Israeli air attack on al-Ahli Arab Hospital", etc. well after that assumption became dubious.
• Overall lack of scrutiny against certain narratives, e.g. often quoting unsubstantiated speculation.

— xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 01:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

The questions we need to ask here are "Does Al Jazeera ..."

• • 1. frequently make factual errors relative to its overall output?
  • 2. fail to promptly issue corrections to errors?
  • 3. double down on errors?
  • 4. publish under a censorship regime?
• If #1 is true where a source is publishing factual and avoidable errors in every third story, then the editorial staff are inept and the source isn't reliable.
• If #2 is true and corrections are not published, then the source isn't reliable in that it lacks self-correction expected in journalism.
• If #3 is true and the source peddles in conspiracy theories or hoaxes, then it tabloid and is not usable.
• If #4 is true, all publications are suspect when covering any POV counter to its censor's interests.

I'm not convinced the at Al Jazeera hits any of these points based on my (light) reading of the discussion so far. We cannot expect a source to always be correct, only that they correct themselves when they are and that errors are kept to a minimum. EvergreenFir (talk) 17:21, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding #4, its important to note that Qatar was among the first Arab countries to establish relations with Israel. Qatar hosts the largest US base in the Middle East. A recent Israeli article notes that Qatar would readily agree to a US demand to expel Hamas leaders, and that article goes onto note that Qatar only allowed Hamas leaders in at "Washington's behest". There appears to be no reason here why the Qatari government would force Al-Jazeera to be pro-Palestinian. VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 00:06, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Even enemy states often have some kind of (informal) relations and negotiations, such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. Qatar is one of 28 (UN) states to not officially recognize Israel, and of course provides funding to Hamas. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 18:33, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I've read most of this long discussion and my take is as follows. (a) At least a significant number of the inaccuracies that Billed Mammal raises are not insignificant. However, they are not significant enough that we should move away from a generally reliable status. Generally reliable is not synonymous with always reliable, and there is no reason to sacrifice an existing good source for a non-existing perfect source. All reliable sources make mistakes of this order. Yes, AJ is biased, which leads it to be slow in reporting or correcting some things and hasty in reporting others - but this is a reminder that we should always be triangulating anything contentious in this contentious topic area, and carefully attribute anything that has been challenged. (b) I am disappointed by the conduct of some editors in this discussion. The use of phrases like "inane" and "nonsense" and attributing nefarious motives or as revenge for other decisions - let alone effectively making an accusation of being an agent of Israel, as below - do not serve this project well. If a case is being made that really is "inane" or "nonsense", then simply refuting the logic or providing the contradictory evidence is enough to secure consensus; ad hominem attacks undermine that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:59, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion of specific examples

• Are there significant examples outside of the two contexts which at this point we've more or less beat to death (Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Qatari domestic politics) or are the alledged issues limited in scope? Horse Eye's Back (talk) 20:34, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  How many contexts would be enough to be a problem? Side note, holy shit this page is huge. Arkon (talk) 20:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  The claim was made that the factual errors are freuqent, if that is the case I'd expect to find them in all of the topic area. We don't seem to be able to reach a conclusion on whether the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an issue and we already note the Qatari domestic politics... So this is the time for those who think that AJ is widely unreliable to demonstrate that. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 15:56, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Just from this review there are some suggestions that the issues will extend beyond IP as some of the issues, while in articles tagged as IP, aren't themselves related to IP. I'll try to conduct a review within the next week, hopefully before any RfC is opened.

  I'll also try to conduct a review of topics that Qatar has a COI on - perhaps the World Cup - as while we have sources saying that in this area Al Jazeera can function as an arm of the Qatari state we haven't yet determined if it makes factual errors while doing so. BilledMammal (talk) 19:44, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  My understanding of the critical coverage is that the critiscism is less about non-factual coverage but about selective coverage... Non-factual coverage is a big deal for us here, selective coverage is not just because of how we operate (plenty of reliable RS present their POV/bias through selective coverage, overall they cancel out). Horse Eye's Back (talk) 21:20, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

• I do wish people wouldn't treat only those whose identities have been confirmed as dead. The OCHA figures are for those whose identities are known. People can be dead and noted as fatalities without their names and id numbers being known The Health ministry figure of 7,797 dead children being compared to 15,000 from Al Jazeera was for those childremn whose identities were known. And if you look at the citation to the Eeducation ministry they point to thie https://www.palestinechronicle.com/horrors-of-war-unicef-says-70-children-injured-every-day-in-gaza/ which cites the health ministry. NadVolum (talk) 22:23, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Rafah Border Crossing

Moved from #General discussion

 – BilledMammal (talk) 13:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, the literal headline of the WaPo article is "With Rafah crossing closed by Israel...", but the article doesn't contradict that. I still can't see a figure 15,000 in the infographic, though I am behind a heavy firewall so something might be getting blocked. Black Kite (talk) 12:39, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  If it helps you find it; the figure is in small text, beneath large text saying "37,202".

  The article also doesn't support it, and if you look at articles like this Reuters one Egypt makes it clear it is refusing to open it; The Rafah border crossing critical to aid deliveries into Gaza from Egypt cannot operate again unless Israel relinquishes control and hands it back to Palestinians on the Gaza side, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday. BilledMammal (talk) 12:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  F24 today "The Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been shut since Israeli troops seized its Palestinian side in early May". Selfstudier (talk) 12:56, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  That's true; it was closed after Israeli troops seized the Palestinian side. The coverage in that article is limited to that; it makes no claim about who closed it or why it is still closed. The issue with Al Jazeera is that it does make such a claim, blaming Israel, but sources make it clear that the reason it can't reopen under the current circumstances is because Egypt won't let it.

  However, the entire discussion seems to be getting bogged down over this one example; even if I am incorrect about it and it is a genuine matter of dispute, there are many others. BilledMammal (talk) 13:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  WAPO June 15 With Rafah crossing closed by Israel, Gazans have no way out It then says that there are talks between US, Israel and Egypt to reopen with no progress.

  Seems like a simple cause effect, if Israel had not taken the crossing, it would be open now. Selfstudier (talk) 13:17, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  That's the article provided by Black Kite. And yes, that's true, although reductionist and misleading - but Al Jazeera didn't make the claim, it made the claim that Israel had sealed shut the vital Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

  Regardless, I'm going to step back from discussing that specific example now; I don't think we're making progress, and I don't want us to get too bogged down in that one that we forget about the others. BilledMammal (talk) 13:21, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have a source that says Israel has not sealed shut the border crossing? You said it was false and that it was Egypt but provided no source. Selfstudier (talk) 13:25, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  So much for stepping back. I've split this out so that at least it shouldn't be too distracting.

  Including the two I've already provided:

  1. "Egypt rejected on May 16 an Israeli proposal to coordinate the reopening of the Rafah border crossing, according to two unspecified Egyptian security sources"
  2. "The Rafah border crossing critical to aid deliveries into Gaza from Egypt cannot operate again unless Israel relinquishes control and hands it back to Palestinians on the Gaza side, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Monday."
  3. "Egypt has rejected an Israeli proposal for the two countries to coordinate to re-open the Rafah crossing between Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip, and to manage its future operation, two Egyptian security sources said."
  4. "Egypt has rejected Israel's control of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, saying it can't reopen as long as it remains under occupation."
  5. "The US official said that Egypt is unwilling to reopen the crossing so long as it is the IDF that is the IDF that is securing the other side, not wanting to be seen as complicit with Israel’s occupation of the gate."
  6. "Egypt stuck to its position that Israel must withdraw from the Gazan side of the Rafah crossing for it to operate again."

  Now I will step back, regardless of your opinion of these sources. BilledMammal (talk) 13:42, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  There are two ways of reading this:

  • The Rafah crossing is shut because Israel refuses to return it to Palestinians, as Egypt demands
  • The Rafah crossing is shut because Egypt refuses to work with the occupation, as Israel demands

  Clearly, AJ takes the first view, and its not unreasonable.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:04, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

  There are any number of sources for Israel having sealed the Rafah crossing, NPR: Israel's takeover and closure of the vital Rafah crossing for Gaza cuts off a key aid route into the territory for example. That it has not been re-opened since is, according to Israel and only Israel, on Egypt. That does not in any way make what al-Jazeera reported false, and this repeated effort to claim so through a tendentious accounting of what happened is only evidence of the bias of this request, not of al-Jazeera's. nableezy - 21:39, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

What a waste of editors time. Reading https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-69012303 I suppose there is a row over who is to blame at the Rafah crossing. But honestly considering what has happened at the other crossings controlled by Israel are we actually supposed to believe Israel isn't effectively blocking this one as well? In that BBC article it talks about a full blown famine in northern Gaza. NadVolum (talk) 12:38, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

My call - all of this is WP:RECENTISM. It’s a war zone. That certain crossings or areas are currently inaccessible isn’t surprising or noteworthy. Next week it will be some other crossing or some other area. NOT NEWS! Blueboar (talk) 12:52, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Reasonable call on the face of it but...this is all linked to the aid/starvation issue -> no crossings = no aid = starvation. Selfstudier (talk) 13:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I would still say too RECENT. Blueboar (talk) 16:57, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Then the entire war is too recent on that basis. We should all stop editing immediately. Selfstudier (talk) 17:09, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it's recent. But if anything, a news organization (such as AJ) has a responsibility to either (or both) identify their information as preliminary, estimated, etc., and/or engage[] in fact-checking and ha[ve] a reputation for accuracy [as signaled by the] publication of corrections - quote is from that section of NEWSORG with minor edits bracketed to make it fit the sentence. AJ has done neither in some cases - they've deliberately said Israel bombed at a time that they didn't (as verified by other news organizations outside the region), they've stated that a certain number of people died without identifying it as an initial report, and even worse, even after the information was corrected by the hospital not only did they not publish a correction, but they published another new article with the now-known incorrect information...

A news organization has an even higher editorial responsibility with the accuracy of its "breaking news" or similar reports. Al Jazeera doesn't routinely publish corrections and has been shown to continue parroting incorrect information even in articles they write and publish well after the information is corrected. That is not the responsible editorial practice we expect - well, we don't even know, because they don't even publish a corrections policy, and there is no method to contact them to ask for a story to be corrected. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:48, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

You replied to a bit about the Rafah crossing completely ignoring it. But anyway are you going to engage your corrections policy after having reading "Evidence of retractions and corrections" below? NadVolum (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Systemic bias

Echoing what Nishidani said above, attempts to remove AJ from wikipedia will worsen our WP:Systemic bias. Currently, of the 5-10 news sources listed at WP:RSP that are at least partially based in the Arab and Muslim world, AJ is the only one considered reliable. We are artificially creating an WP:SBEXTERNAL problem by axing sources coming from a large fraction of the world.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:15, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

agree Elinruby (talk) 03:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree vehemently. Systemic bias is already a problem of titanic size and scope...why we would go out of our way to proactively make it worse is unfathomable to me. Philomathes2357 (talk) 03:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

This argument would forbid the designation as unreliable of any source whose inclusion would superficially remedy geographic biases on Wikipedia. Sources that get facts wrong should be treated differently. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:48, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree that sources getting the facts wrong is concerning. However, plenty of RS get facts wrong, without us re-examining their reliability. I find that editors are often very excited to downgrade non-western sources for minor offenses that would never lead to downgrading a western source.

One example that I often cite: The New York Times, deliberately and over an extended period of time, repeated misinformation fed to them by the CIA about Iraq's WMD program. The terms "misinformation" and "propaganda" are both used by multiple high-quality RS to describe the NYT's coverage of the WMD story. NYT's misleading reporting played a significant role in generating support for the invasion of Iraq, which was a pointless war, based on lies, that resulted in misery, death, pain, and destruction on a level that is almost unfathomable. Oops. If we were to measure "unreliability" in terms of real-world harm caused by misleading reporting, the NYT would be a candidate for the most unreliable source in modern history, surpassed only by WWII-era German newspapers that promoted the Holocaust.

The NYT has a documented history of spreading misinformation about other topics, as well, such as Israel/Palestine and trans issues. My user page has a (woefully incomplete) list of RS that have covered NYT's misinformation, factual mistakes, and propagandistic content. Yet to my knowledge, there has never been serious consideration of downgrading NYT's reliability - and at this point, I'm fine with NYT being labeled "generally reliable"...although if we downgrade Al Jazeera on the basis of "they've made a handful of factual errors", I'm going to emphatically insist that we downgrade NYT as well.

My point is: I find that many editors are quick to suggest downgrading non-western sources (or sources critical of western governments) for peccadillos that would never lead to a re-assessment of a consistently pro-western-government source like NYT. We all know that if a source uncritically repeated talking points that came straight from the FSB in order to justify Russia's unprovoked invasion of another country, that source would have been deprecated immediately.

I have observed a double standard here that does, indeed, deepen systemic bias, and for that reason, I'm not convinced that a re-assessment of Al Jazeera is appropriate, their occasional factual blunders notwithstanding. Philomathes2357 (talk) 02:36, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

agreed. If nothing else, for Israel-Palestine, if Al Jazeera says something particularly biased, we already give attribution.

Sidenote: It appears this topic was opened in retailiation for the change (?) in status for ADL when discussion Israel-Palestine... Which practically is just still giving attribution to any claim made by ADL on the topic? User:Sawerchessread (talk) 03:51, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, this source is biased, but this does not disqualify it per WP:V, just as sources on the other side like Anti-Defamation League and Times of Israel (discussed recently on this noticeboard). It is another matter that it frequently makes errors tilted to the certain side of the conflict, as illustrated in the discussion above. As about balancing one POV by another POV (assuming they are reliably published), I think it follows from WP:NPOV but rather skeptical about good content created by political partisans. My very best wishes (talk) 05:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)
• If a source is deliberately reporting false information, and does not abide by our expectations of issuing corrections/retractions to correct themselves, then that's a good bias for us to have. WP:RS is not only policy but is one of our most important policies. We should never lessen our requirements for reliability in the name of "avoiding systemic bias". I also don't think this discussion is advocating for AJ not being reliable overall - but in terms of their reporting about the country of Israel and the territories of Palestine, they have demonstrated a lack of reliability. Wikipedia isn't here to create the news, or to "fix" the lack of reliable news from a certain part of the world. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  The claim that they have reported "false information" is hogwash, based only on the idea that sources that regurgitate Israeli army press briefings should be accepted as gospel and those that do not as liars. But that is not, last I checked, how Wikipedia worked. nableezy - 21:40, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  It's not hogwash, though, because three solid cases of them providing false information, not issuing any retraction or correction, and deliberately placing information in an order to intentionally mislead inferences by their readers have been shown above. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 22:05, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  That remains to be seen. Considering that most of the rest of the "frequent" examples turned out to be not so solid after all. AJ is green at RSP for a reason. Selfstudier (talk) 22:10, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Each of the claims of a solid case of them providing false information fails further scrutiny. The claim that they are deliberately placing information in an order to intentionally mislead inferences by their readers is fantasy. nableezy - 22:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Which ones? And is there independent verification besides what Israel says? NadVolum (talk) 22:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  al-Sardi school casualties, Second Intifada violence, and Nuseirat bombing timing.

  1. US weapons parts used in Israeli attack on Gaza school: Al Jazeera analysis

     Claims Fourteen children were killed, as well as nine women and at least 74 other people were wounded in their own voice. This is false. Several hours before the article was published the organization that provided the death toll corrected the figures from an initial report of fourteen children and nine women to nine children and three women. This has independent verification by al-Aqsa hospital and AP.

  2. Israel occupying Palestine echoes France colonising Algeria: Analysts

     Claims the Second Intifada started off largely nonviolent. This is false, as documented by a multitude of sources, with widespread gunfights, use of petrol bombs, and rioting. This has independent verification from countless sources who document this violence in their own voice.

  3. Nuseirat, anatomy of Israel’s massacre in Gaza

     Claims that prior to Israeli forces reaching the apartments the hostages were held Israeli forces started bombing from above, hitting the busy market the hardest, likely to spread as much panic as possible, as well as inflict maximum casualties. This is false; multiple independent sources have documented this in their own voice and relying on reports from reporters on the ground and Palestinian witnesses. Instead, the bombing did not start until after the Israeli forces arrived at the apartments.

  Importantly, these errors all advance a specific point of view; Al Jazeera is indisputably a partisan source, and this demonstrates that they present false information in support of it. BilledMammal (talk) 23:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  All three of these have been discussed, and your claim that any of them is false, rather than in the first instance based on information that was later changed, in the second also backed up by other sources, and finally based on different eyewitnesses is, as discussed above, based on nothing but your own perspective. You want us to say that these other sources are right and this source is wrong, and there is zero basis for it. And for the first, an Al-Jazeera report says The hospital morgue later amended those records to show the dead included three women, nine children, and 21 men. It was not immediately clear what caused the discrepancy. nableezy - 23:19, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Regarding the first, the information was changed before the article was published, not after. Al Jazeera also puts the claim in its own voice, so it doesn't matter that someone else was incorrect first. Finally, publishing the correct information in a brief live blog post doesn't address the issue of publishing false information in articles - no more than previously saying the Second Intifada began with fighting between Israeli soldiers and the Palestinian resistance addresses the issue of later publishing false information contrary to that.

  The others I think I've sufficiently proved with reference to large numbers of reliable sources, and so won't discuss again here. BilledMammal (talk) 23:28, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Largely nonviolent is not no violence, that is, once again, a tendentious reading of the source. And it was not false information, it was information that was based on what was being reported by health officials, and an AP reporter per ABC (Australia) for that matter, at the time (that source says The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah received at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women, according to hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital.) Again, a tendentious reading of the source. nableezy - 23:34, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Not at the time; Al-Aqsa Hospital had corrected it hours earlier. And even if they hadn't, Al Jazeera put the information in their own voice. A reliable source needs to be able determine what is appropriate to publish as fact in its own voice and what to attribute, and when it makes a mistake issue a correction. If they fail to do this then we are unable to trust that information a source publishes as fact in its own voice is true, which is the definition of an unreliable source. BilledMammal (talk) 23:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  That is, once again, a tendentious reading of the source. That article links to their story on the attack, which attributes the number to the Media Office. An analysis that is focused on the weapons used and not the casualties is being used here as though they are just making up the numbers. nableezy - 00:04, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Reliable sources that publish articles based on information that is later “changed” are expected, by our policies and our editors, to not only issue retractions, corrections, or to edit their coverage accordingly, but to do so in a timely manner. The evidence shown is that there are articles based on “changed” or “inaccurate” information that have gone over a week without such a response from Al Jazeera. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:37, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Well then youve got a problem with Reuters as well for not updating their initial reporting either. nableezy - 00:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Reuters doesn't put the claim in their own voice. BilledMammal (talk) 00:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  They also dont update that the source updated their information. And, as I said above, you are distorting the in their own voice bit here. That is a story on the weapons used and links to their article on the attack where the material is indeed attributed. nableezy - 00:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Well, Reuters has a mechanism to report errors - so report it to them and see what they do with that report. We don't expect sources to be perfect. We do expect them to be a) open to feedback from other news organizations and the public, b) have a clear mechanism to request changes/corrections to articles with inaccuracies, c) seriously investigate any reports of errors and determine if changes/retraction are needed, and d) clearly publish and make clear when a retraction/change was necessary for people who had read the prior inaccurate information.

  Reuters has a history of being very good at retractions and corrections when necessary. Sometimes they do this in a brand new article, acknowledging past errors. That said, even if Reuters has failed on this one topic/data point, that does not significantly change the fact that their history is, unlike Al Jazeera, one of quickly correcting and publicly doing so. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:04, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

AJ reports unreliable information, which was pointed again and again in RFCs. My RFC a few months ago was closed for example because of completely unrelated issues such as "name calling".

The method seems to be very clear - every time there's a factual issue with AJ, here's a 101 Wikipedia tactic on how to solve it:

1. Claim it's the first time, or happens only once, and does not show any systemic issue / bias.

2. Claim that AJ retracts the article (even though it doesn't always happen, and when it does, if you keep on publishing false information and retracting it because of backlash - that is not the hallmark of a reliable source).

3. Claim that AJ Arabic is different than AJ English, even though the report is against AJ English.

4. Claim that it already says that it's biased on the conflict, even though the current wording makes the impression that AJ Arabic is the only real issue.

5. Claim that AJ is the only reliable source in the Arab world, i.e. prefer to lower the standards, ignore the issues, and claim it's reliable because "we have no other choice", which is a fallacy and problematic in many dimensions at best. Being the big one is certainly not the only one, and does not make a source reliable giving factually true information. Unless of course you believe RT because it's the biggest in Russia or any other "biggest", "only option" or anything else.

6. When that fails - start claiming that the authors of the RFC or the responders are Jewish / Israeli / whatever so they're biased, which is what happened multiple times in the last RFC - effectively saying that Israelis or Jews can never be reliable for anything related to Israel. Speaking of bias...

7. Close the RFC because of those unrelated comments regarding the intent of the RFC opener, completely disregarding that about 50% of the editors deemed it unreliable, and the actual faults found.

That's exactly what happened time and time again, and I wouldn't be surprised if it'll happen again here. That's why I have stopped contributing - that system cannot be fought against, and because we have Israeli editors on this discussion, their voices don't matter anyway per point 6 and as evident by the closing of the last RFCs. The only solution left is to be submissive and claim it's reliable because we said so. Bar Harel (talk) 04:46, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal you're playing against a biased system claiming it's reliable. If AJ will claim that aliens launched a nuclear bomb on Russia and retract it, they still count as reliable according to Wikipedia's standards as evident by the dozen RFCs against AJ. If it can't be verified because the bomb went in the sea and did not explode, then they get the benefit of the doubt as "no one can be sure what happened". Even if it would be deemed incorrect by a dozen different countries, it wouldn't matter as it's "the only Arab source", so they can effectively say whatever they want. There is no way that Wikipedia will deem AJ as unreliable, even if people writing its opinions column would kidnap hostages. Wait a minute... Bar Harel (talk) 05:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

In terms of systemic bias, there are other news sources such as The New Arab and Al Arabiya, both which were created in response to to Al Jazeera’s bias.

From the New Arab Wikipedia article: In 2015, Fadaat launched Al Araby TV Network as a counterweight to Al Jazeera and its perceived bias.

From Al Arabiya: An early funder, the production company Middle East News (then headed by Ali Al-Hedeithy), said the goal was to provide "a balanced and less provocative" alternative to Al Jazeera.

I think The New Arab and Al Arabiya should be on Wikipedia’s reliable sources list. I do not like Al Jazeera because of their biased reporting of witnesses on Al Shifa siege. The hospital director who lied on Israel not providing fuel and incubators (there was photo evidence of incubators) and the false witness who said the IDF raped people and set their dogs on them. Wafflefrites (talk) 01:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Good luck trying to get either of those sources as reliable on WP:RSP. You'll get much the same pushback as AJ is getting now.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 00:13, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

I extremely strongly agree with other members here who have voiced concerns regarding that censoring Al Jazeera would completely slant Wikipedia in a far too onesided manner regarding the reporting of conflicts in the Middle-East, currently particularly the ongoing massacre against Palestinian civilians.

It is possible to find a conflict of interest in virtually any western news source owned by governments, corporations, or oligarchs, which would be almost all of them at this point, and even sources such as CNN and The New York Times insistently used to claim that there were WMDs in Iraq, to further the goal of invading the country, just to make one significant example.

The best we can do is to allow different perspectives, not just ones that further the agendas of the extremely far-right government of Israel.

Also, hasn't BilledMammal extensively attempted to censor Al Jazeera in Wikipedia previously, and had that attempt rejected? David A (talk) 10:12, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

AJ Jazeera as a reliable source needs to be judged on its merits and this alone. Sentiments along the lines of We need it to keep the Israeli government accountable are irrelevant. On this logic, Fox News would be fine because its needed to keep Biden in check. Any fringe new source in the world would be fine.

Al Jazeera isn't the only hope of balanced reporting on Israel - there's New York Times, CNN, BBC, Reuters, etc

And even if this isn't the case, it doesn't mitigate the flaws and faults of Al Jazeera as a RS. MaskedSinger (talk) 14:56, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

You're making point number 5 in my guide up above. You claim we have no other option, so whatever Al Jazeera says is reliable. They might as well say that I ate a toast this morning, but Al Jazeera would be the only news source that says it, so it has to be true. It keeps the balance against the toast-haters.

You're also making point number 6. You claim that BilledMammal tried to censor Al Jazeera. I don't even know what it means, but let's say he did. So because BilledMammal censored Al Jazeera in a random article, it means that whatever they say is true and reliable?

The vast majority of arguments in this entire RFC, and the ones before, have nothing to do with Al Jazeera publishing true facts. They're about blaming other editors for doing god knows what or claiming that "we need a good balance" so we're going to let Al Jazeera publish even if they publish wrong things. Plenty of arguments with merit were brought - cases of Al Jazeera stating false information time and time again, but they're being rebutted with "BilledMammal did something wrong somewhere else". Bar Harel (talk) 13:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Still waiting for an RFC. Selfstudier (talk) 13:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll be honest with you, I don't even know if there's a point for it. I read the entire ADL RFC and I didn't even want to respond. It was a purely political RFC, with only vague resemblance to a process that actually relies on facts.

Throughout the entire RFC, only a single "false" fact from 2006 was brought back from the dead in order to claim that ADL is unreliable. Claims were made against the CEO and whatever unrelated statements he gave, and about whether anti-Israel sentiment is anti-semitic or not. The only two news sources that were brought as claiming that ADL is unreliable are the Jewish Currents and The Nation, and even they didn't say that the ADL published wrong facts, but said they were biased. Nobody ofc thought that maybe the Jewish Currents themselves are biased - after all, their WP article claims that they are aimed at "progressive Jews" - but their claims against the ADL must be 100% accurate and even those claims don't doubt the reliability or truthfulness of the information.

This RFC will turn into political voting very fast, and unfortunately there are less Jews and Israelis in the world so I feel like it has no chance of going anywhere, even if Al Jazeera will claim that they invented the wheel. People are supporting 972 magazine here because it's a small outlet against the vast majority of the Israeli opinion and even accept lobbying organizations as long as they're not pro-Israel like AIPAC or ADL, because suddenly lobbying can be reliable - but when it's pro-Israel, it is already a questionable source. Bar Harel (talk) 13:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

There's no point in an RFC but there's a point in this enormous going absolutely nowhere discussion? Selfstudier (talk) 14:05, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

If you're asking seriously, I don't believe there is. The majority of the discussions about Al Jazeera end up being completely unrelated to the subject at hand. It's a very good way of keeping the status quo - simply divert the discussion and it'll go down the drain. Pointless to fight it really. Bar Harel (talk) 09:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I wrote before: "The only solution left is to be submissive and claim it's reliable because we said so". The project's strive for reliability or neutrality goes down the drain in order to promote political goals, and you can see it just about everywhere - this discussion is only one of many. Bar Harel (talk) 09:39, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Who is doing the diverting? I am looking at the contents list to the left (on a PC) and most of them are introduced by persons arguing against AJ reliability. Look at the most recent one, for example, "More examples of misinformation and antisemitism from Al Jazeera" and so it goes on. Above, you brought up ADL and 972 (I assume because you disapprove of the outcomes), what is that if not a diversion? Selfstudier (talk) 09:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Completely disagree. Endless diversions, even within this very thread a few posts above. I brought the ADL and 972 to answer you and show a problematic pattern within these RFCs, which is not adhering to facts, but dealing with unrelated things again and again. Bar Harel (talk) 18:14, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

This problem is not exclusive to the Arab world. We have very few reliable sources from China or Russia. However this happened not because we don't want to use good sources from those countries but rather because these governments are happy to manipulate the content of the media they control to further their interests. Alaexis_¿question? 14:15, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• Yes, I completely agree. Isn't Al Jazeera funded by the Qatari royal family? — 48JCL 18:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  That's not news. Selfstudier (talk) 18:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Evidence of retractions and corrections

One of the characteristics of a reliable news organization is that it engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy [such as] the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest. I would love to see evidence of Al Jazeera's correction/retraction policy, and how readers/others can request review of an article for a correction/retraction. The only thing they have anywhere prominent is in their "Code of Ethics", which states Acknowledge a mistake when it occurs, promptly correct it and ensure it does not recur. - one sentence that isn't actually followed as evidenced by the re-use of old numbers in articles published after the numbers were corrected by their source - and no corrections on any of the articles.

As comparisons, the following news organizations all post their corrections/retractions policy publicly and visibly (linked from every page or at most from one level down from any homepage/article): NYT (linked from Contact Us prominently as "Report an Error in Coverage"), NBC (Contact Us, linked on bottom of every page, and direct emails for authors/editors provided on every article), Australian Broadcasting Corp (Linked from Editorial Standards, themselves linked from every page), BBC (linked from Contact Us), [SCMP https://www.scmp.com/policies-and-standards#corrections] (Linked from Policies and Standards in footer of every page), Reuters (corrections link at bottom of every page), Associated Press (linked from Contact Us and other places), The Globe and Mail (entire policy posted and contact us links to a request), The Guardian (Complaints and Corrections linked from every page). And this isn't just limited to western/developed world sources - even sources such as The Wire (India) (RSP generally reliable, clear information on contact page of how to report errors), The Hindu (RSP generally reliable, clear contact us to the editor and published editorial policy), Indian Express (RSP generally reliable, clear contact us for reporting issues), Kommersant (RSP generally reliable but questioned, clear feedback for errors), Rappler (RSP generally reliable, published editorial policies and AI policies)...

This is just a sampling of sources rated as GREL on RSP, trying to pick from all around the world, or that editors seem to consider GREL from my memory. I've also included some that are "yellow" (unclear, add'l considerations, etc) or only reliable for some topics - because ultimately, even those sources tend to have published editorial policies, published corrections policies, a specific form for reporting errors/corrections, and/or have a clear link to corrections from their homepage/articles. Al Jazeera does not have a published editorial policy aside from "Code of Ethics" which is woefully lacking, and does not have a clear mechanism for reporting corrections/errors - only a general "feedback" form that does not mention errors anywhere. Obviously it's not necessarily required that a news organization go as far as to publish an entire editorial policy online, but a reputable and reliable source as shown by most other reliable sources will at a minimum have some evidence of accepting error reports and posting corrections in a timely manner. In fact, the one full retraction I can find evidence occurred during their coverage of the conflict was the removal (without any record) of an interview/article that had been up for over 24 hours regarding IDF soldiers raping civilians. Stories were edited/removed after the better part of 24 hours without so much as a formal acknowledgement of their inaccuracy in the first place.

Given that the editorial procedure is important in determining whether a source can be considered reliable or not, do editors have any other evidence that suggests that Al Jazeera complies with having a robust editorial policy and the issuance of timely, and publicized, retractions when they do get something wrong? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 00:54, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Here's Al-Jazeera's editorial policy. It literally only took Googling al-Jazeera editorial policy to find it. Loki (talk) 01:47, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Namely pp.25ff.Nishidani (talk) 01:58, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Reading these, and the ones provided below by Starship.paint, they all seem to be concerned with live broadcasts (it is mandatory to swiftly rectify any error committed during any bulletin or live show, apologize to viewers, etc). Is there one that applies to their website?

It also mentions publishing corrections to the Aljazeera Net webpage. Can anyone find that? Unfortunately, my ability to search for it is limited as I don't read Arabic. BilledMammal (talk) 02:07, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

One shouldn’t have to result to “googling” it to find a corrections/error reporting policy for a reliable news source. Reliable news sources openly admit they make errors sometimes because nobody is perfect, and they make it easy to report them and see their policy for actioning them, including publicly admitting and correcting.

Not to mention, as identified below, that Code Of Conduct references broadcast media, their TV - not their website at all. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

One should be able to put a random string of letters into a url and just conjure up their policy? Huh. nableezy - 02:32, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

If I am on the homepage of a news site, I should not have to “google” their policy for retractions or corrections, nor how (or if it’s even possible) to report errors to them. Every comparison I identified above has their policy linked clearly, most with the words “correction”, “errors”, or similar - from either their main page or their contact us page (itself linked from the main page). Al Jazeera has only a one sentence “nothing burger” in their Code of Ethics, and no mechanism for reporting errors that’s clearly labeled as such. Further, please feel free to engage with their retraction frequency and show some evidence that they actually do retract articles with errors on the same or similar frequency to other reliable news organizations. Hint, they often don’t, and the few times they do is often simply by removing an article altogether, with no public acknowledgement of the error or public statement of retraction/correction. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:37, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

See also, Al Jazeera Code of Ethics and Code of Conduct. Found within a minute or so. starship.paint (RUN) 02:01, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I did reference the Code of Ethics. The long PDF listed above refers to broadcast errors.

Even if they intend to apply that to print/digital prose news, the evidence suggests they do not apply it. Googling for retractions and corrections on their website shows no more than one every couple years. Not what’s expected if they’re correcting a majority of the errors they’re publishing.

Furthermore, them having a long PDF and a short version of the same words that references broadcast does not mean they actually make it easy to report errors, actually investigate those errors, and take action on those errors. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• Avenue to submit errors for Al Jazeera: link What would you like to provide feedback on? / I would like to provide content feedback / Please choose one of the following options: / Content Suggestion / Content Correction starship.paint (RUN) 02:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  So, thanks for finding that. The problem is that I searched - I spent the better part of 45 minutes doing research for this section - and I looked all over the contact us form(s) listed on their website, and nowhere does it suggest that by clicking on "AJ English feedback" will I get the option to report an error. If you review the contact forms I identified above, most allow a simple email to be sent - and those that don't present the error submission form either by clicking a link that goes straight to it, or prominently giving an option for error correction on the page without having to select other things first. So no, I do not consider it equivalent to the other reliable sources I'm comparing it to, because you have to click contact us, be presented with general enquiries, then somehow know that it's under "AJ English feedback" that gives you the option to submit a correction.

  And this is honestly slightly off topic - the discussion is also over what they do with the corrections/errors reported - because they do not issue timely corrections/retractions, and on the rare chance they do, they usually simply remove the article rather than actually publicly acknowledging and remedying their error. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  Believe they call ^^^ moving the goalposts. nableezy - 03:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  I made the goalposts clear in my original opening of this section. My goal is for any editor that has actual evidence that their editorial policy has more teeth for their internet news coverage (not their broadcast media) than the one sentence Acknowledge a mistake when it occurs, promptly correct it and ensure it does not recur. Furthermore, and to begin, it would be great if any editors could actually provide any evidence that they follow that one sentence, given that the only retractions I find that their English language site has published are from 2022, 2021, 2020, 2018, 2015... and going through the first 100 or so Google results (as I've been doing so far) for retraction site:aljazeera.com shows no more than 1 per year generally speaking, and often times none. Of note, there has not been a retraction since May of 2022 - at least not one that was publicly retracted rather than just deleting an article. This is quite odd - have they simply stopped making errors in 2022? They've become perfect? It's quite difficult to investigate corrections/edits added to the top of an article, or put inline within an article - but please feel free to provide proof that they actually do issue them more frequently than ~0-1 per year overall.

  And especially proof that they've issued retractions, corrections, or error notices for articles on the Israel-Palestine conflict - as only one of those retractions, and the one from way back in 2015 at that - was related to Israel or Palestine in large part. I find it very hard to believe that with all of the reporting Al Jazeera has done, and noted factual inaccuracies or ambiguities as above, that they have not made an error requiring retraction or public correction while covering the Israel-Palestine topics in almost a decade. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:28, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  It would require significant time for other editors to do the necessary research to find corrections or retractions there were. We don’t have a file of Al Jazeera corrections lying around in our computers, so the evidence is not going to magically appear just because you asked for it. You had the advantage of knowing you wanted to open this talk page section. For other editors this is just being dropped on our heads. starship.paint (RUN) 05:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  I am not asking for it to be presented now, and I don’t think there needs to be a deadline for presenting it. I opened this section so that other editors could attempt to refute the appearance of a lack of corrections/retractions. I understand that this is going to take time, and that’s one reason why I haven’t supported BilledMammal going and opening an RfC on the subject. That’s the whole point of this notice board, is it not? I did some preliminary research that suggests two problems - 1) their retraction policy for internet news is only one sentence, and the method to report issues is obfuscated behind multiple contact links and is not clearly stated, and 2) that either because of reason 1 (difficult to find report for your average reader) or another reason such as unreliability as a whole, that their retraction and correction rate seems to be lower than expected for a source publishing as frequently as they do. This is, for that reason, a very pertinent request to make - for any editors who wish to to begin researching so that, in the event an RfC is opened, the information has already been found and editors don’t have to then go hunting for it with a deadline of “before the RfC closes”. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 05:35, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  I don't intend to open the RfC until early July; part of the reason I opened this discussion, rather than diving into an RfC, was to give editors time to do research.

  And FYI, I didn't discuss this with Berchanhimez or anyone else prior to opening this discussion. BilledMammal (talk) 06:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  As I said before, I am personally content for an RFC to be run right now, I think that should be done so as we can properly deal with unsourced commentary such as I do not like Al Jazeera because of their biased reporting of witnesses on Al Shifa siege. The hospital director who lied on Israel not providing fuel and incubators (there was photo evidence of incubators) and the false witness who said the IDF raped people and set their dogs on them.

  The only question I have at this point is whether the RFC should be limited to the question of reliability as regards AI/IP, perhaps we should just deal with that aspect. Selfstudier (talk) 08:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think it should be limited to reliability as related to Israel-Palestine - and I'd even be willing to go one step further and say that it's only for narrowly construed topics of the conflict itself (and not tangential topics such as protests/etc). I just spent 30 minutes or more going through and picking apart the "corrections" that someone kindly compiled - and the evidence suggests that, even if they historically have published timely retractions/corrections, that since Oct 7, 2023 the timeliness, quality, and quantity of those corrections regarding the I-P conflict have all decreased - to the point that I can't find a single one issued since late January/early February - and those both took a couple weeks or over a month to issue.

  However, before a RfC is started, I think it is a good idea to continue to try to compile evidence and discuss it - and at the same time, some administrator attention to address the editors attempting to deflect/distract from the discussion and cast aspersions on others for discussing it is necessary. Whether this is in a request/restriction to not have threaded discussion in the RfC, or whether it's by warnings/sanctions against participating in the RfC if the editor will not comment on the actual substance of the issue, I don't know. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

  So to be clear, the initial problem raised: "no editorial policy and no feedback mechanism" has in fact evaporated right? All that's left is "I shouldn't have to Google", and, "how would I know to click 'feedback' on the 'contact us' form to provide feedback?" ... Yeah? Iskandar323 (talk) 15:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Searching for the wrong word is a nice way to not get any results. Here is a fraction of what I found in the first few pages of google hits searching for "correction". Many of these are I-P related. [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] [47] In conclusion, it is utterly false to claim that Al Jazeera rarely issues corrections. On the contrary, they do so frequently and I'd be surprised if it isn't more often than many other news sources who nobody thinks to challenge. Zero^talk 09:17, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Yep, just compare that to the ever reliable Daily Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/12/photo-baby-dead-hamas-israel-palestine-blinken/ on the dead babies story. No retraction on that page that I can see. Even the Times of Israel https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-takes-foreign-journalists-to-see-massacre-site-in-kfar-aza/ is better saying in a correction the story of the 40 babies 'has not been confirmed' - and then saying 'You see the babies...'! And how about all the burnt bodies the media referred to without saying how most of them came to be burnt? Al Jazeera is well up the scale with its corrections.

As to bias if Al Jazeera was trying to bias the story about the number of women and children killed in that school where Hamas was being targetted it would have been easy to put in a bit asking why any women were killed at all since there was a mens room and a womens room and the IDF were supposedly being so precise. Do you think anybody is going to be swayed in any way by a couple more or less being killed because they put out the earlier figure rather than checking every five minutes for the latest figure and updating? NadVolum (talk) 09:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I specifically said they rarely issue retractions publicly - and in fact there are instances where instead of issuing a public retraction of a completely inaccurate story, they've simply removed that story entirely from their website. On the topic of the corrections you found, about half a dozen or so are from 2023, and are about the I-P conflict. And that's great - it shows that, at least generally speaking, pre-October 7, 2023, Al Jazeera has a good track record of issuing timely retractions and corrections.

But that's not what's in question here. BilledMammal opened this discussion specifically about the war in Gaza against Hamas. So, looking specifically at their coverage after Oct 7, 2023, I'll pull just those links out and discuss why only some of them are evidence of legitimate editorial processes:

• 24 Oct - not a correction, just the addition of a statement that hadn't arrived before publication.
• 30 Oct - fine correction - but keep in mind this is a correction that is anti-Israel in nature (I intend to show that they have a habit of quickly correcting when it makes Israel look bad or doesn't affect the meat and potatoes of the story, but not when it may make Hamas/Palestine look bad). While undated on the website, Internet Archive shows it appearing at most 5 days later.
• 15 Nov - correction of a factual error within a day of publication. Neutral correction.
• 12 Dec and 17 Dec - two corrections, both issued on 19 Dec, meaning the inaccurate information was in the first article for a week. While misquoting can happen, it should not take an entire week to resolve it. And again, this is a neutral/pro-Palestinian correction.
• 15 Dec - minor editorial error that doesn't have a date published for the correction - relatively minor error overall, only tangentially related to the conflict, but it's interesting there is no date published on the correction (unlike most corrections). The correction had not yet been published one week after the article, but was present a little over 2 weeks later. I can't be arsed to go through and find exactly what date and time it was added - but regardless, it's yet another example of a correction taking over a week.
• 29 Jan 2024 - this correction took a month and a half to make, and left pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli information that was incorrect in the article for that entire period. Odd that they can issue corrections when it favors one side within a couple days to a week at most, but it takes over a month when it is damaging to the side they're biased towards.
• 29 Jan - this isn't a correction, it's a clarification and quite honestly doesn't really even add any context to the article.

So... to summarize, the most recent ones presented are from the end of January - so going on 5+ months without any. And even then, of those that are presented that are actual corrections (so minus the ZIM 29 Jan correction and the 24 Oct YT statement), there are 5 total. Only one of those corrections was issued within a day of publication. Another (the anti-Israel removal of the warning incorrectly reported as given) was reported within a "few days" of publication. Two others were corrected/reported about a week to two weeks after the first publication of the inaccurate information. But the kicker here really is the second to last bullet point - the last correction for which we've been presented here. It took over a month to issue that correction. And the pattern has continued past the ones you identified but not by more than an additional week or so - editorial mistake took almost 2 weeks to correct in early February (neutral to "less harmful to Israel" territory). I have yet to find a single correction of any article about the conflict issued in the past 4 months or so.

It is not likely to be fruitful to surmise why it took them over a month to issue a correction that would be vaguely pro-Israel or anti-Palestine. But it's not limited to corrections that are of that nature - the majority of news organizations have a track record of fixing errors within a few days of publication at most. Perhaps the issue with Al Jazeera is due to bias, perhaps it's because they intentionally obfuscate their editorial policies and how to report corrections/errors, or perhaps they simply don't care about being reliable. While it is true they have issued a couple corrections of articles published after January, none I've seen have been related to the I-P conflict. It would be quite odd for them to have published inaccurate information about once per month related to the conflict for the first 3 months of it, but then have suddenly never published any inaccurate information about it since - wouldn't you agree?

Ultimately, the evidence shows that they rarely retract articles entirely, and that while they do publish corrections, they do not publish corrections in the timely manner that is generally expected of a reliable source, nor have they posted any corrections on articles published February onwards. This shows, for whatever reason, that while they may have used to have a good editorial control, there has been some change - either in editors' willingness to correct information that is less beneficial (after correction) to their desired opinions of Palestine, or in their staff's ability to do so in a timely manner. Example 1 BilledMammal provides is ripe for a correction - the numbers were updated within 24 hours, and now two weeks later there still hasn't been a correction of it.

TLDR: Something has changed at Al Jazeera - whether they have intentionally withheld corrections from articles when it damages their viewpoint, or whether it is honest editorial mistakes, the quality, number, and timeliness of corrections on the Israel Palestine conflict have all greatly decreased (if not become nonexistent) since October 7th, 2023, and especially severely since Late January/Early February 2024. I have no problem with them being considered reliable before October 7th, 2023. But there needs to be serious consideration given to sources after that time about the I-P conflict, up to the point of potentially considering them generally unreliable due to a steep decline in editorial processes in this topic area since that time. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

So do you consider the Times of Israel correction saying they had not got confirmation of the 40 beheaded babies enough then while the article still talks about babies and the stuff you have above about Al Jaazeera is somehow damming? That story about the babies really did have a propaganda effect. NadVolum (talk) 22:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

When I provided a list of corrections, on random topics in random order, I knew for sure that someone would claim that they aren't the right sort of corrections, that they took too long, whatever, whatever. If I answered those objections, further objections would be raised. Everyone here knows that an argument can be made for virtually anything. It means nothing, and a few anecdotes don't establish anything close to Berchanhimez's general assertions. Zero^talk 00:48, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Incidentally, in all my examples, something is specifically highlighted with a section heading "Correction". I didn't include any examples where an article was updated on the basis of further information, even though such articles are very common (but hard to search for). Those examples also count as evidence of reliability. Zero^talk 00:53, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

And some of those corrections are simply “we got a statement from the involved party that they didn’t provide to us before publication”. So you actually did provide evidence of that.

And if new information comes out, and an article is updated, then we do expect that to be prominently called out. Reliable sources don’t try to “hide” their corrections and updates. They prominently display them so that past readers know when visiting that something has been updated/changed. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 01:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Taking one of the corrections you listed above: AJ notes the correction in bold and at the top of the story. I'd say that counts as "prominent" display.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 22:59, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Here are just some of their corrections post-Oct 7: [48], [49], [50] etc. And here are post-Oct 7 corrections that make IDF activities look more positive: [51], [52].VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:06, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Regarding your last example, basically they acknowledged that they don't have any information about the IDF activity in that area on that day but the article is still there, saying that "Israeli snipers" did it without any caveats. Not sure it's a great example of doing corrections. Alaexis_¿question? 22:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It's called witness corroboration. Also plenty of Occam's razor. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:08, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

A step back to look at the metacontext of this complaint

All information in Israeli news outlets on the war must pass the censor who often rewrites it. Independent media access to the Gaza Strip is banned. The IDF censor blocked the publication of 613 articles in 2023, and rewrote (‘redacted) a further 2,703 over the same period. That means operatively that we are using as our core sources (here unchallenged) Israeli news outlets that repress reportage under a military regimen.

No journalist can enter Gaza except as an embedded person whose reportage is controlled by the IDF. It even seized all of the broadcasting equipment used by the Associated Press near Gaza until heavy pressure from the US forced Israel to cancel its decision The reason for seizing AP’s broadcasting cameras were that AP fed images to Al Jazeera, Israeli actions have killed 108 journalists and media workers in the Gaza Strip, and arrested a further 46 (effectively disappearing them) The son of Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau was assassinated by an Israeli strike, as was a cameraman, making the number of Al Jazeera journalists killed by Israel since 1996 13. High numbers of journalists have been arrested and even killed in the unrelated West Bank. The most famous case was Shireen Abu Akleh, almost definitely taken out by an Israeli sniper, responsibility for which was challenged intensely by the IDF in protracted media statements that were consistently modified as independent evidence undermined them. No charges were laid against the sniper. It is one of the charges laid against Israel in the International Criminal Court, with al Jazeera a party. The war has been ‘sanitized’ within Israeli media.

Each evening, Israelis are sitting down to watch their prime-time television news programs to see what happened that day in this war.And each evening, the pattern is much the same — night after night pictures of Israeli soldiers walking through streets of Gaza; Israeli tanks driving across fields in Gaza; interviews with families of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7; a military progress update by Israel's Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. There will rarely, if ever, be a picture of a Palestinian. . . All of which means that most Israelis do not see pictures of injured Palestinian women and children or the destruction of Gaza into kilometre after kilometre of rubble to the point where it will be difficult to rebuild it.

The suffering of Gazan civilians barely features, veteran journalists say, three months into an Israeli offensive that has killed more than 22,000 people, displaced nearly 2 million, and left nearly half the population on the brink of famine and stalked by disease. “In general, the Israeli media is drafted to the main goal of winning the war, or what looks like trying to win the war. If you want to try to find some similarities, it’s along the lines of the American media after 9/11,” said Raviv Drucker, one of Israel’s leading investigative journalists. . . “[Israelis don’t see the pictures from Gaza that most of the world is seeing,]”

Israel banned Al Jazeera, the one media outlet it could not manage to bring under its control and the key one for showing the world what actually occurs on the ground in Gaza-material repressed in Israel -, on the 5 May saying it endangered national security. The ban was for 45 days, renewable.

The ban was renewed for a further 35 days (shortened by a court order) on June 6 but, according to Reuters extended to a further 45 days on 9 June.

That is the metacontext hovering over BM’s opening up this thread, two weeks later, suggesting Al Jazeera was unreliable as a Wikipedia source.Nishidani (talk) 08:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Right, could do with an article, Al Jazeera and Israel, the long running saga of.... Selfstudier (talk) 09:02, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Or compare that to this where they argue literal Israeli propaganda is a reliable source. It’s an attempt to ensure only avowedly pro-Israel sources may be used. And the basis for it is consistently lacking when one actually looks at the claims made. nableezy - 09:06, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Took the words right out of my mouth. Not only that but since Oct 7 the frequency and severity of Israeli censorship has considerably increased. Zero^talk 09:20, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I think something ought to be done to put a stop to this abuse of process. M.Bitton (talk) 14:23, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• "Do Not Disrupt Wikipedia to Make a Point." — tim /// Carrite (talk) 16:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
  • Agree with the two points above. Uninvolved but following this from a distance Elinruby (talk) 00:51, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Well put, Nishidani. Hydrangeans (she/her | talk | edits) 16:40, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's really a shortage of press that's critical of Israel, with highly reliable sources like AP and NYT covering the conflict in reasonable detail (less than Al Jazeera, but most significant developments). More importantly though, there's no policy based argument for relaxing our WP:RELIABILITY standards based on such concerns. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 16:52, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

There was a recent UN report which received broad support at the UN and is already journal material, including the Journal of Genocide Research.

AJ reported it and so did the BBC. I couldn't find any reports from US media. Selfstudier (talk) 09:07, 18 June 2024 (UTC)

It looks like CNN covered it? And while BBC, Reuters and Times of Israel aren't US based, they also seem like reliable sources that could be used for that. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 17:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• This time sink (based on some editors' irrelevant opinions) won't change a thing as far as the reliability of AJ is concerned. M.Bitton (talk) 17:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Just to clarify on censorship -- it's a pretty typical wartime use of government power, even in a democracy. There isn't a conspiracy to fix narratives or hide major events; the Israeli press constantly criticizes the military from every angle. The military censor mainly blocks tactical coverage of ongoing operations, pictures of identifiable Israeli casualties, and especially the publication of names of casualties before the families have been contacted. The names are usually allowed out a few days later, clearly marked by "הותר לפרסם" (=now permitted to publish). Western outlets would publicly complain the instant they were prevented from publishing anything of analytical or political import. Similarly, outlets covering the US military were required to submit articles to the Department of Defense before publishing during the Gulf War. GordonGlottal (talk) 18:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

The Israeli military censorship regime is not restricted to wartime. nableezy - 19:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

C'mon now. Israel banned all of AJ for being too pro-Palestinian. That's not censorship? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

This entire subsection is an attempt to cast aspersions on the motivations of editors who are attempting to start and have a discussion on the reliability of the source in question. Even if the aspersions cast about BilledMammal are true (which I doubt), it doesn't change the fact that editors (including myself) have been trying to have a serious discussion about the issues BilledMammal brought up. I suspect the goal here is not only to cast aspersions, but to make this discussion so unwieldy that if/when an RfC is started it will be hard for editors who are monitoring only RfCs or are invited to it by the RfC bot and wish to contribute to the discussion to do so. This subsection will not change anything about the discussion of reliability - it does not matter that Israel is censoring media for the purposes of this discussion on the reliability of Al Jazeera. This section should be shut down and any editors attempting to stifle legitimate discussion by casting aspersions/disrupting the discussion process may need to be removed from commenting on this matter. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:29, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Suggesting an editor is casting aspersions against another when they did not is itself questionable, and disruptive. I simply placed the raising of this spurious (in my view) issue about AJ's reliability in a larger context, which is that Israel censors a huge amount of war material and is particularly concerned by Al Jazeera being extraterritorial to its comprehensive afforts to control the narrative/reportage inside Gaza. Zero provided 26 diffs which contradicted the wild assertions based on a handful of dubious cases that AJ doesn't self-correct. What was the response? Silence. These humongous threads full of random assertions and their tedious rebuttals are a waste of our editing time, in the way they demand immense distraction from article composition and correction. If any RS source makes an error, and most do quite often, it can and almost always is corrected by talk page review. One cannot solve the problem by throwing out the baby with the barfwater. Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC) Nishidani (talk) 20:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Sources are not evaluated in "context", aside from the one exception of sources can be compared on similar necessary corrections to see if some (reliable) sources make them and others (less than reliable) don't. The larger context is irrelevant - it does not matter that another source was recently considered unreliable or discussed. The reliability of one source with completely different ownership does not impact the reliability of this source, and there have been legitimate concerns raised.

You're correct that Zero provided 26 links (not diffs, but mental typo presumably :P) - but if you'd notice, the majority of them are pre 2023, and of those since October 7, 2023, only 6-7 relate to the I-P conflict (I found an additional one myself too). Of those 6-7, they took over a week to publish in half of the cases, and all of them were before late Jan/early Feb - not a single correction/retraction has been found since then, even when BilledMammal identified clear need for them (inaccurate numbers corrected by health ministry, etc). If nothing else, this shows a clear decline in reliability on the I-P conflict since Oct 7th. I personally am not even interested in looking at their reliability on other subjects, hence why I have structured my discussion replies to be specifically about the I-P conflict. Why Zero and others (such as yourself) continue trying to make this a dichotomy of "they're either reliable on everything or they're not, and since they're reliable on other things like science they must be reliable on the war too" I don't understand. I get that you say the response was silence, but there's no rush, and I prefer to take my time to be able to address all pertinent information when I formulate a response. Sorry if that makes you think "silence", but I had posted that response about 10 minutes prior to this. I'll give the benefit of the doubt that you had already started replying here and didn't see it.

There is not random assertions. Discussions of reliability are necessarily tedious - you have editors who believe it may be unreliable and others that believe it is reliable, and thus the discussion of reliability necessarily is tedious as it requires investigating their history and especially recent history of their editorial processes' rigor. Discussions about the editor's motive for starting this thread detract and distract from the ability of editors to have the tedious discussion that will preclude a larger RfC on the topic. And by the way, I stand by my claim that you are casting aspersions by opening this subsection. There is zero other reason the "metacontext" adds anything to this discussion, because it doesn't matter what happened with another discussion about another source. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:22, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussions of reliability are necessarily tedious, especially unnecessary ones. Selfstudier (talk) 20:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Unnecessary, but they haven't issued a single correction on any article published about the I-P conflict since early February while they had issued about one to two per month between Oct 7th and that time? Funny how they somehow magically stopped making any errors in that topic area at that time. And the last two corrections they did publish took almost two weeks and over a month respectively. If that's not evidence that the editorial team has either stopped caring about corrections/errors as much, or that they are being required to limit them for bias reasons, I'm not sure what is. Sources' reliability can change - in fact, multiple sources on RSP are treated as generally reliable for a time period, and after a certain "cutoff" they are considered wholly unreliable (either in certain topics or altogether) as a result of changes in their reporting.

So what's unnecessary about this when without this discussion, there never would've been the analysis of the retractions and corrections that shows that there has been a steep decline (if not complete cessation) in their corrections related to the I-P conflict since Oct 7th and especially since early this year? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 20:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

You've made your point. Try to exercise some discursive restraint, so that the already unmanageable mega-threads don't develop into unreadable subthreads. Nishidani (talk) 21:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

they haven't issued a single correction on any article published about the I-P conflict since early February while they had issued about one to two per month between Oct 7th and that time - well from Feb-May 2024 I believe there was a relative drop in the amount of fighting after victory at Khan Younis and preparations for the attack on Rafah. There’s a section on that in our article. Perhaps, simply, less controversial events happened. Or fewer errors were made. One need not immediately assume malfeasance. starship.paint (RUN) 03:19, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

My biggest concern in the area is how they handled the Al-Shifa rape hoax, from late March 2024. Reliable sources are defined by their ability to assess the veracity of information presented to them, and determine whether it is sufficiently solid to present in their own voice, to presented attributed, or to not present at all.

However, we don't expect such sources to be perfect, and they are permitted to make mistakes - but when they do how they handle the mistake becomes important. This is particularly true when their mistake resulted in them spreading deliberate disinformation.

In Al Jazeera's case, when they discovered the story was a hoax they didn't publish a retraction, and while they have silently deleted some of the coverage some is still up. This behavior demonstrates that their process to correct errors is flawed, and insufficient for us to consider them a reliable source. BilledMammal (talk) 03:31, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Not sure live blog of recent/breaking news events would be a reliable source anyway - my understanding is that the general consensus is that "live blog" events are not generally reliable as many reporters/editors have access to post on them and they generally have separate (if any at all), more rapid/relaxed editorial review before posts are allowed. And in live blogs, it's generally more acceptable to issue a correction/retraction as a new post to the live blog, since by the point it's realized one is needed, the original post is likely too far "down" in the timeline to be seen by many people anyway, thus a correction on the one post itself is likely useless.

I agree that the fact there are multiple stories for which Al Jazeera has simply deleted entirely rather than replacing them with a retraction notice shows that, since Oct 7th at least, there has been a shift away from acknowledging retractions and an attempt to hide the fact they published incorrect/inaccurate information. And that's not what a reliable source is. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:58, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Al Jazeera's live blog is currently treated as reliable. There are 3689 references to it in mainspace, most of which appear to support claims in wikivoice. If nothing else, I think we need to make it clear that the live blog is not generally reliable, and should not be used to make claims in Wikivoice.

Regarding how to issue corrections, I would agree that it would be acceptable - even ideal - for Al Jazeera to have retracted that story by making a new post on their live blog, but they didn't do that either.

This is why I see Al Jazeera's behavior in regards to this hoax as so concerning; they published disinformation that generated widespread outrage, and when a few hours later it was found to be a lie made no attempt to correct the record and instead silently and partially removed it. A reliable source would be concerned that they had misled their audience and seek to correct the record, but Al Jazeera was not - and I think the fact that the nature of the misinformation was aligned with Al Jazeera's bias is relevant to why they had no interest in correcting the record. BilledMammal (talk) 05:06, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

It wasn't silent. Their former managing director himself called it "fabricated"[53]. Plenty of retractions in other news sources don't elicit a comment by senior staff, let alone a managing director (albeit a former one).VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 23:34, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

A reader shouldn’t be expected to read another news source to learn that a story was retracted. That’s the entire point - a reliable source should not “hide” their retractions, and especially shouldn’t be blabbing about them on other news sites while hiding the retraction on their own site. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:38, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• I'm surprised it isn't at least marked as ACR for certain areas but I'm not sure I'll be commenting on any hypothetical RFC. Alpha3031 (t • c) 07:20, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

State funding and influence

There are multiple reliable sources which confirm the influence the Qatari state (which is an absolute monarchy) has on AJ:

• The Qatari Crisis and Al Jazeera’s Coverage of the War in Yemen by Gamal Gasim

“ its sudden increased coverage by Al-Jazeera English following the Qatari crisis would probably raise some legitimate concerns regarding such questions as whether Al-Jazeera English has been guilty of selection bias. ”

• Al-Jazeera’s “Double Standards” in the Arab Spring by Zainab Abdul-Nabi

“ the sudden change in Qatar’s foreign policy from a “cordial state” to an aggressive interventionist during the Arab Spring in 2011 has been followed by a similar shift in Al-Jazeera’s coverage. It demonstrates how this shift has altered the channel from providing effective public diplomacy to broadcasting blatant propaganda that directly serves Qatar and its agenda. ”

• Dominika Kosárová, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya: Understanding Media Bias

“ Several studies have been dealing with the question of whether state-sponsored Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya are biased. Their findings suggest that the message of both media reflects the interests of their respective state-sponsors... The analysis shows that both media, when covering Muslim Summit, used manipulative techniques to deliver the opposite message about the Summit, which is in line with their state-sponsors’ often incompatible regional ambitions and foreign policy ”

Alaexis_¿question? 22:08, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

1. Accuses Al-Jazeera of having selection bias. Of course it has selection bias! American newspapers focus far more on US politics than international. Can you really blame Middle Eastern media for focusing on the war in Yemen?

2. The Arab Spring was a seismic event, and it makes perfect sense for AJ to "aggressively" cover it. AJ's "aggressive" attitude (wherein they send their journalists into places other journalists don't go, do investigative journalism and ask uncomfortable questions) is a good thing.

3. All it says AJ is WP:BIASED, which doesn't make it unreliable. Most news sources have a bias and stick to their bias for commercial reasons (WaPo's anti-Trump stance is basically a part of its brand).

Let me ask you a question, Alaexis. The UN report that "At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped" in recent months was picked up by Al-Jazeera[54], Guardian, CNN[55] etc. But it was not picked up by Times of Israel AFAIK. Does that make ToI unreliable? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 15:40, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think you got my point. The problem is not just that AJ has a bias. The problem, as these articles make clear, is that their biases are driven by the interests of the Qatari rulers.

1. They started covering the war in Yemen waged by Saudi Arabia more after the crisis in the relations between Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
2. The change of AJ's coverage followed the change of the Qatari policy. AJ started broadcasting "blatant propaganda that directly serves Qatar and its agenda"
3. The AJ's bias reflects their state-sponsor's interests

Their coverage is directly affected by the interests of an absolute monarchy with no freedom of press to speak of.

Also, WP:BIASED doesn't say that the bias can be ignored. Even if it had no factual errors it would still mean that we need to balance their bias per Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view#Bias_in_sources. Alaexis_¿question? 20:48, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Again, there is no basis in policy to consider a source unreliable based on the source of bias. For example, consider that state-sponsored CBC News is required, by Canadian law, to have certain biases (eg in favor of French Canada and multiculturalism) and they are even listed on its website.

"no freedom of press to speak of" There is plenty of government interference in Israel against pro-Palestinian media[56], and likewise Germany[57][58] and France[59] have cracked down on pro-Palestinian speech. If we only accepted sources from countries with a perfect free speech record, we'd have very few sources left.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of the quotes is to demonstrate that the bias exists and it's driven by the political interests of Qatari rulers. This has all kinds of implications: we need to make sure that information from this source doesn't have undue weight, sometimes attribution need to be used.

Comparing Qatar with Germany or France is... interesting. The are no countries with "perfect free speech record" but every rating you'll find will tell you that the situation is Qatar is much worse. Alaexis_¿question? 14:03, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

The purpose of the quotes is to demonstrate that the bias exists and it's driven by the political interests of Qatari rulers The RSP entry already covers this. Selfstudier (talk) 14:13, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Not really, it says "some editors" think so. Alaexis_¿question? 08:38, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Here is another example of Qatar using AJ for their political purposes [60]

“ Qatar is using the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera as a bargaining chip in foreign policy negotiations by adapting its coverage to suit other foreign leaders and offering to cease critical transmissions in exchange for major concessions, US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks claim. ”

Alaexis_¿question? 20:51, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

2010? That article also says "It has been seen by many as relatively free and open in its coverage of the region" Selfstudier (talk) 20:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Possibly, with the exception of its coverage of Israel. And I think this is a wonderful compromise - it can be used as a reference for news on the region that has nothing to do with Israel. Win-win for everyone, especially Wikipedia. Don't you agree? MaskedSinger (talk) 08:24, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

No, only a win-win for the Israeli government and the cause of hiding most of its crimes against humanity. David A (talk) 08:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Which crimes would this be? MaskedSinger (talk) 12:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. We don't need to have that discussion here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 13:39, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

"compromising" on al jazeera by arguing it is not useful for WP:ARBPIA when the original premise of this post is that al jzaeera is WP:ARBPIA is not a compromise at all.

a compromise means meeting in the middle, and the point of this originally is to talk about the reliability of aljzaeera wrt Israel/palestine. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 17:13, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

I just had a check of Reporters without Frontiers at https://rsf.org/en/index and Qatar ranks at 84 compared to Israel at 101. So... who exactly is throwing stones at who here about press freedom? NadVolum (talk) 16:29, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

One of the best arguments for AJ is that it was banned by Israel and no-one else.

Israeli military censor bans highest number of articles in over a decade The sharp rise in media censorship in 2023 comes as the Israeli government further undermines press freedoms, especially amid the Gaza war.

"Israeli law requires all journalists working inside Israel or for an Israeli publication to submit any article dealing with "security issues" to the military censor for review prior to publication, in line with the "emergency regulations" enacted following Israel’s founding, and which remain in place. These regulations allow the censor to fully or partially redact articles submitted to it, as well as those already published without its review. No other self-proclaimed “Western democracy” operates a similar institution." Selfstudier (talk) 16:42, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

Obviously Israeli sources have their biases (though I don't think that AJ or any other Qatari sources criticise their government like Haaretz or +972 do). Using only Israeli sources for a topic related to the conflict is obviously not a good idea. But no one is suggesting it, so it's a bit of a strawman argument. Alaexis_¿question? 19:02, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

@NadVolum If you'll check any of the previous years since the start of the ranking system at Reporters without Frontiers (2023, 2022, 2021, ...), you'll see that Israel was ranked above Qatar for years.

The majority of the ranking went down this year after Israel has killed and detained journalists during the war, some of them allegedly operating with Hamas, and because of state laws against Al-Jazeera - also due to their ties with Hamas.

If Israel believes Al-Jazeera is unreliable - being a tool for propaganda and incitement, or finds Hamas operatives within Al-Jazeera and chooses to ban it, I don't really think that makes AJ suddenly reliable does it? Nor does it say much about freedom of the press when you arrest or bomb journalists who shoot anti-tank missiles for a living. Bar Harel (talk) 18:40, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Reporters without Frontiers is a well recognized source and Wikipedia editors are not. They didn't suddenly become reliable - Israel and Qatar have been in the same ballpark for a while. It may well be that Israel killing 200+ journalists has contributed to Israel getting a worse rating, I don't know, but I don't think they should be targetted as a group just because some might be bad. NadVolum (talk) 21:02, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I talked about this earlier, but credible sources, such as the Egyptian director of AJE in this article, indicate that at least the English version of Al Jazeera has successfully resisted overt control from Qatar by arguing that soft power from journalistic integrity is worth more than pure propaganda.

It's def not unbiased... but what source is unbiased? User:Sawerchessread (talk) 17:36, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

But what about the accounts that Al Jazeera journalists work for Hamas? We don't have to tip toe around this. If this is the case, than surely when it comes to WP:NPOV this has to be taken into consideration.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/israel-demands-answers-al-jazeera-215356871.html

https://www.timesofisrael.com/wounded-al-jazeera-reporter-in-gaza-an-alleged-hamas-operative-flown-to-qatar/

And Qatar has been funding Hamas - https://www.calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/lretnzx9l

Wikipedia isn't solely dependent on Al Jazeera for anti Israel content - there's the BBC, New York Times, etc. Even the Israeli press is critical of Netanyahu and the Goverment. MaskedSinger (talk) 18:18, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

How many of those didn't say 'Hamas-run Health Ministry' unnecessarily impuning the reliability of the HealthMionistry in Gaza? NadVolum (talk) 18:25, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

That first link is a repost from Fox News, an american conservative news station known for using "terrorist" and "terrorist-sympathizer" every night to describe anyone they don't like.

Times of Israel is known to have a right wing bias.

No clue about Calcalistech, apparently its just an Israeli tech magazine, might be reliable... but I think it's well-known that Qatar and other Iran-proxy governments have provided aid to Hamas. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 19:10, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

from 2014 until today when Qatari financing is done in coordination with Israel, the United States and the United Nations. Right. Selfstudier (talk) 20:10, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

So what? Everyone knows that there was coordination, with the infamous suitcases in which money was brought to Israel to be sent to Gaza. Logistically it would be pretty hard to transfer money without some kind of coordination with Israel. As an aside, there are now even claims that Netanyahu himself got Qatari money [61].

However this does not disprove a well known fact that Qatar has been supporting Hamas. Alaexis_¿question? 20:44, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The US supports Israel, and...? As things stand right now, I can't see much difference. At any rate, they are aware and it doesn't seem to bother them very much. Can't say it bothers me that much either. Selfstudier (talk) 21:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, but the US media offer a wide range of views and they don't all change tack when the US government has a fallout with a foreign country. And yes, I know about the Iraq WMD debacle but that was 20 years ago and even then there was plenty of dissenting views. Qatar has no such vibrant media environment. AJ is probably the most independent media there, but even it has to follow the government's policy as the articles I've shared above show. Alaexis_¿question? 16:32, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

We're not in Qatar, are we? AJ is a global newsorg, right up there in the rankings an all. Selfstudier (talk) 17:31, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Russia Today is also a global newsorg, so what? Alaexis_¿question? 21:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

RT is deprecated, AJ is green. And this whole thing is just a complete waste of editor time. If you want an RFC, go ahead open one, else..? Selfstudier (talk) 22:00, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

You're right, that would be the natural next step. Alaexis_¿question? 22:02, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Information supporting reliability of Al Jazeera English

First, I think this subsection is talking about Al Jazeera English (AJE), so I will use that, instead of Al Jazeera Arabic (I think that site has its own policy, and we should agree to focus on this one) Some studies confirming Al Jazeera English has verification processes that compare to others (i.e. BBC News), in terms of using Double sourcing, and other editorial verication processes.

Another study suggests that news sites have bias, and that some western sites, such as BBC, necessarily advantage one side of the conflict, and another frames the conflict in humanitarian and moral environment. In particular, some sources indicate that AJE (at least in comparison to other al jazeeras) has resisted significantly against regulation from authorities that fund the news source, arguing that real journalistic independence for AJE provides soft power to Qatar.

Thanks for adding sources to the discussion. I'm not sure that Maziad's article supports the reliability of Al Jazeera English (AJE) for all topics:

“ Despite its good reputation and broad viewership, AJE itself, however, did show signs of misreporting the Egypt story after the 30 June 2013 protests and subsequent military takeover....

Overall, the framing of Egypt by AJE has been mostly one-sided, thereby compromising accuracy and credibility

”

So they acknowledge the generally good reputation but describe how its reliability was compromised when Qatari/Muslim Brotherhood interested were directly affected. Alaexis_¿question? 11:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you mean showed signs of being compromised or are you describing something other than that quote? Its tempered by "Part of the problem, however..." and is expressed in a given context and is making a statement about that context not saying that overall their reporting is of compromised accuracy and credibility. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:41, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a quote, so we can't know for sure what the author meant. Whether it refers to the reporting on Egypt or to AJ in general, my point was that this article describes reliability issues similar to the ones raised elsewhere in this thread, and therefore isn't unconditionally "supporting reliability of Al Jazeera English". Alaexis_¿question? 21:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

More examples of misinformation and antisemitism from Al Jazeera

1. Al Jazeera posts video of holocaust denialism

   Al Jazeera has removed a video about the Holocaust from its AJ+ Arabic channel after it sparked outrage for claiming the genocide was “different from how the Jews tell it”.

2. Al Jazeera News anchor tweets that Jews are descendants of the Khazars, a conspiracy promoted by White Supremacists ideology.

   [62]

   [63]

3. Al Jazeera airs antisemitic lecture which defames Kare Bluitgen
4. Al Jazeera hosts interview with Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Zahhar

   Mahmoud Al-Zahhar claims that Donald Trump may be a Jew, and that "the most important thing in the Jewish religion is Jewish money"

5. Senior Hamas officials in Gaza award a certificate of appreciation to the Qatari Al-Jazeera channel
6. Al Jazeera hosts TV show in which host minimizes Holocaust and endorses Hitler

   Here, for example, is Qaradawi speaking about the Holocaust to the audience of his popular Al Jazeera television show on January 30, 2009:

   Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them—even though they exaggerated this issue—he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.

7. Al Jazeera staff resign after ‘biased' Egypt coverage
8. Al Jazeera column falsely claims that France prosecuted a man simply for saying 'Dirty Zionists'

   In fact he also said "dirty race" [64], which AJ does not mention.

9. many more examples here Hi! (talk) 00:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

References

Did these incidents occurr for Al Jazeera's English version, or for the Arabic version? Or are they mixed together? David A (talk) 06:21, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

MEMRI stuff should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. Selfstudier (talk) 08:07, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Or something stronger. And then we have some bloke's tweet, which is not the network speaking, and an award awarded to the network, which is not its problem. Then a video that was taken down, which actually proves editorial controls. And a random resignation. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:04, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for your evaluations. David A (talk) 16:48, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Wrapping this up

This discussion has been ongoing for over a month, is now nearly 200k in size, and risks becoming a perpetual merry-go-round of disagreement. I don't see how more discussion is going to change the current situation. Can I suggest any editor still interested in changing the status quo should consider further options. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

If it's a perpetual disagreement about whether Al Jazeera English is reliable or not, then why is it marked as reliable with the following remark? "Editors perceive Al Jazeera English to be more reliable than Al Jazeera Arabic." or "Some editors say that Al Jazeera, particularly Al Jazeera Arabic, is a partisan source on the Arab–Israeli conflict and on topics for which the Qatari government has a conflict of interest"

Clearly many editors perceive Al Jazeera English to not be reliable at all, or biased at the very least and those remarks clearly ignore them and the god knows how many discussions about Al Jazeera that are opened repeatedly.

Closing the discussions again and again is akin to writing a conclusion that is completely unrelated to the facts at hand or half of the editors' remarks. We cannot agree on reliability, we cannot agree on it being biased or not, so the conclusion is that some editors believe that AJ Arabic is biased and the rest is fine? Bar Harel (talk) 18:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

The consensus currently is that shown at RSP, workshopped at Wikipedia talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Why is Al-Jazeera green? there is no perpetual disagreement. Are there some editors who disagree, sure, but that's not the same thing. Selfstudier (talk) 18:33, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I would suggest that if you want some kind of change then you should consider starting a RFC, or working with other editors to come up with the wording for a RFC. General discussions such as this, especially on contentious topics, are unlikely to be the cause of any change. Only editors intested in the topic area, or who hang around this noticeboard will have taken part in this discussion. A RFC would invite the wider community to take part in a consensus building process. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:34, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

To be clear endless discussion across multiple issues that would be impossible to close are never going to change the RSP, no-one is trying to close down discussion only move it towards something constructive. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:37, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

this discussion was created to relitigate al Jazeera in light of the deprecation of the ADL as per WP:ADLPIA

We should close this and soon, it is both a waste of time and a repeat of previous discussions. It is highly unlikely it will change the status quo, especially as this is not an actual RFC.

what is the process for closing? do we ask a WP:UNINVOLVED admin to close this? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 18:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Just a clarification but ADL was not deprecated, it was judged unreliable in the I/P topic area. It sounds bureaucratic but the terms have different impacts, see WP:DEPREC and WP:GUNREL.

I don't think this needs closing (I'm not sure there is anything here to close), it could just be left to be archived.

It could be worth having a RFC, as there is disagreement and it would hopefully put a stop to these endless threads. But that would be up to any editor interested in doing so. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 18:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

@Bluethricecreamman The previous discussions reached no conclusion, and the status quo isn't really a status quo considering it is pretty one sided. ADL or not is unrelated to the reliability of Al Jazeera, but akin to the ADL discussion - I do fear that an RFC will turn into a political vote regardless of the actual facts at hand or the opinions of the, yet large, minority.

However, considering the amount of discussions and what seems to be a continuous disagreement with Al Jazeera's current marking, an RFC may eventually be a good idea. I personally have stopped contributing for a bit because this subject outraged me and together with other personal issues I'll be unable to manage the headache of an RFC this requires. @BilledMammal, as the original starter of this discussion, would you like to do the honor? It will be a hard RFC to close and navigate, will probably turn into a large project. Bar Harel (talk) 21:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll draft something in user space in the next few days; I'll ping you and a few others to help with it, and once we are satisfied can open it and make the appropriate notifications. BilledMammal (talk) 21:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Online publication in India as source for archaeological findings in British Columbia

[65]

The source that is being reintroduced in that diff quotes unnamed band official as "attesting" to a "paucity of excavation work and absence of bones", which is, I guess, *one* way of saying that the community is divided about whether to excavate any remains that are found, and therefore there have not been any excavations to date. The source's exquisite drive for accuracy and meticulous attention to detail is reflected in its quote from one of the foremost denialists of residential school deaths, whom it refers to as "she" even though his name is Jacques. This is not a mistake a Canadian publication would make, and indeed, it is owned by a corporation based in India. It is most certainly not an authority on indigenous affairs in British Columbia and by no means the only source available about the underground radar findings in Kamloops. 04:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@Code Talker: reinserted the material, along with another uncited sentence to the same effect. Perhaps he has reasons he would like to share. Elinruby (talk) 04:01, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I saw this when following a link to the page on WP:RPPI and I was also doubting that this was a proper source. It's extremely iffy as the lone source for this. LilianaUwU ^{(talk / contributions)} 04:29, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

It's extremely iffy as the lone source for this

Time Now wasn't the only source. Times Now was reporting on a Canadian news agency called Western Standard's coverage on the issue that made headlines.

There are other agency apart from Western Standard independently reporting the same issue such as Blacklock's Reporter.

See this [66], [67] for the sources and lines അദ്വൈതൻ (talk) 22:56, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

As discussed elsewhere on this page, Western Standard and Blacklock's also appear to be unreliable sources. If the main sources reporting on this are all unreliable, mostly or entirely with similar editorial bias, that makes this look quite questionable indeed, and Times Now getting even basic details of the people they're quoting wrong doesn't instill confidence that they're reliable, either. (The overall effect of seeing so many unreliable biased sources being used is to suggest there's a POVPUSH going on.) -sche (talk) 23:27, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Western Standard is not a RS, they are a biased source, similar to Rebel News, in that they push an agenda similar to what Trumpites in the US publish. Oaktree b (talk) 04:20, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

PS I have just noticed the Times of India RfC above. This website is owned by the same corporation as the Times of India. Elinruby (talk) NB - Daniel Case just now ec-protected the article but a good 40% of the issues are coming from editors with accounts, so this is not resolved. Elinruby (talk) 04:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC) @CodeTalker:

Well, if those edits are coming from autoconfirmed accounts, it is. For now. Daniel Case (talk) 04:17, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Daniel Case Don't get me wrong. Because the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc were the first to announce underground radar findings, Kamloops Indian Residential School is the nexus of the denialism, and protecting it is huge. I have removed this sort of stuff from these articles...too many times. So what you did allows long-standing accounts but not new ones, is that what you are saying? I am not sure how many edits everyone has but this will definitely cut down on the Sandy Hook BS that's been going on. So thank you. Elinruby (talk) 05:26, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

EC is 50 days and 300 edits. We can also revoke it if it is abused. Daniel Case (talk) 05:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@Daniel Case Not 30 days and 500 edits? I think you transposed the numbers. Doug Weller talk 19:28, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes I did. Thank you (Although I think that ratio might not be a bad idea for some editors ...) Daniel Case (talk) 19:40, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

noting here that the source was previously reverted back in [68] by Riposte97, who may wish to comment. Elinruby (talk) 07:33, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby claiming that editors who disagree with you are engaged in 'denialism' and 'Sandy Hook BS' is simply not productive.

Regarding the source, I think it should logically follow the Times of India RfC as a subsidiary thereof. Riposte97 (talk) 04:34, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I agree, since the same corporation owns them. You do know, however, that the reliability of the Times of India is being questioned in an RfC just a few sections up? As for your objections to "denialism", huh. We go by sources and that is the word that they use to describe people who are convinced that there are no bodies in those graves Elinruby (talk) 07:49, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

RfC in parent companies do not necessarily follow to subsidiaries. One only needs to take a look at Murdoch's empire for why that isn't the case. TarnishedPath^talk 13:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

That's fine. But doesn't it suggest that it deserves some scrutiny? Not that it matters, since the thing about the pronoun indicates MT and and I mean, look at it. Meanwhile I got 64,000 hits on Scholar, some of which would have been American residential schools. Still shows there is no need for this sketchy source definitely-not-best source Elinruby (talk) 14:24, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Of course scrutiny is warranted given everything presented above. TarnishedPath^talk 12:12, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Not sure the pronoun should be a reason to question the source… has gender identity been checked? Someone named Jacques could actually be a “she” under Canadian law. Just saying. Blueboar (talk) 19:39, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't think I can convey how impossible that seems to me as a French speaker, but I realize we are in English here, so look, returns from an image search. That is not a woman. [69] Elinruby (talk) 20:21, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

note beard.Elinruby (talk) 20:23, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

@Elinruby, I think you didn't address the main issue in your post. Are there other sources whose reliability is not in dispute that contradict the claims added here (that no bodies were excavated and no evidence of graves was found)? Do you believe that they are false, and if yes, why? Alaexis_¿question? 06:34, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

So the question would be: How would they know and what is THEIR source? Did they dispatch reporters to BC or are they just repeating what has been told? Presumably British Columbia or Canadian sources would know more about this because it's a local story. The CBC covers stories like this all the time with a lot of depth and neutrality. So the simple question is: what do they have to say? They should have priority for sourcing over foreign media. Harizotoh9 (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

@Harizotoh9: No question the CBC is a reliable source. On a par with the BBC. I would put CTV a little lower than that but not much. The daily nearby (!) would be the Prince George's Sentinel, afaik a broadsheet, and a tabloid in Hope does come out with a print edition. The Hope Standard is one of several online news sources run by something called Black Box Media, but they do a pretty professional job of keeping track of road closures and the local emergency levels. Also stuff about elections and bylaws and what ever. There are about 10 to 12 of those in places like Williams Lake and Agassiz. The Vancouver Sun is a fine paper of course. Globe and Mail is equivalent to the New York Times. Toronto Star is kind of People Magazine. I assume people know the Washington Post and the New York Times. I put a sample of journal articles in the thread above titled Canadian House of Commons and the Pope. Elinruby (talk) 07:05, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

These are all other sources are or could be used in the article. What do you want a source for, exactly, Alaexis? Elinruby (talk) 07:19, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

I may be missing something, but I understand that the source was used to support this edit which added two claims to the article:

1. As of March 2024, no remains have been excavated
2. As of May 2024, investigations into the reported mass graves at the site have ended with no conclusive evidence of such graves.

Do you believe that they are false? Are there sources whose reliability is not in doubt that contradict these two claims? If yes, the question would be a no-brainer. Alaexis_¿question? 20:20, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

1. As of when I was updating the article there had been two or possibly three excavations by archaeologists. Neither of them found bodies.
2. there are many sites. Investigation has not ended in the sense of closing the file at most of them. There are many sources for this at individual schools. At some locations they are unsure whether they want to excavate, and at others they are debating where. There are lots and lots of sources for that also. Think ANI: consensus has not been achieved in some places for an excavation. There is absolutely no reason to use this questionable source, not with so many RS available. Elinruby (talk) 18:16, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

1. Then there are the bones they found in Qu'Appelle [70], but that wasn't a body, see, and neither was the skeleton they found at Blue Quills [71]. This is what we are dealing with here. At another school they kept accidentally digging up bodies while trying to fix the water supply, and there there is another where bodies were sliding into the river after a flood. So it is possible to define "body" and "excavation" in such a way that you can say no bodies have been found in an excavation as a result of this discovery.

Now do you understand? Elinruby (talk) 18:53, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow your logic. If remains were found near other schools, then this information should be added to the articles about those schools. If you agree that nothing has been found at this particular school, what's this whole discussion about? Alaexis_¿question? 19:05, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

ok. (to self:this does not seem to have made the news outside of Canada.) They ran underground radar at Kamploops and got hits. Then some other First Nations ran underground radar and they got more hits. The various First Nations where this was the case (there are quite a few) are in various stages of deciding whether or not they want to do an archaeological excavation. Kamloops in particular is undecided. They already have whackos showing up with shovels to dig up the graves. So meanwhile, for reasons that are unclear to me, some bloggers and fringe sources have been pushing a narrative that there are no bodies, or there are no graves, or... pick your Alex Jones flavor of choice. At least three articles in the topic area have had people repeatedly adding that no bodies were found with the same tabloid sources. That is the issue. Why it is here at RSN at this moment is that apparently some of the fringe and Catholic sources are so fringe that they have never been discussed here. At least one of them is funded by some sort of Alberta oil tycoon; the details escae me but I can look them up if you are interested. Meanwhile I am trying to keep the Kamloops article, one of those involved, from from saying over and over again that no bodies have been found. The article already says that the community has not yet decided what to do. I do not know wny this stuff keeps being inserted. However I would like to establish that the publications in question are not very careful about accuracy and therefore should not be used as a source in this sensitive topic, where they have been pushing a hoax. Fluorescent Jellyfish made a long post to the Kamloops talk page about the hoax part. Does that help? Elinruby (talk) 19:54, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

TL;DR no bodies have been found in excavations at Kamloops because there have not been any excavations in Kamloops. Tt is unclear whether the community in Kamloops wants to excavate. People are not required to dig up their dead relatives if they don't want to. Elinruby (talk) 20:52, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

To me this just doesn't look like a reliability question. We could say "No excavations have been carried out" or "No excavations have been carried out and no bodies have been found". Both are true statements (based on what you wrote) and so it's up to Wikipedia editors to decide on the right wording.

To take a step back, one could argue that a given source is unreliable for a specific claim because it's contradicted by others (which is not the case here). Or one could argue that a source is in general has low standards and should not be used for a given topic. To make that argument you'd need to focus on Times Now and show that it's not a reliable source in general and I don't see any evidence of that in this thread. Alaexis_¿question? 07:20, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Except for the fact that it is pushing disinformation, but what's a little thing like that between friends? Elinruby (talk) 19:44, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

What exactly are you referring to? Which claim constitutes disinformation and what RS prove it? I already understand the context, so could you be more specific? Alaexis_¿question? 20:34, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Please see this diff to the OP of this thread Elinruby (talk) 20:47, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Of course this is a garbage source for this material, if the only thing you can find is some news source a half a world away from what it is covering that should clue you into whether or not you should be including something. nableezy - 22:41, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

We should probably get that written into policy somewhere. Along with Elinruby's "People are not required to dig up their dead relatives if they don't want to" comment above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:45, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems that the claim originated with this 'article' [72] and was repeated by similar generally unreliable right wing sources like western standard [73] (note this is cited in the article and is an WP:RSOPINION and coastal front [74]. Work seems to be ongoing and there haven't been any digs so the conclusive tone of those articles is troubling. Further RS are warning about denialism [[75]] [[76]] which is likely at play here. Finally, it seems that the First nation has softened it's language and these crappy sources are taking that farther than they should [[77]]—blindlynx 22:06, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Dorchester Review, again

Is The Dorchester Review reliable for the statement A tooth and rib were found in the area in the 1990s and early 2000s, both of which were of animal origin. that is for some reason currently in the lede of Kamloops Indian Residential School? The Wikipedia article for the Review says: In 2022, the Review posted an article by Jacques Rouillard on their blog, suggesting there was no concrete evidence of mass unmarked burials at Indian Residential Schools. which was cited in an article in the United Kingdom's The Spectator. In 2022, Canada's Crown-Indigenous Relations minister Marc Miller expressed concern about the rise of residential school denialism and rebuked those that criticized "the nature and validity of these and other recovery efforts" following the announcement of the discovery of potentially unmarked grave at the St Joseph's Mission School. In a Dorchester Review blog entry, Tom Flanagan and Brian Giesbrecht replied to Miller. In another Review blog post, anthropologist Hymie Rubenstein challenged Miller's statement about the reliability of indigenous knowledge.Elinruby (talk) 22:01, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, the Dorchester Review article mentions neither a tooth nor a rib being discovered, animal or otherwise. There is some discussion in the comments of that article about childrens' teeth/bones which have allegedly been found, but comments by pseudonymous members of the public are clearly not a reliable source. Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 13:55, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Not only do I think we should probably avoid that source, but I think the claims regarding teeth and bones are, as Caeciliusinhorto noted, wholly original to comments made on the article. I would support removal of that spurious claim that was originally made by an unqualified internet commentator who was seeking to delegitimize the search for buried bodies. ~ Pbritti (talk) 15:25, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

So am I hearing consensus that it should be removed because the source is not only not reliable but also misrepresented? I didn't actually check the text; I just know the source because I looked into it on previous occasions and every I have reference I have ever seen from it was always maddeningly inaccurate in obscure ways. I personally think it should be deprecated but it has to be discussed first und so wieder. Elinruby (talk) 11:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I can't say I support full deprecation of DR at the moment, but it definitely has the trappings of a problematic source (I'd characterize it as a partisan source less suitable for the encyclopedia than National Review). In this case, though, the claim about bones definitely needs to be removed. That's a flat violation of WP:USERGEN and I'm glad your instincts told you something was off. ~ Pbritti (talk) 13:09, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

less suitable than the National Review works for me for now. I will try to get to removing that, but it won't hurt to give people a little more time to talk if they want to. I just feel the need to check if I am going to be the one who does it and I need a break right now, I had a lot of notifications last night when I came home. If somebody who has already looked and knows it's bad wants to remove it, I promise to throw confetti. Elinruby (talk) 13:39, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Further reading:[78] (for level of emotional reaction and some back history) Elinruby (talk) 14:33, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• The question of the general reliability of The Dorchester Review, or even the particular article being cited, is irrelevant to this discussion because, as User:Caeciliusinhorto-public pointed out, the actual source for the the claim in the wikipedia article is a reader's comment (by a "Ken Finlayson" responding to another reader "M Craft") appended to that article, which is unambiguously unusable as a source. Abecedare (talk) 17:45, 21 June 2024 (UTC).

• I removed the statement and citation from the lede; there was no mention of this tooth in the body and I am unsure whether it is due in the lede anyway, in addition to all of the above. Elinruby (talk) 03:45, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• While agreeing with Abecedare, I wish to note (for posterity) that The Dorchester Review (TDR) ought to be treated as a GUNREL source. TDR claims to be a semi-annual journal of history and historical commentary but regrettably, not even a single article has managed to be cited in peer-reviewed literature in an approving manner till date. It is mostly described as a conservative media outlet and all I see are fellow conservative and far-right media outlets harping about how great a magazine it is; now, while being a conservative media outlet is NOT grounds for unreliability, the rare academic reviews of articles published in TDR point to the lack of peer review among other things and bias-to-the-extent-of-wild-inaccuracies, which are all deal-breakers:

  The commentary itself was clearly written to spark a debate. Like many of the editorials that fill Canadian newspapers, it is written in a conversational style without footnotes or references and – more importantly – it attempts to challenge what Coates’ sees as hegemonic narratives characterizing the study of Indian residential schools. And given that the online version of the article (like every page on The Dorchester Review website) is flanked by quotes from David Frum proclaiming that the journal is "Setting Canadian history right," the essay's ambition to upend the sacred cows of the Canadian historical profession, itself, are immediately apparent.
  — Cochrane, Donald (2015-04-07). "Setting Canadian History Right?: A Response to Ken Coates' 'Second Thoughts about Residential Schools'". Active History.

  Admittedly, some historians have tried to advocate for a ‘positive’ interpretation of residential schooling, but they have mostly done so in non-peer reviewed publications. See, for example, Ken Coates, ‘Second Thoughts about Residential Schools’, The Dorchester Review 4, no. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2014): 25–9.
  — Carleton, Sean (2021-10-02). "'I don't need any more education': Senator Lynn Beyak, residential school denialism, and attacks on truth and reconciliation in Canada". Settler Colonial Studies. 11 (4): 466–486. ISSN 2201-473X.

  Contributing to The Dorchester Review (a journal whose mission is to "engage and challenge the politically correct vision of history often found in the media and in academe"), historian Ken Coates echoed Niezen in 2014, arguing that the IRS system's positive aspects had been downplayed, and "not all students left the residential school broken." The lack of nuance was troubling, he thought, and provided "the country with a distorted view of Indigenous realities." He therefore called for historians to focus on the future and move past the negative history.
  — MacDonald, David B. (2019-05-16), "Genocide and the Politics of Memory: Discussing Some Counterarguments", The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation, University of Toronto Press, pp. 146–162, ISBN 978-1-4875-1804-2

  [T]he notes on pages 345—51 [of Biggar's work] regurgitate known denialist talking points from questionable sources, like the right-wing outfit The Dorchester Review, to justify a lack of engagement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) final report. This will be a red flag for most Canadian readers.
  — Perry, Adele; Carleton, Sean; Wahpasiw, Omeasoo (June 2024). "The Misuse of Indigenous and Canadian History in Colonialism". In Lester, Alan (ed.). The Truth About Empire: Real Histories of British Colonialism. Hurst (Oxford). ISBN 9781911723097.

  Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 09:13, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Notes

References

RfC: The Dorchester Review

What is the reliability of The Dorchester Review?

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

Note, see previous discussions at RSN: here and here. See previous discussion on an article's talk here TarnishedPath^talk 14:05, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (The Dorchester Review)

No need for RfC How often is this source being used? It seems it's being mentioned only in context of the Canadian Indigenous Schools topic. Is the source being used so widely that we need a universal statement? Are we past the point where we can ask "is this source acceptable for this claim"? We really need to limit these general RfCs for cases where we have had many discussions regarding a source (Fox News for example). Since this isn't such a case I would suggest closing this RfC and focusing on specific uses. Note, my view is more procedural vs anything related to the specific use question above. Springee (talk) 15:08, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I've demonstrated above that the source has had many discussions. The threshold has been passed for an RFC. TarnishedPath^talk 15:14, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

In real life I'm a researcher. I have done a lot of research into disinformation publications and the Canadian far-right. The Dorchester Review is part of the Canadian far-right publication ecosystem, alongside publications such as the Post Millennial, True North, Rebel News, the Western Standard, etc, (which also share many authors among them). They are well-known for propagating many, many, many far-right conspiracy theories, and for their racism, homophobia, etc.

In particular, they are a big proponent of anti-Indigenous racism and Residential School denialism, which is a very big deal: Canada's Residential Schools have been identified as essential tools of Canada's genocide against Indigenous people.

Chris Champion is the editor of the Dorchester Review. He is well-known - and well-condemned - for being a Residential School denialist. For instance:

"Champion again generated controversy after claiming claiming Indigenous students at residential schools had an “absolute blast.”" [source]

Champion - alongside Tom Flanagan, author from the extremely unreliable far-right publication The Western Standard - co-authored a book of residential school denialism.[source]

It is a heavily biased source with a major agenda. It should not, in my opinion, be considered reputable. Fluorescent Jellyfish (talk) 20:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

So, basically, I would firmly support Option 4. Fluorescent Jellyfish (talk) 21:59, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that this seems premature: the source has barely been discussed (just two tiny discussions of barely 1 screen each), and never outside of one very specific context; I have not seen evidence provided of whether the source is reliable or unreliable outside of that context: we need such evidence, and RFCBEFORE discussion of it as a general source, before having an RFC about it whether it is "generally reliable" or "generally unreliable". (In the most recent of the only two tiny discussions there've been about it, it turned out it wasn't even making the claim it was being cited for, so the reliability or unreliability of the source was irrelevant, the user who cited it had just erred.) -sche (talk) 15:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Other users have provided some additional information in this RFC, and I have tried to evaluate the source myself. I looked for USEBYOTHERS and found blogs and other non-reliable sources (which are also conspicuously partisan) citing them, not much use of them by reliable news sources, and in my limited search of books they appear to mostly be cited for 'the opinion of So-and-So, writing in TDR, is...', which is RSOPINION or ≈ABOUTSELF and not much evidence of reliability or unreliability for general facts; this lines up with Barnards's assessment below that they look like a purveyor of RSOPINIONs, as well as with TrangaBellam's point that despite their description of themselves as a journal, they appear to be only a media outlet. If I had to !vote in "standard option" ("generally reliable" or "generally unreliable" for all topics) terms, I would say note their acknowledged bias, apply considerations (2), and don't add them to RSP yet because I think we should wait on judging general un/reliability until someone actually wants to use them for general things, and brings those uses up for discussion here. For the only narrow issue they've been discussed in relation to, Native American residential schools, their admitted outlier bias — discussed in other sources (cited by TrangaBellam) as fringe and historical denialist in at least some areas — conveys that they're not a BESTSOURCE for any controversial claims, and suggests that more factors should be considered than just reliability: for instance, if they're the only might-be-reliable source for a given claim, the claim is likely not DUE (if it is due, ATTRIBUTEPOV), whereas if better sources exist for the claim, use those. -sche (talk) 20:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with above comments that this is premature or unnecessary. This does not seem to be an especially notable source, so a thorough RFCBEFORE is required. The two previous discussions linked above are not particularly informative. Astaire (talk) 16:18, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose Option 4 and this whole deprecation system (or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is). Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RfC "Option 4" deprecation ((or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is) should only be proposed as part of an RfC with a very good reason, it should not be a standard option on an RfC at this noticeboard. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 18:51, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Articles on Wikipedia that link to The Dorchester Review: [79]22:15, 21 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: I for one am unwilling to slog through a discussion on Stephen Harper. Is it possible to modify the RfC to only address the denialist topic area? Elinruby (talk) 00:05, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  @Elinruby, too late to adjust an RfC once there's been a number of comments. If you want to address the denialist topic area only then do that. TarnishedPath^talk 06:23, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

While you may not find the two previous discussion informative they do constitute RFCBEFORE. TarnishedPath^talk 06:10, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 as noted in previous discussions The Dorchester Review has been known to publish misinformation on some topics. Further it is noted by Media Bias Fact Check that the source has been rated mixed for factual reporting and has a right wing bias which is edging towards an extreme right bias. On the balance of things I'd say this source is not reliable and is generally unreliable. TarnishedPath^talk 06:21, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Media Bias Fact Check's ratings are considered unreliable, I fail to see why they should matter when discussing sources. I'm sure editors can see the publication's right-wing bias for themselves without needing a blog to tell them it's there. XeCyranium (talk) 18:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 - I actually think it will come to deprecation but yes, actually, BEFORE. And in hopes that maybe we can find a consensus there for now. N.B. I am not critical of the RfC, just noting that the early returns are running against it. But I hope it succeeds. This is up to you of course, but since a lot of editors still seem to be processing that genocide is in in fact in common usage in the field, I personally would let this run. But I don't know how exciting a life you are willing to lead either. I think some quiet editors are going to start speaking up. I put a link to the Dorchester Review thread in the case I just opened at ANI. Not sure who I am supposed to notify but I did get the guy whose name is on it. No matter what, this source is part of a big problem, though, and I have removed it many times. On the topic of residential school graves, it claims that the deaths of children were a hoax, and we are being polite about this. No no no.Elinruby (talk) 07:09, 22 June 2024 (UTC)
• Comment. Can we get some examples of false statements published by this source? Being accused of being far-right, or even actually being far-right, is not the same as being unreliable, nor is having an editor who holds certain beliefs, even if those beliefs are terrible. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  1. As noted in a previous discussion the source used a picture of smiling children as propaganda to push the unevidenced position that there was no abuse happening.
  2. There's also been discussion on the source on the articles talk at Talk:Kamloops Indian Residential School/Archive 2#The Dorchester_Review in which it has been discussed that source pushes propaganda. Links to discussion of the source offwiki are provided in that discussion.

  TarnishedPath^talk 10:02, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Is this the article in question? It doesn't seem to state that there was no abuse happening. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:17, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  From the story on their social media post liked above, "They were put through hell" and yet they are having an absolute blast on that play structure. What gives? That's clear propoganda pushing the position that there must not have been abuse because of the existence of a picture which showed them playing. TarnishedPath^talk 10:30, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  But we're talking about the reliability of The Dorchester Review (the journal), not TheDorchesterReview (the Twitter account). Twitter is already generally unreliable. WP:RSPTWITTER. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:45, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Twitter is generally unreliable on the basis that most tweets are self-published. Tweets from the official accounts of a publisher should be taken as publications of that publisher. WP:RSPTWITTER states Twitter accounts should only be cited if the user's identity is confirmed in some way. Tweets that are not covered by reliable sources are likely to constitute undue weight. In this instance the user's identity is confirmed as being the official twitter account of the publication and we have what seems to be a reliable source discussing the tweet. TarnishedPath^talk 11:03, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

  Tweets from the official accounts of a publisher should be taken as publications of that publisher I disagree. Official social media accounts are often operated by different employees than would be involved in the activities of the rest of the organisation - and we have no information about what editorial process applies to the tweets. By its nature the medium is akin to an attention-grabbing WP:HEADLINE which we wouldn't treat as reliable even in a reliable publication. Bad tweets from an org don't automatically infect the parent org's reliability. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 11:13, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 TDR claims to be a semi-annual journal of history and historical commentary but regrettably, not even a single article has managed to be cited in peer-reviewed literature in an approving manner till date. It is mostly described as a conservative media outlet and all I see are fellow conservative and far-right media outlets harping about how great a magazine it is; now, while being a conservative media outlet is NOT grounds for unreliability, the rare academic reviews of articles published in TDR point to the lack of peer review among other things and bias-to-the-extent-of-wild-inaccuracies, which are all deal-breakers:

  The commentary itself was clearly written to spark a debate. Like many of the editorials that fill Canadian newspapers, it is written in a conversational style without footnotes or references and – more importantly – it attempts to challenge what Coates’ sees as hegemonic narratives characterizing the study of Indian residential schools. And given that the online version of the article (like every page on The Dorchester Review website) is flanked by quotes from David Frum proclaiming that the journal is "Setting Canadian history right," the essay's ambition to upend the sacred cows of the Canadian historical profession, itself, are immediately apparent.
  — Cochrane, Donald (2015-04-07). "Setting Canadian History Right?: A Response to Ken Coates' 'Second Thoughts about Residential Schools'". Active History.

  Admittedly, some historians have tried to advocate for a ‘positive’ interpretation of residential schooling, but they have mostly done so in non-peer reviewed publications. See, for example, Ken Coates, ‘Second Thoughts about Residential Schools’, The Dorchester Review 4, no. 2 (Autumn/Winter 2014): 25–9.
  — Carleton, Sean (2021-10-02). "'I don't need any more education': Senator Lynn Beyak, residential school denialism, and attacks on truth and reconciliation in Canada". Settler Colonial Studies. 11 (4): 466–486. ISSN 2201-473X.

  Contributing to The Dorchester Review (a journal whose mission is to "engage and challenge the politically correct vision of history often found in the media and in academe"), historian Ken Coates echoed Niezen in 2014, arguing that the IRS system's positive aspects had been downplayed, and "not all students left the residential school broken." The lack of nuance was troubling, he thought, and provided "the country with a distorted view of Indigenous realities." He therefore called for historians to focus on the future and move past the negative history.
  — MacDonald, David B. (2019-05-16), "Genocide and the Politics of Memory: Discussing Some Counterarguments", The Sleeping Giant Awakens: Genocide, Indian Residential Schools, and the Challenge of Conciliation, University of Toronto Press, pp. 146–162, ISBN 978-1-4875-1804-2

  [T]he notes on pages 345—51 [of Biggar's work] regurgitate known denialist talking points from questionable sources, like the right-wing outfit The Dorchester Review, to justify a lack of engagement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's (TRC) final report. This will be a red flag for most Canadian readers.
  — Perry, Adele; Carleton, Sean; Wahpasiw, Omeasoo (June 2024). "The Misuse of Indigenous and Canadian History in Colonialism". In Lester, Alan (ed.). The Truth About Empire: Real Histories of British Colonialism. Hurst (Oxford). ISBN 9781911723097.

  Thanks, TrangaBellam (talk) 09:13, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 2 Limited use by others, gatekeeping process, physical personality by which it can be held liable for what it publishes. Grab-bag instances of errors, etc., aren't sufficient to classify it as unreliable, we need RS chronicling a pattern or propensity for false reporting. (Also, MediaBias/Factcheck is, itself, unreliable (see: WP:MB/FC) and shouldn't be used to determine the reliability of a person, place, or thing.) The lack of peer review is irrelevant as it doesn't portend to be a scholarly publication, 90% of the sources on the perennial sources list aren't peer reviewed. Similarly, the fact it doesn't publish footnotes is irrelevant; the Wall Street Journal doesn't publish footnotes in its articles, Popular Mechanics doesn't publish footnotes, CNN doesn't flash references across the screen. That said, as a "a journal of historical commentary" and self-described "robustly polemical" publication [80] it should not be used for WP:EXTRAORDINARY claims, unless attributed, and care should be exercised when using for WP:BLPs. Chetsford (talk) 10:24, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  Unlike CNN or NYT or WSJ, TDR has loftier aspirations. I have never heard Popular Mechanics claim that their goal is to prove how "establishment physicists" have gotten it all wrong. TDR seeks to "upend the sacred cows of the Canadian historical profession", and "engage and challenge the politically correct vision of history often found in the media and in academe"; as they openly admit, challenging "establishment historians" is their reason-of-existence. In other words, TDR is engaging in the realm of academic scholarship and has to be judged accordingly. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:11, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  History is socially constructed. Ergo, critical analysis of history is simply the application of framing devices which are, by definition, mediated lenses of analysis. This is quantifiably different than claiming the Sun revolves around the Earth. "In other words, TDR is engaging in the realm of academic scholarship and has to be judged accordingly." This invokes a standard that simply doesn't exist in our WP:RS policy. We don't have different "degrees" of RS. Moreover, if you're challenging academic scholarship you are ipso facto operating outside academic scholarship. One can't be judged by the standards of a thing outside of one's own existence. This is (a) consistent with a determination of "other considerations" versus "generally reliable", and, (b) we allow, as evidenced by our articles that cite the Wall Street Journal or USA Today or whatever. Chetsford (talk) 03:32, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  WP:SCHOLARSHIP:

  POV and peer review in journals – Care should be taken with journals that exist mainly to promote a particular point of view. A claim of peer review is not an indication that the journal is respected, or that any meaningful peer review occurs. Journals that are not peer reviewed by the wider academic community should not be considered reliable, except to show the views of the groups represented by those journals.

  As far as I can see, this passage exists in WP:RS.

  As to the "social construction" of history vis-a-vis hard sciences, that's, in my opinion, an inaccurate view but I won't spend any word to litigate a hackneyed debate that has occupied hundreds of scholars to no productive end.

  That said, I remain curious about your views on this discussion concerning the reliability of Glaukopis? Do you believe that the community arrived at a correct decision? This is not a gotcha but I am genuinely trying to understand your position. And, in the spirit of WP:BLUDGEON, I won't reply any further.TrangaBellam (talk) 06:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• Sample article=[81] Others are if anything worse Elinruby (talk) 10:29, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  That seems to be an opinion blog which wouldn't be useable for statements of fact either way, does the site include more "official" news or articles? XeCyranium (talk) 18:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  main page: [82] printeditions ][83] Elinruby (talk) 22:20, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3. This publication appears to be primarily an outlet for editorial opinions, with a certain bias. It does not appear to be aimed at providing factual news pieces. I follow plenty of similar sites (with different editorial biases) but I wouldn't try to use them as reliable sources, either. Usable only for reporting on someone's opinion, credited as someone's opinion rather than as a statement of fact, and even in that case not likely to be a good source. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Option 2 - No need for RfC How often is this source being used? as User:Springee said, there is no need to RFC. And it is also being based on invalid issues — there was no prior question about reliability here. The two prior discussions linked to were on content of a readers comment/blog post, and of an opinion piece. Neither of those reflect on the reliability here, so the RFC is not showing prior TALK on their reliability in question. Those were just not publication pieces to cite and not about the reliability of the publication. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:59, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

not sure where you are getting this idea. I have a post up right now about Dorchester Review being used to promote hoaxes about deaths at Canadian residential schools. It was definitely up before the RfC and may have triggered it for all I know. In my opinion this reflects the paucity of discussion reflects the neglect of these hoaxes on Wikipedia until just recently, and bringing them to light has been a hard road of being patronizingly portrayed as cray-cray. When it comes to the genocide at Canadian residential schools, they are beyond unreliable. They are actively tormenting thousands of people by promoting the idea that they are just out to make money off their dead relatives, or whatever the narrative is this week, and as far as I can tell they are promoting this idea out of racial animus with the goal of manipulating political discourse. This publication needs to have large flashing danger sign left right and center on this topic at least and I sincerely doubt that in other topics they would actually be any better Elinruby (talk) 07:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

• Option 2 due to the text found in its footer: Because we are committed to publishing different points of view on controversial issues, the opinions of the authors whose work we have posted are not necessarily our own. Nor do their writings necessarily reflect the underlying ethos of this journal. This reads to me like a disclaimer that they take no editorial responsibility for the reliability of their content, and are thus a purveyor of WP:RSOPINION. I have seen no smoking gun evidence in the discussion above that they publish false information - just lots of insinuation that they are conservative, far-right, controversial, questionable, and non-peer-reviewed, none of which are synonyms for unreliable. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:40, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3. I don't think they're unreliable because of a conservative bias or whatnot, but because they seem to have no fact-checking policies or way of distinguishing between the possibly fringe opinions of one author and what should be statements of fact. As it is everything in it seems more akin to a collaborative opinion blog than a real journal, academic or otherwise. There are an endless amount of unsourced figures mixed in with persuasive arguments but no reassurance from the journal that what's being published is given even a once over for accuracy. XeCyranium (talk) 19:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

{{The schools with which Ryerson was involved were designed for older students who attended voluntarily [footnote: as were the later residential schools — Ed.], and were intended to build upon the foundation established in local mission schools. Students spoke their native languages, [footnote: it is becoming increasingly clear, through research that the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has suppressed, that children at many later residential schools spoke, and were even taught in, their native languages. — Ed.] and were taught largely by teachers trained in the new Normal School, which Ryerson created, not by clergy. The religious instruction was more like Sunday school classes than the indoctrination of the federal schools. Students in those early schools were learning a marketable skill, not merely producing goods the sale of which would in turn finance the school. All of these are markedly different from the way many Canadians today understand the later federal residential schools.}}[84]

This is well beyond opinion and into FRINGE territory. Elinruby (talk) 19:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

oh and lookie here [85] Elinruby (talk) 19:57, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 3 or 4 disconnect from reality and disingenuous. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 06:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Request for Whitelisting a Reputable Music Website

Hello,

I am seeking help to get a domain whitelisted that is a reputable source for Nigerian music and cultural content. I tried to add a link to a Wikipedia article about Olamide’s latest music project, but the domain is currently blacklisted on the global spam blacklist.

The website contains relevant and valuable content about Olamide’s project that would enhance the Wikipedia article.

Could someone assist me with the process to have this domain (naijawide dot com) whitelisted?

Thank you for your help!

Best regards, Naijawide — Preceding unsigned comment added by 102.89.23.114 (talk) 09:11, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Given the similarity of the website and how you've signed your post can I suggest you read WP: Conflict of interest and WP:Search engine optimization. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

RFC: The Sun, a broadsheet newspaper published from 1964 to 1969

The Sun was a broadsheet newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1969. It was a replacement for a similar broadsheet newspaper called the Daily Herald, which it resembled. It was owned by the International Publishing Corporation and the Mirror Group. Rupert Murdoch and Kelvin Mackenzie had nothing to do with it. In 1969, it was replaced by a very different and disimilar tabloid newspaper with the same name, called The Sun, which was owned by Rupert Murdoch. That tabloid newspaper has an entry in WP:RSP located at WP:THESUN. Unfortunately that entry fails to indicate whether it applies to the previous broadsheet newspaper, and the broadsheet newspaper does not appear to have been discussed during previous discussions of "The Sun" at RSN. We need to decide whether the broadsheet newspaper published from 1964 to 1969 is reliable, so that the entry at WP:THESUN can be clarified.

Accordingly this Request for Comment asks:

What is the reliability of the national daily broadsheet newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1964 to 1969 called The Sun?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

James500 (talk) 08:18, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

Survey (The Sun, a broadsheet newspaper published from 1964 to 1969)

• Option 1: Generally reliable. To begin with WP:NEWSORG says "news reporting from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors)". That is the case here. This broadsheet newspaper was indeed a "well-established news outlet" having existed as a reputable broadsheet with a high circulation, under a different name, since 1912. As a broadsheet newspaper similar to the Daily Herald, and owned and run by the same people, this appears, on the face of it, to be a very reliable newspaper, similar in reliability to The Guardian or The Independent. There is, at this point, no evidence whatsoever that so much as a single error ever appeared in the broadsheet newspaper published from 1964 to 1969. It has been repeatedly described by writers as "worthy" and "boring" (see articles by Patrick Brogan, Stephen Daisley, and the BBC). A newspaper that is "worthy" and "boring" is likely to be very reliable. The BBC says that it had "high aspirations and ideals" and was published to "stop [the] sort of populist, right-wing" tabloid newspaper that replaced it: [86]. Such a newspaper is likely to be very reliable. Bill Grundy said that the writers were "good" and "fine", including John Akass, Nancy Banks-Smith, Geoffrey Goodman, Harold Hutchinson and Allan Hall: [87]. Grundy said they did good work at the old broadsheet Sun. As far as I can tell, they all left The Sun when Murdoch arrived in 1969. A newspaper with writers like that is likely to be very reliable. The editor Dick Dinsdale also left in 1969, so we can say there is a lack of continuity in staff between the broadsheet and the tabloid. The political stance of the newspaper was moderate and centrist (on the left wing), and it aimed to be independent of all political parties. It was not far left or far right. Such a newspaper is likely to be reliable. I have analysed the front page of the first edition (15 September 1964): It looks like a respectable broadsheet newspaper, written for educated people. It promises to "set itself the highest journalistic standards", that it will have no "preconceived bias" and that if any errors are published inadvertantly in good faith, they will be "corrected with frankness and without delay". I have found no errors in it. It looks like something that one would expect to be obviously very reliable. The old broadsheet newspaper should not be tainted by perceived association with a very different later tabloid newspaper that happens to have the same name. The old broadsheet newspaper was simply not "trashy" in any way at all. All the factual inaccuracies Wikipedians have detected in the tabloid newspaper date from after 1969 and primarily from the 1980s onwards, as far as I can tell. The old broadsheet (1964 to 1969) was not discussed at all during the previous RfC for the Sun, and it appears obvious that the participants in that discussion had no idea the old broadsheet newspaper even existed. Further information: [88] [89]. James500 (talk) 08:18, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 I don't doubt that a pre-Murdoch broadsheet with wide distribution was generally reliable, especially one unaffiliated to political parties unlike other broadsheets during that period. I would however like to know more about this "radical" agenda they described as; as far as I understand this was slang for "good" or "cool" in the 60s, but might be worth clarifying for editors under the age of 60. CNC (talk) 11:59, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  They said that they were "radical" in the sense of being "ready to praise or criticise without preconceived bias". It is on the front page of the first issue. Apparently not having "preconceived bias" (which would include not having a party political bias) was considered "radical" in 1964. James500 (talk) 22:38, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

• Bad RFC per the noticeboard header and the edit notice. Prior discussions should be had before starting a RFC, which has not happened. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:32, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think this may be a valid exception due to the need to differentiate it from the later, thoroughly discussed WP:THESUN. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 16:36, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  Rather than have a whole discussion here where most of the participants will never have seen an issue of the elder Sun, I think we can just edit WP:THESUN to specify that it only applies to the newspaper after 1969. --GRuban (talk) 16:40, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  WP:THESUN presently links to the article The Sun (United Kingdom). That article includes both the old broadsheet newspaper and the new tabloid newspaper. WP:THESUN does not specify which of those newspapers it is about. I was under the impression that the previous discussions that led to WP:THESUN satisfy the requirement for previous discussions. I was under the impression that it would not be possible to edit WP:THESUN without an RfC, because WP:THESUN is meant to restate the outcome of a previous RfC in 2019. If WP:THESUN can be edited to say that it does not include the old broadsheet newspaper without an RfC, I have no problem with that. I assumed that it was procedurally impossible to change the summary of an RfC without another RfC. If you want me to edit WP:THESUN myself, I would prefer to have clear authorisation from the community. James500 (talk) 21:54, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  Maybe this could have been resolved without an RfC, and only a discussion on this board, but given the The Sun is currently GUNREL then it doesn't do any harm to have one. For all we know there are editors who believe it is MREL or still GUNREL for other reasons. Furthermore editors are not obliged to comment, even if requested, and it's certainly not a "bad RfC". The board clearly states that an RfC shouldn't be opened "unless the source is widely used and has been repeatedly discussed"; with 15 prior discussions, that's certainly enough. Non-policy arguments such as WP:BEFORERFC aren't relevant either, as what you "should do" and required to do are two separate concepts. As long as editors criticise the RfC itself and not the proposal, there's a good chance the proposed changes can be made sooner rather than later. CNC (talk) 22:55, 25 June 2024 (UTC)

  Adding a note to WP:THESUN does not require a RFC, and discussions on The Sun (the tabloid) are not discusions on a prior publications of the same name. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:46, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

• I agree with ActivelyDisinterested. I'm not convinced this is so contentious that it needs a Request for Comment to resolve it. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:37, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RFC, very premature. Show that there is any live issue here at all first. Are there previous discussions where this is a point of contention? The purpose of RFCs on RSN is for discussion of live issues, not to categorise sources in the absence of an actual live issue - David Gerard (talk) 00:12, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  David, there have been 15 prior discussions of The Sun, and its use has been in extreme contention for a long time. You were a participant in those discussions, and you were strongly opposed to any use of The Sun whatsoever. You have been systematically ripping all references to The Sun out of articles citing WP:THESUN in your edit summaries. You do that more or less every day at such high speed and on such a scale that it would be impossible for anyone to monitor exactly what was being ripped out. How do I know that references to the old broadsheet newspaper are not being ripped out with the rest of the references to The Sun? The present text of WP:THESUN, so far as it links to The Sun (United Kingdom) without further explanation, is likely to produce that result even if you were to promise not to do it yourself and even if you were to confirm you have not done it yourself. The point is that the text of WP:THESUN is so unclear that it is not remotely adequate. In any event, if you cannot positively prove that no-one is removing references to the old broadsheet newspaper, I think we are entitled to presume that they probably are, because anyone can see that is likely to happen because of the text of WP:THESUN, and it would be impossible to actually monitor accross all the articles of the encyclopedia (WP:FAIT). James500 (talk) 01:06, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have any diffs to show that this is a current issue, that refs to the prior broadsheet have been effected? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 09:49, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  It would not be reasonably practical to find diffs of references being removed without a script or tool that is capable of finding them. Do you know of a script or tool that can do that? If you do not, then you are demanding that I find diffs by manually examining every mainspace edit made since 2019 (which is probably tens of millions). That would be a completely inappropriate request and would violate WP:FAIT. James500 (talk) 10:19, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  So in other words there is no current issue. If someone removes one of the current references to the earlier publication revert them and open a discussion with them, if that fails come here for a third opinion.

  Removing references to The Sun where appropriate is fine given the consensus that it is unreliable. Obviously any such removals should be done with care, and any mistakes discussed with the editor removing the reference. All of which follows the wording of WP:FAIT.

  Asking for evidence has nothing to do with WP:FAIT. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  This edit is wikilawyering and WP:POINT. David cannot claim that the RfC is "bad" because the old broadsheet has not been discussed before, and then claim that we need an RfC to change WP:THESUN because the old broadsheet was included in the 2019 RfC. He cannot have it both ways. And it is no good claiming that the RfC was withdrawn when I specifically stated that I would only withdraw the RfC on condition that the community agreed that an RfC was not necessary to make that change to RSP, and on condition that the change was not reverted. Anyway, David's revert proves that there is a "live issue" and a "point of contention", because his editing constitutes one. James500 (talk) 13:43, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

• Comment Although this issue can be easily resolved by simply fixing WP:THESUN to post-1969, are we - or have we - actually used the 1964-69 Sun as a source at any point, and have such references been removed by editors quoting the RfC about the tabloid? Black Kite (talk) 07:26, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  We do have references to the old broadsheet Sun in articles right now at this very moment. I am not aware of any script or tool that can detect whether references to the old broadsheet Sun have been removed in the past, let alone determine if they have been removed in the five years since the RfC in 2019. James500 (talk) 09:12, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

• Proposal to end this. A number of editors have suggested that the text of WP:THESUN can be amended without an RfC. I do not see anyone saying they will revert such an amendment. I propose we treat that as an emerging consensus, since that text does not accurately reflect the consensus established in 2019 anyway. I propose to WP:BOLDly amend the text of WP:THESUN by adding "The following consensus applies only to the tabloid newspaper published from 1969 onwards; it does not apply to the broadsheet newspaper published from 1964 to 1969". Unless there is an immediate howl of protest, I am going to do this now, because I think that it would be better for all of us to end this as quickly as possible. If no-one reverts or objects to the amendment, I am happy to withdraw this RfC, and for it to be closed. James500 (talk) 15:29, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

   Done with this edit. The correct edit summary is in the following edit. (Unfortunately WP:RSP is far too large to load conveniently on a browser). If no one reverts that edit, I have no problem with this RfC being closed as withdrawn and resolved. James500 (talk) 15:44, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

  I closed this RfC on 26 June due to the RSP amendment and James500's above statement (closing diff). The RSP amendment was reverted on 27 June, so I've re-opened the RfC. It's evident that the change is contentious and that further discussion is needed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 12:37, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  I would still suggest closing this, this needs a discussion at most. Jumping straight to the most bureaucratic option is just bad pratice. Also there is still no evidence that this is an actual issue. If someone has removed such a reference and disagreed with reinstating it then it hasn't been shown. As long as that is the case no-one is stating that The Sun (the broadsheet published from 64-69) is unreliable then there is zero need for any discussion. If no-one say it's unreliable and editors believe in their good judgement that it is reliable, then it is reliable. No need for any RFC, discussion or update to the RSP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 20:11, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  WP:THESUN clearly clearly states that the newspaper is WP:GUNREL, including 64-69. This is why there is an RfC right now, that could have been settled if it weren't for revert of RSP. The revert speaks volumes. CNC (talk) 20:22, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  On the face of it, this edit is an assertion that the 1964 to 1969 broadsheet is generally unreliable and that the consensus of the 2019 RfC applies to it. It is true that the prima facie assertion of unreliability appears to be baseless, and no substantial reasons or evidence are given for the assertion, but it is not clear that makes any difference. James500 (talk) 20:24, 27 June 2024 (UTC)

  That was because you claimed "I'll withdraw my RFC if you treat it like it passed," and lol no. I don't see how you can reasonably treat it as discussion of the paper. If that's the best evidence you have of a live issue, you don't have a live issue - David Gerard (talk) 19:26, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  If you revert someone's edit, and they do not agree with that revert, that is ipso facto a live issue. There is clearly a live issue about what the text of WP:THESUN should say, because you are reverting changes to it. There is no policy, guideline or consensus that authorises you to revert an edit and then prevent all community discussion of that revert, or of whether the edit should be reinstated. That is the exact opposite of consensus and the exact opposite of WP:BRD. The procedure is "Bold, Revert, Discuss". It is certainly not "Bold, Revert, Silence community discussion of the revert by wikilawyering alleged procedural rules that do not exist". I would now like to shut up and let other people !vote. James500 (talk) 21:04, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  Agree CNC (talk) 21:08, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  So you really don't have an example of a dispute over the source in article space? That being the usual sense of "live issue". None whatsoever, just an edit on the summary page of a discussion board, and zero examples you can present of any dispute or discussion of the source in an actual article before you raised this? That's a yes or no question, and if it's a yes please cite the issues. You seem overly interested in proceduralism and long-winded discussions that are short on clear examples (see your claims of "citogenesis" on WP:RSP above, where you seem to have misunderstood the word and not let that stop you proceduralising furiously) and not so much with an actual live dispute about anything in article space. But if you can evidence such discussions in article space (the usual sense of "live issue" on this board), please do - David Gerard (talk) 21:39, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  As David Gerard has objected to the ways proposed to close this topic without a long discussion, it seems certain that the topic is ripe for discussion. Walsh90210 (talk) 21:43, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  I think people have talked enough; I wish they'd stop. This "live issue" is nothing more than a straw man argument. Hundreds of sources are discussed here, as to whether they reliable or not, without there being "live issues". Please stop bludgeoning attempts to gain consensus and read the room. CNC (talk) 22:06, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

  Ok you don't have to agree with me, but nothing I've seen here changes my opinion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:44, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Option 4: and this whole deprecation system (or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is). Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:41, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Bad RfC "Option 4" deprecation (or depreciation as someone people seem to think it is) should only be proposed as part of an RfC with a very good reason, it should not be a standard option on an RfC at this noticeboard. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:41, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

User:Emir of Wikipedia, I have removed option 4 from the list included in the proposal since you oppose it, and no-one has made any substantial arguments in support of it. I have actually !voted for option 1. Will you now withdraw your opposition to this RfC, if that is the only thing you object to? James500 (talk) 20:47, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Option 1. Seems a perfectly fine source. PARAKANYAA (talk) 04:27, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

National Post, Toronto Star, Toronto Sun

for the sake of everyone's sanity, moving the following into its own section; left collapsed in original thread for attribution

offtopic but apparently needed discussion moved here from Catholic Register thread

::When did the National Post and the Toronto Sun become unreliable?? I can't find these "archived discussions" you refer to and there's no WP:RSP listing (perhaps we need an RfC?). The best is an opinion column from the National Post accusing others of plagiarism.[90] These are two of Canada's most-circulated newspapers. [91] You can't just handwave them away as being unreliable. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 05:07, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

The National Post put an op-ed piece by Jason Kenney on its front page. In it, he said that people need to just get over these little matters of genocide and move on for the the good of the country, and this right after the discovery of graves in Kamloops. That was unforgivable. I didn't know questions had been raised about it, and I do not know why, but I definitely applaud the sentiment. And yes, it is one of Canada's highest-circulation newspapers. Which is terrifying. As for the Toronto Star, do you dispute it? I am not in Ontario so I don't see the print publication, but I've described their recent offerings (possibly even here) as akin to People magazine, so I definitely wouldn't use it for anything more complicated than 'on this day person x said y', and certainly not for a fraught and nuanced topic like the genocide at residential schools in Canada.Elinruby (talk) 07:39, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

If you don't know the difference between the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun you shouldn't be judging Canadian newspapers. Vague claims that a publication is like People magazine is not enough to make a source unreliable.

WP:RSOPINION says you can't cite op-eds anyways. To declare the National Post as unreliable you should be showing how citing it can be used to support untrue information on-wiki, not just publishing editorials you disagree with. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 16:34, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I think this needs its own thread. But a) I am talking about the Star, ie the one with the star in its logo. I was until now blissfully unaware that there was a Toronto Sun, I think. And worse, you say, huh. b) I would never cite Jason Kenney except in a discussion of the problems in Canadian political discourse c) yes, op-eds are inherently unreliable, and that is why they shouldn't be on the front page. It really bothers me that I have to explain this d) I am as patriotic as the next person and probably more so, but the ostrich approach to the issue isn't solving anything. e) The National Post may need to be used for traffic news in Ontario or inside baseball on the budget bill perhaps, but in general it should be avoided imho. Elinruby (talk) 19:07, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Being amongst a country's most circulated newspapers does not speak in the slightest towards a publication's reliability. TarnishedPath^talk 10:00, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Flippantly excluding it as unreliable would affect any article on Canada. [92] Both the Toronto Sun and the National Post regularly win National Newspaper Awards (Canadian Pulitzer) because they are recognized by their peers as being of high quality. [93] [94] Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 16:47, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

{{failed verification}} Ok the Star won for photography and the National Post for a column. About the shameful Hunka episode to boot. This is not the flex you think it is. Elinruby (talk) 19:32, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I'll repeat again that the Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun are two very different newspapers, despite being named after astronomical objects. If you look at the full awards list [95] the National Post has won 13 NNAs in its 25 year history, 11 of which were not in editorials or columns. The Toronto Sun has won 22, 5 of which were not editorial cartoons/photos.

Clearly we need a new discussion on this. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 19:46, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Look, of course the sun is a star, but I am talking about the Toronto Star. The fact that I offtopicto your offtopic post in the offtopic spinoff from my original question does not make me the one that is confused here. I am taking your post as support for refactoring however.Elinruby (talk) 21:25, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

I was just looking at prior discussions of those sources on this noticeboard that turned up when I searched the archives, in which it looked like editors thought they were unreliable; if you read those discussions differently and/or think it's important to start an RFC on either source, feel free. I suggest starting a new section for it, as this section has already left its initial topic (Catholic Reporter) in the dust and is now even veering off even the secondary topic it had veered onto (that Blacklock's has no reputation for fact-checking, use by other RS, etc, and in general has no signs of being RS). -sche (talk) 16:41, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Y Catholic Register, actually, which I would like to get back to, since it is actually used in an article I am trying to clean up. Considering sorting this into three separate threads.Elinruby (talk) 19:28, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

TL;DR from the above: The National Post put an op-ed by a politician on the front page of its print edition. Apparently @Chess: feels this has no bearing on the newspaper's reliability. There also seems to be some disagreement about the reliability of the Toronto Sun and the Toronto Star. I consider that they are mostly irrelevant, but usable for simple statements of fact like "x said y on this day". This is in part due to their intense absorption with their own region, probably. Maybe they are reliable for national politics also. I avoid them because I don't care who got arrested in Hamilton. For British Columbia, which is all I am talking about right now, much better sources exist for the most part, although I may recall one or two long-form explainers from them that were pretty good. Unsure.

The third Toronto paper, The Globe and Mail, is unquestionably reliable, if a but stodgy and banker-ish. I have compared it to the New York Times; we can discuss that too if anyone wants to.

As for the Sun and the Star, meh, I would put reliability on a par with, idk, have previously said People magazine for the Star, but I admit it's a little more newsy than that. Not much, though. And to be fair, I have to say that I never see the print edition of either one, so that may be part of it too,— Preceding unsigned comment added by Elinruby (talk • contribs) 00:32, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The complaint is that the National Post ran an op-ed? Can you explain how that has bearing on the WP:NEWSORG's reliability for news reporting? I'm struggling to see why running a labeled opinion piece is relevant to the Flagship PostMedia paper's reliability. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 19:43, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't matter where a paper puts its op-eds. WP:RSOPINION still applies, no matter whether we agree or disagree with the opinion. I'm getting flashbacks to the New York Times Tom Cotton editorial fracas. Offensive or controversial editorials, be they by a Premier of Alberta or a US Senator, might suggest an editorial bias, but bias in op-eds does not mean unreliable for factual reporting elsewhere. --Animalparty! (talk) 06:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

On the front page of the print edition above the fold? And yes, obviously newspapers publish opinion. It is supposed to go in the opinion section however. Elinruby (talk) 19:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

We do not require this of sources. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 19:27, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

maybe you don't. After all it's only the most sacred tenet in print journalism. NBD. Elinruby (talk) 20:24, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Op-Ed content masquerading as news would be a big deal. But we don’t require sources to follow any particular layout. They can put an op-ed on the front page if they want to. So can we have a look at the front page in question? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC

They can indeed do anything they want, and we can evaluate their actions on the basis of our policy in turn. But to be clear it wasn't masquerading as anything but the opinion of the then-premier of Alberta. Elinruby (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you happen to have a link to a copy of that front page? — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I saw it on paper, which is how I know that it was above the fold, but yes, I am sure there must be one. I will find it once I get done adding diffs to the Arbcom clarification request that this got added to, which is what I am in here for right now. Do I need to explain Jason Kenney when I do that? Elinruby (talk) 20:26, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: here. Elinruby (talk) 23:34, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Oh Jesus Christ, if that's the "unforgiveable" op-ed that single-handedly makes the National Post unreliable (no matter where it originally appeared in print), then nothing is reliable. Although online it's categorized under opinion, the article's intro and ending suggest an interview ("Asked Tuesday whether Calgary’s Sir John A. Macdonald school should be renamed... This transcript has been edited for clarity."). Kenney said: "We should learn from our achievements but also our failures. Canada is doing that, just as Prime Minister Harper made the official apology for the terrible injustice of the Indian residential school system" and concludes with "I think that’s the solution, which is to present young people and all Canadians, including new Canadians with a balanced depiction of our history, including the terrible gross injustice and tragedy of the Indian residential schools." (emphasis mine). He acknowledged horrors of the past, but simply holds the view that statues of the Macdonald needn't be toppled nationwide. Hard to conclude he wants to ignore or just get over genocide. And again, this is only a single op-ed that you apparently didn't like. That's not relevant to WP:NEWSORG. Which policy does it break? The post has an editorial team. Its journalists and columnists have been National Newspaper Award winners and nominees. Nothing is 100% accurate all the time, and bias in story selection or presentation is WP:BIASED, not unreliable. Unless solid evidence can be found that this or source lacks routinely fails fact-checking, lacks journalistic standards or other criteria of WP:GUNREL, it should be considered generally appropriate. And of course, per WP:NEWSORG: Whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis. --Animalparty! (talk) 02:48, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

What is unforgivable is failing to maintain the firewall between reporting and opinion. Opinion goes on the opinion page. If the opinions of Jason Kenney were deemed newsworthy they should have been quoted in a news story. But of course they weren't because nobody within light-years with any familiarity with the man was surprised at what he had to say Elinruby (talk) 07:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

My understanding is that you don't like that they placed it on the front page in print. But it's clearly labeled as opinion online, and the online headline Jason Kenney: Cancel John A. Macdonald and we might as well cancel all of Canadian history makes it clear that the words are Kenney's take. Was the headline different in print? I'm struggling to comprehend why running this op-ed have any bearing on the reliability of National Post, which by all accounts appears to be a standard established Canadian WP:NEWSORG that is generally reliable for news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:13, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Even if one finds Jason Kenney's op-ed in the National Post distasteful, did it contain misinformation? Or did it merely contain value judgements and recommendations for future behavior that one may find odious? If it's only the latter, that doesn't suggest that the National Post is unreliable. Also, we still don't know if those are graves in Kamloops. And even if those are graves of children from the school, that doesn't necessarily mean children were murdered. The crime we know happened was forcefully removing children from their families. Beaulieu's 2021 radar survey has not demonstrated crimes beyond that. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:50, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, the only unreliable thing happening here is summarising that op-ed/comment/interview as In it, he said that people need to just get over these little matters of genocide and move on for the the good of the country. That was an atrocious misrepresentation. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 12:33, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

No policy-based evidence that these two newspapers are unreliable has been presented here. Judging the the description of the Toronto Sun here it's an established and reliable media outlet. Alaexis_¿question? 13:50, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

The Toronto Star and the Toronto Sun are two wildly different papers and only the later is owned by the same people as the National post, I don't see any reason why we are discussing them in relation to nat post op ed! —blindlynx 14:45, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

My bad, thanks for spotting it. Alaexis_¿question? 21:08, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for being a bit sharp. It's an understandable mistake given their confused a few times in this thread—blindlynx 22:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: National Post

National Post is a Canadian newspaper that serves as the flagship publication of Postmedia Network. Which of the following best describes the reliability of National Post for its news reporting?

• Option 1: Generally reliable
• Option 2: Additional considerations apply
• Option 3: Generally unreliable

— Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Survey: National Post

• Option 1. National Post is a fairly standard national Canadian NEWSORG that has a history of excellent reporting. It regularly is nominated for and wins awards at the National Newspaper Awards, Canada's equivalent to the Pulitzer Prizes. As an established news organization with a reputation for accuracy in reporting, this appears to be a generally reliable newspaper. Its opinion content should be handled by WP:RSOPINION, just like that of other news organizations. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Red-tailed hawk's arguments. Jweiss11 (talk) 00:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 .... Award-winning publication used by academics for research.Moxy🍁 00:56, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Procedural Close: We should not open an RfC because one editor has claimed that a source is unreliable because it ran an op-ed that that editor didn't like. There's a clear consensus in the discussion above. Everyone should move on. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  I've seen it discounted in ways that I don't think best in other discussions, such as this one. There are also a couple of discussions way back, and I do think we benefit from an RfC in the present. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:09, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  I counted at least two others that disagreed. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:14, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Chess: One vs. three editors doesn't really chanhe my analysis. Consensus is determined by strength of argument. We don't just start RfCs because a few people spuriously disagree with everyone else. Regarding -sche, who you cite below, all they did was suggest an RfC if others thought it necessary. Not sure who your third person is. voorts (talk/contributions) 11:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  We can WP:SNOW close this in a week if the consensus is really clear. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 12:50, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  But it is baffling that you feel the need to do that. And no, consensus is not clear, at all. Where have you announced this RfC? Elinruby (talk) 05:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Elinruby, @Red-tailed hawk announced it at Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. There's a comment below where they advise that. TarnishedPath^talk 05:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  um. Judging by the complete lack of reaction to previous announcements there about the Western Standard, I am not certain that that amounts to publicity. I will have to give some thought to where else would be a good place. Elinruby (talk) 05:39, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't think this is really needed given the discussion above. My only comment in that discussion was to say that being amongst a country's most widely distributed papers does not speak to its reliability. If it did then Melbourne's Herald Sun would be reliable and it's not. Beyond that I'm not sufficiently aware of the source to provide any opinion. If this RfC does proceed, I've linked previous discussions below and pinged involved editors. TarnishedPath^talk 01:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 per Red-tailed hawk. -sche and Elinruby seem to agree the National Post is something other than reliable, based on historical discussions here at WP:RSN. We should correct the record. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 01:36, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 - for reasons given by red-tailed hawk and MOXY. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 03:33, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Bad RfC - This was originally an off-topic discussion moved into its own section. I don't think there has been enough discussion to hold an RfC. If someone insists though, special considerations apply to the Sun and the Star for general cluelessness outside of the Ontario news bubble. Probably reliable for dates and facts when it comes to national news. Not reliable at all for Quebec. National Post sometimes does not distinguish between fact and commentary, so while I have used it, it should ideally be avoided. Neither deserves deprecation at this time since the issue is not so much accuracy as slant. Also should be avoided for Quebec. Elinruby (talk) 05:05, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Do you have any evidence for your assertions? voorts (talk/contributions) 11:46, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  my assertions? This RfC was started by someone who seems to feel the need to defend the newspaper. why, I am not sure. I don't suppose anyone voting 1 realizes that the publication was founded by convicted fraudster Conrad Black for explicitly partisan purposes. Or has heard of the Telegraph or the Jerusalem Post? This thread continues to be a huge distraction from what I actually came here to talk about (Catholic Register) but I suppose I'll have to compile some stuff now, just to add some facts into this attempt to justify the Post coverage. I realize it's what we've got, God help us, but that doesn't mean we need to call it good. Elinruby (talk) 05:34, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1. It seems to be a standard WP:NEWSORG source with standard editorial controls. I have seen no evidence of unreliability. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 I don't particularly like the post as it has a strong editorial bias. That said it generally has a commitment to factual and reliable reporting—blindlynx 13:44, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

As long as the facts suit its purpose, yes. If the Post says that Trudeau said x, odds are good that Trudeau did say those words. Pertinent facts may well be missing however. Elinruby (talk) 05:02, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you that black is a hack and that this paper is partisan BUT it does not publish factually incorrect stuff or have wildly glareding omissions. It's fine for citing statements of fact which what policy says WP:NEWSORG are for—blindlynx 15:0a 1, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

To a very limited extent I actually agree with that, and have in fact recently cited it when dealing with people claiming that something did not happen that manifestly did. But take a good look at the examples above. Is it indeed a fact that Freeland talks nonsense, that Trudeau has a blind hatred of the unvaccinated or that indigenous people oppose pipelines because they have a "handout mentality"? Only from a fairly hateful frame of reference, I submit. I am going to point out again that my question here is about the Catholic Register not the sad state of Canadian media, so I am going to restart a thread on that; but this RfC should not confuse "what we have" with "good journalism" Elinruby (talk) 02:56, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Obviously that stuff is awful but no one should be citing opinion as fact, from the post or anywhere else—blindlynx 13:54, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1 though a publisher of terrible opinions by awful people, it's factual reporting is not in question. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:24, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

maybe you can show everyone some examples of the excellence of its factual reporting. I didn't find much, but you of course will be able to do so, being Headbomb, and I will off somewhere else using better sources than that wherever possible. It's an RfC. Let's let other people talk, hmm? Or not. Your call, but I am gone. Elinruby (talk) 19:42, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Pick any story in the news section, e.g. https://nationalpost.com/category/news/canada/ or https://nationalpost.com/category/news/world/ Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 07:27, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

• Option 1. Per Red-tailed hawk's arguments and since no examples of unreliable reporting were presented. Alaexis_¿question? 07:38, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. There doesn't seem to be any indication that there are problems with the accuracy of its reporting, just a complaint over where they put an opinion piece, so I'm not even sure this RFC is warranted. XeCyranium (talk) 19:15, 12 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. No issues with factual reporting, even if the opinion columns are bad. Biased, but not to an extent that a formal caution to try and find a breadth of sources, which should be SOP for general editing anyway, would be required. -- Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 15:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1 (maybe Option 2): Having an editorial bias is not a criteria for unreliability or deprecation. Even a bias in hard news story selection or interview subjects would not be a mark of unreliability (do we expect that liberal publications like The Nation are eager to cover every mistake or misdeed by liberals with the same level of detail and ferocity that they cover conservatives?). That the Post sometimes places commentary on the front page is a made up 'unforgiveable' sin in the mind of one editor: it appears to be clearly marked as commentary/analysis both online and in print (e.g. [96], [97][98]). The "founded by convicted fraudster Conrad Black" is a red-herring - he was convicted in 2007, 9 years after the Post was founded, and there is little evidence Black has played much role in the Post in the past 20 years. Having a few failed fact checks or controversies is not necessarily indicative of an unreliable, see: List of The New York Times controversies. It is true that we need not use the National Post for every topic mentioned in its archives, but the same is true of any source per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS, WP:NEWSORG and WP:COMMONSENSE. Deliberately and systematically downgrading conservative publications, or commentary by significant people, is the exact opposite of WP:NPOV. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC) Addendum: The National Post is not only a member of the National NewsMedia Council[99], which promotes ethics in journalism, but Post editor-in-chief Rob Robertson is a council member, which lends greater evidence of reliability, professionalism, and a reputation for standard journalism. --Animalparty! (talk) 19:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: It would be good if everyone electing for Option 1 could take another look at the huge red flag that the National Post appears to throw up in the domain of climate change reporting. See the below discussion thread on the topic. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. No compelling reason for anything else. This paper happens to do a lot of opinion piece, which are as opinion pieces are. PARAKANYAA (talk) 07:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)
• Option 1. I don't see issues with this source that would lead to problems on WP. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:04, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Discussion: National Post

• I've moved this RFC to its own second level header. That way the large 'before' discussion can be archived without having to wait for the RFC to finish. Please revert if you disagree. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 00:15, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
• Pinging @Chess, Elinruby, TarnishedPath, -sche, Animalparty, Barnards.tar.gz, Jweiss11, Alaexis, and Blindlynx:, who participated in the preceding discussion immediately above. If there is someone I have missed, please ping them to alert them to this discussion. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  WikiProject Canada has been notified. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 00:31, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• Comment - I've found the previous discussions at WP:RS/N:
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 16#National_Post
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 23#National Post Rejected as Reliable_Source
  • Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive 269#National Post: Accusations of Plagriarism made in an opinion column
  • Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 28#National Post blog
• Pinging @ATren, Metropolitan90, DGG, Stephan Schulz, Mattnad, Collect, Blueboar, PluniaZ, Simonm223, Simpsons contributor, Squidfryerchef, and Thivierr: as editors involved in previous discussions. TarnishedPath^talk 01:10, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Why has this come up is there someone claiming otherwise that it's not reliable? Moxy🍁 01:13, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  See the preceding discussion for one example. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 01:18, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Ohhhhh....I see....it's an ongoing problem with the ability to evaluate sources I got it. Moxy🍁 01:22, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  Don't think we are going to hear from DGG. Everyone pour one out for that wiki-OG. Jweiss11 (talk) 05:07, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:RS says Reliable sources may be published materials with a reliable publication process, authors who are regarded as authoritative in relation to the subject, or both. These qualifications should be demonstrable to other people. I am alarmed by the fact that some editors do not see the problem with not distinguishing between news fact and opinion about the news. There is a very large one: opinion about the news is never considered reliable except for the opinion of the writer. I have done a fast survey of National Post online coverage -- nobody around here sells the print edition -- and find the problem is if anything worse that I thought. If while looking at an article that is definitely about a news event (the French election for example) the reader should click on a main menu item for "Canada" or "World", the resulting list of links seems to consistently contain more than 50% opinion pieces. Nor could I find a retraction policy, as per WP:RS at Signals that a news organization engages in fact-checking and has a reputation for accuracy are the publication of corrections and disclosures of conflicts of interest.

This is further discussed here; [100], here and About the Committee on Publication Ethics here and here. A lot of the publications that follow this policy are journals: Springer, Nature, British Medical Journal; however this standard is by no means limited to peer-reviewed publications. CBC has a corrections policy[101]. The Globe and Mail has a formal retraction policy [102] and the Washington Post has a form where readers can request corrections [103]. Even the very middlebrow USA Today has a corrections policy [104].

(*=labeled as comment)

I did not find any sort of retraction or editorial policy for the National Post. It also quotes the disparaged Blacklock's Reporter (see above)[105] and published a fawning review of a book by a writer at True North, which apparently is never RS, per comments elsewhere.[106].

On specific issues, I did not find any neutral news coverage of COVID vaccines at all, although perhaps there was some at the time.[107]* ("blind hate?) [108]*,[109]* [110][111][112]*

Coverage of the trucker protests of the vaccine mandates, which it called "Freedom Convoy", was extremely sympathetic. [113]*, [114]*, [115], [116]. The current coverage of the insurrectionist truckers charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the border blockade is more neutral and mostly rewritten from Canadian Press coverage, but still framed in a sympathetic manner: [117][118][119] Indigenous protests met rants about "handout culture" however, and coverage of Gaza is lurid. [120], and not labelled as comment: “the tantrum over civilians killed is for the foreign media. It’s good PR.”.

In politics, the pattern persists: the language in news stories is far from neutral, and many opinion pieces are linked from the news menu, like this one [121]*, [122]*, [123]*, [124]*. Not labelled as opinion: [125]. Yesterday's lead article on the front page of the print edition, with a headline in 72pt type or possibly higher: Does Trudeau plan to put the squeeze on older home owners?* Today it is somebody calling for a boycott of Kentucky Fried Chicken for introducing halal chicken. Since there isn't a KFC within a couple of hundred miles of here at least -- maybe in Vancouver -- this couldn't be more irrelevant to the concern in my community right now: the next wildfire.

On climate change, Climate change in the Arctic is often framed through the lens of Canadian national interests, which downplays climate‐related social impacts that are already occurring at subnational political and geographical scales (Cunsolo Willox et al. [ 10] ; Trainor et al. [ 39] ). As such, the climate justice dimensions of climate change in the Arctic are often not being translated to audiences through (the National Post and Globe and Mail ) while also undermining government efforts:The media is more interested in sensational and controversial stories than they are in simply supporting the status quo Elinruby (talk) 02:36, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the National Post is a conservative paper. Everyone knows this. That does not make it unreliable. That makes it, at worst, biased. some editors do not see the problem with not distinguishing between news fact and opinion about the news the only person to have a problem with this is you. To everyone else, it's clear what is opinion and what is news reporting in the National Post. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 02:21, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal, Globe and Mail and London Times are conservative publications. The National Post is more akin to Fox News.Elinruby (talk) 02:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

With respect to I did not find any sort of retraction or editorial policy for the National Post, they do appear to issue corrections, even in their opinion section. One such correction from an opinion piece can be found here, and one for a wire story can be found here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 02:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: Neither of those is a published retraction policy; see examples provided from other publications. Elinruby (talk) 03:11, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I could go point-by-point through this to refute the examples, but I do not want to write a novella in doing so. Here are five clear examples of where you appear to be misreading the source, objecting to an opinion piece, or attributing something to the voice of the paper rather than to someone the paper is quoting or attributing a statement to:

• "Blind hatred" appears in an opinion piece, not a news piece. And, even it it were a news piece, the objected bit appears in a headline, and WP:RSHEADLINES notes that Headlines are written to grab readers' attention quickly and briefly; they may be overstated or lack context, and sometimes contain exaggerations or sensationalized claims with the intention of attracting readers to an otherwise reliable article.
• This is an opinion piece.
• This is also an opinion piece.
• Michael Higgins: Does Trudeau plan to put the squeeze on older homeowners? is an opinion piece.
• the tantrum over civilians killed is for the foreign media. It’s good PR does appear in this piece, and that piece indeed is a news piece. But you are misrepresenting the quote as if it were in the publication's voice when it is not—it appears in quotation marks, and the full paragraph (Still, jihadists believe that the destruction and civilian casualties are the cost necessary to destroy Israel, Kedar said. The Quaran preaches that dying for Islam is praiseworthy, he said, and therefore “the tantrum over civilians killed is for the foreign media. It’s good PR.” makes it incredibly clear that they are reporting a properly attributed quote from Mordechai Kedar.

I understand that you object to the reliability of their comment (i.e. opinion) pieces. So does our guideline on reliable sources. But that has no bearing on the reliability of the news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 03:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

You understand no such thing, since this is not the case. Well. I do find their polemics tiresome, but apparently I did not make it clear enough that I marked each opinion piece with an asterix (*) to indicate that once you get to the page it is tagged as an opinion piece (although not before). The more pertinent point is that most of their coverage consists of opinion pieces, which are after all easier and cheaper to produce than fact-based journalism, and that the slant and loaded language is present even in what they are calling news. This is why I avoid using them in my editing, and replace them as a source where this can be done without going down a rabbit hole. I have zero interest in arguing with people who want to defend the virtue of Conrad Black, and am now going back to what I was doing before my thread was hijacked into this RfC, which I believe is premature. Elinruby (talk) 05:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Best be honest with your usage. What it looks like to an outsiders is if you don't like what a source says ...it simply becomes unreliable, but can be used if you like what it says. Moxy🍁 12:25, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Moxy I don't know why it would look like that to you. I really don't what part of this do you think I merely dislike, rather than consider a problem. I really don't know why *you* do not consider it a problem that the most widely circulated news paper in Canada is primarily composed of opinions pieces, but then I don't know why you think that 300-page reports don't need to have page numbers, either. But I am formally requesting that you stop making fact-free accusations about something or other you think in your head about what I like. I like sources that like facts. Elinruby (talk) 19:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes sources is a problem in most of your assertions "news paper in Canada is primarily composes of opinions pieces" {fact}. Moxy🍁 19:37, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

• Of course it's an attributed quote. The entire article is an extended quote. Why are they giving that quote that much oxygen? Of the very few articles about events outside of Canada, that was one of them. @Iskander: says there are additional problems with the article. What makes you think I am representing it as anything but inappropropriate media coverage? I am sorry you are having so much trouble reading what I said -- this is the second time I have had to explain the post to you -- but I did my best to be clear, and I am baffled at the passion and vituperation you are putting into this. Someone started a Request for Comment because they didn't like what I said about the National Post and here, in the RfC, I commented, with multiple examples of ok and bad coverage, an attempt to cover several problem topics, and academic references even. I don't even care about this publication at the moment. Why do you? I doubt it's your first choice for a reference either. In any even making wild accusations over a nuanced and sources comment in an RfC is inappropriate. Elinruby (talk) 19:30, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

One would hope that this is one of Canada's lesser sources, because if this is what passes for a good source in Canada then its entire media landscape is the lesser. That piece quoting Kedar's vitriolic and deeply prejudiced ranting is pretty vile stuff, and made yet worse by the inept framing by the author of the piece, who has either actively, or through ignorance, also populated the content outside of the quotes with more mistruth, if not utter misinformation. If there's much more material of this tone and tenor in circulation on the site then this source should be a hard pass. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:58, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

There are a lot of pretty good hyperlocal sources, at least in British Columbia. But yes, this is the "national newspaper", God help us. Elinruby (talk) 19:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

One of the National papers. If you want less opiniated coverage, don't read the opinion pieces. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 21:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Except that piece isn't tagged as comment or opinion, but as news, and then bragged about as an exclusive "special to NP". Also, if you were going to call it anything other than news it would be an interview, since the main voice is someone who's been interviewed by the author, not the author. But on no level does it fall into the category of opinion in any normal sense. That it reads like a trashy opinion piece, despite being news, is exactly the issue at hand. Iskandar323 (talk) 03:57, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

References

National Post on climate change

Before everyone gets too excited voting that the National Post has no problems apart from its frequently vile and inappropriate comments, opinion and sometimes news, there's at least one issue where option 1 appears demonstrably inadequate: climate change. In this peer -reviewed, journal-hosted media review assessing 17 sources over 15 years across 5 countries (US, UK, AUS, CAN, NZ), the National Post came out as the hands down least objective source on climate change ... And that's with the UK's Daily Mail also in the running. The National Post was found to represent scientific consensus only 70.83% of the time, while 9.17% of the time it presented anthropogenic climate change and natural climatic variance as equally relevant (basically climate change denial-lite) and 20% of the time, in one-in-five articles, presented anthropogenic climate change as a negligible phenomena (full-throated climate change denial). So basically 30% of everything that the National Post publishes on climate change is unscientific nonsense. That alone should be worthy of Option 2 (additional considerations apply) on the count of: don't touch with a bargepole on climate change-related issues and related politics. Iskandar323 (talk) 21:08, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

If you read the report a bit closer, you will note that In addition to news articles, the analysis included letters, editorials, and other publications that contained the keywords 'global warming' or 'climate change'. These latter units of analysis may be outside the bounds of journalistic norms—for example, the author of a letter or editorial may not follow guidelines on balance or 'truth' in reporting—but these still reflect the overall content of the sources in which they are published and, thereby, impact readers. In other words, the analysis lumps together news reporting alongside opinion pieces, and concludes that the paper (when including opinion pieces) does not do great on climate change. And that's no surprise for a newspaper that existed in the first decade of the 2000s and had a conservative editorial outlook (or had a conservative audience, considering that letters to the editor are included in the analysis). But that sort of study is somewhat useless here, since it muddles news reporting (which is WP:GREL) with opinion reporting (which, per WP:RSEDITORIAL, are are rarely reliable for statements of fact), and we only care about the news reporting. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 23:06, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@Red-tailed hawk: True, but from the examples further above, we also know that the publication's opinion-like content bleeds into its non-opinion material. Regardless, this report should still serve as a disturbing bellwether. The National Post came out worst. Not just in the mix. Worst. And would you treat other topics like this? Would a publication be ok if 30% of its content doubted evolution or took up some other fringe position. Labelling content as "opinion" isn't a get out of jail free card. It is still published. The paper still owns it. If a publication only spewed 30% fascistic hate, but covered local news ok, would that make for a sound source? Still 70% GREL? Iskandar323 (talk) 03:32, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The Christian Science Monitor, for a very long time, was an organization that was widely subscribed to for its extremely good investigative reporting, and it won several Pulitzer Prizes for this sort of stuff. It also long-carried a column that has had several names but now is "A Christian Science Perspective". If you look through the history of that column, you will surely find tons of evidence that the magazine has promoted relying on Christian Science prayer to treat disease instead of mainstream medicine. And this goes back quite a while. If you were to run a study on it, and you'd want to identify misinformation in the realm of Medicine, it would surely have problems if that column were included. But it's an opinion column, presented as such, and it carries the perspective of Christian Science.

When we smush together opinion columns and standard news reporting, and treat them as if they are one and the same, we distract from our task at hand—evaluating the reliability of the source's news reporting. And, like The Christian Science Monitor, National Post both wins national awards for its news reporting and has topics where its opinion pages just aren't in touch with reality on a science issue. But if there is separation between the editorial structure on the news side and the opinion side, as there is at most major papers, this sort of thing is not cause for concern on the news side. And, I really don't see evidence that the news reporting is anything other than that which we would expect from a standard national WP:NEWSORG. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 04:07, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of the material that they have been publishing specifically on climate change have been so bad that it has drawn ethics complaints on the subject. This article focuses on an interview (so not op-ed) and guest column allotted to promoting a book by a climate science science denier. The column then ran beneath the headline “De-bunking climate and other varieties of alarmism.” A subhead stated that Moore’s book shows how environmental claims are “fake news and fake science.” In the interview, where the interviewee's views went unchallenged, the guy also misrepresented the research of actual climate scientists. When the newspaper was contacted to either retract the material or add a caveat to the articles promoting the book to let readers know they contained “numerous demonstrable misrepresentations of scientific sources and findings” they did neither. Very editorially responsible. Iskandar323 (talk) 04:12, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

And if you look at their climate change tab, their news coverage employs quite an extraordinary degree of omission – basically, they simply avoid addressing the causes of climate change wherever possible. There's even this story about the climate minister flying around in private jets, and the only complaint is the cost; they don't even hint at private jets being high in emissions as some sort of a problem in the very specific and ironic context. The only mention of "carbon" that I could even find anywhere in there stories on the tab was in reference to "carbon tax", not emissions. Most stories, while begrudgingly dealing with the realities of policies to address climate change still act as if the subject itself is purely in the realm of some sort of mysterious natural phenomena. There's an entire story on climate change-driven wildfires that only begrudgingly admits that climate change is the cause in the form of quote by a minister more than half down the piece where it states "Climate change is an essential threat to Canadian tourism". It then proceeds to make no reference to the potential causes of climate change in this uniquely apt piece for just this type of rather key background information. If you look at the pattern, it is pretty clear that the National Post is as intentionally misleading as possible on the issue wherever it can be. In op-eds it spews outright denialism, in interviews it entertains denialism without rebuttal, and in is news it at best references climate change, but avoids any risk of dialogue on the topic by simply ignoring the matter of causation altogether. If one were going to be less sympathetic, one might call this "denial by omission". Iskandar323 (talk) 04:36, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

You're describing WP:BIAS in story selection and presentation, which does not mean unreliable. To be blunt, It sounds like you're imposing your own standards of what you want every newspaper to report every time it mentions climate. That is simply not realistic. This article by the way is syndicated from The Canadian Press, so you'd best start trying to deprecate that agency next. Luckily, there happens to be more than 1 newspaper in the world we can cite on most issues, plus a bevy of books and scientific papers that, together, can provide a more complete view of a topic or story. Purity crusades to purge sources that don't spend enough ink on a given topic are silly. --Animalparty! (talk) 05:01, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Ha! Ok, well the syndication is amusing. I know that North America is famously shit at covering climate change, but I guess Canada really is the worst. Little wonder that Canada has the most embarrassimg climate record of the G7 nations. With friends like Canada's media, why even bother dealing with reality? Iskandar323 (talk) 05:10, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Animalparty: What purity crusade? I began this thread by presenting peer-reviewed research on the shocking bias and denialism endemic to the National Post. You can take that or leave it, and even dismiss it as a non-issue, but the issue is a documented one. Don't make it personal or an attack. Also, please don't be misrepresent things. No one has even mentioned deprecation. I suggested that "additional considerations may apply" for a single issue. Yeah? Iskandar323 (talk) 05:16, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Yep. Opinions, even *bad* ones, appear in op-eds and letters as people seek to influence society. That's democracy, which is decidedly messy (If only people all thought the way I do! Maybe we should make wrong opinions illegal). Luckily we aren't AI robots immediately transposing every bit of text on the internet into a Wikipedia article. We look at context, relevance, and prominence of the views and facts expressed. We are in no way whatsoever beholden to use the 30% of unscientific climate content for assertion of fact (you also overlook the presumably 70% that is perfectly acceptable and in-line with science). Hell the Wall Street Journal is generally reliable at WP:RSPS, and even everyone's favorite boogeyman Fox News is marginally reliable outside of talk shows, politics & science. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

For clarity, the 70% merely represents content where it is admitted that anthropogenic climate change has a significant impact, as opposed to actively minimizing or outright denying it. This doesn't mean that it fairly represents the issue or makes much effort to present the facts, just that it acknowledges the issue. So this is just "not actively lying on the issue" 70% of the time. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:02, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Move away from opinion pieces and editorials, and you have perfectly sane and normal coverage of climate change here

Last year, the country recorded the worst fire season in its history. Drier and hotter conditions in many parts of the country caused by climate change have increased the risk of major fires in recent years, according to experts. Canada is currently battling 575 active fires with more than 400 considered out of control. Many fires have broken out in recent days, particularly in the west of the country that has experienced a heat wave.

and here

Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, noted that these heavy rain events are driven by climate change that has already happened and is irreversible, so cities and their citizens must adapt. “We are not going backwards on climate change. We can slow it down but we can’t stop it,” Feltmate said. “So yes, we should be mitigating greenhouse gas emissions to slow down the rate of change, but also recognizing that we need to adapt to the extreme weather conditions that are upon us with increasing frequency; flooding, wildfires, extreme heat, etc.”

Nowhere are these undercut, diluted, or otherwise whitewashed. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 05:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The first quote does not address the causes of climate change. Most climate change denialism doesn't deny that the climate is changing, but deny that humanity has a role or major role to play. The second quote exemplifies the only form of concession that the National Post seems to make on positions that it doesn't like: it will include a brief comment from someone respectable on the matter and bury it well down the piece. What you will also notice is that nowhere in the same story does the Post even touch the word "emissions" in its own voice. This is a clear pattern, and I would definitely call that dilution. Iskandar323 (talk) 05:36, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Not every single article a source puts out on climate change needs to include something to the extent of "there is scientific consensus that climate change is largely anthropogenic and is caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere". But I will note that the first piece is from Agence France-Presse rather than having been written from some Postmedia entity. (If you'd like to knock AFP down a notch because you don't like how it's covering climate change, feel free to open another discussion, but I don't think it's going anywhere).

In any case, what we're seeing here is that Postmedia and The National Post are more or less within the mainstream on how newspapers write about this stuff. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 05:44, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I hadn't opened it up, but yes, it's just a brief news update from AFP that's so short one wouldn't expect it to contain much context. I didn't present it as an example of anything; I merely noted that the quote presented wasn't indicate of anything as it didn't address any causes. Iskandar323 (talk) 06:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

You didn't open up the piece, and you concluded that there is a clear pattern, and I would definitely call that dilution? I'm a bit confused here. — Red-tailed hawk _(nest) 07:00, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't open up that piece because the quote presented by Headbomb was irrelevant either way. Since it's AFP, it's doubly irrelevant. The clear pattern that I was referring to was with reference to the second quote and article: the couching of statements on climate change within quotes, not in its own voice, and the placement of them low down on the page. What I haven't seen is a news piece where the National Post says anything genuine about climate change whatsoever in its own voice. Iskandar323 (talk) 07:22, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not seeing any reason to believe that the use of NP as a source relating to climate change would lead to problems. Notable opinions would be attributed; omissions in the NP's coverage would be filled in by other sources, if the omitted material is really notable. Unless they actually get facts wrong, I don't think we need any additional considerations for them. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:02, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Paucity of reliable right-wing sources

The problem: There is a paucity of right-wing reliable sources that are trustworthy and usable. A few possibly good ones are mentioned in the hatted "Good and bad sources table" below.

Please name more right-wing sources that can be trusted. A test is their position on the myriad false or misleading statements by Donald Trump, especially his Big Lie of a stolen election. Are they honest about these things? If not, they are not RS and should be downgraded or deprecated.

If there is something in the hatted areas below you want to discuss, then please quote it and use that here. We need to keep the discussion up in this one thread. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:48, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Personal opinion is that with Trump (and probably even earlier around 2013-2014, as the Gamergame situation brought more of this to light), the sources on the right have either closely tried to stay close to just being to the right (like WSJ), or allowed themselves to drift far to the right to fight the explicit left-leaning bias (and to back up the type of cult of personality that Trump exuded), whereas the left-leaning sources haven't really changed beyond small shifts either direction). Hence, why I think we are never going to see an equality of reliable right leaning sources compared to what's on the left, at least for several years from now.

I could argue a few sources on that table between the middle and leans left columns, but that's minor and doesn't affect your fundamental point here. Masem (t) 19:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I largely agree. You mention the Gamergate situation and how that affected right-wing sources. I'm pretty sure you and others can provide even more information about that. I tend to focus on Trump's influence as the "great mover" for right-wing sources, as mentioned below. Look for "Trump's effect on the Overton window of media coverage." Until that time, no one with his type of influence had openly declared war on all media sources that didn't repeat his lies. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on specific sources mentioned below (or not). -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:05, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

I do now remember that even before GG, there was the basic Culture war in the early 2010s that was considered the trigger of GG, and of course laid the framework of misinformation to fight it. Fox News may have led the charge prior to that, but numerous factors gave way to the host of other sources.

The one thing that I do think might be unfair to use is labelling the two right-leaning columns as related to Russian disinfo. Could there be Russian disinfo at play with those? Personally, highly likely. However, until we have evidence from RSes, to back that, probably best not to label them that way. you can talk to how they do do misinfo (eg deny climate change, deny COVID, claim election interference, etc. in addition to presenting Russian disinfo) and hence why they will never be RSes until they distance themselves from it.

Also I would add the WSJ editorial board separate from the WSJ itself, and that would go into the "strong right" column. Masem (t) 20:12, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Excellent points.  Done -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:37, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Are you confusing "liberal-leaning" with "left-leaning"? Many in the left don't consider liberals to be left insofar as liberals are for capitalism and only support fiddling at the edges of the status quo on matters of individualism, which isn't a left or right issue per se. TarnishedPath^talk 00:12, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

@TarnishedPath: although you aren't asking me, I'll share my thoughts. I am a retired American who has lived in six countries with vastly different political systems, and lived in Europe most of my adult life. Liberals, and most of the left-wing in America, are capitalists. Only the most radical left-wingers are Social Democrats (who use mixed market capitalist economies), Socialists, or Communists.

I'll mention two different types of sources that back this view in different ways. Below you write: "occupyDemocrats are liberals, not left-wing." The "Media Bias Chart" from Ad Fontes Media rates Occupy Democrats as "Hyper-Partisan Left". Pew Research Center doesn't even use the terms "left-wing" or "right-wing" (although they occasionally say left or right). Instead, they substitute "liberal" and "conservative" for "left-wing" and "right-wing". See Political Polarization & Media Habits. That's a goldmine. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:41, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Where I'm from Social Democracy isn't radical, in fact it's the stated ideology of the right faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP). The right faction of that party is the controlling faction nationally. The ALP is the current party in power at a federal level and I wouldn't consider Australia to be a bunch of radicals. TarnishedPath^talk 03:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

My wording above isn't very clear. I'm describing the American POV. In Scandinavia, Social Democracy isn't radical either. In America, it's considered so, even though, seen from European and Australian eyes, it isn't. My understanding is that the progression toward the left end of the political scale is in the order I described. I'm personally a Social Democrat who thinks traditional socialism is too radical, and communism far too damaging to be used at all. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:47, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I mostly agree with Masem. However, I have noticed a decline in the quality of left-wing sources since the start of the pandemic, but it is not comparable to that of right-wing sources yet. Scorpions1325 (talk) 09:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there an actual paucity of right-wing reliable sources? Is there a lot more left-wing sources in comparison, such that it destroys wikipedia's credibility?

We easily filter out the worst left-wing sources, like occupyDemocrats, too.

Another possible test for right-wing sourcing is whether they acknowledge man-made climate change. User:Sawerchessread (talk) 20:58, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

occupyDemocrats are liberals, not left-wing. Liberals occupy a centrist to right-wing position insofar as that they support Capitalism and only propose fiddling at the edges of the status quo on matters of individualism. TarnishedPath^talk 00:18, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't agree. See my response to you above. (This has to do with differences between American and European views on left and right.) -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 17:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

That is not the universal definition, nor the most accepted definition, nor the original definition, nor the sole definition, nor (and most importantly) a definition that is supported enough to be complaining every time people use a more attested one. XeCyranium (talk) 02:44, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

• Maybe The Bulwark (good news, they hate Trump!). Also, the Washington Examiner and The Washington Times are probably generally reliable for non-opinion reporting, even if a majority of Wikipedians don't like the tone or inconvenience of opposing emphasis (and LOL at the Daily Beast below). Predictably, both articles are top heavy with op-ed criticism from left-leaning sources. The Weekly Standard is full green at WP:RSPS, but it doesn't exist anymore. Reason is also generally reliable, and across the pond, the Daily Telegraph, even if they sometimes emphasizes facts or POV opponents would prefer not be emphasized (which is a bias held by liberal RS as well, not a sign of unreliability). --Animalparty! (talk) 22:25, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

  I have had positive experiences with the Washington Examiner, Reason, and the Telegraph. Can’t vouch for the others. RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 21:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

  I read the Washington Examiner, Washington Times, and Reason. I see no reason for them not to be regarded as "generally reliable". Pecopteris (talk) 05:52, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Oppose the deprecation aka depreciation in this case. Emir of Wikipedia (talk) 19:43, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

A good addition would be the Washington Free Beacon. It was previously listed as unreliable due ~entirely to a discussion [126] with two examples of 'false' claims, one of which is mostly true. They cite their sources and usually include links to evidence in their articles, all of their articles are attributed to a writer, and they're sometimes cited by reliable sources eg NYT as in [127]. That's because they sometimes break important stories, as in that example. Hi! (talk) 22:52, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a daft thread. It is not our job to try and find reliable right-wing sources. It is to assess what reliable sources say and relate it to our readers. It's not our problem if a lot of fairly popular right-wing sources are unreliable. A much bigger problem is the ongoing campaign to decree that sources which have right wing views on social issues are unreliable by default. In the long run this is going to kill our credibility.--Boynamedsue (talk) 08:09, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

What is going on here? This seems well off topic for the board, and to what end? It seems weird to be putting a "russian misinformation" lens over this, and exceptionally weird to claim that Gamergate was a significant influence on mainstream news media (I was "on leave" at the time, but as far as I can tell, it was an incredibly inside-baseball online troll war that largely passed mainstream news media by). And why is it only about newspapers? What about books and journals? And why is this thread orbiting American politics and Donald Trump, as if views on Trump were the sole determinant of what "right wing" means? I can't see a useful outcome here. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 09:51, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Gamergate had a significant influence on mainstream news media and mainstream politics. It was one of the pivitol moments in the rise of the contemporary Western right. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 21:35, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

• I don't think this is going about things the right way... Reliable sources do a decent job seperating news and opinion content, it shouldn't matter how far left, right, or center the WSJ and NYT's editorial boards go as long as the reporting stays solid and reputable. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 17:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
  • That isn't really the point. You are right that left, right, or center makes no difference "as long as the reporting stays solid and reputable". Source bias is okay, as long as it doesn't distort the facts. It's when we get into the far-right and far-left fringes that their bias is so strong that it affects their reporting. They start pushing narratives that please them, even if the facts are ignored or reported in a false light. My interest with this thread is more about learning of other right-wing sources that are generally reliable, IOW not radical. Please name some. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:01, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
    • That is the point as far as I am concerned. You are wecome to name some somewhere else, don't abuse this noticeboard and I will not be joining you. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 18:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
      • Sorry about offending you. That wasn't my intention. I thought I knew why I created this thread. The backstory, which isn't described, is that we always have driveby comments and vandalism with claims of left-wing bias and not using enough right-wing sources. I'm a lefty and fully understand why there are so few reliable right-wing sources, and why most left-wing sources are more reliable, but I wanted to talk to the experts here (This board is about sources, right?) about the topic and get some suggestions. That's all. I'm not pushing any particular agenda. Just seeking to pick the minds of experts here. I learned a lot from Masem.

If there is a better venue to discuss this, please say so. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:45, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I do not accept the single-issue litmus test that OP proposes for "right-wing" sources. I cannot imagine such a litmus test being proposed for "left-wing" sources. Pecopteris (talk) 05:54, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Pecopteris: I understand your initial reaction to my quick-and-easy litmus test for right-wing sources. I assume you're referring to this: "A test is their position on the myriad false or misleading statements by Donald Trump, especially his Big Lie of a stolen election. Are they honest about these things? If not, they are not RS and should be downgraded or deprecated."

That actually covers hundreds of issues, not one "single-issue", because Trump lies about literally everything, including things he doesn't need to lie about. It's just his instinct to always lie. See Trump’s false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years in 2021. It's a really good test, because it establishes whether they have a connection to facts and the concept of truth in reporting. If they fail that test, they totally fail our most basic requirements for being considered a RS.

That's policy, not my idea. It's the idea behind this noticeboard. It starts with how competence is required to vet sources for reliability, very relevant at this noticeboard. Then how we judge whether sources use fact-checking and try to be accurate. These are central issues to the RS policy and this board, so we are very much on-topic in this discussion.

I also mentioned a huge one that controls the GOP and all MAGA, his Big Lie of a stolen election and his lies about (non-existent) voter fraud. You mention a "litmus test". Ironically, his Big Lie is often described as Trump's litmus test of loyalty. Not only did he make "shooting someone on 5th Avenue" a litmus test that has proven true, he has made acceptance of his big lie a litmus test. He is big on loyalty tests, especially fealty to his grotesque lies. See For Republicans, fealty to Trump’s election falsehood becomes defining loyalty test

I'd love to hear suggestions for quick-and-easy litmus tests for left-wing sources. Maybe best on my talk page. The same litmus test applies to them (they reject the lies), but maybe you can think of others, but they would be quite different and not related to believing a lie, but more about defending certain facts, like "vaccines are good", "climate change is real", etc. See some suggestions here: User:Guy Macon/Yes. We are biased. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:31, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise that the reason why we get accused of left-wing bias is because of some specific narrow issue with lacking right-wing sources. We have always been accused of bias (Conservipedia was created long before RSP was a thing.) The reason is simple - as an encyclopedia, we have an WP:ACADEMICBIAS. And large swaths of the right-wing movement in the US currently have an anti-intellectual strain to them. The things that make people on the right see us as biased aren't subtle nuances in our sourcing, they're the result of a conflict in our fundamental non-negotiable missions - things like a refusal to entertain creationism, or presenting anthropogenic climate change as fact, or dismissal of other positions that are clearly academically WP:FRINGE. More generally, while we should avoid articles that have lopsided sourcing, it's important to understand that many people will differ about how they categorize sourcing, and that the pop-culture / talking-head divisions in US politics don't necessarily reflect the divide in higher-quality academic sources. The balance we aim for should, when possible, be what you'd see in academia and similarly high-quality sources, which isn't necessarily the same as what people get on the evening news. Part of the reason why those pop-culture media-bias charts aren't very useful to us is because I think they tend to reflect that vibe-based pop-cultural divide, rather than a more rigorous understanding of what's academically mainstream and what is more exceptional, opinionated, or further towards the fringes.--Aquillion (talk) 18:48, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

But remember, currently it isn't only about wp:ver. Currently the wp:RS 'shorter list" is also used to determine wp:weight etc on political viewpoints. So that means that what you just said is that on political topics, Wikipedia is coverage is biased towards what academia says.  :-) North8000 (talk) 00:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

• The "Good and bad sources table" below only shows one less Right-leaning good source than it lists Left-leaning sources. So I wouldn't call that a paucity (which means scarcity/scarceness) at all. Softlavender (talk) 00:55, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
• Regarding the "Good and bad" table, Time Magazine skews left, not right, according to Ad Fontes, AllSides, and Media Bias/Fact Check. --Animalparty! (talk) 16:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

More about this problem
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
The paucity of reliable right-wing sources is a problem. This is part of the reason we frequently receive accusations of a left-wing bias in articles. Documenting the bias in a source is proper and compliant with NPOV, but it would be nice if we had more right-wing sources that were reliable and usable. The accusation reveals an ignorance of sourcing requirements, and how, because there is a paucity of right-wing reliable sources for political topics, there will naturally be a seeming "overuse" of left-wing sources, simply because the right wing has become radicalized, moved far to the right, and thus abandoned the field of accurate coverage to the left-wing sources. Very few right-wing sources are left that are moderate and reliable. Some are named in the hatted table below. It is sourcing, not editors, that create the left-wing bias in articles, and that bias is factual, not just left-wing opinion. This is related to the fact that "Reality has a well known liberal bias" (Stephen Colbert) and that "Facts Have a Well-Known Liberal Bias" (Paul Krugman). Right-wing editors who fight to RGW make attempts to "neutralize" such content so it's NPOV, but they thus reveal their lack of understanding of NPOV, neutrality, and factual reporting. They want to create a false balance. For more about this, see Trump's effect on the Overton window of media coverage

Good and bad sources table
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Main page: User:Valjean/Sources table The groupings below are based on the "Media Bias Chart" from Ad Fontes Media. "(RM)" means controlled by Rupert Murdoch. Generally good sources Left Skews left Middle Skews right The New Yorker The Guardian Reuters The Wall Street Journal (RM) Vox The Washington Post Associated Press The Christian Science Monitor The Atlantic The New York Times BBC Foreign Policy The Nation NPR ABC News The Economist Vanity Fair PBS NBC News Time magazine The Hill (depending on author) Politico CBS News The Fiscal Times MSNBC Axios Bloomberg News National Review Mother Jones CNN USA Today The Dispatch The Daily Beast The Week Bad, unreliable sources Hyper-Partisan Left Skews right Strong right Hyper-Partisan Right (some Russian disinfo) Russian disinfo Bipartisan Report New York Post (RM) Fox News (RM) The Federalist RT Occupy Democrats WSJ editorial board One America News Sputnik Daily Kos The Daily Wire Drudge Report Zero Hedge AlterNet The Daily Caller Breitbart News MintPress News The American Spectator Newsmax Palmer Report Daily Mail InfoWars Patribotics Townhall The Grayzone (some Russian disinfo) RedState The Western Journal Blaze Media The Gateway Pundit WorldNetDaily LifeZette The Epoch Times See also: Currently deprecated sources

Reliability of Thomas Lockley

There is considerable on-going dispute at Talk:Yasuke regarding the reliability of the source "African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan" by Thomas Lockley, which has been used as a citation in the article at various times, as well as cited by a number of tertiary sources which were utilized throughout the Wikipedia article. Chiefly, opponents of the inclusion of the Lockley source contend that because Lockley does not use in-text citations and that the source is categorized as popular history, that it should not be considered reliable. They point to the review by historian Roger W. Purdy and his criticism of Lockley's lack of in-text citations as making it hard to easily verify the claims. However, the proponents of the Lockley book have argued that Purdy still recommends the book in his review and explicitly states that he is not questioning the veracity of the scholarship and that while Purdy specifically calls out a number of elements of Lockley's book as incorrect, he does not call out the conceit that Yasuke is a samurai. Moreover, historian Jonathan Lopez-Vera's History of the Samurai also notes Yasuke as a samurai, as well as his Toyotomi Hideyoshi y los europeos which reads "El nombre que se le dio fue Yasuke (h. 1555-?), y desde ese momento acompañó siempre a Nobunaga como unaespecie de guardaespaldas. Cabe destacar que a partir de entonces dejó de ser un esclavo, puesto que al estar al servicio del daimyō recibió un estipendio como el resto de vasallos, obteniendo así la condición de samurái" (175-176). In Toyotomi Hideyoshi y los Europeos, the Lopez-Vera does utilize in-text citation. The dispute boils down to whether or not Lockley's assumption that Yasuke is a samurai is reliable for the purpose of the article, given the amount of tertiary sources that are citing Lockley. As neither party of the debate has made use of the RSN, I am bringing the issue up here in the hope of forming a consensus to put an end to the back-and-forth arguing about the reliability of the Lockley. Chrhns (talk) 19:16, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Quick note about López-Vera: the section about Yasuke in his Toyotomi Hideyoshi y los europeos appears to be a copy-paste of the same text from his university thesis paper visible here: https://www.tdx.cat/handle/10803/667523#page=437. There are two inline citations in that work in the section about Yasuke. One cites Ōta Gyūichi (author of the Shinchō Kōki) for a physical description of Yasuke (about which there is no dispute), and the other cites his own 2016 book Historia de los samuráis for a description of where Yasuke may have gone after disappearing from the historical record (about which there is also no dispute; he is last mentioned being handed over to the Jesuits after the Honnō-ji Incident). No citations regarding Yasuke's status as a samurai, which is the core of the issue at hand here. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:47, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

First, many thanks for starting this RSN thread!

While I understand you are mostly relaying the points from proponents of Lockley's book, there are some I would like to address:

and his criticism of Lockley's lack of in-text citations as making it hard to easily verify the claims.

This takes the criticism of the lack of citations out of a broader context of Purdy's review which provides the necessary weight to this statement. It is not merely a problem of lacking citations, but the fact that Lockley's book contains a mixture of facts drawn from primary sources and other secondary sources, possible speculations as well as direct accounts from Yasuke himself. The narrative style of the book coupled with the lack of in-line citations creates the difficulty Purdy mentions in his review.

and that while Purdy specifically calls out a number of elements of Lockley's book as incorrect, he does not call out the conceit that Yasuke is a samurai.

The reasoning of this statement is in my opinion flawed for 2 reasons:

- It requires Purdy to name all singular details of Yasuke's life he finds in the book dubious, otherwise it is assumed he agrees with Lockley's assertions by default. Purdy mentions a handful elements he found problematic, but there is no reason to believe this is an exhaustive list.

- It ignores the weight of Purdy's comments on the details he did list, coupled with comments made in parallel about in-line citations and narrative style.

There are additional aspects of Lockley's book which affect its use as a Reliable Source. Apologies if some comments enter SYNTH and OR:

1. Book type (strictly historical vs (speculative) historical fiction)

- Roger W. Purdy in his review of Lockley's book makes comments about creative embellishments and a mixed narrative style (retelling of historical facts, possible speculations without indicating them as such and personal reactions from Yasuke himself).

- Lockley himself mentioned in an interview that assumptions had to be made to fill in gaps.

- Many readers online on platforms such as Goodreads and personal blogs highlighted that the book is more historical fiction than a purely historical one. While admittedly of much lesser importance, it shows that it is a more broadly shared opinion, not merely limited to Wikipedia editors.

2. Verifiability

- Lockley makes a number of statements which cannot be directly traced to listed primary sources.

- SYNTH: Some claims stand in conflict with listed or related primary sources (for instance, recollections of the Honno-ji Incident which do not show Yasuke's involvement in Oda Nobunaga's seppuku).

- Possible speculative claims without clearly qualifying them as such. 37.131.135.117 (talk) 23:31, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

If it is true that this book is the source of a number of historical claims that are made without apparent reference to primary sources, nor explanation for how the author came to them, then that is a problem. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 01:17, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's published works have been peer reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them. Symphony Regalia (talk) 19:53, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

i will once again point at the Time article often used on this talk page to "prove" the statement about Yasuke being a samurai. The article uses comments of Lockley as a source. https://time.com/6039381/yasuke-black-samurai-true-story/

a) the article is not about Yasuke.

It is about a netflix show, that depicts Yasuke as a samurai and than asks about the historic base for this claim of the show, that Yasuke would be a samurai. The newsarticle, could be argued, doesn't talk about the historic figure, but about the show and is thereby about the fictional Yasuke.

b) Even Lockley himself uses other terms than samurai in the article to describe the historic facts about Yasuke.

He said:

Lockley says, he is widely regarded as the first-ever foreigner to be given warrior status in Japan.

He calls him afterward a bodyguard and than a [...] valets —manservants if you’d like-[...].

It seems like he was a confidant, [...],” Lockley said in a follow-up email. “He was also a weapon bearer, and probably served in some kind of bodyguard capacity.”

In other words, Lockley called in this article Yasuke never a samurai and uses multiple other terms to describe Yasuke's services.

c) Lockley even gave zero sources in the article, why he speculated, that Yasuke, would have been freed at some point.

Some have said that Yasuke was a slave, and Lockley acknowledges the theory but disagrees. “Personally I don’t think he was a slave in any sense of the word, I think he was a free actor,” Lockley said. The author speculates that given the circumstances of how the African man arrived at his employment with Valignano, it’s possible that Yasuke was enslaved as a child “probably got his freedom before meeting Valignano.”

Lockley uses here various terms to highlight, that this is only his speculative personal view and not supported by historic sources.

d) The sole statement of Lockley about samurai is a general statement about the term samurai, that already highlights the problem of Lockley talking about this term in general and using him as a reliable source for Yasuke, at least in the matter of him being a samurai. He describes a samurai at the time of Yasuke based on this article as followed:

“Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.”

This is against the definition of this term by our own samurai-article here on Wikipedia.

There is seemingly zero interest to adopt this form of definition of this term samurai by Lockley to any other page on Wikipedia about any other samurai or non-samurai on Wikipedia.

And in all honest it would make any farmer, called to arms by their lord automatic a samurai, while we know, that they were treated and called drastical different, Ashigaru, because they were not even warriors.

Summary:

Even Lockley calls Yasuke even in fictional context only a samurai in the argument, that Yasuke would be a trained and non-official warrior, presented as a servant, for the Jesuits. He doesn't have any source to back this theory up. And the term samurai is only mentioned by Lockley, because he sees every common warrior as a samurai by default. Even Lockley is not a frontrow-supporter of this term for Yasuke and rather choose other terms to describe his services for Nobunaga. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 13:31, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Two different issues (1) reliability of "African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan", by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard, as a source for the life and deeds of Yasuke; (2) whether Thomas Lockley [128] is a subject-matter expert who can be relied upon for the statement that Yasuke was a samurai.

1. As to the first question, I would answer No. This review by Laurence Green (MA in Japanese studies at SOAS [129]) on the website of The Japan Society of the UK praises the book but speaks of "a uniquely imagined ‘eye-witness’ viewpoint" full of "quasi-fictional narrative embellishments", "the most readable histories to grace the field of Japanese Studies in a while" blending "history and dramatic narrative". This review by R.W. Purdy (professor at John Carroll University [130]) explains that "The book is clearly intended as popular history": "The omission of citations is not necessarily a question a veracity of the scholarship, but the authors frequently go into detail about Yasuke and his personal reactions, like his kidnapping from Africa and his sword fight with a young enemy samurai, with no cited documentation (...) without specific references, details often seem like creative embellishments, rather than historical narrative". Geoffrey Girard is an author of historical fiction. So their book is not a WP:RS on Yasuke. Using it as such would be like using Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall as a reliable source on Thomas Cromwell, or using the Cicero Trilogy by Robert Harris (novelist) as a reliable source on Cicero.
2. As to the second question, I'd say Yes. The two reviews cited don't point out any factual errors on the part of Lockley and Girard. Primary sources provide enough information about Yasuke (e.g., he had a servant, a house, carried a sword, had a direct personal relationship with his lord, and his contemporaries believed that he might be a "tono", a commander or lord) from which a professional historian could infer his status as a samurai. This is what Lockley himself stated in an interview published by The Japan Times, [131]. This article also points out that "no reputable Japanese historian has raised doubts about Yasuke’s samurai bonafides", which is quite significant because Lockley and Girard's book has not gone unnoticed: either quoting Lockley or omitting any reference to Lockley, no less than Britannica, Smithsonians Magazine, BBC, TIME, CNN and France Info have published articles on the "black samurai". If it were wrong to call Yasuke a samurai, some professional historian would have pointed it out, which has never happened.

To sum up, I would not use Lockley's book as a source for any controversial or WP:exceptional claim, but I would cite the sources I mentioned for Yasuke's status as a samurai, regardless of whether they quote or mention Lockley. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

just wanna add again, that the claimed reference in the Time, linked there is exactly the newsarticle highlighted by me already, who uses Lockley as an expert and has him calling Yasuke, a warrior, a valet, a manservant, a confidant, a bodyguard and not a samurai by Lockley.

Lockley didn't called Yasuke in this source as a historic fact a samurai. This is of course missed, if some people just copy-paste sources as reliable without actual reading these articles 3-4 times.

These personal claims of Lockley in his fictional books were called for these kind of statements of Lockley in newsarticles a bending of history and will obviously not get any attention of a professional historian beyond that field of critic. You don't write as an historian a review on a newsarticle about a netflix-show. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 19:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Thomas Lockley is reliable. There are editors pushing personal/political agendas via original research over published peer reviewed sourcing. Mainly the "anti-woke", "anti-dei", right-wing culture war crowd. These people are starting from the conclusion they want, and then working backwards to attempt to discredit any published sourcing that contradicts it. Symphony Regalia (talk) 19:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to politely ask that you strike your aspersions out, and provide a policy based argument for why he's reliable. DarmaniLink (talk) 19:56, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Symphony Regalia is the guy, who claimed yesterda yon the talk page, that there would be an angered ultra-nationalist group, or right-wing Japanese racial purist group, in Japan, who are the ones trying to revise history in Wikipedia in spite of a documented fact about Yasuke, and accused one person to be such a racist, correct?. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 19:59, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

For the record, you should generally provide diffs when you accuse people of misconduct. It helps to bury them and saves others time, and makes you look better when there's extreme accusations.

I would recommend escalating this to ANI and recommending a topic ban for symphony. DarmaniLink (talk) 20:37, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This has already escalated to ANI, here. DarmaniLink, who complains that Symphony Regalia is casting aspersions by mentioning the "anti-woke", "anti-dei", right-wing assault on the Yasuke article, began their first comment on the Yasuke talk page with Descendent of an (actual) samurai of the saeki clan, with a preserved 15th century land grant document in my family's possession here. Another editor complained about black supremacy and DEI propaganda. Personally I don't care about their motives, whether they are right-wing nationalists or passionate amateur historians and samurai enthusiasts - I'm not interested in their agenda, but I'm interested in their sources. Unfortunately those opposing Yasuke's status as a samurai have not provided sources contradicting Encyclopaedia Britannica, Smithsonian Magazine, TIME, BBC, or the research of Lockley and Lopez-Vera. They would like Wikipedia to ignore these sources because of an endless stream of unsupported theories about what a samurai truly was and about Yasuke. I agree with DarmaniLink: enough of this, it's ANI time. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:19, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

As a side-note about sources: Please stop relying on Britannica (entirely unsourced tertiary), Smithsonian Magazine, TIME, and the BBC (all also tertiary, entirely dependent on Lockley for statements about Yasuke's status). These are all ignorable not "because of an endless stream of unsupported theories about what a samurai truly was and about Yasuke", but instead because they literally have nothing of their own to say about Yasuke at all: they are just repeating Lockley. Lockley's and López-Vera's books, whatever their other issues, are at least secondary sources that include primary works in their bibliographies. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

If other reliable sources have seen fit to repeat Lockley, their acceptance is a strong indication that Lockley is reliable. MrOllie (talk) 23:38, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Do you really think that TIME Magazine has the expertise on staff to evaluate the accuracy of Lockley's statements? I don't. Thus, I do not view TIME as a reliable source on the subject of Yasuke. Likewise for the BBC, etc. I have read the articles in their entireties, and even looked into the published bios of the authors, where available. I see no indication of the competencies required to evaluate Lockley. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:52, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I don't agree. Firstly, they are not all relying on Lockley. Encyclopædia Britannica doesn't even mention Lockley. Smithsonian Magazine interviewed Natalia Doan, described as a historian at the University of Oxford. BBC interviewed Floyd Webb and Deborah DeSnoo, described as filmmakers working on a documentary about Yasuke. CNN claimed that Yasuke’s legacy as the world’s first African samurai is well known in Japan. Secondly, by interviewing and quoting Lockley, these sources have shown that they consider him to be an expert, a reliable source of information, and in doing so they have strengthened his status as an RS whose views are far more authoritative for Wikipedia than the views of us anonymous editors arguing to the contrary on a talk page. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:50, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

"Firstly, they are not all relying on Lockley."

I never said that Britannica mentions Lockley. I said that Britannica doesn't mention any sources at all — which I think is much worse.

Regarding the other tertiary sources, I said that they are (emphasis added) "entirely dependent on Lockley for statements about Yasuke's status".

None of the Smithsonian article's quotes from Natalie Doan make any statement about Yasuke being a samurai. None of her quotes touch on any of the issues under contention with our article at [[Yasuke]].

The BBC article's quotes from Webb and DeSnoo likewise do not state that Yasuke was a samurai.

The line from the CNN article isn't worth much: this is a broad statement with zero backing. No source except the article author themselves: one Emiko Jozuka, who, despite her Japanese name, self-describes her Japanese as only "proficient", as compared to "fluent in English, French, Spanish, [and] Turkish".

"[...] these sources have shown that they consider him to be an expert, a reliable source of information, [...]"

I have looked into the bios of these article authors. They appear to lack the competencies and expertise to evaluate Lockley as a reliable and academic historical source. How are we to trust their expertise enough for their (implicit, not explicitly stated) trust of Lockley to be worth anything to us?

Moreover, if all we have is one secondary source, and umpteen other people parroting that one source, we still have just one secondary source. We should quote the secondary source: not the other people playing "telephone". ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:11, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Eirikr and also echo Buidhe: these sources are reliable for some things, but they are not reliable for historical fact, especially when there is any trouble in the scholarship, which they cannot be relied upon to review and take into account in their coverage. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:38, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's published works have been peer reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them. There is no controversy with them aside from certain editors pushing OR. Symphony Regalia (talk) 02:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean, Zanahary, when you say especially when there is any trouble in the scholarship? There has never been any scholarly debate on this. Apart from some very argumentative editors on the Yasuke discussion page, no one has ever denied that Yasuke was a samurai. The only reason it seems necessary to attribute the claim that Yasuke was a samurai to Lockley is the fact that Yasuke was a black man of African descent. But this is not a good reason: there were foreign samurai in Japan. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know if you’re saying that I want to attribute the claim because Yasuke was black, but please don’t make that accusation. By problem in the scholarship, I mean that Lockley’s book is somewhat fictionalized and doesn’t directly cite sources for its claims, particularly the novel claim that Yasuke was a samurai. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:07, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that you wanted to attribute the claim because Yasuke was black. If that's how my words came across, I apologise. My point was simply that there's no scholarly debate about Yasuke's status as a samurai because no reliable source denies it. There is only a culture war about Yasuke as a samurai, which is affecting Wikipedia ([132] [133][134]) and which I believe is due to the fact that Yasuke was black. But I'm sure that many editors find the sources that call Yasuke a samurai unreliable for reasons that have nothing to do with his race and in no way imply racism on their part. I am sorry if I gave the impression of insinuating anything else. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:55, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

That is not necessarily the case. If a secondary source (in this case, Lockley's book) is dubious, tertiary sources repeating claims made in the secondary source without either the needed competence or qualification, do not make the secondary source more reliable. This is an example of circular reporting.

The Britannica entry about Yasuke was already discussed before, but I will highlight the issues with sourcing. The entry lacks in-text citations, but there is a separate References & Edit History section (@Eirikr ) which lists:

- Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard, African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan (2019). (the topic of this RSN thread)

In the edit history we also see the following sources:

- BBC News - Yasuke: The mysterious African samurai. (the BBC article referenced prior in this RSN thread)

- Ancient Origins - The amazing story of Yasuke, The forgotten African Samurai. (tertiary source, written by a graduate student in planetary science; the site can't be linked, because it's blocked by Wikipedia as a source)

The Britannica article itself was written by a history Bachelor graduate (according to the bio) in collaboration with 2 other editors whose credentials are not listed in their bios. This is good, but the article is still only a tertiary source.

I haven't before, but I now read the Smithsonian article more carefully as well. It quotes the CNN article for its claim about Yasuke being a samurai, in addition to quoting statements from Lockley verbatim or indirectly. The author is a reporter and staff contributor for Smithsonian, but at least based on her bio not a historian.

In other words, as has been stated before, we are dealing with tertiary sources which merely echo claims made by Lockley without providing additional high value information. 37.131.135.117 (talk) 11:12, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Based on this review, I think Lockley's findings can be cited but should probably be attributed. I agree that he should be cited directly rather than based on news coverage of his work. I'm not a big fan of the use of news articles for historical events because I've often found them to be wrong or uninformed. (t · c) buidhe 00:29, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Given all the information provided by Eirikr, Gitz, and ErikWar (as well as Hexenakte) I don't think Lockley should be cited for this claim. This is within the bounds of WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:CONTEXTFACTS, and not WP:OR. In this case I also don't support using a tertiary source; it is known that tertiary sources which are generally reliable, such as Britannica, can still have unreliable entries...especially for non-Western figures where both contemporary and historical translation difficulties and cultural barriers come into play...and even more so for those subjects that are obscure (or were obscure until relatively recently, at least for Western audiences). A reliable secondary source is most appropriate in this case. Green Caffeine (talk) 06:04, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I will refer to:

"Content is determined by previously published information rather than editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information. Even if you are sure something is true, it must have been previously published in a reliable source before you can add it"

and

We publish only the analysis, views, and opinions of reliable authors, and not those of Wikipedians who have read and interpreted source material for themselves.

Lockley's published works have been peer reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them. As mentioned by someone in the RFC, there have been no reliable sources furnished which contest the status of Yasuke as a samurai so WP:RSCONTEXT has already been factored in and does not apply here. As for the editors you've mentioned, the posts are largely speculative/WP:OR. Encyclopedias should not be written based on editors interpretations or what editors personally believe is right or wrong. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:32, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The review I linked does question some of his conclusions and the evidence or lack thereof behind them. It seems to be unclear how much of it is based on historical documents vs. educated guesses/speculation. That's why the findings can be covered in the article, but should be attributed. (t · c) buidhe 07:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

May I ask you, Buidhe, when you found certain news articles to be unreliable sources for historical events because they were wrong or uninformed, did you have any reliable sources to the contrary, or did you rely only on your personal knowledge of the historical events in question? Because here we have editors arguing that they know that Yasuke was not a samurai "properly called", a samurai "in the strict sense of the word", but they cannot provide any sources to support their knowledge (see lastly this comment by DarmaniLink, who also removed the policy-based comment made by an unregistred editor).

I wouldn't say that Yasuke's status as a samura is a finding of Lockley's research: it's just an undisputed statement of fact from a reliable source (subject-matter expert), which is also consistent with identical statements on the matter from several other academics (see Silver seren's excerpts from academic sources).

Apparently the only reason why editors find Lockley's statement WP:EXCEPTIONAL is that Yasuke was black - there's really no other reasons, since primary sources are clear about the higher social status of Yasuke, who carried a sword, had a servant, a house, and had a direct personal relationship with his lord; according to primary sources, his contemporaries thought that Yasuke was treated by his lord (or was likely to become) a "tono" ("dizem que o fara Tono" [135]), that is a chief, commander or lord of the castle. We should call him as all reliable sources call him: a retainer or vassel of Oda Nobunaga, a warrier of higher standing, that is, a samurai. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:31, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I removed comments from an editor who wrote inflammatory messages in google translated japanese if you look earlier in the thread, once it became clear they were sealioning.

It's not that I can't find *any* sources, it's that most academic sources either don't state it while discussing his background (omission, though they describe him as a warrior and a retainer) even though they refer to fictional works that imagine him as a samurai shortly after, and call him a samurai in the context of the fiction there only, and the only definitive "he was not a samurai" sources are pop culture sites I don't feel comfortable using, for the same reason I don't feel comfortable using Lockey or any of the informational incest derived from it. After spending more than 30 minutes digging through sources in japanese trying to find one that was both academic and definitely stated this, it stopped being worth it. For a source to do this, they would have to be explicitly challenging the notion, which, when its not a common conception outside of fiction, likely won't happen too often. All samurai are retainers. Not all retainers are samurai. If he was a samurai, you could infer he's a vassal. Vice versa does not work, however. DarmaniLink (talk) 08:43, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

you say that the notion of Yasuke as a samurai is not a common conception outside of fiction, but Silver seren's source analysis suggests that it is also common in the English-speaking academic literature, apart from Lockley. Since you speak Japanese, may I suggest that you do some similar research on Japanese academic sources? That might be helpful. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 08:51, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

It has two different meanings to me, the english loan word and the historical japanese term.

The English loan word you could make a very strong case for calling him a samurai by the usage of the term in english. I said this on Talk:Yasuke too, but you should probably add in a efn saying, more academically, "hey, we're using this as the english loan word which may have some discrepancies with the historical term used in Japanese."

That's a compromise I'm fully willing to go with. DarmaniLink (talk) 08:59, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with the historical Japanese term "samurai" is that, according to at least one reliable source (Michael Wert, Samurai. A Very Short Introduction, OUP, 2019) at the time of Yasuke that word referred to anyone who served a noble, even in a nonmilitary capacity, so that a warrior of elite stature in pre-seventeenth-century Japan would have been insulted to be called a “samurai.” The fact that later on, in the 17th century, the samurai became a relatively closed and prestigious hereditary class is irrelevant to the question of Yasuke's status. We should use the modern and contemporary notion of samurai - a warrior of higher ranking, a title for military servants of warrior families - which is certainly the notion used by the academic RSes referring to Yasuke as a samurai (Lockley, Lopez-Vera, E. Taylor Atkins, Esi Edugyan). Otherwise, it would be simply impossible to have a List of foreign-born samurai in Japan. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:21, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of the forgein born samurai were granted the rank of such, so i wouldn't quite say it's impossible.

Like I said in the second half of what I said before, we use the contemporary, English meaning of the word, detached from the strict, warrior nobility meaning, and stick an efn in there that basically outlines a brief history on the term, and why we use the contemporary meaning.

Everyone's happy. DarmaniLink (talk) 09:39, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Bit of a disclaimer this is a response to the entire current chain, not this specific comment:

I've made lengthy posts detailing a proper, comprehensive definition of samurai and the importance of nobility (petty nobility?) with the samurai from its inception in the Kamakura period to its most fluid state during the Sengoku period to a more restrictive state in the Edo period, with a plethora of secondary sources, which you can read my post on a comprehensive definition of a samurai and initial analysis of Lockley, an additional reply to X0n under that in the Samurai status subsection, as well as comparing it to Lockley's definition of a samurai and lack of proper citation and comparing Lockley's definition to other academic definitions of samurai and related arguments. Just to be clear, the sources provided are by no means a comprehensive list, and was collected for the sake of time saving and demonstrating that I did not do WP:OR. In the future, when I get more time, I will look further for academic secondary sources that make these arguments as well (which I know of their existence but do not have at hand at the moment), and honestly it is already reflected in the Samurai wikipedia article, but nonetheless a consistent definition is required. When we talk about historical topics, we must use historical definitions, as modern definitions are not aligned with the past. As I noted before when @Theozilla brought up that Pluto switched from planet status to dwarf planet status by the scientific community, this is a correct statement. However, that does not change the fact that Pluto was considered a planet historically before that definition change. We should not be using modern definitions for historical topics.

Also the thing I do not understand most about this entire argument is the insistence that we are using "editors' beliefs, opinions, experiences, or previously unpublished ideas or information" for our contentions. We have made it abundantly clear that we are not, I do not care one way or the other if Yasuke was a samurai, but to paraphrase @Eirikr, it has to be proven with proper citation and research for the sake of academic integrity. I keep seeing that Lockley was "peer reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them," yet everytime Purdy is mentioned, his peer review is downplayed and completely diminished! And any time we try to bring up this as well as the lack of in-line text citations (which Purdy based his review off of), it is completely ignored. I do not know what else to say here, but the lack of acknowledgement and insistence on repeating the same thing over and over as some here are doing almost seems like desperation to get this topic settled as soon as possible, relying solely on academic background rather than the apparent poor research applied, which editors are allowed to make their own reasonable judgement on in accordance with WP:REPUTABLE, WP:SOURCEDEF, and WP:CONTEXTFACTS. I've still yet to see one that is still pushing Lockley as reliable to actually acknowledge these points.

Also just to quote Gitz, who seemingly is making implications on other editors intent by saying "Apparently the only reason why editors find Lockley's statement WP:EXCEPTIONAL is that Yasuke was black," this is not the reason why. The reason why it is an exceptional claim is that it was not the default status for Japanese people in Japan nor retainers/warriors. Toyotomi Hideyoshi is a prime example of this (which I go into detail in the diffs I posted) where he was explicitly stated as not a samurai and only properly became one with his marriage to his wife One in 1561 (at minimum, or his adoption by Oda senior vassals when he gained the surname Hashiba, the documentation on Hideyoshi is not so great before he gained the Hashiba surname), which took years of service with Nobunaga, and even as a personal sandal bearer for Nobunaga, he was still not considered a samurai, instead being an ashigaru. So yes, it is an exceptional claim on those grounds, not because of contemporary race politics, which I do not understand why people are still bringing up. Hexenakte (talk) 15:14, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Journalists are frequently not subject matter experts on what they are reporting on. If we can cite an academic who has actually read the sources and is familiar with all the context, you are much more likely to get an accurate result. Even for more serious outlets, they still rely on interesting or unexpected news to get readers to click and subscribe, meaning that sensationalism is incentivized. For example, the Raoul Wallenberg article used to claim that he rescued 100,000 Jews based on some credulous journalists who had made this claim. Historians have concluded that it was an order of magnitude less. (t · c) buidhe 15:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley's "African Samurai" is "Not refereed" according to his publication list.

So this book cannot be treated as peer-reviewed by other historians or experts. R.stst (talk) 10:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what "not refereed" means so I looked at the Japanese version of the same page and it says "査読無し" which means "not peer-reviewed". Thibaut (talk) 10:25, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to 37.131.135.117 above, we now know that the article from Britannica is based on that same non-peer-reviewed book. Thibaut (talk) 11:45, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Lockley's works have indeed been reviewed by other historians and subject matter experts, who also support the claims in them. Symphony Regalia (talk) 06:30, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Could you give some citations? Thibaut (talk) 06:43, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The published book in particular was reviewed by R.W. Purdy. Lockley's works in つなぐ世界史2 also went through some form of review by the nature of their inclusion. Symphony Regalia (talk) 21:10, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a massive misattribution of Purdy, who does not, in fact, support the claims of Lockley. He had not suggested anything that supports Lockley's claims, only the opposite, stating that his claims are weak due to the lack of citations; he even called it historical fiction of popular history. Please do not misconstrue what Purdy actually said in his peer review of his book. Hexenakte (talk) 22:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The only massive misattribution would be ignoring that Purdy does not actually contend the assertion of Yasuke being a samurai, and still recommends the book. Symphony Regalia (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, let's look at how Purdy recommends the book, in Purdy's own words. From the review as posted here on Academia.edu:

Although this lens may not be detailed enough for the academic, African Samurai’s lively writing style does offer the reader of popular history and historical fiction a glimpse of samurai values from late sixteenth-century Japan.

Purdy recommends the book explicitly not to academics, but rather to readers "of popular history and historical fiction". ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:45, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Purdy does not recommend the book to researchers:

>Lockley and Girard have scoured Japanese and Jesuit sources, but, unfortunately, the lack of detailed citations means that much of their effort ends with this volume. Scholars researching related topics such as Oda Nobunaga, Akechi Mitsuhide, or the Jesuit role in the Asian slave trade will not find this work as helpful as it might have been.

To be clear on this point, Purdy likely does not recommend this book for those researching Yasuke either. He is just mentioning areas of established fields of research as those studying these topics are the likely audience. I don't see him recommend the book to anyone. He only mentions that the intended audience is "the reader of popular history and historical fiction." Wikipedia does not fall into this category. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

A book review is not a peer review. The section in つなぐ世界史2 is, per the Nihon University website, refereed (peer reviewed); but that review is not transferable to other, non-peer-reviewed, works. Rotary Engine ^talk 23:01, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Prior to now I have followed the situation without commenting at length but I think now is a good time to post my understanding.

Lockley's book 'African Samurai' is reasonable to call Pop history. It is co-authored with a novelist and takes artistic liberty with describing events. The purpose of the book as Purdy points out is to place Yasuke in time and place and to bring him to life for a modern audience with the hope of catching the imaginations of the modern reader. This is why the book should not be the main source of claims that Yasuke being a Samurai given the existence of much better works.

Lockley is an academic however, with this as his main topic so far in his career. Just because his book is pop history does not mean his other works are - which is why the link above lists an article

'Nobunaga's Black 'Samurai' Yasuke

Thomas Lockley

つなぐ世界史, Jun. 2023, Refereed, Invited'

This work likewise seems to attribute the title to Yasuke and is listed as peer reviewed - I can not find it however and would like to point it out here for others who might be able to.

Purdy's review notably also refers to Yasuke as having been a Samurai in the opening paragraph of his review:

"In this turbulent era, the authors introduce Yasuke, a black African brought to

Japan by the Jesuits and presented as a gift to arguably the most powerful feudal lord at the time, Oda Nobunaga, who raised him to the rank of samurai."

As well as his summary of the content:

"Part 2, “Samurai,” recounts Yasuke’s association with Nobunaga until the warlord’s death in June 1582. During this fifteen-month period, Nobunaga elevated Yasuke to samurai rank, and the two formed a close bond. The section ends with Yasuke defending Nobunaga against the warriors of the traitorous Akechi Mitsuhide at the warlord’s Kyoto stronghold, Honno-ji Temple."

One could interpret the latter as just restating Lockley's unsourced conjecture, but contrast it to how he writes of Lockley's other conjecture immediately after where that is made explicitly clear:

"The final section, “Legend,” includes a speculative chapter on Yasuke’s activities after the death of Nobunaga — Lockley and Girard suggest he joined the forces that Nobunaga’s successor, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, dispatched to conquer Korea—and a chapter on Yasuke’s post-Nobunaga legacy and reinvention in the mass media."

Purdy's review, while casting doubt on Lockley's book as a reliable source, does show that he seems to agree with the attribution of Samurai - and that he is familiar with the requisite primary sources of Yasuke enough to have cast doubt on this claim if he did not also agree. Purdy's primary issue with Lockley is that the sources are all shoved into a 'recommended' and 'associated' reading section at the back of the book, with any research lockley did not being able to be built upon by others. I would suggest this is why the concrete facts of Yasuke's life are stated plainly by Purdy, while he explicitly states what is purely speculation and artistic invention. Those citing this source only to discredit Lockley's book should likewise recognize it's support for the attribution of the title Samurai - and that Lockley has additional works that have not been discussed or brought forward by the most active participants in the discussion.

Lockley has three major assertions that I believe are seemingly unique to him irt Yasuke that he mentions in various interviews, recorded talks, and other works I have seen from him that are likewise present in his book here - none of which are mentioned on the Yasuke page:

1. That Yasuke potentially originated from South Sudan

2. A different version of the timeline of how Yasuke became associated with the jesuits in India prior to departing for Japan

3. That Yasuke potentially joined Hideyoshi and participated in the failed invasion of Korea after disappearing from the records.

These three things are beliefs that I have only seen from Lockley on my admittedly far from comprehensive dive into the subject. I would agree that inclusion of any of these would have to be a direct attribution to Lockley, especially if it is referencing the book alone (I am unfamiliar with how Wikipedia handles video interviews as sources on matters like this). Such conjecture are rather common from what I've seen on Wikipedia, with biographers (who aren't always historians for that matter) frequently having their conjecture cited. An example that comes to mind is Ellen Ternan having her possibly-unreciprocated affair with Charles Dickens covered on a variety of pages alongside assertions of secret childbirth, abortions, homewrecking, and a last minute visit to Dickens before his death all attributed by name to whichever author made such claims in their biographies. I think given the prominence that Yasuke has had in media in the past few years (Nioh, the Netflix series, Assassins Creed, etc) that such things might make more sense to include in their own section in the body of the text alongside fleshing out the section on his depiction in media to improve the article significantly.

The claim of Yasuke having been a Samurai however seems to be the current consensus in English, and even if Lockley's book is not a reliable source for establishing this, there are others that have been presented for this. Relm (talk) 10:55, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @Relmcheatham for your thorough research, I didn't notice that peer-reviewed article from Lockley!

It can be found here. Thibaut (talk) 11:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Likewise thanks for finding it! That looks like it would definitely constitute a reliable source publication, though I am reasonably hesitant to cite it's title alone without having access to the text! 2500 yen sounds like a very low price for what it is though. Relm (talk) 11:46, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Ordering it. Thibaut (talk) 12:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Relm: I should receive the book on the 15th. Thibaut (talk) 08:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Relm: Here's the full article. Thibaut (talk) 11:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@Thibaut120094 @Relmcheatham Note this quote on page 32:

この時代、武士とそれ以外の身分の垣根は曖昧であり、本当に弥助が「サ ムライ」となったのかについては議論があるものの、少なくともその身一代においては、彼は間違いなく信長の家臣に取り立てられたと考えられている。

In this era, the boundaries between samurai and other classes were unclear, and there is debate as to whether Yasuke truly became a "samurai," but it is believed that, at least for his lifetime, he was undoubtedly appointed as a vassal of Nobunaga. (edit: this quote is already discussed more bellow. feel free to ignore my ping.) J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 17:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the relevant quote. There has been a clear discrepancy between the Japanese edition and the English novel on Yasuke, I think this should be reflected since Lockley himself stated that the Japanese edition was the "more academic version". Hexenakte (talk) 17:48, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Some things of note about this article:

1. It is only a handful of pages compared to the co-authored book.

2. I want to preface by qualifying that though I have taken courses in Japanese and am at an advanced level, I am by no means able to be quick or accurate for an academic paper's level of reading - and have had to rely on dictionaries while parsing through the text. I am not able to read all of it at the moment but what caught my eye was in the first paragraph was this line: "彼の従者の名は日本の史料によると［弥助］、サムライ としては極めて特異な存在であって。" which clearly states: "According to Japanese historical documents, [Oda Nobunaga]'s retainer's* name was Yasuke, and as a Samurai** he is extremely unique."

• = Jusha (従者) as I understand it is the word explicitly stated in the primary source for Yasuke and is loosely denoted as being a word to describe someone who is in the company of an employer.
  • = 'サムライ' is stated here as a descriptor for Yasuke in no uncertain terms.

3. Though he references Yasuke as a Samurai throughout, the quote referenced above by J2UDY7r00CRjH does not contain an elaboration on this - though from watching some of Lockley's interviews and webinars he has broken this down before. I don't believe this work contradicts his other work from what I've read in it, but given it's short length I would say it is definitively a watered down version of his narrative cut free from speculation. What interests me is that he cites himself from 2017 to another peer reviewed text that I believe we have also yet to look over.

I want to emphasize given how much of the spotlight has been on Lockley that what he wrote so far has not had any issue with self contradiction. His explanation for Yasuke's samurai status in the Time article for example, while simple and brief, does not contradict his view here which is that due to the fluidity of social statuses, that Yasuke having been a vassal of Nobunaga (Jiachen 家臣 whether Chinese or Japanese is 100% definitively referring to a high ranking vassal as far as I have ever seen it employed) who was an admired and close attendant/retainer/etc who likewise served on military expedition (some of which is talked about here in ways that could be utilized to improve the Yasuke page for one willing to ensure it is translated correctly) is reasonable to be referred to as a Samurai. Relm (talk) 20:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

A few points.

• As a word, 従者 is more like "follower" than "retainer" strictly speaking, as a compound of 従 ("to follow, to obey") + 者 ("person").
• In the Japanese text, the intentional spelling of samurai as サムライ in katakana is a strange stylistic decision; this is spelled in kanji as 侍 in other texts. This katakana spelling parses out like putting something in quotes in English, as a means of indicating that the author is using the word in a non-standard way.

I wonder how this fits with Lockley's other statements in English, such as he was quoted in a TIME magazine article that “Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.” This definition is in line with vaguer English usage, but it is at odds with Japanese sources. Even as English, Yasuke is only recorded as taking up arms during the Honnō-ji incident, which was an ambush, not an organized engagement. Yasuke's involvement in this hardly makes him a samurai even by Lockley's loose definition. Akechi Mitsuhide certainly didn't think so, as he is quoted as saying at the time.

• I haven't seen other sources calling Yasuke a 家臣 (kashin, "vassal"). I have seen the word 家来 (kerai) used, but this also had broader meanings that could include any of a household's employees, including cooks and cleaning staff. This use of kashin is an interesting departure. Are there any other authors who use this term kashin to describe Yasuke?
• Additionally, re: "who likewise served on military expedition", what expedition is Yasuke to have served on? The only military anything where we have clear documented proof of Yasuke's participation is the Honnō-ji incident itself, which was an ambush rather than an expedition.

I take your point that Lockley doesn't seem to contradict himself. However, the issue is more that he contradicts other authors: particularly in how he defines the term "samurai".

I have only just recently received Lockley's 2017 book, Yasuke: In search of the African Samurai. I will gather my notes as I read through this. Of note right at the start, the book jacket mini-bio for the author points out that Lockley's area of research is language learning, not history.

Confusingly, this book is only available translated into Japanese (not by Lockley himself, but rather by Yoshiko Fuji / 不二淑子), and I can find no record of the English-language version: Google searches seem to point me instead to the Lockley / Girard book African Samurai. I am not sure if might just be Google "being helpful" and ignoring that I am attempting to do a "perfect match" search with a quoted string. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:40, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

• UPDATE: The source text doesn't just spell samurai in non-standard katakana, it also puts it in quotes. Here's the actual text (emphasis mine):

この時代、武士とそれ以外の身分の垣根は曖昧であり、本当に弥助が「サムライ」となったのかについては議論があるものの、少なくともその身一代においては、彼は間違いなく信長の家臣に取り立てられたと考えられている。

Skimming just now through the rest of the article's six pages, the only instances of samurai are in spelled in katakana, and put in quotation marks.

Separately, I do notice on page 34 that Lockley says this:

結局、信長と確認できる死骸は見つからなかった。
Ultimately, no remains confirmable as Nobunaga's were found.

This makes sense, as reports state that the Honnō-ji temple buildings were on fire. However, this also contradicts Lockley's later statements in English that Yasuke somehow retrieved Nobunaga's head and escaped with it — a contention that Lockley is unique in making, as far as I'm aware.

@Relm, looking at the 参考文献 (Sankō Bunken, "Reference Texts") section at the bottom, Lockley's 2017 work mentioned there is the same Yasuke: In search of the African Samurai book I have here now on my desk. The main text is 259 pages, FWIW. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:24, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

> it also puts it in quotes

Is there such a thing as something like scare quotes in in Japanese though? I tried to look into this and it seemed from a very quick search that it may not be the case. Eg. in English, 'Nobunaga's "Samurai"' would read like the writer doesn't really believe that he is a Samurai. Like in the sentnece 'John's "car" only has one seat,' when the "car" is really a bike. Does such a grammar exist is Japanese?

>However, this also contradicts Lockley's later statements in English that Yasuke somehow retrieved Nobunaga's head

It's mentioned in what seems to be an interview with Lockley from time: https://time.com/6039381/yasuke-black-samurai-true-story/

>“There’s no record, but tradition holds it that [Yasuke] was the one who took Nobunaga’s head to save it from the enemy,” Lockley said

Not sure if this is from the interview or his book but it is strange how he seems to be creating almost two separate accounts of Yasuke between the peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed works. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the conversation of Nobunaga's corpse is an interesting topic since it is open to speculation - something that we are all aware Lockley loves presenting. I think Lockley's handling in the Time article, as commented elsewhere, may just be a case of tailoring an explanation to a different, more general and less academic, audience - though I agree it was poorly quoted or stated relative to his qualified statement with its doubt at its most charitable. The speculation is derived in both cases and qualified with 'this comes from the descendents of Nobunaga' which is something I have not seen backed by other sources and which is not cited to anything in the works that I have seen. Relm (talk) 22:50, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the context. Given the other descriptions of Yasuke's time with Nobunaga, I do tend to lean more towards 'retainer' as a translation for 従者 ince it still denotes the relationship between the two as including an economic component whereas follower could be misconstrued.

I likewise agree that it is a little odd. I think the Japanese side of this argument, given that history includes having to incorporate modern context, could be a result of a more general modern view of what 'Samurai' means (I give an example later on in this post irt Naoto) to the Japanese layman or even academics. I think the usage could imply that the language and cultural barrier is more substantial. Forgive me but though I think it's a fascinating subject, I don't want to speculate too much on this.

To answer your question to your fourth point the text says that he was apart of Nobunaga's retinue during the campaign against Takeda Katsuyori by citing Ietada Matsudaira's diary - it notes that Nobutada's force engaged the enemy, but just says that Yasuke is present during the campaign. This is at the bottom of page 33. Tying this to your second point, one can still serve in a Lord's military, go their entire career having not shed or dropped a drop of blood on a battlefield, and would still have the associated rank, compensation, etc. I do not believe it is necessary that Yasuke fought on a battlefield to fit what Lockley ascribes in this manner.

The third point I would say is also interesting, but is beyond my scope other than to note its connotation as being about high ranking vassals - and that at a minimum it is apart of the publication.

I feel that I'm losing my point somewhere in all these posts so I want to try and summarize it with this: I am similarly confused by the phrasing of that paragraph, but given that it still fits with Lockley's other definitions of Samurai for the time that I am content with it as still suggesting Yasuke was a Samurai. I think it does lend credence to the notion that in Japan there are those who contend Yasuke is not a Samurai (academic or in Japanese popular belief it is unclear; e.g. Japanese with Naoto as mentioned on another reply chain makes a distinction between samurai and 'metaphorical' samurai in a way that seems poised for retroactive categorization either way you look at it). I ultimately think that these contentions must be brought forward from reliable sources, be given more contextualization by Lockley himself, or similarly be founded in more than OR. Either way I do not believe that this is discrediting of Lockley as an academic. Relm (talk) 22:42, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

"Either way I do not believe that this is discrediting of Lockley as an academic."

I confess to growing concern that Lockley seems to be presenting two versions of his story (one in Japanese and including more peer-reviewed works, one in English and apparently not peer-reviewed).

Setting that aside at the moment, I am not opposed to including Lockley's viewpoints in the [[Yasuke]] article, provided that they are clearly attributed to Lockley. (And to one of his other works as discussed more recently on this page, not African Samurai written jointly with Girard.)

At present, much of the rationale for using "wikivoice" to state that Yasuke was a samurai, as a matter of unattributed fact, seems to rest mostly on Lockley, with tons of tertiary sources quoting Lockley, and some support from a short citation-less blurb written by López-Vera. That strikes me as a weak foundation for any "wikivoice" statement. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:51, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I definitely think that the resolution from the RfC should be revisited, given that we didn't have access to all of Lockley's work at the time of that RfC which itself was primarily based on Lockley. I'm not sure what the protocol is for that though. Is it creating a new RfC? In any case, I think we should give other editors at least another day or two to read the points mentioned here before making any changes to the article itself. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:59, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

>It is only a handful of pages compared to the co-authored book.

I don't think that is an important factor here. I think the important factor is the reliability of the publication.

>I don't believe this work contradicts his other work from what I've read in it

It doesn't change that he believes Yasuke to be a Samurai but it does change the claims made in the RfC that no reliable sources dispute him being a Samurai. If Lockley himself says there is dispute to his claims then that should be noted in the article.

>Yasuke having been a vassal of Nobunaga (Jiachen 家臣 [...]) who likewise served on military expedition [...] is reasonable to be referred to as a Samurai.

I'm not sure I follow the logic here. 家臣 and Samurai are not interchangeable words. Similarly, serving on military expeditions and being a Samurai are not interchangeable. Therefore I don't think combining these two things makes one a Samurai, especially when there are claims to the contrary according to the author who made the claim. Also, the way it is written implies that he does not feel he can fully prove that Yasuke was a Samurai either. If he did he would right something like eg. "While others do not agree Yasuke was a Samurai, I believe that he was because [reason]." And the way he writes "he was at least a retainer" implies that that is the maximum one can say about the matter uncontroversially. For example, I would not say we can all agree that 5 is at least greater than 3 if I can prove that it is also greater than 4. That is, he is not saying that "some people think he was not but we can ignore them" but "some people think he was not and all we can say for sure is that he was Nobunaga's retainer." In fact, he writes that "its is believed" that he was Nobunaga's retainer, although that could be more of a Japanese expresion than real uncertainty. Although I doubt you would say "it is believed" that the declaration of independence was in 1776, even in Japanese. I think we should consider not describing Yasuke as a Samurai in Wikivoice. It could be written something like "While there is debate as to whether Yasuke meets the definition of "samurai," he was appointed as a personal retainer of Nobunaga. According to Lockley, he can be considered a Samurai because [reason]." (And while there was not a tight definition of Samurai, we also can't say any retainer is a Samurai.)

>definitively a watered down version of his narrative cut free from speculation

I don't see at as "watered down" in a bad way. The issue with his other work according to that other historian that reviewed him was exactly that it embellished the primary sources and was written as a novel instead of a work of history. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 21:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

The issue is that the argument around his samurai status stems from the lack of an explicit confirmation in the primary sources, and is derivative of interpretations which have listed him as such. It could be reasoned that Lockley is referring to this lack of explicit naming rather than to a lack of general academic consensus - especially since as of yet there have not been provided reliable sources to the contrary (though they are welcomed!). For an example of this in practice, if I were to write a summary of Robert E. Lee's military career and wrote:

"Robert E Lee's status as a General is debatable, with the Records of the USMA listing only up to his rank of Colonel on record prior to resigning his commission in the United States Military. What is clear, however, is that he served the Confederacy in the role of a General."

Nothing in this text is factually wrong, and even if this example has to bend it to be misleading to make my point, it shows that nuance can be breached via positing someone's status as 'arguable' and then following it with the counterpoint. In this instance Lockley could be reasonably be said to be using Jiachen to say that even if one does not accept the interpretation of him having been a Samurai, it is clear that he was a high ranking vassal of some manner - which fits into that paragraph being nestled between statements of his privileged status amongst Nobunaga's retinue and his participation in his campaign against the Takeda. Disagreement should generally be identifiable in character from a reliable source - as if we were to list "some argue Yasuke is not a Samurai" all that would be listed is this source, which begs these questions:

Who is some?

Is 'some' Academic peers in the field?

Are 'some' the general consensus of Japanese historians?

Are 'some' the general populace of Japan?

Are 'some' a fringe subsect of Japan or Japanese Nationalist groups of some kind who may be biased on this issue?

What is this disagreement based in?

Is it based in strict adherence to the primary source text above any interpretation?

Is it based in some retroactive application of the current Japanese populace's understanding of what a Samurai is?

etc etc etc

This is why including it off of this line alone is something that causes more issues than it solves. As noted in an above reply, it suggests that there may be genuine disagreement on the Japanese side of things. While people who are dedicated to this ultra specific topic delve into it further, if it is there it will be found in time, and in the meantime it does not stand to be included for Wikipedia purposes. I hope this clarifies my view succinctly. Relm (talk) 23:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

> It could be reasoned that Lockley is referring to this lack of explicit naming rather than to a lack of general academic consensus

Even if that is what he meant, it would still be notable and should be mentioned in the article in some way. Eg. "Primary sources do not qualify Yasuke as a Samurai, only as a retainer." I don't think that is the case, however, because he directly states that there is debate about the claim, not that it is unknown due to lack of primary sources.

>nuance can be breached via positing someone's status as 'arguable' and then following it with the counterpoint.

He didn't say the point was arguable but that other argue about it. There is a big difference there.

I don't get your point about Robert E. Lee. His status as a general is not debatable. He was the General in Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States. Not sure why the Records of the USMA are relevant being he was the general of a different army. And that he severed as the role of a general (ei. the position of the claim) is different than Lockley who said he served as retainer (a different position).

>Disagreement should generally be identifiable in character from a reliable source

Do you have a source for this? If he says it debated, it probably is.

>Are 'some' the general populace of Japan?

>Are 'some' a fringe subsect of Japan or Japanese Nationalist groups of some kind who may be biased on this issue?

Why would he be referring to such a group? Do you think he would quote non academic sources without attribution in that way? And then why follow it up with "all we know is that he was a least a retainer"? If he was just referring to the general lack of sources like you said earlier, that part would make sense. But if he is referring to laymen like you posit here, then it doesn't make sense to say "laymen disagree about this claim, and all we know is that primary sources say he was a retainer." That would mean the first part of the sentence is about the people who debate the claim and the second part is about the lack of sources which is unrelated to the first point. Do you have any examples of a history book that quotes the view of laymen on a topic as "there is debate" without specifying somewhere that those who are debating are really laymen?

>Disagreement should generally be identifiable in character from a reliable source - as if we were to list "some argue Yasuke is not a Samurai" all that would be listed is this source

Why would Lockley himself not be a valid source for the claim that others debate his point? If he is an expert on this topic, then he would know if others debate his point. It is clear that he takes that side seriously, or else he would mention it. That being the case, those who debate his claim could be his colleagues that he spoke to while researching the topic. But it is clear that he takes this debate seriously as he takes the time to note it in his otherwise short article and then goes on to say that all he knows for sure is that he was a retainer J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 23:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I feel youre getting close to battle or bludgeoning here. Your posts have been coming off as kind of aggressive about this as though you were arguing on reddit or something and not here on wikipedia. 216.138.9.189 (talk) 12:47, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry if it came off that way and it is not my intention. I do not have a Reddit account. Reading WP:BLUDGEONING, I don't think my comments are considered bludgeoning :

>In Wikipedia terms, bludgeoning is where someone attempts to force their point of view through a very high number of comments, such as contradicting every viewpoint that is different from their own. Typically, this means making the same argument over and over and to different people in the same discussion or across related discussions.

I have made a high number of posts, but each post made different points. For example in this last post I was responding to points that have not yet been made before, such as about whether Lockely's statement that 'there is debate as to whether Yasuke truly became a "samurai"' can be attributed to the view laymen and not other academic sources. This is not a point that was made before and I did not respond to such a point before.

I also have not responded to multiple people here. Except on other person that I agreed with, so that can't be bludgeoning. There was also one person who was a WP:SPA who I responded to but did not engage with beyond a single sentence. I also did not go back to previous discussions in this thread and repost my argument to everyone who disagrees with me.

Lastly, there is at least one account here who I do think falls in the category of bludgeoning (not anyone I responded to) that has continually responded with the same exact argument to multiple editors, even going as far as to go to the Japanese talk page and make comments there as well, which certainly falls into across related discussions.

About 'related discussions,' I did post in the Yasuke talk page as well, but that is because this article is about the reliability of Yasuke and my point at the talk page was explicitly not about his reliability but what he said. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 16:01, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The 2017 citation in the article you provided appears to be the Japanese edition of Lockley's book about Yasuke. Or did you mean that book itself contains a citation to a paper from 2017? SmallMender (talk) 08:26, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Per WP:CONTEXTFACTS I disagree that the book can be labeled as "pop history", which is a bit of a buzzword and does not have a clear definition. I also do not think the majority view in reliable sources needs attribution. Lockley has a variety of works and I am not against citing any of them, as the relevant claims have been vetted by other subject matter experts and his works all meet WP:RS criteria. Symphony Regalia (talk) 12:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

You keep saying this, and you have not yet given any references or links.

Why are you ignoring multiple other editors all asking you for references or links to back up your claims about Lockley? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:52, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

This is discussed above, as well as in other relevant threads. Symphony Regalia (talk) 22:40, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I already mentioned in past discussions that I honestly don't care much about Lockley. Purdy's review is enough that we can set that source aside regardless, since we have plenty of other academic sources to use instead of him. Which I also already posted in the past and which Gitz linked to above. Here's excerpts from them:

"It is worth pointing out that henceforth he was no longer a slave, since he received a salary for being in the daimyō’s service and enjoyed the same comforts as other vassals. He was granted the rank of samurai and occasionally even shared a table with Nobunaga himself, a privilege few of his trusted vassals were afforded."

Lopez-Vera, Jonathan (2020-06-02). A History of the Samurai. Tuttle Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4629-2134-8.

"...Yasuke's height and strength (which "surpassed that of ten men"), Nobunaga gave him a sword signifying bushi status. Yasuke served as Nobunaga's retainer and conversation partner for the last year of the warlord's life, defending Azuchi castle from the traitorous Akechi forces in 1582, where Nobunaga committed ritual suicide (seppuki). Although there are no known portraits of the African samurai, there are some pictorial depictions of dark-skinned men (in one of which he is sumo wrestling) from the early Edo period that historians speculate could be Yasuke."

Atkins, E. Taylor (2017-10-19), A History of Popular Culture in Japan: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-4742-5857-9

...Yasuke already possessed skills as a warrior, as he is believed to have become a samurai after only one year, a remarkably short period of time. Samurai usually trained from boyhood. Nobunaga granted Yasuke the role of sword bearer in the royal guard, for he felt Yasuke had the "might as that of ten men." This was an era in which Japan was still suffering the aftershocks of a civil war in which hundreds of petty warlords had vied for control of the country."

On a separate page,

"Nobunaga had believed that Yasuke must either be a guardian demon or a god; he was black as only temple statues were black. But touching Yasuke, hearing him speak his rich, inimitable foreigner's Japanese, Nobunaga realized he was only a man. He threw a feast in Yasuke's honour, made him gifts of money, and requested that they train him to become a samurai - an honor never before bestowed upon any foreigner. It would elevate him into Japan's warrior class, the top echelon of society. Yasuke accepted and was granted a house, a stipend, and even, in a turn that may have felt uncomfortable to him, his own manservant. That Yasuke had arrived fluent in Japanese was a great asset."

Edugyan, Esi (2021). Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling. House of Anansi Press. ISBN 978-1-4870-0988-5.

So take Lockley out and put these in instead. We can even use refquote with the quotes above so more explicit detail is included. Silverseren^C 15:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

And this is the thing, if you just copy-paste your claims over weeks without having an interest of a compromise in mind. We already used terminology of Taylor Atkins in your own quote. "Yasuke served as Nobunaga's retainer [...] for the last year of the warlord's life". The article refereed him as a retainer prior to the term samurai. -- ErikWar19 (talk) 02:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The idea that Wikipedia articles should be a compromise between a consistent view present in all reliable sources on the subject and the negation of that, because there are a bunch of angry people on the internet who just know the reliable sources are wrong, is essentially the antithesis of our core content policy WP:NPOV. 100.36.106.199 (talk) 02:43, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia shouldn't compromise with your belief about a subject when it is unsupported by sources. You have to "compromise" and accept that sources disagree with you. XeCyranium (talk) 01:59, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

So take Lockley out and put these in instead.

That’d be a good compromise, both López-Vera and Atkins actually have a PhD in Japanese history.

I’m optimistic that all the drama around Yasuke will push scholars to publish new (peer-reviewed) research on him, based on the primary sources that have been extensively discussed in the talk page (and elsewhere on the web), we just have to be patient. Thibaut (talk) 07:01, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Re: Edugyan, she's a Canadian novelist (see her page here at Esi Edugyan), not an historian; she seems to rely on tertiary sources, which is fine for her work (as suggested by the title Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling), but is less usable for us.

Esi Edugyan's sources for Yasuke, as best I can glean from Google Books' limited preview:

• "The African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, Japan's Legendary Black Warrior.” Matthew Hernon (Senior Editor), Tokyo Weekender. 17 September 2020. https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/09/, updated URL — https://www.tokyoweekender.com/art_and_culture/japanese-culture/yasuke-african-samurai-japan/

Appears to rely heavily on Lockley.

• "Yasuke: The mysterious African samurai.” BBC News. 14 October 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-48542673 by Naima Mohamud.

Appears to rely heavily on Lockley.

Also relies on "Floyd Webb and Deborah DeSnoo, filmmakers working on a documentary about him,", of unclear credentials.

Contains some factual mistakes:

"Before long, he was speaking Japanese fluently and riding alongside Nobunaga in battle."

→ We have no record of him fighting other than in the Honnō-ji Incident, which pointedly did not involve "riding ... in battle". We also have no record of Nobunaga being directly involved in any other conflict during the time when Yasuke was with him.

“"His height was 6 shaku 2 sun (roughly 6 feet, 2 inches (1.88m)... he was black, and his skin was like charcoal," a fellow samurai, Matsudaira Ietada, described him in his diary in 1579.”

→ Minor error: it was 2 fun, not sun. See also Talk:Yasuke#Yasuke’s_height.

“As the first foreign-born samurai, Yasuke fought important battles alongside Oda Nobunaga.”

→ As best we can tell, he fought in the Honnō-ji ambush and immediate aftermath, but otherwise is not documented as fighting at all.

Re: López-Vera and Atkins, I think these would be good to use as attributed references. Both are historians, with a focus on Japan. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:01, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The 3rd source was already analyzed by @Eirikr, but just a general comment, because I see a similar issue cropped up before when discussing Lockley's book. If a book directly ascribes personal impressions, feelings, etc. to either Yasuke or Nobunaga in their relationship, it most certainly is historical fiction. The prose-like writing style makes it fairly clear.

The 1st and 2nd source look promising, however I see 2nd source mentions Nobunaga committed seppuku at Azuchi castle. Did he not commit suicide at Honnou-ji, however? The source also makes it sound as if Yasuke was involved in fights in Azuchi and I am not sure if it temporarily agrees with other sources. Apologies if it already falls under SYNTH. 37.131.135.117 (talk) 13:04, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

• Reliability is contextual. There's certainly enough secondary coverage of Lockley that it doesn't make sense to treat him as generally unreliable. And, crucially, as the other sources show, the specific claim being made here is un-exceptional, despite the massive debate over it here and on social media - no reliable sources contest the fact that Yasuke is a samurai. A few exist that don't use the term, but given the massive coverage across all levels of sourcing and the high-profile focus on this specific question, it's reasonable to say that if there were a serious dispute about it, at least one high-quality source would actively contest it; I'm not usually a huge fan of relying on tertiary sources, but the fact that Brittancia's article calls him a Samurai repeatedly, from start to finish, shows that it's such a high-profile view that it's reasonable to require some RS actually dispute it, if editors want to try and present it as contested. Yet over the course of a monthlong RFC on Yasuke, none of the people trying to argue against that assertion were able to turn up even a single source of that nature. Notably, the academic review of Lockley cited above, while it has some other points of disagreement, does not dispute that basic premise (which is, after all, central to Lockley's history and not something that you'd expect would go without question if it was in any doubt.) This falls under WP:NPOV's requirement to avoid stating facts as opinions - we cannot attribute this statement to Lockley in the article text without manufacturing, whole-cloth, a sense of doubt that Yasuke was a samurai, which is entirely unsupported by any source; therefore, Lockley can reasonably be used to state unattributed in the article voice that Yasuke was a samurai (as the recent RFC on the topic concluded!); and nothing should be stated or implied that might cast doubt on that, anywhere in the article, unless actual sources unambiguously casting that doubt can be found. The quibbling over precisely how high-quality Lockley is misses the point; it is a sufficient source for unexceptional and uncontested statements like these. --Aquillion (talk) 18:58, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  You are correct that reliability is contextual, in accordance with WP:CONTEXTFACTS, and it is because of that policy point that individual verification of claims made in these academic sources necessary. Lockley does not make the attempt to make proper use of citations for any of his claims, and when we're dealing with historical terminology, we must keep in mind that it is separate from our modern understanding of what a samurai is. So far, none of the academic sources provided in support of the positive claim that Yasuke is a samurai can agree on what a samurai is, and Lockley's definition of samurai contrasts with other academic sources on Yasuke and their definition of samurai. Also the claim that samurai have nothing to do with nobility also needs proper citation, as plenty of documentation is done on the Ritsuryo system and its relation to the samurai caste during the Sengoku period. Do note that the titles of Daijo daijin, Kampaku, Shogun, etc., all originated from the Ritsuryo system, and plenty of lords such as Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu all received these titles respectively. Looking at the List of Daijō-daijin for example, note how Nobunaga is referred to as "Taira no Nobunaga", Hideyoshi as "Fujiwara no Hideyoshi", and Ieyasu as "Minamoto no Ieyasu" in relation to that title, because they claim ancestral ties to these imperial families. Without those ties, they could not be appointed to the title. This is not even considering all throughout the Kamakura or Muromachi periods, which you can see is just as extensive.

  When you think about what it means to be nobility, it is the noble's relationship and privileges in regards to the Monarch/Emperor/Imperial Court, which the samurai have done extensively throughout the Sengoku period. If there are contrasts to this idea, it must be provided with evidence, and from what I've seen, Lockley nor any of the other academic sources make an attempt to even address the Ritsuryo system or the Imperial Court. If we are going to challenge the idea of the samurai noble caste - which Lockley appears to be doing - this must be addressed. Hexenakte (talk) 19:44, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

  Respectfully, I have three points of contention:

  1.) As I commented on above, there does seem to be a peer reviewed academic publication from Lockley attributing 'Samurai' to Yasuke published last year. Even if we are unable to access the text, it is an example of a Japanese publication publishing Lockley's claim of Yasuke being a Samurai - with a Japanese institution providing the translation to English of 'Samurai' in the title of the work. Even if you specifically have not said it to my memory, I think I want to emphasize generally that Lockley having written a pop history book in collaboration with a novelist does not make him an unreliable source otherwise.

  2.) Piggybacking on Aquillion here, the point I believe they were getting at is that the clear academic and non-academic concensus in secondary and tertiary sources is that Yasuke was a Samurai. They don't need to agree with each other on a definition if there is no dissenting voice to the claim from a reliable source. In the now months that this has gone on for I have only ever seen OR presented in opposition, but there has not been a single reliable source presented. Many of the users involved have some level of Japanese fluency, so I am curious why there has not been any dissenting voice presented from the Japanese academic sources. Again, not being accusatory, there is still an issue as pointed out by Gitz and others that the only reason this discussion is happening right now is the recent announcement of Ubisoft's newest AC game, and the culture-war backlash it recieved from figures like Mark Kern. Many of the details involved have included blatant misinformation such as this instance of a troll impersonating a Tokyo University professor and farming ragebait from Kern and others for getting blocked by Ubisoft. The only instance of a claim purporting to be from an academic on the subject linked in opposition on the talk page was from an unverified user on twitter likewise saying they were a Japanese professor and were actively farming engagement with these same people - frankly I don't trust that, Wikipedia shouldn't trust that, and if that view is representitive of Japanese academia then such sources should be available from reliable sources (though notably as mentioned in #1, Lockley has peer review published a paper on Yasuke as a Samurai in Japanese). Back to direct response here, these things you and others have pointed out have yet to lay a foundation in academic sources distinct from OR - and this shows in that whenever sources are questioned, there are more sources that can be cited for the view of Yasuke being a Samurai, but so far none other than that tweet thread and talk page OR have been asserted for the latter.

  3.) I think focusing on nobility here is anachronistic. The Samurai page on wikipedia for Sengoku Jidai states:

  "This period was marked by the loosening of samurai culture, with people born into other social strata sometimes making a name for themselves as warriors and thus becoming de facto samurai. One such example is Toyotomi Hideyoshi, a well-known figure who rose from a peasant background to become a samurai, sengoku daimyo, and kampaku (Imperial Regent)." and later, "With By the end of the Sengoku period, allegiances between warrior vassals, also known as military retainers, and lords were solidified." These are both sourced claims, the former being from a japanese source. Citing Hideyoshi here in your explanation if anything shows why Yasuke could have been a Samurai (and by the definition on the Samurai page, classifies as a retainer who recieved property in return for service to a lord) due to how loose the social heirarchy had become, allowing a peasant to rise to the rank of emperor through making these distinctions arbitrary and second to their practical needs. If you intend to set the record straight on Samurai such as Yasuke for the Sengoku Jidai period, you would likewise need to contest the Samurai page as well. I would agree with your analysis for later or earlier generations when the system was made more rigid - but it is a matter of incontrovertible fact that both Hideyoshi and Ieyasu imposed severe and strict limitations after the Sengoku Jidai that prevented the same promotions that allowed for people like Hideyoshi to raise their status during a turbulent time period where merit and capability was rewarded by bending the system.

  TL;DR:

  1.) Lockley is a reliable source in other matters, with peer reviewed publications that call Yasuke a Samurai. Even if his novel is discounted, his views otherwise need more than OR to discredit him as a reliable source in general.

  2.) The side wishing to remove the title of Samurai from the Yasuke page have only produced a tweet thread from an unverified account and talk thread OR. To challenge a clearly established consensus requires reliable sources to be given due weight to these claims for encyclopedic purposes.

  3.) Hideyoshi rose from a peasant to samurai and later shogun. The page for Samurai for Sengoku Jidai if anything suggests that Yasuke would definitively have been considered a Samurai for the time, so to challenge the academic consensus for Yasuke would likewise require contesting the Sengoku Jidai section of that page. Relm (talk) 01:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  Thank you for being respectful in your contention points, this is highly appreciated in spite of the disagreements, and it is refreshing to see no accusations being thrown.

  Just one thing to note, because I am short on time with these posts I ask that you assume that this is already cited from previous discussions from the diff links I posted unless I state otherwise (for the sake of discussion), and if you have questions or concerns on particular claims, please ask before claiming WP:OR (not you, since you did not say I did OR, this is more in response to @XeCyranium below), I am merely repeating sources that I have found which have been very consistent in contrast to the topic of Yasuke. That being said, these contention points were considered:

  1) You are correct that yes, the collaboration effort itself would not make himself unreliable, if we had not been using his novel in the first place added on top of the fact it is being purported as objective fact. @Eirikr has ordered Lockley's Japanese edition of the book, which is supposedly more academic, however Lockley did say in his interview (mentioned in one of the diff links I posted) that he did not translate it himself. That being said this edition is not being dismissed and will be given a proper analysis when Eirikr receives the book.

  2) The sources themselves seem to be in contention with one another on what a samurai is, regardless if they agree or not on whether Yasuke is a samurai. This only makes the case more confusing as more sources are being added in support of the positive claim of his samurai status, since as I said before, we must understand the historical usage of the word rather than our modern understanding of it, as they are completely distinct.

  Because we are dealing with the word "samurai" in regards to Yasuke, the definition is important to have, especially when such a title had strong noble ties.

  3) And this is exactly why I brought up Toyotomi Hideyoshi. I apologize for forgetting to link one of my diff links regarding that (more specifically here in this topic for other diff links), but we must keep in mind I have been talking about the de jure stipulations which have largely stayed the same from the Kamakura to the Muromachi all the way throughout the Sengoku period, with its enforcement on how social mobility works varying, which is the de facto.

  This can be very confusing for those who haven't delved past the English field of Japanese history, where many of it is obscured in Japanese or, if you're lucky, the outskirts of the internet that somehow has it in English. Most Japanese history in English is covered by figures such as Stephen Turnbull, who I have mentioned in the past is known for making a lot of mistakes in his research in this field, and as pointed out by @Hemiauchenia here on the confusion of the term:

  [According to Morillo, there] does seem to result in confusion even among academics [on the definition of samurai] (at least around 2001 when the chapter was written).

  Toyotomi Hideyoshi was a peasant who rose to samurai status, but the question you should really be keeping in mind, is how he did it. I do not blame people for not studying enough about the Imperial Court and the Ritsuryo system or anything regarding that because when people think of "de jure power" they think it is useless and cast it aside, I get it. But this system has been preserved in spite of its weakness, and this is reflected in almost all of the Wikipedia articles on the Japanese emperors, for example in this specific period we see in Emperor Ōgimachi#Kugyō, it says this:

  Kugyō (公卿) is a collective term for the very few most powerful men attached to the court of the Emperor of Japan in pre-Meiji eras. Even during those years in which the court's actual influence outside the palace walls was minimal, the hierarchic organization persisted. (Emphasis mine)

  This is also reflected in the plethora of sources I have provided in my other diff links, but this goes to show that this view is already established on Wikipedia.

  You might ask, how did Toyotomi Hideyoshi rise in status? He got into political marriages (his wife One in 1561 gave him Minamoto lineage), family adoptions by Oda's senior vassals (got the surname Hashiba from two of Oda's senior vassals, both samurai, which gave him Taira lineage), adopted by a powerful kuge family (adopted by Konoe Sakihisa, which gave him Fujiwara lineage and right to hold the Kampaku title), and finally, imperial proclamation by the Emperor himself to establish his own namesake as an imperial family alongside the Gen-pei-to-kitsu, the Toyotomi clan, which is an unprecedented move. How he got there was of course through his recognized service by his Lord Oda Nobunaga who gave him the surname Hashiba, and military power later on when he threatened to destroy the Konoe if they did not adopt him. This is what it means when the social mobility is fluid, it became easier to rise to nobility, not that the nobility itself ceased. In other words, Hideyoshi's low-birth is not an issue if he could just get adopted by a higher-birth family. There's no suggesting that Yasuke couldn't do this; there is just no evidence nor claims made that he did. Which is why it behooves me to emphasize that there must be an acknowledgement of this system because of how closely tied the samurai are to it.

  Again, I don't blame people for not knowing this, since it is rarely talked about due to perceived lessened importance in the Imperial Court during this period. However that does not mean it should be dismissed. The perception that the Ritsuryo system ceased to exist by the Kamakura or Sengoku period is a bit flawed; it ceased to be enforced through, say, its law code, where local daimyo would enforce their own territory laws of course, but the court rank system itself was still preserved and respected; after all, Toyotomi Hideyoshi fought tooth and nail just to become Kampaku, which gave him overwhelming influence over other daimyo. It was more for legitimacy and privileges purposes among the Imperial Court, which is the entire point of a nobility class in the first place, and entirely reflective among the samurai. Hexenakte (talk) 04:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  Likewise thanks for the polite and thorough response. I will also clarify that I was hesitant to make specific attributions due to having not engaged directly with the discourse until it spilled over to ANI and RSN, which has led me to conflate who said what and when over that time aside from generally remembering which user supports what general course of action. I have followed the entire situation out of curiosity since it's adjacent to my interests, but I acknowledge it's outside my subject expertise. I will also empathize on how difficult it is to pierce the language barrier for claims at times, as I recently heard a claim of "Sengoku Jidai Samurai didn't fight on horseback outside of the Takeda because Japanese horses were generally less capable in combat" and intuitively knew it was wrong and guessed why, but it was painful to dig out the academic sources discussing unit organizational changes, Japanese horses, etc in a way which could be explained to an American audience whose main exposure to the material would be in video games like Samurai Warriors and Total War Shogun - or in Youtube series like the erroneous Extra Credits series on the subject.

  To this same end I am sympathetic to arguments rooted in primary source discussion attempting to set the record straight, but at the same time Wikipedia would require a reliable source to dissent here to contest the English academic consensus - as muddied as it is. I have not seen Lockley's definition of Samurai outside of what I felt like was a clearly condensed and simplified explanation he gave for the TIME piece:

  Standing at more than six feet tall and described as having the strength of 10 men, Yasuke left a strong impression on Nobunaga. “It seems like he was a confidant, Nobunaga is recorded as talking often with him,” Lockley said in a follow-up email. “He was also a weapon bearer, and probably served in some kind of bodyguard capacity.” Lockley also explained that in Yasuke’s time, the idea of a “samurai” was a very fluid concept. “You don’t have to possess any particular killing skills to be a samurai,” the author said. “Anybody who took up weapons on behalf of a lord could technically call themself a samurai, or could be called a samurai.”

  I do think that this is a reductive answer, but given the context of the article I understand why. I would say that while the example of Hideyoshi shows how much effort he expended to legitimize his rise up the social ladder, it could likewise be said that Yasuke having been given property, a position in Nobunaga's retinue, and other context is the root of many historians viewing that if he was not formally considered a samurai via the exact customs and noble requirements commonly attached to that rank, he was clearly of a status that was indistinguishable from such rank. I would even contend that one could say Nobunaga's awarding Yasuke property could demonstrate intent to have Yasuke meet the basic expectations.

  It was previously stated elsewhere that the root of contention is in Yasuke's having been black. I disagree with this as I think arguments like yours are more aptly summarized as 'he is not Japanese' which is less about race which does seem irrelevant, and more his lack of connection to the land and thus less able to integrate into the hierarchy in such a short period of time. I want to reiterate that I do not say this to denigrate this line of argument or categorize it as racist, as it is a valid concern. I hoped by refocusing the Yasuke question to one about the greater status and expectations of Samurai in the period that it would remove this association. To this end I would like to establish that my knowledge on the specific distinctions of samurai are limited, but that there are clearly different ranks of samurai and different expectations applied to each and how the titles are or are not passed down. Given that Oda Nobunaga was indisputably the most powerful man at the time, Yasuke very easily could have had the rules bent to give him the bare minimum requirements and serve amongst Nobunaga's retinue as a person of status - thus Yasuke's non-native origin is unconvincing on its own, especially with the later examples of other non Japanese being given positions, new names entirely, property, etc in the centuries after during the persecution of Christian missionaries either with death or forced conversion where thereafter they'd serve the government or a specific patron translating European books of interest to Japanese.

  To recenter the topic onto Samurai again, that lack of a clear concensus definition would be a problem, and one worth raising on the talk page of Samurai, but until the point that scholars come to a better concensus, the matter of Yasuke is clearly a concensus in academia that he was a Samurai - which is what Wikipedia should follow for the time being until sources casting doubt on this can be brought forward and given their due weight on such pages. Relm (talk) 07:33, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  I will also empathize on how difficult it is to pierce the language barrier for claims at times, as I recently heard a claim of "Sengoku Jidai Samurai didn't fight on horseback outside of the Takeda because Japanese horses were generally less capable in combat" and intuitively knew it was wrong and guessed why, but it was painful to dig out the academic sources discussing unit organizational changes, Japanese horses, etc in a way which could be explained to an American audience whose main exposure to the material would be in video games like Samurai Warriors and Total War Shogun - or in Youtube series like the erroneous Extra Credits series on the subject.

  This is kind of the problem we're at now, as you say, it is painful to dig out academic sources on these nuances, and even more so when they are in Japanese instead of English. Then on top of that, because Japanese is such a highly contextualized language, sentences are often mistranslated or misunderstood, such as this quote translated by Lockley:

  Source text: 然に彼黒坊被成御扶持、名をハ号弥助と、さや巻之のし付幷私宅等迄被仰付、依時御道具なともたさせられ候、

  Lockley's translation: This black man called Yasuke was given a stipend, a private residence, etc., and was given a short sword with a decorative sheath. He is sometimes seen in the role of weapon bearer.

  Translation on Wikipedia article: A black man was taken on as a vassal by Nobunaga-sama and received a stipend. His name was decided to be Yasuke. He was also given a short sword and a house. He was sometimes made to carry Nobunaga-sama's tools.

  There is also the context of what the "short sword" was, where @Eirikr was helpful enough to find this out:

  Going back to the source material provided earlier today by @Thibaut, the Japanese uses the term さや巻 (sayamaki), also spelled in modern dictionaries as 鞘巻 (sayamaki, literally saya "scabbard, sheath" + maki "winding", in reference to decorations on the sheath). If you can read Japanese, the Japanese Wikipedia article at ja:短刀 describes the sayamaki as a specific kind of tantō. See also the entries here at Kotobank, further describing this as a kind of 腰刀 (koshi-gatana, "hip-sword").

  ...

  However, a sayamaki is not any kind of knife or dagger that is smaller than a wakizashi. The main difference between the sayamaki and the wakizashi is not size, but rather that the sayamaki has no tsuba or hilt-guard, whereas the wakizashi does have one.

  Basically, with the English translation in both of them, we are not exactly getting the full story. There is also the misinterpretation of fuchi as a samurai salary, when it could either refer to tangible currency or rice:[136]

  (disclaimer this is a machine translation of this section as I am still a beginner in Japanese, @Eirikr would be more suited to provide any missing context/insight)

  Source text:

  １ 助けること。扶助すること。

  ２ 主君から家臣に給与した俸禄。江戸時代には、<人1日玄米5合を標準とし、この1年分を米または金で給与した。

  ３ 俸禄を支給して臣下とすること。

  Machine translation:

  1. To help. To provide assistance.

  2 A stipend paid by a lord to his vassals. During the Edo period, the standard was 5 cups of brown rice per person per day, and this year's worth was paid in rice or gold.

  ３ To pay a stipend and make him a vassal.

  To point something out, the third point uses 俸禄 (Houroku) instead of 扶持 (Fuchi), which was pointed out in the diff I posted, however there was no houroku mentioned in the Shincho Koki, so it is probably safe to say we can rule that out.

  I do think that this is a reductive answer, but given the context of the article I understand why. I would say that while the example of Hideyoshi shows how much effort he expended to legitimize his rise up the social ladder, it could likewise be said that Yasuke having been given property, a position in Nobunaga's retinue, and other context is the root of many historians viewing that if he was not formally considered a samurai via the exact customs and noble requirements commonly attached to that rank, he was clearly of a status that was indistinguishable from such rank. I would even contend that one could say Nobunaga's awarding Yasuke property could demonstrate intent to have Yasuke meet the basic expectations.

  I understand the conclusion to that, however as noted in the stated quote above regarding that, it is difficult to say because of lack of context given, and misinterpretation of a term that isn't easy to determine what exactly kind of sword it was. As Eirikr pointed out, it was a sword of some kind that had no tsuba (hilt). This could be from a tanto (which typically, but not always, lacked a tsuba) to a tachi (which, I will admit, I would not know the reason as to why a tachi would lack a tsuba, this part is OR and pure speculation).

  It might also be worth pointing out that another individual named in the Shincho Koki - presumably a samurai because of it, but not making a definitive statement - as Tomo Shorin, provided in this collection of excerpts in the Shincho Koki academic translation, states the following:

  Source text: 甲賀の伴正林と申者年齡十八九に候歟能相撲七番打仕候次日又御相撲有此時も取すぐり則御扶持人に被召出鐵炮屋與四郞折節御折檻にて籠へ被入置彼與四郞私宅資財雜具共に御知行百石熨斗付の太刀脇指大小二ツ御小袖御馬皆具其に拜領名譽の次第也

  Academic translation: A man from Kōka whose name was Tomo Shōrin, some eighteen or nineteen years old, showed good skills and scored seven wins. The next day, too, Nobunaga put on sumo matches, and Tomo again outclassed the others. As a result, Nobunaga selected Tomo to become his stipendiary. At about that time Nobunaga had to take disciplinary measures against a gunsmith by the name of Yoshirō, whom he locked up in a cage. Now Tomo Shōrin received the private residence, household goods, and other possessions of this Yoshirō. Nobunaga also gave him an estate of one hundred koku, a sword and a dagger with gold-encrusted sheaths, a lined silk garment, and a horse with a complete set of gear—glorious recognition for Tomo.

  We can see here that Tomo Shorin was given far more than Yasuke, noting specifically a koku estate, a daisho set 大小 (tachi 太刀 and wakizashi 脇指), a kosode (小袖; translated as lined silk garment; wide sleeved version and predecessor of the kimono), and a horse (馬; Uma) with a set of gear (皆具; Kaigu) (unsure if it means gear for the horse or that Shorin was given gear such as armor). Based off the fact that Shorin has been given a 100 koku estate, the privilege of riding horseback, and was clearly given a daisho set - all of these common hints and indicators of samurai status, as well as a surname - it would certainly be a logical conclusion, most particularly the horseback one, however again I cannot be definitive in this statement, this is moreso for the sake of this discussion.

  That being said, there is very little indication given by these quotes, and the claims given by Lockley are often uncited as we previously discussed on Purdy's review of Lockley (however we will analyze the Japanese edition to get a more objective response on this). It is more muddied by the fact that these translations are certainly not perfect (in Lockley's case) and miss important context, or add context that was never implied, such as the declaration that Yasuke was a weapons bearer. There is also the current concern that this quote in particular is missing from the public eye, which the quote has a [failed verification] on it as a result until we can verify the quote's origin, which we could only pinpoint it in Kaneko Hiraku's book as mentioned in the section. @Eirikr and @Thibaut120094 have both been kind enough to purchase this book in order to settle this issue, which we still have to wait for a proper objective analysis.

  As for the rest of your post, I think it is a very fair viewpoint to make, however the main issue we have is that the statement is being used as objective fact rather than as a claim made by Lockley. It has been made clear throughout this topic, the one in ANI, and the Yasuke talk page that we are fine with presenting Lockley's case as an argument or theory - such as the Female Uesugi Kenshin theory or the Separation Edict#Theory of Shosaku Takagi- but not as a statement of fact, simply because of these reasons. This is especially a problem when certain editors want to solidify this in wikivoice as an unattributed statement of fact. I do plan on taking this issue up to the Samurai talk page itself with a more thorough comprehensive list of secondary academic sources - to clear this definition issue up once and for all - as it is clear that not enough is being done to emphasize the nobility part in the Samurai.

  I apologize for the long posts, but I feel this is all necessary to consider just due to how muddy these waters are, and I really appreciate your understanding in this complex matter, as an outsider I believe you have demonstrated in being fair and understanding for both sides. Hexenakte (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  This is the original research I was referring to. As editors, it's not our decision that the translation is wrong, you need sources specifically saying that it is wrong. Given your lack of proficiency in the language your opinion on what the Japanese text actually means is completely irrelevant to the discussion. Much of this kerfuffle is dominated by amateur editors asserting a litany of problems with sources without providing reliable reviews that support their assertions. It's not within our purview to decide that the definitions of scholars are wrong, we need sources that say explicitly "the definition employed by Lockley/Lopez-Vera/everybody else is incorrect in the context in which they employed it." Essentially what you need are sources that say "the assertion that Yasuke was a samurai is incorrect". None have been provided, and no amount of handwringing about how you think other definitions are used in other contexts makes a difference. The endless walls of text and sophistry are unhelpful. XeCyranium (talk) 16:58, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  I think your assertion that this is WP:OR despite me stating I rather you ask me on sources for my claims rather than accusing OR is uncalled for. I have done this in the assumption you have already read my diff links that I posted, which are all supported by secondary sources. I am not conducting OR unless I explicitly state it so; I mentioned for the sayamaki tachi part, that was OR, I recognized it was OR, but I felt it necessary for the sake of discussion; it is not a suggestion of changing anything on any Wikipedia article. If you still feel I have not adequately cited what I state, then ask me for those specific claims, I will do my best to provide them. This accusation is simply not helpful at all and your continuance despite my clarification makes it extremely difficult to converse with you. Also, while I stated that I am a beginner in Japanese, Eirikr is not, and he is welcomed and encouraged to chime in for any missing context; he clearly displays a proficiency in the language and moreso evident by his wiktionary talk page. Even so, these are not our claims, they are backed by Japanese dictionaries as well as plenty of secondary sources, but I will state which parts are OR for transparency purposes, because I want to be as honest as possible. I simply cannot cite every single source in every single post because I do not have time for that, I can simply redirect you to the posts which have those sources, so please, I ask that you look at them, and if you are still not satisfied, please ask, and do not continue these accusations. Hexenakte (talk) 17:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  I hate to jump into a discussion that’s already so much of a WP:TEXTWALL, but I do want to try to help clear up what seems to be a misunderstanding about the WP:OR accusation. I don’t think @XeCyranium (and XeCyranium please correct me if I’m wrong) is accusing you pulling this information out of nowhere, rather they're saying your comments are an example of WP:SYNTH (the second example is particularly similar to this). Bringing up literature that is not about Yasuke (including dictionaries) to argue that literature about Yasuke is incorrect, is improper synthesis. That there is literature talking about varying definitions of “samurai” is not relevant to the article on Yasuke unless it explicitly mentions Yasuke, and using said literature to debunk or otherwise question scholarship on Yasuke is WP:SYNTH. As far as I can tell, none of the links you have supplied were to an RS stating that Yasuke was not a samurai, and thus aren't really relevant for this discussion. I do second the suggestion to take your research to the page on samurai, as I'm sure it would be very helpful there! CambrianCrab (talk) 23:56, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  I appreciate the clearing up of the issue, however I think there is also a misunderstanding of what I am trying to say. I am not suggesting putting anything in the Yasuke Wikipedia article that states Yasuke as explicitly not a samurai, I am completely aware that sources that make that claim are required to state that claim. What I am suggesting is to not state Lockley's findings as an objective fact, but rather a theory, much like the Female Uesugi Kenshin theory and Separation Edict#Theory of Shosaku Takagi. Yasuke being claimed as a samurai is within the similar realms of Uesugi Kenshin being female, I am unsure why if it is acknowledged the amount of issues that Lockley has with his findings, that we must state it as a fact and enshrine it in Wikivoice, if other historical findings such as the two I listed as examples are treated as theories, .

  Again, I have to reiterate, I am not arguing for the explicit statement that Yasuke is not a samurai in the Wikipedia article, I am simply not for explicitly stating it as an objective fact. I have stated many times my willingness to accept Lockley's work as a claim, just not as a fact, because of the many issues that Lockley has that was already stated. The arguments I have laid out are yes, they are for the definition of samurai, and are more fit to be discussed for the Samurai article, however I have not suggested to have changed anything in this article, not even once, throughout those arguments I have made. I do not think it is therefore considered WP:SYNTH since most of what I was arguing for was for the sake of the discussion, as we are in a talk page and not editing the actual article. I hope you understand where I am coming from, and I apologize if I did not make this clear enough.

  Also @Relmcheatham, just saw your post, I hope this better states my position on the matter. Hexenakte (talk) 01:22, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  As mentioned elsewhere the reason it does not need to be directly attributed is because it is the clear academic consensus of the sources provided. If someone were to add one of Lockley's attempts to speculate and place Yasuke in the context of the time period as he does on some cases I have listed prior from having watched his interviews and read exceprts of his book, then yeah I would agree with direct attribution. Given that with one or two exceptions those here who have supported the maintaining of 'samurai' in Yasuke's lead have agreed that there are much better sources than Lockley's non peer reviewed and co-authored work of pop history. If the post you just made is your full position then I don't think we actually disagree on anything, I am however saying that there are other sources than lockley that have been provided. I hope this likewise clarifies. Relm (talk) 12:35, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  I am glad we are getting somewhere. Also yes we have considered other sources such as Lopez-Vera, Edugyan, Atkins, Manatsha, etc.

  • From what we have gathered from verifying the claims in those sources, Lopez-Vera lacked the proper in-line citation for Yasuke, and it was limited to a box in one page, as his paper was not focused on Yasuke but rather the "History of the Samurai", and because of that I believe in accordance with WP:CONTEXTFACTS that verification is needed for this one.

  • From what @Eirikr could find on Edugyan, she is a novelist and not a historian who relies on Lockley and tertiary sources, as well as several verifiable factual mistakes. We should not be using her.

  • After a quick look at the Yasuke talk page, we have not properly analyzed Atkins, but I do see that we would be using his source that Yasuke was retained by Nobunaga, I just don't particularly agree with the "bushi status" comment. His seems to be the least muddy of the list suggested, but a check on his citations would not hurt nonetheless.

  • Manatsha's¹ paper² as well as sources cited by Manatsha's sources³ (not fault of Russell) contain very gross factual errors and blatant misattributions of claims from his citations that question the veracity of his claims, as well as his reliability. I do not believe we should be using Manatsha.

  Do note that as long as these claims are attributed and not stated as an objective fact, I would be fine with their inclusion in the Yasuke article. If we were to give Yasuke a title that is unattributed, it should be a retainer/attendant/retainer attendant, as these claims seem to be reflected in several of the secondary academic sources mentioned and are properly cited and supported, then we can put the positive claim of his samurai-ness in a separate section of the article where it is "claimed" and attributed. I would very much agree to this arrangement instead. Hexenakte (talk) 15:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  As has already been pointed out to you many times, this is not the kind of source analysis we are supposed to be doing according to policy. Several editors have already told you that this kind of activity, verifying the claims in those sources, agree[ing] with the [source's] comment and correcting the source's factual errors and blatant misattributions, is not our job. Per WP:NOR, we should disseminate the existing body of knowledge on a subject as reflected in reliable sources, not add to it and improve it by correcting what reliable sources claim. Your interpretation of WP:CONTEXTFACTS is simply wrong. This guideline does not say or imply that editors are entitled to review and validate or falsify the claims made by the sources; it says that in order to understand what those claims are, we need to take context into account, e.g., a literature professor who uses an analogy with Einstein's theory of relativity to explain a philosophical concept is not a reliable source on Einstein's theory of relativity. How can you argue that Jonathan Lopez-Vera's book History of the Samurai cannot be used as a reliable source on Yazuke's status as a samurai because of WP: CONTEXTFACTS? This is what Lopez-Vera says:

  It is worth pointing out that henceforth he was no longer a slave, since he received a salary for being in the daimyō’s service and enjoyed the same comforts as other vassals. He was granted the rank of samurai and occasionally even shared a table with Nobunaga himself, a privilege few of his trusted vassals were afforded

  . Gitz (talk) (contribs) 16:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  As has already been pointed out to you many times, this is not the kind of source analysis we are supposed to be doing according to policy.

  ...

  Your interpretation of WP:CONTEXTFACTS is simply wrong. This guideline does not say or imply that editors are entitled to review and validate or falsify the claims made by the sources; it says that in order to understand what those claims are, we need to take context into account, e.g., a literature professor who uses an analogy with Einstein's theory of relativity to explain a philosophical concept is not a reliable source on Einstein's theory of relativity. How can you argue that Jonathan Lopez-Vera's book History of the Samurai cannot be used as a reliable source on Yazuke's status as a samurai because of WP: CONTEXTFACTS?

  My noting of WP:CONTEXTFACTS has to do with the fact that individual claims can be analyzed, as it is stated:

  The very same source may be reliable for one fact and not for another. Evaluation of reliability of a source considers the fact for which the source is cited, the context of the fact and cite in the article, incentives of the source to be reliable, the general tone of credibility of the source for the specific fact, etc.

  This makes it very clear as well as WP:REPUTABLE ("Editors must use their own judgement to draw the line between usable and inappropriate sources for each statement.") and WP:SOURCEDEF ("The piece of work itself (the article, book)...can affect reliability.") that editors do in fact have the power to do this kind of source analysis. I have yet to see an explanation where this is somehow wrong.

  Because Lopez-Vera's book is not on Yasuke and does not focus on Yasuke with the exception of a single blurb in his research with no in-text citation (the context needed), it can affect the veracity of his claims, of which we can draw reasonable judgement that he did not apply the necessary due diligence because of its lack of focus in comparison to the rest of his book. This is not claiming that Lopez-Vera himself is unreliable, but that this specific claim is not necessarily reliable because he didn't provide any citations for the claim and that Yasuke was never his focal point, it was treated more like a "fun fact" and then moved on from it.

  Per WP:NOR, we should disseminate the existing body of knowledge on a subject as reflected in reliable sources, not add to it and improve it by correcting what reliable sources claim.

  ...

  [...]editors are [not] entitled to review and validate or falsify the claims made by the sources[...]

  I think you are mistaken; I have not claimed to add to anything that these sources did not say? Can you show me where I said that? What claims have I falsified?

  And can you explain how this is original research when all I am doing here is simply looking at what the sources say themselves? The information on, for example, the factual errors/misattributions made by Manatsha as listed from the diff links above by Eirikr:

  The Southern Tang is not the Tang. Claiming that an incident in 976 happened "at the court of the Tang Emperor" is problematic wording. Moreover, the Southern Tang fell in 975, as described at Song conquest of Southern Tang.

  ...

  Russell himself dates the Tang Dynasty as ending in 907, and the mention of 976 is in a quote that Russell includes from a different work, "(Coupland, quoted in Filesi 1962, 21)". Filesi 1962 is listed in Russell's bibliography as China and Africa in the Middle Ages, which I cannot currently track down (though I will look more later).

  ...

  Manatsha does not cite Russell, but rather "(Tsujiuchi, 1998; Wyatt, 2010; Welsh, 2012)" for the mention of kuronbo and kunlun.

  ...

  Tsujiuchi makes no mention of kurombo / kuronbo / kurobo anywhere in the body of the text, and only mentions kurobo in the bibliography as part of a title. No mention of kunlun.

  I don't want to drown out this page with this many quotes - which you can read in full here along with all of the cited sources which Eirikr provided in that diff link - but you get the point. I am not making any claims here, this is simple verification to see if the cited sources actually say what they say. Please stop misinterpreting this as OR. Hexenakte (talk) 16:43, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  To provide a little context to the Tang dynasty claim, it is very confusing even to me as someone who studies Chinese history. Southern Tang ended in December 975. The Chinese use a very different calendar and what happened to Li Yu after the dynasty ended is likewise very nuanced. I would suggest the following 3 as being the most likely explanations:

  1. The incident happened in 975, but the year was calculated wrong (either a proper clerical error, or just failing to adjust the date on the documents - which is common)

  2. The incident happend in Li Yu's court after the invasion of Song Taizong. The Southern Tang formally ended with the capture of Li Yu, but he and his family were retained as nobles with Li Yu being a Marquis until his execution.

  I am interested in getting ahold of those myself honestly. Messing up a date by a year is so common for people within the discipline that I wouldn't necessarily call the work into question for it alone. Relm (talk) 06:02, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  There's more about the Song Tang Dynasty claims in the thread at Talk:Yasuke/Archive_2#Why_not_just_add_a_section_about_the_samourai_status. The whole thread is a bit long, so search for the text The actual source for the "Tang Court" claim can be traced back to, the start of a paragraph where an anon gave us a link to the sources where this content originated. Apparently, somewhere along the line of authors playing "telephone", the original statement was alterered. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:07, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

  I can no longer reply there so I will respond to it here:

  The 'Tang' being referenced is clearly in reference to New Book of Tang which is why on page eleven this segment starts with "The history of tne T'ang Dynasty mentions the Arabian Empire last in 796 a.d. In the ninth century nothing more is said of it." The New Book of Tang is the main source for the Southern Tang and was compiled by court historians during the Song dynasty from the court records handed down. Bretschneider was certainly ahead of his time in regards to his forwarding the theory on Kunlun (island) being what is now regarded as the correct answer of Côn Sơn Island which the British briefly held and referred to by the Malay name of Pulu Condore. What is notable to me is that Bretschneider does refer to the inhabitants as native to the land, yet I would be surprised for a Chinese court to be stunned at a Malay given the history of tribute and trade that is well documented. I will probably dig into this later and maybe write on it academically at some point since the New Book of Tang is pretty untapped in English - and this might suggest African traders settling in, being recruited to mercantile ventures which ended up in China. Coupland as someone who is not a historian and certainly not familiar with Chinese history - seems to have misunderstood that the New Book of Tang Bretschneider referred to was in regards to the source rather than to the dynasty the event occured under. I wouldn't question Coupland's expertise on Japan for it, but I would put the rest of the work's claims under scrutiny (though as a non Historian I would imagine Coupland was drawing from other sources when writing on Yasuke?) Thanks for linking this to me nonetheless. Relm (talk) 14:31, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  Exactly right, thanks for saying it on my behalf. XeCyranium (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  If the Lockley / Girard book's statement that Yasuke is a samurai is based on a definition of the word "samurai" that is at odds with the definition used elsewhere in academic discussions of the Sengoku period, surely that is relevant to this discussion?

  Honest question. I am confused by the suggestion that we should ignore how the word "samurai" is used, when that is the keystone on which so much of this controversy appears to rest. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:27, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

  Again thanks for the reply. I am aware of the case as argued on the talk page, but it is still OR. This is not a knock against the veracity or validity in and of itself, just that it is outside of the purview of Wikipedia to incorporate it without reliable sources - just imagine how many contentious pages would be mired in editors primary source interpretations on Holocaust death statistics, the Pentagon Papers, or a misunderstanding as I remember seeing happen on a page like The Finders (movement) where a user kept insisting on asserting the existence of tunnels underneath a preschool because an FBI file stated it. This interpretation was clearly wrong as the context of the FBI document shows it was a diagram obtained by the FBI and did not reflect reality or the assertion of the FBI - such specific and nuanced interpretation is unsuitable for an encyclopedia else this would become a forum for academic discussion rather than an encyclopedia of reliable source information. As a more critical response I would emphasize that we have both acknowledged our limited understanding of the Japanese language, whereas Lockley and other scholars that have been cited have histories demonstrating clear fluency, living and working in Japan at Japanese universities - I see no reason to not trust Lockley's translation off of the details listed, and believe that even if the article he wrote does not address those specific claims that they don't need to in order to qualify as a source for the claim. I primarily study China. Chinese translations to English are notoriously difficult to make, have been mired in the confusing development of the language over the past century, and traditional chinese which most sources are translated from are tantamount to learning a second language on top of mandarin due to how different the characters can be. If I open up Denis Twitchett and see a claim that is slightly different as to the title/position afforded to a person by Dong Zhuo than I see in Rafe de Crespigny - I know that they are both working off of a limited selection of primary sources and/or context and such an issue can be figured out from there. This doesn't lesson the scholarship of either person, and is just apart of the academic process. Here for Yasuke however we have an even less ambiguous case in the sources, as despite what has been percieved as an issue with the state of Yasuke's scholarship and scholarship on Samurai as a rank in general, there has not been a single reliable source dissenting with the assertion of Yasuke being a Samurai. This indicates that those who are fluent and have read the same primary sources we are all reading (including Purdy who notes them explicitly in his review) have not found reason to cast doubt on this, and have not felt the need to justify it at length either.

  All in all, my suggestion would be to find reliable secondary sources which cast doubt on the claim, or wait for further scholarship now that there is interest in Yasuke as a person. Until either, I think the situation as to the page is firmly that the OR is insufficient to contest the weight of academic consensus on the matter. Relm (talk) 00:58, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  While I would agree a lot of this falls under OR (especially the interpretation of the impact of fuchi and sayamaki on Yasuke's samurainess), it highlights a problem with how primary sources on Yasuke are being approached.

  
  

  The primary sources are extremely scarce and in all fairness do not give a clear answer to Yasuke's role as part of Nobunaga's entourage, be it weapon bearer, bodyguard, samurai, etc. Some don't mention Yasuke by name, some are actually second-hand accounts based on word-of-mouth information.

  
  

  A good example of the above is the "tono" claim. Some secondary sources state the claim directly - Nobunaga would make Yasuke a "tono". While in reality it was town gossip as reported second-hand by a Jesuit missionary, making the original claim unreliable by definition.

  
  

  And that's the issue - secondary sources and tertiary sources almost never acknowledge the scarcity or reliability of primary sources and either present speculation as fact or go into the realm of fantasy like the books from Lockley and Edugyan.

  
  

  Even though I am not a Wikipedia editor and have no decisive say in the discussion, I still wanted to contribute in a way. All things considered, I think it's fair to call Yasuke a samurai, but either attribute that claim to historians or at least acknowledge the scarcity of primary sources and highlight it's a possibility, not definite fact. 81.223.103.71 (talk) 07:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Others have already attributed the claim of Yasuke being a Samurai to many historians - and there has yet to be one which has asserted otherwise. These historians are people who have dedicated their career to understanding the context and nuances of these sorts of things so that they can interpret these primary source documents to a greater level of understanding in their original context than those who are just passing through the subject matter could hope to. This is why when all the sources seem to be in consensus that Yasuke is a samurai it is not the place of editors to justify or denigrate that claim with OR for reasons previously stated. Many sources from qualified figures have been presented which state that Yasuke was a samurai. Without any reliable source to state otherwise it should be unequivocally stated that he was a Samurai. When it comes to actual speculation, such things that are speculation (such as claims made by individual historians disagreeing on Yasuke's origin, or what occurred after his last appearance in the historical record) if they are to appear in the article would be directly attributed by the name of the author (see my example of Ellen Ternan and how despite her affair with Dicken's being unconfirmed, possibly one sided, or non existent at all - around ~3/4ths of that section is dedicated to peddling speculation from various biographers of Dickens. That treatment is not needed for the claim of Yasuke being a Samurai as there is no reliable source calling it into question or even softing doubt on the claim despite most of the ones I have read in the process of these conversations making mention of the scarcity of primary sources.

  In regards to Edugyan and Lockley... I frankly do not understand the fixation on them. Since the announcement of Assassins Creed: Shadows, both have received death threats, hate mail, and the latter has even claimed that it might seriously hinder his career. These two did not 'go into the realm of fantasy'. Edugyan's book is focused on how African's are represented in media in various places, with Yasuke - as one of few black figures prominent in East Asian media - serving as an example when discussing Asian depictions. Their work is not suitable for citing specific historical claims, that much can be agreed to but to call it fantasy is denying it for what sort of scholarship it actually is because it doesn't meet the niche criteria for this that it was never meant to. For Lockley as pointed out he has the qualifications and has published peer reviewed work on Yasuke on many occasions, with atleast one directly stating that Yasuke is a Samurai in the title. Lockley having co-authored a pop history book on Yasuke with a novelist just means that the book is not a reliable source and if cited for any claim alone should be directly attributed - it does not mean that Lockley leans into fantasy. From what I read in the reviews and from reading segments of the book it is clear when there is dramatic writing which fluffs out scenes by trying to inspire awe through writing (as pop history biographies all tend to do) and with purely speculative claims (such as Yasuke's possible participation in the Imjin War) they are presented in that light - speculation. This is very different from say, Craig Shreve's book which is explicitly meant to be historical fiction.

  This RSN has gone on for quite a while with almost all involved originally presenting their cases. Many have even started tailoring their discussions away from specifically lockley and more towards what follows from the general consensus here:

  • Lockley's coauthored and un-peer reviewed book is not suitable for citing when there are better sources which others have recommended be cited instead.

  • Lockley's more specific claims, if included in the article anywhere should be directly attributed.

  • Lockley's other scholarship has no reason presented to be called into doubt aside from OR oriented claims that his definition to the author of the TIME piece he gave a brief definition of Samurai which some have argued is too reductive.

  • There is acknowledged from many that there is no dissenting voice from a reliable source to contest the current academic consensus, with those wishing for the claim to be weighed as speculative only having OR to cite on this matter.

  This is all in line with Wikipedia's policies, and given the result of the RFC I too believe that this RSN is reaching near its end with it devolving into an extension of the discussions that should more properly be happening on the Yasuke and Samurai pages respectively - with reliable sources being cited rather than OR. Relm (talk) 11:36, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Per WP:CONTEXTFACTS I disagree that the book can be labeled as "pop history", which is a bit of a buzzword and does not have a clear definition. I am also not against citing any of Lockley's works, as they've all gone through some sort of scholarly review and/or vetting. Symphony Regalia (talk) 12:39, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

  If not "going into the realm of fantasy", how else would you describe speculations on the relationship between Oda Nobunaga and Yasuke which include personal impressions and emotions, and detailed descriptions of events not mentioned in any of the original, primary sources?

  
  

  I am personally not familiar with the current situation of Edugyan, however it is apparent that Lockley's and Girard's book inspired a number of highly speculative tertiary sources and pop articles which confuse speculations and fictional depictions of Yasuke with his historical figure, making it challenging to identify reliable historical sources.

  
  

  I agree on the remaining points, however. The RSN should've focused strictly on Lockley and his more reliable works. 81.223.103.71 (talk) 12:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Lockley has many works on Yasuke. Focusing entirely on his work of pop history is unhelpful for either side when he has other works that attribute the title of Samurai to Yasuke that are peer reviewed. Lockley is a scholar on the subject, and the view of Yasuke being a Samurai predates his book both in English and in Japanese as has been shown in various places previously. One could strike Lockley's name from the article entirely and it would not change the status of the claim as being the prevailing academic consensus in the reliable sources. I agree that any source which purely relies on a work of pop history should be weighed and scrutinized for doing such, but in this case I do not think that is quite what is happening. Many articles which interviewed Lockley are interviewing a scholar on the topic with peer reviewed works on Yasuke being a Samurai - Lockley's having coauthored a pop history book on Yasuke does not detract from this. This is why the one contention I have noticed to discredit Lockley as a source has been that his definition of Samurai is very reductive or loose - however it seems to be in line with the Samurai page on wikipedia, the other sources provided, and so on for the period - as well as working with the primary sources on Yasuke. It was in error that the page used Lockley's pop history book to cite for the claim, to that I think most people here agree, but I don't believe there has been anything presented which would doubt Lockley's general body of scholarship.

  1. In summary, the one attempt I saw to discredit outright discredit Lockley's entire work anywhere in these discussions was a claim working backwards from a conclusion which stated that 'since Lockley called Yasuke a Samurai he must be discredited'. If people have reason to question Lockley's qualifications or have sources in opposition to his general scholarship, then these should be presented.

  2. 'Fantasy' when attributed to a scholar carries the connotation that the work is improbable/ludicrous/discredited or that it is outright false in most aspects. Historical Fiction can have fantastical elements (such as a series of novels about the napoleonic wars but with dragons tossed in, or a series which puts magic into a historical setting as a mamtter of fact), but it is not necessarily overlapping. If I or others were to cite Lockley, I do agree that for his more speculative claims such as Yasuke's origin in Sudan or his speculation that Yasuke might have participated in the Imjin War, that they should be directly attributed to his name and preferably cited from his other more academic works or his interviews.

  I hope this clarifies my position, I am admittedly tired of how circular a lot of this discussion has become across all three places, and just wish that people could put it on pause until more searching can be done for other sources as well as looking into the previously non-accessed sources discussed elsewhere. Relm (talk) 12:57, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Many thanks for the patience and clarifying your position. I would also like to apologize if it seemed I am trying to disparage Lockley as a scholar. That was indeed not my intention. I am likewise tired of how much the discussion has expanded and unfortunately on a personal level as a researcher myself also frustrated by how much various speculations around Yasuke are treated as objective fact.

  
  

  Going forward I will leave the discussion here and on the main Yasuke Talk page to proper Wikipedia editors. 81.223.103.71 (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  Then perhaps you should find a source saying so. As of course, original research is not allowed. XeCyranium (talk) 02:04, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'd like to point out a couple of sources on Yasuke that might be helpful. None of them is exceptional, but they add to the pile.

  • Zehra Sagra, Yasuke: Der legendäre „schwarze Samurai“ (Yasuke: The legendary "black samurai"), in JapanDigest, 9 February 2024: Yasuke was the first samurai of African descent, if not the first non-Japanese samurai in Japanese history (Google translation). The author is described as a "prospective Japanologist at Freie Universität Berlin" [137]) and JapanDigest is a specialised online magazine published by the Japanese media company News Digest International. The article looks like an accurate summary of published material and primary sources on Yasuke. Among the former, the article relies heavily on Lockley, plus a couple of essays published in the "Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies", 1998, which have already been analysed on the talk page (they neither call Yasuke a "samurai" nor exclude that he became a samurai).
  • "La légende retrouvée de Yasuke, le premier samouraï noir du Japon" (The rediscovered legend of Yasuke, Japan's first black samurai), Le Monde, 24 January 2018: A former slave born on the East African coast in the mid-16th century, Yasuke became the first foreign samurai in Japanese history (DeepL transaltion). The article was published before the publication of Lockley's book and has nothing to do with it. It is based on a French book about Yasuke as a samurai, Yasuke, le samurai noir by Serge Bilé (Owen, 2018), which is defined by the publisher as an "essay, fictional biography" (essai, biographie romancée) [138]. The article also includes an interview with Julien Peltier, author of "Samouraïs, dix destins incroyables" (Prisma, 2016).

  None of these sources are high quality academic sources and yet, as I said, they add to the pile. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 10:12, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

  @Gitz6666, thank you for the additions.

  Digging in, the German article seems to be backed by Lockley / Girard for its claims on Yasuke and samurai status. Towards the bottom of that article:

Weiterführende Literatur ["Continuing Literature", i.e. "See also"]:

• Lockley, Thomas & Girard Geoffrey (2019): African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, Herausgeber: Hanover Square Press
• Tsujiuchi, Makoto (1998): Historical Context of Black Studies in Japan, in: Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, 30, No. 2, pp. 95-100
• Wright, David (1998): The use of Race and Racial Perceptions among Asians and Blacks: The case of the Japanese and African Americans, in: Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2

We previously examined Tsujiuchi and found no mention of "samurai", as detailed at Talk:Yasuke/Archive_1#Samurai_status.

Wright's paper here via JStor only mentions Yasuke twice, if the search feature is working correctly, and it makes no statement that Yasuke was or was not a samurai.

The French article does indeed seem to rely on Serge Bilé's book, which, as a fictional biography, would not seem to be a reliable source for our purposes. There is but one quote from Julien Peltier, and he makes no statement about samurai status with regard to Yasuke (translation via Google, lightly tweaked):

« Il est aujourd’hui impossible de connaître la fin de Yasuke, explique Julien Peltier, auteur de Samouraïs, dix destins incroyables (éd. Prisma, 2016). Yasuke était un homme respecté et on peut aussi envisager qu’il soit resté au Japon. Mais c’est spéculatif. »

“Today it is impossible to know the end of Yasuke,” explains Julien Peltier, author of Samurai, ten incredible destinies (ed. Prisma, 2016). “Yasuke was a respected man and we can also imagine that he remained in Japan. But that's speculative.”

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:21, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Here is a quote from Lockley's book - the page where Lockley reconstructs Yasuke's status as a samurai (or better a "hatamoto", he claims). I know nothing about Japanese history, but it is clear that this is one of the most academic and least fictional parts of the book. This does not mean that Lockley is right in his reconstruction, of course, but anyone can see that it is a well-reasoned and deliberate assessment on his part.

Lockley on Yasuke as a samurai

During the fifteenth century and The Age of the Country at War, the endless battles took their toll on the limited ranks of the traditional samurai families, and many daimyō lords decided they needed to expand their armies. Gone were the days when a few hundred highly trained, magnificently attired samurai squared off against each other with swords in battle. By Yasuke’s era, the armies were tens of thousands strong and the need for cheap soldiers had provisionally overridden the need to keep peasants exclusively growing rice. Many men now regularly dropped their tools and lofted spears when they were called upon, leaving the women, elderly and children to work the fields until they returned, if they ever did. Eventually, as the wars expanded in scope, the distances covered made returning home regularly an impossibility. Many of the peasants now found themselves receiving regular wages and better arms from their lords and they held an ambiguous dual status as farmers and lower-ranking samurai, known as ashigaru. (The key difference from traditional samurai being that ashigaru were not normally permanently retained, nor did they hold fiefs.) This development led in many areas to a more assertive lower class with a sense of their own power and military utility. These farmers had now also been to war, and held a spear or fired a gun. No longer would they be so easily bullied around by the samurai. They wanted a bigger portion of the proverbial rice bowl, perhaps even with some real rice in it. Thus, following The Age of the Country at War, there was no shortage of “samurai” in Japan. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps up to half a million, could have claimed the epithet, though few would have any real family pedigree beyond the last couple of generations in the elite warrior world. A daimyō could call upon both direct personal retainers such as Yasuke, and part-time ashigaru warriors to swell his ranks. The direct personal retainers could be classified into four groups. Family members, hereditary vassals, officers of the levies and hatamoto, who were the lord’s personal attendants. Family members and vassals who held their own fiefs were expected to bring their own samurai and ashigaru with them when called upon to fight. It is not known exactly which rank Yasuke held, but it would probably have been equivalent to hatamoto. The hatamoto saw to the lord’s needs, handling everything from finance to transport, communications to trade. They were also the bodyguards and pages to the warlord, traveling with him and spending their days in his company.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 15:01, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

This is indeed a very well-structured paragraph, thank you for bringing it up! It belongs to the 2019 African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan book, correct?

While I am not extremely intimate with Japanese history, I do have some familiarity and speak Japanese. Based on how Lockley uses the word "samurai" here:

- ashigaru (足軽) are mentioned as lower-ranking samurai, but later he mentions samurai and ashigaru separately

- in some sentences "samurai" seems to refer to the nobility class implicitly ("No longer would they be so easily bullied around by the samurai.")

- "samurai" is put in quotes, possibly intentionally, to highlight it could've been treated as more of a blanket term to describe retained warriors in Sengoku Jidai?

To me it seems like what Lockley really means in the case of Yasuke is bushi (武士, warrior). There is a partial overlap between "bushi" and "samurai" where in Japanese sources "bushi" is used to distinguish a regular warrior from the samurai nobility when needed (specific sources would need to be provided for this claim, of course). Incidentally, it's also used to talk about Yasuke in Atkins, E. Taylor (2017-10-19), A History of Popular Culture in Japan: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-4742-5857-9

Unfortunately, this complicates things a little bit, because it seems like rather than Yasuke being described as "samurai nobility", he is a "samurai warrior/warrior". Lockley seems to echo a similar sentiment in the interview for TIME magazine.

Regarding hatamoto (旗本), I would say that title was reserved for higher ranking samurai, but Lockley himself rolls also bodyguards and pages under the "hatamoto" term which makes it way broader and unclear what kind of hatamoto was Yasuke in his opinion. SmallMender (talk) 18:20, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the excerpt in the hat is was taken from chapter 13 of African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan, by Thomas Lockley and Geoffrey Girard. I've just come across another passage in the book that might be of interest here, as it deals with the concept of "samurai" and how it changed in Yasuke's time, at the end of the sixteenth century. This is taken from the selected bibliography at the end of chapter 13:

Lockley on the Samurai as caste

The Samurai as caste: In Yasuke’s time, the word samurai simply described a profession: warrior (albeit a very specialized one). Shortly afterward, it became a caste name. At the end of The Age of the Country at War, around the end of the sixteenth century, most of those who’d fought on the samurai side in the civil wars, even some of the peasants, pirates and ninja, were classified as “samurai” in a formalized caste structure with the samurai at the top—a hereditary warrior/administrator/ruling class. The caste ranking continued with peasants, artisans and merchants, who took the lowest status (because they lived off everybody else’s hard work). Outside of the scope of the caste system were eta, impure people who dealt with death, and hinin, nonpersons such as ex-convicts and vagrants who worked as town guards, street cleaners or entertainers. Legally speaking, an eta was worth one-seventh of a human being. The Age of the Country at War had been probably the most socially fluid period since the eighth century. Able men and women, like Yasuke, were able to rise through the ranks due to the chaos. No more. From this time until their caste was abolished by law in 1873, the samurai were forbidden (in most of the country) to farm or engage in mercantile activity and had to live in castle towns rather than country villages. This was the time when the word samurai takes on its modern meaning of a warrior caste rather than actual warrior role. In the virtual absence of war or any challenge from below between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, the samurai caste had little warring to do and the martial arts we now associate with this class were codified and formed the roots of modern sports like kendo, judo and aikido. Samurai were still furnished with a stipend by their lord, determined by rank, although over time, the value of the stipend was devalued so much by inflation that many samurai families were forced to find other ways to make ends meet. A few, such as the Mitsui family, founders of the modern-day multinational conglomerate, gave up their samurai swords and lowered themselves to merchant status. For the overwhelming majority, this was a step too far, and they starved or lived in abject poverty rather than “lower” themselves.

Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I think the detailed description of how the meaning of "samurai" changed over time and the fact that Lockley distinguishes the samurai nobility as a separate caste tracks with other sources. These less speculative sections of the book also prove it can be used as a reliable secondary source in the Yasuke article and later in the Samurai article if it requires further clean-up and making the "samurai" vs samurai distinction clearer.

However, it might now pose challenges in understanding other secondary sources which either call Yasuke a samurai without elaborating what is meant by that or use expressions such as "he was given the rank/status of samurai by Nobunaga", which is confusing, because

A) The general Sengoku Jidai warrior "samurai" was not a rank, but a broad description of conscripted fighters of different ranks

B) Outside of specific privileges Yasuke clearly received (per primary sources), there is no mention of rank or role he was given and secondary/tertiary sources use a variety of terms (a kind of bodyguard, samurai, kosho, retainer, hatamoto, etc.)

Apologies if the 2nd paragraph goes too much into OR or SYNTH. SmallMender (talk) 11:43, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, as I understand the terms in B, they are not mutually exclusive. A lot of the sources I have read describing Yasuke interpret the primary sources as suggesting that Yasuke had Nobunaga's favor, and carried items for him which was a privilege generally afforded to very high ranking samurai. Whether it was weaponry or something else, there is little to suggest that any of these terms would contradict another aside from potentially a minor disagreement over whether a person carrying their lords weapon would also be a 'bodyguard' at the same time in that duty - which is pedantic to the point it is not worth arguing relative to everything else going on with the Yasuke page. Relm (talk) 13:45, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Correct, they are not mutually exclusive, but in this case which one should be used to talk about Yasuke's role in respect to Nobunaga? The one which is most commonly used by historians or all of them with appropriate attributions?

Also, regarding "samurai". Lockley makes it quite clear what he means when he refers to Yasuke as a samurai, but what about the other sources? Do they mean a regular employed warrior or the hereditary samurai nobility caste? SmallMender (talk) 14:42, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, I do not think the distinction must be firmly stated for Wikipedia's purposes even if academically I do think the lack of defining the term clearly is a disservice. Such conversations more aptly belong on the Samurai talk page, as if even if the authors here disagree about the specifics it is clear that they still call Yasuke a Samurai. Given how widespread this claim is, and that most authors did not feel they needed to specifically state the full reasoning in their interpretations of the primary sources - it is something that would still require a dissenting reliable source to begin weighing the two, which is something that could be expected to come into existence as Yasuke continues to become more relevant as a cultural figure. In regards to the role in respect to Nobunaga I believe 'Samurai' should remain in the lead as per the RFC, but that any discussion of his roles in service to nobunaga be in the body - with any speculative attributions being given direct attribution. Relm (talk) 14:51, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

"Given how widespread this claim is [that Yasuke was a samurai],"

How widespread is it, actually? In academia, and outside of the popular press, I mean?

I took a chunk of time today and went through the list of references at Yasuke#Citations.

After omitting those only concerned with the Yasuke#In_popular_culture section (starting from ref # 36), and removing duplicates, we have 30.

Of these, three appear to be secondary sources that mention Yasuke and "samurai".

• Lockley's 2017 book Yasuke: In search of the African Samurai, as published in Japanese translation as 「信長と弥助：本能寺を生き延びた黒人侍」 [Nobunaga and Yasuke: The black samurai who survived Honnō-ji]. I just received my copy of this yesterday.

Oddly, while the Japanese book is clearly marked as a translation of an English-language book, all my attempts at finding the original Yasuke: In search of the African Samurai seem to point instead at the Lockley / Girard book African Samurai. See also the hits at https://www.google.com/search?q=%22yasuke:+in+search+of+the+african+samurai%22+%22lockley%22.

As a side-note, the author's bio in this Japanese book states that Lockley's area of research is language learning, not history.

• López-Vera's A History of the Samurai: Legendary Warriors of Japan. Briefly mentions Yasuke as a samurai, no inline citations, no reasoning given for the statement. Relevant section viewable here in Google Books.
• Atkins's A History of Popular Culture in Japan: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (2nd ed.). No preview available in Google Books. The quotation given in the refs (emphasis mine):

"Impressed with Yasuke's height and strength (which "surpassed that of ten men"), Nobunaga gave him a sword signifying bushi status. Yasuke served as Nobunaga's retainer and conversation partner for the last year of the warlord's life, defending Azuchi castle from the traitorous Akechi forces in 1582, where Nobunaga committed ritual suicide (seppuku). Although there are no known portraits of the "African samurai," there are some pictorial depictions of dark-skinned men (in one of which he is sumo wrestling) from the early Edo period that historians speculate could be Yasuke."

The author's use of quotes here appears to indicate that he is not himself calling Yasuke a samurai, but rather referencing what others have been calling him.

There are a couple I have not been able to evaluate.

• Possibly: Fujita's アフリカ「発見」日本におけるアフリカ像の変遷 [Discover Africa―History of African image in Japan (World History series)] (in Japanese).
• Possibly: Turnbull's The Samurai Sourcebook.

No preview available on Google Books, no quotes given, for either work. I'm not sure if these are secondary or tertiary sources. Outside of the context in which they are used as citations on the [[Yasuke]] page, I have no other detail on specifically what claims they make regarding Yasuke. At any rate, neither is currently used to cite the claim of Yasuke as a samurai.

It looks like we have only two secondary sources that claim Yasuke was a samurai. That doesn't seem widespread, to me.

Are there other secondary sources not yet listed, that also make this claim? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:44, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I think when they say he was a samurai the reasonable conclusion to draw from that description is that they believe he was a samurai, which is sufficient for our purposes. If you wish to interrogate the meaning of the word there are more appropriate articles. XeCyranium (talk) 00:34, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

According to this page,[139] Lockley spread different information in Japanese and English, and while his writings in Japanese are mostly based on historical facts, his writings in English seem to be full of fanciful statements.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 13:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think the self-published research (personal blog post) of Naoto, who describes themselves as "Japanese teacher ... a huge fan of anime and games" [140], should have any bearing on this discussion? With all the media hype about Yasuke, it's surprising that no expert historian of Japan has bothered to publicly correct the inaccuracies about his samurai status in reports by major outlets such as CNN, BBC, TIME, Britannica, etc. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This page is a personal blog, but I thought it would be helpful to have a detailed comparison and analysis of Lockley's book. Of course, a personal blog is not a site that meets Wikipedia's requirements for verifiability, but I thought it could be used as a reference for discussion on the talk page. The reason why Japanese history experts do not correct incorrect information is that they do not know what theories are being spread outside of Japan and cannot communicate them in English due to a lack of English proficiency. For example, an old and erroneous theory about the existence of the Shi-nō-kō-shō (士農工商, samurai, peasants (hyakushō), craftsmen, and merchants) status system in the Edo period still exists outside Japan, but no Japanese historian has attempted to correct it for over 30 years. Nor have the mainstream theories of Japanese scholars about the Mongol invasion of Japan spread outside Japan at all.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 14:59, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

It is indeed helpful (thanks for sharing) because it contains an extract from "信長の黒人「さむらい」弥助" (in "つなぐ世界史", 2023), one of the only peer-reviewed works by Lockley about Yasuke, according to his Nippon University profile (the other one being 'The Story of Yasuke: Nobunaga's African Retainer', 2016). This is the article that @Relm and I were looking for.

この時代，武士とそれ以外の身分の垣根は曖味であり、本当に弥助が「サムライ」となったのかについては議論があるものの、少なくともその身一代においては、彼は間違いなく信長の家臣に取り立てられたと考えられている。

In this period, the boundaries between samurai and other statuses were blurred, and although there is some debate as to whether Yasuke really became a 'samurai', it is believed that he was definitely taken on as a vassal/retainer of Nobunaga, at least in his own lifetime.

If Lockley makes contradictory statements depending on whether his work is peer-reviewed or not, it is a problem.

I should receive the journal tomorrow, so I'll check and share a scan here. Thibaut (talk) 15:18, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The quotation is genuine (p. 32). Thibaut (talk) 11:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. So in this paper, Lockley appears to set aside the question of whether Yasuke was definitively a samurai? While in other non-peer-reviewed works, he states that Yasuke was definitively a samurai? That is concerning.

I am also concerned by Lockley's unattributed use of the passive 「と考えられている」 ("it is thought that"). Who thinks this? Seems like a {{cn}} is needed for that statement.

(Side note: translating 身一代 as "his lifetime" seems like a mistake for a couple reasons: 1) the Japanese term can refer to a portion of one's life; 2) the antecedent in the Japanese appears to be Yasuke, while in the English it could be Nobunaga [which would make more sense].) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:45, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

To my understanding と考えられている is used to highlight that something is an established consensus based on previous knowledge, in which case explicit attribution is not needed. It's more a figure of speech. The sources are listed on page 35, at the end and I think all of them were already mentioned one way or another in the Yasuke article.

As for 身一代 I understood it as referring to the period at the beginning of the sentence, however the alternative would more likely be Yasuke (その身 + 一代 and not 身一代) - throughout his lifetime. SmallMender (talk) 19:31, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed about 一代 being the focus part. However, as this is phrased in Japanese, I cannot parse that to mean "in his lifetime" and have that make sense. Specifically: Yasuke lived past the Honnō-ji incident, and given that he was apparently remanded to the custody of the Jesuits by Akechi, and that he disappears from Japanese records, he wasn't of any particular Japanese social status for the remainder of his life.

I am curious to read the article in its entirety; time is my current limiter. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:01, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

As mentioned in another comment elsewhere, the first page contains the following:

彼の従者の名は日本の史料によると［弥助］、サムライ としては極めて特異な存在であって。

Which very clearly refers to Yasuke as a Samurai in no uncertain terms. I think this segment, especially given its place in the text, serves as him addressing the status by saying that given the other details about him that he was a Samurai. I am vehemently against the softening of 家臣 to 'retainer/vassal' when in both Chinese and Japanese it has always been in reference to a higher ranking vassal in every instance I have seen it in. Relm (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I've commented about the wording and spelling choices here. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I think, that this article is at least in one regard relevant.

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2024/05/25/digital/yasuke-assasins-creed-samurai/

in this article, Lockley makes some comments, who seem to me a bit strange, but he distance himself from the game of ubisoft too. This is kinda irrelevant.

But it should be noticed, that Lockley claimed, that the historian Sakujin Kirino would have peer-reviewed his work from 2019 and this seem to be incorrect and had to be corrected in the article. https://twitter.com/kirinosakujin/status/1795768862652449021 these posts seem to have created the change in the article. notice, that his comment about the book was from 2017 and that he reacted to the recent article of the japan times and the question of a person, who is cleary critical to Lockney https://twitter.com/laymans8/status/1812338780248170548 as seen in this post, explicit about his actions on wikipedia in the past...btw: what were the actions of the Japanese wikipedia about this stuff?

Lockley believed the peer-reviewing in the article to be the case on this work from 2019, maybe it is not updated on his profil site.

just if this news was missed.

https://twitter.com/kirinosakujin

Sakujin Kirino is by his twitter account an Historical writer. Visiting researcher at Musashino University's Institute of Political and Economic Research. Mainly interested in Oda Nobunaga and the history of Kagoshima.

He has also a blog. http://dangodazo.blog83.fc2.com/ so i think, it is his legit account on twitter. He released books too, but not about Yasuke. ErikWar19 (talk) 16:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Respectfully, the article has retracted the claim the book was fact checked by Kirino, but did not state that Lockley claimed it as such. Do you have a source for that claim? The tweet from Kirino suggests that he read and gave feedback but was not a fact checker in his own words. This makes sense given he is a writer and not a historian.

Likewise the tweet from Laymans8 has been deleted and can not be accessed through that link. Relm (talk) 21:46, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

This is the first I've seen mention of that textbook - which given how textbooks are written I am skeptical is 'solely' written by Lockley. The textbook, if true, is concerning irt how information is being presented but is far from out of the norm for what is actually in many such textbooks. I looked and found most of those claims sourced to the Togetter aggregate for a twitter user whose threads are entirely rage-baiting Japanese Nationalists with hyperbolic titles about how Lockley's work is racist towards Japanese people. Naoto similarly cites Mark Kern on his initial post on the issue of Yasuke, which gives the impression that Naoto's information is derived from a bubble consisting of the german video, right wing culture war rage bait, and their own personal experience. I had heard of Naoto before and watched some of their videos - they are not qualified to assess the validity of Lockley, and I think relying on an OR aggregate that is clearly leaning towards one side of the issue is woefully painting an incomplete picture. I could link many examples of redditors who have cited their credentials or the associated megathreads aggregating such posts and trying to validate a view which is pro-samurai irt Yasuke. The issue with these sources is that they are all outside of the scope of Wikipedia, and they are for the subject matter experts in those fields to handle with the care that is needed. When Oliver Jia as cited by Naoto says he intends to publish a response to Lockley, he did so not in a reliable source but through his own paywalled blogpost.

As a historian myself I am a bit disheartened so see that someone like Lockley could be vilified as he is here by comparing him to 'perfidious albion' when all that is being shown here falls into three camps:

1. Cherrypicking and comparing similar statements for a man with many dozens of interviews. If you ask a historian to explain something in historical context, it is understandable that they would tailor their explanation to their audience or that their method of conveying this information would change. Given the time between each of the associated statements and the context of their utterance it is silly to attribute pure malice to it as Naoto does.

2. The textbook as mentioned earlier, which is at worst showing a poor choice of citation from someone outside his discipline

3. Non verifiable or poorly sourced statements from other users. Relm (talk) 21:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

>As a historian myself I am a bit disheartened so see that someone like Lockley could be vilified as he is here by comparing him to 'perfidious albion'

I'm not a historian, but I do read some history, and I've never read an author that wrote his work in the form of a novel. I think that is the thing that is catching Lockley so much flack. And that isn't due to the "method of conveying information" changing, but the information being conveyed itself changing. And that critisism comes from other historians, such as Kaneko and Purdy. Some quotes from Purdy:

>The writing is lively and energetic and reads more like James Clavell’s 1995 novel Shogun, perhaps because one of the authors, Girard, is a novelist with an MFA in creative writing. The book is clearly intended for the reader of popular history.

>The challenge in this historic account of the legendary African warrior is that there is precious little primary evidence about him. Yasuke left no account of his own, and, according to the authors, only four people could be considered witnesses to his experience in Japan.

On the "admired and close attendant" point you mentioned above:

>Likewise, there is no discussion of the evidence that explains how, in just fifteen months, Yasuke and Nobunaga developed such a close relationship. Was it just Yasuke’s height and skin color? Presumably, much of this might come from Frois based on reasonable speculation, but, without specific references, details often seem like creative embellishments, rather than historical narrative.

I don't think its fair to characterize Lockley as being criticized completely unfairly from right wing pundits when other historians are doing the same. Like I said I've never seen a respected historian do this. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but it definitely raises questions for me. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 22:26, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I've never read an author that wrote his work in the form of a novel. - some of the olds like me may remember Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 23:05, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Historians co author with novelists rather often. It's reductive to say Lockley's book is 'just a novel' when it is pop history with a flare of historical fiction, written with Lockley's interpretation of the history at its core with the flow of a novel to flesh out those events and describe to an a non-Japanese audience what Yasuke's contemporary life was like. I have agreed elsewhere on this RSN that it is not worth citing over other works which speak to Lockley as a scholar more directly which serve as better sources, but likewise I've also read Purdy's review fully and have commented about it on this talk page in detail. Purdy's review states all of this irt Lockley's book while also:

1. engaging with how little there is about Yasuke in the primary sources

2. having Purdy Refer to Yasuke as a Samurai

3. primarily criticizing the book's method of giving 'suggested reading' and the list of primary sources without attribution or in-line citation

4. Purdy does not call Lockley as an author into question, he calls the book for what it is - and that is a substantial difference. I am again reminded of however many civil war biography or 'all encompassing' books have similar reviews which trash the presentation of books for a mass market while not calling the authors entire body of scholarship into question.

Lockley's book is one piece of his larger contribution to academia, and it should be taken for what it is rather than made to seem like something it is not meant to be. This is the characterization of his work that I am criticizing as far too reductive. Relm (talk) 23:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

>having Purdy Refer to Yasuke as a Samurai

I don't think that counts as Purdy endorsing Yasuke as a Samurai as it is in the summary part of the review, not the analysis. He quotes other claims by Lockley in the summary without challenging them there either:

>During this fifteen-month period, Nobunaga elevated Yasuke to samurai rank, and the two formed a close bond.

He later goes on to question the second part of the claim in analysis. So what he quotes from Lockley in the summary is not an endorsement. In general the format for historical book reviews is summary then analysis, at least from what I remember from my history professor in University, which seems correct from a quick search eg. [here:

>Summarize the book’s organization and give a little more detail about the author’s sub-arguments. Here you would also work in your assessment of the evidence and sources used.

>Strengths and weaknesses or flaws in the book are usually discussed next.

I don't take Purdy's review as an in depth discussion of Lockley. To me, it seems like he read the book and saw there were problems with the way it is written and put that into his review. It is clear that Purdy would not use Lockley as a source without checking for that information elsewhere.

>engaging with how little there is about Yasuke in the primary sources

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I don't think its valid to make up facts where there is little to go off of. In fact it is worse then because there is no way to prove the person wring by counter-example. ie. you can't say "this didn't happen because this other event is what actually did happen, and here are my sources for that." J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 00:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

"I don't think it's valid.." - after reading all of this, ultimately, is your argument that Lockley is unreliable that you don't think its valid? 弥助は本物の忍者だった (talk) 02:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Some of Lockley's works are absolutely not valid (such as his novel). My argument above, however, is not about whether Lockley is valid in general but about if criticism of Lockley is justified. Also, I invite you to read Wikipedia:Single-purpose account J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 05:11, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Just about the textbook — 『英語で読む　外国人がほんとに知りたい日本の文化と歴史』 appears to be this work:

• Google Books: https://www.google.com/books/edition/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%A7%E8%AA%AD%E3%82%80%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E3%81%8C%E3%81%BB%E3%82%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AB/wN7sxwEACAAJ?hl=en
• Amazon.co.jp: https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E%E3%81%A7%E8%AA%AD%E3%82%80%E5%A4%96%E5%9B%BD%E4%BA%BA%E3%81%8C%E3%81%BB%E3%82%93%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AB%E7%9F%A5%E3%82%8A%E3%81%9F%E3%81%84%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E6%96%87%E5%8C%96%E3%81%A8%E6%AD%B4%E5%8F%B2-Lockley-Thomas/dp/4487812887/ref=sr_1_1

From what I can see in the book's listings, Lockley is the sole credited author.

Looking some at the content previews in Amazon, this content seems appropriate for Lockley's stated research field of language learning. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:07, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

ohhh boy. @Relmcheatham

i can sadly no longer verify to 100% the content of the original article, as the internet archives don't show this part any more, it was more meant to highlight a potential problem of claiming, that Lockleys works were peer read. I don't have his works, so i posted it more as information with links to allow everyone to look it up himself. I dont even know, if the term peer-reading other user used, is identical with fact checker of the article. But an article had to be changed, so we should probably look into it to secure the reliability of this source, right? i want to add, that you can see the questionable area on the "german video" at 24:52 and i presumed it to be from the original claim, as it was changed after the release of this video.

i dont really understand the broken link, it is still on his twitter page. So i will post again the link (https://twitter.com/laymans8/status/1812844234078322899)and i will add (https://twitter.com/laymans8) his general page, it should be at 15 Jul 2024.

I will add, that while i don't know, if laymans8 is part of this group or just finding out about these things and getting discovered by them, the german video is "Einfach Japanisch" and i think, it is just awkward position, but this person itself is not right-wing or political active, in fact, the german state media praises his works https://www.ndr.de/kultur/kunst/Einfach-japanisch-Influencer-Hiro-Yamada-erklaert-Japans-Kultur-,hiroyamada100.html 2 weeks ago and he is a big translator, explicit for the Carlsen-Verlag in Germany. "not qualified to assess the validity of Lockley" is not correct in this area of competence. Him pointing at the differences of his recent Japanese publications and his former english publications is revealing.

additional, i want to add, that the video highlights at least a contradiction of Lockley in in the CNN news article, usually posted here about Lockley.

(Additional i want to add, that there is not a massive discussion from historians about Yasuke in general, not about him being "not a samurai" or that he was "not a slave", maybe because both of these claims are simply irrelevant small opinions of few experts against the majority of historians, who view Yasuke without any need to declare for him any form of rank. In general, I think WP articles are the better the closer they are to the terms used in primary historic sources.)

-- ErikWar19 (talk) 15:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

You can view the original on archive.is J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 15:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

attempted and failed, the screenshot only shows the start of the article, that didn't changed. Can you see the full article on the archive? ErikWar19 (talk) 12:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I thought you were talking abut the japantimes article? If so, yes, the oldest of the three snapshots shows the original. But reading the thread again it seems maybe you are talking about a different article. If so then never mind. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 15:45, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Please watch this video[141] with English subtitles. This video shows in detail the contradictions between the descriptions in the primary sources that describe Yasuke and the descriptions in several books that are secondary sources presented by Lockley. He changes the descriptions in the Japanese and English books, and in the English books he often presents speculation and fantasy as historical fact. Therefore, I do not believe that Thomas Lockley's sources or sources based on his sources are reliable. All of his sources should be rejected. Rather than the issue of whether or not to describe Yasuke as a samurai, I think a more serious issue is the spread of Lockley's speculative and fanciful descriptions and statements to the world as historical fact.--SLIMHANNYA (talk) 12:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Lockley & Girard's works "African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan" & "Yasuke: The true story of the legendary African Samurai" clearly contain a significant amount of speculative or fictional historical content which is not based on, or is contradicted by, known historical record. Examples include: Yasuke's origins in North East Africa (contradicted by Solier); Yasuke's childhood training as a Habshi warrior (unsourced); Yasuke's position as a bodyguard for Valignano (unsourced); Yasuke's travels in India and China prior to arriving in Japan (speculative); Japanese viewing Yasuke as a god, demon or Buddha (unsourced); Yasuke's Japanese language prowess (presented as greater than in the sources); Yasuke training in Japanese martial arts (unsourced); Yasuke taking Oda Nobunaga's head after the Honnoji Incident (attributed to "Oda family legend"); Yasuke's involvement in battles (only his being attacked while with Nobunaga's brother after the Honnoji attack is in the sources); Yasuke's travels after Oda's death (unsourced); A black man, possibly Yasuke, being represented on a lacquerware inkstone box (speculative, erroneous).
A staff review from the Peabody Institute Library includes the following:

Yasuke’s story is extremely compelling and Lockley tells it in a fast pace intimate fashion. Sometimes a little to intimate. He often refers to Yasuke’s facial expressions in different situations and it always made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end “how could he know that?” Historical documents are rarely that specific. And it turns out that much of the specifics story of the book were based on educated guesses. Most of what is known of about Yasuke comes from letters written by the Jesuits which are admittedly detailed for the time. He is also occasionally referenced by Japanese diarists. But facial expressions and discussions of what he was thinking are the authors creation not that of the historical record. ... So if you are prepared to take some of Yasuke’s story with a grain of salt it will be a very enjoyable and educational read.

I have no idea how reliable the Peabody Institute Library is, but that seems a fair enough summary.
Lockley & Girard's works are not always clear as to what is known, sourced, fact, and what is "educated guesses" or speculative fiction.
Given the amount of speculative or unsupported content, it is difficult to conceive of the book being generally reliable on the subject of Yasuke.
Same or similar speculations are also present in Lockley's interviews & presentations in support of his work, which would suggest that these too are not generally reliable on the subject.
As the writer of the only book on Yasuke, Lockley's views have had heavy influence on a broad range of downstream sources; including the tertiary news & current affairs sources mentioned above, which might normally be considered reliable. Yasuke as (super?)heroic warrior samurai is a nice story which suits the present Zeitgeist, and has captured the imagination. Given the context, however, we should consider that these news sources are not situationally or contextually reliable for historical fact. Per WP:BESTSOURCES (and Hemiauchenia's comments elsewhere), we should be preferring academic scholarship over current affairs sources.
Suggest that Lockley's views, where & if included, should be attributed, unless corroborated by other independent scholarship; and that, where corroborated, we might prefer that other scholarship. Rotary Engine ^talk 13:17, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree with this suggestion, which echoes Eirikr's suggestion to include Lockley's viewpoints in the Yasuke article, provided that they are clearly attributed to Lockley. We have a few experts (Lockley, Lopez-Vera and Atkins) who speak of Yasuke as a samurai, and in the case of Lockley they also explain their reasons for doing so. Then we have an abundance of news sources (BBC, CNN, TIME, etc.) and tertiary sources (Britannica, Smithsonian Magazine) that do the same; some of these sources predate Lockley's book (see Le Monde and Serge Bilé's book). On the other hand, we don't have any reliable scholar or news organisation that explicitly disagrees with them. I feel that if we were to attribute "Yasuke as a samurai" to Lockley, we would be suggesting that this view is controversial, as if there were an academic debate about Yasuke's status, which isn't the case: there is a huge debate on the WP talk pages, as we can see, and in various online communities, blogs, social media, but no controversy among historians.

Why is there no controversy between historians? There may be several plausible explanations for this, and one is the following: it may well be that in English (and in languages other than Japanese) there is nothing wrong with calling a warrior of high rank and prestige, who belongs to the retinue of a warlord and has direct personal relations with his lord, 'samurai'. It is possible that this is particularly true before the Edo period if, as Lockley claims, In Yasuke’s time, the word samurai simply described a profession: warrior (albeit a very specialized one). Shortly afterward, it became a caste name. Obviously Yasuke did not belong to a caste and was not a hereditary warrior known for his martial skills and code of honor. And yet it is possible that for professional historians there is nothing wrong with calling him samurai.

Let's make an analogy to clarify the point. We call, as many reliable sources do, Julius Caesar a "general". Yet the Romans called him something else: dux and imperator (as well as by the names of other offices he held: dictator, consul, tribune of the plebs, pontifex maximus, etc.). Caesar was not a general in the technical sense that the word takes on in modern armies (say, someone below the minister of war or defence and above lieutenants and captains). But he was a general in the sense of supreme commander of the army, just as Yasuke was a high-ranking swordsman in feudal Japan who lent his services to a warlord. Is there any scholarly controversy about Caesar's status as a general? No, therefore we don't write "According to John Doe, Caesar was a general", because that would be misleading and wrong, and would only serve to appease those online communities that have built an ideological trench around the word "general". We stick to the sources, that's it.

In general, I think WP articles are the better the closer they are to the sources. People should learn to read our articles not as 'The Definitive Truth' about something, but as a tentative, source-based description that can be used to get a flavour of the topic and start researching by going to the sources. But I digress, sorry. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 14:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

On the other hand, we don't have any reliable scholar or news organisation that explicitly disagrees with them. I feel that if we were to attribute "Yasuke as a samurai" to Lockley, we would be suggesting that this view is controversial, as if there were an academic debate about Yasuke's status, which isn't the case: there is a huge debate on the WP talk pages, as we can see, and in various online communities, blogs, social media, but no controversy among historians.

Let me just set the record that Yasuke's obscurity is the most likely reason for the lack of opposing coverage on the idea of him being a samurai. Right now, there is an inquiry recognized by a Japanese politician that plans on bringing this issue to the National Diet,[142] describing it as "cultural [theft/invasion]". We should expect to see actual opposition to this status, now that Yasuke is in mainstream light.

Furthermore, let me take the opportunity to bring up a case of WP:ACTUALCOI (link for easy timeline),[143] where Lockley, on his WP account Tottoritom has made several Wikipedia edits dating back years before writing his book. This was even pointed out in 2018 for a deletion of Thomas Lockley's Wikipedia page,[144] stating it as a case of COI. Months after this article deletion was closed, he made an additional edit to Yasuke's article to add in his own book which was unreleased at the time of January 25th, 2019, and even giving it the wrong date. Now to give Lockley the benefit of the doubt, it was possibly a typo/error on his part, which this was later corrected two months later, however this was still before the actual publishing date, which was on April 30th, 2019, a month before that edit was made. Why was this book kept on the page if it was not even out yet?

Also, his involvement on the Yasuke Wikipedia article years before his book suggests an implication to influence the article with the release of his book, or vice versa. While I do not want to assume what Lockley's mind was going through as he was trying to add his own book to the article, the way he went about it suggests that he did not need to participate on Wikipedia anymore once it was released, hence why that 2019 edit was the last edit he made on Wikipedia. This is extremely concerning as the call of COI was actually made before and it had been forgotten by the time this edit was made, and even with the edit to add the correct publication date, it was still kept on the article, despite being inaccessible at that time.

I believe the best way to handle this situation is call on the man himself, whether it be through Wikipedia or through the Japanese National Diet, or any other official manner really, to explain the decisions he made, because this is extremely dishonest.

__

Why is there no controversy between historians? There may be several plausible explanations for this, and one is the following: it may well be that in English (and in languages other than Japanese) there is nothing wrong with calling a warrior of high rank and prestige, who belongs to the retinue of a warlord and has direct personal relations with his lord, 'samurai'. It is possible that this is particularly true before the Edo period if, as Lockley claims, In Yasuke’s time, the word samurai simply described a profession: warrior (albeit a very specialized one). Shortly afterward, it became a caste name. Obviously Yasuke did not belong to a caste and was not a hereditary warrior known for his martial skills and code of honor. And yet it is possible that for professional historians there is nothing wrong with calling him samurai.

The problem I have here is that Lockley's definition of samurai is not aligned with anyone else's. In fact, he stands alone on this, because he switched the modern understanding of bushi/samurai being synonymous and the historical understanding of the words. Other sources proposed suggested that Yasuke was actually part of the caste, while Lockley doesn't. This also doesn't make sense when you consider it as a specialized profession as you stated; is there any mention of Yasuke doing any form of military engagement outside of Honno-ji, which was an ambush and not an actual military expedition under Nobunaga?

Like I mentioned above, Yasuke's obscurity in history as well as how new this theory is, being presented within the last 10 years, is the most likely reason why there is "no opposition". The reality is that the "lack of opposition" is entirely artificial, and this will be reflected in the near future.

Let's make an analogy to clarify the point. We call, as many reliable sources do, Julius Caesar a "general". Yet the Romans called him something else: dux and imperator (as well as by the names of other offices he held: dictator, consul, tribune of the plebs, pontifex maximus, etc.). Caesar was not a general in the technical sense that the word takes on in modern armies (say, someone below the minister of war or defence and above lieutenants and captains). But he was a general in the sense of supreme commander of the army, just as Yasuke was a high-ranking swordsman in feudal Japan who lent his services to a warlord. Is there any scholarly controversy about Caesar's status as a general? No, therefore we don't write "According to John Doe, Caesar was a general", because that would be misleading and wrong, and would only serve to appease those online communities that have built an ideological trench around the word "general". We stick to the sources, that's it.

This can be said the same for the term Bushou (武将), which is treated as a general descriptor of the term general rather than a title. Using a job description and using a title are completely distinct, as both a Taishou (大将) and Sodaishou (総大将) are both Bushou (武将), however Sodaishou (総大将) outranks Taishou (大将) (@Eirikr did a great job on explaining this here).

The same is said for Samurai. Samurai is treated as a social caste/nobility, while Bushi is more of a job description; a professional warrior. I've pointed this out in previous discussions listed here (Comprehensive analysis on the definition of samurai with support of secondary sources, an additional reply to X0n relating to the previous post, Lockley's definition of samurai and analysis of his lack of inline citations, Comparing other proposed academic sources on Yasuke and their definition of samurai, and related arguments from other academic sources).

In general, I think WP articles are the better the closer they are to the sources. People should learn to read our articles not as 'The Definitive Truth' about something, but as a tentative, source-based description that can be used to get a flavour of the topic and start researching by going to the sources.

Unfortunately, to most people, it is not seen that way, and it honestly shouldn't; we should not expect people to dig for these sources (especially if unattributed and enshrined in wikivoice), and when there is such a confliction or question of reliability among claims by these secondary sources, these must be addressed and attributed. It's especially contradictory to suggest that you want the claim unattributed yet you want Wikipedia to be treated as a place where people can do their own research through said attributed claims. Hexenakte (talk) 16:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The respectfulness is genuinely appreciated, and mutual. But I fear the point has been somewhat missed. Much of the reply is responding to arguments which I have not made; and seems singularly fixed on the question of whether we should describe Yasuke as a "samurai" in Wikipedia voice; an aspect which I have not addressed. It may be that we should; it may be that we should not. I simply opine that Lockley & Girard's works are consistently speculative beyond what can be independently verified, a fact which Lockley acknowledges, and which is commented on in book reviews; and that it is difficult to tell which parts of those works are speculative and which are not; meaning that it is problematic to determine that the work is reliable.

I further opine that:

a) Be there an abundance or dearth thereof, news sources are not the WP:BESTSOURCES for historical fact.

b) Where news &/or tertiary sources rely significantly on Lockley & Girard's work, they inherit the issues around speculation & lack of reliability.

I have read Lopez-Vera's "A History of the Samurai", and enjoyed it. I note that, while Lopez-Vera is an historian, the book is published by a popular, not academic, press, and is apparently a reproduction of his pre-doctoral work; but these are minor points. I am hopeful to obtain a copy of the original Spanish version "Historia de los samuráis". I will take the question of Atkins "on notice".

Le Monde and Serge Bilé predate Lockley and Girard's 2019 publications, but not Lockley's previous 2016 works which suffer from many of the same issues. Bilé's book does however, disprove the claim that Lockley's work is the only book on Yasuke. However, the Le Monde is a news article (see a), above), and is heavily informed by Bilé's work. Bilé's book is described by the publisher as "Essai, biographie romancée". My French is a bit rusty, but the fr.Wikipedia article describes the latter as celui du roman, c'est-à-dire que l'on insiste sur la narration parfois en introduisant des épisodes non avérés emphasis added. Bilé suffers from the same issues as Lockley & Girard; his work is explicitly speculative. This is not a bad thing; works of speculative or functional history should be produced, but we should not regard them as reliable for unattributed factual statements. Bilé, Girard & Lockley might well be correct, but the speculative nature of their works means those works (and derivatives thereof) are not reliable.

For Lockley & Girard's work, I felt this aspect was covered quite well in part 1 of your comment at 15:14, 3 July 2024 (UTC); with which I broadly concur.

Why is there no controversy between historians?

It is likely because there is no real meat into which historians might sink their teeth. The historical records on Yasuke are incredibly thin. There's just not that much there to study. And consequently there hasn't been much study.

And this is where the Caesar analogy fails. We have a comparative abundance of sources for the life of Caesar. I have at least a couple on my bookshelf right now.

Where the analogy does succeed, is in highlighting that in calling Caesar a "general", we are using the plain English definition of the word. The argument, expressed elsewhere, that we should describe Yasuke as a "samurai" (in English) based on a changing Japanese definition of 侍 (from "one who serves a lord" to "a warrior who serves a lord" to an hereditary class) is lacking in merit. If we describe something using a term which has a plain meaning in English, we should mean that meaning.

I'm not convinced that attributing viewpoints, including "Yasuke as a samurai", to Lockley, Girard et Bilé, would be suggesting that this view is controversial. It would be suggesting that it is their opinion, not a matter of established historical fact; which would align with WP:NPOV. It is a viewpoint which appears in a small minority of academic sources, if we cast the net wide enough to include sources on Oda Nobunaga, the Jesuits in Japan, and the period of the late 1570s & early 1580s in Japan; as we ought do.

For the record, I am unconcerned and uncaring about various online communities, blogs, social media and any ideological trenches they might have dug. I care about us, ourselves; and how we accurately reflect the quality of sources and sourced content.

I do largely concur with In general, I think WP articles are the better the closer they are to the reliable sources, with that one, important addition.

Side note: Yasuke was a high-ranking swordsman in feudal Japan who lent his services to a warlord There are no historical sources which support the italicised text. Descriptions of Yasuke as a warrior or swordsman appear only in speculative histories. Lockley assumes warrior and backfills his rationale. This is particularly apparent with his heterodox claim in African Samurai's end notes that Yasuke is originally from the Sudan or Ethiopia, in part because the Makua people of Mozambique are too peaceful. Rotary Engine ^talk 16:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

A couple points I'd like to respond to.

• "We have a few experts (Lockley, Lopez-Vera and Atkins) who speak of Yasuke as a samurai, [...]"

Atkins notably does not state in his own words that Yasuke was a samurai. Here is his only mention of "samurai" in relation to Yasuke:

Although there are no known portraits of the "African samurai," there are some pictorial depictions [...]

Atkins's use of quotation marks appears to indicate that he is quoting others, not using this descriptor as his own words.

• "Then we have an abundance of news sources (BBC, CNN, TIME, etc.) and tertiary sources (Britannica, Smithsonian Magazine) that do the same [speak of Yasuke as a samurai]; [...]"

Aside from Britannica, which does not cite its sources, the Smithsonian, BBC, CNN, etc. all quote Lockley for any mention of Yasuke as a samurai. While these tertiary sources (including the news sources) may be useful for illustrating the discussion about Yasuke in the media and broader public, inasmuch as they have done no demonstrable research of their own, we should not be giving these any weight with regard to the claim that the historical Yasuke was a samurai.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:43, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

>Aside from Britannica, which does not cite its sources

Britanica until today cited Lockley as the only source in its Additional Reading section here. As of today(!), the article has been rewritten and is actually authored by Lockley himself now.

>Written by Thomas Lockley

>Last Updated: Jul 16, 2024

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yasuke J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Eirikr, I don't think this is correct.

Firstly, the use of quotation marks does not necessarily indicate that that Atkin is quoting others; the simplest interpretation is that Atkins uses quotation marks because the "African samurai" is an epithet, just like Thatcher, the "Iron Lady" or Diana, the "People's Princess". You wouldn't use these epithets (especially in an academic text) without quotation marks; in fact, "Yasuke, the African samurai" would be quite weird.

Secondly, Smithsonian, BBC, CNN are not only useful to illustrate the discussion about Yasuke in the media: they lend credibility to Lockley, they make Lockley less suspect in the eyes of WP. Since these news organisations are reliable sources, and they treat Lockley as a reliable source, in principle we should do the same. I want Wikipedia to be good, but I don't think it can be much better than Smithsonian, BBC, CNN, TIME and Britannica combined; if they're wrong about Lockley, I'm happy to be wrong with them. In-depth source analysis by samurai enthusiasts is likely to be less accurate than the scrutiny to which they subject their sources.

Thirdly, these sources are not tertiary sources reporting about Lockley's views: they are news organisations and they speak in their own voices. Yes, they interview Lockley (whom they consider reliable), but they also interview other people (including experts) and so it is likely that if one of them had raised an eyebrow at "Yasuke as a samurai" they would have been less committed to this content.

One last point: if and when other historians will add to the body of scholarship on Yasuke and will contradict Lockley, we will stop using wikivoice and we will cover their views. But until that happens, we cannot do their work. We cannot be more reliable than our sources, and our sources are not Reddit, You Tube and original research posted on WP talk pages. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 20:25, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

• "[...] the simplest interpretation is that Atkins uses quotation marks because the "African samurai" is an epithet, [...]"

If Atkins is using this as an epithet, then that is again not his own words, but rather ... an epithet. In other words, Atkins is not literally saying that Yasuke is an "African samurai", any more than Thatcher is literally an "Iron Lady".

• "Secondly, Smithsonian, BBC, CNN are not only useful to illustrate the discussion about Yasuke in the media: they lend credibility to Lockley, [...]"

Others have also pointed out that news organizations are not known as experts on historical arcana.

• "[...] if they're wrong about Lockley, I'm happy to be wrong with them."

I am not.

I think we do Wikipedia, and our readers, a disservice by not avoiding visible mistakes of this sort: mistakes that we can see and evaluate.

• "[...] these sources are not tertiary sources reporting about Lockley's views [...]"

I am very confused by your contention here.

These are media outlets. What they do is report.

They are not primary sources (at least, in this context about Yasuke): they are not direct eyewitnesses of the events.

They are not secondary sources: most have not demonstrated any contact at all with the primary sources (the Portuguese letters, the Shinchō Kōki, Ietada's diary).

If they are not primary, and not secondary, then the best they could be is tertiary.  ???

• "[...] if and when other historians will add to the body of scholarship on Yasuke and will contradict Lockley, we will stop using wikivoice [...]"

Why do we need to wait until then?

I do not agree that we need to condition any change from "wikivoice" to attributions on waiting for future historians' publications.

I have contended throughout this entire kerfuffle that we have no business using "wikivoice" in the first place for any statement that Yasuke is a samurai.

We have all of two secondary sources that state that Yasuke was a samurai, in unambiguous terms: López-Vera (with no citations or rationale given), and Lockley (problematic as currently under discussion). This is not a strong foundation for any unattributed "wikivoice" statements.

• "We cannot be more reliable than our sources [...]"

When we make unattributed "wikivoice" statements, that is what we purport to be: so reliable that we don't need to cite any source.

We should be citing statements so that we are clear to our readers about what is coming from our sources.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:38, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The new version of the article is considerably more factual. Notably, Lockley uses quotations in all instances of "samurai" and in one instance equates it to meaning "warrior". In addition, he almost directly relates the facts as presented in primary sources, creating a coherent historical narrative from them.

There are some points which intrigued me like the mention of the consensus among Japanese historians in the lead of the article, but I don't want to personally engage in SYNTH to dig deeper. SmallMender (talk) 20:31, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I concur. Frankly, I feel that this thread has lost all interest since the publication of Lockley's article in Britannica. There is no doubt (in my mind) that this article qualifies as WP:RS - I'm not saying that it is the ultimate definitive truth and nothing but the truth, but it is a reliable source that can be cited for the purposes of writing an article on WP. As for the book, it is based on serious historical research, but it also contains fictional elements and dramatisations. Since we editors can't be trusted to distinguish between research and fiction, we'd better not use the book - it's not a reliable source - and use the article instead. I think we can all agree on this, so perhaps there's no point in discussing the book further on this noticeboard. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 23:15, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Setting aside any of Lockley's other works and looking just at the Lockley / Girard book African Samurai, if we are determining that this is not a reliable source, should we also remove other references that rely on this book, for any claims for which we are using them as references? (Sorry that's a bit of a mouthful. 😄) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 01:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I would be in favor of removing those tertiary sources which make it clear they rely on African Samurai and/or echo the more speculative claims from the book without attribution and without clear signs of them being reliable sources (for instance, written by a matter expert, etc.). Does it require an extra RfC and/or a different voting approach? SmallMender (talk) 07:06, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that in the current state the Britannica article works as a reliable source.

Regarding the 2019 book, I agree with the research vs fiction assertion and I think if that one is put aside in favor of other less fictional and/or peer-reviewed works from Lockley (for instance, the Japanese edition of the book, from 2017) that would also work for the purpose of the Yasuke article. SmallMender (talk) 07:01, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

There is the issue of the apparently unsupported assertion of general consensus among Japanese historians of Yasuke as a samurai. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 07:14, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I think resolving this one might be difficult. Even if one collects reliable secondary sources written by Japanese historians (specifically about Yasuke), we would run into the following issues:

- if these sources translated into English use "samurai" to mean "bushi", because in English the terms are often used interchangeably, that supports Lockley's claim

- if these sources are untranslated and use 武士, it is debatable which term should be used in English (going by Wikipedia's policies, to my understanding, that would also be "samurai")

Also, Lockley uses quotations for the term "samurai" (even though the Britannica article then redirects to their own samurai article), which makes it difficult to understand what he means specifically. Does he mean bushi, but writes "samurai" to indicate that? SmallMender (talk) 08:57, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, he even frames the samurai status in the lead as being a disputed common consideration by historians—not uncontroversial fact. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 06:18, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, he frames it as a common consideration which is not disputed by historians, but by "some people":

Due to his favor with Nobunaga and presence at his side in at least one battle, Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians to be the first recorded “samurai” of foreign birth, although this has been disputed by some people

Also in the article body the claim is presented as commonly accepted by "historians":

During this period, the definition of samurai was ambiguous, but historians think that this would contemporaneously have been seen as the bestowing of warrior or “samurai” rank. This is where the claim that Yasuke was a samurai originates.

I don't think these two quotations support the view that there's a controversy among historians about Yasuke's status as a samurai. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 06:45, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

There is no consensus among Japanese historians that Yasuke was a Samurai, nor has any notable Japanese historian come out publicly to say unambiguously that he was one. Even the historian Sakujin Kirino who Lockley previously claimed fact-checked his book has come out to say he did not do that:

https://x.com/kirinosakujin/status/1795768862652449021?s=61&t=oW-zJ2zqNqwwnjQg6PFz3Q 天罰れい子 (talk) 07:03, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

If this is the case the article should not call him a samurai in wiki-voice in the lede or elsewhere. Alaexis_¿question? 09:15, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

No, 天罰れい子's assertion that There is no consensus among Japanese historians that Yasuke was a Samurai is not proved. Neither they nor others have yet provided a quotation from a single Japanese or non-Japanese historian stating that Yasuke was not a samurai. On the other hand, Lockley writes "Yasuke is commonly held by Japanese historians" and "historians think that". Is he wrong, is he lying? We don't know - since he's signing the article in Britannica, he's taking full scientific responsibility for what he claims (contrary to us anonymous WP editors); if he's wrong, someone would or could contradict him. But until this happens, we have a reliable source saying that the view commonly accepted by contemporary historians is that Yasuke was a samurai. Frankly, that's all we need. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 09:45, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

One American researcher criticized Lockly harshly!

https://x.com/OliverJia1014/status/1813842217989234785?t=OK3Bw2iqsDOPxOiZOTEktQ&s=19

In addiction, he used camouflaged resorces in Wikipedia!

https://togetter.com/li/2401301

Most of his reports about Yasuke seem not to be investigated, and another is only a school organ. Furthermore, I found one book "つなぐ世界史" introduced as an investigated paper!

https://researcher-web.nihon-u.ac.jp/search/detail?systemId=b821967215ac2300740660f458cd5cad&lang=ja

I heard too many other proprems about him to tell here. SilverSpeech (talk) 15:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Without getting into the merits of Lockley himself I do not think his work should be dismissed because it is “popular history” which is a somewhat nebulous term.

Three tech websites

howtogeek.com for software

Is this source reliable? It is cited 51 times already on enwiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=howtogeek&title=Special%3ASearch&ns0=1

from https://www.howtogeek.com/page/about/:

>How-To Geek, founded in 2006 and acquired and owned by Valnet Inc. since 2023, is a digital publication focused on technology that reaches millions of readers each month on our website and across social media [...]

>How-To Geek has been recommended as an expert resource by industry groups like the Wi-Fi Alliance and newspapers like The New York Times. Organizations like the BBC and Wirecutter have directed their readers to us for our helpful tutorials. Technology news outlets like Techmeme, The Verge, Slate, Digital Trends, TechCrunch, and John Gruber’s Daring Fireball have linked to stories we’ve broken. We’ve been cited as a source in books like Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff, a media theory professor at the City University of New York’s Queens College and CNN contributor. How-To Geek has been used as a resource for everything from university textbooks to late-night TV. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 04:26, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why this shouldn't be reliable for tech related details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Considering the above accolades from other tech platforms, I would consider it reliable for technical advice. For citations on specific claims, however, it might be possible to track down the original "secondary" source which howtogeek.com uses in its articles. SmallMender (talk) 20:46, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

geeky-gadgets.com for software

Is this source reliable? It is cited 125 time already on enwiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=geeky-gadgets&title=Special%3ASearch&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1

It appears to only have two full time writers as implied here: https://www.geeky-gadgets.com/about/ J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 04:29, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

This seems a bit more marginal than howtogeek.com, as it doesn't have the external recognition of that site. I'd be a bit more cautious with anything exceptional that isn't backed up by other sources. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

dataconomy.com for software

cited 25 times already: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?search=%22dataconomy%22&title=Special:Search&profile=advanced&fulltext=1&ns0=1

has multiple writers but the main writer for most articles from a quick look seems to be the Editor-in-Chief listed here https://dataconomy.com/about-us/ J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 04:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

• These are very small numbers of citations; at one point the Weekly World News was cited 100+ times on Wikipedia. Is there some reason that you feel these three sites need to be discussed? --JBL (talk) 19:00, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

  I wanted to use these sources myself. J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

This looks somewhere in-between the last two, it has some use by other but not as much as the first one. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:52, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested thanks for your review J2UDY7r00CRjH (talk) 16:21, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential

This source (Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential) is cited in Timeline of the Israel–Hamas war, Casualties of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, List of genocides, Israel–Hamas war, Killing of journalists in the Israel–Hamas war, Gaza genocide, Casualties of the Israel–Hamas war, and Palestinian genocide accusation, generally for its estimate of a death toll in the war of 186,000. I've decided to open this discussion here as this is a more central location than any of those articles.

My impression is that this source isn't sufficiently reliable for this estimate.

• It's a "letter to the editor" sort of thing, not a peer-reviewed study.
• Out of the authors, only Martin McKee seems to have any expertise on excess deaths; both Rasha Khatib and Salim Yusuf study cardiology.
• This estimate is simply reached by multiplying the reported deaths by five, with no particular reasoning for why this is a good estimate. The source they are citing to argue this is a "conservative estimate" is a 2008 UN report. The report says the following: The lethal burden of armed conflict in 2004–07 was many times greater than the number of direct conflict deaths. A reasonable average estimate would be a ratio of four indirect deaths to one direct death in contemporary conflicts, which would represent at least 200,000 indirect conflict deaths per year, and possibly many more. This is particularly focused on the 2004–07 time period and says a four-to-one ratio is a "reasonable average estimate", not a "conservative estimate".

For these reasons I'm inclined to remove the source, but I'm taking this here first as I expect this may be controversial. Will also be notifying the talk pages of all relevant articles. Elli (talk | contribs) 02:29, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it's a perfectly reliable source, however, its use should be attributed and be described as an estimate of possible indirect deaths by the end of the conflict from disease, famine, and other factors. Silverseren^C 02:46, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

+1 Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:23, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

No opinion on overall use of the source, but I do think the "at least ... and possibly many more" are indicating that this is meant to be a conservative estimate, and the associated footnote (3) takes us to:

This ‘reasonable estimate’ is based on the assumed under-counting of combat deaths, and conservative assumptions about indirect deaths. The figure is explained in more detail below.

Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:47, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

While it's not peer reviewed, The Lancet doesn't just publish letters to the editor willy-nilly. I agree that it should be attributed, with a note that it's an estimate that the authors believe to be conservative. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:01, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

As a letter to the editor published in a reputable journal, the presumption is that it is at least facially not absurd/blatantly false. However, as something that has not been peer reviewed, the numbers/opinions/"facts" cited to it should be attributed to the author, with special consideration to whether the author's opinions/conclusions should be included in the first place. Merely getting your opinion published in a reputable journal as an opinion piece does not generally lend to it being more or less due than it otherwise would be. I do not have a final opinion on the DUE issue as I am not versed enough in the authors. I tend to agree with Elli that the reasoning they use for coming to their multiple of 5 (or a 4:1 ratio of unreported:reported deaths) that the number is likely not due weight. As the authors admit in their paper, estimates or later-confirmed/accepted numbers have ranged from 3x to 15x. So by that argument, I could go get an article published where I just say I picked 10x and come up with a completely different number. Ultimately, this reads as an opinion piece/advocacy piece that uses... very basic information and picks a number that "feels good" to support the advocacy it's intended to be for. For all of this, and the very "surface level" analysis, I find it hard to see how these authors' opinions will be DUE to include in any article at this time. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 03:13, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Agree with Berchanhimez BilledMammal (talk) 03:53, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Standard indirect death estimates appear to be between 3-15x. As the authors note, they took direct deaths and multiplied it by 5 to render a conservative estimate of indirect deaths. I'm not sure why a peer reviewed article is needed to multiply two numbers using what is by all accounts a standard methodology for arriving at these estimates. Additionally, citing a source to substantiate a particular estimate isn't undue. WP:UNDUE Is focused on presenting too much of a source's opinions, not verifying particular facts. By contrast, it would be undue to devote several paragraphs to describing the arguments made in the letter to the editor. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Long term view, there will hopefully be actual studies of indirect and direct deaths, whenever this all ends. Until then, this letter is probably well-informed interpolation of an eventual toll. I think that is not something any other semi-reliable source really delves into, even if it is an opinionated source like this. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Because why 5x? Why not 3x? Why not 15x? Why is their estimate somehow “more” reliable than all the other multipliers just because they had a couple paragraphs published as a letter to the editor (not peer reviewed) in a journal? -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 06:12, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Because 5x (ratio of 4:1) comes from this report (referenced in the Lancet letter itself): "A reasonable average estimate would be a ratio of four indirect deaths to one direct death in contemporary conflicts". It is also quoted elsewhere: "One path forward in the case of the post-9/11 wars is to generate a rough estimate by applying the Geneva Declaration Secretariat’s average ratio of four indirect for every one direct death...Across all the war zones, therefore, using an average four to one ratio can generate a reasonable and conservative estimate" (further evidence is inside that report). I trust that Berchanhimez will now stop accusing the number 4 of being a "feel good number".VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

"a couple paragraphs published as a letter to the editor (not peer reviewed) in a journal" 😂 could you try any harder to be a little bit more dismissive of being published in The Lancet? Levivich (talk) 12:37, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• There is a detailed analysis in the Guardian based on interviews with the authors of that report that supports this conclusion. Médecins du Monde considers the figure "credible".VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 04:01, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  I feel that a report in the Lancet, along with multiple mentions from other reputable orgs, warrants a real mention.

  Alternatively, the death toll in this conflict is such a point of contention it may be worth its own article? Bluethricecreamman (talk) 05:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• @Elli: I see there is already a discussion about this at Talk:Israel–Hamas war#Indirect casualties from the Lancet study. Having two discussions open just muddies the water. Why not just notify all of those pages about the other discussion, close this, and copy the comments from here to the other discussion? voorts (talk/contributions) 04:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  That discussion was focused on the use of the source in that particular article, and not really on the reliability of the source in general. That discussion is also quite unclear and messy already and I doubt a useful consensus for all the pages the source is used on would emerge from it. Elli (talk | contribs) 04:31, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I've posed a question about closing the other discussion and encouraging editors to come here. voorts (talk/contributions) 04:33, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Reliable. Taking the points in order:

• Although it's not peer-reviewed, it was still chosen for publication by The Lancet. It's not self-published. But even if it were, it would be WP:EXPERTSPS. The fact that The Lancet published it means it is to be taken seriously. That doesn't mean The Lancet thinks it's true, but it does mean The Lancet thinks it's worth reading.
• Out of the authors, only Martin McKee seems to have any expertise on excess deaths; both Rasha Khatib and Salim Yusuf study cardiology is not correct. I'm not sure why expertise in excess deaths would be the measure, but in any event Khatib and Yusuf do more than just study cardiology. Khatib has a PhD in clinical epidemiology, according to one bio has "70+ peer-reviewed journal publications" and is a principal investigator of the Prospective Urban and Rural Epidemiological study, a study of 225,000 participants in 1,000+ communities in 27 countries. According to another bio, she leads a team of epidemiologists and biostatisticians. Salim Yusuf, according to the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame [145]: "The leading North American clinical trialist, Dr. Salim Yusuf’s epidemiologic work in more than 60 countries shows the majority of risks of both cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease are attributable to the same few risk factors. His large-scale studies involving several hundreds of thousands of individuals in dozens of countries have changed the way some of the world’s most deadly health conditions are prevented, treated and managed." All three authors seem very well-qualified to estimate indirect deaths.
• They do give their reasoning for choosing 4x as a indirect:direct deaths ratio: the range is 3x-15x, and they chose a "conservative" estimate to illustrate the point. Their choosing to do so does not make them unreliable. It's not like some WP:FRINGE methodology, as evidenced by the Lancet publishing it.

While WP:USEBYOTHERS is too early to tell, France 24 reports that Francesca Albanese tweeted it "as evidence of what she described as '9 months of genocide' taking place in Gaza," and that Doctors of the World deemed it "a 'credible' estimate." (It's certainly had a lot of mention by others.)

I don't think there is any question about this work's reliability. The question is how the work should be summarized in the various articles, e.g. how much is this work WP:DUE, but that really depends on the article. The general question of how to accurately describe this work's conclusions may be better for WP:NPOVN than WP:RSN. Levivich (talk) 05:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Reliable. I agree with Levivich here. David A (talk) 06:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• It is worth noting Adam Gaffney in The Nation seems to have independently arrived at the same conclusion (though both sources of course cite the work of Geneva Declaration Secretariat): "For instance, the Geneva Declaration Secretariat’s review of prior conflicts found that indirect deaths have, for most conflicts since the 1990s, been three to fifteen-fold higher than direct deaths, and suggest a ratio of four to one as a “conservative” estimate. There are reasons to think this ratio could be on the low end in Gaza given, among other things, the protracted and brutal siege." VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 07:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Never expected to see the reliability of content posted on the Lancet, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious medical journals, be questioned. Clearly, this is not a scientific paper so no peer reviewing is needed. That does not mean however that this is some sort of random letter to the editor with zero scientific credibility, as this was most certainly at least scrutinized by the journal, which would not risk its editorial reputation to propagate baseless claims. The source is definitely reliable, but how editors choose to display this information on WP is up for their judgement on the relevant article's talk page, not here. Makeandtoss (talk) 08:42, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

As I said when this article was first highlighted for inclusion in the Gaza genocide article, it could be used with other sources that have also provided estimates of higher numbers, to support a sentence stating that the number of dead may/is likely to be higher than the Health Ministry's reported number, I was against quoting specific numbers from it due to it's generality in it's assessment. Since then, unfortunately, multiple reputable news organisations have given extensive commentary on it, and undue weight to it's estimates, so it would behoove us to include mention of it specifically in some of the relevant articles, along with the criticism of it from other specialists in reputable sources. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 12:13, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

• Unreliable per Elli. This is essentially a letter to the editor which reached its conclusions through methods that are little better than napkin math. I have no issues with using this source to discuss the opinions of the individual authors of the letter, but citing this source to show the total numbers of causalities in Gaza is grossly irresponsible. Spirit of Eagle (talk) 03:11, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

• Reliable but don't use. The source is reliable for what it aims to convey – that there are many more indirect deaths resulting from the Israeli aggression than the reported direct killings. But the source also has limited applicability, unless we make it clear each time that the number includes indirect deaths and that it's only a rough estimate. I checked World War II, a well-developed article, and the numbers quoted there seem to be for direct casualties only, while additional, indirect deaths are discussed in the dedicated article World War II casualties. Of course, people dying for lack of medical care, lack of clean water or electricity, lack of emergency services, killing themselves because of trauma, etc., is part of every war. Still, what we normally quote in most places are direct deaths. — kashmīrī ^TALK 17:50, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

• Unreliable As I understand it, the essential claim for which this source is being used is that the average of general data collected by SAS in 2008 is still relevant to a specific 2023-2024 conflict. Yet looking at the SAS report, the indirect deaths ratio improved significantly between 1995 and 2008 and the ratios for US coalition wars were significantly lower than global average. The continued applicability of the 4:1 minimum average ratio in 2024, and its applicability to Israel-Gaza, deserves real treatment. Yet the Lancet letter says "in recent conflicts" completely disregarding that the data is now 15 years old and that the report itself shows that 15-year-old data would not have been predictive in 2008. It does not attempt to parse the data any further than the minimum average presented, but a "minimum average" is not the same thing as a minimum. It may be that the average of applicable parallels was higher or lower. A reliable source would consider these questions. GordonGlottal (talk) 18:10, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

  A source isn't unreliable because an editor disagrees with its methodology or conclusions. If other WP:RS question the methodology as being unreliable, that'd be different. But absent contradicting RS, epidemiologists and The Lancet are more reliable than Wikipedia editors' WP:OR. Levivich (talk) 18:33, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

  I'm not questioning their methodology, I'm pointing out that they don't give any. This is an essential difference between this kind of publication and an RS like the peer-reviewed sections of the Lancet. GordonGlottal (talk) 19:02, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

  No that's not true. They do give a methodology, you explained it in your post, you pointed out several flaws in that methodology, and concluded it's not reliable because of those flaws in the methodology. And regardless, an editor's opinion that a source lacks methodology (or lacks a sound methodology) is still an editor's opinion. Levivich (talk) 22:18, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

  All they do is multiply one number by another and tell you where the two numbers are from. There is no explanation of why this is an appropriate thing to do: a methodology. Analyses published in the Lancet proper are required to detail what criteria were used to determine whether data was relevant to the question considered. GordonGlottal (talk) 23:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Wrong noticeboard. This is certainly reliable: we can be sure that the Lancet published the letter they received from Khatib et al and did not fabricate anything in it. However the real question is whether it should be mentioned in various articles about the current war and how. In other words, it's a due weight problem. If that was the question, then this should be mentioned somewhere in Casualties of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip but certainly not in a prominent place like the infobox of the main article, since it's not a peer-reviewed article. As some other editors noted, the common practice in other articles about wars is to discuss (usually vague) indirect losses in a separate article/section. Alaexis_¿question? 13:34, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Removal of sourced content

Kuffaar added some text with a source to the Divisions of the world in Islam and Kafir articles and upon his semi-protected edit request, Kowal2701 added the same to the Jihad article. Now, IntGrah has reverted those - see this and this asking Kuffaar to achieve consensus for adding that sentence. I don't know how to, "achieve consensus", so I request one of you to restore that sentence in both articles. For your information, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Divisions_of_the_world_in_Islam#Quotes mentions that sentence (the last sentence).-Ganeemath (talk) 07:41, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

This, "jihad" is mentioned in the Wikipedia article Milestones (book) also.-Ganeemath (talk) 07:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I’ve removed it from Jihad following CheeseDealers comment Kowal2701 (talk) 10:51, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@The Cheesedealer and Kowal2701: The source says, "Offensive Jihad: Where the Kuffar are not gathering to fight the Muslims, the fighting becomes Fard Kifaya with the minimum requirement of appointing believers to guard the borders and the sending of an army at least once a year to terrorise the Enemies of Allah. It is the duty of the Imam to assemble and send out an Army unit into the land of War once or twice every year. Moreover, it is the responsibility of the Muslim population to assist him, and if he does not send an army he is in sin. And the Ulama have mentioned that this type of Jihad is for maintaining the payment of Jizya. The Scholars of the principles of religion have also said, "Jihad is Da'wah with a force and is obligatory to perform with all available capabilities, until the remains only Muslims or people who submit to Islam." Defensive Jihad: This is expelling the Kuffar from our land and it is Fard Ayn, a compulsory duty upon all.-Ganeemath (talk) 14:17, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm very sorry, silly me did misread it. — 🧀The Cheesedealer ^talk 14:28, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

That content can be reliably verified doesn't mean it must be in the article. Rather all content that does appears in the article must be reliably verifiable. The discussion of what content should or shouldn't be part of the article should take place on the articles talk page. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:03, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

OK, I have started a discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Divisions_of_the_world_in_Islam?searchToken=dgtqo0atw1slp3u345mionkcq#Removal_of_sourced_content -Ganeemath (talk) 14:29, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

We need some experienced editors to come and comment on the Talk page there.-Ganeemath (talk) 14:41, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I've notified WP:WikiProject Islam, hopefully that will bring some additional input to the talk page discussion. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 15:19, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks!-Ganeemath (talk) 15:43, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested: So many editors have responded above at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#RfC:_Sources_for_Muhammad but nobody is bothered to respond on the Talk page I posted a link to above. What else can be done to draw the attention of other editors to come and take a look at the Talk page I posted a link to above (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Divisions_of_the_world_in_Islam?searchToken=dgtqo0atw1slp3u345mionkcq#Removal_of_sourced_content)?-Ganeemath (talk) 11:32, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

WP:Dispute resolution has advice on how to deal with content disputes. Also remember that other editors may not be able to respond immediately. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:43, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Is Reform UK a reliable source for its MP James McMurdock

Specifically his work history, especially given the comments at [146] - which I doubt is an RS we could use but informative. The article also uses a tweet and GB News. Doug Weller talk 16:27, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Without looking at the article, I'd assume it's reliable to a WP:ABOUTSELF extent, "The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim;" etc. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:02, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

@Gråbergs Gråa Sång Seems as though it’s been edited out. But the article uses GBNews, not sure it should. Doug Weller talk 18:29, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't know much about them, but it seems the intent was sourcing a video where he says something the article quotes. However, [147]. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:25, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

There are also a number of allegations flying around in relation to this MP. I attempted to add one of them, which if true was a matter of legitimate public concern, using thelondonecomic.com as a source, but I was told that this is a deprecated source. Maybe it should be, but would it be useful to have a discussion on this issue, since I don't see it mentioned at "perennial sources"? PatGallacher (talk) 17:59, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

While The London e-comic sounds a bit dubious, I don't find much on the London Economic in the RSN archives either. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I think these articles attract a lot of new editors. Farage’s article is off, the section on Reform is more about him, eg his range of gins, nothing about the fact the party is a private company in which he owns the majority of shares. Doug Weller talk 18:45, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

I only have Gordon's atm, not much of a range I'm afraid (attempt at humour). Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:52, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Worldatlas.com

Feels super clickbaity and there is a small team working on it but it appears to be used in a lot of articles. 48JCL 18:32, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Per [148], I get a WP:BLOG-ish impression. In cases like Balearic Sea I don't expect them to be wrong, but a stronger ref couldn't hurt. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

They have a fact-checking policy and an editorial team, for what its worth. voorts (talk/contributions) 18:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Lithub.com

Is this article on Lithub.com reliable for factual information? They have an masthead, but it's not clear what level of fact-checking they do. Also, the author of this story has an attenuated familial connection to the article subject, but she's also a retired professional genealogist and it would be weird for her to lie about her findings. voorts (talk/contributions) 21:18, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there some particular point you're interested in? I can't see any worries with the site, but the article is written in a very flowery fashion. I wouldn't trust statements such as It was the expression of a man who sees everything but withholds comment or When he was amused his smile went wide, his eyes sparkled under bushy eyebrows, but I can't see why it wouldn't be reliable for factual details. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:06, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Well, except for lax proofreading. Did the man really have "an eighth education"? -- Nat Gertler (talk) 17:19, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

We all make mistakes (and typos). That doesn't concern me. voorts (talk/contributions) 17:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

novinite.com , outono.net , thenewdaily.com.au , vvng.com , allisrael.com , thespectator.com , tampabay.com , canberradaily.com.au

All claiming the recent shot's at Donald Trump was an assassination attempt before official confirmation. All well-established political and national news outlet's are not reporting this. They are just hyperbolic for clicks and should not be used on 2024 shooting at a Donald Trump rally or Donald Trump

[149], [150], [151], [152], [153], [154], [155] & [156]. SimplyLouis27 (talk) 23:44, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

 Comment: There is an open RM in which these sources are being cited. voorts (talk/contributions) 00:51, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Tampa Bay Times is a mainstream newspaper, associated with The Poynter Institute for Media Studies; presumably reliable. Canberra Daily is an Australian local newspaper, but the story byline is to the Australian Associated Press. The New Daily is an Australian newspaper, owned by, but editorially independent from, Trades Union-operated investment funds. These seem presumably reliable. Not certain why we would reach across the Pacific for sources, but if we did, the Australian Broadcasting Commission's ABC News is also supportive. The Spectator is a publisher of opinion content, and should attributed; to both the author and the publication.
I would, however, urge caution per WP:RSBREAKING and WP:NOTNEWS. Rotary Engine ^talk 03:43, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

As the page has now been moved and there was never a real question of the reliability of these sites, I don't think this needs any further input. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:10, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, this is clearly a SPS, as it's an anonymous blog by a single writer. I also question the reliability of this site. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:24, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Requests for sources to be added

Please note, these are from my point of view. I would like to add a website, with a summary and name of the source:

Source	Summary	How it should be classified
PinkNews	Said website is a news website aimed towards the LGBT community. Many people, especially those part of the LGBT community and allies consider it reliable.	Generally reliable
GB News	GB News is a British television channel. Such usage is often condemned because of its right wing biases.	Deprecated/generally unreliable
TalkTV	TalkTV is a news channel located in the United Kingdom. It is similar to GB News because it is also biased and right wing.	Deprecated/generally unreliable
ITV	Many people in the United Kingdom consider it reliable. It is also the holder of ITV News.	Generally reliable
Channel Four	Many people in the United Kingdom consider it reliable. It is also the holder of a channel of the same name and its news programme.	Generally reliable
Miraheze	Miraheze is no different to Fandom. It allows you to make your wiki, and the wikis are similar to Wikipedia.	Generally unreliable
Roblox	Roblox is a video game created in 2006. It is sometimes cited on articles.	No consensus
This website (dare I say its name?)	Said website campaigns for inappropriate human-animal relationships and claims that these types of people are “queer” and a part of the LGBT community. Some supporters even try to add the letter Z for the LGBT acronym when members of the LGBT community do not claim nor accept them. Any links and citations should be whitelisted prior to usage.	Blacklisted/deprecated

OMGShay 92 (talk) 16:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Sources are only added to WP:RSPS if they are discussed multiple times by the community. We also don't generally discuss sources in the abstract, without some context about what it's being used for. Also, I'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that there's "no consensus" about Roblox's reliability. I'm not even sure how a video game could be cited as a source for factual information. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, zooey.pub is not cited by any articles, so there is no need to evaluate its reliability at this point. voorts (talk/contributions) 16:19, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Based on some searches it doesn't seem to be cited anywhere, but just listed as a link in Roblox articles or with the URL as text for reasonable stuff. (And just removed from one article due to that being vandalism.) --Super Goku V (talk) 09:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

You've misunderstood the purpose of Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources. It's only for documenting discussions that have occured. It is not, and it not meant to be, a complete list of sources.

Unless another editor is questioning the reliability of a source you want to use, and you want a third opinion on the matter, you are at the wrong noticeboard. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:29, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Reliability of The Japan Times?

The Japan Times is briefly mentioned in a discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_247#Reliable_sources_for_Japanese-related_articles , but I don't see it in the list at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources.

There is also a The Japan Times#Controversy section in the article about the newspaper, but outside of this mention and several comments online (Reddit, personal blogs, etc.) I can't find a reliable assessment.

The context of the ask is this article: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2024/05/25/digital/yasuke-assasins-creed-samurai/

The article previously contained information that Sakujin Kirino fact-checked the book "African Samurai" by Thomas Lockley, which was proven not to be true and later amended. In addition, the language and viewpoint of the article appears very one-sided and contains some factual errors (for instance, "he [Yasuke] was addressed as “tono” (literally, “lord” or “master”)" - primary sources show this was contemporary speculation, not statement of fact).

For the purpose of this thread I am interested purely in The Japan Times as a reliable source:

- If it's "situationally" reliable, which sections are more reliable?

- Can individual claims be considered reliable?

- Can we add the newspaper to the list of Perennial sources? SmallMender (talk) 18:14, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The Japan Times is a standard WP:NEWSORG and would be considered generally reliable, as ever generally doesn't mean always and specific articles could be less reliable than in general. Making corrections to article is a sign of a reliable source not a negative.

As to the specific issues with the article I would suggest using secondary sources from historians rather than lifestyle articles or primary sources.

RSP is a record of sources that have been regularly discussed, unless there is ongoing concerns with the source I don't think there's any need to add it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 19:06, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

RetractionBot

I posted this story from the Signpost last month. Things have evolved a bit and now Retraction bot handles {{Erratum}}, {{Expression of concern}}, and {{Retracted}}. These populate the following categories:

• Category:Articles citing retracted publications (129)
  • Category:Articles intentionally citing retracted publications (217)
• Category:Articles citing publications with expressions of concern (76)
  • Category:Articles intentionally citing publications with expressions of concern (12)
• Category:Articles citing publications with errata (65)
  • Category:Articles intentionally citing publications with errata (769)

The first level ones need human review. The second level ones (intentional) have been reviewed.

If the citation is no longer reliable, then the article needs to be updated, which could be as minor as the removal/replacement of the citation with a reliable one, to rewriting an entire section that was based on flawed premises. If the citation to a retracted paper was intentional, like in the context of a controversy noting that a paper was later retracted, you can replace {{retraction|...}} with {{retraction|...|intentional=yes}}/{{expression of concern|...}} with {{expression of concern|...|intentional=yes}}/{{Erratum|...}} with {{Erratum|...|checked=yes}}.

Any help you can give with those are greatly appreciated. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 20:06, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Speedway related sources

Zaine Kennedy is nominated for AfD by myself. I question whether the sources such as https://britishspeedway.co.uk/championship/scorpions-bring-back-kennedy/ are non-independent to be used for establishing notability. A user has questioned this in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zaine Kennedy. LibStar (talk) 23:47, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It's the website of the company that runs the races he takes part it, there is a direct financial link between the company and the subject. I don't see how it could be considered independent, reliable yes but not independent. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:59, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Byline Times a reliable source for James McMurdock and Reform UK

I've looked at this source before and was dubious. But now I've found this discussion Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 338#Byline Times (bylinetimes.com, NOT byline.com) I'm convinced its not. We use sit for a lot of articles.[157] On the other hand, our article Byline Times is full of praise. Doug Weller talk 07:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

They were still relatively new during the last discussion and didn't have any use by others, but from a quick search that is no longer the case. I don't think it's the best sources, their investigation tends to follow their bias, but I'd think it more 'marginal' than 'unreliable'. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested does it matter if it's being used in a BLP? At McMurdock's page it's used for the 2nd sentence in "He worked in the banking sector for Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers – specialising in energy, infrastructure, and manufacturing. How long he worked for these banks is unclear."

I'm inclined to believe it, but it seems to be the only source. Doug Weller talk 12:40, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

If it's banal details I might use it, but WP:BLP does state Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources. Given the source that could be an issue with certain subjects. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 12:56, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested And when there are no other decent sources, WP:UNDUE surely applies. Doug Weller talk 13:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes, or possibly WP:BALASP. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 13:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Procedure for RfCs at RSN on "quality" newspapers

By "quality" newspapers I mean newspapers that are considered to be quality press in the UK or equivalent newspapers from other countries (such as the New York Times, and presumably the newspapers listed at Newspaper of record#Examples of existing newspapers, though I have a limited knowledge of some of those newspapers). These newspapers are typically broadsheets or former broadsheets.

In relation to whether news reporting is reliable for statements of fact:

I propose that, for the purpose of RfCs at RSN, quality newspapers should be (1) presumed to be generally reliable for topics within competence of newspaper journalists (which would not, for exanple, include topics within the scope of WP:MEDPOP). If an RfC at RSN seeks to classify a quality newspaper as generally unreliable,  or as unreliable for a particular topic within competence of newspaper journalists, the newspaper should be (2) presumed reliable until the contrary is proved; (3) the burden of proof and (4) the burden of consensus should be on those claiming the newspaper is not reliable; and (5) the standard of proof should be the Sagan standard.

I am not satisfied that the wording of WP:NEWSORG is sufficiently explicit, precise and unambiguous to prevent editors disputing whether it produces this result. So I suggest we discuss this directly.

I think it is common knowledge that the coverage of topics, within the competence of newspaper journalists, by quality newspapers is usually factually accurate. I think that a claim that a quality newspaper is generally unreliable, or is unreliable for a particular topic within competence of newspaper journalists, is an extraordinary claim.

I also think it would be dangerous to make it too easy to classify quality newspapers as unreliable. We do not want RSN to become a battleground for editors who want to deprecate newspapers whose political opinions they do not like. We do not want political activists to be able to get quality newspapers deprecated merely by shouting loudest and longest. We especially do not want RSN to become a battleground for agents or sympathisers of certain governments and paramilitary organisations who want to deprecate newspapers that are in the habit of saying uncomplimentary (but not factually inaccurate) things about them. And we especially do not want them bombarding us with militarily motivated RfCs during the middle of a war in which they are belligerents. The application of a "braking mechanism" to RfCs here would reduce the risk of these things happening.

WP:NEWSORG says "whether a specific news story is reliable for a fact or statement should be examined on a case-by-case basis". Since this proposal applies only to general reliability, and reliability for topics, and does not apply to reliability for particular facts or statements, I do not think it will make it difficult for us to exclude the actual errors that "even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains". James500 (talk) 09:12, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Why do you need an RFC for those? It's obvious they're reliable, subject to the usual caveats about any sources, e.g. WP:RSOPINION. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 10:03, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Depends on your definition of "quality", though, which can change. As seen by the examples at the recent RSN, the UK Telegraph has gone from a sober and respected newspaper of record to one that is full of culture-warrior bigotry and promotion of conspiracy theories. Black Kite (talk) 10:07, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The New York Times appears to be one of the most generally reliable sources in the world. It is probably considered one of the two best newspapers in the world. We recently had a proposal to completely deprecate the New York Times (archive 430), something proposed several times before (see for example, archives 252, 287 and 350). The Wikipedia article on the New York Times has a "controversies" section that primarily relates to two narrow controversial topics on which we have recently had numerous RSN RfCs. Presumably the next step will be two RfCs to deprecate the New York Times on those two particular topics. Similar RSN proposals, and mainspace "controversies" or "criticism" sections, have been directed towards a number of other quality newspapers that are normally considered perfectly reliable. James500 (talk) 14:57, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The first issue with this proposal that comes to mind is that journalists, even quality ones, aren’t required to deal exclusively in hard facts the way encyclopedists are. Documenting real life inherently involves gray areas, and the journalist’s job is often to illustrate or interpret them. Journalists, as standard operating procedure, routinely give the spotlight to the lived experience of people they talk to, and while they often, to varying degrees, attempt to situate it in context, the primary realm of an encyclopedia is essentially not the colorful and highly subjective individual experience.

It’s also outrageously common to see editors hiding behind the cited RS to justify their own editorial handiwork. The presentation style of a news source normatively shouldn’t be mapped directly into an encyclopedia article, on any structural level.

WP faces an additional hurdle because the goal it sets is far more comprehensive than the relatively humble Britannica or WEIRD COCK World Book, the latter of which often, as of ten years ago when I was using it, had single authors stating their informed POV, or even puffing outdated textbook-style stuff, on contentious topics. WP, unlike them, has to present a global, universal summary of all human knowledge. (When you put it that way, it sounds like it’s meant to be spiritually meaningful.)

I also don’t think it’s a systemically healthy move to enshrine certain privileged sources as harder to challenge based on a nameplate rather than on an independent evaluation of methodology. Even pillars of the press sometimes have to print retractions, and sometimes even don’t do so when they really should. Newspapers with a global reach also have a complicating issue in that they routinely hire (or freelance contract) involved locals to contribute to contentious topics in varying degrees, rather than having some random white kid fly in and aloofly write something they have too much emotional distance to and can’t piece together the context of.

News sources are there to make the reader feel informed rather than to provide CIA Factbook-style data, and sometimes that entails weaving a story. This is enabled by the loose limits of the need to avoid falsehood or libel rather than the comparative straitjacket of WP’s policies and guidelines.

RadioactiveBoulevardier (talk) 11:16, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Why should news sources be given privileges that academic sources don't get? Definitely against presumed reliability, editors are expected to use their own good judgement on sources. The best 'grade' of source at RSN is only 'generally reliable', this would create a level above that. As to the Sagan standard, if you mean "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" well that a source can be unreliable is in no way an exceptional claim. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 11:42, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

@ActivelyDisinterested Agreed. I can point to a reliable publisher that published a book with a chapter suggesting a huge number of pre-Norse contacts with the Americas from various places. Doug Weller talk 12:41, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can see, academic sources are not likely to be the subject of an RfC at RSN. An RfC on an academic source would not be likely to degenerate into massive partisan political POV pushing. Academic sources are not likely to be systematically targeted by politically motivated POV pushers who want to deprecate every source they consider sufficiently politically influential to be worth targeting. Academic sources are not few in number, and are not likely to be widely read, to have a massive influence on public opinion, to have a political stance, or to have political enemies who are determined and either numerous or powerful enough to make an impression on an RfC here. The proposal has nothing to do with "privilege", it would be a precautionary measure that would, in particular, prevent POV pushing that might be otherwise impossible to control. If you think that I am over-estimating the level of risk, or that the proposal would not be workable, that would be fair enough, but this is not about "privilege". James500 (talk) 01:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Your 'precautionary measure' would be a positive boon not shared by others, or in more succinct terms a privilege.

The solution to the issue you state is involvement via wide spread notification, and closers judging the discussion by Wikipedia policies. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 10:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

It is not apparent that it would bring any advantage whatsoever to the newspapers. Some newspapers assert that links and other citations (in Wikipedia or any other external site or source) to their articles, and the inclusion of information (in Wikipedia or any other external site or source) that is also included in their newspapers, has the effect of bypassing their advertising and paywalls. The deprecation of the Daily Mail in 2017, for example, did not stop it from becoming the highest circulation newspaper in 2020. In any event, it is irrelevant whether citation does or does not benefit the source, because any argument that depends on that factor is whataboutism, and would be an argument for the elimination of all citations and links (which is out of the question). On the other hand, I am certainly not against alternative methods of preventing POV pushing, if they are actually effective. James500 (talk) 22:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

To the newspaper as a type of source on Wikipedia as opposed to other types of sources. I'm obviously not talking about the profitability of the newspaper themselves. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Indian Film boxoffice and review sources

These sources are widely used on Indian film pages for boxoffice numbers, reviews, music, budgets, marketing and distribution. I find the reliability of these sources questionable and need help with a Verdict so that I can update the reliability list on Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Film/Indian_cinema_task_force#Reliability_of_sources_listed_at_WP:ICTFSOURCES. Please give your verdict on these sources:

• movie crow.com No information on the company.
• 123telugu.com. About us shows that the site is owned by Telugu film producer Sri Shyam Prasad Reddy. Makes it unreliable.
• Indiaglitz.com No information on the company. Contact us link takes straight to homepage.
• cinejosh.com No information on the company. Maybe blog?
• behindwoods.com
• thesouthfirst.com
• latestly.com

RangersRus (talk) 14:08, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

The issue I see is that none have a listing of editorial oversight so where do they get their information? Thesouthfirst is only two years old as far as domain age so clearly a blog and not reliable. Behindwoods has a section where you can pay to promote your content. Taking into consideration the information on 123Telugu above, I would in the LEAST not consider any of these reliable for notability purposes. --CNMall41 (talk) 04:57, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC: NewsClick

An investigative piece titled "A Global Web of Chinese Propaganda Leads to a U.S. Tech Mogul" was published by The New York Times in August of 2023. The inquiry examined the reported network of groups and persons that American tech tycoon Neville Roy Singham sponsors in order promote Chinese government agendas and interests across the globe. One of organizations apparently getting financing from Singham's network was named in the report specifically as NewsClick. It said NewsClick's coverage presented a positive image of China and at times resembled talking points of the Chinese government.

The reliability of NewsClick is:

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

• newsclick.in: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwan0031461/: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com
• https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/05/world/europe/neville-roy-singham-china-propaganda.html: Linksearch en (insource) - meta - de - fr - simple - wikt:en - wikt:fr • Spamcheck • MER-C X-wiki • gs • Reports: Links on en - COIBot - COIBot-Local • Discussions: tracked - advanced - RSN • COIBot-Link, Local, & XWiki Reports - Wikipedia: en - fr - de • Google: search • meta • Domain: domaintools • AboutUs.com

14:51, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Survey (NewsClick)

• Bad RfC. ND61F has not indicated what Wikipedia article has disputed cites, and four-way forms with blanket-ban options are always bad. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:32, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  I am counting 4 uses of this as a reference, using a very silly search. [158] I am not quite sure it is used extensively enough to warrant an RFC as well. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 23:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  Using insource is a better way, as it can see the URLs hidden inside cites.[159] Using that shows 333 pages with references using the source. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:25, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  OHH. did not know about that. thank you! Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Discussion (NewsClick)

• For reference the New York Times articles can be found here or in this archive. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Was there any WP:RFCBEFORE relevant to this RFC? -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:01, 17 July 2024 (UTC)
• Let's do RFCBEFORE now. The source is used quite extensively, including for topics like Right-wing politics (the right-wing tendency to elect or appoint politicians and government officials based on aristocratic and religious ties is common to almost all the states of India) and Cryptocurrency (Review of "The Politics of Bitcoin: Software as Right-Wing Extremism"). If there are credible accusations of this outlet spreading Chinese propaganda, we should at least note its bias and make sure it's not given undue weight. Mostly it's used for India-related topics and I'm not really qualified to judge the quality of the articles used there. Alaexis_¿question? 20:43, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  The source is only briefly mentioned in the NYT article, with it showing bias towards China and talking points of the Chinese government. Would a note about these issues be enough? If so is a RFC even necessary. In the first example you give above the source is one of four used to support the statement, the second is used to support an attributed statement by David Golumbia who according to his obituary[160] was "an expert on cyberlibertarianism, bitcoin, blockchain". Is there any concerns with the reliability of these statements?

  To be clear my point about RFCBEFORE was that it could make the whole RFC unnecessary, not that discussion shouldn't happen. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 23:21, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

  I would suggest we close the formal RFC (unanswered) … and continue to explore several of the citations that use this source and the context in which they use it. Blueboar (talk) 00:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

  I agree. Alaexis_¿question? 12:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Pakistan Film Magazine

https://pakmag.net/film/timeline.php

I would like to know if this website is reliable. I’m pretty sure it is because it seems very official and knowledgeable. And all that is stated is facts online. Sanam786 (talk) 19:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Sanam786 at the bottom of the pages, it states PAK Magazine is an individual effort to compile and preserve the Pakistan history online so this is a self-published source which are generally not acceptable. S0091 (talk) 14:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

This previously came up in Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 445#pakmag.net were with a bit of digging I was able to find the subject behind the site. I spent some time investigating but couldn't find anything that would show them to be a subject matter expert per WP:SPS. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:35, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

RfC Sihang Warehouse - Questionable English Sources?

Japanese primary sources and contemporary newspapers state X force was engaged in the battle, newer English sources generally with few or no citations assert Y force was engaged in the battle, academic English source notes Y force as not being present in said battle. I am requesting a comment on the reliability of the four English sources in question and additional comments on any of the other sources mentioned would be greatly appreciated too. Adachi1939 (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

There has been an ongoing dispute for about 2 years now regarding the participating sources during the Defense of Sihang Warehouse and more recently a dispute regarding the subsection covering the same event's subsection on the Battle of Shanghai Article. As the battle seems to have been of little significance in Japanese history, most of the known Japanese sources are un-detailed reports from the Japanese military itself or contemporary news reports. Japanese sources state the participating forces were a reinforced battalion and some artillery companies of the Japanese NAVAL landing forces. Contemporary Japanese newspapers also state the Warehouse was captured by naval landing force units. Likewise, contemporary English news reports support this, noting the participation of the Japanese Naval Landing Forces or "marines." When the warehouse was occupied by the Japanese, it was repeated in a major China-based English newspaper that the "Special Naval Landing Party" were the ones who had taken it.

However several newer English-language sources assert it was the Japanese ARMY's 3rd Division. These assertions not only contradict primary Japanese-language sources and contemporary news reports, but also an academic English-language essay authored by reputable historians which documents the IJA 3rd Division as being outside of the city attempting to cross Suzhou River (while the Defense of Sihang Warehouse took place). A look into the references shows this essay was based largely on primary sources authored by the Japanese military.

Other editors have understandably taken issue with the use of Japanese primary sources for the Japanese Order of Battle and have disputed them with several English language sources.

The main English sources being used to assert the IJA 3rd Division's involvement are as follows:

1. "Three Months of Bloodshed: Strategy and Combat During the Battle of Shanghai" by James Paulose. Page 18 (frame 10) states the involvement of the IJA 3rd Division and cites "O’Connor, Critical Readings on Japan, 273-75." I have not been able to read O’Connor's work and verify if this work actually mentions the IJA 3rd DIvision.
2. Robinson, Stephen (2022). Eight Hundred Heroes. Exisle Publishing. There are a number of passages stating the IJA 3rd Division's involvement but the majority lack citations for where this information came from. One page cites "Hatttori, Satoshi, with Dera [misspelled], Edward J., 'Japanese Operations from July to December 1937', The Battle for China, 169" which is from the same English-language essay mentioned above which states only pages later the IJA 3rd Division had already left Shanghai by October 26, 1937 (a day before the Defense of Sihang Warehouse in Shanghai occurred).
3. Niderost, Eric (2007). "Chinese Alamo: Last Stand at Sihang Warehouse". Warfare History Network. Web article with no citations.
4. C. Peter Chen (2012). "Second Battle of Shanghai". World War II Database. Web article with no citations.

Adachi1939 (talk) 23:18, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Update: I added a summary of mostly secondary and a couple primary Japanese-language sources and their translations on the talk page for the Defense of SIhang Warehouse article.

These sources conclude the participants on the Japanese side were indeed the Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces (mostly from the Shanghai SNLF) and the IJA 3rd Division albeit nearby, was outside the city preparing for/engaging in the Suzhou River Crossing Operation.

Given the English sources I presented above are in direct conflict with all of these Japanese language sources, including ostensibly reliable secondary sources compiled by Japan's National Institute for Defense Studies, I feel it is safe to conclude they are not reliable.

However if it is solely my opinion on this matter presented, editors on the contested articles are likely going to keep reverting my changes. I would really appreciate some comments or any input from others regarding these sources. Adachi1939 (talk) 00:23, 19 July 2024 (UTC)